Westinghouse SK-32H240S Review Wanted

Well, take this for what you will, this is the first HDTV I've owned.


I did a lot of research into various HDTVs, and found what seemed to be a general consensus that Sony, Sharp, and Panasonic are some of the best to get. However, I saw some positive buzz after Black Friday about the Westinghouse TVs as well, and I haven't heard of too many hardware failures, so...


... I bought one. I had intended to get the Olevia at Circuit City, but after dropping by the Best Buy, I saw this one. It looked much better, and actually looked quite comparable to the Sony 32" that was sitting right next to it. It may not have had as smooth a color gradient, but it was close, and the image is very punchy.


I think what sealed the deal for me was the number of inputs on the sucker. 2 HDMI, 2 Component, 2 S-Video / Composite, VGA, and Coax, which pretty much covers the entire spectrum of my consoles (including my Dreamcast VGA Box, whee!).


I didn't notice any lag time at all with my gaming. I think I was imagining some with the emulators I was running on my Xbox, but after trying it on my older TV, I think it's just mushy buttons that were the culprit there. Plopping Burnout 3 in worked like a charm, and if you can't detect lag there, you're not going to detect it anywhere, as fast as that game is. And I didn't notice any, and the screen stayed nice and crisp throughout. And it's BRIGHT. Whites look much brighter than anything I saw on my SD 27" Panasonic.


I noticed the speakers weren't all that great. They didn't have much bass to speak of, but I didn't spend any time mucking around with 'em, instead turning them off and resorting solely to my set of cheapy $30 Wal-Mart speakers. That's plenty good enough, and rectified that problem on the spot.


All I've really seen is the UnleashX dashboard in 720p, and it's REALLY clear. But moving images may be another story, but I'm guessing after seeing Burnout, it's not going to be a problem, especially given 720p being the actual native resolution of the screen.


I did detect some slight skip when I had the SNES hooked up when fast motion occurred on the S-Video inputs, but I think that's either a problem with the cable not liking the SNES, or just the SNES signal in general. The same S-Video cable looked perfect on the PS2, which is what it was made for, anyway (one of those three-system cables).


All in all, I am VERY pleased with the TV, and of course, in my paranoia, picked up the $99 service plan, so I can return it within four years for repair if anything goes wrong. In my opinion, if you do that, you can't go wrong.


Now, without owning another HD, I can't provide any sort of long-term comparison, and really, this isn't even a long-term review, but I like it, and things seem to be going swimmingly right now. Needless to say, I'm more tempted than ever to get an Xbox 360, so I'll have the whole "Wii60" thing going.


Hope that helps at least a little bit. If anyone has a differing opinion, feel free to post.

Okay, here are the results of my tests so far:


Swapped component inputs. No help.

Swapped to another PS2. Same deal.

Swapped to another component cable. Also the same.

Swapped to S-Video. Also the same.

Swapped the S-Video cable to the Xbox. Here's where it gets interesting. For my testing (with Guilty Gear X2 and some other random stuff), no issues in either 480i, at least for the 15-20 minutes I checked.

Component on the Wii playing Tales of Symphonia for about 30 minutes also had no issues that I could discern.


This makes me believe that, much like the SNES, there is some issue with the deinterlace process on the PS2 video feed. It's very weird how intermittent it tends to be, but has been verified to occur with Castlevania: LoI, Suikoden V, Klonoa 2, and Tales of the Abyss. In other words, virtually everything I've tried. I still need to verify 480p on PS2, although I played Urban Reign for about 30 minutes, and didn't really notice anything (although discerning between any frame rate stutters and TV stutters might be a difficult thing).


As another sanity check, I have a cheap console-to-VGA converter, so I hooked it up to the VGA input. This thing is cheap, so it doesn't look that pretty, but it seemed fairly smooth, although I'm too tired right now to check it for more than I did.


So, if it IS the PS2, and it would seem that it is (or at least the way the Westinghouse handles the video feed), I wonder if there is any way to fix the problem? They didn't seem to know what's going on.


Anyway, any more ideas are certainly welcome.

Well, I'm to the point that I think I'm going to take it back. I tried a game that in terms of response time may be the most critical, and that is Shadow Hearts: From the New World. Anyone who's played this game knows that it takes very precise timing to nail the critical strike regions effectively. Now, I haven't played the game for a while, but noticed that I was having difficulty hitting the strike region. On a hunch, I hooked up the VGA input, which doesn't do any de-interlacing. Sure enough, I was nailing them once again.


So to REALLY verify my suspicions, I hooked both the VGA and the Composite up, turned on the PIP, and lo and behold, the lag is plain as day. It's especially noticeable in fixed camera areas, where the view changes abruptly. You can see the switch occur on the PIP, then on the main screen.


I'm going to do some more research, make sure there's not a gaming mode or something I can enable. Didn't see it in the menu's, but who knows? If I don't find anything, back she goes. If anyone has any suggestions on a good set in roughly the same price range that handles SD well, but also does decently on progressive (I'm looking at getting a 360 eventually), please let me know. In particular, if they have a model currently at Best Buy that I can swap for, that would be best. I definitely want something lag-free.

Returned it. Good TV, but not so much for gaming, especially in SD. Swapped out for a Sony Bravia, KDL32S2010.


My review, for the short time I owned it:


Progressive scan looks great, as does SD. However, there is a sizeable lag (~100ms) for interlaced material, so if you are a gamer, keep this in mind. SD also has a tendency, on all inputs, to get a bit choppy. This only happens for short periods of time, but happens nonetheless. Also present is a blackout of the screen with quick white flashes (see: Rayman Raving Rabbids, etc.). This only seems to have issues over component. Screen brightness is great, no lag with progressive, colors (in my opinion) are almost perfect.


Audio, as to be expected, is pretty bad. Hook up your own set, seriously.


This is a good set for the price, but not if you're a gamer. If you're watching a lot of TV or DVDs, this is MORE than adequate. The gaming issue can be bypassed by using an upscan converter and hooking in to the VGA input, but some may not want to deal with the hassle. I didn't, although returning to Best Buy was a hassle in and of itself (mostly due to a computer error).


In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy my Sony. As much as I hate joining the enemy, it's a nice set, no detectable lag on SD, and plenty of options to mess around with. And no screen blankout.


Westinghouse customer support was actually fairly helpful, even though they didn't know about the choppiness issue. The lag, they were aware of, and were about to suggest the same thing that I did above, an upscan converter.


Although my experience, overall, wasn't positive, if you're not a hardcore gamer, you could do much worse, and if you are, you probably know all the workarounds by now, so it's not a bad set, when all is said and done.