LCD or plasma

That's the wholesale distributor.

TV arrived this afternoon. It's great. I've got a few issues with the digital reception, but that's an aerial/signal problem- not the TV. On satellite it's fantastic.

Hi-def reqiures a larger, more efficient antenna and Cat 5 cable or your signal strength will be weak and not carry the digital data, so you will get drop-out.

Fixed my digital reception with an amplifier. We've only got two stations broadcasting in high-def at the moment.

An amplifier can in itself be a cure for drop-out, especially if you are feeding multiple devices, but it can also over amplify the data, causing another kind of drop-out -- not lack of signal but too much. This can also show up as a blooming of the white areas (gamma) which is actually the sum of all the colors in light, also washing out the detail in the brighter areas. Hopefully there's an audio/video store nearby that can recommend how many db boost you need. This one is likely good enough for most situations and it's not expensive at all:


Digital Amp

I've got no problems with the one I've got. Reception's great on all digital channels.

Good news.Just calibrate your set with the Avia disc and you WILL be a happy bunny .
Welcome to top quality viewing .

I get about 8 stations in digital/HD in my basement using a $10 unamplified hoop antenna from the grocery store. But I digress...

Costco.com has a Magnavox 42" LCD 1080p on sale for $999. Model 42MF437B.

Worth it?

Considering that Amazon is selling it for $1,599, that is a good price. I could not find any reviews on it though.

We have a Sharp Aquos 28", LCD, I have no idea what the specifications are, we don't watch all that much telly but we are happy with what we have.

The original shipment of that Magnavox were recalled due to a problem with the mother boards.

Here's what our tech determined:

Got the Magnavox today, after unpacked and assembled speaker and stand, ran auto scan with cable from the wall. Manavox gets about the same digital and analog channels as Vizio. After calibrating Magnavox, the PQ was not as good as Vizio, the black level was not as black and the white was light gray not as white as Vizio. There is no adjustment for individual RGB levels nor backlight. The Vizio PQ wasn't the greatest of all 42" sets but it is much better than Magnavox. I am trying to do more calibrating to see if it can be better.


Neither display has the black level of the newest Panasonic Pro Monitors. 1080p not-withstanding, if you're willing to save a few hundred dollars on a second-rate display that cannot even be configured properly (likely because of flakey electronics), go for it. The main problem with Vizio has been that the colors are not consistent across the screen and therefore cannot be properly calibrated. Look online and you see a lot of refurbished Vizios -- those are the sets that have come back to the warehouse in Irvine and then redistributed, or the store has taken them back and had a local tech refurmish them on a credit from Vizio.

If you're getting good digital hi-def signals with a hoop antenna, you must live on flat land and are only a few miles from the stantion's antennas.

Sounds like what I expected, not the greatest set. I prefer Sony because I like their internal programming the best and the wide modes available for non-HD/DVD viewing.

I only mentioned the antenna because everyone should try a cheap solution, such as a hoop on the end of a long RJ-6 cable, before they spend a boatload of extra cash on a rooftop or under eave "HD" antenna. It's better to be surprised than broke.

Just using Cat-5 cable could solve some of the problem. Unfortunately, some the best HD programming is on cable and satellite. Discovery, HDMovies, TBS, HBO and all the pay-by-the-month movie channels, PBS (in some areas they broadcast HD over-the-air). Discovery alone is worth the monthly cost of the cable/satellite HD channels. If one rented all the documentaries musical, et al, programming on DVD, it would cost more, and a lot of it is not available. "Planet Earth" on hi-def DVD isn't cheap, especially when one has to buy a hi-def DVD player! Then you might as well replace your TV with 1080p (which I don't recommend unless the sizer of the screen is 42" or larger).

The SONY is the way to go -- much greater reliability over the life of the set. Just be cognizant of the perchance of warehouse store to sell discontinued models. Sometimes that isn't bad -- the improvements might not be worth the extra cash. On at 40" or smaller, I'd go for a 720p and get a DVD upscaler player. Until the broadcast and software for 1080p is available which could takes years (one has to actually shoot in 1080p video to playback 1080p), I wouldn't give it a thought. If it's a very large screen and price isn't an object, go for it.

How do you use CAT-5 or CAT-6 cable to do coax ?

You need the proper connectors -- they're available online. The twist-and-lock connectors are sure better than those dang screw-on cable connectors. If you're getting good reception with an indoor antenna, spending money on a high quality outdoor antenna, installing it with Cat 5 cable (the grade the cable companies use in lieu of fiber optic) to your set might not be worth it.

Wait a minute - when I think of CAT-5/6 cabling I'm usually talking twisted pair - for data. I use the term RJ-6 for coax of the higher rating.

Are we on the same page here?

When Cat 5 is referred to as "twisted pair," -- it's two or four twisted pairs in a single cable jacket. The balanced line transmits at a lower signal-to-noise ratio and a digital signal can travel up to 328 ft. before line amplification. If you're receiving some HD but the rest of the broadcast is analog, there's not much advantage unless you are getting drop-out of the digital signal on Hi-Def broadcasts. If you're receiving all digital over-the-air and your antenna is located on the roof (or attic, which is not ideal), the long run will not have much signal lost and you won't get drop-out even on multiple TV's. Otherwise, the cable you're using is fine. Cable companies who have offered partial or all digital signals and are not wiring with fiber optic generally use Cat-5. If your antenna is within 50 ft. to a set or a amplifier splitter for multiple sets within the home, Cat-5 is probably unnecessary. They don't use it in my area from the underground box where the fiber optic ends to the houses that are serviced from that box. They use RJ-6.

In the showroom, we use Cat-5 around the walls to each amp/splitter. You have to buy and install the twist-and-lock video coax connectors to an amp/splitter with mating connectors. We're running up to twenty displays at one time, however. Kind of expensive in not really needed. A house 6,000 square feet or larger with multiple sets would benefit from the wiring.

So, last night I fiddled with that Vizio for the first time - I had just left it with out of box settings to get a feel for it. I upped the contrast to max, set the color scheme to "cool", fiddled with all the settings, and to be honest, at least in HD, it looks pretty darn good. I did notice that any color scheme other than "cool" looked too orange. There was also an "extended black level" that I turned on, and DNR that could be set to various levels, though that didn't seem to make any difference on any SAT signal, HD or not.

DNR is still an adjustment available in the menus but does not work on a digital signal. It only works on an analog signal. Until Feb 2008, some broadcasters including cable in most areas still have analog signals available for those who haven't upgraded to a digital TV.

I've recently had people come in who still have an old tube analog TV and live in a house with a value of $1M and more. If they don't purchase a new digital TV, they'll have to purchase an adapter in February 2007.

The cool setting delivers blue/white highlights, tones down the red/amber, and for some reason makes the picture look clearer. It does cut down on eye fatigue -- actually the same basic concept of the color of the light in aircraft instrument panels. The contrast shouldn't have to be cranked up to the maximum setting unless you are getting an awful lot of ambient light flooding onto the face of the display. At low ambient light it will diffuse the detail in all of the dark areas. Of course, you can crank up the brightness and there's a happy balance between the two. Trouble is always going to be that engineers at each broadcasting channel are fiddling with the adjustments on their end and you constantly find you're making those contrast and brightness settings to compensate of an engineer's whim. I haven't seen a display that had a memory feature to keep settings on a desired station or time of day. There are daytime, nighttime settings on some menus but I haven't found one that is automatic. Remember the old tubes sets with the little electronic eye in the face of the set that tweaked the contrast according to the light in the room? Some displays in LCD have a backlight adjustment, and a gamma setting on plasma. Both are different than adjusting contrast and brightness. A calibration with the disc and necessary testing equipment will cover the adjustment even though there will be no consumer adjustment available.

Seriously, even if one could, spending $150.00 to $250.00 calibrating a Vizio display is putting good money after bad.

Vizio's marketing sceme is transparent, following Samsung a few years ago, with bargain priced sets but second-rate electronics. Samsung has now geared up their quality and the price has gone up accordingly. Their sets are now in the same price range as Sharp, Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba and the rest but in LCD, still cheaper than Sony. Funny part of this is that on some of the non-XBR Sony LCD's, the actual screen is manufacturered by.......Samsung. Sony is assembled in Mexico.

The Vizio has a backlight adjustment. I turned it down quite a bit - it was set to 90 - turned it down to 50. Contrast was at 50, upped it to 90. Brightness set at 50-60 or so.

It looks a lot better than it did out of box. Couldn't find any calibration settings, figured that was an LCD thing (I'm used to CRT projection).

I've already gotten into it a bit with the local broadcast engineers who see fit to fiddle with the HD signal, making the Desperate Housewives look like they are more desperate for a meal than a man. I'm sorry, but they are not all 6'6" tall and don't have Frankenforeheads.