AT&T Tech Support 360
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CNET editors' rating:
2.0 stars
Mediocre
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 9 reviews
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Product summary
The good: Inexpensive; smooth video processing with 2:3 pull-down to remove jagged lines; customizable input memories.
The bad: Bulky compared to slim CRTs and flat LCDs; DVD and HDTV sources using component-video input produce green tinge in dark areas; relatively soft image quality; only one input for component video and none for HDMI.
The bottom line: The Insignia NS-30HTV can display wide-screen HDTV and costs a relative pittance, but for most people the savings won't justify its problematic picture quality.
Specifications: Product type: CRT TV; Diagonal size: 30 in; Image aspect ratio: 16:9 See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 06/01/2006
- Released on: 04/01/2006
The Insignia NS-30HTV looks attractive enough from the front, with a thick black border around the wide screen, speakers and controls below, and a thin silver border edging the black. While we like the presence of front-panel inputs, we'd prefer them to be concealed behind a hatch of some sort. The controls handle volume, channel, and power, but there's no menu key; thus, you can't adjust other settings without the remote.
Insignia piled all of the remote's keys into its top half, which provides fine access for your thumbs, but the jumble of similar buttons can't be easily navigated by feel. We also found the lack of separate keys for volume and channel--they're integrated into the directional keypad--difficult to get used to. The internal menu system, identical to the one found on Toshiba's CRTs, was relatively simple to use.
One of the biggest disadvantages of the Insignia NS-30HTV, at least compared to flat-panel LCDs and slimmer CRTs such as the Samsung TX-S3082WH, is its size. It measures 31.3 inches wide and 21.6 inches high--compact enough for a 30-inch wide-screen TV--but its depth is 22.2 inches. Most LCDs are about a foot deep on their stands, and the Samsung, by comparison, has a depth of 16.3 inches. Obviously, the Insignia will fit into fewer tight spots than the others, but if you have the room, that might not be an issue. The NS-30HTV weighs 117.7 pounds--almost exactly the same as the Samsung and more than twice as much as a typical 32-inch LCD.
As you might expect from a budget TV, the Insignia NS-30HTV is missing a few features. There's no picture-in-picture, and although we liked the five aspect-ratio modes for standard-def sources, the set can't switch aspects when fed high-def. The Insignia does include an ATSC tuner and offers the convenient ability to relabel inputs. You have more options when it comes to tweaking the picture; there are three presets, as well as one custom slot that's independent for each input, and three color-temperature presets.
Although the set has ample standard-def inputs--two A/V with S-Video on the back panel and a third on the front, along with the antenna/cable RF input--it has only one, the component-video jack, that can accept HD sources. The single component-video input will necessitate an external switcher, such as a component-video-equipped A/V receiver, if you have more than one high-def source (such as an Xbox 360 and a high-def cable box).
The Insignia also lacks an HDMI input. While HDMI usually provides higher-quality video, the main issue is that HDMI's copy protection makes it the most future-proof jack. Should movie studios decide to enable image constraint on HD-DVD or Blu-ray discs, for example, Insignia owners will have to live with the downconverted component-video resolution. Then again, with the Insignia's relatively low resolution, we doubt most viewers will be able to tell the difference.
We put the set through its paces in the lab, and as you can imagine, it fared worse than many higher-priced HDTVs we've reviewed. Its overall image quality was significantly softer than that of any LCD we've tested recently, and we doubt many people would be able to tell the difference between DVD and HDTV resolutions on this set. Switching back and forth between 480p and 720p modes on an ESPN HD baseball game, for example, we didn't see extra sharpness in the grass, the dirt around home plate, or the mesh protecting the spectators from foul balls. The Insignia has a menu item that allows you to switch between 1080i and 540p; we saw no difference between the two on either program material or test patterns.
We didn't expect razor-sharp images from a 30-inch CRT, but the Insignia's color accuracy was still disappointing. On the component-video input, from both DVD and HDTV sources, the Insignia NS-30HTV tinged darker areas extremely green. In the scene near the beginning of The Last Samurai, where Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) waits backstage before his sales pitch, we saw this effect in the letterbox bars, Algren's black outfit, and the shadows along the walls. Turning up the brightness control to lighten darker areas helped a little, but black areas still looked very green. The best solution with component video was to turn up brightness and change the color temperature to Cool, which tinged white areas blue but made blacks and shadows look less green.
Watching that scene and other material via S-Video as opposed to component video, we noted that the green tinge largely disappeared. For that reason, we recommend S-Video when watching DVD, although you'll obviously have to stick to component video for high-def sources.
The ability to muster a deep color of black is one of the strengths of good CRTs, but in the Insignia's case, there's a trade-off. Its gamma, or rate of transition from black to white, is set incorrectly, resulting in a lack of detail in shadows unless brightness is set very high. In the scene described above, for example, the wood grain in the foreground was obscured at lower settings. Unfortunately, with brightness set correctly, the blacks on the Insignia were actually brighter than those of the LCDs we had on hand to compare. To compound the problem, the level of black didn't remain constant; the letterbox bars, for example, became brighter in lighter scenes, such as when Algren walks around the village during the daytime.
Like other CRTs, the Insignia suffered from a few geometry errors that don't happen with flat-panel sets. Vertical lines on our review sample, such as the edges of the EPG from our satellite box and the side bars around non-wide-screen programs, bowed outward in the middle. These issues vary from unit to unit and can be exacerbated by rough handling during shipment. We also noticed on pans and text crawls from cable news channels, for example, that the edges of the screen bent inward, as if the crawl were wrapped around a slightly spherical object. This effect is also common to tube TVs.
In its favor, the Insignia engaged 2:3 pull-down processing quickly, removing jagged lines from the bottoms of the overturned boats during the opening of Star Trek: Insurrection, for example. It also smoothed out difficult diagonal lines well, such as the edges of the waving American flag in the HQV benchmark disc. We noticed plenty of video noise in lower-quality material, however, which appeared as dancing dots and interference in skies and other flat fields in lower-quality material. Digital displays have a reputation for being noisier than CRTs, but that's not the case here.
Overall, the Insignia NS-30HTV's picture quality is definitely not its strongest suit, and if you want to get the most out of high-def, you'd be better served paying a bit more for a good-performing CRT or flat-panel LCD. Its main appeal is for people who want to spend as little money as possible to get a wide-screen high-def image. Despite all our complaints, HDTV as displayed on this Insignia will look still better to most people's eyes than an analog TV displaying standard television.
| Test | Result | Score |
| Before color temp (30/80) | 7,115/8,610K | Poor |
| Before grayscale variation | ±1,890K | Poor |
| Color of red (x/y) | 0.639/0.330 | Good |
| Color of green | 0.291/0.608 | Good |
| Color of blue | 0.148/0.057 | Good |
| Overscan | 7 % | Poor |
| Black-level retention | No stable patterns | Poor |
| 2:3 pull-down, 24fps | Y | Good |
| Defeatable edge enhancement | Y | Good |
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 9 reviews
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
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"This 2-year old CRT beats most LCDs costing under $1200.00"
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