Customer Reviews

Sylvania LD320SSX 32-Inch 720p LCD HDTV/DVD Combo

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Costco had it for $379. We decided to give it a try. Setup was quick and painless, with the only tools required being a medium phillips-head screwdriver for attaching the base. The remote is responsive and easy to use. The picture is rather spectacular especially considering the price. I see some other reviews online complaining about contrast, but this unit states a 10,000:1 contrast ratio on the box and looked great from first turn-on. I have felt no need to change the factory settings and have noticed no display artifacts. The tuner works great and picks up some cable channels none of our other TVs have found. (Some might even be worth watching!) The captioner (which I use) is very configurable and readable. The sound is fine, too, and the DVD player works well in our usage so far.

It has a fluorescent backlight, as LED backlighting hasn't come to low-end units like this one. So, the finite lifetime of the backlight will probably limit this (and all other fluorescent-backlit LCD TVs) to three-to-five years of usage. Plasma and OLED TVs have about the same lifetime for different reasons. Shrug. If you want longer life, go for LED backlighting, but you'll pay.

But I must say, for a "low-end" unit, it certainly cuts a great first impression. It's only been a few days, so I can't attest to reliability, but Costco doubles the manufacturer's warranty and offers its Concierge service for free. So far, I'm impressed.

We put a movie in and immediately thought there had to be something wrong. There was very little contrast. Any scene where the lighting was not bright, characters looked more like a shadow because all features were lost without contrast. The colors were off too. After some adjusting of factory settings, it got a little better. But there are much better TVs out there for the price paid for this set, even if you have to purchase a separate DVD player. But if you really need a combo unit and don't need great picture quality, this will suffice.

This TV has a great picture and adequate sound quality to enjoy in a medium size room such as your typical 14x14 ft size bedroom. It did take a little fiddling around to get my ComCast DVR to talk to it in 1080i but it will do it just fine. It took a little more fiddling around to get the picture to fill the screen (use HD zoom) on the ComCast remote. The DVD plays just fine and is not picky about about old DVDs. We like this set alot.

Great value and great picture with acceptable sound. One big drawback for me,though. The set is incompatible with the Comcast remote and communication with both Comcast and Sylvania (Funai Corp.) offered no help other than "sorry".

I bought this tv because I was tired of having a lot of equipment around the tv. Meaning a DVD player. Figured a built in one was the way to go.
After owning this tv now for about 2 weeks. I find that the picture isn't very good and when it is an HD program it isn't much better than a non - HD program.

I am also experienceing problems with the DVD player. It skips on some DVD's. I have taken the dvd out and cleaned it, but still had problems. Plus I couldn't see any scratches on the dvd to cause the skipping.

Bottom line, I feel there are better 32" LCD TV/DVD Combos out there for the same price.Sylvania LD320SSX 32-Inch 720p LCD HDTV/DVD Combo

10 watts per channel audio brings excellent sound quality and picture is bright and clear considering its not 1080P resolution. Attractive slim bezel makes this combination 32`` LCD TV/DVD unit an excellent pick for bedroom. Just grabbed a great price at BJ`S WHOLESALE CLUB ...$419.99 with instant in-store coupon of an additional $30.00 off. Out the door for $389.99 plus tax! Offer good until Sept. 02, 2009..better hurry on this one. One negative....Sylvania has a lousy 90 day Labor and 1 year Parts warranty. With any built in tv/dvd combo, you need a bit more coverage then that. Bought additional 3 year extended 100% parts and labor warranty for $39.99 from SquareTrade. For pennies a day, 3 years piece of mind is worth it.

Many folks have hammered this model because of "poor picture quality". All I can say is these people didn't bother working with the set's picture settings. Does it offer the same quality as my Panasonic Viera 50" Plasma? Nope. However, it also cost $379.

If you are looking for a very nice combo set, this set is very reliable. We've had no issues with DVD playback and the HD signal from Cox is as expected.

As for portability in the attributes - just how portable should a wall mounted LCD TV set be?

My only complaint, no listed SA 8300 DVR remote code.

I would readily recommend this set as an economical first set or as a second set.

I picked up this set at a local membership-based warehouse store as a floor model for the low price of $340 (after floor model discount). Got it home and the first problem hit almost immediately. The threaded wall-mount holes are counter sunk into the set by 4mm or so, and the screws on the wall mount I purchased could not reach. I had to modify the wall-mount so that the screws would reach. Strike 1, albeit minor.

The next issue I encountered was with the picture quality. Darks were very dark... In order to eliminate the blackness, the contrast and brightness had to be set so high colors were flat washed out.

In testing the DVD player, the mechanism that engages the disc was unpredictable at best. Sometimes, by the time it grabbed the disc, it's already moved on to rejecting the disc. It was generally a struggle to get a disc in.

HDMI selection was very slow. In other words, when I turned the set on, it would take several seconds before it would display the signal from my HD cable box.

The straw that finally broke the camel's back was that the remote uses an obscure set of codes and none of the Funai, Sylvania or other codes listed for the Comcast universal remote could control this TV. A quick Google search quickly revealed that this TV has a unique remote and simply isn't supported by the Comcast universal remote.

Also, the product image here on Amazon isn't clear enough to reveal the horizontal gold stripe that goes across the bottom of this set. An eye sore on an otherwise attractive set.

I returned the TV to the big box store and picked up a 26" Toshiba 720p LCD/DVD combo and all of the above issues are completely resolved. Granted the new set is smaller, but it's for a bedroom anyways.

I don't know why anyone would complain about the picture quality of this tv. Mine isn't even hooked up to HD and the quality is still pretty good. I purchased this tv for around $420, which compared to other brands of the same size is a good buy, especially since it also comes with a dvd player. If you are not anal retentive and want a good tv at a reasonable price this is the way to go.

I was looking for a "starter" HDTV of at least 32" to replace a 10-year-old 25" tube TV and came across this model at Costco for under $400. The picture quality looked a lot better (that is, brighter) than many of the more expensive models, and because it would eventually go into the bedroom, the integrated DVD player was a bonus. I'd have to say that the DVD player is the best feature, because it allows me to completely bypass all the compulsory previews and skip right to the DVD menu, something none of my standalone DVD players will do. However, I've never been happy with the picture. I ran Video Essentials twice and I'm still not happy. The blacks are TOO black, and many underlit scenes tend toward impenetrable darkness. Worse, the picture manages to be both overly green AND red (which is odd, considering that they are on opposite ends of the color adjustment): hair looks greenish and faces look pink. DVDs generally look pretty good, but TV broadcasts are a toss-up. And as other people have mentioned, the obscure remote code means I can't use my cable box remote to control the TV.

Sorry, Sylvania--you had your shot. I've put up with this TV for two months now and I've decided to take this one back and try a brand better known for its HDTVs.