*NEW* Offical Westinghouse LTV-27w7, LTV-32w6, & LTV-37w2 thread - Page 7

Can easily understand you returning it -- I'm in a quandry myself. That's two strikes against it for me -- no Letterbox Zoom and 12% unavoidable error in the 4:3.

Thanks for the info -- Trevor

just curious, what firmware you have? i have 1.03

Although I'm having second thoughts due to my above mentioned concerns (12% 4:3 error, no LBX Zoom), fact is I love the picture. For both 16:9 and "Standard", I find the visual satisfaction factor tremendous!

This was to be my backroom "slumming" set, and I needed the price to be as "reasonable" as possible -- and I got that. However, since I tend to "slum" a lot , it's easy to get hungup on a couple of feature misses, despite being otherwise entirely satisfied. On the other hand, perhaps that could be considered part of the "slumming", imperfect, but still fun . BB has the LG on sale this week, and it supports LBX Zoom, but it would cost me $450 to switch -- is it worth the price when I'm enjoying everything else about the set???

Hence, a quandry! -- Trevor

PS. In fact, if I have to go up significantly in dollars, I would be sorely tempted to hold out for a 1080p 42" set instead -- the prices are gradually falling. May just sit pat.

i kinda glossed over the aspect ratio problems.. i dont really understand the problem. i just leave my set on Fill 99% of the time, everything looks fine. the only time SD content doens't get stretched is when i have it on the HD channel and their playing SD content. in my experience the Fill option works differently between a SD and HD channels.

i only had one glitch, and that was in the first week i had the set, i turned it on in the morning and i got no picture only sound, and no buttons would respond. had to unplug/replug it in.. since then i put it on it's own powerstrip by itself and i haven't had 1 problem since.

I plan on fixing the AR problem when I build my own DVR, at the very least with a standard NTSC PCI tuner (if not a ATSC/QAM/NTSC PCI tuner). A computer should be able to do a decent job of upscaling, right?

Would it be a better job than a standard cable company STB/DVR? (if they will even upscale 4:3 content)

I suspect folks like yourself are in the majority -- just display everything in 16:9 mode. You specifically mentioned HD and SD TV, not movies, but I'm guessing the answer would be the same. If most people are happy to view everything in 16:9, I guess boosting the "fill" factor a little in 4:3 probably wouldn't bug most of the rest either -- might even like it.

I have a similar situation with my Sharp projector. When viewing letterbox material I scale to 1024x768 -- gives me a nice smooth picture. However, anamorphic material requires horizontal expansion so I have a choice of selecting either true 16:9 which includes some jaggies or a slightly fat 720p display which is perfectly smooth. I haven't actually measured the degree of fat added, but it appears simlar to the Westinghouse "Standard", i.e. around 10%. I opt for smooth.

So, I guess I've already failed the "purist" test . That does raise an interesting side question though. I wonder if Westinghouse went with the 12% error due to a customer screen-usage satisfaction goal, or to avoid jaggies in a manner similar to my projector problem?

Just thoughts -- Trevor

PS. What is the difference you see in fill/standard behavior between HD and SD?

Hey guys.

I'm looking to pick up a new HDTV for the living room.
My budget is about $1k and the Westinghouse 32w6 looks good.

For the price, is this TV the best available?
Honest replies, please!

Thanks

PS - I'm looking to get it at Best Buy, but if anyone has some tips on sale prices, etc. for this TV - please PM me!

I can't say if the 32W6 is the best choice, but I'm sure it is a very good set!

Koeppel...I've been nothing but pleased with my 32w6. I really didnt check into other brands that may be priced around the same as it. I saw it in store and liked it enough to purchase it. Had it about a month so far and I've had zero problems with it and the picture looks incredible in my opinion.

yeah i have had a 37w2 for about a month now, and i couldnt be happier, they seem to be great TV's for the price.

with a 1k budget and shopping from bestbuy, then i would say, yes.. this is the best set.

all my movies go through my computer so i have tons of control over aspect ratio for everything i watch. for instance in media player classic everything is mapped to the number pad so i just play with that until i'm satisified with the picture.

I purchased a 37w2 a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still in the 30 day BB "evaluation" period. I got such a good deal (open box and a 20% off coupon on top of that) that I'm trying to look past the bad stuff.

Good: Picture quality is perfect when viewing HD and DVD content. I really couldn't be happier. My 6 yr. old DVD player looks nearly as good as HD over the component input. Menus are clear and simple. Inputs are adequate. A solid A to A+.

Bad: The sound--a bit fat D. It drives me insane. It starts off OK, though you have to turn it up to about 40-50 to hear anything. It seems to eventually lower to the point that it must be turned up to 80 or 90 to be adequate in a quiet room--barely acceptable. SD picture quality I would rate a C to D. The not-quite-4:3 bugs me, but I don't watch much but HBO HD and DVDs anyway. I also sometimes momentarily see a vertical line mid-screen on SD channels. I can't figure out if it's a compression artifact from my cable box or what.

Anybody else experience the mysterious lowering sound level? I had a TV before that used to try to lessen the impact of sudden loud noises, like an audio limiter, and would do that, but I don't see a setting in the menu for such a "feature."

I'm looking into purchasing the 32w6 at bestbuy within the next 1-2(max) months. However, I saw the 32w3 and am wondering if this set is better although it is the previous model?

They both are priced nearly identical ($50 difference), so what gives?

Could you explain this further, please? Specifically, what settings do you go into and tinker with to get this to work? I hadn't even thought of this method of viewing dvd's on my soon to be 32w6 or 32w3. Thanks

Just wanted to let you guys know about the warranty through Westinghouse. You get 1 year parts and labor warranty through them. If you bought the tv at a Best Buy store, then you will be able to drop the TV off at any Best Buy store to get repaired (I guess Westinghouse picks up the shipping charges to get it back to them). You have to place the call to Westinghouse (wait times were not that long, reps were knowledgeable and friendly) and they'll set it up with Best Buy. I confirmed this with Best Buy Corporate and I got the impression that because my tv was 32" or larger that they will come to the house and get it. Iamb not 100% convinced about that part, because Westie didn't mention it, but that sounds pretty good. The sales girl in BB didn't know what I was talking about, but they rarely do. The important thing is that BB Corporate and Westie confirmed it. I also bought it with my Platinum Mastercard which doubles the warranty of anything you buy with it. I think 2 years warranty in this case is good enough for me. I haven't had any real issues with my TV, just wanted to get the facts straight. SOmetimes when I turn the TV on, the signal from my cable box look like a split screen thing. I change the channel and it is gone. I suspect it is my cable box, because it happened on the first Westie 32w6 (refurb that didn't work out) also.

personally i would get the newest model possible.. they improved the remote so much over older versions its almost worth it just for that.

visually the black bezel looks so much better in the w6 than the older models.

I have an nvidia 6800 with a vga and a dvi port. i'm using a dvi->vga adapter, a 25ft super-vga cable that goes from the dvi/vga to the VGA port on the tv. i then use a 24ft audio cable from my pc line out to a ground loop isolator (gets rid of humm) to the tv's pc audio in line. from there, its all pc configuration to get the display working with the right res and then you can do anything you can do on a pc on the lcd tv.

i'm using nvidia forceware drivers, in dual view mode, and using ultramon pro. with all of this, i double click an .avi or load a dvd into MPC, and it automatically goes fullscreen onto my secondary monitor (the westy).. from here i control everything through the keyboard like skipping intros, playign with AR, etc.

i also use ffdshow to scale to movie to 1366x768. obviously i don't own very many dvd's or i would probably just get a nice set top Oppo or something

alucard_x, how does the windows desktop look when you get up close? Is it blurry? I'm doing the same thing as you but with an ATI 9800 Pro and 10 ft vga cable (and coaxial s/pdif for audio to my receiver) using the powerstrip application.

Has anyone with these or any other Westinghouse LCD had this problem while using the display at 1360x768 over DVI?

Thanks.

I returned my first Westinghouse 27w7 because the right side of the screen (and only the right side) had noticably flickering scanlines at certain brightness levels. My second set, obtained from a second Best Buy, has exactly the same issue. Is this a known problem with this set? It seems unlikely that two different sets obtained from two different stores would offer up the exact same defect. The first set I returned to Best Buy demonstrated the same problems when hooked up to their HD feed, so it isn't just my video source causing the problem. Adjusting the picture settings has helped the problem immensely, but I can still spot it when the picture is just right.

Any advice? Does anyone else have this issue?

My LTV-32w6 had an issue where about half (seemingly random) SD channels said This Channel Is Blocked. If I used channel up/down it did have video and sound the channel blocked text, in green, was overlayed. If I switched to another input then back to TV while on a blocked channel there was not video or sound, just the blocked message. Using channel up/down to get to the channel would make the video and sound come back, but of course, the blocked message was still there.

I called Westinghouse support and was told the TV can only block Programs and not channels and that this was a glitch that he had never seen before. He said to return it.

Hope im not shotgunning anybodies post but i was jus wondering if the 32w6 comes in silver or any color other than black/slate. On the westy website it says black/sivler but idk if that means black w/ silver trim or if it means black or silver. Thanks for your time guys.

Yes, the 32w6 is black with silver trim.

no not blurry at all. looks like a pc lcd monitor to me, just gigantic and at 1360x res

one color only, mostly black bezel with silver trim on the boundries.. most of the time you look at it you only see black which i like a lot.

I'm just finishing my third "evaluation" week, and I'm jealous of your 20% coupon .

I've seen people dis the SD channel picture, but my impression is that it's darned good (seems no less good than my Sony 27FS210 -- which is definitely darned good). The only things I can think of that could be factors are use of a good power conditioner, cable signal quality (no STB), and careful picture set up.

As far as vertical lines or other video artifacts -- none noticed so far.

I haven't spent much time with TV channels since the first couple days, but the set was on for hours and the sound level and quality were stable. As far as I'm concerned, the sound quality is entirely reasonable for a TV -- sounds good. If I want better sound, then I use external equipment.

I just received my third LG DVB418 upscaling player (returned the previous two due to flaws). With it connected via HDMI and a single vertical zoom step applied, I get perfect OAR full-screenwidth with letterbox DVD (though that doesn't help with other media). The 12% error remains for 4:3 DVD, but it really doesn't jump out at me for some reason (and I can apply the zoom again and enjoy a 16:9 window on the original 4:3 presentation -- an interesting compromise that can work). Given the cost delta in correcting those issues, I'm not sure I want to drop the dollars.

-- Trevor

alucard_x, thank you for your response. I knew when I read your first post there was more to it than that and I appreciate your attention to the issue. Thanks a lot!!

I'm still comparing the 32w3 to the 32w6. On the Westinghouse website they mention in the specs for the 32w3 that it has "Clear QAM". The specs for the 32w6 do not mention this. My current setup is a Digital Cable box from Time Warner. When I buy my new tv I will be getting a DVR stb and I really need to figure out which one of these two models will produce the best results with a DVR from Time Warner cable. This is my first foray into the HDTV realm, and am on a limited budget (read:$1200 MAX, but prefer $1000) as I am a college student. I'm learning more and more everyday about all this HDTV stuff, but some of it still goes over my head. I've actually been using wikipedia to understand some of this info better.

As always, any insight is welcomed and appreciated. I really like the amount of attention shown in this thread!! Thanks!!

Clear QAM does not matter if you're going to be using your cable box DVR. It'll let you watch the local channels in HDTV (and if you're lucky and the cable company there doesn't bother to encrypt everything else, a few extras). I just purchased the LTV-32W3. Both the 32W3 and 32W6 both have clear QAM.

The 32W6 does not have a DVI port (just 1 HDMI port), but it has different menus (including a color temperature setting), along with digital audio output. I like the blue color temperature on the 32W3 so I'm okay with that, and I like the menus on it too. Since my Xbox, PS2, and 8300HD DVR all have digital audio output and I have that many inputs, it's not a problem to me. (The 32W3 has 1 DVI and HDMI.)

Note that I am on my second 32W3 -- the first had problems with the HDMI and DVI inputs. They both had issues on the left part of the screen at 1360x768 and the DVI port would not support 1080i/720p/480p over DVI. These problems are resolved now, and I am watching TV over the DVI port right now from the 8300HD.

I would let the price and looks decide which you buy, unless you like the menus, need the digital audio output on the TV, or really want that color temperature setting change.

Make sure you get the HDTV version of the DVR.

Thanks for clearing the QAM part up. I have seen a couple posters on here complain about the color temp. settings menu on the 32w6. Personally, it doesn't matter to me as I am going from a 27'' Sanyo CRT to the Westy so I should see an immediate improvement in picture. I will have to tinker with the settings to personal tastes anyway, which I'm sure will vary from others.

I looked at a 32w3 in two different HHGregg's and the one was very blue, however, the other one must have been adjusted as it was hardly blue at all. I looked at the really blue one first and was immediately turned off from that model. However, after seeing a 'properly' tuned one in a store, I have changed my mind.

Digital Audio output is not a huge selling point to me. However, it is nice to have that feature should I need it down the road. Right now I only have an XBOX 360 which will be hooked up using component cables.

Thanks for reminding me to get a HDTV DVR. No boubt, I would have had a brain fart at the time of ordering on the phone and would have got the wrong one, only to throw it out my apartment window after realizing it wasn't HD.

I guess I just need to re-visit BB and HHGregg to compare the 32w3 and 32w6 again. I have about another month of saving so I still have plenty of time for researching about these two. I hope to get over this indecision real soon, though!!

Thanks for your input!!