Vizio E701i-A3 Owners Thread - Page 6

The system I have set up will not be able to do that because I use one HDMI to the TV from the Sony receiver

@tennisdude00: yeah then its going to be a pain for individual settings. My HK AVR3600 is capable of that as well but I don't use it. The TV has an optical output That way i only use my receiver when needed and dose not add any delay while still giving me my 5.1

Ok, so I had mine delivered yesterday. Got it all setup late last night. First impression are its just ok. I too have the feathered dark spots in the lower left and right corners, but I also have a couple of them along the bottom of the screen as well. Now these arent too distracting during viewing so I'd let it slide BUT I have really bad flashlighting or clouding along the sides and corners of the tv. There is a really big circle blob about 3/4 down the left bottom of the screen. It was even noticeable when using the PS3 during with a red background.

Also, I just cannot seem too get the set dialed in too look great. My ATT Uverse cable looks pretty bad, Netflix looked horrible even though my download speeds are high. Messed with a few blu rays last night and they looked pretty good but wasn't blown away. I love the soap opera effect motion interpolation does but even with this set on high on this tv it doesn't really seem to be that pronounced of an effect.

One thing that has me puzzled and was wondering if all of your sets were the same is that when first doing the setup of the tv and even now whenever pulling up the menu to change picture settings and such the resolution of the menu is fuzzy looking. The letters and numbers look really low res and fuzzy like out of focus. I too also have the really bad light bleed/clouding with the tv on an all black screen before watching something. It looks terrible, like a freakn maze all over the screen. I'm contemplating sending it back for an exchange and hoping new set would be way better. I am happy though the set doesn't appear to have any banding, dse, or pixels out.

Hi guys. I bought this TV at Costco and finally had a chance to set it up last night. After connecting it to my Mac Mini, I ran into a few problems. First, the HDMI connection didn't work. It said something like "Format not supported." I suspect this is because my HDMI cable is about 8 years old. I ordered a brand new cable from MP and decided to hook it up via RGB while I wait. Here is where I ran into the 2nd problem. The 1080 setting doesn't work correctly. In 1080 mode, the TV places two vertical black bars a few inches thick on the ends of the screen. I have to move down to 1600x900 for the image to properly fill the screen. This is very frustrating. Does anyone know of a way to fix this? I hope it will not be an issue once I receive my new HDMI cable, but I'd still like to know there's a fix for it.

Thanks for your help!

@Patrascu did you try several HDMI inputs and id you try other HDMI devices?

also if hanged at the right height you can make all backlight bleeding disappear

Source for calibration is a PS3, blu ray version of the Wow disc. It shows full crisp 1080 and when looking at the black and white starburst type patterns you can see green (and then red) pixels at various spots in the patters, especially at the tips of the long 'spears' in the circular starburst patterns, when Sharpness is anything above 0 on my set. At 0 there are only black and white pixels. Looks like there is pretty high variation among sets.

Did something interesting - turned backlight all the way down to 30 (from 50). Had to make very minor adjustments to Brightness and Contrast, but the overall light output was still more than enough at night (even with low lights on) and more importantly the uneven backlighting all but disappeared.

I watched Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which is 2.35:1 so it's still letter boxed. And the hot spots in the right corners were very much tamed in the black bars. If I focused on those corners in very dark scenes, I could still see the hot spots a little, though with any average scene I couldn't see them.

And of course any full screen 16x9 they are totally gone. Unobservable on anything other than a black screen, and even then they are way improved from where they were with the backlight on 50.

Have to see how the 30 Backlight setting holds up for daytime viewing. We're likely going to finally get drapes hung on the windows opposite the set which will help a great deal in this regard. If not, worst case I will use Standard for daytime (and crank the backlight) and Movie for nighttime with the backlight down at 30 if not even tad lower.

EDIT - btw Exotic Marigold looked wonderful. Very film like, and the scenes in the markets and so forth with colorful fruit, clothing, etc. especially looked wonderful. Still very happy with the set overall for the price.

hmm... given that the TV is ~36 inches high, at what height would you recommend on a 10ft wall?

Hi anthonymoody

Can you please post your settings ?

Thanks
JD

@tennisdude00 I have 9' walls and my height seems just about right for my seats. You don't want to place it to height that you have to bend your neck and have any uncomfortable viewing position.

Current settings (watching as we speak, daytime, overcast but somewhat bright out) and its surprisingly bright.

Standard
Backlight 30
Brightness 50
Contrast 81
Color 54
Tint 1
Sharpness 0


Color temps are from the cnet settings (I had them at stock Standard for a time but prefer these)
Normal
RG 104
GG 115
BG 130
RO 129
GO 130
BO 132

In Advanced, everything Off except Film Mode which is Auto

This is a very easy on the eyes set up on my set. Not remotely retina searing. Natural filmic look with film sources, but still very crisp and bright for video based sources. And it makes the backlight unevenness almost un observable and very much no longer at all distracting.

I dont think I saw what height you were at.

Btw re my settings above, my guess is that most will find it too dim. But our eyes have gotten quite used to it.

Will try tonite!
Thanks
JD

The "feathers" in the corners and the two equally spaced at the bottom of the screen are typical. The clouding is not. The light bleed in minimal if viewed from 10 feet or more. It sounds like you should exchange it.

What's your sharpness level? If it is too high, you will get a noisy picture. I would start with the Movie setting, and go from there.

The menus are in no way indicative of the overall sharpness of this TV. They are MUCH MORE blurry than the broadcast material. If you want to test sharpness, I recommend Bloomberg HD. They often have graphs and banners with small text. This E701i-A3 looks great on this channel. Text is very sharp even with Sharpness set to "0".

Michael
Edited by Michael2000 - 11/30/12 at 7:17pm

Be sure the resolution is set to 1920 x 1080, and that the monitor refresh rate is 60 Hz. Turn off the laptop screen (set it to external HDMI only - sometimes called Projector), so the computer doesn't try to size anything to fit both screens. I've used my HP laptop's HDMI port, and everything worked fine, so we know the TV is capable.

Michael

What does game mode do? It seems like I get less judder on my lower quality comcast signal with this setting on.

im sure it process the input not at all so response time is better

I just got the TV set up today. Anyone using the base stand that comes with the TV? Do you find that on the stand the TV is sort of wobbly? It won't topple over but if you give the TV a nudge it seems to rock slightly on the stand. I also had issue screwing in one of the 3 screws for the stand... I couldn't get it all the way in. The other 2 screws were ok though. Anyone else run into the same problem?

I had issue in putting the lower right corner screw, had really tough time putting it in. Had to screw by hand half way in slowly and it still went in at an angle. Its not stripped though, but slightly crooked angle. The stand is bit wobbly but I think it may be by design so it can take a light sway and still stand. Its prob due to TV's CG is in the middle and they dont want to make the stand stiff. Otherwise, one nudge and TV can easily topple over. So the stand has some sway builtin, kind like big buildings

We had trouble with two of the three screws. Really took patience and sweat to get them all in, and tight, without stripping them. We managed, and now the stand is firmly attached.

EDIT: Just noticed that Vizio.com is again offering the set for preorder, but for $2000. I wonder how long that will last before they go back to $1700.
Edited by anthonymoody - 12/1/12 at 7:05am

Anthony

When you say the stand is firm attached, does it wobble at all when you touch at the top or try to insert a cable etc ?

Anyone having an issue with sound dropping out if fast forwarding dvr, ps3, or switching in and out of menues? It requires the tv to be turned off and then back on again.

I really think im gonna have to either return or exchange mine. Nothing i do improves the bad clouding or backlight bleeding my set has. Also not sure if its just my set or this model but i also cannot get the picture super sharp. It always looks soft and sometimes out of focus. Even cranking the sharpness doesnt help it. Doing some research i see the same "soft" pq complaint on some of the sharp 70"ers and since thid set is using a sharp panel maybe its just how the set is.

Thanks for settings, applied them but it did not help any.

I know what you mean about pic quality. I only have one small area at the top to the screen that shows clouding and the backlight bleeding isn't bad at all. Sometimes the picture quality is brilliant but mostly it's lacking. I'm thinking of finding a professional to do a calibration for me but I'm wondering how much better it can get without CMS.

Yes it flexes when touched from the top, but it's not flexing from the screw/baseplate if you follow me. What I meant was that when we finished mounting the stand (we had the set practically upside down, so the stand was at top) the stand didn't give at all if you tried to move it. We got all three screws tightened down pretty good.

I think I have an issue when watching TV, the sound doesnt drop, but the volume goes up and down. If I turn off the SRS TruVolume, then I dont have that issue, but the volume is cut in half. The TV speakers are pretty crappy to begin with, tinny sound.

Oh ok -- yeah my stand is pretty firm too. But the TV flexes even putting HDMI cable. I dont plan to mount it, but probably looking for a way to put some sort of support on the sides and on the base behind the TV. Living in earthquake country (bay area, CA), I need to make sure it doesn't fall off the table.