Toshiba 36ZP38

excilent tv to buy it now

I find the Toshiba 36ZP38 TV a great one. I bought it as a used piece but still, the picture it gives is outstanding. I also find it somehow difficult to adjust. I would have one request could anyone point a place on the internet where I could find PDF file of the instruction manual? I would very much appreciate this, thank you!

I got this to replace my 21" 4:3 mono, so I was obviously completely blown away by picture and sound quality (once I got over the initial "OMG, it's huge!"). I regularly browse through shops looking at new LCD's and plasma's but I still think the picture on my 36ZP38 is better!

I've owned this set for 3.5 years, and recently the picture quality is poor - psychedelic effect (imagine the effect that too much compression has on a jpeg or gif, with contour lines and blocky colour).

I called my local repairer who says he has had 15 of these sets in the last few months, all with the same problem. The problem lies in the DFS module. He advised me to call Toshiba and say that in his opinion the fault was inherent at the time of manufacture. I did this, and was offered a free replacement module (otherwise costs about £120), which Toshiba will send to the repairer who will in turn fit it and I have to pay only for fitting (about £60).

THe engineer gave me a number to call and I spoke to someone who seems well aware of the problem.

Even after 42 months she was happy to supply this part free of charge.

So, any owners out there try this route first - this was an expensive set and this is a very common problem.

TV - average; Toshiba - poor craftsmanship in the first place but excellent customer service (if you speak to the correct person).

After having my Toshiba 36ZP38 28in widescreen TV for about seven months, when things started to go wrong for the second time; first the screen developed a high pitched hum, and soon after that the picture started to curl at the sides, I tried to get a replacement, as this is the second time it has gone wrong. After talking to Curry's customer support, they told me that because I have had it over the 28 day exchange period, it would be up to the store manager whether to change it or send it away for repair again.

So I rang the store that I bought it from and offered to take it down to them to let them have a look at it, which they said they would do on the phone. When I got there they didn't want to know, and after eventually getting to talk to the store manager, he told me that he would not change it as it had only broken down twice, but if it breaks down again, or three times in all, he might change it then.

It seems to my that Curry's customer care is non-existent, and that all they are interested in is selling things and not in looking after their customers once they have bought something. Because of this, I will never deal with them or any of their subsidiary stores again.

It has been 8 weeks since my Toshiba 36ZP38 widescreen TV went in for repair. I am currently speaking with Toshiba regarding the above faults.

Recieved my Toshiba 36ZP38 yesterday after my phillips 28" Widescreen Television blew up.

what can i say but WOW.

it is awsome.

one thing i must say though is that it is damned heavy. i used to have a friend who volunteered to give me a lift with it up 3 flights of stairs and now i dont think he likes me too much.

but apart from the bad back today the tv is great.

ps make sure connect the rear speakers, they make all the difference

I had a fairly old Philips 4:3 29" tv blow up and it was replaced with a Philips 32PW9618 with Pixel Plus & DD.

Lucky me, or so I thought until the delivery chaps half demolished the stand in the street whilst failing to construct it and somehow managed to scratch the TV screen too.

Complained and elected to swap for the Toshiba 36ZP38 for very little extra.

Whilst waiting for stock, that bane of the electronics age consumer, had a good chance to check out Pixel Plus. Well, it's great, provided you're not trying to watch anything with any serious movement on screen when it just looks weird (and, yes, that's with Cinema Plus too). Sound was ok.

Well the Toshiba arrived and the guys took away the Philips after failing to build the Toshiba's stand correctly and then plonking down the TV on to it without having fixed the locating pins on the stand first. Guess that that's how it's going to stay as there's no way to lift this TV, it's very very heavy and then some.

But it doesn't look big. Scratch that; considering it's a 36" true flat widescreen CRT TV it's darn titchy. It's not nearly as obtrusive as the Philips was and the ugly silver and insubtantial feel of the Philips' finish has been replaced by a truly classy black surround and proper metal stand sides instead of the cheap 'n' nasty coloured MDF (?) of the Philips.

Auto tune is easy, didn't even bother with the manual as it was so obvious from the onscreen menu.

Hooking up DVD and Freeview STB a cinch.

Had a little trouble getting the DVD audio setup right until I actually read the instructions (Moral - don't run before you can walk) and everything is now fixed nicely.

The picture with DVD is sensational. Blacks rendered at least as well as the Philips, no motion artifacts at all, excellent colour rendition and all this on the factory presets. Guess if I tinker a bit with the settings it could get ever so slightly better but why should I bother. There was a slightly tilt to the picture out of the box but this was (very) easily corrected by using the 'Geomagnetic' correction slider in the menus. 'Geomagnetic?' I hear you cry, yes, something to do with the Earth's Magnetic Field and visiting creatures from a Galaxy far, far away. OK, I was joking about the last bit.

Haven't got round to fixing the (supplied) rear speakers yet as have still to convince wife that a pair of wires running round the skirting boards is a really neat idea. However, listening to the (supplied) extension main L&R + using the set's onboard speakers as a centre was a revelation and will be to anyone who hasn't heard what a modern TV can do these days.

Honestly, could not tell the difference between this set's sound and that of a full blown separates set up. I do have a very small lounge so I suppose that may have a levelling effect but then so do most people these days.

To sum up, this TV comes with everything onboard, looks fantastic, doesn't cost a bomb (provided you shop around that is - you can get a deal for around £1250 or £1450 with DVD and VCR), sounds as good as you'll ever need a TV to do, doesn't have any failings that I can find and feels solid enough to last far longer than the majority of the consumer disposable silver plastic monstrosities that currently plague our high street electrical retailers.

Overall, the Toshiba 36ZP38 TV is let down by seemingly obvious issues.

The TV depicts square blocks on satellite channels (despite this not happening with the previous TV set I had).

Even with shielded, OFC cables all-round, my 14 year old mono analogue FST Toshiba produces a better overall result.

Disappointing.

Some Toshiba 36ZP38 sets have some poor picture geometry issues not helped by Toshiba not setting up the geometry correctly at the UK factory on some sets. On my set Toshiba seemed to have forgotten to set up "TRAP" in the service menu for the "WIDE" picture setting, which results in poor vertical line geometry in 14:9, 4:3 and 16:9. Setting it correctly fixed awful vertical bend on the images. Maybe someone took a tea break and forgot where they were in the setup at the factory!!

Convergence was also disappointing for a £1300 TV. There were even static convergence errors on both TV's I have used. I have alwasy thought that 36in tube TV's were too large for current tube technology and this set seems to back that up. The 32in version of the same set (which my neighbour has) has a much better picture. On my 36in 36ZP38 the convergence got worse as the set warmed up, so maybe the TV is set up at the factory before the tube has fully warmed up (takes over an hour). I have also noticed that using very high contrast settings on this TV results the tube being overdriven and red fringing appearing above bright objects on the screen. TURN DOWN the contrast to remove this unpleasant side effect.

RGB pictures from a Sky Digibox or DVD player were excellent with very good depth of contrast and definition, but aerial (analogue) images were far less inspiring with lots of dot type interference round edges. The aerial picture is in fact worse than my ten year old Sony Trintron TV.

Teletext images have a very low contrast and can be hard to read on my set. Maybe Toshiba are worried about text images buring the screen?

The set comes with the user menu contrast set to 100%. This results in loss of detail on the picture as the tube is grossly overdriven at this setting. Take a look the bright Sky on-screen menus and you'll see what I mean! Try contrast settings of 70 - 75% and notice the difference immediately.

4:3 (letterbox either side) pictures aren't actually 4:3 on this set as Toshiba have set quite a lot of overscan on the vertical aspect of the picture and fail to allow for this in the horizontal width which is too low. When a test card is viewed in 4:3 it's more like an egg shape stretched vertically. Fortunately, the service menu allows you to increase the screen width and good old Toshiba allow you to turn down the width in 16:9 mode from the user menu. The result is that you can get perfect 16:9 aspect ratio and 4:3 pictures after a few minor tweaks.

Now the really annoying thing:

SCREEN PURITY. My second 36ZP38 has very poor white tone consistency across the screen. In other words, when a totally white screen is shown, the white tone has a pinky white on the right side of the screen and a greeny white on the left. This is very irritating and shows poor factory setup yet again. Both 36ZP38 TV's that I have used have had this issue to some degree but my second set is awful.

In summary, this set can give great pictures if you get one that's actually setup right from the factory. If you are looking for perfect images, buy a PLASMA!