Home > Consumer Reviews > RCA F38310 38" 16:9 HDTV with Built-In DirecTV and HDTV Receivers

The answer is YES: Yes the picture quality is awesome, YES movies look better viewed the way they are supposed to be (widescreen), and YES TV is a whole new experience. If you are in the market for a TV and don't have room for a rear project massive TV this TV gives you close to the same size screen, arguably better color quality, and the versatility of putting this TV anywhere just like any other "tube". If you watch TV on a regular basis or if you are like me and love movies wide screen is the way to go. Enjoy!!! : )

Purchased and began using this TV this past weekend. I have found that it seems to be a product rushed to production. Simple problems such as no satellite outputs. If you wish to tape something off of satellite, this set does not have a satellite output to hookup to your Tivo, Ultimate TV, or VCR. Are you a big fan of PIP? If so, this isn't the TV you want. You can only view PIP if you are viewing an analog channel and if the PIP is tuned to an analog channel. So it isn't possible to view a satellite or digital CATV program and pull up your PIP. Selecting channels is also cumbersome. If viewing satellite and you want to go to ESPN from another channel, you would have to enter '206', then press 'OK' for the tuner to switch. I know, just one more button to press, but try finding that button in the dark. Picture quality is Good with my satellite, and Best when viewing DVD's. RCA included the HDTV tuner with this set which will save you money down the road and allows you to view HDTV broadcasts currently being offered. In St Louis, 3 local stations are broadcasting HDTV, and with my over the air antenna, the quality is outstanding. Out of 5 stars I would rank the picture a 4 as quality seems to go along with digital broadcasts (HDTV, DVD etc). With limited HDTV broadcasts, picture quality suffers right now. The absence of the satellite output bothers me most especially when you pay this much for a TV and it's the "latest and greatest" offering.

When the TV works, it has a beautiful picture with HD and DVD sources. Because the TV has a DirectTV tuner, the HDTV signal from that source is wonderful.

The TV (when it works) has some quirks: it's difficult to manuever around the menus, the owners manual is incorrect in places, and the internal fan(s) are noisy 24/7; you can hear them over movie sound tracks during quiet breaks.

But the real problem is that my TV has been unreliable. In just 11 months, the main circuit board and picture tube went out and I was without my TV for 3 months of the 11 waiting for repairs. The tube went out just 10 days after the circuit board was repaired. The retail price for the tube (not including labor) was [price]. The only parts that haven't had to be replaced are the plastic casing and speakers, and the right speaker now appears to be going out.

RCA/Thompson Customer Service/Relations was simply unresponsive. They did not care that the TV was out of service for 3 months, and did nothing to speed up the process. They certainly weren't going to replace this obvious lemon (according to the repair tech). To talk to a human at RCA, it will cost you; it's not a toll free number. I was on the line waiting for someone for 75 minutes over 3 periods. I've had to get time off work on 6 occassions to deal with in-home techs and pick-up and deliveries.

A product is really only as good as the company that stands behind it, and this is an obvious example of a company that does not stand behind its product, which makes purchasing this TV a significant gamble. With so many nice TVs to choose from, this TV is just not worth this hassle.

I've had this RCA set for about a year. The HDTV picture is superb; with the over the air local stations' HDTV selections sharper than the HDTV channels from DirecTV. If all channels were broadcast in HD this would be a superb set. However, most programming in non-HD (99%). The TV comes with a DirecTV HD tuner....the high def channels as mentioned are superb, but everything else is less than average. All the other non-HD stations (which is all the channels except 199 and the HBO HD station (509) are somewhat blurry and come in in much less detail/resolution than any of my other TV sets connected to DirecTV. Since most of the programming is now non-HD, most of the TV watching will be non-HD programs, hence, resulting in watching a poor picture. Had the RCA tech come out and check out the set, could find nothing wrong, and hinted that RCA knows they have this problem with this set and it seems to be related to the built in DirecTV HD tuner. The way I found around this problem was to purchase another non-HD DirecTV tuner (got a TiVo unit) and connect it to the RCA TV. I watch the HD stations on the built in RCA tuner and remainder of the DirecTV stations via my accessory DirecTV tuner. The picture via the accessory tuner is much better but still not quite as good as the picture on get on DirecTV via my old Mitsubishi 35" TV. The other built in tuner (the one obtaining local stations) is much better, and the over the air HD station reception in HD is superb. The only other drawback is that there are no outputs from the back of the TV; this means one cannot hook up a VCR to tape any shows. TiVo solved part of this problem, record shows on its disk and can connect VCR to the TiVo unit.

I've had mine for about three months now and I love it. Just beware that it's very heavy and finding the made-to-fit stand can be difficult. There is also a great deal of menus to figure out before the television will perform its best. The setup isn't easy but is worth it. The RCA HDTV receiver isn't the best on the market and has a fan that runs all the time to keep it cool. Overall though, these are small prices to pay for the thousands of hours of television bliss that you'll enjoy. I know that I do.