Westinghouse LTV 32w3 DVI input problems

Did you ever hear anything on this? besides the obvious none to this thread

I 'm interested in looking closer at the Westinghouse 32w3 as it appear very different from the w6. seems i've only seen this model at Video Only and Best Buy is carrying only the w6 models. any thoughts ?

wendek

curious, did you buy the extended warranty? how's westinghouse's customer support?
I agree with you, i think the panel/PQ on the w3 appears much better than the w6.

thanks, i'll wade through the other thread also.
wendek

I bought a LTV-32w3 about a month ago from J&R. It arrived with the front visibly damaged, but the unit and the screen were fine.

So I hooked it up. I have a 12" Powerbook G4 (1.5 GHz) with DVI and VGA output. I used a DVI to HDMI cable to connect to TV. 1360*768 and I get the same problem: left side is garbled as described. Rest of the screen looks perfect, 1 to 1 pixel mapping.

Firmware: 2.07B27 Apr 27 2006.

So I tried VGA, and while it looks ok, there is something extremely annoying: the little info box on the top right that says VGA and the resolution comes up every minute or two. This is terrible!

In any case, I returned the TV (because of the damaged case) and I got a new one. Same firmware, same problem. It's Sunday and I got the TV last night so I haven't contacted Westinghouse support yet, but I'm dying to hear from your experience. It just drives me mad if I have to return it again, as it's a very slow process... another two weeks without a TV!

I talked to Westinghouse support today. They seemed competent yet appeared to have never heard of this issue before. The guy went on on how HDMI has many implementations and is a new standard and what not, so he suggested I try DVI to DVI instead of DVI to HDMI.
I went to the local Fry's and bought a $35 DVI-D to DVI-D Dual link cable (6 ft).
Sure enough the problem persists, although the glitch on the left side is not identical to the one I see when using the HDMI cable.
I'll have to call again but I'm getting ready to retrun the TV and just go with another brand.

I emailed the people at Westinghouse photos of the issue. They said they were stumped and would contact me in 24 to 48 hours.

Hopefully they'll talk to the people in R&D and get a fix. Seems easy enough to reproduce as I have a pretty standard computer and many TVs appear to have the problem. Perhaps a firmware fix? We'll see what comes out of it, I'll post an update as soon as I hear from them.

From: xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: DVI display issue 32w3 (KMM58931V53230L0KM)
Date: August 15, 2006 10:55:35 AM CDT
To: xxxxxxx
Reply-To: xxxxxxxx

Hello Marcos,

Thank you for your inquiry.

We have tested this unit extensively using a PC and cannot replicate
this effect. There may be an issue with your video card. Have you tried
other widescreen resolutions such as 1280x760?

If you have any further questions, you may contact us through email, or
by calling us toll-free at 1-866-287-5555, between 9am and 9pm Eastern
Standard Time, Monday through Saturday. One of our technicians will
assist you.

Westinghouse Digital Support Staff


***
any thoughts? I'm going to try a friend's computer.

If you are getting the same problems as described/shown in this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=688446

It is not an issue with your video card, don't waste your time. It is Westinghouse's fault and your TV is defective.

Feel free to use those pictures to explain the problem.

Note that even the "fixed" TVs have issues displaying low-res DVI signals from PCs. It doesn't matter since 1360x768 works fine, but about 15% of the screen is missing on the BIOS and boot screens, at least from the gma900 on my pentium m shuttle xpc sff.

I just tried connecting a new MythTV box to my TV and ran into these problems. The DVI input has the screen wrapped around to the right a bit. The VGA input keeps popping up that stupid little window constantly telling you that you're watching the VGA input. And the HDMI (via a DVI to HDMI cable) refuses to show anything at all.

And after reading this thread, I'm not too confident about getting the problem solved. Has anyone had any luck, or have any new information from Westinghouse about the problem?

At the end the support people at Westinghouse FINALLY acceptd that this was a factory defect.
I returned it and got a Viewsonic. It's great. I recommend you do the same.

I had a working (firmware 1.0) TV; I sold it and upgraded to a 1080p LCD.

as

I called Westinghouse and they said it was a problem with the TV, and that they would fix it under warranty. However, they want me to ship it to them in CA, at my own expense. They will send me a new one first, so I don't have to go without a TV. I need to figure out if it's going to be worth it. Luckily I did keep the box & packing material.

Are the shipping weight & dimensions listed anywhere online?

It's been a while. maybe they've fixed it (since it all points to a firmware issue.
It's up to you. But I'm happy with the Viewsonic and at this point you can get other good deals.

First the good news: after sending my TV back to Westinghouse under warranty, I received back a TV that works!

And now... the rest of the story:

After talking to them on the phone, I shipped the TV to them on February 1. I had to pay for shipping myself. I was told that it would take a couple of weeks to fix it. It actually took about 3 weeks, plus a week in each direction for shipping. I was originally told that they would fix my TV and send it back to me, but was later told that they would send me a new TV. What they actually sent was a refurbished TV.

I inspected the TV on arrival. The TV appeared to be in great shape, but the stand is pretty scratched up. I'm going to call them back and ask for a new stand. I hooked up my laptop (via VGA) and ran Dead Pixel Buddy. I couldn't find a single dead or stuck-on pixel! So far, so good. I also checked the firmware - it came with version 1.09, dated January 2006. So I had my hopes up at this point, since it was an older version of firmware.

Next, I connected it to my DVR computer via DVI-HDMI cable. I was able to get full 1-1 pixel mapping with no issues! However, I couldn't get external sound to work. Then I switched to a DVI-DVI cable. Again, I was able to get a perfect, full 1-1 pixel mapped display, and the external sound input worked. So as of now, I am quite happy with this fixed Westinghouse TV.

Does anyone know of any issues with the older version of firmware?

Things aren't quite as perfect as I first thought. After a few hours of use, I noticed that the picture seemed a little "jerky" over DVI. So I switched to VGA, and everything looks good now. I'll give HDMI a try again too, if I can get the sound to work.

HDMI at 1360x768 is also jerky. I'm just going to stick to VGA - it looks great.

change your resolution to either 720p or 1080i and it will work just fine i noticed the same thing when i hooked up my xbox 360 via dvi