Customer Reviews

Westinghouse LVM-42W2 42-Inch 1080p LCD Video Monitor

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Ok I was going to write a long story about how I got here but who really cares.

The bottom line is this unit completely rocks. I compared it to the Sony SXRDs and the JVC 1080P ILAs - both are 1080P displays but will not accept a 1080P signal. The picture is incredible - truely like an 8 megapixel photo in HD. Even Home Theater Mag rated its performace (96) higher than the Sony (94), JVC (92) and all the DLP (< 90) units in its 2/2006 HDTV face off. But remember its a monitor not a TV so you'll need to either have a cable box, sat receiver, computer or external tuner. Actually this is one monitor which you can hook everything up to since it has 5 HD inputs. I've only found one weakness - sometimes when switching between sources it sometimes looses sinc and goes pink - but its easily fixed by switching again to another source and back.

I have had the chance to test out the 37inch westinghouse, 37 Sceptre, 42inch Sceptre and the 42

westinghouse. I bought all these 1080p monitors and kept only 2 of them. Hopefully my experience will help someone to make a right decision about their future purchase..
First I got the 37 westinghouse.

It was great as a monitor but while watching video it had motion blur due to slower response time

and you could see the video had noise and was not sharp or cleaned up. If you want to buy for monitor only and not to watch video then you can get this unit.
Then I got the 37 spectre

which is also 1080p. This was a very good monitor. Black levels were good but it had video tear

or jitter when I used to watch video with DVI input i.e from the computer.(no it was not the

computer problem) I connected it to 3 different high end computers and the problem still

persisted. I had to return it as it developed problem on left hand side of screen where the there

was a chunk screen started to flicker within a few days. I got an replacement for it after 3 weeks. It worked for 45 days and it developed a blue vertical line which stayed on permanently. When I called

sceptre they wanted me to ship it back and they said it would take 4-6 weeks to fix it, they said it was an panel problem. So I dont know if I was unlucky or if the build quality is bad. But the video from HDTV cable box was very

very nice. Sharp no motion blur no jitter. Jitter was happenning only with 1080p video source

through DVI. What I am talking about is that when watching video the top half of screen seems to tear from bottom half which gets very annoying.

Then I recently bought the 42 inch Sceptre, it had a long wait time. I was really looking forward

to this TV. But I was dissappointed as soon as I turned it on. The black levels were bad. I mean

really bad. There was no details in the shadow. I tried every setting availiable to get the black

level right, it just would not give me a clean picture. When I connect the computer through the DVI

to HDMI convertor, it works good as a monitor. No jitters in the video at 1080p, but the black

level will disappoint.

Then I recently got the 42 westinghouse. This has been the best of both

worlds. The 1080P video from computer is cleaner, no jittering, black levels are pretty good and

best of all you can see details in the shadow. I have had the chance to set all three monitors next

to each other and play the same HDTV content, the 42 westinghouse looks the best then comes the

37 sceptre. The 42 westinghouse has one problem, you will notice interlacing lines. If there is a

diagonal line you will see jagged edges. Especially moving mouths you will see interlace lines.

Its more noticable if you sit closer. This does not happen with the sceptre. The same diagonal

line looked very smooth in sceptre. I think it is something to do with the deinterlacing part of

the 42 westinghouse TV. Sometimes it works sometimes it does not. The video is very crisp, colors are vibrant. Video has less noise.


If you are on a budget get 37 sceptre rather than 37 westinghouse, but you may have quality

issues with 37 sceptre. I saw video jitter for DVI on both 37 sceptre I have had so it has to be a problem with the TV itself. But it is great as a HDTV, very very detailed and colors are really good and it has no deinterlacing or any other problems. details in shadow and the black level is much better on 37 sceptre than the 42 sceptre. Another very annoying problem with the 42 sceptre was when I changed source from DVI to any other source and then immediately back to DVI it would say No signal. Even if you turn the TV off and turn it on it would say no signal. You have to restart the computer. So 42 sceptre could not be used as an computer monitor without having to restart the computer everytime you turn off the TV or change source.



I needed 2 monitors, one 37inch and one 42 inch, I ended up getting two of the 42 Westinghouse. Hope fully this helps.

I received a Westinghouse LVM-42W2 on February 23rd and was instantly amazed by the size and image quality. I use it exclusively as a computer monitor and I was blown away, not only by the beautiful graphics, but also by the high resolution (1920 by 1080 is a lot of pixels!) The colors are vibrant and my movies look fantastic (although you become much more aware of the visual defects of lower resolutions movies and DVDs.) Although I do not use most of the connectors, there is an ample supply of them for all types of video equipment from video game consoles to satellite TV.

I was also initially pleased by the user interface. I used to have a 37" Olevia 537 (which is a 720p set) which took about 15 seconds to turn on. You would press the power button and get absolutely no feedback (the screen stayed completely black) for fifteen seconds. In addition, my PC would "forget" the resolution after each reboot. With the Westinghouse LVM-42W2, all these little annoyances were swept away. It takes about 4 seconds after I hit the power button for the screen to come alive, and there is an immediate, tv-like beep when you hit the power button, to let you know that it's coming up. The menus were also very clean, making use of the high resolution of the screen to present clean and crisp menu options. The image quality is absolutely superior to the Olevia panel.

Switching between the different inputs is a snap. The remote control has five buttons, labeled DVI, VGA, YPbPr, S-Video and AV, which allows you to instantly switch between the various inputs. Strangely, pressing the DVI button repeatedly cycles through the two DVI inputs and the single HDMI input. I imagine that the YPbPr does the same for the two component inputs.

It bears emphasizing that this is a 1080p set which accepts 1080p inputs. I have noticed many "1080p" (from Sony, no less!) who do not actually accept 1080p inputs, but instead will upscale a 720p or lower resolution to 1080p (what's the point!?)

However, having owned it for only a couple of weeks, I have already found serious drawbacks.

I was browsing today to see if there would be any problems with the PS3, and lo and behold, this turns out to be the famous set which does not play well with the PS3. Popular Mechanics did a couple of articles on it [...] Although Westinghouse initially made some encouraging noises about possible firmware fixes, they and Sony have now decided to blame each other and not fix the problem. At this time, it is not clear that there is any good way of connecting a PS3 to this set and get 1080p graphics. One suggestion has been to connect via an HDMI to DVI adapter and into the TV's DVI2 port. However, there are reports that this does not solve the problem.

Which brings me to the second issue. This HD monitor does accept 1080p input on some, but not all of its ports. I can confirm that 1080p works on VGA and DVI2, but I had a real scare when I hooked my computer to the DVI1 input and the display went bonkers. The manual and spec sheet have conflicting information on this, but it does appear that one of the DVI ports is only able to accept 1080i input (when I turned down my PC's refresh rate to 30hz on DVI1, it started "sort of working".) I have not tried the HDMI port, because I do not have an HDMI capable video card. Rumour is that 1080p is not possible on the component inputs, and that the only way to get 1080p from your XBox 360 is to get a VGA adapter for your console, although I cannot confirm any of this.

A third issue was that it took several tries for my PC to go into the proper video mode on the VGA port. The first time I tried to switch it to 1080p, the whole screen when kaplooey. I had to reboot and connect to my old 19" monitor to set the video mode to something more reasonable. Eventually it came up in 1370x768 (aka 720p). I then had to open my Catalyst Control Center (I have a Radeon card) and manually set the resolution to 1920x1080 and simultaneously set the refresh rate to 60hz. For some reason, the monitor tells the PC it can handle 75hz, but if the PC tries to do 1920x1080 at 75hz, it scrambles everything. So you have to force it to do the right thing.

Fourth issue. I ran it like this for a week (it was beautiful!) but I also ordered a DVI cable (note: this monitor does not come with any cables, not even VGA!) Once the DVI cable arrived, I initially hooked it up and got the scare on DVI1 I talked about above. Then I hooked it up to DVI2 and got a much more reasonable picture, but there was still a glitch. The whole screen appeared shifted to the left, and there was a weird band of black on the right (about an inch.) When I cycled through the inputs and returned to DVI2, the band of black was now a band of crazy colors. There was also about an inch on the right where the last pixel on each row was stretched out so that it was one inch wide. This was very peculiar, and after much googling I found that the solution was to uncheck the "Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displays" feature in the Catalyst Control Center->Digital Panel Properties->Attributes. This may be more of an issue with my video card or even with Radeon cards in general, I don't know.

The fifth issue that I've had is with the upscaler. If your PC or other video equipment produces an image at the native 1920x1080 resolution on DVI2 or VGA at 60hz, everything pretty much works. However, when your PC puts out some other resolution, you get trouble. On the VGA port, the resolution 1360x768 (720p) gets scaled up and works pretty well (although there are black bands on the left and right), but weird resolutions like 848x480 don't get scaled properly (they don't get scaled, or they become too large and half of the image is off-screen.) However, on DVI2, the 720p input does NOT scale up properly. There is a stretching button on the remote control, and it does scale it, but there's always something wrong. It's either too narrow (black borders on all four sides), or it gets scaled so large that half the image is off-screen.

The sixth and final issue is with firmware, which is a secret piece of software that runs in most electronics you buy today. The firmware is usually upgradable (in case they find problems with it) but with this TV, this is not the case. Current versions of this TV appear to ship with 1.00 firmware (which is actually newer than the 1.19 version they were shipping with last year -- go figure.) Some people have been able to get upgraded to 1.03 firmware. However, Westinghouse has decided not to allow us consumers to perform these firmware upgrades ourselves, so there are varying stories about having to ship it back to Westinghouse or having to drive to a Westinghouse Service Center to get this upgrade. Alas, these firmware upgrades so far do not seem to fix the problem with the PS3, and Westinghouse has indicated to Popular Mechanics in a follow-up interview that a firmware upgrade will not solve the problem.

This HD monitor has no tuner (so you will need a cable box or external tuner to watch TV programs.) This is not an issue for me, and is plainly advertised so there's no problem there, but it is probably useful to keep in mind. Humorously, the remote has a number pad, which serves no discernible purpose.

In conclusion, this HD-ready TV has a fantastic image quality, but there are numerous technical issues which prevent this set from attaining greatness.

I am very happy with the Picture quality in analog, digital, and HD, the remote and menu could be better, but will use my Harmony 880 anyway.

To fix the Power Lock-up issue call (866) 287-5555 - Westinghouse Technical Support.

Inform them that you are having a "Power Lock-up" issue with your set and that your current Firmware is 1.xx. Tell them you have read that the latest Firmware 1.19 corrects this issue and that you would like to be updated to the latest Firmware.

They will take your information and have someone contact you from one of their Third-Party support organizations (such as IAI) to arrange a time to come out to you check out the set and perform the upgrade.

[UPDATE] Mounted the TV with a standard 42 inch tilting wall mount. Suprisingly enough it's actually pretty solid. It was still kind of touhg to get the mounting brackets attached but once it was put together the TV doesn't budge. Also the TV is still working beautifully and has gotten quite a few compliments from friends who've come over and seen it.[/UPDATE]

OK, first off please note that this review will not cover the longevity of the monitor since I just got it, but I will cover the quality.

Next point; A lot of people are buying these new-ish 1080p monitors. They're the new craze right? Well there's something very important to understand when you purchase an widescreen HDTV. To date most US Media is still rendered at standard NTSC widescreen resolution, 720x480. And a lot of that is altered to fit a standard TV, 640x480.
If your HD Widescreen TV/Monitor is a higher resolution (which it most likely is), the images shown will need to be scaled to match this resolution. It is IMPOSSIBLE to up-scale a pre-rendered image without losing image quality. I wont go into the full details but this is a fact.

So that in mind, when you look at an HDTV/Monitor your looking for one that has a nice scaling algorithm, go to your local store and ask them to play a non-HD video on it (which is most movies). What your looking for is the edges of the objects in the video. On some screens they'll be jagged, on others they will appear mottled or muddy. And on very few, the edges will be just slightly burred and will still look nice (these are the good ones, forget price, expensive doesn't mean jack). The other thing your looking for is the Levels, how black is the black? and to get it that black how much of the mid-range (gray's) was lost? If you have good black and gray levels do you still get a true, bright white?
Play with the contrast and brightness a bit, you'll see what I mean.

So!
As far as I can tell when it comes to scaling, this Westinghouse is an average to good TV. The image looks nice and the levels (black and white intensity) are great. Making this over all a quality buy.

But where the thing seems to really shine is as a monitor for a Media PC or your next-gen game consoles. In order to take advantage of it you'll need a VGA, or DVI cable.
When using a media PC, the quality of the video card can take care of all of the scaling algorithms and produce a much cleaner and crisper scaled image for all media, this means all the TV really needs to do is have nice levels.

The Westinghouse really steps up to the plate in this category!
I was very impressed last night after I set it up, I played with Gamma levels, Brightness, Contrast, Curves, you name it, and was constantly impressed by the range and quality delivered in such a large LCD monitor.

After some tweaking to the contrast and brightness I have got a picture that I would comfortably use while developing multimedia for my clients and at that resolution, 1920x1080 I'm very pleased!

LCD monitors are dropping in price right now because of the SED's that were supposed to be out. Apparently consumer level SED technology has been delayed a bit (a year or more last I heard). Since it's always a good idea to give a new technology a year or so to really blossom, I'd say now (2007) is a great time to buy LCD or Plasma if you haven't already, give SED's a year or so to get it together.

When coupled with your standard cable connection you'll get an average to good picture quality and when paired up with HD content passed through the VGA, DVI or 1080p HDMI cables, you're going to be very happy.

The only thing that I'm kind of bummed about is the compatability with wall mounts. Oh it's there all right but all of the mounting screws go in the center back of the TV, which doesn't seem as stable and gives room for shake. On an 80lb piece of electronics, shake and instability are bad things.

The other downer is the Remote. It's little and functional but I think Westinghouse went with some really dated technolgy to get the signal from the remote to the TV... I mean, I think you'd be better off using tin cans with ropes for better signal. You need to be directly in front of the TV to get that signal across. kind of lame but there's always Universal remotes at your local electronics store.

As it is, I'm really excited about this TV and so far I'm thrilled to have it. I was very nervous ordering it from Amazon with out seeing it first but after looking at other LCD monitors I figured "They all look pretty crappy and this one has the highest resolution so, what the heck!"

I am suprised and very content with my purchase to say the least.

PROS:
Good Image quality when scaling standard media
Great Levels! Very nice.
Excellent quality for Media PC's and Next-Gen Game consoles.
Nice Price
Not to heavy, about 80lbs
Nice Menu features, very easy to navigate and understand.

CONS:
Craptastic Remote, buttons are all there, nice size, but the signal is a joke.
Poor support for good wall mounts, haven't mounted it yet but it doesn't look like it'll be to stable.

Again I haven't had it for long so we'll see how it holds up over time but for now, I'm extremely happy with my purchase.

I've been using this monitor for around 25 days and have had an opportunity to see it with Comcast HD programming. I have just finished returning it for a defect which I'll first describe, then tick off the pros and cons of it.
The defect was that I would commonly get a bright green line up against the right bezel when a HD channel was not showing a true HD show (upconverting Standard Def). I would also see a bright yellow line against the left bezel. This problem was channel dependent and another cable box did not solve the problem. I called tech support and they said it was a 'known issue' - at which point I punted and got my money back.

Make no mistake, however, the picture was as nice as any LCD I've ever seen. And it handled action reasonably well. Blacks could always be better on an LCD, and I think plasma is still the clear winner on that front.

Pros:
- Price: For now, the best deal in town.
- Picture: As good as everyone says!

Cons:
- NO DISCRETE remote codes. Anyone own a universal remote and use macros to control your system? Forget about it. You can't tell it anything but toggle on/off and it toggles through DVI1, DVI2, HDMI so you can't choose your source twice in a row without it switching to the wrong source.
- Terrible remote; trust me, you'll want to use a universal remote (irony?)
- Lame FILL feature. I don't believe the fill did a very good job when stretching the picture. Not as good as other LCDs and Plasmas.
- Input placements. All of the inputs are placed on the sides of the monitor. Unless wall mounting, it's unsightly to see more than a dozen labeled inputs on each side of your TV. Also, no covers to hide the unused ones.
- Slow switching between S-Video and HDMI/DVI. Each time it's switched to HDMI it would show "HDMI - No Signal" for a couple seconds which was irritating.
- Would be nice to be able to disable unused inputs.
- Manual is typically awful. An example:
Function Name: DPMS
Description: Select DPMS On/Off.. Um, what's DPMS? Nowhere in the manual.

A lot of Cons? Well, I would have kept this monitor even with all of the things I didn't like, but the defect pushed me over the edge.

I bought the LVM-42w2 about three weeks ago. I am extremely pleased with the performance. The monitor I have has the 1.00 firmware which is the latest (version 1.09 is older). I have had no issues with sparkles on the screen. Also the 1.00 firmware takes care of the lockup issue. The over all color looks great. It has the right number of connections and I have had no trouble hooking my computer and A/V equipment to the LVM-42w2.

I use the monitor for general web surfing and to play World of Warcraft. Without a doubt at 1920x1080, WoW looks great! I have no problems with motion blur, etc.

Looking at TV at 1080p is impressive and I have been happy with the results. Watching regular SD TV is painful, because after seeing HDTV it is very hard to go back to SD TV.

The only area I have not been thrilled with is the customer service. I bought the monitor open box because BB lost the stand. I called Westinghouse the next day and placed the order. One month later the stand has not shipped. There is pitifully communication between the warehouse and customer service. No one seems to know what the other is doing. They make promises and do not keep them. I have been told 3 or 4 times the stand would be shipped out. No luck.

After my experience and now 45+ calls, I will never buy another Westinghouse product. If I had any serious issues with the monitor, I shudder how to think I would be treated.

If you want a 1080p monitor and can get a Westinghouse LVM-42w2 with the 1.00 firmware, I think you will be happy. If you have to deal with their customer service, then I would say Laurel and Hardy would do a better job on any given drunken day.

Update: I've just learned that there is a new v1.03 version of the firmware that is dated December 8, 2006. It is supposed to fix the handshaking issues with HDMI and the PS3 (or any other devices). I have updated my review with this new information.

I researched the hell out of this TV, as well as many others, and figured I'd pass on what I found. So here's a rundown:

Most problems that you'll read about this set (described below) only affect those manufactured early on that have older versions of the firmware. The firmware history is a bit confusing because the chronological order is: v1.11, v1.16, v1.19, and then v1.00 and now v1.03. So, v1.03 is actually the latest firmware, this is important to know. You can tell what firmware version you have by going into the menu.

Early versions of this TV with firmware versions v1.19 or prior, display sparkles (random flickering pixels) when viewing a 1080p source over HDMI or DVI (such as a PS3, Blu-ray DVD player, or PC).

Sets with firmware version before v1.16 also have an odd power problem where occasionally the TV will have to be unplugged, then replugged in, before it can be turned on.

If you have a set with firmware version v1.11 or v1.16, you can have an authorized technician upgrade it to version v1.19. This upgrade will fix the power problem, but there is no fix for the "sparkles" problem. In reading what other users have gone through, it seems upgrading can be an arduous process with Westinghouse's customer service leaving a lot to be desired.

There is no way to upgrade the firmware to v1.00 though. This is due to an apparent hardware difference with v1.00 sets. Some users have exchanged their pre-v1.00 sets for v1.00 sets, but I'm not sure that that is Westinghouse's official policy. I am not sure if you can have a technician upgrade your v1.00 firmware to v1.03.


The good news is that nearly all new sets being sold now are v1.00 (or the newer v1.03) and have neither the sparkles problem nor the power problem.

There are however some handshaking problems being reported between this TV and the PS3. I don't own a PS3, so I can't comment from experience. But a lot of users have said the PS3 over HDMI will lose it's sync with the TV when going from the PS3 menu to a game, or vice versa. Cycling through the inputs of the TV can sometimes fix the problem, but a lot of users have found a work-around by using a HDMI->DVI converter and using the TV's DVI input. It's not clear if this issue is the fault of the TV or the PS3 though, because the PS3 seems to be having handshaking issues with a lot of different TV's. This problem does not exist in those models with v1.03 version of the firmware.

As others have noted, the remote is very basic, and the infrared sensor on the TV is pretty finicky, even when the remote is pointed directly at it.

The calibration options in the menu are pretty limited, particularly the Fill option. If you're watching standard definition TV, you can either stretch the image to fill the screen or not, that's it.

The contrast ratio is pretty average for an LCD TV. When viewing dark scenes, there is not much difference between dark hair and shadows etc. This is a problem for most LCD TV's though.

The viewing angle isn't great. This, again, is a problem with most LCD TV's. If you sit to the left or right of the TV, the colors tend to get washed-out and take on a gray tone.

My main problem with the TV though is banding, also called uneven backlighting. Banding is when the TV displays vertical bands of differing brightness. On mine, it is only noticeable when viewing dark or dull scenes, but it can be distracting. Banding differs from one LCD to another, so if you're lucky you can get one with little to no banding.


So having said all that, I'd still recommend this TV, especially if you don't plan on buying a PS3 for a while (or can find one with v1.03 firmware). The picture quality is great, and you can't beat the price. The calibration limitations and finicky remote are minor issues, and the contrast ratio, while not great, is not much different than what you'll find on other LCD's. The same can be said of the viewing angle. Banding can reach unacceptable levels, but differs from one set to the next (My TV isn't bad but would be perfect if it wasn't for the banding).

I bought this TV online through Amazon, but if I had to do it over again (and had the option) I would have bought it from a local retailer. Dealing with Westinghouse's customer service doesn't sound very appealing, and it's much easier to return or exchange it if you have the retailer nearby. I'm attempting to exchange mine for another (hopefully with less banding), but since I bought it online, it's a touchy situation that will involve a lot of waiting, and shipping of packages across the country.

Clearly the strength of this LCD monitor is it's high resolution 1920 x 1080 (1080p) screen plus its many input connections. The weakeness of this monitor is the lack of a built-in tuner and the reports of occasional "on-off" lockups. I've read the lockups require the power to be turned off then on. I've had no such problems after nearly a month. My firmware is version 1.16. I have a cable box connected via DVI-1, a Samsung set top ATSC DTV tuner connected via HDMI, a Panasonic 1080i DVD player connected via DVI-2 and my laptop connected via VGA. I've also experimented with the 2 component RGB inputs with good results for 1080i. I even used the S-Video connection for 480i. Toggling between all the inputs is easy with no issues. The remote is a bit cheesy and somewhat directional. The OSD menu is just good enough. The picture quality is superb, natural vivid colors and extremely detailed. I've found no dead pixels which is amazing considering there are about 2 million of them. The built-in 10w/ch stereo sound system with 10/w subwoofer is better than average. Everything I throw at this monitor looks good. It even upscales 480i quite well. All flat screens have some issues if you dig deep enough. Many do not have enough connections. LCD screens are really monitors with built-in tuners and computer processors controlled by software, fairly complex devices. For the money, this monitor beats anything in its price class and well beyond.

A phenomenal screen for the price. I purchased mine from Best Buy for $1799. I have not seen the power off problem other reviewers write about - but I do have Version 1.19 firmware.
Best Buy are pushing the hell out of the Samsung 40" at over $3K. The Westinghouse
Leaves if flat on it's a** in performance and screen clarity and of course price. No wonder they put the Samsung at the front of the store and hide the Westinghouse LCD where no one can find it at the back. Good job Samsung reps for getting your stuff to the front ... but for those that do a little research Westinghouse currently has you beat in the 1080P department!