Toshiba ET1 LCD Projector review

Home cinema is always a hot topic but has traditionally been reserved for those with enough money to satisfy their habit. This situation is slowly changing and Toshiba is already trying to address the serious home cinema enthusiast on a budget. The ET1 is quite simply a great home cinema projector at a very affordable price. But not only does the ET1 retail for only £799.99 inc VAT, it’s pretty feature packed too.

I was lucky enough to get to use the ET1 over the Christmas holidays to give it a good run and see how it worked in a home environment. Not having a projection screen was the only downfall, but using it on a plain white wall still produced good results. As I live in a small flat the short projection distance required by the ET1 is perfect as you can get a 40in image size by setting the projector a mere metre away from the screen. If you can afford two meters you can double the screen size to 80in and three meters gives you a whopping 100in. Although the picture quality is much better at around 40-60in since you can detect a chicken wire mesh effect to the picture if it gets blown up too much.

Setting the ET1 up in the office with a proper projection screen improved the picture quality massively, and gave the image a far brighter look. But even using a screen you’ll need some decent curtains or blinds to block out ambient light in the daytime. It is however perfectly fine for home cinema use in a dark room, although some detail was lost when trying to play games. Unlike the Toshiba MT500 which uses DLP technology, the LCD based ET1 can’t quite bring out the detail in dark imagery. This doesn’t mean that the ET1 is a bad projector, it just means that it might not be as versatile as some of the more expensive models.

The design of the ET1 is very impressive but it’s not just great to look at either. The stand is more akin to a monitor than a projector and offers a large range of adjustment. The stand lifts the ET1 up about 5cm from the surface you place it on and the projector can then be tilted in any direction. You can also ceiling mount the ET1, getting it out of the way and saving you the trouble of setting it up each time you want to watch a movie. There is a menu option for swapping the image around for ceiling mounting as well as rear projection.

The ET1 also comes with built in speakers capable of 5W per channel. The sound isn’t breathtaking but it’s acceptable for casual use. The speakers also feature basic 3D surround settings that can improve the sound of movies, but I found that it doesn’t add much more than wider stereo field. Although the speakers are an added bonus, most home cinema enthusiasts are likely to already have a surround sound setup by the time they’re thinking of buying a projector.

There is also a wide range of input options covering D-SUB, component video, composite video and S-Video as well as a SCART connector. This means that you can connect just about anything to the ET1 and the remote control allows you to switch between the different inputs easily. So, if you want to connect up your DVD player, video recorder and satellite box, you won’t find yourself running short of inputs.

But ET1’s best feature is the native 16:9 widescreen LCD panel. It wasn’t too long ago that you would have had to pay over £5,000 for a projector with a native 16:9 panel, so the ET1 is testament to how quickly prices are falling. This strengthens its position as a home cinema projector and makes it a great partner with a DVD player and anamorphic discs. There is only one function missing and that is progressive scan, but at least Toshiba has been clever and added a digital line doubler from Faroudja. This technology is called DCDi (Directional Correlation De-interlacing) which does improve the image quality, but as this is done automatically it should improve image quality on any type of video not just DVD. It is however hard to asses how good the DCDi is as there is no way to switch it off.

There's a setting in the menu called Faroudja TrueLife that acts similar to anti-aliasing on modern graphics cards by smoothing out uneven edges. You also get digital noise reduction and several picture modes and colour settings that can be manually adjusted. The menu system is very easy to use and it’s all done trough drop-down on-screen menus.

The biggest issue I have with some consumer electronics devices is the poor remote controls that manufacturers have a habit of supplying. However, the one supplied with the ET1 is great. It’s fairly small, but it fits snugly in your hand and most of the buttons are where they are supposed to be. One of the really neat touches is the built in backlight that illuminates all the buttons in orange. This makes it much easier to use the remote in a dark room and you don’t end up pressing the wrong buttons by mistake.