Official Westinghouse TX Series ( TX-42F430S, TX-47F430S ) Owner's Thread [Text View] - Page 6

midway

07-03-07, 01:03 PM

Actually, the "fill" and "overscan" controls on the TX set are a bit more complicated than previously described, as they vary based on the resolution of the source the set is being fed; they seem to have been designed to work primarily with 480 SD signals, and not 1080 HD signals.

When given a 480i signal from my cable box, the "fill" mode does just what it's name describes; it stretches the image left to right in order to fill the 16:9 screen of the TX, at the expense of creating an incorrect aspect ratio. I suspect the reason even this mode has a little vertical overscan is to mitigate the otherwise harsh change to the aspect ratio that such a stretching introduces.

When given a 480i signal, the "overscan" mode starts in the same way as the fill mode in the horizontal axis, i.e. it stretches a 4:3 signal to fill the horizontal space of the TX's 16:9 screen perfectly. Unlike "fill," however, it then pushes the vertical overscan up until the original aspect ratio is restored. Now if this was done with program material that has a native 4:3 aspect ratio, it would result in clipping of a large percentage of the screen material, and so this setting is clearly not intended for that purpose. However, if the original source material which is embedded in the 480i, 4:3 signal has an aspect ratio higher than 1.33 to 1, such as 1:85 or 2:35, such as one finds on older non anamorphic DVDs or some cable movie broadcasts, then the "overscan" setting is very useful, as the additional vertical overscan will clip primarily the vertical black bars above the source material while restoring the proper aspect ratio. The end result will be that almost all of the image material will be retained on 1:78 or 1:85 material, and all of the image on 2:35 sources, while retaining the proper aspect ratio and eliminating both the vertical and side letterboxes.

However, these settings function slightly differently with 1080i sources, largely because of how it appears the TX engineers thought about the aspect ratio issue.

With a 1080 source, the "fill" setting produces a relatively uniform level of overscan along both the horizontal and vertical axis, clipping roughly 50 pixels on the tip and bottom, and 100 pixels on the sides or roughly 10 percent of the image in each direction. This means that with a 1080i source, the "fill" option functions more like a pure zoom setting and not as a stretch setting, because it maintains the proper aspect ratio.

With a 1080 source, the "overscan setting" will overscan by about 25 percent along both the horizontal and vertical axis. This will make a 4:3 image in a 1080 signal fit the width of the screen, but with significant vertical overscan. Here, the 1080i implementation produces the same result as the 480 implementation, and were one to have a widescreen image embdedded in a 4:3 box, as happens with a lot of ads on hi def channels, this setting would work.

Why is the implementation of the 1080 "fill" setting a problem? Well, as an example, at home I can watch a certain 4:3 network show on both a 480i SD channel, and the HD version of the same channel at the same time. Now when using the 480i channel, "fill" does what i would expect it to do, it fills the screen while distorting the aspect ratio. However, looking at the very same show on the channel's HD counterpart, the "fill mode" zooms the image uniformly, i.e. leaving the aspect ratio correct while not "filling" the screen horizontally; to do this one must instead use the overscan setting, but this then crops much more vertically than "fill" does on the 480i channel. Now, this is not a problem if you have the old SD version of the channel available, but what if you don't? In other words, if you are watching older 4:3 material on a 1080i feed, there is no real way right now to stretch it to fill the screen.

The only reason for the oversight I can see is that the Westinghouse engineers assumed that most of the content displayed on a 1920X1080 or 1280X720 signal would not have a native 4:3 aspect ratio, and therefore not need to be stretched to fill the screen if that is what the viewer wanted. However, there are a great deal of 1080 or 720 stations that broadcast embedded 4:3 material; when viewing those channels, there is therefore no way to stretch the image to fill the screen without significant vertical overscan, as one must use the "overscan" setting to fill the screen horizontally. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed down the road with a firmware update; for me it's not much of an issue as I do not everse stretch settings, as I prefer to keep the content in its original aspect ratio, but for those who do this might be an issue.

Finally, I should also note that I'm assuming the 1080 implementation of the "fill" mode is the same on a 720 signal, but have not had a chance to test that, as my cable service only outputs 720 stations in 1080.

sbeveraggi

07-03-07, 01:27 PM

Hi, I'm about to pull the trigger on the Westinghouse TX-47F430S.
How does it look with standard def sources?
Does it accept 480i via HDMI?
Thanks for your help!

midway

07-03-07, 01:31 PM

Hi, I'm about to pull the trigger on the Westinghouse TX-47F430S.
How does it look with standard def sources?
Does it accept 480i via HDMI?
Thanks for your help!

Almost everyone so far thinks that the set does a very good job scalin SD, thanks to a very good Trident chipset.

Yes, the set will accept 480i via HDMI.

30XS955 User

07-03-07, 01:34 PM

I went and looked at the TX42 and was dissapointed,but to its defense it was only running threw coax and was running 720...

The other thing I didnt like was 1:000 to 1 contrast ratio
Thats blows,the Samsungs are 7:000 to 15:000 and u can really see the difference.

But the new Samsungs firmare and board problems scare me,it looks like the Westy is better in this area?

I was looking at the Panny z700u Plasma and it looks awesome.
I dont know which way to go,I like the Westy and the Samsung and I know I'm comparing a $2200 to $2500 HD to a 1300 HD but I will spend the extra $$$ if its worth it?

Any help....

If you looked at Best Buy, please do not let the way they have the tv set up dissuade you automatically from this tv! I was looking at this model the other day, sitting right next to the Samsung, as you say you were comparing it to. Long story short, the blue shirts had set the Westinghouse up so that the brightness was on 100 and everything was a washed out mess. I helped them fix their idiocy. They even asked me why they felt the brightness turned down; could it have anything to do with the blacks being gray? :rolleyes:

NerdCoreRocks

07-03-07, 01:40 PM

Hi guys. I just want to comment that I experienced the lock up issue that a few others have experienced. I was running coax straight into it testing out the free HD stuff through comcast at lunch. I then turned off the TV and went back to work. When I came home, I ran the coax through a splitter so I could compare my old TV with this one. When I turned on the 42 TX, the logo would come up, but then it would go into sleep mode with the orange LED. I had it set for Power Save mode. No method of unplugging/unplugging did anything.

I went back to Best Buy to replace it with the last one in stock. Today I hook it up and it turns on fine.

I'm bummed though because it seems like I got a crappier quality one. My first one had 3 stuck pixels. One green, one red, one blue. Only the green was noticeable from about 4-5 feet away. The first one had some banding as well. The center was noticeably darker than the ends. Overall though, it wasn't bad.

I haven't checked the new one for mura/banding yet, but I already found 7 stuck pixels in literally about 25 seconds before I went to work today. I'm sure I'll be able to find more. I am planning on using this as a TV and a computer monitor, so I will often be fairly close up to it. Would 7+ stuck pixels be enough to warrant a return? I heard westinghouse has a dead pixel policy of 5 anywhere, but does that not apply to stuck pixels? Has anyone here had any success fixing stuck pixels, or are those programs/rubbing methods B.S.?

Let me know. Thanks!

bhazard

07-03-07, 01:45 PM

I may have missed it - but did anyone try the LVM service menu entry yet(or logical similar combinations)?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/printthread.php?t=689997&page=5&pp=30

xnappo

I wont give up on black levels just yet until we do get service menu codes. Is there anyone who can request them for the forum like Peter did last time for the 42w2? The settings I have dialed in now look great to me, although they would probably be a bit off in DVE and were a bit off in the patterns i used saturation wise. I noticed saturation of 36 reduced clipping of colors, but the image is pretty dull. I like my oversaturated 49-55 setting much better.

The image was also adjusted via a PS3 on full RGB HDMI through the web browser, so this may not apply to a universal setting. Works great for me on PS3 and xbox360 though.

I like

Brightness: 54
Contrast: 68
Saturation - 49 to 55 (36 is more accurate, but dull to me)
Sharpness - 0 to 20
Backlight - 30 to 50 ( I think this helps w crush more than a low backlight honestly, i like it better)
Color Temp - Neutral RGB at 128 for now, as changing them distorts color in grey screen test patterns. I do like red at 133, blue at 130, green at 129.
Dynamic Contrast - Off (with this on, you can lower brightness to about 34, sometimes produces a better pic, sometimes doesnt. Brightness needs to be lowered with it on or the pic washes out.
Deinterlace - On
Comb Filter - On

skane

07-03-07, 02:09 PM

I don't get it - I have never seen this. Under what circumstances do you guys get this purple line?

Also, atomz and others - I would recommend using standard mode and trying to ignore the CC data. You may find that you get used to it. Yes, it sucks that the broadcasters won't get off their asses and fix this already, but to me, it's not worth losing 1:1 for...I'm more annoyed by the missing part of the picture, certainly on this set anyway. As someone else pointed out, "overscan" on this set is really intended (or seems to be anyway) for material that is letterboxed and pillarboxed, like a movie that was filmed widescreen but is being broadcast 4:3 or something...not sure of the exact circumstances, but I've seen it work, and in those cases, the "overscan" mode is perfect.

Ed

Ed

I get the purple / pink line on the bottom edge. The appearance of the line varies across stations and viewing sessions, from hardly visible, to very obvious and flickering,

TX-42F430S, firmware 5110_1.1.0, 4/13/07
STB: SA 3250HD
Connection: Component
Service: Time Warner (SoCal)

I want to maintain 1:1 and not use "fill".

I've tried these workarounds:

Turn off Deinterlace. This only works temporarily. Deinterlace must be toggled on/off after a power recycle on the TV to reinstate the "fix".
Set the STB to output 720p and 1080i so there is resynching (?) between 720 and 1080 programming. This sometimes clears the purple line, but again, the "fix" only lasts for the current power-on session.
Use DVI output (via DVI-HDMI adapter) on the 3250HD and connect to HDMI-1 on the TV. The purple line is consistently removed (deinterlace on or off). DVI output on the 3250HD is not "supported" by TW... but it works with a drawback...there are two short, stationary, white, line segments at the top edge of the picture. It's much less annoying then the flickering purple/pink line though. Somewhat acceptable...

I'm planning to try a SA 8300HD STB with HDMI out (supported) later today and see if I get an improvement on workaround #3.

Bob Dobbs

07-03-07, 07:53 PM

Ok - seems like I am having my 1st power up issue.... I have no idea what the settings are, probably factory as far as sleep, power on after plug, energy saver... all I know is that when I turn it on I get the W logo... then nothing.

Is there a way to comb through all the posts about this problem? Can we all put the word Westypower or something in all posts about this issue so we can find them easily - and maybe direct Westy help / engineers to it easily? Or should I start a new thread just for this issue?

I'mm gonna go back and read 'em till then, any tips?

skane

07-03-07, 08:04 PM

Update :)

Swapped the SA 3250HD STB with a SA 8300HD. Using HDMI-out on the 8300HD, there are no pink/purple lines or obvious artifact problems.

I get the purple / pink line on the bottom edge. The appearance of the line varies across stations and viewing sessions, from hardly visible, to very obvious and flickering,

TX-42F430S, firmware 5110_1.1.0, 4/13/07
STB: SA 3250HD
Connection: Component
Service: Time Warner (SoCal)

I want to maintain 1:1 and not use "fill".

I've tried these workarounds:

Turn off Deinterlace. This only works temporarily. Deinterlace must be toggled on/off after a power recycle on the TV to reinstate the "fix".
Set the STB to output 720p and 1080i so there is resynching (?) between 720 and 1080 programming. This sometimes clears the purple line, but again, the "fix" only lasts for the current power-on session.
Use DVI output (via DVI-HDMI adapter) on the 3250HD and connect to HDMI-1 on the TV. The purple line is consistently removed (deinterlace on or off). DVI output on the 3250HD is not "supported" by TW... but it works with a drawback...there are two short, stationary, white, line segments at the top edge of the picture. It's much less annoying then the flickering purple/pink line though. Somewhat acceptable...

I'm planning to try a SA 8300HD STB with HDMI out (supported) later today and see if I get an improvement on workaround #3.

msattler

07-03-07, 08:13 PM

This probably isn't the best place to discuss, but what the heck. You are correct the video card is upscaling the DVD, but if the DVD is looking like crap then the upscaling functionality of the card is weak. In effect FFDShow does what an upconverting DVD player does (plus it can apply a bunch of filters like sharpening, etc). So, if you don't have a video card capable of all the fancy video filters like FFDShow then it can make a vast improvement to the image quality of your DVDs. Even with a fancy video card I still think FFDShow is a great way to go because you can tweak it to perfection.

So if someone is running a card such as Nvidia's 8800 GTS should I bother with FFDShow? I'm guesing the latest NVIDIA and ATI cards will upscale just as well or better than FFDShow?

Thanks,
M

xnappo

07-03-07, 08:45 PM

Update :)

Swapped the SA 3250HD STB with a SA 8300HD. Using HDMI-out on the 8300HD, no pink/purple line or other artifacts observed with the 3250HD using component or DVI outputs.

Good to know, thanks.

When using HDMI from the 8300 - can you still use optical audio out?

xnappo

oniijin

07-03-07, 09:19 PM

midway

07-03-07, 09:28 PM

Hi all..I tried searching but didn't find anything. Does the hdmi ports carry audio? I got my hd settop box today, and using the dvi-hdmi, I couldn't get audio in any of them. the box is a scientific atlanta explorer 3250HD

tia

HDMI does carry audio, and does so on the TX series, however a DVI ouput will not carry audio, as DVI is a video only standard. Hence, an HDMI cable will carry the DVI video signal, but there will be no audio as your cable box is outputting video only over the DVI to HDMI cable. I would recommend plugging your cable box into HDMI 1, then using regular RCA cables to carry the audio signal from your cable box to the audio inputs for HDMI 1 on the TX. Finally, you'll have to make sure that the setting for HDMI 1 in the audio menu of the TX is set to "Analog."

Or you could see if your cable company can get you a set top box with an HDMI ouput.

HenDokuYaku

07-03-07, 09:31 PM

midway beat me to it.

protovision

07-03-07, 10:56 PM

I thought I'd post some info in case anyone else runs into the same/similar problem...

2 issues popped up while using the VGA port on the westy tx-47:

1. VGA/1080P worked fine from Xbox 360 + HD DVD, but display from Windows was squished to the right side of screen, with 10" black border on left. Turns out that I was using a very old 12-pin(pre-ddc?) VGA cable. Got a full 15-pin, Windows display looks perfect now.

2. Afterwards, when reattaching to Xbox 360 via VGA, got 'no input signal'. I think what happened is that I set the xbox display mode to 'enhanced', and then next reboot of the xbox causes 'no input' on westy. Reset xbox 360 like this (from sammy 61/65 thread:) )
------------------------------------------
How to use an XBOX 360 with the VGA cable, to resolve the "Mode Not Supported" (EDIT: 'no input signal' for our westy's) message:

- Disconnect the VGA HD cable from the display, and then remove the console power cord from the power outlet.
- Wait five seconds.
- Reconnect the console power cord to the power outlet, and then turn on the console.
- Reconnect the VGA HD cable to the display. If this resolves the issue and you receive a picture on the display, you can continue to use the 640x480 resolution. Or you can try to use a higher resolution setting.
------------------------------------------

After this I was able to go back into the xbox 360 settings and make sure the display mode was back at 'standard'.

whew... I was pulling my hair out the last 24 hrs, until the correct pc VGA cable displaying my desktop correctly gave me hope that the VGA port was ok.

hope this helps someone.

p.

flabioh

07-03-07, 11:57 PM

So if someone is running a card such as Nvidia's 8800 GTS should I bother with FFDShow? I'm guesing the latest NVIDIA and ATI cards will upscale just as well or better than FFDShow?

Thanks,
M

I honestly haven't done any direct comparison between the two so I am not sure. My HTPC has a Radeon 9500 in it so I pretty much have to use FFDShow if I want to get good results with upscaling. I have a Radeon x1800xt in my main computer that seems to scale pretty well (to 1600x1200), but I've never connected it to the Westinghouse and done a side by side comparison of the image quality between the two. I'm sure there are plenty of threads in the forum that would answer this question better.

Back to the Westy, I managed to mount my set this evening. It took me WAY longer than I was expecting. The monoprice mount worked fine although finding the holes that would match up the best was a pain. Like a previous poster mentioned the screw lengths were much too long. Even using the half inch spacers they were still too long. Though my set physically limited my ability to screw them in too far (unlike the previous poster) probably because I was doing it like hand like you should with any sensitive electronics.

Anyhow, I went out and bought some 5mm screws that were 10mm long and they seemed to work perfectly. The only sucky thing was that it was ridiculously difficult to get this small screw size and washers to squeeze between the 1 inch gap that needed to be screwed on to the wall. In all it took two freakin' hours to get up on the wall, but holy crap, it looks so much better than on the stand.

My next project with the TV is to hide the cables with some cable runners and paint them the same color as the wall. I'll have to take some pictures when it is all done to see the TV in all it's glory. :)

Bob Dobbs

07-04-07, 12:17 AM

Now a bunch of hours later and I still can not get the set to turn on... sux.... I have unplugged for over an hour then pluged in the orange light comes on in front. Nothing more, then I can push either the remote or the on the left side on button... I get the W for a moment then it goes to black. I can then TRY to turn the set off, but I can still see light coming from the SPIDIF... it only goes out if I unplug, or HOLD the power off (on the set) button for over 3 seconds, but then it just re-boots to the W, then to black..... If I try to push and hold on the remote... nothing.

midway

07-04-07, 12:24 AM

Bob, someone else may have already suggested this, but have you tried powering it on with all of the inputs removed? For some early posters with power problems this seemed to help.

Bob Dobbs

07-04-07, 12:34 AM

ok - so the only thing plugged in is the power... nothing else? just tried it.. nothing different. the W logo is on for 4 seconds then it 'flickers' to a less bright verion of the W for a fraction of a second, then black... just as before... still with the light coming from the SPIDIF...

ugg... i was really lookign forward to enjoying my long weekend with the TV - not driving it back and forth to BB...

any other tips.... I think I've re-read most of this thread already...

billwiese

07-04-07, 02:37 AM

Bob...

ugg... i was really lookign forward to enjoying my long weekend with the TV - not driving it back and forth to BB...

(1) Do ensure your power cord's properly seated in the IEC power connector on back of set.

(2) Even w/problems I had/have, I can boot the TV after main power cycled and/or holding down power button on left side of TV.

(3) Once set is up, go to OSD menu and select Power mode = "Normal" instead of "E. Saver" (energy saver). Now you should be able to power set up/down, though you'll be draining approx 45W for quick-start mode when set is 'off'.

This is not a 'fix', it just makes your set usable.

GF/I are debating about return grief and swapping for another, giving up on it, etc. We'll see - 'cuz we are eminently happy otherwise with set (picture quality, lack of defect pixels, style/appearance, etc.)

The flaw could rationally be
hardware - esp power area, or interconnect related
firmware - but other folks' sets work fine? - could be an internal setting not quite matching hardware state - maybe a weak power supply takes too long to come up and firmware times out?
probably not in the main video processing unit - something on the 'edge'...

We're too busy to wast time swapping sets and we have 30 day BB return/ exchange. Frankly if it goes back I don't think GF wants another Westy. But now that I've accumulated enough data to talk further w/Westy - perhaps with a supervisor - I may be able to get them to work with BB to extend this 30 day time while they figure a workaround/update. Allows them to have a chance at 'retaining a sale' perhaps.

It's a great set, but we're not gonna do a 'reboot dance' every evening, or burn 45-50 watts when set is 'off'.

Bill Wiese
San Jose CA

oniijin

07-04-07, 09:58 AM

HDMI does carry audio, and does so on the TX series, however a DVI ouput will not carry audio, as DVI is a video only standard. Hence, an HDMI cable will carry the DVI video signal, but there will be no audio as your cable box is outputting video only over the DVI to HDMI cable. I would recommend plugging your cable box into HDMI 1, then using regular RCA cables to carry the audio signal from your cable box to the audio inputs for HDMI 1 on the TX. Finally, you'll have to make sure that the setting for HDMI 1 in the audio menu of the TX is set to "Analog."

Or you could see if your cable company can get you a set top box with an HDMI ouput.

thanks! it was driving me nuts..ok

xnappo

07-04-07, 11:27 AM

I notice the "stutter" (I think its more of a slight blur) also on scrolling text. I thought that it was probably just from the 8ms response of the lcd, but maybe it isnt since you say the old model didnt do this. It is very slight to me though.

This problem is pretty annoying actually. I can't find any setting that makes it go away. And I am not convinced it is limited just to the scrawl! Turn on ESPN or something with fast action, and watch while a scawl is on. I think I see glitches in the action that coincide with the scrawl glitch :( :(

This, combined with trouble finding a decent calibration for black detail (even considering this is an LCD it seems bad) has me worried. Though at least the former can almost certainly be addressed with firmware. If everyone is seeing this, we should all complain so it gets fixed.

FYI I am running a SA8300 with component right now. Can someone confirm this also shows up through HDMI?

[EDIT]
ARGH - now that I am looking for it, I see it all over the place! Especially when a camera pans... I'm watching a Star Wars documentary with lots of pans across photos and it jitters just like the scrawl...

Thanks,
xnappo

kentondb

07-04-07, 11:37 AM

Bob Dobbs

07-04-07, 12:13 PM

[QUOTE=billwiese]Bob...

(1) Do ensure your power cord's properly seated in the IEC power connector on back of set.

YES - Hard & firm - no wiggle... mine has a nice fit

(2) Even w/problems I had/have, I can boot the TV after main power cycled and/or holding down power button on left side of TV.

How? If I push the on set power button once for a second - nothing happens, not even the relay click. If I hold it down for 3 seconds then let go the light from the SPIDIF goes out then it cycles to the W logo then to black. This is even after it sat all night unplugged.

(3) Once set is up, go to OSD menu and select Power mode = "Normal" instead of "E. Saver" (energy saver). Now you should be able to power set up/down, though you'll be draining approx 45W for quick-start mode when set is 'off'.

I wish I could get there. Are you saying 45W per hour just sitting there... thats a bummer, I'm the type who turn off the light if I am leaving a room for 10 seconds.. that might eat me up... Also knowing that the Engery Saving setting does not work makes me less confident about the set in general.... in fact its hard to believe that almost all these $1500 and WAAAYYY up sets seem to have some sort of issue (banding, clouds, handshake...) crazy!

This is not a 'fix', it just makes your set usable.

GF/I are debating about return grief and swapping for another, giving up on it, etc. We'll see - 'cuz we are eminently happy otherwise with set (picture quality, lack of defect pixels, style/appearance, etc.)

I too was very happy the PQ was amazing, and it worked HDMI with my camcorder.
Thanks to all.... I'll post any updates, but I might just end up moving to the philips thread.. or JVC... or hmmmm keep the old 27in CTR? Naaaaah

bhazard

07-04-07, 12:38 PM

FYI I am running a SA8300 with component right now. Can someone confirm this also shows up through HDMI?

Thanks,
xnappo

Actually, there is much less of this blur in HDMI. Component in general suffers from those symptoms on pretty much all LCD TVs. In order of quality of pic on this TV, HDMI>VGA>Component. I find that on this TV, HDMI and VGA produce a much better picture than component.

xnappo

07-04-07, 12:42 PM

Actually, there is much less of this blur in HDMI. Component in general suffers from those symptoms on pretty much all LCD TVs. In order of quality of pic on this TV, HDMI>VGA>Component. I find that on this TV, HDMI and VGA produce a much better picture than component.

Just to be sure we are talking about the same thing - I am seeing a periodic jutter in scrawls - not really a blur, but like an out of order frame...

I will pick up an HDMI cable and report back.

Thanks,
xnappo

msattler

07-04-07, 01:19 PM

Hey everyone,

Still loving the TV :) My boss had an extra Omnimount 54FB-T wall mount, http://www.omnimount.com/omnipro/newpro/product.aspx?ProductId=effb75e5-af12-4596-ab5b-b928ee702ce6&CurrentId=1.1.1.1 . Now looking at it, I think it should work. The specs don't specifically mention a Westinghouse but it is VESA compliant.

*EDIT* Nevermind, user error. Turns out to be an ID 10 T error :) after moving the mounts a bit it seems fine. Does it scare anyone else to hang a TV connected to a mount by 4 1/2" screws?

Eek....

Thanks,
Marcus

msattler

07-04-07, 01:58 PM

Actually, there is much less of this blur in HDMI. Component in general suffers from those symptoms on pretty much all LCD TVs. In order of quality of pic on this TV, HDMI>VGA>Component. I find that on this TV, HDMI and VGA produce a much better picture than component.

Are you saying I'd have a better picture with my Xbo 360 via VGA over my current component hookup? I know I have my VGA Xbox 360 cable around here somewhere.

flabioh

07-04-07, 02:40 PM

chiahatesyou

07-04-07, 02:59 PM

Should I not get this TV because of it's problems? Banding, flickering, etc and instead get one of Newegg's last 42W1?

I don't need a tuner. I have Comcast.

In addition, I don't *need* 4 HDMI ports, as I can pick up a cheap monoprice switch

What I NEED is uninterruptable 1080p computer output that looks perfect, HDMI for my X360-31337 (42W1 has one) and whatever else I need the 42W1 has.

get the 47" at Newegg.com instead

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889234003

might only be for today... really good deal considering I paid 1053 for my TX 42

msattler

07-04-07, 03:04 PM

Yeah, it is a little unsettling with the 1/2" screws but... then again, there ARE 4 of them. :)

Yeah, I have those mounts on, now just need to mount the wall piece. This isn't as easy as asking the wife to hold up the picture to make sure it's centered and looks good :)

Just need to run to my brothers and grab a level and stud finder, apparently the old lady isn't as good as she used to be <just kidding, read that as a joke.... you know.... stud finder.... ok there we go even the slow guy got it :) >

I'll post pics once I'm totally done.

midway

07-04-07, 04:35 PM

This problem is pretty annoying actually. I can't find any setting that makes it go away. And I am not convinced it is limited just to the scrawl! Turn on ESPN or something with fast action, and watch while a scawl is on. I think I see glitches in the action that coincide with the scrawl glitch :( :(

This, combined with trouble finding a decent calibration for black detail (even considering this is an LCD it seems bad) has me worried. Though at least the former can almost certainly be addressed with firmware. If everyone is seeing this, we should all complain so it gets fixed.

FYI I am running a SA8300 with component right now. Can someone confirm this also shows up through HDMI?

[EDIT]
ARGH - now that I am looking for it, I see it all over the place! Especially when a camera pans... I'm watching a Star Wars documentary with lots of pans across photos and it jitters just like the scrawl...

Thanks,
xnappo

Xnappo, I am running my Motorola 6412 cable box on HDMI, and can confirm that I have seen the judder you mention, where it appears the camera suddenly jumps sideways as if it has skipped a frame. I didn't pay much notice to it at first, as I only saw it on ESPN, but will try and look for it more carefully.

Unfortunately, I think there could be many reasons for this. If it only happens on our cable boxes it could be a source issue, so I'm gonna try and look for it on DVDs as well, although on DVDs such judder could also be improper 2:3 pull down by the player or TV set.

Next time I see it I will try replaying the same sequence with the de-interlace setting off. If, as we presume, that is the 2:3 pulldown control, I wonder if there could be a firmware bug that wrongly interprets regular 30fps content as being 24 fps or mis-detects the wrong cadence and attempts to apply 2:3 pulldown to the regular 30 fps material. I doubt that could happen, so I'll need to find an example again and then try and isolate the cause.

billwiese

07-04-07, 05:03 PM

Hi guys...

Taked to Westy tech support about the power-up cold start issues I and many others have been having with the 47" TX.

Support guy was (apparently) Canadian, very nice but really of no help. Reported the whole background of the situation to him - he took about 5 min away from the phone to 'consult'.

I expressed my enthusiasm for the set in general (pic quality, lack of dead pixels, etc.) but that - since it's my girlfriend's TV - if we had to go swap a set it'd unlikely be for another Westy.

Westy guy;s response...

(1) Capacitors need time to charge from cold start and that I should leave the set on longer. (1 hour is enough time? If it hangs past 18.5 seconds, it ain't gonna do anything beside display Big W, period. - no response to that. I think this is a boilerplate statement they're programmed to say.

(2) My situation is really the first time they've heard of this. Told 'em to read the forums, they might learn something - not everybody's brilliant, but it'd get some good input for them. Westy guy replied (approximately) "there's a lot of misinformation out there..."

(3) That I should just return it/swap it if it's not operating. (I'd mentioned the 30 day BestBuy return policy, hoping to get a bit more time until a fix could be arranged, and had mentioned that if we take it back today, GF likely will not be bringing back a Westy.

We'll see what happens. The above is a bit disconcerting, I really didn't feel any drive to find out what was happning. When a customer offers to try to help - and is trying to retain a product even in the face of problems, you'd think people would jump to assist.

I know if I were a Westy tech support guy and I'm hearing of problems in early production sets, I'd send out a contract repair guy - might well save problems further down the production line if 1,000s are returned.

Given the number of folks here in this thread vs the number that have noted power-up problems (aside from dead sets, which may or may not be a different/unrelated issue) we can expect a fair fraction of these sets to be returned.

Since we're busy til end of week, maybe I'll be able get in touch with Rey Roque, their VP Mktg involved with the LCD TVs, and maybe talk to a Best Buy channel manager...

I really wanna like this set, it's very cool in many ways.

Bill Wiese
San Jose CA

bhazard

07-04-07, 05:04 PM

Are you saying I'd have a better picture with my Xbo 360 via VGA over my current component hookup? I know I have my VGA Xbox 360 cable around here somewhere.

Yeah, i made the switch from component to VGA on my 360, and VGA is definitely clearer and much nicer overall. I set black levels to expanded, and you get 1080p from the HD-DVD player. VGA also allows upscaling for the regular dvd player in the system as well.

msattler

07-04-07, 05:18 PM

Yeah, i made the switch from component to VGA on my 360, and VGA is definitely clearer and much nicer overall. I set black levels to expanded, and you get 1080p from the HD-DVD player. VGA also allows upscaling for the regular dvd player in the system as well.

Well my Media Center PC is doing the upscaling of DVD's since it's connected at 1080p. I'll go ahead and try the VGA cable and will report back.

-Marcus

oniijin

07-04-07, 05:54 PM

another question all..and if someone answered it before please link me

when watchin HD channels, with the cable on normal and tv on standard (not fill or OS) i see a black bar near the top left corner, about 1.5" long. dunno if i can post pics but i took one if u wanna see.

thanks in advance

msattler

07-04-07, 06:52 PM

So not to any delight of mine, it turns out this wall in this townhouse, which butts up against a firewall, is using metal studs. So.... obviously no need for the lagbolts. What is the best bet here? Simply get some hefty toggle bolts and use 4 of them to secure the mount on the wall?

I'm guessing Home Depot is closed by now so it will have to wait until tomm.

Drat,

-Marcus

msattler

07-04-07, 07:41 PM

PS If you are wall mounting to metal studs, I am convinced that 1/2" toggle bolts that I've used were an overkill (and were a pain in the butt to insert, having only a 1/2" drill bit - they are actually wider than that). Now I will have 4 huge holes in the wall (and I am renting:S), but it seems absolutely solid on the wall. If anything, my concern would be with 16mm bolts holding the TV against the wall mount, but they seem to work fine too.

So my dumb self picked up a 1/2 drill bit, but 1/4" toggle bolts. Do you think four of the 1/4" toggle bolts will be enough for my 42"? Damn these metal studs :)

-Marcus

xnappo

07-04-07, 07:52 PM

Xnappo, I am running my Motorola 6412 cable box on HDMI, and can confirm that I have seen the judder you mention, where it appears the camera suddenly jumps sideways as if it has skipped a frame. I didn't pay much notice to it at first, as I only saw it on ESPN, but will try and look for it more carefully.

Unfortunately, I think there could be many reasons for this. If it only happens on our cable boxes it could be a source issue, so I'm gonna try and look for it on DVDs as well, although on DVDs such judder could also be improper 2:3 pull down by the player or TV set.

Thanks for the confirmation midway - indeed I just came home with an HDMI cable, and I still see it(though it looks a little different I think). This is really easy to see on a scrawl like CNN. I thought the judder might be the 'interlacing' (I agree that is probably really a 3:2 pulldown switch) too - but turning off that setting had no effect.

I can see the judder on the RSS feed scrawl on my XBMC too :(

Most noticeable on non text is during camera pans as I mentioned before.

I think I am going to send in a support message regarding it. Hopefully this is the kind of thing that can be fixed in firmware?

xnappo

Mikeoz

07-04-07, 07:53 PM

So my dumb self picked up a 1/2 drill bit, but 1/4" toggle bolts. Do you think four of the 1/4" toggle bolts will be enough for my 42"? Damn these metal studs :)

-Marcus

Hmm.. I can't remember what size toggle bolts I used when wall mounting my mother's 40" Samsung, but I think they were 1/4". I used plain old Home depot toggle bolts, and the things require a monsterous hole (ya, bought a big drill bit which required a drill w/ a 1/2" shank). Anyway, her home has metal studs as well, and I used a stud finder followed up by a small finishing nail to make sure I was dead center on the stud..

Trying to eyeball mounting it would take some serious balls. lol :p Anyway, I used 4 toggle bolts and the thing is rock solid. I used a tilting wall mount and I think I could've hung on it personally. The 40" lcd seems like nothing compared to how secure it is. I'm pretty sure I used 1/4" toggle bolts. If I recall correctly, I was seriously debating using a larger size toggle bolt (like 3/8" or something), but the hole required was gigantic. lol Looking back now the 1/4" toggle bolts I used look like they could handle 150+lbs easy. Let me dbl check what size i used..

EDIT: The drill bit I used was a 5/8" bit, which I think was required for the 1/4" toggle bolts i used.

mph86

07-04-07, 07:58 PM

Thanks for the confirmation midway - indeed I just came home with an HDMI cable, and I still see it(though it looks a little different I think). This is really easy to see on a scrawl like CNN. I thought the judder might be the 'interlacing' (I agree that is probably really a 3:2 pulldown switch) too - but turning off that setting had no effect.

I can see the judder on the RSS feed scrawl on my XBMC too :(

Most noticeable on non text is during camera pans as I mentioned before.

I think I am going to send in a support message regarding it. Hopefully this is the kind of thing that can be fixed in firmware?

xnappo

Are you running the Motorola 6412 or 6416 too? If you are try switching to 720p and then back to 1080i, I did this when the picture was stuttering a little during baseball games and it completely fixed it. It may not help but it's worth a try (also I assume you tried reseting the DVR by holding the power button already but if not try that.)

Mikeoz

07-04-07, 08:26 PM

To add to the thread.. I was playing with the settings yesterday and I currently have the TV set to:
Brightness- 62
Contrast- 55
Saturation- 48
Color Temp- Warm

I tried backing down brightness from 62 and black detail is lost and results in blacks getting "crushed," so I left it at 62. I originally left contrast at 50, but raising it up doesn't seem to affect whites at all, and it seems to bring out a little more detail imo. I generally leave the backlight at 0-20, depending on the room lighting. Overall these are the best settings I've personally been able to come up with. Using some test images contrast looks like it can be cranked up considerably before whites actually crush..? Kind of strange.. Turning up the contrast seems to largely brighten the image..?

xnappo

07-04-07, 09:58 PM

Are you running the Motorola 6412 or 6416 too? If you are try switching to 720p and then back to 1080i, I did this when the picture was stuttering a little during baseball games and it completely fixed it. It may not help but it's worth a try (also I assume you tried reseting the DVR by holding the power button already but if not try that.)

No, I am using a SA8300 cable box - which makes it unlikely it is the source since we both see it. I will mess with the 1080i/720p tomorrow and see if it helps.

Thanks,
xnappo

msattler

07-04-07, 10:32 PM

Hmm.. I can't remember what size toggle bolts I used when wall mounting my mother's 40" Samsung, but I think they were 1/4". I used plain old Home depot toggle bolts, and the things require a monsterous hole (ya, bought a big drill bit which required a drill w/ a 1/2" shank). Anyway, her home has metal studs as well, and I used a stud finder followed up by a small finishing nail to make sure I was dead center on the stud..

Trying to eyeball mounting it would take some serious balls. lol :p Anyway, I used 4 toggle bolts and the thing is rock solid. I used a tilting wall mount and I think I could've hung on it personally. The 40" lcd seems like nothing compared to how secure it is. I'm pretty sure I used 1/4" toggle bolts. If I recall correctly, I was seriously debating using a larger size toggle bolt (like 3/8" or something), but the hole required was gigantic. lol Looking back now the 1/4" toggle bolts I used look like they could handle 150+lbs easy. Let me dbl check what size i used..

EDIT: The drill bit I used was a 5/8" bit, which I think was required for the 1/4" toggle bolts i used.

Thanks Mike! I figured if someone though 1/2" was overkill for the 47" that 1/4 would be fine for the 42". Ya know, I borrowed my brothers stud finder, and though, I'll be damned this thing is dead on, because I could essentially draw the width of the stud by just following the stud/no stud return from the stud finder. Once I started drilling and heard metal, I realized why it was so easy to find them :)

BENZONATE

07-04-07, 11:04 PM

The set displays the output from my Geforce GO 7800 GTX laptop beautifully over a 15' HDMI cable + HDMI/DVI adapter from monoprice.

Hey PanzerBoxb,

What driver are you using with your Nvidia Go 7800 GTX laptop video card? What is the make and model of your laptop? Thanks for the info. I have a Dell E1705 with a GO 7800 GTX (dell) that will not display via the DVI output...with any driver(mod or standard)..strange. I have swapped out 2 other Nvidia GO 7800 GTX cards....with the same result. All of my 3 x GO 7800 video cards will output via DVI and VGA, but the GTX will not. Thanks for your input

~b3nz0n8

BENZONATE

07-05-07, 01:07 AM

I did find that the sports setting, and then changing the color temp to cool has given me not only the best picture,

I agree...when testing the TX47, the sports setting in combination with the cool setting produced the best picture quality.

I also had the blue tint to the bright whites with the brightness around 70.

BTW, in a dark room, the backlight hovering around 0-30 produced better blacks/contrast/shadow depth with the dynamic contrast setting off.

~b3nz0n8

Xcalibur_255

07-05-07, 01:27 AM

Xcalibur, does your Oppo use the full RGB colorspace? I noticed a big difference using "full" RGB HDMI on my PS3 and "expanded" 0-255 signal black levels over xbox360 VGA. I think the panel uses PC values, maybe you'll get a better reading using them?
The 971 doesn't offer selectable colorspace (it's only on the 981), but nothing seemed amiss to me. I notice the issues I talked about with all devices, not just the player.

Xcalibur_255

07-05-07, 01:40 AM

Well, that's disappointing, but your efforts are certainly appreciated. Glad to hear you got a decent panel anyway. Mine has more stuck pixels and some mura, but neither seem to be an issue 99% of the time. Really I thought they would be as I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, but I'm going to wait and see at this point.

I am surprised at your observations on viewing angle, though - I thought the viewing angles on this set were quite good. Maybe I'm just not picky enough, but both my main viewing positions are probably 30 degrees off center, and I've looked at it from the kitchen which has got to be 45 or more, and only noticed a slight washout, less than I expected actually. I do have 1 or 2 corners that seem bright and I think they really are bright (flashlighting I guess), but it is true that this is more or less noticeable depending on viewing position/angle.

I'm glad I didn't go through the whole DVE now, as I would certainly have thought that I was doing something wrong. Maybe if we can get the service menu code, there might be a gamma adjustment that could help?

Ed
Well, I was probably a bit overharsh on the viewing angle. To their credit color washout is almost non-existant, something that ought to be tied to a raising black level but strangely enough it's not that affected. It just looks really bad on black screens. It's perfectly uniform from my viewing distance which is what matters to me, and while viewing content you can move from side to side and not experience color fade which is good. It's just that when you really get on an angle with it washout of black is so much more severe than it is with better matrix types.

I also wanted to update on the calibration front. For most devices a brightness setting of 40-45 and a contrast setting of 65-70 seems appropriate to achieve the best dynamic range the panel can offer. This is with the dynamic contrast off, since turning it on seems to call for much higher brightness levels. It's literally impossible to calibrate with that feature on anyway, because the levels will change outside of that specific test patterns leaving you with no real reference. You could actually probably push contrast to 75, but lowballing that has always been a personal perference of mine because it accentuates colors a bit. Color values of around 40 also seem to be about right for most devices. Of course you will experience no shadow detail and black crush with these settings, but these are for better or worse the correct values to achieve maximum performance with the tv. Pushing the brightness higher or the contrast lower simply crushes the overall dynamic range and makes the panel appear washed out. I'm current running 41 brightness and 67 contrast with the Oppo and as I'm accepting the black crush problem the performance is really pretty good all other things considered. The contrast holds up reasonably well in a black room, with the glow of the letterboxing bars on 2.35:1 aspect movies very noticable but not bad for an LCD and not really any worse than last year's Sony and Samsung offerings.

The thing about the black crush is that I'm beginning to feel it was done deliberately by the Westy engineers. It seems to have been done to complement the dynamic contrast feature, which is surprisingly smart about fishing out lost or near lost shadow detail and bringing it back in scenes which are mostly dark. Trouble is the behavior is the opposite with brighter scenes with it burying shadow detail futher wherever it exists in the scene. I have to give them credit where it's due, the dynamic contrast on this tv is quite smart and far less objectionable than it is on most others. It is a very adaptive and processing intensive feature that does some very smart stuff with the midrange hues on most scenes. The trouble is that in areas where the picture contrast is already good it can't leave well enough alone and the result is an image that looks unnaturally edgy. If not for this I'd be somewhat tempted to leave the feature on, and this is coming from a purist who hates such things. The gamma drops off near black on purpose probably because it results in a slightly improved perceived black level so long as the dynamic contrast feature is there to help bring the shadow details back when needed. It screws those of us who don't want to use the feature though. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that Westy will take the customer service highroad and be proactive in supporting it's customers the way Oppo did. They may release a midlife firmware update that improves the set's performance in these areas. It's entirely within their power to do so.

The biggest thing I can empahsis is that it's safe to push the contrast to about 65-70 so long as you're not using the dynamic contrast. Anything lower and you're not exploiting the dynamic range of the tv and leaving the picture dull. There's no risk of white crush below 70 from all of my experiences so far. Raising the contrast also has the bizarre effect of raising the black level too, so this is why some of us are reporting brightness settings of 40 or lower. They're necessary otherwise the black just washes out. I can only assume this was done by the Westy engineering team on purpose because it's not normal behavior for these controls. Once you know what it's doing it's simple enough to correct. With these values the overall quality of the picture contrast rivals my old CRT. It does not have that flat look imparted by low contrast displays anymore.

Side note:
Guys, please hear me on this: turning off the deinterlace feature as a means of eliminating this purple line (which I've never gotten) simply isn't a solution. You really shouldn't be disabling that feature.

bhazard

07-05-07, 03:16 AM

NerdCoreRocks

07-05-07, 09:28 AM

Update: Second Westinghouse has the cold boot problem. I had Energy Save mode on and nothing but coaxial plugged in. This one's going back to best buy for a refund and not a return (doesn't bother me much because of the 9 stuck pixels).

I won't be getting another westinghouse immediately after its release. I'll wait a bit before I buy from this product line again.

msattler

07-05-07, 10:09 AM

msattler

07-05-07, 10:11 AM

Yeah, i made the switch from component to VGA on my 360, and VGA is definitely clearer and much nicer overall. I set black levels to expanded, and you get 1080p from the HD-DVD player. VGA also allows upscaling for the regular dvd player in the system as well.

Your totally right, VGA does look better than component. My only issue is that all the input's on my Home Theater in a Box Philips system are used. Sadly it has no optical inputs either. It seems that with using VGA on this tv your limited for sound input on the TV to just the head phone jack.

On my philips plasma there was a digital input on the TV which you could then match to any input desired. Would of been nice, but will just have to wait for a new receiver and speakers.

aindik

07-05-07, 10:15 AM

The Tivo *does* have zoom/aspect control. I'm not sure exactly what it is that the OP's friend is looking for, or I would respond further.

Ed

My friend lucked into a Series 3 TiVo as part of Best Buy a warranty replacement for his busted Series 2. He doesn't have an HDTV, and this Westinghouse would be his first. He is used to having 180+ hours of storage and thinks he will record many shows in SD instead of HD to save disk space. I tell him that he won't because HD is so game-changing that he'll change his viewing habits, but, just in case he does, he wants to be able to zoom widescreen SD programming. I didn't even think to see if the TiVo would do what he wants.

I'm assuming the TiVo's aspect ratio control only works with SD content? Does it work only when it sends SD content in its native resolution, or does it also work when it upconverts SD content for you? (I've found that my Motorola DVR does a better job upconverting 480i content than my Westinghouse 32w6 does). Will it take the zoomed picture and upconvert it to 1080i? That would be pretty cool.

Bob Dobbs

07-05-07, 10:43 AM

xnappo

07-05-07, 10:51 AM

No, I am using a SA8300 cable box - which makes it unlikely it is the source since we both see it. I will mess with the 1080i/720p tomorrow and see if it helps.

Thanks,
xnappo

So instead of doing this, I did a full power cycle (I hadn't been using energy saving mode). The problem COMPLETELY went away over HDMI. Scawls scrolled properly.

I switched back to component, the judder was back right away. Switched back to HDMI, and it was STILL there! Then did another reboot - HDMI fine again.

Next tried switching to XBOX(480p) through component and back to HDMI, no judder. Then from XBOX360 DVD (480p over component) and back, no judder. Then from XBOX360 game (1080i over component) and back, judder COMES BACK.

So... something weird going on, but at least I can make it go away with a power cycle. Now I just have to completely redo my remote control macros to handle this switching :).

xnappo

flabioh

07-05-07, 11:28 AM

Well, I decided against mounting the TV on the wall with the MEtal studs. It just seemed like too much of a pain. I'm going to patch up the two holes, I instead moved the entire living room around, and mounted the TV last night on a wal with wooden studs.

Now the big question, I was used to looking down at the TV because of how low our entertainment center is. Now I'm afraid it may be a tad high? We are in a room with standard 8ft ceilings. The bottom of the tv <frame> is sitting at 42". It's the 42" version of this TV.

Is this too high for most people? I'm hoping it's just that I'm used to looking more downward and will seem ok. If not moving it, isn't a huge deal just wanted to get input on what the normal AVS standards are.

Thanks,
Marcus

As far as height I would suggest that you mount it based off where you are going to be viewing it the most. If you sit on your couch 90% of the time while watching the TV then mount the TV so that your eye level meets the middle of the TV while sitting down on the couch.

I think mounting it high looks cool to give it that "picture frame" feel, but it really isn't practical to watch a movie that is too high. It gives you that feeling of watching a movie in the theater while sitting on the front row and you start to get an ache in your neck from it being too high. Good luck with the mounting.

Me too.... I'll be bringing mine back tomorrow... now any ideas an a set that is close in $$ and features? LCD 1080P at least 3 HDMI?

While I am 95% satisfied with this TV I did look at the Philips in the same price range that seemed pretty close on features.

2006GTO

07-05-07, 11:37 AM

The Phillips did look better to me too,its whites were better and the colors were better but its blacks were not...Its a hard call,the Westy looks like its has less issues than the Phillips as of right now...The Sammy is the bomb and has repaired the issues via a board change but its just too much coin compared to the Westy...

I'm pulling the trigger tonight on something but what gets me is how some of u got a better deal,right now u can get the 12% coupon and the non sale price which gives u the BEST price but I hear some of u have even gotten BB to knock a few extra bucks off by haggling?

The BB around me wont do it,How do u try and get a few more bucks off
I'd like to know?

Gritsyna

07-05-07, 11:59 AM

So my dumb self picked up a 1/2 drill bit, but 1/4" toggle bolts. Do you think four of the 1/4" toggle bolts will be enough for my 42"? Damn these metal studs :)

-Marcus

I actually wrote wrong. I just double checked and I did use 1/4" toggle bolts and they were unnecessarily large in my opinion. It was just when I was writing, it threw me off of why wouldn't something 1/2 the size on paper not fit - 1/4" actually refers to the bolt, the toggle that goes into the wall is slightly wider than 1/2". They wouldn't easily fit into the hole from 1/2" drill bit (if you decide to go with those, it might be best to predrill a 4 or even 6 hole square with a small drill bit, then use the 1/2"). I believe the next smaller size is 3/16" and those would be a lot easier to work with and I am confident would hold the weight just as well.

PS Going back to my first TV experience, indeed I have used my hand to screw the bolt into the TV. The top left hole on mine certainly did not have any stopper (maybe other holes did, but I had no interest to experiment further at that time) and did not physically contact anything. In any case, I am glad that others are not having the same problem I did.

xnappo

07-05-07, 12:12 PM

As far as height I would suggest that you mount it based off where you are going to be viewing it the most. If you sit on your couch 90% of the time while watching the TV then mount the TV so that your eye level meets the middle of the TV while sitting down on the couch.

.

While I agree ergonomically, I think it would look weird to wall mount that low. Might as well just use a stand in that case.

Mine is mounted with the bottom of the screen at eye level. 44.5" from floor to the base. My tilt mount is at about 5 degrees. It does take some getting used to - but looks really cool and is easy to see from our kitchen.

xnappo

Xcalibur_255

07-05-07, 12:16 PM

Xcalibur, want to see something that'll raise some questions? I found this by accident tonight.

Take a greyscale test pattern from any source where you can scroll or drag it back and forth across the screen (I used a PC). If you notice closely, dragging the 0/8/16 portion of black towards the middle of the screen, increases the brightness, black level, and shadow detail WITH AND WITHOUT Dynamic Contrast on! It is more pronounced with DC on, but the color should not change like that with it off.

It is possible that the TV is calibrated a bit better than we perceive, because dragging whites toward the left side of the screen become darker for a few gradients as well.

I was able to reduce crush with a brightness 55 and contrast 67 setting, neutral color. Give it a try.
I've noted what appears to be behavior similar to DC Restoration (the phenomenon on CRT sets that makes them unable to hold a consistent level of black when the picture brightness goes up), but not what you're describing. Shadow detail becomes slowly worse as the picture brightens up, only it's far less objectionable because there's usually very little in the picture that's affected. It really hurts some scenes though, especially outdoor ones. Since LCD is technically immune to this issue (plasma is not) I have to assume it's the software doing something by design. Perfect example: the low APL pluge pattern on DVE can be calibrated so the bars are visible, but when you switch to the high APL version of the pattern they're not visible. This shoudn't happen on an LCD.

I'm disappointed by the black problems. I expected some, but it's worse than I feared. I'm learning to deal with it though. The rest of the tv lives up to my expectations for what I paid. Got a chance to hook an xbox 360 to it and that really brightened my mood. It handles hidef games beautifully with little to no motion blur. You have to get pretty radical with the spinning around on shooters to reveal some and even then it's quite minor. We completely stopped noticing it by our second hour playing. So, those of you who were worried about game performance I can tell you the 360 gets along quite well with this tv. set's deinterlacing didn't miss a beat the entire time.

msattler

07-05-07, 12:30 PM

I've noted what appears to be behavior similar to DC Restoration (the phenomenon on CRT sets that makes them unable to hold a consistent level of black when the picture brightness goes up), but not what you're describing. Shadow detail becomes slowly worse as the picture brightens up, only it's far less objectionable because there's usually very little in the picture that's affected. It really hurts some scenes though, especially outdoor ones. Since LCD is technically immune to this issue (plasma is not) I have to assume it's the software doing something by design. Perfect example: the low APL pluge pattern on DVE can be calibrated so the bars are visible, but when you switch to the high APL version of the pattern they're not visible. This shoudn't happen on an LCD.

I'm disappointed by the black problems. I expected some, but it's worse than I feared. I'm learning to deal with it though. The rest of the tv lives up to my expectations for what I paid. Got a chance to hook an xbox 360 to it and that really brightened my mood. It handles hidef games beautifully with little to no motion blur. You have to get pretty radical with the spinning around on shooters to reveal some and even then it's quite minor. We completely stopped noticing it by our second hour playing. So, those of you who were worried about game performance I can tell you the 360 gets along quite well with this tv. set's deinterlacing didn't miss a beat the entire time.

Thanks for all your help so far in reporting what you feel are the best settings for watching TV. Sadly, I just can't eye it enough myself to try my own settings. I think I'm actually glad, in that I can't see the imperfections some others see.

My big question is should the User Calibration settings be stock, and only change the settings per input? When your listing your settings I'm just curious where your setting them. Do the per input settings override the user calibration settings?

Thanks,
Marcus

huggybear

07-05-07, 01:26 PM

Me too.... I'll be bringing mine back tomorrow... now any ideas an a set that is close in $$ and features? LCD 1080P at least 3 HDMI?

Bob - what you described is exactly what happened to my first TX-47 - it went into a standby coma and nothing would bring it out - no response from the remote and only the power button would work on the TV which would just repeat the whole boot process.

I felt that the picture quality and value of the set was so good that it deserved a second chance so I got a replacement - so far so good.

The boot process seems very sketchy. I no longer use the energy saver mode as I just can't bear praying that my set doesn't go into a coma every time I power it up. Sure, it's an annoyance especially since it will end up costing a few bucks a month due to the energy usage but I think this is an issuie that they will eventually resolve with a firmware update.

xnappo

07-05-07, 01:31 PM

The boot process seems very sketchy. I no longer use the energy saver mode as I just can't bear praying that my set doesn't go into a coma every time I power it up. Sure, it's an annoyance especially since it will end up costing a few bucks a month due to the energy usage but I think this is an issuie that they will eventually resolve with a firmware update.

Historically how has Westinghouse handled firmware updates? Do they let the user do it? How many releases did they do for the LVM series?

Thanks,
xnappo

BENZONATE

07-05-07, 01:43 PM

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For those who are looking & asking.

Excellent racks..fully adjustable with casters(wheels).

There is a top 1/2 and a bottom 1/2(with casters). This can be split as you see in the pictures(links in my sig), or assembled in full rack style with adjustable racks inbetween.

A nice, industrial, feel to your theater room. :)

~b3nz0n8

elenaran

07-05-07, 01:52 PM

I've got my TX47 on a Monoprice wallmount and I used the bolts/screws provided with no problems.

It's above the fireplace. The bottom of the set is about 60" from the floor and is tilted about 10-15 degrees (couch is 10-12 ft away).

flabioh

07-05-07, 01:54 PM

While I agree ergonomically, I think it would look weird to wall mount that low. Might as well just use a stand in that case.

Mine is mounted with the bottom of the screen at eye level. 44.5" from floor to the base. My tilt mount is at about 5 degrees. It does take some getting used to - but looks really cool and is easy to see from our kitchen.

xnappo

I'll have to post a picture of my setup to show the main reason why I mounted mine the way I did, but basically I have a TV stand that houses all the AV equipment and then two tall shelf units that are on the left and right side of it that match the TV stand. I mounted the top of the TV to line up with the top of these shelf units and so now it actually makes it look like it was all part of the same unit. Had I mounted the TV any higher it would have started to look really weird having a blank spot between these two shelf units.

Bob Dobbs

07-05-07, 01:59 PM

Bob - what you described is exactly what happened to my first TX-47 - it went into a standby coma and nothing would bring it out - no response from the remote and only the power button would work on the TV which would just repeat the whole boot process.

I felt that the picture quality and value of the set was so good that it deserved a second chance so I got a replacement - so far so good.

The boot process seems very sketchy. I no longer use the energy saver mode as I just can't bear praying that my set doesn't go into a coma every time I power it up. Sure, it's an annoyance especially since it will end up costing a few bucks a month due to the energy usage but I think this is an issuie that they will eventually resolve with a firmware update.

I just finished packing it up getting ready to haul it to the minvan & BB... thought I'd check the boards 1 more time and saw your post... I agree the PQ is great for the $$, how long have you had your 2nd set? You have made me feel like I should give it another chance too.

And also someone posted about firmware upgrades... how is Westy with that? Did they do em for the previous set? How often? User updateable?

Guell I'll go drop some other stuff off 1st, then I'll be back... again...

LynxFX

07-05-07, 02:38 PM

bhazard

07-05-07, 02:47 PM

I am soooo close to jumping on this now.

I just want to make sure. What is the general concensus of people that have the TX-47 and a PS3? Is there any other LCD in this price range and 46" or greater that I should consider or should I just bite the bullet and pick up the TX-47? $1700 is about my limit.

And any recommendations on the best place to pick it up at? I'm leaning towards BB since if there are problems it should be an easy return. But if there is a screaming deal elsewhere please PM me. :)

BB is the best bet right now. Aside from flickering issues that may happen on the PS3 and black levels that aren't as good as Samsungs, the price makes the TV an unbeatable value. The picture is quite good on all video game systems.

Mikeoz

07-05-07, 03:36 PM

Raising the contrast also has the bizarre effect of raising the black level too, so this is why some of us are reporting brightness settings of 40 or lower.

This is an interesting note and something that I didn't experience with my set. I used the test images of a website which has a 1080p test image, and with a brightness of below ~58 I believe, the bottom two black level grades were crushed. The higher the brightness was set, the less the black levels were crushed, but the whites slightly became crushed. I agree that the picture looks better with brightness <50, but I lose ALOT of black detail in movies with brightness set ~40.

I don't see the contrast setting affecting the brightness/black crush at all. I viewed these test images from my pc w/ a dvi->hdmi cable, but the settings largely have the same effect through my ps3. Dropping brightness to < 50 crushes blacks badly, but makes the blacks deeper and makes the non-crushed dark detail look better. I guess I will play with the settings tonight and see how they look again. I'm testing out the settings via my pc, and via my ps3 while watching blu ray movies and pausing the movie.

Perhaps our settings are largely meaningless (when comparing each others) since the sources are different? I see you've accepted crushed blacks, I guess I'll have to play with it to find a happy medium. If i recall correctly, raising the contrast alot seemed to give the picture somewhat of a washed out look equivalent to raising the brightness.

chiahatesyou

07-05-07, 03:42 PM

I viewed these test images from my pc w/ a dvi->hdmi cable

What card do you have in your pc so I can get one that actually works with dvi to hdmi unlike this DAMN ATI card

Mikeoz

07-05-07, 03:45 PM

What card do you have in your pc so I can get one that actually works with dvi to hdmi unlike this DAMN ATI card

Nvidia 7950GT.

bhazard

07-05-07, 04:03 PM

I lose ALOT of black detail in movies with brightness set ~40.

Mike, are you running PS3 with HDMI RGB on Full? I notice the same thing on it where a brightness of 41 looks awesome, but crushes blacks badly. A high contrast crushes whites as well. A brightness of 53-59 fixes it, but washes out slightly.

Now switch over to RGB limited. Xcaliburs numbers look better in this setting. I think RGB colorspace on this TV matters with each device. His Oppo is basically running in RGB limited. The same effect of RGB full can be gotten on an xbox360 with "expanded" black levels, and your cable box set to RGB in its settings.

Mikeoz

07-05-07, 04:24 PM

Mike, are you running PS3 with HDMI RGB on Full?

Yes, I have been running the ps3 w/ rgb set to output and the setting on Full. I guess I'll try it on limited to see how his settings look in comparison.

I just yesterday tried switching the output to YCbCr and I'm not sure I see any difference (I guess I shouldn't). Anyone find any discernable difference between rgb and YCbCr via the ps3? My understanding is that YCbCr supports a larger colorspace, but in the case of this lcd, it shouldn't make a difference.

LynxFX

07-05-07, 05:00 PM

Aside from flickering issues that may happen on the PS3 and
Are the flickering issues a big deal or does it happen a lot? If I can't get through a gaming session or a movie without flickering, that might be a dealbreaker. :confused:

bhazard

07-05-07, 05:06 PM

Are the flickering issues a big deal or does it happen a lot? If I can't get through a gaming session or a movie without flickering, that might be a dealbreaker. :confused:

Honestly, its a completely random thing with no rhyme or reason that has affected some but not all of the TVs owned in this thread. Mine hadnt flickered for weeks until i changed a cable, then it flickered twice and never flickered again for weeks until last night. I had 1 flicker for a split second and that was it. I guarantee i wont see it again for weeks if not months. I think it can be fixed via a firmware update by the ps3 or the westy, but if its severe you can swap tvs. Someone mentioned doing that and never had a flicker again.

Xcalibur_255

07-05-07, 05:07 PM

I am soooo close to jumping on this now.

I just want to make sure. What is the general concensus of people that have the TX-47 and a PS3? Is there any other LCD in this price range and 46" or greater that I should consider or should I just bite the bullet and pick up the TX-47? $1700 is about my limit.

And any recommendations on the best place to pick it up at? I'm leaning towards BB since if there are problems it should be an easy return. But if there is a screaming deal elsewhere please PM me. :)
Compatibility with the PS3's HDMI connection appears a bit suspect, but as far as video performance this panel is as good as I've ever seen for a gaming tv. It was the most pleasant surprise so far as I'm getting used to the set. Everybody is buying theirs at Best Buy but I got one from an online retailer called ComputerHQ for less than any BB sale price so far. No complaints about the service and they were actually in stock and ready to ship.

Xcalibur_255

07-05-07, 05:13 PM

This is an interesting note and something that I didn't experience with my set. I used the test images of a website which has a 1080p test image, and with a brightness of below ~58 I believe, the bottom two black level grades were crushed. The higher the brightness was set, the less the black levels were crushed, but the whites slightly became crushed. I agree that the picture looks better with brightness <50, but I lose ALOT of black detail in movies with brightness set ~40.

I don't see the contrast setting affecting the brightness/black crush at all. I viewed these test images from my pc w/ a dvi->hdmi cable, but the settings largely have the same effect through my ps3. Dropping brightness to < 50 crushes blacks badly, but makes the blacks deeper and makes the non-crushed dark detail look better. I guess I will play with the settings tonight and see how they look again. I'm testing out the settings via my pc, and via my ps3 while watching blu ray movies and pausing the movie.

Perhaps our settings are largely meaningless (when comparing each others) since the sources are different? I see you've accepted crushed blacks, I guess I'll have to play with it to find a happy medium. If i recall correctly, raising the contrast alot seemed to give the picture somewhat of a washed out look equivalent to raising the brightness.
Well, it's not that I've accepted them so much as I'm just going to have to accept them period. In my case increasing the brightness does little to help the problem and only reduces dynamic range on the display. For better or worse I've arrived at my best case calibration purely from a video levels point of view. The brightness needs to ratched up dramatically to overcome the issue, but it's not the solution to the problem. For my specific device and room I've set video black correctly, the tv's gamma curve just sucks and is bottomed out at the end.

I do think we're seeing different results based upon differences between PC RGB and sRGB though. I can't see whiter than white on the display either which means the tv is clipping it or the Oppo is using PC RGB colorspace. The latter seems more likely. Since my Oppo 971 is experiencing intermittent lockup problems it looks like I'll get to upgrade to a 981HD and find out for myself.

It's odd you don't see the behavior I do with the contrast. When I increase the value it might as well be moving the slider for the brightness at the exact same time because that's what's going on in my case. I can bury the 2% bar on the pluge test and if I raise the contrast by 3 points it shows back up again. This is the exact opposite of normal behavior. Maybe my firmware is slightly retarded somehow? :) It's easy to work around so I'm not worried about it.

huggybear

07-05-07, 05:31 PM

Historically how has Westinghouse handled firmware updates? Do they let the user do it? How many releases did they do for the LVM series?

Thanks,
xnappo

This is a good question. I know that Westinghouse did come up with a firmware update to fix some issues with the LVM series but I'm not sure how it was distributed since that line doesn't have a usb port. My guess is that it was applied to sets that were sent back in (as well as the shipping firmware on later builds). I wonder if they ever sent any techs out to do housecalls?

As for the TX line, it still remains to be seen how they will handle updates. There were some posts earlier in this thread about conversations with different CSRs at Westinghouse and it sounds like they are planning on providing updates to the public.

LynxFX

07-05-07, 05:32 PM

bhazard, Xcalibur_255,

Thanks for your replies. Sounds like this is going to be my tv.

chiahatesyou

07-05-07, 05:34 PM

Nvidia 7950GT.

that makes me want to punch a baby right in the face

knowing that a card older than the ATI I have could work flawlessly drives me to the edge

Im going to try and save up for a 8800gts ... until then I will use the component for my computer and vga for my xbox

huggybear

07-05-07, 05:39 PM

I just finished packing it up getting ready to haul it to the minvan & BB... thought I'd check the boards 1 more time and saw your post... I agree the PQ is great for the $$, how long have you had your 2nd set? You have made me feel like I should give it another chance too.

And also someone posted about firmware upgrades... how is Westy with that? Did they do em for the previous set? How often? User updateable?

Guell I'll go drop some other stuff off 1st, then I'll be back... again...

I've had my second set for almost 30 days and I will be going back to BB to pick up the performance plan before the 30 day window runs out. The way I see it is that so long as you have the extended warranty from BB, if the set goes down anytime within 4 years then they will have to either fix it or give you a new one.

I think the TX definitely deserves a second chance - there just isn't anything out there that will provide the same bang for your buck.

Sure, there are some issues as there are with any set, but everyone must keep in mind that we are all in possession of the first build and first firmware release. Westinghouse will undoubtedly address some of these issues in later builds/firmware releases. I'm sure they hate seeing sets being returned to the store as much as well all hate hauling them back.

flabioh

07-05-07, 06:57 PM

that makes me want to punch a baby right in the face

I had a really stressful day at work today and this just made me laugh really loud. So, thanks for that.

I can't remember if you said that you were able to get it work using VGA or not. You might want to consider using a driver cleaner to completely remove everything related to your ATI card and then install the drivers.

pauldarkjr

07-05-07, 07:39 PM

Honestly, its a completely random thing with no rhyme or reason that has affected some but not all of the TVs owned in this thread. Mine hadnt flickered for weeks until i changed a cable, then it flickered twice and never flickered again for weeks until last night. I had 1 flicker for a split second and that was it. I guarantee i wont see it again for weeks if not months. I think it can be fixed via a firmware update by the ps3 or the westy, but if its severe you can swap tvs. Someone mentioned doing that and never had a flicker again.
I was the one who said the new set didn't flicker. I jumped the gun a little. My new set does have a flickering problem, but it is much less that the first set. In fact during a movie last night it only flickered 3 times. The other set the same movie flickered like 50 times. I suppose it just depends on how it feels that day. This one is at least bearable. I am going to wait and see it it can be fixed with firmware update. It isn't worth the hastle to me to return this set again for the minimal amout of flickering that it is doing right now. If westy doesn't come out with a fix in like 6 months however, I will be exchanging it.

Mikeoz

07-05-07, 07:59 PM

I was the one who said the new set didn't flicker. I jumped the gun a little. My new set does have a flickering problem, but it is much less that the first set. In fact during a movie last night it only flickered 3 times. The other set the same movie flickered like 50 times. I suppose it just depends on how it feels that day. This one is at least bearable. I am going to wait and see it it can be fixed with firmware update. It isn't worth the hastle to me to return this set again for the minimal amout of flickering that it is doing right now. If westy doesn't come out with a fix in like 6 months however, I will be exchanging it.

Aha! So, you do have flicker after all.. ;) I'm just messing around, sorry to hear that actually. I'm in the same boat as you, and hopefully this set will have a firmware upgrade or something by the end of the year. If it's not fixed and/or it doesn't seem like Westinghouse is actually trying to fix it, it'll be going back to Best Buy thanks to the extended service plan. 50 times is nuts with your first set, and it seems that there's definetly an issue with this set.. I would strongly encourage EVERYONE experiencing this problem to CALL WESTINGHOUSE and LOG THE ISSUE!

Mikeoz

07-05-07, 08:30 PM

Well, it's not that I've accepted them so much as I'm just going to have to accept them period. In my case increasing the brightness does little to help the problem and only reduces dynamic range on the display.

I just tried tinkering with the tv and contrast seems to make no difference with black levels..? :confused: I'm watching POTC: Curse of the black pearl via the ps3, and the difference between a brightness setting of 62 and 45 is astounding. So much black level is lost between 45 and 62 I don't find it watchable. The contrast doesn't seem to make a big difference, I've upped it to 60. To keep the colors looking better I've set the Saturation to 50, and it helps. I've tried changing Super White On and Off and it doesn't seem to make any difference..?

How does increasing the brightness reduce the dynamic range of the display? I would think the dynamic range is effectively equal, just the range is shifted upwards so that now the crushed black are now visible..?

The one thing I find very annoying about setting the Brightness to 62 is that it makes the horizontal black bars more visible for letterbox movies (since more light is let by the pixels) in a very dark room. I guess this is largely a problem with lcd's in general, rather than this set.

I did do some brief tinkering with the Dynamic Contrast mode and like you mentioned, it's surprisingly fairly effective. It largely seems to brighten up darker pictures and darken bright pictures at times, but it actually looks like it's doing a decent job. It seems like it does a decent job brightening up some darker parts of the image which helps the black levels on some darker scenes. I'll have to try it out over different scenes, but honestly it seems like it could be a useful feature.

Xcalibur_255

07-05-07, 09:26 PM

I just tried tinkering with the tv and contrast seems to make no difference with black levels..? :confused: I'm watching POTC: Curse of the black pearl via the ps3, and the difference between a brightness setting of 62 and 45 is astounding. So much black level is lost between 45 and 62 I don't find it watchable. The contrast doesn't seem to make a big difference, I've upped it to 60. To keep the colors looking better I've set the Saturation to 50, and it helps. I've tried changing Super White On and Off and it doesn't seem to make any difference..?

How does increasing the brightness reduce the dynamic range of the display? I would think the dynamic range is effectively equal, just the range is shifted upwards so that now the crushed black are now visible..?

The one thing I find very annoying about setting the Brightness to 62 is that it makes the horizontal black bars more visible for letterbox movies (since more light is let by the pixels) in a very dark room. I guess this is largely a problem with lcd's in general, rather than this set.

I did do some brief tinkering with the Dynamic Contrast mode and like you mentioned, it's surprisingly fairly effective. It largely seems to brighten up darker pictures and darken bright pictures at times, but it actually looks like it's doing a decent job. It seems like it does a decent job brightening up some darker parts of the image which helps the black levels on some darker scenes. I'll have to try it out over different scenes, but honestly it seems like it could be a useful feature.
For any given combination of source component and display there is going to be a single set of values for brightness and contrast that maximize the displayable range of grey on the tv. This is the whole reason for test patterns. Once you have set video black and video white correctly using patterns the entire dynamic range from 0-255 is visible. Increasing the brightness control after you've found video black (in my case it's around 40) only raises the black floor and what the color of black can be represented by on the display. Say, for example, we ratchet the control up a bit and now the displaying range of white on the tv is now 30-255. There is a portion of the video spectrum that you're simply throwing away. It's hard to explain the relationship between this and gamma, but basically a portion of the picture information is gone because of the low gamma on the tv and there's nothing that will bring it back. You can bring the shadow details back out by raising brightness but then you're basically setting video black on your tv as a very light color of black around 15 IRE. The other choice is to keep the improved contrast and set the brightness where it's supposed to be and just accept what the tv is doing to the shadow details. It's personal preference but either way we're being cheated out of picture detail. I honestly haven't decided how I'll play it, but as much as I hate missing shadow detail I also hate weak contrast and the washed out look that goes with it. A natural picture that still has great contrast is heaven, and with a considerable portion of my viewing material being stuff that doesn't contain alot of black or dark scenes I've just made the compromise that works best for me.

I came from a CRT so either choice is a hard pill to swallow, but there are plenty of positives to focus on as well. If the tv were any more expensive I would be mighty ticked off about this issue, but it's pretty foolhardy to expect perfection from a budget model. I think we're getting our money's worth all things considered.

flabioh

07-05-07, 09:26 PM

Here is a picture of my setup. I still need to cleanup the cables behind the TV but the height is perfect and I personally think it looks great!

http://lhelan.org/images/lcdtv-small.jpg

Coastsider

07-05-07, 10:02 PM

I know that Westinghouse did come up with a firmware update to fix some issues with the LVM series but I'm not sure how it was distributed since that line doesn't have a usb port. My guess is that it was applied to sets that were sent back in (as well as the shipping firmware on later builds). I wonder if they ever sent any techs out to do housecalls?

The LVM series firmware was updated through unused connections in the VGA input with some sort of a dongle that was connected to a laptop. I sort of remember that there were a few instances reported on this forum where techs actually did house calls to update firmware in that fashion but I don't think it happened a lot. My original LVM, an early build 42W2, had the initial firmware version and worked great until it was a year old when I bought a Panasonic BD10 Blu-ray player with which it did have HDMI issues. I sold it and bought a 47W1 which has the latest (and last) firmware version. Consequently I have had no personal experience with LVM firmware updates.

Mikeoz

07-05-07, 10:32 PM

It's hard to explain the relationship between this and gamma, but basically a portion of the picture information is gone because of the low gamma on the tv and there's nothing that will bring it back. You can bring the shadow details back out by raising brightness but then you're basically setting video black on your tv as a very light color of black around 15 IRE. The other choice is to keep the improved contrast and set the brightness where it's supposed to be and just accept what the tv is doing to the shadow details. It's personal preference but either way we're being cheated out of picture detail.

Thanks for the good explanation. Like you've said, the issue seems to be with the low "gamma" of the tv. Using this image: Link (http://www.pbase.com/jackcnd/image/75285378/original), the TV can't display the whole range of 0-255 with any setting. With a brightness setting of 62, this puts the visual range from about 8-248. With the brightness set to 40, it makes the visible range from about 32-255. I understand your point that raising the brightness really shifts the brightness spectrum up (making black less black), but I guess that's a personal decision for each of us then. For people who have these in brightly lit rooms, it seems less of an issue raising the brightness, since absolute black levels aren't nearly as important.

Regarding the contrast setting, I see what you mean regarding contrast affecting the brightness, but it only seems to make a big difference when contrast is very low, like <30. Everything above say 30 or so seems to make very little difference for the brightness. The strange thing is that whites don't seem to crush till you get to a very high contrast setting. Optimally shouldn't the highest level be used w/o experiencing white crush?

When playing around with the dynamic contrast setting it seems to vary the brightness of different parts of the image. This could theoretically raise the brightness (and have less black crush) during dark scenes, and lower the brightness during bright scenes to allow better white contrast. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work quite that well, but it does a better job than I thought it would do.

x84HurstOlds

07-05-07, 10:52 PM

My friend lucked into a Series 3 TiVo as part of Best Buy a warranty replacement for his busted Series 2. He doesn't have an HDTV, and this Westinghouse would be his first. He is used to having 180+ hours of storage and thinks he will record many shows in SD instead of HD to save disk space. I tell him that he won't because HD is so game-changing that he'll change his viewing habits, but, just in case he does, he wants to be able to zoom widescreen SD programming. I didn't even think to see if the TiVo would do what he wants.

I'm assuming the TiVo's aspect ratio control only works with SD content? Does it work only when it sends SD content in its native resolution, or does it also work when it upconverts SD content for you? (I've found that my Motorola DVR does a better job upconverting 480i content than my Westinghouse 32w6 does). Will it take the zoomed picture and upconvert it to 1080i? That would be pretty cool.

Yes, my experience is that the TiVo's aspect ratio control works with SD only. I think the TiVo's scaler is a bit better than the Westy's for 480i broadcasts, bearing in mind that the TiVo only goes up to 1080i, so I guess the Westy is just line doubling at that point. I haven't done extensve testing yet, though, just a quick look. It's harder to tell with 720p and 1080i, I need to do more testing.

He should not have to choose between lots of hours and HD recording. Even if he doesn't want to crack open the box, he can add up to a 1 TB external HDD - tell him to google "Kickstart 62". I added a 750GB Seagate FreeAgent Pro drive, it was on sale at BestBuy.com for $200. I believe 1080i takes 5-8 GB/Hour, so 1 TB is...a bunch. Using Tivo's estimate of 32 hours HD for the stock unit, you could say 128 hours, but I'd guess it's more...bitrates, 720P vs. 1080i, and then figure a few SD recordings that weren't available in HD.

As far as zooming upscaled, I think it does, need to check. Yup, it does :D

Ed

msattler

07-05-07, 11:03 PM

Here is a picture of my setup. I still need to cleanup the cables behind the TV but the height is perfect and I personally think it looks great!

http://lhelan.org/images/lcdtv-small.jpg

Very nice setup! I like how the top of the TV is even with the top of the cabinets. I'll have to get pics of my setup on here, but I'm trying to hide the yellow walls from the previous tenants. Speaking of colors, is there any particular colors I should stay away from, or go to? It's a pretty dark room, just am not sure which color to goto.

Thanks,
Marcus

Bob Dobbs

07-05-07, 11:09 PM

I've had my second set for almost 30 days and I will be going back to BB to pick up the performance plan before the 30 day window runs out. The way I see it is that so long as you have the extended warranty from BB, if the set goes down anytime within 4 years then they will have to either fix it or give you a new one.

I think the TX definitely deserves a second chance - there just isn't anything out there that will provide the same bang for your buck.

Sure, there are some issues as there are with any set, but everyone must keep in mind that we are all in possession of the first build and first firmware release. Westinghouse will undoubtedly address some of these issues in later builds/firmware releases. I'm sure they hate seeing sets being returned to the store as much as well all hate hauling them back.

Well I agree it is worth a 2nd chance, and I've got my second one up right now, 1 hour old... Less dead pixels (4 vs 9 total on the 1st set) and only 1 is bright green that I can see at 6 ft... BUT... UGGGG more Maura / light leak on the lower right side (1st TV did'nt have any...) but I can't see that when there is anything going on...

So. Now I wait, and hope.

flabioh

07-05-07, 11:18 PM

Very nice setup! I like how the top of the TV is even with the top of the cabinets. I'll have to get pics of my setup on here, but I'm trying to hide the yellow walls from the previous tenants. Speaking of colors, is there any particular colors I should stay away from, or go to? It's a pretty dark room, just am not sure which color to goto.

Thanks,
Marcus
Thanks! Though I can't take credit for the decorative look. It is nice to have a woman's touch every once in a while. This is the first time we've had electronics in our entertainment center that cost as much as our entertainment center. :)

msattler

07-05-07, 11:25 PM

Thanks! Though I can't take credit for the decorative look. It is nice to have a woman's touch every once in a while. This is the first time we've had electronics in our entertainment center that cost as much as our entertainment center. :)

I was actually tempted to mount the small Theathre in a box speakers next to the tv because they look so odd on the entertainment center. But I see you have done the same thing. I guess I need to buy some speaker stands, expecially with the new layout, I can no longer mount the rear speakers behind the couch due to a lack of a wall. I patched the holes on Wall #1 today from where I was dealing with the metal studs. Just need to paint now.

Watching Planet Earth on this Tv is awesome, compared to my old 42" Philips Plasma <9630> I think this picture is much better. It just took some time to get used to the non shiny display? If that makes sense.

-Marcus

Mikeoz

07-06-07, 12:09 AM

Just an update.. I was finally able to find a test image designed for the ps3 and it seems like maybe brightness of 62 was too high for the ps3..

For anyone that has Casino Royale for blu-ray, you can enter 7669 at the menu and it will take you to a test screen. There's a pluge bar in the bottom right which I believe is meant to be used to calibrate BTB/WTW. I have my ps3 set to auto, and it's passing the image via YCbCr rather than RGB. I have superwhite turned on.

With this test image, I get the ideal brightness of 56. This is going by the pluge bar.

Could anyone else with a ps3 and casino royale give this a shot also? I'm not sure where contrast should be but I've left it to 60. I'm thinking my previous settings were off since I was using the pc connected to the tv rather than the ps3. I haven't tried other movies, but jumping through some scenes on casino royale, it looks like the ideal setting for brightness.

SeaVee29

07-06-07, 05:15 AM

Can anyone please confirm if their Closed Captioning is working - especially if using a DirectTV Hi Def DVR connected to either HDMI or Component????

It is NOT working for my in-laws 47" unless I am connecting an OTA antenna on the COAX input..... CC is totally disfunctional with their DirecTV R-10 (standard definition) DVR connected to the S-Video input (they are currently waiting for delivery of the newer D* Hi-def DVR).

If I can;t get confirmation CC works on the other inputs this set has to go back to BB.

I called Westinghouse Tech Support and the guy told me that CC will ONLY work on these sets via the COAX input :eek: :eek: :eek: which I find hard to believe.

The tech rep however did not seem all that informed about CC though....

flabioh

07-06-07, 07:54 AM

I was actually tempted to mount the small Theathre in a box speakers next to the tv because they look so odd on the entertainment center. But I see you have done the same thing. I guess I need to buy some speaker stands, expecially with the new layout, I can no longer mount the rear speakers behind the couch due to a lack of a wall. I patched the holes on Wall #1 today from where I was dealing with the metal studs. Just need to paint now.

Watching Planet Earth on this Tv is awesome, compared to my old 42" Philips Plasma <9630> I think this picture is much better. It just took some time to get used to the non shiny display? If that makes sense.

-Marcus

Yeah, I'm still debating what to do with my speakers as well, but I guess they don't look too odd sitting on the stand. It would be a little weird if that stand were completely empty.

pauldarkjr

07-06-07, 10:41 AM

Xcalibur_255

07-06-07, 12:28 PM

Thanks for the good explanation. Like you've said, the issue seems to be with the low "gamma" of the tv. Using this image: Link (http://www.pbase.com/jackcnd/image/75285378/original), the TV can't display the whole range of 0-255 with any setting. With a brightness setting of 62, this puts the visual range from about 8-248. With the brightness set to 40, it makes the visible range from about 32-255. I understand your point that raising the brightness really shifts the brightness spectrum up (making black less black), but I guess that's a personal decision for each of us then. For people who have these in brightly lit rooms, it seems less of an issue raising the brightness, since absolute black levels aren't nearly as important.

Regarding the contrast setting, I see what you mean regarding contrast affecting the brightness, but it only seems to make a big difference when contrast is very low, like <30. Everything above say 30 or so seems to make very little difference for the brightness. The strange thing is that whites don't seem to crush till you get to a very high contrast setting. Optimally shouldn't the highest level be used w/o experiencing white crush?

When playing around with the dynamic contrast setting it seems to vary the brightness of different parts of the image. This could theoretically raise the brightness (and have less black crush) during dark scenes, and lower the brightness during bright scenes to allow better white contrast. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work quite that well, but it does a better job than I thought it would do.
I really do need to get a PC hooked up to mine so I can try some different test patterns. The results from digital video essentials isn't that bad for me. I'm missing about the bottom 6-8% of the range, but that still doesn't explain why I get different results with different test patterns. Black level being set by the pluge test is a very reliable and time tested method and I've never had an issue before. My set's brightness has been set by this test. I can see the 1 and 2 percent bars right there, so that performance should hold up in dark movie scenes as well but it does not. I'm quite befuddled really. Any other tv I've ever worked with the results of this test give you your correct video black and you're done, end of story. The quality of video black is important to me because my equipment is in a basement where it is always pretty dark.

You're correct about the contrast. Using the link you just posted ramp up your contrast until you see the 248 bar disappear (blend into the 255 bar that is), then back it down about 5-6 clicks until the 248 bar is clearly differentiated from the 255 bar again. This will set video white to achieve maximum headroom. For me and the Oppo this ends up being a value of 77-78. Quite a bit higher than what most here are using. I'm running it somewhat lower because it's merely a personal preference of mine. 70 seems to be working for me which is still much higher than I've seen others post. I always lowballed the contrast on my CRT set to avoid phosphor blooming and now I'm just used to it I guess. It alters color rendition a bit and I've always liked that side effect. I encourage everybody to play around with this further. It should not further hurt any problems with shadow detail (I say should timidly because this tv does stuff with video levels that's just bizarre so I really can't say for sure, but it SHOULDN'T is my point) and will improve the set's midrange contrast considerably. I was unimpressed with the panel's overall performance until I found out how much this control needed to be increased to get the levels right. The picture is quite flat and weak looking at default or near default levels. I'm using 70 for just about everything now and it looks fine. If the highlights were being blown out it would definitely register with me since I hate that almost as much as crushed black, so I encourage everybody to try this a bit. You'll find you can probably drop your backlight another click as well getting closer to that magical 0 mark. Even set at 10 or 20 the whites on this tv make my eyes numb. Of course this is again in a dark room.

Kelvarr

07-06-07, 12:46 PM

Do these models have PiP/PoP/Split-Screen? It doesn't need to be with one tuner, but it would be nice if I could do that with different inputs like Component/Antenna.

Mikeoz

07-06-07, 01:19 PM

You're correct about the contrast. Using the link you just posted ramp up your contrast until you see the 248 bar disappear (blend into the 255 bar that is), then back it down about 5-6 clicks until the 248 bar is clearly differentiated from the 255 bar again. This will set video white to achieve maximum headroom.

Ya, the strage thing is that this TV doesn't look like it's possible to have the whole spectrum visible..?? Every other lcd I've used/tried works perfectly, and each range is visible with that test image (On my 22" lcd at home, 19" lcd at work, and GF's 19" lcd they ALL can display the whole range from 0-255?!). You said the "gamma" isn't correct so the tv itself is clipping the overall range possible through software? I would think the panel should be able to display all the various levels since computer monitors don't tend to have the best contrast ratios..

I'll give the contrast setting a try later on tonight. My experience when I crank up the contrast alot is that it appears to make the image a little washed out looking, it's kind of strange. I settled on brightness of 56 and contrast of 60 for the ps3. This was the ideal setting via the ps3 set by the pluge image on the casino royale disk.

bhazard

07-06-07, 01:21 PM

Do these models have PiP/PoP/Split-Screen? It doesn't need to be with one tuner, but it would be nice if I could do that with different inputs like Component/Antenna.

The chip in this TV can supposedly do all of that, but as of right now it is disabled in the firmware (and greyed out as an option). All we can hope is that they enable it in a firmware upgrade down the line, a service menu option, or if someone can hack the firmware to gain access to disabled features in the TV if they exist. The Trident chip inside this TV is supposedly a beast.

jrice

07-06-07, 01:41 PM

Just started looking at the Westinghouses. Is this particular model very bright?

Would everyone consider buying this one? As compared to other budget tvs such as vizio, and olevia?

PanzerBoxb

07-06-07, 03:00 PM

Hey PanzerBoxb,

What driver are you using with your Nvidia Go 7800 GTX laptop video card? What is the make and model of your laptop? Thanks for the info. I have a Dell E1705 with a GO 7800 GTX (dell) that will not display via the DVI output...with any driver(mod or standard)..strange. I have swapped out 2 other Nvidia GO 7800 GTX cards....with the same result. All of my 3 x GO 7800 video cards will output via DVI and VGA, but the GTX will not. Thanks for your input

~b3nz0n8

Hey b3nz, sorry for the late response but I have been out of the loop for a bit. My laptop is a Dell XPS M170. I believe I have the stock drivers available from the Dell support site but I will try to verify that this weekend.

Today is the last day for me to get the PSP from BestBuy and I am torn on whether to do it or not.

midway

07-06-07, 03:02 PM

Hey guys, some more thoughts on the black level/contrast issues. After playing with the settings for a couple of weeks now, I'm pretty much in the same boat as excalibur, except I've gone the other way with regards to shadow detail. These are my current settings:

Brightness - 58

Contrast - 48
Saturation - 38
Sharpness - 0
Backlight - 0 at night or with room light blocked, 10-20 for daytime viewing
Color Temp - Warm

The maddening thing is that I find myself essentially "EQing" the brightness and contrast controls with each and every program I watch. For sports and most HD content I use settings similar to Xcalibur's, while I use the ones above for movies and DVDs. Movies in particular make the black crush below 58 or so unbearable. For example, watching King Kong last night in HD, there are scenes where Kong himself fills two thirds of the screen even though it is daylight. In these shots, leaving the brightness at 41 and contrast at 69 results in literally half the screen having crushed blacks, i.e. no shadow detail whatsoever in Kong's body, just a mass of black. Pushing the brightness up restores a massive amount of detail in the shot, probably half of the total picture information or so.

Like xcalibur, on my old CRT and my LCD monitors dialing in the black levels and contrast would literally take all of a minute, depending on how anal I wanted to be about the crossover point for the first gray or white step. It's now been almost four weeks with this set and I've basically gotten nowhere in terms of coming up with a satisfying compromise.

So, as an experiment, I wanted to see if I could figure out what the default gamma curve on the TX was despite the lack of access to the service menu. To do so, I restored the default values of the set, i.e. 50 on brightness and contrast, etc., then went into the Nvidia control panel's gamma settings. Then, I set my desktop background to display a full grayscale ramp from 0-255, and attempted to use the advanced gamma curve on the color corrections menu to restore the grayscale to its proper levels using only the Nvidia custom curve points, i.e. leaving the TX controls untouched. In doing so, my primary goal was to restore an even ramp across the grayscale while displaying the full grayscale from 0-255. To do so, however, required not only bringing the black floor on the bottom end of the scale way up from its base but I also had to bring the white ceiling way down in order to get a decent rolloff at the top of the curve. In theory, it seems to me that this curve should be the mirror image of the TX's default gamma profile, and if it is, then it is definitely way off or configured for the wrong colorspace. In particular, when I bring the white ceiling down, it seems to resolve one of the issues others have noted; doing so makes the value changes between 55 and 75 or so on the contrast menu of the TX much more noticeable and useful.

In any case, when I completed the curve adjustment, the grayscale ramp did look proper from top to bottom. Unfortunately the price for doing so was a much higher black floor and a much lower white ceiling for the 0 and 255 value points. In effect, this results in a vastly lowered contrast ratio between the lowest blacks and the highest whites. Thus, right now I have to choose between a proper, complete grayscale ramp with a much higher black floor, and a much lower white "ceiling," or instead crush blacks and nearly crush whites in order to obtain the full potential contrast ratio and FL (foot lamberts) range of the panel. To me, at least, it seems that the gamma profile and or default colorspace settings look to be way off, but if others have thoughts on what's going on with my little experiment, or things they'd like me to try, let me now.

BB will be taking my damaged set away for me this weekend, and the replacement would take a few weeks to get to me, so I might instead wait this out and see if Westinghouse issues a firmware change, or if service codes become available; for now the set is becoming very frustrating.

bhazard

07-06-07, 03:34 PM

xnappo

07-06-07, 03:50 PM

Midway,

As an experiment, I also tried changing the seperate RGB values to the LVM's original recommended profile

Red: 232
Green: 220
Blue: 255

The brightness went way up, but colors seemed to stay somewhat accurate. Greyscale test patterns were still off, but maybe using this setting with much lower brightness/contrast settings can produce a better picture. I havent seen anyone try this yet with values in this area.

Otherwise, we need to bug Westinghouse to fix the gamma issue.

I was wondering about that - since this is the only other knob we can turn right now, it seems like it is worth playing with. Will experiment this weekend. Right now I am using numbers almost exactly the same as yours and am pretty happy.

Has anyone tried the LVM service menu entry scheme(below)?

1. With the set OFF, Press and Hold the “VOL –“ + “Input” buttons on the right side of the set. Holding these buttons, press “POWER”.

2. If done correctly, the Westinghouse Logo on the front of the set will begin to “blink”.

3. Now, from the Original Remote Control, press the “RETURN” key. This is not the “Enter” key, but the curved arrow key on the Remote.

4. You have now entered Service Mode. You can change the RGB settings here.

5. To Leave Service Mode, bring up the Standard OSD Menu. Under “GENERAL SETTING” select “FACTORY RESET”. This will reset your settings in the OSD, but keep any changes you made to the Service Menu.

I will try this this weekend too...

xnappo

skobar

07-06-07, 04:19 PM

bhazard

07-06-07, 04:36 PM

Has anyone tried the LVM service menu entry scheme(below)?

Be careful, I tried this with energy saver on. Not only did it not work, it froze the TV. Unplugging it fixed it. Try any button combo with energy saver off only.

Xcalibur_255

07-06-07, 05:10 PM

Excellent work midway. I agree with your conclusion. It's possible to get the entire scale visible on the display but not without giving it the contrast performance of a cheap old TN monitor. Lack of overall picture contrast really makes me feel like I've wasted my money here so I took the other road and took the black crush. I'm not a huge movie watcher so it's not a full time annoyance for me personally. Something is afoot with the signal processing and the way the video processor is handing things here. I'm really wanting to see audioholics publish a review of this set because they include a full gamma curve and indepth analysis of greyscale performance. A professional review would provide the evidence necessary for owners to go to Westinghouse and request they write a firmware revision that corrects this performance issue. The panel itself and the hardware are not an issue at all, this can be fixed through firmware. Considering the LVM series had a gamma curve about as good as one can achieve on an LCD I have to wonder what the westy people were thinking. How do you screw up something you got right last year?

bhazard

07-06-07, 05:55 PM

shong

07-06-07, 06:10 PM

I skimmed through the postings that dealt with PC connections through DVI/HDMI cables and it seemed like most people were having problems with the picture. The problem I am having is that the display is not being detected at all.

I am using the 42"TX, Dell E1705 laptop with DVI out (I've used it on a lot of other LCD monitors and it works fine), Geforce 7900GS, MobileForce drivers 94.20, Windows XP, and the HDMI DVI Cable 28AWG - 6ft from monoprice.

I've tried the "force tv detection" and nothing changed. Any ideas whats wrong? If anyone using a laptop with Geforce Mobileforce drivers has their DVI/HDMI connection working, can they post their driver version?

Thanks in advance

bhazard

07-06-07, 06:54 PM

xnappo

07-06-07, 07:18 PM

Bob Dobbs

07-06-07, 07:37 PM

ouch.... so sorwii... that sucks. good luck collecting from your sis

oniijin

07-06-07, 07:38 PM

Xcalibur_255

07-06-07, 07:39 PM

Xcalibur,

Have you tried upping the RGB values into the upper 200 range yet? Doing so seems to increase brightness, and may allow the lower range of blacks to be tweaked with lower brightness/contrast settings. I haven't been able to figure it out myself, but I think a fix lies within here until the firmware is fixed.

I don't have the proper test screens to make adjustments with it because I have no computer free to connect to the set. My personal machine is a royal pain to get out of the desk. Single value RGB controls can only really alter the set's color temperature since the values defined in it are very relative in relation to the normal controls. So long as they're not increased to the point of clipping color detail it really doesn't matter where they are set. For example you could have all your user controls set calibrated the way you like then lower the RGB values by about 30 each. This would drop the color and picture brightness some. If you adjust the corresponding user controls back up a bit you'd arrive right back at the exact same picture you had before. The only thing the RGB control is good for is setting white balance (color temprature), and since this is already good in warm mode I don't see much of a use for fooling with them. More advanced RGB controls that control both the low and high window can help correct variances in greyscale tracking across the greyscale range, but they still don't help us solve the dynamic range problem at hand. This is purely a gamma tracking issue IMO and without a gamma control or access to very advanced controls that probably aren't even in this set's service menu our only hope of a fix is to improve the firmware code for the video processing.

Xcalibur_255

07-06-07, 07:41 PM

Now this is just wonderful.

My sister just called me and said that while playing with the Wii, the remote slipped out of her hand and went into the TV. Apparently now the screen is all messed up with pink lines and other garbage all over the place.

I'm pretty sure this isn't covered under warranty, so my sister owes me about $1,500. This sucks. I didn't even own the TV for a month.
Ouch. The Wiimote claims another victim. :eek: It's surprisingly easy to destroy the TFT matrix with even a small amount of sharp pressure applied to the screen. They're fairly fragile that way.

irshliquor

07-06-07, 07:42 PM

xnappo

07-06-07, 07:51 PM

For example you could have all your user controls set calibrated the way you like then lower the RGB values by about 30 each. This would drop the color and picture brightness some.

Normally I would completely agree - but with the weird interaction between contrast and brightness controls that occur with this set maybe the RGB values will behave differently?

xnappo

boxer0987

07-06-07, 10:48 PM

I was wandering if anyone who has the TX-47 could measure the base it comes with so I can see if it will fit on my entertainment center. Thanks.

dustout

07-07-07, 01:08 AM

Now this is just wonderful.

My sister just called me and said that while playing with the Wii, the remote slipped out of her hand and went into the TV. Apparently now the screen is all messed up with pink lines and other garbage all over the place.

I'm pretty sure this isn't covered under warranty, so my sister owes me about $1,500. This sucks. I didn't even own the TV for a month.
thats terrible, if that happened to me i would be pissed. While playing Call of duty i threw the remote at the screen one time while i did a punch (for the PS), thankfully it was a tube TV. If i did it with the westy i think i'd be the first person to mess up a nice tv with the ps remote lol.

elenaran

07-07-07, 01:23 AM

Now this is just wonderful.

My sister just called me and said that while playing with the Wii, the remote slipped out of her hand and went into the TV. Apparently now the screen is all messed up with pink lines and other garbage all over the place.

I'm pretty sure this isn't covered under warranty, so my sister owes me about $1,500. This sucks. I didn't even own the TV for a month.

Hah, that sucks. There are about 100 warning screens on the Wii saying to use the wrist straps...

chiahatesyou

07-07-07, 03:01 AM

dunno if this is reported yet..but:

PC runnin an ati radeon 9600, dvi-hdmi. messed with it for a while, finally got it to display 1920x1080 @ 60hz. shows up as 1080p on the lcd info. had to uncheck two dvi settings in catalyst. if anyone else is havin trouble with radeon...try that

hehe what settings? where were they, the only DVI one I saw was under the DVI settings and Attributes I didnt see another one to uncheck

skobar

07-07-07, 08:42 AM

I was wandering if anyone who has the TX-47 could measure the base it comes with so I can see if it will fit on my entertainment center. Thanks.

The measures are in the first post. With and without the base.

skobar

07-07-07, 08:43 AM

I have a weird issue with the internal speaker. When I switch input or if I change channel I can hear the sound for 1 seconds than nothing. After 10 seconds, the sound comes back and stays until I switch channel or input again. Also, when I turn off the subwoofer in the audio menu, there is no sound at all and it never comes on.

Anyone else got this problem?

Well the problem is gone for whatever reason. I wake up turn on the tv and it is not doing it anymore.... If I turn the subwoofer, the sound now stays on... Hope it does not come back.

CapnChaos

07-07-07, 09:25 AM

I think this my first post here...but I've been lurking for quite a while :)

I just had a scare with my new TX-42F430S so I thought I'd share what happened. I have had zero problems up until now...but last night I decided to program our cable box remote for the new tv (it's a SA 8300HD btw). I was cycling through the codes and finally got the tv to shut off like it's supposed to. Unfortunately it wouldn't turn back on. It was just stuck with an amber led and neither the cable box remote nor the original would turn it back on. It didn't even show the W when it turned on. I really thought I busted the tv somehow. I tried unplugging it for a while and plugging it back it, but it was no good.

I decided to read back through this thread and found a couple people with similar problems and it was mentioned to to try unplugging all the inputs. Well, I only unplugged the HDMI going to the cable box. Unplugged the tv and plugged it back in and...SUCCESS! My tv was alive again.

What's strange is this is easily repeatable. Any time I shut the tv off with the cable remote, it goes to the amber led and will never turn back on. It shouldn't even go to amber, since I was using the E.Saver setting. This *doesn't* happen with the stock remote. It also *doesn't* happen if I don't use the E.Saver setting. So I've settled on using the cable remote with the E.Saver setting off.

Also in case anyone needs it, the remote code for the TX-42F430S and SA8300HD is 194 :p

skobar

07-07-07, 10:03 AM

Well the problem is gone for whatever reason. I wake up turn on the tv and it is not doing it anymore.... If I turn the subwoofer, the sound now stays on... Hope it does not come back.

arggg.. Problem is still there, it only happens when the sound is above 25 on the tv. I could use an amp instead but I'd like it to fully work. I'll get an exchange from bestbuy. Sad though because everything else is perfect. The screen is amazing. No dead pixel too.

boxer0987

07-07-07, 11:24 AM

Okay I realize the base is 10.5" deep but I need to know how wide the base is? It does not tell this. I can't believe no one has a tape measurer.

skobar

07-07-07, 12:32 PM

Okay I realize the base is 10.5" deep but I need to know how wide the base is? It does not tell this. I can't believe no one has a tape measurer.

25.5"

atomz

07-07-07, 12:40 PM

I just had a scare with my new TX-42F430S so I thought I'd share what happened. I have had zero problems up until now...but last night I decided to program our cable box remote for the new tv (it's a SA 8300HD btw). I was cycling through the codes and finally got the tv to shut off like it's supposed to. Unfortunately it wouldn't turn back on. It was just stuck with an amber led and neither the cable box remote nor the original would turn it back on. It didn't even show the W when it turned on. I really thought I busted the tv somehow. I tried unplugging it for a while and plugging it back it, but it was no good.

What's strange is this is easily repeatable. Any time I shut the tv off with the cable remote, it goes to the amber led and will never turn back on. It shouldn't even go to amber, since I was using the E.Saver setting. This *doesn't* happen with the stock remote. It also *doesn't* happen if I don't use the E.Saver setting. So I've settled on using the cable remote with the E.Saver setting off.

Also in case anyone needs it, the remote code for the TX-42F430S and SA8300HD is 194 :p

That is wild i didnt even have to enter a code in the remote for my SA8300HD and it worked right from the start. I am not using an HDMI cable yet still on component and am running it in E/Saver mode. Have you tried another cable set up other than HDMI to see what happens? Wonder if it is a tv or hdmi issue? DO you have a pink line on the bottom of your screen in 1080i mode?

I also have to say since all i have done really is complain so far about CC line and the purple line the HD picture is outstanding.

Bengalfang

07-07-07, 12:52 PM

Hello, I have been reading for 4 days now and have finally read/skimmed through all the posts in this thread. By the time I finish writing this there will be 10 more though. Anyway, I really want a good valued TV and I have about $2,000 to spend on it. The Westinghouse seems like a pretty good choice, even though there seems to be some issues. I figure the PSP will cover me with major issues. I am no expert when it comes to technical stuff and didn’t understand half of what was written but I hope you guys can help me out! I am also not a visual expert so the mura, crushed blacks and stuff might not even be noticeable to me, hence why this TV is probably a great idea for me. Anyway, I have a few questions:

1. Viewing distance: My living room is 10.5 feet wall to wall, so I figure with the couch and the set being moved forward a bit I’ll have 8-8.5 between my head and the TV. Is the 47” going to be ok at this distance? I’ve gone to many different LCD viewing distance guides and some say it would be ok and some say not. I am sure it is a bit set specific so I figure you guys would know.

2. PC hookup: I have a ATI Mobile Radeon X300 on a Dell Inspiron 6000. Am I going to be able to do anything with that? Too old? Too weak? I’d mainly like to watch Avi files (anime)from my laptop on my TV. Also gaming from it would be an option.

3. Stand: Does the stand the TV sits on swivel or anything. Can the TV be angled up and down at all?

4. Xbox360: I plan on getting ones of these one day. I know a lot of you have hooked it up already. I am wondering if it is easy or not. As I said I am not that great with stuff like this. Some of you ran into problems and switched this and bypassed this and ran this and I just didn’t understand a thing…. Can’t you just plug and play?

5. Cable Provider: I am going to start using BrightHouse Networks once I move into my new townhouse. Anyone have any experience with this network and the tv? Any issues, etc?

Thanks everyone who already posted, I got a lot of great info. And thanks in advance for any responses to my post.

Todd

oniijin

07-07-07, 01:04 PM

hehe what settings? where were they, the only DVI one I saw was under the DVI settings and Attributes I didnt see another one to uncheck

under my DTV(DVI) menu I have two options under the DVI settings.

reduce DVI frequency on hi-res displays
alternate DVI operational mode

I unchecked both of them to get the screen to even accept signal at 1080 res. before I did this it would only work at 1920x1080@30hz interlaced. now I can do 1920x1080@60hz. picture is superb

xnappo

07-07-07, 01:11 PM

I also have to say since all i have done really is complain so far about CC line and the purple line the HD picture is outstanding.

The pink line is not there over HDMI.

xnappo

xnappo

07-07-07, 01:14 PM

1. Viewing distance: My living room is 10.5 feet wall to wall, so I figure with the couch and the set being moved forward a bit I’ll have 8-8.5 between my head and the TV. Is the 47” going to be ok at this distance? I’ve gone to many different LCD viewing distance guides and some say it would be ok and some say not. I am sure it is a bit set specific so I figure you guys would know.

That is about what I am at - and it is great. Would a 52" be even better? Probably...

3. Stand: Does the stand the TV sits on swivel or anything. Can the TV be angled up and down at all?

No, the stand is fixed.

4. Xbox360: I plan on getting ones of these one day. I know a lot of you have hooked it up already. I am wondering if it is easy or not. As I said I am not that great with stuff like this. Some of you ran into problems and switched this and bypassed this and ran this and I just didn’t understand a thing…. Can’t you just plug and play?

No issues at all, just plug and play with either a VGA or component cable. Some people are having HDMI problems with PS3 though.

xnappo

chiahatesyou

07-07-07, 01:18 PM

under my DTV(DVI) menu I have two options under the DVI settings.

reduce DVI frequency on hi-res displays
alternate DVI operational mode

I unchecked both of them to get the screen to even accept signal at 1080 res. before I did this it would only work at 1920x1080@30hz interlaced. now I can do 1920x1080@60hz. picture is superb

Ill look into that DVI freq one

also when my tv warms up it pops a little... like rice krispies.. is this bad?

edit :

all I have is this

http://www.chiahatesyou.com/pics/chia/dvi.JPG

bhazard

07-07-07, 02:06 PM

Thank god I bought that PSP from Best Buy. Since the TV wouldn't turn back on after the whole Wii remote flying into it fiasco, Best Buy couldn't turn on the TV and exchanged the set. I (my sister) will be picking up the new TV tues. My sister even did the exchange for me (was forced to). All is well. :)

I also bugged Westy for the service menu code for the forum, but no luck so far. I'd say just keep asking for a fix on the gamma issue. It would be nice to get that code to see if we can squeeze more out of the TV though.

xnappo

07-07-07, 02:11 PM

PD4Ever

07-07-07, 09:58 PM

What is the general consensus on number of stuck/dead pixels? I have 2 stuck on my 42" I had delivered today. One red one that isnt noticable unless I'm looking for it, but I do have a blue stuck pixel about 3" left of the center of the TV that is really bothering me. It is super bright and shows up on nearly 3/4 of the time when I'm watching movies, especially dark films. I can see it sitting about 7-8 feet from the TV in these movies.
A couple pages back one guy took his back having 3 dead pixels but ended up with 7. Maybe I'm just being anal and I know that I cant expect all two million pixels to be perfect, but how many of you have either no dead pixels or at least nothing in the center of you display?
I'm wondering if I can just get used to it, but I spent alot of money to get 1080p, HD DVD, XBOX 360, and in a couple weeks a PS3, so I wonder if I should exchange it.
P.S. -- I also bought the 4 year service plan from Best Buy.

Thanks guys.

xnappo

07-07-07, 10:24 PM

What is the general consensus on number of stuck/dead pixels? I have 2 stuck on my 42" I had delivered today.

Thanks guys.

Hmm, well such things annoy me too - but I haven't noticed any stuck pixels. I would look at your blue defect carefully - if it is that noticeable I would guess it is actually 2-4 pixels stuck in the same area. Personally I would return it if it is noticeable from 8 feet away.

xnappo

flabioh

07-07-07, 11:27 PM

I thought I would share the calibration numbers I am using.

For my general TV usage through the internal tuner I am using the following:

Brightness - 59
Contrast - 69
Saturation - 55
Hue - 50
Sharpness - 25
Backlight - 30
Color Temp - Warm

This was tweaked to taste and I obviously could not use any type of proper calibration patterns on Live TV. This seems to work well for night and day viewing in general. The factory presets cause way too much harshness on the picture and really highlights the flaws found in SD broadcasts. These settings "hide" these flaws and makes the picture much better in my opinion.

I actually spent a great deal of time calibrating for VGA with the following values using actual test patterns:

Brightness - 67
Contrast - 51
Sat - 48
Hue - 50
Sharpness - 25
Backlight - 0
Color Temp - Warm

Using these settings I was able to see good detail in both whites and blacks. I was able to see full shaded range of all colors except in lighter shades of blue at the higher end. I still need to do more extensive testing (ie, lots and lots of movie watching), but so far very nice.

Of course, your mileage may vary.

xnappo

07-07-07, 11:36 PM

Rico2

07-07-07, 11:41 PM

chiahatesyou

07-08-07, 01:21 AM

I'd take it back. One store has a policy about 8 bad pixels before it's considered a bad unit, saying it was some sort of industry standard. Sounded like BS. So I placed my order with another store with a more reasonable return policy.

I agree... I wouldn't accept 1 dead pixel on my screen

if I had of seen one I would immediately return this tv for an exchange or refund... if they tried that 8 pixel bs on me we would have problems :)

here is my nerd sanctuary hehe

http://www.chiahatesyou.com/pics/chia/desk.jpg

Exodian

07-08-07, 03:42 AM

flabioh

07-08-07, 09:30 AM

Here's mine... Still a work in progress:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1308/751094531_38fc570004.jpg

xnappo

Looks very nice! How are you hiding the power cable? Do you have an outlet mounted behind the TV?

xnappo

07-08-07, 11:14 AM

Looks very nice! How are you hiding the power cable? Do you have an outlet mounted behind the TV?

Thanks! I am running them through the wall... Don't tell any electricians ;) .

xnappo

xnappo

07-08-07, 11:19 AM

Sometimes my set has gotten into a weird state via HDMI etc where it won't respond to buttons like others have mentioned. Unplugging it and plugging it back in fixes it.

I discovered by accident that holding down power (on the side) for 10 second or so, then pressing it one more time will force a reboot. This is probably better for the set than unplugging the cord...

xnappo

chrpai

07-08-07, 12:23 PM

Has anyone tried the LVM service menu entry scheme(below)?

I followed your directions on a TX-47 and it didn't work.

Exodian

07-08-07, 01:20 PM

Update:

I'm able to get HDMI 2 to display the PC's input after changing sources by switching back and hitting my shortcut to flip the screen inverted. This seems to "refresh" the signal via DVI and the TV picks it up again. It would appear to me that the either the computer isn't sending a constant signal via DVI or the HDMI port has issues with detecting a signal once a link has already been established and switched away from. Certainly annoying, but at least there is a temporary workaround.

imit8

07-08-07, 01:55 PM

I recently purchased this panel and I'm absolutely thrilled with it. I bought a DVI-HDMI cable today and the picture from my PC is absolutely flawless now. However, if I switch to any other input from HDMI 2 (the current PC input) I get No Signal Detected when I try to switch back. If I unplug the HDMI cable and let the TV autoswitch upon reconnection it works fine. I've unplugged the TV from wall to reset everything but this did not help.

Any thoughts? The DVI connection looks great and I would hate to use VGA.
I have the same issue with my HTPC. It's a Windows Vista box with an AGP ATI Radeon 9600SE connected with a DVI->HDMI adapter, running Catalst drivers 7.4. If I switch inputs and switch back fairly quickly, I can sometimes maintain a signal, but if I turn the set off and back on I get no signal. Many others have reported a similar problem with ATI cards at another forum here:

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/195638/ShowThread.aspx

I have better luck with my second PC running Windows XP and a PCIe ATI Radeon X800 using Omega drivers 6.05. This PC is able to reliably maintain the signal when switching inputs, so the problem seems to be a driver/hardware issue with my 9600SE under Vista.

Exodian

07-08-07, 02:09 PM

Imit8:

Thanks very much for the link. It's good to know that the issue is with the driver and not the monitor or card as this should be a much easier fix. I'll keep monitoring that thread and maybe file a bug report with ATI. I'll have to keep using my shortcut key workaround until they decide to fix it. I can't believe they've gone through four driver releases without addressing this issue!

Thanks again.

mnksauce

07-08-07, 02:27 PM

has there been any update with 5.1 sound coming out of the TV?

i've just about read this entire thread and it seems that its possible. I don't really care about 5.1 coming off of live TV, but are people able to extract 5.1 off of a PS3 via HDMI from the optical out?

imit8

07-08-07, 02:51 PM

I picked up a TX-42F430S at the end of June and wanted to report back with my experiences. First, some quick info about my set:

Software version: 5110_1.1.0
Build-on date: 2007 April 13
Dead pixels: None
Stuck pixels: 5 (none clustered or in the center of the display, so I'm OK with it)
HDMI cables: All 6-foot from Monoprice

Here are the devices/inputs I've tried with the TV:

SD cable channels using built-in tuner over coaxial (no cable box)

[480i] Looks quite good. No issues to report.

HD network channels using built-in tuner over coaxial (no cable box)

[720p and 1080i] Looks great; I had a temporary issue with audio stutter that went away and seemed to be a problem with my cable company's feed. As reported elsewhere, even when over-the-air stations send programming with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround audio, the TV will not pass the multichannel audio to a receiver connected over the S/PDIF audio output. I have since switched to using a cable box as a tuner instead (see below) and this is no longer an issue for me.

SD and HD cable channels using Motorola QIP6416 cable box (Verizon FIOS service) over HDMI

[1080i] Looks great and works around the quirks listed above with the internal tuner. Multichannel 5.1 audio sent from the cable box to the TV over the HDMI connection does pass through intact to a receiver connected to the TV by S/PDIF. I had to enable "passthrough" for HDMI audio using the box's hidden menu (turn off, then press MENU).

Verizon pushed out a guide software update ("IMG 2.0") around September that introduced some display corruption that wasn't present in the old guide software. The leftmost inch of the screen is slightly mispositioned from the rest of the image. The software update also introduced a thin pink line at the right side of the screen which I was able to change to black by switching the colorspace in the box's hidden menu. Others have reported these same display issues on other common TV brands and I'm hoping the next software update will correct them.

Nintendo Wii over component (YPbPr)

[480i and 480p] Looks acceptable, but upscaling and stretching the video signal really brings out the lack of detail in the Wii's graphics. The 480i signal actually looks smoother than the 480p signal for certain screens.

Philips DVP5982/37 DVD player over HDMI

[1080p] Looks great. Unlike with my cable box, multichannel audio sent to the TV through the HDMI connection will not pass through intact to a receiver connected to the TV by S/PDIF. The audio ends up in stereo by the time it reaches the receiver. I blame the DVD player, not the TV, since the cable box has an option for this and the DVD player does not. I now run digital audio straight from the DVD player to my receiver so this isn't an issue.

6 weeks after TV purchase I experienced the dreaded flickering issue that many have reported with the PlayStation 3. While watching a video file (played off a USB stick incidentally) the picture briefly flashed black and back on, perhaps 3 times during a half-hour. I've used the DVD player for at least several hours with the TV and haven't had this issue before, but I will be watching for it now. My player is hooked up to the TV on HDMI2, and as others have reported, the HDMI1 port seems to have fewer issues. I may rewire if the flickering keeps occurring, but so far I haven't experienced it with any of my other devices on the other inputs.

Toshiba HD-A3 HD DVD player over HDMI and component (YPbPr)

[1080i] Looks amazing, but had serious flickering issues over HDMI. Periodically the screen would go black for a half-second or so, the same issue others have reported with the PlayStation 3 and this TV. The problem was chronic when plugged into the HDMI4 port on the TV, less frequent on HDMI2 and HDMI1 but still often enough to make discs completely unwatchable. This is disappointing but perhaps a future firmware update to the player will help (I'm using HD-A3 firmware 1.1).

I switched to a component connection to sidestep the flickering. The picture looks slightly softer than over HDMI but since the player only outputs 1080i anyway the difference is negligible. Over component I am now seeing the flickering purple line at the bottom of the screen that others have reported. Turning off "deinterlace" in the TV's settings eliminates the purple line but causes a gray line at the bottom for HDMI sources. My low-tech solution will be a strip of electrical tape to cover up the bottom 1-2 pixels of the display.

I'm sending audio straight to my receiver and did not test multichannel audio passthrough from the HD-A3 via the TV.

Windows Vista HTPC with AGP ATI Radeon 9600SE (Catalyst drivers 7.4) via DVI to HDMI adapter

[1920x1080 (1080p) @ 60Hz] Some minor issues. The video card happily connected to the TV at 1080p off the bat, but test patterns show the picture is slightly offset and cut off. The screen is offset about 3 pixels to the right, cutting off 3 pixels from the right side and leaving a thin 3 pixel wide black strip along the left side. It's perfectly usable but it would be nice to have true 1:1 goodness. I haven't tried different drivers or adjusting timings/refresh rates with PowerStrip.

The more annoying issue is the one already reported by Exodian, where the signal from the PC is lost when switching to another input and back. I have to turn off the TV, unplug the HDMI cable, turn the TV back on, then plug in the HDMI cable again to get it back. This issue occurs with or without AutoSource enabled and is related to the video card/drivers, not the TV set (confirmed by trying with the different video card below). Others with a Radeon 9600 have reported the same issue with other TVs here:

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/195638/ShowThread.aspx

The only workaround I've found right now (short of unplugging cables) is to assign a hotkey in Catalyst Control Center that rotates the screen 180 degrees. This forces a video refresh of some kind and brings the signal back. (Obviously you have to rotate twice unless you like to be entertained upside-down.)

Windows XP PC with PCIe ATI Radeon X800 (Omega drivers 6.05) via DVI to HDMI adapter

[1920x1080 (1080p) @ 60Hz] Does not have the "no input signal" problem when switching to another input and back, but has worse picture issues than my other PC. I'm still missing 3 pixels from the right side and I also lose at least 1 pixel all the way around the picture.

Logitech Harmony 676 programmable universal remote control

The Harmony software has the TV in its database but, unfortunately, the TV's remote control does not have "discrete" buttons to directly call up specific HDMI inputs. This is problematic since it means cycling through several inputs to get to a particular HDMI input. It's further complicated by the fact that the TV remembers the state of the last HDMI input you were on, rather than always returning to HDMI1, when returning to HDMI inputs from another input type. The Harmony software isn't quite sophisticated enough to keep that state information in memory and it easily gets out of sync with the TV.

I spent some time on the phone with Logitech but their attempted workarounds didn't seem to help. I ended up solving this issue by figuring out a set of button presses that would consistently bring up each respective HDMI input regardless of which input the TV starts on. The best sequence I found is as follows:

1. Press PC Input (VGA) button
2. Press INPUT button to bring up inputs list
3. Press INPUT button another 1 to 4 times to highlight a specific HDMI port
4. Press ENTER to select the highlighted input

Setting this up for an HDMI device in the Logitech software took these steps:

1. Under Device Options, click Settings for the TV
2. Pick Adjust Inputs
3. Pick Method 2: "...each button displays a unique source input"
4. Make sure the Source Inputs list matches your TV
5. In the list where you match Source Inputs to Remote Buttons, pick -None- for each HDMI input. This list only lets you pick one remote button to send, and we need to send several; we have to set that up elsewhere.
6. Under Activities, pick an activity of your choice and click Settings
7. Pick Review the settings
8. Pick Yes, but I want to add more control...
9. Confirm the devices in use
10. When asked which input to use on the TV, pick the appropriate HDMI input. This probably has no effect now that we've turned off the buttons for the HDMI inputs, but it will be useful for your reference.
11. On the Custom Actions page, add the following Start Actions for the TV, one at a time, in the order below. For each one, pick "Send this infrared command" and choose the command shown:

a. InputVGA
b. InputNext
c. [Repeat InputNext 1-4 times for HDMI1-4, respectively]
d. Select [corresponds to ENTER on the remote]

12. Save changes

There's one last change. The Harmony software is configured to give each device a certain amount of time to switch inputs before sending more commands, and it turns out that this delay also kicks in after each Start Action. That means, with the default delay settings, the Harmony waits about 2 seconds between button presses, which is annoying. But the TV is still controlled properly if you shorten the delay. To do that, follow these steps:

1. Under Device Options, click Settings for the TV
2. Pick Adjust the Delays (speed settings)
3. If you use E-Saver mode, set Power On Delay to 22000 ms while you're here
4. Leave Inter-key Delay at default (0 ms for me)
5. Set the Input Delay to 100 ms
6. Set the Inter-Device Delay to 300 ms
7. Save changes and let Harmony apply them to all of your activities

Finally, update your remote and give it a try. Automated HDMI switching is now working reliably for me with the settings above. Now we just need manufacturers to start building discrete input commands into their sets (even if they don't put the actual buttons on the stock remote controls).

I also wanted to report my experience with a problem others seem to have encountered. My set became temporarily hosed when I followed these steps:

1. Connect a TV signal to the coaxial input
2. Turn on the TV and switch to TV tuner
3. Turn off the TV while input is set to TV tuner
4. Disconnect coaxial cable (or in my case, have a cable service outage)

When I turned the set back on I got the "W" logo, but when the TV discovered it no longer had a coaxial signal the screen went black and the power LED was orange but the TV would not respond to the remote control or side buttons. Even unplugging the TV and plugging it back in was of no use. I was worried the set had died on me (and on only the second day of ownership) but once Comcast got around to restoring my cable service the TV came back alive. This is a pretty horrendous bug and I'm certain Westinghouse will get returns on a lot of perfectly good sets when people encounter this one.

Overall I'm happy with the set, despite its quirks. Thanks to everyone else who has posted their tips.

CapnChaos

07-08-07, 04:06 PM

That is wild i didnt even have to enter a code in the remote for my SA8300HD and it worked right from the start. I am not using an HDMI cable yet still on component and am running it in E/Saver mode. Have you tried another cable set up other than HDMI to see what happens? Wonder if it is a tv or hdmi issue? DO you have a pink line on the bottom of your screen in 1080i mode?

I also have to say since all i have done really is complain so far about CC line and the purple line the HD picture is outstanding.

I hadn't tried using the cable box remote before switching to the hdmi cable. With component, I had the pink line occasionally on hd content. It doesn't appear at all with the hdmi cable though.

It's odd your remote worked right away. I wish mine did...I wouldn't have wasted a night messing with my tv...heh.

Exodian

07-08-07, 04:10 PM

I *think* I found another way around the switching issue by setting the PC's display to go to sleep after one minute and then waking it after switching to my PC-connected HDMI input. I'll report back after further testing.

xnappo

07-08-07, 04:36 PM

I also wanted to report my experience with a problem others seem to have encountered. My set became temporarily hosed when I followed these steps:

1. Connect a TV signal to the coaxial input
2. Turn on the TV and switch to TV tuner
3. Turn off the TV while input is set to TV tuner
4. Disconnect coaxial cable (or in my case, have a cable service outage)

When I turned the set back on I got the "W" logo, but when the TV discovered it no longer had a coaxial signal the screen went black and the power LED was orange but the TV would not respond to the remote control or side buttons. Even unplugging the TV and plugging it back in was of no use. I was worried the set had died on me (and on only the second day of ownership) but once Comcast got around to restoring my cable service the TV came back alive. This is a pretty horrendous bug and I'm certain Westinghouse will get returns on a lot of perfectly good sets when people encounter this one.

This seems to happen with HDMI cables too! Really stupid bug!

Next time it happens - can you try my trick I posted earlier - hold down the power button on the TV for ten seconds, then press it one more time?

Thanks,
xnappo

chiahatesyou

07-08-07, 04:44 PM

Well I have had it with this ATI card (x1300 pro) and all the driver problems with it... I pulled the trigger on an Nvidia 8800 gts 320mb overclocked today and will report back when I get it and get dvi to hdmi working on this screen.

mph86

07-08-07, 07:11 PM

skane

07-08-07, 07:30 PM

flabioh

07-08-07, 08:27 PM

Anyone out there with the TX-42F430S mount their screen using the 100mm VESA mounting yet? I *think* most of the mounted screens I've seen in this thread are 47" with the 200mm VESA.

I have a pedestal stand that will easily handle this screen's weight, and got the M5 x 12mm with .8 thread pitch bolts.

I'm not too confident of the 100mm VESA mount though... it seems a bit small for this TV....

I mounted my 42" with the holes that are furthest apart from each other. Not sure if that is the 100mm ones or not, but other than it taking me two hours to hang (because of how the mount and the holes lined up) everything went fine. Just keep in mind that the holes are VERY shallow. 12mm length is probably twice as long as the holes are so you might need some spacers.

Gary McCoy

07-08-07, 09:02 PM

I am planning on adding these lights to the back of my TX-47:
http://www.goestores.com/catalog.aspx?storename=cinemaquestincn&DeptID=70357&ItemID=1837010&detail=1\

My question is, never having done anything with lighting for HT viewing should I just get on set (2 lights come per set) and mount them on the back top and bottom or should I get 2 sets and mount one on every side?

I used a 9' length of white LED rope lighting from a local lamp store. It was this brand:

http://www.pegasusassociates.com/RopeLightLEDCoolWhite.jsp#

I reccomend the "Cool White" although some people have used and like the more yellowish "Warm White" or even incandescent rope lighting.

You can mount it with the two metal security loops on top of the TV and some of the stick-on clips in the kit. Completely conceal it behind the set and let it illuminate the wall around the TV.

A very cheap, very effective mod that will use less power than flourescent lights.

Gary

mph86

07-08-07, 09:28 PM

I used a 9' length of white LED rope lighting from a local lamp store. It was this brand:

http://www.pegasusassociates.com/RopeLightLEDCoolWhite.jsp#

I reccomend the "Cool White" although some people have used and like the more yellowish "Warm White" or even incandescent rope lighting.

You can mount it with the two metal security loops on top of the TV and some of the stick-on clips in the kit. Completely conceal it behind the set and let it illuminate the wall around the TV.

A very cheap, very effective mod that will use less power than flourescent lights.

Gary
Are you just using 1 and wrapping it around the outline of the set? And is there a power switch or do you have to unplug/ replug them to turn them off/on?

Xcalibur_255

07-08-07, 09:38 PM

Quick calibration journey update: Like the doofus I am I forgot to revisit the color patterns after tinkering with the contrast so much. Turns out it needed to go up 8 points from 44 to 52. Once I'm in the mood to mess with it some more I'm going to play around with it again. If the interaction in the contrast control is doing what I think it is it may be playing a part in the black crush. It's possible the entire range is being dropped some when it's set too low. I've wondered if I should go ahead and set the contrast per the test pattern (which ends up being pretty close to 80) but it doesn't serve so well on the other side of the fence so I hesitate. I think part of it is me because I'm just so used to seeing the white level too low. It's something I've looked at for years on the CRT set, so I think the blown out look I see when I set the contrast where the test indicate it should be is perhaps exactly right and it's just me who needs to get used to it.

I get pretty obsessive about these things in case nobody could tell. :) I'm already much more satisfied than I was before with the overall picture. I've got it looking much closer to what I see when I watch video on the computer screens, which I know are in perfect calibration. With a change in dvd players coming as well I think I'll let it go for a little bit and revisit the issue fresh at a later date.

skane

07-08-07, 09:41 PM

I mounted my 42" with the holes that are furthest apart from each other. Not sure if that is the 100mm ones or not, but other than it taking me two hours to hang (because of how the mount and the holes lined up) everything went fine. Just keep in mind that the holes are VERY shallow. 12mm length is probably twice as long as the holes are so you might need some spacers.

Thanks for the feedback, good to know. When I hand tighten the M5 bolts, they bottom out at ~ 8mm. I'll be mounting mine on an OmniMount G3FP... with the rail thickness, rail washer, and a spacer washer, the 12mm bolts have about 7mm to attach to the TV.

Gary McCoy

07-08-07, 10:26 PM

Are you just using 1 and wrapping it around the outline of the set? And is there a power switch or do you have to unplug/ replug them to turn them off/on?

Yes, (1) nine foot length, wrapped in back. I plug it into a switched receptacle in the TV stand. You could also easily add a cord switch, the supplied cord is 5 foot in length.

Gary

grumpyforeman

07-08-07, 10:46 PM

What setting should I set the HDMI output on my Cox Motorola 6412 phase III DVR to YCC 4:4:4 (YCbCr) or RGB? Does the TX47F430S accept both color spaces? If so, which one the is the best to use?
Also, has anyone else had problems with Auto Source not working for the Motorola 6412? It works when powering on my Wii or DVD player but not the DVR box. Is there something I need to change in the HDMI setting on the DVR box for this to work or is it a lost cause? :)

Thanks.

msattler

07-08-07, 11:11 PM

Still sorta in progress....

The walls used to be that yellow color you see in the right hallway. The rooms appears to be much darker now with the lights out. Maybe it's all in my head but it appears to be more comfortable watching TV now.

Cables are run behind the wall, coming out below. Just used the open back old workbox mounts, and 2 GFCI cover plates, which give me enough opening to run the cables through.

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z199/marcussattler/IMG_4145.jpg

xnappo

07-09-07, 09:35 AM

oniijin

07-09-07, 09:54 AM

I have ati radeon 9600, ati catalyst control center ver 2007.0613.1506.25058

I get 1080p over dvi-hdmi cable, no problems. dont have to switch back and forth..just switch to it and it works fine.

msattler

07-09-07, 10:19 AM

Very nice!

xnappo

I'm glad I read up on here before painting. The flat paint really worked out well and keeps the glare and reflections off the wall down. Does anyone know where one could find some cheap speaker stands? Need some for behind the couch, but am not planning on keeping these speakers forever.

navi89

07-09-07, 02:02 PM

nibbs159

07-09-07, 03:11 PM

I just wanted to post my experience with the flicker issue. I have the TX-47 for over a month now. I've seen the flicker problem with a SA 8300HD cable box, Sony Upscaling 1080i DVD player (don't have the model number on hand), and Playstation 3. Though the PS3 has flickered more than the other two, all 3 HDMI devices have flickered at some point. I've only seen the cable box flicker twice during the last month and the DVD player has flickered 2-3 times. I just wanted to help get the word out that this is more than a PS3 issue. I originally thought it was only the PS3 that had problems but that is not the case. I'm going to put a call in with Westinghouse to add another notch to their statistics...

The flicker, for those that are not familiar, is an audio / video dropout for aproximately 1 second. It happens randomly and there does not seem to be any way to reproduce it.

xnappo

07-09-07, 03:22 PM

I just wanted to help get the word out that this is more than a PS3 issue. I originally thought it was only the PS3 that had problems but that is not the case. I'm going to put a call in with Westinghouse to add another notch to their statistics...

Thanks!

So so far I think there are the following issues that many people are seeing, and are therefore likely firmware related:

1. HDMI flicker
2. Poor gamma setting (service menu maybe?)
3. Image jitter (dropped frames/jitter/scrawl jutter)
4. TV stops responding to remote
5. TV won't power on (may be same as 4).

Everyone agree these are not set specific? Which have you seen?

I have seen 2, 3, 4 and 5.

2 is obviously not set dependent.

I have only seen 3 when using component from my SA8300 - but once it starts there it does it on all inputs.

Haven't seen it since I switched to HDMI. 4 and 5... I am not so sure about yet, have seen each happen twice. Unplugging the set always brings it back. Not sure if this is HDMI related - I did not see the issue until I started using HDMI with my SA8300.

xnappo

nibbs159

07-09-07, 03:29 PM

I also get that flashing pink/purple line on 1080i sources with:

HDMI deinterlace is set OFF - flashing line at top of screen
Component deinterlace is set ON - flashing line at bottom of screen

xnappo

07-09-07, 03:37 PM

I also get that flashing pink/purple line on 1080i sources with:

HDMI deinterlace is set OFF - flashing line at top of screen
Component deinterlace is set ON - flashing line at bottom of screen

Only when using 'normal' and not 'fill' right? I think I would call this 'Lack of overscan adjustments'.

You seeing/seen any of the other issues in my list?

xnappo

oniijin

07-09-07, 03:38 PM

I also get that flashing pink/purple line on 1080i sources with:

HDMI deinterlace is set OFF - flashing line at top of screen
Component deinterlace is set ON - flashing line at bottom of screen

are u using component or hdmi? on hdmi i dont get the purple line, but i do get a black and white bar, each about 1.5" long on the top of the image.

nibbs159

07-09-07, 03:45 PM

Only when using 'normal' and not 'fill' right? I think I would call this 'Lack of overscan adjustments'.

You seeing/seen any of the other issues in my list?

xnappo

I'm not sure I've checked if it's there on fill. I'll test and report back later. This is not to be confused with the close captioning black and white bar at the top of some broadcasts. I can get this purple line to show up from any 1080i source. Original xbox, xbox 360, cable box, dvd player, etc. It shows up on hdmi when deinterlace is off (no big deal) but on component when deinterlace is on (this is a problem).

bhazard

07-09-07, 03:46 PM

Is anyone here ISF certified or know someone ISF certified that can ask Westinghouse for the service menu code? I've tried asking myself with no luck, and I've tried messaging the guy who got the code for the LVM for the forum with no luck. Maybe they will release it to someone who they think will have the technical knowledge not to destroy the TV.

xnappo

07-09-07, 04:15 PM

I'm not sure I've checked if it's there on fill. I'll test and report back later. This is not to be confused with the close captioning black and white bar at the top of some broadcasts. I can get this purple line to show up from any 1080i source. Original xbox, xbox 360, cable box, dvd player, etc. It shows up on hdmi when deinterlace is off (no big deal) but on component when deinterlace is on (this is a problem).

I see the same thing, but don't consider it a problem because the area of the screen meant to be seen over component is really what you get with fill. On my CRT TV, I can easily tell this by where status indicators in games and cable box menus show up. In 'normal' you are basically looking at an image with no overscan at all - on my CRT I can adjust the overscan to 0 and see defects as well.

I do, however, wish the the amount of overscan applied by 'fill' were adjustable.

Someone mentioned this earlier, but the various screen modes behave differently between 480p and 1080i inputs.

480p
Normal=1:1 pixel mapping
Fill=Stretch to widescreen
Overscan=Zoom

1080i
Normal=1:1 pixel mapping
Fill=Turn on 5% overscan
Overscan=Zoom

Component signaling was never really designed to be used in a 1:1 mapping setup, so I don't really consider this a set issue.

xnappo

x84HurstOlds

07-09-07, 06:07 PM

I have a few questions....

* TX-47F430S vs LVM-47W1 -- one is a tv, the other a monitor. As far as I'm aware, a monitor has always had a better picture than a tv. Is this true when comparing these? Having a antenna is nice, but it's not worth it if picture quality isn't as good as the monitor. Main purpose will be computer use, not watching tv. Which should I get?

I do not think that is true, in general. If you take the TX-47 and take out the ATSC/QAM tuner, then it is a monitor. It's still got the same panel, the same electronics, the same contrast ratio, the same processor chip, the same backlighting, the same firmware...you get the picture. Similarly, Westinghouse could have added a tuner to the LVM-47 - would that make the picture look worse? No. So, that's not really an issue.

Now, as far as which one of these particular units has a better picture, that's open for debate. The LVMs had some issues with banding (not all of them, but certainly some). The TX's have a bad gamma setting (all) - but that might be fixed in firmware or if we get the service menu code.

I went with the TX-47, I liked the better viewing angle, more HDMI inputs (just a convenience for now). OTOH, the LVM has a DVI input, you might prefer that. Doesn't matter much, there are hubs and converter cables and so on...

Anyway, it comes down to features. Both sets also have some common problems, so which set of problems do you want to live with? There are some posts further back that compare them.

* LVM-47W1 contrast = 1200, TX-47F430S contrast = 5000
How big of a deal is this? I know it sounds like a big deal on paper, but is it really that important? What does this mean to the person buying?

I think the 5000 is with Dynamic Contrast on, 1000 with it off. There are some posts about it a few pages back, some people like it on, some off, some say it depends on what you're watching...I think the consensus is that it works much better than a lot of us expected, which I happen to agree. In any case, I wouldn't put much stock in those numbers, but that's me. Both are capable of producing a beautiful picture, though the TX is, at least for now, hard to calibrate perfectly.

* I have the LVM-37w3, and I do think it's the best thing ever. Brightness is 550. On the LVM-47W1 it's 450. And I can't find the brightness for the TX-47F430S. Does anybody know what it is?

More than bright enough? :D Seriously, I don't know, but I wouldn't get too hung up on the numbers. Lots of manufacturers fudge them pretty good to begin with. I'll leave further comment to the more experienced...

Ed

x84HurstOlds

07-09-07, 06:09 PM

Component signaling was never really designed to be used in a 1:1 mapping setup, so I don't really consider this a set issue.

xnappo

I don't get it - why not? :confused: The set accepts 1080P over component, no?

Ed

xnappo

07-09-07, 07:06 PM

I don't get it - why not? :confused: The set accepts 1080P over component, no?

Ed

Component is an analog signal and most sources are going to just pass along the image assuming that the TV will take care of framing so that the 'invisible area' of the image would be hidden(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_area).

With a digital interface like DVI/HDMI, the source is usually more intelligent, and chooses the digital data to pass along.

Since the 'fill' at 1080i results in a picture similar to what you would get on a tube/projection TV - I don't have a huge problem with using it for component sources.

That said, I wish it were adjustable. What we really want here is something like 'lines to blank'. If enough people complain, they will likely just change the component sources so that in 1:1 modes there are a certain number of blanked lines. There may be something to play with in the service menu if we can get the entry sequence.

xnappo

Bengalfang

07-09-07, 07:08 PM

Ok I am going to sound like a completely stupid and I am when it comes to this stuff.... What exactly is gamma setting? And how bad is it on the TX?

Thanks,

Todd

xnappo

07-09-07, 07:24 PM

Ok I am going to sound like a completely stupid and I am when it comes to this stuff.... What exactly is gamma setting? And how bad is it on the TX?

Thanks,

Todd

Well, for a detailed explanation, see Wikipedia of course:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_correction

Basically, judging on the difficulty in calibrating this TV with calibration DVDs, some have come to the conclusion that the gamma setting on the TV is less than ideal, making it harder to get a proper full grey scale.

This is hardly the end of the world, and will only bother the videophile types likely. However that is probably a good chunk of the people reading here. I will say, however, that while not perfectly calibrating using a disc, I am very happy with the display and I have it set now.

What happens with TV manufacturers is they make the TV so it will look good in a show room and throw in a bunch of annoying software make it so that they can say an LCD panel with a 1000:1 contrast ratio is 5000:1 (dynamic). Westinghouse was nice enough to provide a way to turn off the dynamic contrast algorithm, however it seems like they hard-coded some other settings to be used with it on, therefore making it hard to get a perfectly calibrated setup.

My settings:
Brightness: 41
Contrast: 65
Saturation: 65
Hue: 50
Sharpness: 20
Backlight: 10
Color Temp: Warm

Regards,
xnappo

skimon

07-09-07, 07:53 PM

xnappo

07-09-07, 08:01 PM

I have a question. People on this forum are talking about how the TV works great as a monitor when hooked up to the computer but on the Best Buy website it says "NO" Digital Convergence ? Talks about it not being able to work on a computer? I know I have to buy a certain cable to connect both a computer to an LCD monitor. Is there anything else I must buy in order for it to work? Also, if this is possible would both my desktop monitor and LCD tv be on at the same time? Or only one at a time..

No, this is a feature to align colors in some displays. It isn't needed on fixed pixel displays (though I note some other LCD panels on their site say 'yes' which makes no sense).

All you need is a video card that supports to proper resolution. If you want to use a digital input (rather than the VGA port) you will need a DVI->HDMI cable.

xnappo

Jack_Carver

07-09-07, 08:31 PM

There is no such thing as "convergence" on an LCD. In the context of TV's, convergence relates to how the red/green/blue electron guns are aligned. The lcd is permenently PERFECTLY converged by its very nature.

Rule #1, dont pay any attention to the crap babble written on BB or other store website. Mistranslated junk and marketing babble put up by people who have no idea what the technical terms even mean.

I got the TX42, its great, works flawlessly with my stuff and I couldnt be happier.

Im using a Motorola 6416 HD box with FIOS, Phillips 1080p DVD player and an X1900XT equipped gaming system ready for Crysis soon.

I bought 2 3ft HDMI cables for $12 and 1 25ft DVI-HDMI cable for $49 from Newegg, and I have no issues of flicker or scrawl.

I did have the CNN/ESPN/etc crawl juttering at first. I dropped the Motorola to 480i to let the TV only do all the de-interlacing, cycled power on the TV and have never seen it since.

The only imperfection I can see is when changing channels from HD to SD or back, there is a bit of flashing while the HDMI handshaking triggers. Its HDMI not the TV's fault. Death to all DRM would be a better solution.

Silly me, I tossed out all my COAX stuff, so I have to go buy a coax cable to test over-the-air tuner ability, but Im sure its fine. I still have 3 weeks on my 30 days from BB.

I didn't bother with the PSP, I will handle whatever comes along myself. Hopefully it'll just work fine for, well, ever. With the exception of the bulbs and the flash memory cells inside, I cant see this thing not working 100,000 years from now when archeologists dig it up.

Hopefully the flashing Firmware updates by the consumer will come to pass, but if even BB gets to flash them directly, Ill befriend some idiot at BB and get the dope on how for my own use. Would be nice to suck the Firmware out and disassemble it, and maybe hack some nice tweaks/additions into the firmware. The onboard computer sounds pretty cool.

skimon

07-09-07, 08:35 PM

Thanks Xnappo and Jack. So to connect the TX42 to my computer, all I need is that DVI-HDMI cable? I could have have my computer monitor off and use the TX42 correct? Thanks for you answers.

Jack_Carver

07-09-07, 08:43 PM

imit8

07-09-07, 08:56 PM

I also wanted to report my experience with a problem others seem to have encountered. My set became temporarily hosed when I followed these steps:

1. Connect a TV signal to the coaxial input
2. Turn on the TV and switch to TV tuner
3. Turn off the TV while input is set to TV tuner
4. Disconnect coaxial cable (or in my case, have a cable service outage)

When I turned the set back on I got the "W" logo, but when the TV discovered it no longer had a coaxial signal the screen went black and the power LED was orange but the TV would not respond to the remote control or side buttons. Even unplugging the TV and plugging it back in was of no use. I was worried the set had died on me (and on only the second day of ownership) but once Comcast got around to restoring my cable service the TV came back alive. This is a pretty horrendous bug and I'm certain Westinghouse will get returns on a lot of perfectly good sets when people encounter this one.
This seems to happen with HDMI cables too! Really stupid bug!

Next time it happens - can you try my trick I posted earlier - hold down the power button on the TV for ten seconds, then press it one more time?
I repeated the process above, got the TV to "play dead" once more and tried holding down the power button. It had the effect of cycling the power (I got the "W" logo again) but the TV was still in zombie mode until I reconnected the coaxial input (where it was set when I had turned it off). Holding the power button just seems to act as a shortcut to pulling the power plug and restarting.

msattler

07-09-07, 09:03 PM

Skimon, you also need an audio cable for the computer. Short of the latest HD2400/2600/2900 ATI cards, PC's dont put audio out into the HDMI cable.

So use HDMI-1 input that has seperate RCA jack audio, and feed this audio with a RCA stereo cable and set the HDMI-1 source in settings to ANALOG. Or just run a digital cable from the PC to your AV receiver if you have one.

Would that allow 5.1 to be passed through to the Receiver? Reason I ask is my PC does have digital outs, but my surround sound in a box set has no digital input.

I know the best thing to do is just replace the surround system but I'm trying to wait a bit to buy something a lil nicer than I could right now.

Thanks,
Marcus

xnappo

07-09-07, 09:16 PM

I repeated the process above, got the TV to "play dead" once more and tried holding down the power button. It had the effect of cycling the power (I got the "W" logo again) but the TV was still in zombie mode until I reconnected the coaxial input (where it was set when I had turned it off). Holding the power button just seems to act as a shortcut to pulling the power plug and restarting.

Thanks for the confirmation. As I mentioned I think this is probably easier on the set than pulling the plug.

xnappo

elenaran

07-09-07, 10:01 PM

msattler

07-09-07, 10:29 PM

flabioh

07-10-07, 07:41 AM

Something I noticed, via my HDMI DCT 6416 III to my 42" TX, audio going from the TX audio out to my cheapo Philips Surround Sound System..... sometimes when I change the channel I get a buzzing noise. I turn the volume down on the tv a bit, and it goes away.

What's odd is I have it setup to use the external speakers. Which means no sound comes out of the TV's speaker. But if you turn the TV speakers' volume down to 0 or mute, the external speakers lose sound. Kind of odd.

One last thing, is it possible to buy pieces of black plastic, connect them with some angle brackets to make a cover for the mount? The wall I had to mount it on, allows the mount to be visible when you first walk in. I'm thinking a simple plastic cover may make it look a bit more appealing?

Thanks,
Marcus

Yeah the volume adjustment on the TV using external speakers is my wife's biggest complaint about this TV. On our old TV we could adjust the volume of the TV using the TV's remote and it would adjust the volume going to the receiver. All our A/V stuff is hidden in our cabinent so she pretty much has to open up the cabinet, then either adjust the volume with the receiver's knob or find the remote that we never use. This is all through the analog out of the TV.

One thing that I didn't think of was if the digital output of the TV will allow you to gradually adjust the volume output using the TV remote. Can anyone confirm that for me? I only have one digital input on my receiver, but if the digital out will let us adjust the volume using the TV's remote to the receiver then I might be able to convince my wife to get a new receiver.

PhaserBait

07-10-07, 09:23 AM

Would that allow 5.1 to be passed through to the Receiver? Reason I ask is my PC does have digital outs, but my surround sound in a box set has no digital input.

I know the best thing to do is just replace the surround system but I'm trying to wait a bit to buy something a lil nicer than I could right now.

Thanks,
Marcus

If your receiver had a digital in, then yes. Since you don't, you will need to use a regular stereo in if you HTIB has one available. You will need a stereo jack/RCA cable http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id=1021804&p_id=665&seq=1&format=2&style= to go from the speaker out to the receiver or adaptor http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id=1021802&p_id=667&seq=1&format=2&style= to use regular AV cables. You can also get the cables at Radio Shack or any other electronics store. I just wanted to show you some examples.

The signal quality to the HTIB will be the same as to the TV, though, so it's up to you which speakers you want to use. I would think the HTIB would be better, and would allow 5-channel stereo, but you never know.

Or you could set up regular PC speakers and operate separately from the HTIB.

nibbs159

07-10-07, 10:44 AM

I see the same thing, but don't consider it a problem because the area of the screen meant to be seen over component is really what you get with fill. On my CRT TV, I can easily tell this by where status indicators in games and cable box menus show up. In 'normal' you are basically looking at an image with no overscan at all - on my CRT I can adjust the overscan to 0 and see defects as well.

Component signaling was never really designed to be used in a 1:1 mapping setup, so I don't really consider this a set issue.

xnappo

I get the pink/purple flashing line on both HDMI and Component though. Granted it only shows on HDMI when deinterlacing is off. It seems like something that never should have made it into the final production of these sets. I can confirm that using fill on 1080i does zoom enough to make the line not visible. Oddly, when changing back to standard view, the line does not return. So I guess it is possible to get rid of it by cycling through the standard / fill / overscan but that is less than ideal.

I am really happy with this set, it just seems like they could have done a bit more testing before releasing it. Where do I sign up to beta test the 52"? ;)

xnappo

07-10-07, 11:07 AM

I get the pink/purple flashing line on both HDMI and Component though. Granted it only shows on HDMI when deinterlacing is off. It seems like something that never should have made it into the final production of these sets. I can confirm that using fill on 1080i does zoom enough to make the line not visible. Oddly, when changing back to standard view, the line does not return. So I guess it is possible to get rid of it by cycling through the standard / fill / overscan but that is less than ideal.

I am really happy with this set, it just seems like they could have done a bit more testing before releasing it. Where do I sign up to beta test the 52"? ;)

I know what you mean about the testing. I think they focused completely on getting the ATSC/QAM tuner done and didn't test much else! I am actually starting to regret my purchase. Woke up this morning, and scrawl jutter was back. Attempted to use my 'long power hold' reset trick, and the TV completely locked up. Had to pull the plug to get it to come back.

I really don't want to exchange it if a firmware upgrade will fix this stuff, because this set has very little leakage and no dead pixels. It have a bad feeling I would end up with a set with more dead pixels and the same strange issues. I think I will write in to Westinghouse and ask them to consult with the firmware guys to see if they think this is something that can be fixed in a firmware upgrade.

I did buy the PSP from BB - but if I don't hear firmware is coming out to resolve this, I may jump ship to the new Vizio or Philips 47PFL5432D. I need to read my receipt to see if I will have to pay a restocking fee if it comes to that...

xnappo

ghostfacekilla

07-10-07, 11:07 AM

Is it just as good as brands such as Sony, Samsung, and Sharp? Or does it fall into the category of **** brands such as Magnavox and others.

The price for this TV just makes it seem like it's too good to be true and that it won't be that great.

I need answers.

protovision

07-10-07, 11:32 AM

... I've seen the flicker problem with a SA 8300HD cable box, Sony Upscaling 1080i DVD player (don't have the model number on hand), and Playstation 3. Though the PS3 has flickered more than the other two, all 3 HDMI devices have flickered at some point.

For what its worth, when I had my SA8300HD hooked up 2 weeks ago via component cables to my CRT-RPTV, I would get mild 'dropouts' too, but it seems the CRT's can handle it better. I think its something to do with the SA8300HD and certain channels.

ie: At the end of Letterman, especially if the show runs a little long, there's a flicker near the end, as it goes over 12:35am, so I think some of it is the broadcasters (and their hate-on for PVR's, silver bullet?).

My SA8300HD has been screwing up some recordings for a few months now, especially Fox (for my own protection? :) ) .

My box gets one of these 'glitches' in the broadcast, and restarts recording, most of the time erasing the previous partial recording :(. If I ever determine its the broadcasters fault, I'm boycotting that shows sponsors.

p.

Xcalibur_255

07-10-07, 12:18 PM

I've spent some more time investigating the set's problems with black, and I'm becoming convinced that compromising the calibration in an effort to improve shadow detail is futile. I've found quite a few cases where an image should have contained near black details in the picture but these areas were simply black. Even with the brightness turned way up in an effort to reveal something the whole area of the picture is simply video black. The detail that was in the video signal is simply gone and replaced with pure black. It's either being caused by a gamma curve issue where the signal output is altered from the input and the lowered values are bottoming out the picture, or it could be something entirely different going on within the video processing. I have noticed that the severity of it varies with content type somewhat. It's far worse with SD content than with HD overall.

So, armed with this information I went back and did a true levels calibration going purely by the test numbers. For anybody still wondering these are dead nuts accurate video levels for a digital 1080i signal in a dim but not pure dark room:

Brightness - 40 (technically 39 is correct, but I allowed the pluge bar to remain very slightly visible here for good measure).
Contrast - 75 (accurate to within 1% here with no white level clipping present)
Saturation - 60 (again, dead on using a blue filter)
Sharpness - 0 (not needed)
Backlight - 0 (in a dim room with these new contrast settings the set is more than bright enough at zero backlight)
Color Temp - Warm (naturally, I've mentioned before this setting is pretty accurate out of the box)
Dynamic Contrast - Off of course.

Note: these numbers are NOT rounded off. The fact that they came out so evenly is merely coincidence.

These new settings maximize the dyanamic range and contrast capabilities of the display. With them I take back my comments about the set's contrast performance feeling weak. The image is punchy yet still natural combined with the zero backlight setting. I'm especially impressed by how much that last choice has improved my satisfaction with the picture. I had been running the backlight at 10 (20 for SD cable) while I've been struggling to understand the video levels issue and just haven't been satisfied with the set's quality of black. The black bars and dark scenes still just seemed to glow, especially with the lights off. Dropping the backlight just one more click from 1 to 0 wouldn't seem to be much, but it improves the black performance just enough that it really doesn't feel like it has a glow to it. Along with that was a greatly improved sense of dark room contrast and a more natural picture balance. The image is still plenty bright even with the room lights partially on.

Does this calibration still produce black crush? Of course it does, but I've worked with this quite a bit now and attempting to compromise settings to improve that problem is a waste of time. All it will do is sacrifice some of the contrast range of the picture for no reason and make the image appear washed out. Anybody else who has their set in a similar lighting environment (no windows, dim floursecent lighting at the far end of the room that's barely enough to read by) I strongly encourage them to try these values and see what the set's contrast performance looks like when the full dynamic range is in use.

All things considered I'm pretty pleased with the set. I still get HDMI sync errors if I attempt to tune to the input with the player already on, and I don't appreciate having to use the high power consumption mode to be sure the set turns on properly, but these are not major problems. The grouped video memories sucks pretty hard too, but there are always a couple of ways to get around that. Especially with digital sources the levels really should not vary much between devices. I give the set my thumbs up now that I've "settled in" with it and I don't regret the purchase. I don't think the black crush will ever stop bothering me, but LCD is weak in this area and I knew it going in. I can live with one shortcoming considering the value.