My 42WE655 arrived in town today and I expect to have it delivered tomorrow of Friday. Guess it's time to start the owner thread Hopefully we'll be able get it all tweaked out like the GWII and III. Pics to come ASAP!

Cool, looking forward to them.

Wicked aweomse cool.

This set is at the top of my list for an Oct 30th purchase. What made you by this one over the Panny?

Got my 42we655today awesome hd and digital cable picture, analog lacking. Hooked directly into cable and built in tuner picked up all local HD channels, although they have different number slots than regular cable. Trying to get a cable card from comcast to pick up encyrpted hd channels.

Where's the pictures? Come on!!!

I wanted to be the first lister to get a GWIV (US version anyway)! Mine is scheduled for delivery tomorrow...2 days late for my 30th B-day but in time for the weekend. I have a feeling I'm gonna watch a lot of football this weekend

When you say analog is lacking I hope it's at least as good as the GWIII. Do you notice any difference in the analod/SD cable picture running it through your STB vs. directly into the set? I haven't looked at the GWIII tweaks threads yet but is there anything in there that had improvements in analog/SD PQ for the those models?

analog signal is ok,abot the same as i had on my toshiba 32 crt, just not as good as digital and HD whre I am sure I will spent most of my time with this set. Watched Hd NBC Hawaii and picture was totally awesome, played DVD for a test (seabiscut) and could not get wife to stop watching to the movie was over. Comcast to bring cablecard tomorrow so I hope to get encrypted hd channels.

toshiba crts even cinema series, dont have even good HD pq! imho

Some general questions about the GWIV...

1) What is the refresh (sync) rate of these sets? How does the rate compare to the GWIII and current competing models? How often and under what circumstances might one see blurring of the picture when watching sports, etc.?

2) How many different variations of these sets will there be, and at what sizes? Unless I'm mistaken, it seems like there are going to be WE and WF sets of the same size. What's coming down the road for the GWIV in the near future? (I'm looking at getting a 42" set of some sort.)

It's great that someone has a GWIV. Let us know if the PQ is similar or better compared to the GWIII models. How is the SD? I'm sure the HD is great. Also, how is the brightness and viewing angle?

Does it have a 100W lamp or a 120W lamp? (I think the lamp wattage will increase with the WF655 series.)

Thanks,
Alan

Mine was delivered at 6pm...I've only played for 20min just to make sure it worked and didn't have any obvious issues OOTB. It's late so I'll report back tomorrow once I've had a chance to work on all my connections and get channels set up. First impression though...I don't al all mind not having the black surround like the GWIII.

Come on TH3_FRB, you've had this almost 18 hours and no pictures or reports on PQ?
What's going on?
AAAAIIIIIEEEEEAAAAAAA!!!!

arkid,

Hey, you know that's where I live? Aiea (pronounced eye-eh-ah)

Yes, I'm also waiting for TH3_FRB to post a review. Hope we see one soon.

Herb

Is the Gw4 worth a grand over the gw3?

Are you saying that the GWIII can be had for less than the GWIV msrp of $3299? Where??

It's all about pricematching. Go to pricegrabber.com try to find a local internet store and print it up and go to sears,cc or bb. The lowest is [MSRP Only] there beat it by 10%

I doubt any local establishments will price match an Internet vendor... Especially on such a high ticket item... They will usually only price match a local competitor with stock on that particular model...

Ok, here are my impressions of my 42GWIV. As to whether the picture is better than a III I can not comment other than to say that HD is great on IV and SD and analog are better than on my sony 27". The advanagtes of the IV that I have found thus far it is slimmer 15 in and the built in tuner has been a plus for me. I live in Annapolis Md, and comcast designates this as a Baltimore area and only puts local Baltimore Hd channels on its lineup. But I was surprised when I hooked my cable line directly into GWIV and had it do the automatic channel search to discover all the washington DC local Hd channels available, located at 122.1 and up. These channels did not appear using my STB from comcast. I am using cable in port for most analog, SD, and Hd viewing. The stb box is hooked up via component to Video 5 and is used to view encrypted channels and on demand function from comcast. Video 6 is connected to my DVD via component and plays DVD exceptionally. I have the GWIV sitting on a bush stand with a swivel base in my narrow room in my condo, sit 8 ft from screen and have not experienced any screen door effects or bad pixels. On my limited viewing thus far I have been happy with black details and have not noticied any blurring doing sporting events. I also enjoy the twin view feature which has allowed me to watch college football and yankee-redsox game at the same time, but digital picture can only be played to the left panel.

Any pictures?

Sorry for the wait folks...party last night and triathlon this morning

So I'll review some now and then report back once I have a chance tweak. This is my first WS television. I've been watching a 32" Sanyo HD set for the past few months (and been very happy with it). My set showed up Friday afternoon and actually wasn't smashed to pieces this time. I was a little bummed when we found out the WE655 would be all grey instead of having the black surround like the GWIII but it's still a nice looking set overall. The black would probably give it a slightly classier look, but I don't dislike the grey. I powered it up and it began to scan for channels...found all the OTA digitals. For now I'm using my Moto 6200 HD STB from Cox via component. I might try an DVI-HDMI cable but reports are generally that the DVI output on the Moto (which was only recently activated most places) isn't providing any improvement in PQ. One beef I have with the Moto 6200 is that I have to select either 720P or 1080i as the output rather then having it send the native res of the content to the set and letting the display do any necessary scaling. I can't see any obvious difference between the two output formats...although Discovery HD didn't play well with the Sony when I had the STB sending 1080i last night so I'm running 720P for now. I'm going to play with running the cable directly into the set to see if there are differences in PQ. I might get a cablecard and ditch the STB but it only saves me $4 and I lose the interactive guide and On-Demand stuff so the PQ would have to be substantially better to make up for the loss of features.

Okay, the set needs adjusting OOTB...it's not bad but I'm sure it can be much improved. I'm running Pro mode with some fairly high Picture and Sharpness settings for now. I actually played around for at least an hour trying to tweak the picture to my liking but I'm not there yet. I haven't used any test disc as of yet. I have Avia but have never used it so I'll wait till I have plenty of time to spend...later. I also read a post from one of our friends to the north that used some of UMR's tweaks on his 42WE620 as well as one additional SM adjustment and got substantial improvements in black details (here is the thread - 42WE620 review/tweaks). My general impression is that this set will be very good once I figure out some better settings and do some SM tweaking.

My two primary issues at this point are 1) soft picture on all OTA HD, digital cable/HD, and DVD content. I expect a softer look from analog SD so I accept that. Even the interactive cable guide and Sony user menu is soft. One thing I notice OOTB before changing any of the picture settings was that Pro mode was significantly softer looking compared to Vivid...and I'm running Pro. I believe UMR's tweakes improve the resolution of Pro mode so I'm hoping that will take care of it. 2) black detail needs to be improved and colors in general are a little muted...it just doesn't have that "POP" when you flip on a football game in HD (although the Fox game looks very nice today). I think improving the crispness will also help with that "POP" factor. I can't seem to get the adjustments right for blacks...Pro mode is rather dark to begin with, but when I cranked the Picture setting it brought the colors back up. Even with the brightness at 30 the set seems a little washed out in general. Watching anything wth black bars, the bars appear kind of bright black if that makes any sense...they certainly aren't black black. If I hold up a black speaker grille to the "black" bar you can see a clear distinction. I tried to take some pictures but they didn't reallt show it. This is the type of thing I'd typically use a contrast setting for...increase the darkness of the blackest blacks while increasing the brightness of the brightest colors...but there is no contrast setting Again, hopefully a run through Avia and SM tweaks will take care of it.

SD is actually good although you will certainly see the difference in quality among various channels. Analog HBO looked very good last night but my analog local networks weren't as good...which is fine since I can get them all OTA digital anyway. I'm satisfied with analog and digital SD. I'm not yet blown away by OTA HD, cable HD or DVD...but they are all generally good. Don't get me wrong...I'm not unhappy with any of them, but I'm not satisfied yet either. I'm certain I can make significant improvements over the next week or two as I have time to read UMR's tweaks and learn the Avia disc.

Okay, some quick pics...they don't actually look that great...probably my 5 year old Kodak 1.8MP camera. I'm having a hard time getting good pics...my camera wants to flash but that reflectsa off the screen so I've been covering the flash, which makes things kinda dark.

Here it is...the stand is temporary 'till I get to Ikea and pick up an oppli stand in a few weeks. It will be about 14 inches lower.


A couple shots of OTA HD
720P on Fox


1080i on CBS

Yesterday 08:30 PM
iSSues:

Sears will likely pricematch, but it will include shipping. In my case, it was based on a price near where you posted plus $249. shipping. Was still a great price at the time.
However, I was also lucky that when I bought the Sony DAVFR8 Home Theater and the SWE50 Tech Craft stand at the same time, the salesmanager did the pricematch but did not add in any more shipping, so I got a great deal. The DAVFR8 final price was a little over $520. and the stand was under $300.

Good Luck!
Alan

I dont like the looks of this TV, will wait for XS995 series..

iSSues:

One more point. Sears will match local stores, not Internet-only stores. But, the person in the TV Dept. told me he would match any credible online store that had a storefront. Abesofmaine has a store in Brooklyn, NY, and it is shown on their web site. I guess he figured I could call a Sears near the other store and get the pricematch. I think he could have used the out that the store was not local if the pricematch caused him to lose money. But, he was able to do it and make money. Also, I bought the Sears extended warranty. I wouldn't buy a TV like this without extended service from a credible source, but this is just my personal opinion.

Alan

alan, did their system show XS series, and will sears be carrying those?

Sorry, I don't know about the XS series. Up to now, I think Sears has only stocked the WE610 series. I would expect them to carry new models as they become available. They may go with the WE655 series since it is the next new model after the WE610. Not sure if they will go with the WF655 series.

Since I don't work for Sears, these are only logical conjectures. You may want to call a local store or their online store.

Alan

TH3_FRB,

Does the new GWIV 'remember' the video settings for each input? For instance, if you set contrast to 30 on Video1, then switch to Video2 and set contrast to 50, is contrast still set to 30 when you switch back to Video1?

-steve

Yes...completely independent settings for each of the 8 sources.

i work at BB and have access to the WD-62525 but am trying to wait a decent time for them to work out some problems. I know most problems can be fixed (tilt) but i do not want the hassel of having to call techs, go thru
menus...etc. The Sony 60XS955 is also in our system so i am stuck with the lcd or dlp problem.

Sony lists » 1386 x 788 pixels (all signals displayed at 788p) , so apparently has a higher resolution but will it be better?

Mitsubishi 1280 x 720p
DLP Light Engine


Inputs are a little better on Mits (firewire,pc input) besides the sony having 2 HDMI ports. Everytime i make a decision something new comes up..any advice..I love both but don't know what to pick

Good news! Sounds like at least one good reason to wait for the GWIV's. Thanks for the info.