All-in-One Projector Review: Toshiba TDP-ET20
General Performance

Overview
Image Quality
General Performance
Warranty
Summary, Pros, Cons

Toshiba ET20 Menus
Toshiba ET20 Remote Control
Toshiba ET20 Lens Throw and Lens Shift
Toshiba ET20 SDE and Rainbow Effect
Toshiba ET20 Light Leakage
Toshiba ET20 Audible Noise Levels
Toshiba ET20 Projector Brightness
Toshiba ET20 Lamp Life and Replacement
Toshiba ET20 Projector Screen Recommendations
Toshiba ET20 Color Handling and Adjustments

Toshiba TDP-ET20 Menus

Toshiba's menus are nice and straightforward, which means easy to navigate.

There are 5 main menus, the first being the Input menu, which lets you manually select from the internal DVD player, as well as two high quality HD capable inputs - Component Video and HDMI, as well as a computer input, and two low res video inputs. You can also select the audio input, HDMI video also carries audio, and there are two other audio inputs.

The next menu (and the most important, day to day), is the Picture menu.

The Picture menu allows the selection of one of the four Picture presets: Dynamic, Standard Theater 1 and 2.

In addition, there are controls for Brightness, Contrast, Color (saturation), Sharpness, and Detail enhancement, as well as Noise reduction. You can also select the image aspect ratio (shape) from the Screen size option. There is an Advanced Menu option which offers control of overscan (which lets you slightly crop the image if there is noise on the edges. That's something not uncommon on standard TV signals over cable and satellite. There is also a second image noise control for motion artifacts called MPEG noise reduction, on the advanced menu.

The next menu is the Audio menu, with lots of control over the sound quality. Not only do you have control of Bass, Treble, and Volume, but you can separately adjust the Center channel and the subwoofer. Very nicely there is a Digital audio delay, which solves the occasional problem of there being a slight delay between picture and voice on cable or satellite.

The second last main menu is the Setup menu, which lets you select the menu language, control vertical and horizontal keystone correction if your projected image is not rectangular . From a performance standpoint, this menu allows you to choose between low lamp brightness (Standard mode) and maximum lamp brightness (High mode).

You can also reset the lamp timer from here, after replacing the lamp.

One very important feature, is the Keypad light. This allows you to turn off those bright blue LED lights on all the buttons across the back of the Toshiba ET20. If you are turning out all the lights to watch a movie, trust me, you'll probably find those LED lights annoyingly bright.

Lastly is a status menu, not shown here. It tells you which input is in use, the number of hours on the lamp, and other basic info.

Toshiba ET20 Remote Control

I realize Toshiba has to park a lot of buttons and controls on the ET20 remote control, but even considering, that, it's not a really great remote.

Overall I found critical buttons placed too close together, and the lack of a backlight (almost unheard of for a home theater projector), just makes it tougher. Toshiba - people are going to have the lights off most of the time. Light up the remote!

Let's start at the top, where there's a big red Power button on the left, and an input select, on the right. Right below are the seven standard controls for running a DVD player, with the stop button on the lower, plus across from it, lower right, is the eject button.

It is the tight packed two rows above, that are really crampped. I imagine someone with really large hands could get exasperated trying to work these.

Right below those 8 buttons are four aspect ratio choices with round buttons in a curve, a much better idea. I would have recommended though, a single toggle button for aspec ratio in exchange for larger, better spaced buttons for DVD control.

Below the aspect ratio choices is the classic four arrow keys with center Enter button. You'll find the menu button just below the circle, to the right, and a button for DVD setup, opposite it on the left. Below the Menu, is the Freeze button for freezing on a frame. Opposite it, is the Picture button which toggles you through image setting choices.

In between the Freeze and Picture are two vertical rockers - volume up/down and audio/mute.

The next section down is a numeric keypad (necessary for those wanting to jump to a particular track on a DVD, and probably also for passwords for the Toshiba ET20's parental control features.

That takes us to the bottom for a series of buttons relating to DVD/CD features, including Angle, repeat, audio, random, title menu, top menu, sub-title, display and return.

The range on the remote seems pretty good, I was able to back up about 20 feet and had no trouble. Some of the buttons seemed to elicit a slow response, but I'll attribute that to the projector, not the remote.

Since I'm not sure exactly where else to mention it, the input button on the remote cause a soft pop (static like) to come over the ET20's speakers. Not very loud, not a problem, just it would be nicer, if it didn't make that noise (not very classy).

Overall, a functional, but not particularly well designed remote control. Of note, I also own the Toshiba HD-DVD A1 DVD player, and it's remote though sporting more chrome, I don't really care for either.

Toshiba ET20 Lens Throw and Lens Shift

The beauty of the Toshiba ET20 is its special short throw lens. On Toshiba's website you can read about the interesting technology, however, more important is what it does for you, in your room. It is my belief, that for most people, looking for an all-in-one home theater projecctor, may move it from room to room, or take it down and set it up frequently. By having a projector that can sit around 4-5 feet back and throw up a very large image, should be ideal in most homes. Just grab a small coffee table, put the ET20 on it, plug it in, and start watching.

Depending on where you read on the website or manual, the projector can sit 3 foot 9 inches away (measured, we believe, from the front of the ET20), and fill a 100" diagonals screen. Elsewhere (the manual, it says 51" which is 4 foot 3 inches. The lens offset is ideal, I filled about 100" of my wall mounted 106" screen in my office, with the ET20 on a small table, and the image was just about perfect for the screen. The bottom of the screen is about 7.5 inches above the projector lens, and Toshiba states in their manual that 7.4 inches is the offset for a 100" screen. If you want to go much larger than a 100" screen, though, you'll probably want a shorter table.

I imagine some will criticize the ET20 for its lack of a zoom lens, but not me. The fact that it can be placed so close to the screen, should make placement easy. If it were twice as far back, in the middle of furniture, etc, then a zoom would be far more helpful. Realizing that you probably can't have both - a zoom lens with this short a throw, I definitely vote for what Toshiba has done, and I think the other all-in-one projectors out there, are more difficult to set up in different rooms, despite the zoom. Lens shift would have been nice, but the fixed offset, as I said, is just about right, and the adjustable feet can handle minor up/down differences.

ET20 SDE and Rainbow Effect

I didn't see a published spec on the Toshiba ET20's color wheel, but I suspect at least 4X, as I am slightly susceptable. I didn't notice any rainbows, the first couple of times, and I have no problem spotting the rainbow effect with 2x wheels. With 4x or 5x I only occasionally can spot the rainbows. Assuming at least 4X, very, very few people will have a rainbow effect issue.

Screen door effect - that's another story. This is a 480p projector and you are going to see the pixel structure unless you are sittin very far away, I'd say at least 16 feet from a 100" screen.

The good news of course, is that it is a DLP projector, the pixel structure isn't too bad. And you get used to it, in fact, after a little bit I hardly noticed it at all. By comparison, the pixel structure is so dramatically visible on on a 480p resolution LCD projector, that it was the primary reason Epson's MovieMate 30/33s did not receive our Hot Product Award.

Overall, I repeat, the pixels are visible, but one tends not to notice unless one is "looking for trouble."

ET20 Light Leakage

The only real issue here, is not light leakage, but rather the band of bright blue LED lights around the top back of the projector. They do through a significant amount of light on to a light colored ceiling. Worse, you are sitting behind the projector, so they are very distracting. The good news - you can turn them off from the menus, when you are doing serious viewing. Turn them off, and - no problem!

Toshiba ET20 Audible Noise Levels

The Toshiba is not quiet. Claiming 32 db in low power and 35 db in full power. Truth is, I could barely hear any difference, between the two, and would probably lean toward the higher number. This is a projector where you will hear the fan running in quiet or silent passages in a movie. On the other hand, it is not exceptionally noisy. Many more expensive DLP home theater projectors, some costing as much as five or six times as much produce noise at full power, in the 31 to 35 db range.

Since this projector isn't for movie "purists" demanding perfection (and silent operation), I don't think the typical buyer will have an issue. It's sort of "it would be nice if it was a little quieter, but not a big deal", kind of situation.

Toshiba ET20 Projector Brightness

The ET20 cranks out the most lumens (brightest performance) in Dynamic mode, where it measured a very impressive 1005 lumens with the lamp in high power mode, and 828 lumens in eco-mode (low power). However the other three modes were about equally as bright:

Since there is almost a 20% drop in brightness between High and Low lamp mode, in the Dynamic setting (19%), you can figure that the drop will be about the same in the other modes. The numbers below are for High power lamp mode. These are each average readings (+/-25 lumens).

Standard Mode: 896 lumens
Theater 1 Mode: 911 lumens
Theater 2 Mode: 924 lumens

So, what does this mean? The Toshiba ET20 is very bright in all modes. A typical more expensive home theater projector costing thousands, typically only does 1000-1200 lumens in brightest mode, but their "best modes" tend to be in the 300 - 500 lumen range.

This allows the Toshiba to do a respectable job with some lights on. In this shot below, I have 3 ceiling recessed lights on (one less than 3 feet from the right side of the screen. The room is more than bright enough to easily read in.

Toshiba ET20 Lamp Life and Replacement

The Toshiba's lamp is rated 3000 hours in eco (Low power) mode, and 2000 hours in High power. This is the most typical rating for projector lamps.

Toshbia ET20 Projector Screen Recommendations

Find a wall white or fairly neutral off white, Better yet, an inexpensive pull down or other type of screen. In playing with the ET20, I have tried a couple of walls as well as screens, and while the screen will always be better, any decent white wall will let the ET20 project a respectable image, for fun movie watching.

Toshiba ET20 Color Handling and Adjustments

There just isn't much you can do, except control the color saturation. In the Theater 1 and 2 modes, and to a lesser degree, the Standard mode, I found the color saturation (color control) to be a bit undersaturated, easy enough to dial it up a few clicks for richer colors. And, if you have a lot of light in the room, increase it further so the colors wash out less.

Next is warranty!

Overview
Image Quality
General Performance
Warranty
Summary, Pros, Cons