Digital Home Thoughts: A Harbinger of Things to Come: Westinghouse's LVM-37W1 LCD TV

What’s not to like?
Not much. First, it is an LCD display. The technology, by nature, has a problem displaying 100% true blacks. Its color gamut is rated at 75% of the NTSC spec, which is what you'd expect from a contemporary LCD display. I have no problem with what I see but purists might. It is all a matter of taste.

Second, the display has three aspect ratio display mode settings; Standard, where it displays what it gets as it gets it; Fill, where it stretches the image horizontally to fill the screen; and Zoom, which takes letter-boxed SD content and fills the screen with it. All good, so far. Missing, however, is a vertical-fit option that would let you take mis-formatted wide-screen content and squeeze it horizontally into 4 by 3 aspect. In the best of all worlds this would not be needed. Theoretically, it should not be needed. But in the real world, there are (lazy? clueless?) local stations that just pipe SD content through the HD channel without bothering to format it properly. Fortunately, both my STB and DVD player have a vertical fit option. And, of course, HTPCs and MCE PCs automatically handle aspect ratio properly.

Third, the dedicated input buttons for the two component and the two DVI inputs function as toggles with memory so that to get to DVI2 from, say, Component 2 will take two clicks if the last DVI port used was DVI1, but only one to toggle back and forth. To some this might be a feature, to some it is an annoyance.

Fourth, the manual is, to be kind, lean. While it is clear and readable it certainly doesn’t go very deeply at all into what the myriad options mean. It even undersells the display by not discussing some of the more important features of the display like the image processor or the per-port memory feature.

Finally, there is the matter of sample defects and overall quality. LCD displays tend to suffer three main kinds of sample defects; dead or stuck pixels, inconsistent backlighting, or cheap power supplies. So far, I seem to be lucky and have gotten none of the above. (My unit seems to be an exquisitely designed, well-built contemporary LCD display with state of the art features and performance.) Still, there is anecdotal evidence online for all three types of defects. How prevalent it is, I don’t know. Most buyers of the LVM-37W1 seem happy but some have expressed their dissatisfaction online. With a vendor that is not a first tier “name” vendor it will be a while before the quality of their manufacturing process is established and one can tell what to expect. Me, I opted to violate my rule against extended warranties and sign up for a four year, three-strikes lemon-option warranty. (It still came in under list price and I hope never to exercise it but sometimes one does need insurance.) Yet again, Caveat Emptor applies.