Friday, February 10, 2006

Westinghouse 37" LCD HDTV Monitor LVM-37W1

I finally picked up a wide screen monitor for my entertainment center. The unit is made in China by a company that uses the Westinghouse name on the box. I found this unit to be the best all around unit for my needs. And one of the very few that will do 1080P.

The picture quality is EXCEPTIONAL, I could not be happier with the picture. This unit will accept 420P, 420I, 720P, 720I, 1080I and the important difference for me is that it will accept 1080P which helps me be prepared for the future. This was one of the few that had a resolution of 1920 X 1080, almost every other unit was X 768. Other units cost more for the lower resolution.

One warning about stores that sell this and other units. All the stores make the picture look perfect on the units they want to sell, which is usually the more expensive ones. Don't trust the picture you see at the store. Look for the features you want and the price you are willing to pay. I picked up this unit for $1499. At home this units picture looks as good or better then units selling for over $3000 at the store.

Display modes allow you to show standard TV in a square box with black bars on the side or a zoom feature puts the picture up to full screen mode. 420I looks good in the zoom unless there is a very dark background then the pixelation from the zoom appears. Switching to the standard TV view resolves this completely. The Xbox 360 games are so awesome looking as to be unbelievable. I hooked up the laptop for the first time and I am not sure how I will ever live with a normal monitor or laptop screen at home again. Having the real estate to use with the laptop and using the Bluetooth keyboard/mouse from the lazy boy chair is something I could definitely get used to :)

The number of inputs was important to me because I really hate to use a switch box to move between different video sources. I have the following components hooked up

Xbox 360 Component Video 1
Xbox Component Video 2
DishNetwork DVR AV (I am considering moving this to the S video port instead)
Laptop VGA port

This still leaves two DVI inputs for the future

Now my quest is to put a unit like this in every room of the house!

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