42' Vizio PDP with built in HD tuner - Page 7

I agree that 55" in length does seem rather long for a 43" wide set, but I've never bought a plasma before so I don't know how much extra padding these things come with. The 55" number came from a tech support e-mail, not from any official document. So take it with a grain of salt. Either way, I'll find a way to get it home - I'm more curious about the MTK deinterlacer. I found the MTK website, and couldn't find a deinterlacer among its products. Must be something new.....

Now we're getting there! I know this sounds a bit silly to bystanders, but when you're put in the predicaments like you describe above, you're stuck until you get the proper spacer.... been there with other equipment.

BTW, I'm prepping to head out in a bit to the Costco in Charlotte, to scout the Vizio scene there. I hope I'll at least get to see the P50HDM.

I sit about 8-9 feet away, and the 42" is the right size for me. From 14-20 feet, the 42" is still plenty big enough, although the 50" wouldn't look out of place. Unfortunately, the 50" was just too big when sitting 8-9 feet away.

Okay, just got back from checking out the Vizio P50HDM at Costco, in preparation for a potential purchase of the P42HDTV during the March Madness promotion.

My first impression was that the set design and construction looks better in person than it does in the images I've seen on the net. I didn't get the impression that it was "cheap" just looking at it. As found, the image on the screen was miserable looking. I found the control buttons on the side of the bezel (really liked the quality feel of them, btw) and sussed out the adjustment procedure fairly quickly.

The reason the image quality was so bad was that the saturation, hue, brightness, and contrast, were all maxed to the right!? After 5 minutes of tweaking and fussing, I had achieved what I thought was the optimum settings I could attain with what I know about the set and its root level options. I was satisfied with the results, although there was still a soft fuzziness that I couldn't quite get rid of.

I then compared it to the 50" Panasonic plasma they had around the corner from it (can't remember the model #). The Panny was definitely producing a sharper image, but not $1,000 better, IMO. I also compared it to a 42" Pioneer plasma, and again, give the nod to the Pioneer, but it's 10" smaller and they wanted $200 more for it.

I know we can't quote specific prices here, but the $200 price cut was already in effect for the P50HDM. They had 4 of them on the floor in boxes beneath the display model, but there were no signs of boxes for the P42HDTV. I wanted to ask a clerk, but I never saw one until he caught me off guard looking at a Surround sound system next to the TV section. He came by to thank me for getting such a good picture back on the Vizio! I thought that was pretty cool of him to notice that and go out of his way to tell me that in another dept. I was so shocked by it that I forgot to ask him if they had stock on the 42" sets!

Anyway, many of my fears about the quality of the build of the Vizio have been allayed by this viewing today. I thought the PQ looked better than the Sony, RCA, and Samsung LCD, and DLP rear projections which were nearby for comparison, but it's clearly a step down from the Panny and the Pioneer plasmas. Even at that, I am more than satisfied with the PQ I'd be getting for the price. I just can't justify the price difference between it and the other two brands for what I'd call a 10 to 15% advantage in PQ. I'm also not what most of you would consider to be a true videophile, so I'm easy to please.

Oh, one thing that did bother me a bit... they were showing some previews from what looked like the "Today" show, and I saw some horrific artifacting on the characters faces as they were moving about. I went in and found a motion filter in the Advanced menu, and tweaked it to midscale, but I really didn't know what I was doing. There's also a digital filter there, with which I was unfamiliar, so I left it alone. I never saw any further artifacting during motion, including some on ice hockey footage, so it may have been the quality of that Today preview feed. I have a hunch that I'm going to have issues with the SD quality on any of the HDTV sets though. That's something I need to explore.

Thanks for the feedback z.mash. As I was viewing the 50" Vizio at Costco today, I was thinking about the proximity of our high back chair and love seat, which flank our sofa and face inward. They're going to be 6 to 8 feet from the set. The closest viewer on the love seat would almost be overwhelmed by the 50" screen size.

I backed up on the 42" Pioneer which I was using as a comparison, to a distance of 11' (the furthest a viewer would be from our screen in most normal viewing. The screen lost a little of its intimacy, but it's still far better than the 32" 4:3 we're using now. The more I hear from you guys, the more I think I could embrace the 42" screen with little or no remorse. 42" seems ideal for 8-9 feet though.

I'm waiting for this 42 set to buy too.... got one question to ask you folks though: I'm in NJ and planning to drive down to Delaware's store to save some bucks for tax. Anyone knows if C***co report this transaction anyway to the IRS? I just don't want to waste my time for this if IRS bills me at the end of the year for this Tax anyway.

Thanks,
Govee

It's sales tax, not income tax, so the feds don't have a say in it. The only risk you run is if NJ finds out and they have some sort of use tax (i.e., you buy it in one state and use it in another). If (and that's a big "if") Costco actually reported something to someone who cares, I have no clue whether NJ would tax you.

It would be really great if we could get the correct size of the box. After all this wait, I would hate to find that I can't fit in the CR-V.

I have read somewhere that you are suppose to ship standing up and it is not good for the glass to lay on the side.

Please advise.
Rick
Westborough, MA

I transported the Philips plasma on its side last week. I drove as slowly and as carefully as possible, and the unit seems fine. I assume the risk is that it's easier to break the glass if it's on its side, but that's just a guess.

I would have measured the box if they'd had one on the floor. I stepped off the box for the 50" Vizio, and it was ~54" long.

I just got off the phone with technical support and received the following info:

box size: 47x15x36. I was told he just measured it.

Fan Noise: No fan in the 42

Power Supply Buzz: should not be a problem, different power supply than P50.

They have one set up in demo room and the tech support commented that this is a great set.


Also, should not be a problem if unit is placed on its side for the ride from store to home.
Rick
Westborough, MA

I just contacted the store that I plan on purchasing the Visio 42 and I was told they have 44 on order for the promotion and rainchecks will be available if they are sold out during the promotion week.
Rick
Westborough, MA

This is off-topic, but I just saw one exactly like that on a certain wholesale club's website.. It's called an Eyefi PX4200 though..

Nice write up.

Yes the SD issue is what worries me as well. Especially with the "possible " absence of the Faro Chip Set. I know the V50 has it. One could only imagine what the larger V50 would look like with out it.

Stiil, I can not wait for th 20th!

My Ford Windstar should handle that with no problem, provided I take out the two rear seats.


That's interesting... I wouldn't have thought that, although I did see that the 42" has ~320 watt power consumption, versus 500+ for the 50" set.


I couldn't hear a buzz of any sort from the one I previewed today. Of course the drone of all the other noise in the warehouse probably drowned it out.


He better say that if he wants to keep working for Vizio CE!



Noted... if I opt to buy it, shouldn't have any trouble getting it home then. Thanks for probing into these matters Rick!

That's reassuring to hear. 44 is about twice what I expected, or at least that would apply to my location. I can't anticipate what the demand for these will be in Charlotte. I'll be off work on the 20th, so I should be able to muster at the door when they open that Monday. Just nice to know the raincheck option is there, just in case.

Thanks

I decided to call on another issue

The absence of the Faroudja.

QUOTE

Tech-Well, I had a chance to view BOTH the 42 and the 50 side by side. They looked the same. I really did not see any difference.

Me-Why did V not include the Far on the 42? I know that the 50 looks very good. Is this a cost issue ?Did V just want to try something new?

Tech-It came down to a licensing issue. Cost, it's they wanted another 7-10% per unit?

Me-okay, hopefully for not paying the additional 10%, this 42 will hopefully look good with out the Far. Kind of sarcastic. Thanks for your time.

END QUOTE

Okay, so hopefully, this 42 will look good. I personally would not have a problem if V past the 10% over to me just to have the Faroudja?

Do others agree?

In conclusion, just HOPING this issue will be forgone once we get the set AND we will enjoy or new tv's.......yah right..lol

My lack of experience with this doesn't qualify me to answer your question with any certainty, but you've given me pause to think. I found this article on Faroudja's Directional Correlation Deinterlacing - AV Outlet's DCDi article. There's a comparison screen image of with and without DCDi on that page. It speaks volumes for the technology.

I probably needed to have my enthusiasm for the P42HDTV hosed down a bit with this sobering bit of information. I'll be interested now to see how this affects the performance of the 42" set. I'm planning on playing some XBox 360 games on mine, which will no doubt show the rough edges attributable to the lack of capable deinterlacing.

I thought all xbox 360 games would have a minimum resolution of 720p, and therefore wouldn't need any deinterlacing.

Based on your measurement, can you haul it back using CR-V?

Thanks!

True... I've only had my 360 for two weeks. I've still got first generation XBox technology on the brain. Well, there's probably 1/3 of my HDTV's service life unaffected by the lack of DCDi.

I still know that I'll be watching more than my share of SD material though. Just about all of the regional college football and basketball games I watch are in SD, and those are probably not going to be very satisfying on this set... at least that's my gut feeling. I hope to be proven wrong.

There seems to be little information on the web about the company MediaTek (MTK). Here's all I could find:

Apparently they are a Taiwanese fabless chipset supplier meaning they do the design work and sub out the manufacturing. They originally developed ICs for PC optical disc drives (CD-ROM and DVD-ROM) in the late 1990's. By 2001 they began to ship a single-chip implementation of a DVD player. Now in addition the company is developing application processors for mobile phones, and

digital TV ICs.

MediaTek's has a patent-pending, progressive scan algorithm: MDDi(TM) (Media Direct De-Interlacing) technology. The MDDi(TM) technology utilizes an intelligent link between MPEG decoder and embedded progressive scan processor to reproduce accurate pictures from DVD movie discs. Not sure if that last part applies only to their DVD player products or has some application in the P42HDTV. In any case, lets hope they are fast learners.

Is this going to be doing the job the Faroudja DCDi does in the P50HDM? I've downloaded the P42HDTV's manual, and the only mention it makes of deinterlacing is Motion Adaptive Deinterlace.

All that has been reported in previous posts is that MTK will be supplying the deinterlacer. So yes it replaces the Faroudja, but I have no details on how good or bad it may be. That lack of knowledge should change after the 20th as the first buyers start to report their experiences.

did you happen to get the item #?

Okay, I'm a lot clearer about this now... thanks! Given the fact that we know that MTK is supplying the deinterlacer, you have to wonder why the Vizio tech that tmdlkwd spoke with on the the phone (ref. post #197 back up this page) didn't offer this is a response to tmdlkwd's question about the absence of the Faroudja? He merely said they weren't using the Faroudja deinterlacer because of the 7-10% licensing cost it would entail.

So, from this one *could* infer that the MTK deinterlacer is costing Vizio less money, but because it is cheaper, it *may* not be up to the quality of Faroudja's?

I sure would like to read a review of the P40HDTV, prior to March 20th. It's starting to look like Vizio is enforcing a March 20th street date on these though.

Man, you have got eagle eyes........... and a bit of Googling shows that both these unknown brand names seem to be from the same stable. Question is what kind of picture they deliver.......
Still if going down that kind of path, might be better to stick with Vizio or Westinghouse whose products are more of a known quantity, at the moment anyway.

Thanks

The set he refers to (at least the one I think he's referring to) looks like the Vizio 42HDe to me. I'm I offbase?

I think they're talking about the D:sign LCD, not the Vizio.

That's what I thought until I followed bccomstock's "hint" to a certain "club's" website, and looked at what they're calling the Eyefi PX4200. It's a plasma display by that site's description, and it looks very much like Vizio's 42HDe. The stand is clearly different though.