Westinghouse 42" 1080p at Costco for $699

In store Costco has the Westinghouse 42" 1080p LCD television model number VK-42F240S for $699.  I picked one up last night for my bedroom and am extremely pleased.

This television looked small in the store when compared with the 50 and 52" sets but once I got it home and mounted on the wall it looked humongous.  The tv features 4 HDMI ports (the box says 2 but there really are 4), a VGA port,  a couple of Component inputs and a composite input.

The picture and color appear to be as good as my old 47" Westinghouse.  The inclusion of tuners in this, as opposed to my 47 which is a monitor only, really makes this thing shine.  The system picked up all of the SD channels that my cable company offers as well as a bunch of Clear QAM unencrypted HD channels.

Channels that are related like ABC and ABC HD are located next to each other in the channel numbers.  ABC is channel 2 and the TV puts ABC HD as channel 2.1 which means that when you hit channel up from 2 you go to 2 HD then 3 then 4 then 4 HD etc etc.  Channels without an HD equivalent sit by themselves like 3 does in my example.

This TV looks huge but I was able to mount it to the wall with a Peerless mount that is rated for 40" and small sets.  The mount is rated for 80 pounds and this TV weighs in at about 46 pounds so should have no issues with the mount.

I'm not planning to hook a computer to this set, at least not now but I bet it would make an incredible monitor.

I talked to one of the TV guys at Costco, he said they had recieved 38 sets that morning and expects them all to be gone by the end of the weekend.  Hurry if you want one.

Westinghouse 47" 1080P at Costco for $999

I was in a couple of my local Costco's over the past week and have seen the Westinghouse 47" 1080P TX-47430S for sale at $999. Each store seemed to have about ten units available.

From what I've read on AVSForums this TV is not the same screen as in my 47" Westy monitor but is still quite good. This TV includes tons of inputs including 4 HDMI as well as an SD and HD TV tuners.

The TX is great for use with a computer / video game system as well as using it as a tv.

I'm tempted to pick up one of these for the bedroom.

42" 1080p for just over $800!!!

eCost has the Westinghouse LVM-42W2 42" 1080p LCD television for $799 +59 shipping and tax in some states.

WOW, incredible price. I've never purchased from eCost and their ratings are a little shaky on www.resellerratings.com so if you purchase be sure and use a credit card for protection.  Most likely you won't have any trouble with them but just in case the credit card can save you.

ECost also has the 37" 1080p LVM-37W1 for $559 and a 46" LTV-46W1 1080i for $895

I've been tempted to buy one of these from eCost for the bedroom but am sure my wife would kill me so we're sticking with our standard def tube in there for now.

Westinghouse in the press

I just found this in one of John Dvorak's columns, evidently he is a fan too:

 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2123846,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03079TX1K0000584

The 1080p Monitor Revolution Dept.: Many of us have been waiting for 1080p monitors, and now they're appearing at Costco. That means "mainstream." The most interesting of the group comes from a company called Westinghouse Digital Electronics. Well, the executives behind these monitors are various eggheads from Korea, Taiwan, and China with experience at Princeton Graphics, Samsung, and elsewhere, but they're licensing the Westinghouse name for marketing purposes.

I would keep an eye on these folks. They seem to be doing everything right, and they're part of a big market swing away from Samsung, a company that essentially owned the monitor space a couple of years ago.

Success seems to have spoiled Samsung, and the company ended up losing its best marketing people, including Peter Weedfald, who went to Circuit City, and Rey Roque, who went to Westinghouse. To top it all off, Samsung dumped its well-connected PR agency, HWH, out of New York City—and HWH quickly signed with Westinghouse.

These apparent missteps are costing Samsung momentum in the market, and Westinghouse appears to be the primary beneficiary, along with Sharp and Pioneer for their LCDs and probably Panasonic for its excellent plasma displays. If I were to buy an LCD monitor today, it would be a Westinghouse. I don't see anything else of this quality at such a low price.

to 1080p or not

The question I have beaten to death has come back to life. I was trying to show my wife the difference between 1080i and 1080p last night so I put up a nice 1080p picture of trees and a stream. I pointed out the wonderful detail and then lowered the resolution to 1366X768 and said and here it is at 1080i. My wife couldn't see the difference.

I couldn't really tell much difference either. The main difference was not in the picture but in the desktop, we had lost a lot of real estate. I flipped the resolution back and forth several times until my wife finally conceded that she could see a minor difference and that 1080p was better.

I should have brought up a PIP with television, an MCE window with HDTV in it and a browser all at the same time. Then changing the resolution would have shown how much better 1080p is.

I guess the point of this is if you can find a 1080i monitor in the size you like for a lot less than the 1080p monitors then buy it. If the price is close go for the 1080p. You'll be happy either way. I'm ok with this because the price I paid for this monitor is less than competing 1080i models.

Did I mention I love this monitor?

OK, enough of the 1080p 1080i debate, I promise to bring up new subjects soon.

Gaming on the big screen

I finally got the last pieces together so that I can game on my big screen tv. I had to buy a 15' USB cable and a USB hub to extend USB behind the couch and around to my easy chair for the mouse. I forgot to buy extension 3.5mm cables for my headphones and microphone. WWW.monoprice.com is sold out on 25' 3.5mm extension cables so instead I used an old microphone I had laying around and ran the sound through the stereo, that wound up working well.

Gaming at 10', the distance from the tv to my easy chair, was difficult. I couldn't see the finer details in the game. I tried lowering the resolution to make everything larger but this didn't help. Company of Heroes, my current game of choice, scales the image so that you see the same text and graphics no matter what resolution you are at. At higher resolutions the graphics look more detailed but they are the same size as lower resolutions.

I wound up pushing my easy chair forward about five feet. At a five foot distance viewing everything was perfect so I changed the resolution back to 1080p and played. Finally the holy grail, 1080p gaming on a 47" tv. Incredible.

Was it better than gaming on my 19" monitor? Yes and no. Graphically it looked the same, 47" at 5 feet is not that much bigger than 19" at 1 foot. The sound coming through my stereo was cool but not that much cooler. The easy chair made all the difference. I was comfortable, kicked back with my legs raised playing for hours on end.

Yes, this is the life.

The wonders of a pc connected to your television

I'm still playing with the new 47" Westinghouse 1080p monitor connected to the Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 computer. I'm having a blast with this combination.
I watched an episode of Jericho on CBS last week, the first that I had seen. I liked the premise of the show so I browsed to CBS' website and found that they had all of the episodes available for watching online. I've now watched four of the twelve available episodes and am enjoying the series.
Prior to purchasing the Westy I would have had to watch the episodes on my computer's 19" LCD while sitting in my cramped office. Now I can lounge in my recliner in the front room and watch the shows in beautiful HD.
A problem has appeared in the MCE computer, one of the HD tuners does not appear to be working. I can only watch or record one show at a time right now. When a scheduled recording comes up the computer pops over to that channel wether we are done watching the current show or not. I'll have to rectify this problem asap.
So, what's next? I'm getting setup to play "Company Of Heroes" on the big screen, I needed to buy a USB hub and a long, 15', USB cable to reach the easy chair via the back of the couch. I didn't want to spend the extra money on a wireless mouse, wired always works out better for gaming and the parts cost about $20 shipped from www.newegg.com. I'll let you know how the gaming at 10' from the set turns out.