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

First Impressions
Lesson 1: There is only so much you can tell about an HD display in the store.
Electronics vendors have of late wised up and started to actually display High Definition content on the displays in their show rooms. (Took them long enough to figure that one out, no?) While some stores run off-the air content, on the displays, most big chains are currently running recorded loops of mixed-resolution content featuring all three ATSC formats (480p, 720p and 1080i), so it is generally possible to get an idea of what the individual displays can do and roughly how they compare to each other. However, there is no way to really tell how well a display is set up and while we all know the vendors would never stoop to tuning them so the higher-priced displays outshine the cheaper products, more often than not, the displays are going to be running at factory spec.

Which means that to really know if a display meets your needs, you have to take it home and see how it performs in your environment, with your lighting, your video sources. It is no accident that HD displays are the most-often returned objects in an electronics store’s inventory. Which is why, except around Super Bowl week, most vendors have fairly liberal return policies.

Thanks to the magic of a 30-day, no questions asked return policy, I was able to risk taking this particular beast home and run it through its paces. I figured two weeks would be a fair trial since I had done my homework beforehand and I knew what to look for as possible reasons to send the display back.

First impression: “That is one big box.”
Next impression: “Nice!” The box uses a set of four plastic latch/plugs: You squeeze and they come out and the bulk of the box lifts off, revealing the display surrounded by foam packing blocks. Remove inserts, remove the plastic bag covering the display. Carefully bend over. “...Hey, its light!” (Having just moved a hundred-plus pounds worth of 27” CRT, there is a lot to be said for the ease of carrying even a 37” LCD display.) Set it up, plug in the power, plug in the upscaling DVD player (via HDMI to DVI cable), insert THE INCREDIBLES. Switch the DVD player to1080i. Hit play.

“Ooohhh! Pretty!” Try 720p output... toggle back to 1080i... try 480p... go right back to 1080. Definitely looks better than in the store!