Reviews:
Not only is this t.v. beautiful, but the picture is just plain old awesome, i have had 720p/1080i for a year now, i feel like i watched hdtv for the first time, i have put over 10 days into cod 4 on ps3 (5th prestige) and the picture quality made it feel like a whole different game!! to finally see the full potential of blu-ray was so cool!!
the picture options like smooth motion and real cinema are easy to use!
depending on what your watching, you can easily change features to fit that program. example* watching ping pong on the olympics blew my mind set smooth motion to high, real cinema to precise,extended adaptive luna, and was blown away!i am so happy with my purchase, vizio did good real good!
i almost called in sick today to stay home and bask in it’s gloryand for those wondering.. i played pirates at world end on blu-ray and it looked just as good as any top tier brand you have seen on display at best buy!
–RELLIM
Well I just could not wait for Black Friday, needed to get the wife setup for football season. I just purchased two SV42XVT’s on Sunday at Sears to mount in the living room. They are both replacing a Toshiba 42H81. They were not in the store yet, but the sales person ordered them for us, which I am picking up at the store later today!
While there I decided that maybe it was time to upgrade the Sony 32” WEGA CRT in the bedroom. So I also bought a GV42LF to go along with the two VW22L I picked up at Walmart for my security cameras. They all look great with the GV42LF mounted above the VW22L’s on the wall. Everything is HDMI from three separate HD Comcast receivers and D-Sub from the computer. Very happy with the setup and even the little 22’s provide an excellent picture.
I will get the two SV42XVT’s mounted hopefully by the weekend and see how they compare to the GV42LF in a real world environment.
Anyways, I pulled the trigger since I used the 10% off for the Ultimate Football discount and since the wife did not have a Sears’s card, we got another 10% off for opening an account in her name! So for the price I paid for the Toshiba 42H81 6 years ago I got three decent 42” TV’s, and more impoprtantly it was an easy sell to the wife since she got the floor space back by eliminating the old stands.
I wanted to step up to a bigger screen in the living room, maybe to 47″ or push to 52″ and PIP or POP other games, but for the price of a top of the line set from a first tier vendor, none of them had the option for a 42” PIP view!
This sure is going to be a great football season, and yes I’m very lucky to have a wife who let me put two tv’s on the same wall!
–Tower Boss
I picked up the 42″ XVT at Sams here in Kansas City yesterday for $1078. They had 3 on the floor and more in back. Timing was pretty good as I planned on picking up the VO42L at Costco until I searched this forum and read that the XVT’s might be out. I called & spoke to a Vizio rep and he said he thought Costco would have these sets in stock within a couple of weeks but told me to check Sams.
I thought that the XVT 42 looked better than most sets on display at Sams, bested only by the Sony really, who knows what settings were like on any given set though.
I haven’t really had a chance to do much more that plug it in and turn it on since getting it home. The set looks great out of the box though. A little weighted on the reds but overall very nice. I’ll play around with it a little more tonight.
–Bumpermankc
Here is a quick update on my two SV420XVT’s after picking them up from Sears last night!
First off, they are still in the boxes waiting for me to get the mounts installed and wall plumbed for my connections.
Noticed right off how much lighter they are compared to the GV42LF I just hung in the bedroom. Specs show they are about 24 pounds lighter.
The perimeter bezel is also a lot thinner at 1 1/8” vs 2 9/16” for the Gallevia.
The owner’s manual is a little more detailed and has 25 more pages detailing the additional picture and audio enhancements and refined OSD menus.
That is it so far for the TV’s until I pull them from the boxes and install them.
Now for the remote. I was disappointed with the provided universal remote for these. The Gallevia’s was a definite improvement over previous ones from Vizio being backlit, but lacking PIP/POP control directly. Well for the SV420XVT’s they added the ability to control the PIP/POP from the remote, but the only thing that is backlit on it is the navigation ring. Seems like they went backwards. In addition, the new on looks very cheap compared to the Gallevia’s and actually weighs in at 3.2 ounces, 3.1 less than the GV’s.
Not a big deal for me since I use a Philips Pronto for everything anyways. If you only need a TV remote and the PIP/Pop functions are not important, I would get the VUR8 Universal that came with the Gallevia’s from the Vizio store for $49.99.
Other than that, I cannot comment on anything further until they are installed. However, here are some pics of things so far.
–Tower Boss
So, my local sears just got in the 42 xvt. So I thought I would go check it out again and play with some settings.
I will say that I was impressed. Any negative view I had of this set has diminished.
At first when I got there the set had just been placed, missing the remote just as the other one. However sears was nice enough to hook me up promptly.
I sat down and played with the settings and compared to the samsung next to it(the 120hz model).
After just a few minutes and a little tweaking, the picture was nearly identical to the Samsung 120hz!
Even the sales agent was impressed when he walked by and saw the progress. He stoped and sat beside me to check it out. Even so far as to mentioning that in some areas the Vizio out performed the samsung. Most notably in the details in shadowy areas.
The only negatives I do have. The blacks where very close actually. Impressive. The Samsung out did the vizio by a very small margin. Most wouldn’t even notice.
The vizio did have a slight disadvantage when it came to interpolation. I did see some minor artifacts that looked a little odd, but the setting where very adjustable. Also the Samsung had slightly brighter whites and yellows. Of course when you get them out from under the brightly lit sears lights, this will not be a problem. Still very bright.
I was also pleased to find that the vizio had many more options for picture adjustments than the samsung. Especially when it came to motion. No more off low or high. You could actually change the strenght, and also how it modified the frames. You could go for smoothness, precision, or even cinematic feel.
I just received my samsung 46 550 model (got it at at steal at around 1,500) at home, and I will most likely swap it out for the vizio. The samsung I have does not have the 120hz, and the motion blur is horrific. My Vizio Gallevia actually handled motion better, despite the response time.
So I will most likely be taking on the vizio 47 model, as soon as my credit card clears so I can get a refund.
In the end, the Samsung 120 does slightly out perform the vizio in the slightly deeper blacks, and brighter whites(almost too bright) and has slightly fewer artifacts. But the difference is very slight, and the additional cost of the Samsung 120hz(about a thousand bucks) makes the choice obvious for me.
You will need to do some tweaking of the picture, but it’s worth it.
Hope this helps you guys!
–windblownmonkey
I bought the 42″ yesterday. The Costco north of me (2 in my area) said 9 of the 47″ were on order, maybe delivered today or thru end of week.
The Sam’s guy said they are supposed to get them (47″) but they did not get delivered when previously scheduled. So something must have happened with them.
I like my 42″, probably fits my space better. The only downsides I have seen (compared to the Sceptre 37″ and the Vizio 32″).
Noticed some white bleed in the corners with all black screen (like when a movie starts). Turned down the backlight quite a bit and that helped.
Motion blur is bad in stock settings, turned it to high and set at precision, works great. I don’t understand the settings so I may play with them more but so far so good.
Notice the static information lines on NBC (on left) and lower def stations on top. I don’t know if this unit is overscanning, could not find any settings for this, or in my DISH vip722 DVR. Using HDMI connection. The only fix I know for this is to adjust picture size and/or position.
I have never run audio in 5.1, but purchased optical cable from monoprice. Some have said that the VO series did not pass 5.1 through HDMI and out the optical port. I think this one does, as the receiver indicates Dolby digital. There is also a setting in the TV to pick 5.1 or PCM.
But, when I skip forward on the DVR, I get amp popping. When I use 2 channel outputs from TV to amp, I don’t get popping but there is a delay for the audio to start back up. I did not notice this on the Vizio 32″, the Sceptre was returned before I had the DISH DVR, but it never did that with Media Center. I think the TV is causing the delay which is better than the audio pop when running the optical output to amp.
So to summarize, I like the picture, TV, and even though cheap is thin, light, easy to use.
The Cons (compared to others I have or do own):
1) white bleed in corners, not major, adjustments helped.
2) static information scan lines on some channels.
3) Audio issues – amp pop in optical (DD 5.1) when using DVR skip or
audio delay when using 2 channel to ProLogic 2 mode on amp when using DVR skip.I have to modify my mount to accept the 600 mm wide spacing (Sceptre was 420mm), then get it up on wall mount. Other than that, if it is dependable, this is definitely a good set.
–jpconard
Joined just to post in this thread, lol. Anyways, I picked my 47″ XVT up from Sears in Lawrence, KS on Monday. I had a VW37L before this model. I have been truly impressed with the picture on the 47″ so far.
Hopefully, as more people get these they will post some of their settings so I can play with the picture a little more since I’m no AV guru. Right now, I’ve got the TV in ‘Basketball’ mode to watch the Olympics. Some of the other modes make the picture nearly unwatchable (too blocky and lines appear in picture). This could be from the quick movement of some of the Olympic events.
Any questions about the 47″, just let me know. I’ll try to answer the best I can.
–kuwxman
Got a 42″ from Costco last night.
-Picture looked better than the AOC 42″ that I got two weeks ago.
-They 120hz picture looked real nice. But, sometimes it looked like the 120hz didn’t work right, the picture would lag about 30% of time. This happened to me in HDMI (HTPC) and QAM. Did anyone of you have this problem? It happened on all setting (low, mid and high).
-Sound was also better the AOC
-A lot more adjustment than the AOC
-Text and over all picture looked better than the AOC on HDMI from my HTPC
-The color looked better than the AOC also.
-TV channels changed much faster than the AOC in QAM.
Overall, it is a better HDTV than the AOC. I don’t know about the 120hz picture. If it lag so often during viewing, I may have to turn it off. In this case, I don’t know if it worths the extra $300 over the AOC.
–tvset
I have the 42, the colors are great, the blacks are good, I had the 37 vizio on my desk and yes this one is much better for the computer as well. I love sports on this panel. The only thing I picked up on was the off angle viewing. Although not horrible it is noticable. The angles wash the colors out some. I did only really notice during a movie and the black bars at the bottom changed. It was really the only way I noticed.
For me who uses this as a tv during football and a computer monitor most of the time it is wonderful and I am very happy with the purchase. For people intrested in the motion controls it really is noticable during sports as compared to the 37 inch vizio I have. I hooked my sons x-box 360 and I noticed no ghosting. My setting are close to c-net and I used the hdnet test patterns and added a little blue. If you are on the fence with any doubts I would endorse it. The price point and the quality of the picture made it easy. Does Sony have better blacks? I think so but not noticable once in the home. I also use the split screen function a lot during football season and this is one thing Vizio does better than most. The rgb on half of the screen is not really usable because the text gets very fuzzy but for two television feeds it is great.
One last note. The remote feels like it came from a happy meal. Vizio this is your best tv please I understand we are cutting costs but geez. I would suggest a universal is mandatory.
–chopperjc
The sams club vizio I saw was the same way. Settings adjusted way off, the and the remote missing. All the other remotes to the other sets where there…fishy.
So I went to sears today and got the try the xbox 360 on a variety of 120hz sets, including the vizio.
The results where surprising.
I tested two different games that I was well familiar with.
Dirt, and Burnout paradise.
Both racing games with high speed fast motion and clear graphics.
Dirt didn’t show much of an effect. As the background of this game smears, on every television I’ve tested. Although the 120hz did help, it was more noticeable when you would pass objects tot he sides at high speed. the anti judder technology helped here. Keeping the motion smoother, and the lines sharper.
However on burnout, the difference was much more noticeable. The backgrounds where clean and sharp, even when the camera would pan very fast. The objects moved by with great fluidity. The 120hz effect even made the game stand out just a little bit, almost like the cars where standing off of the screen at some angles. The “soap opera” effect was nearly non existent.
Now I mainly compared 3 sets. The sony w series, the samsung 650 series, and the vizio xvt.
Surprisingly, despite reviews, the sony did a horrible job. The screen would break and tear, and the artifacts where everywhere.
The samsung and vizio performed very closely when it came to smoothing the movement. The samsung had less artifacts, and did a little more of the 3d effect however.
So the samsung and the vizio both did great on gaming. Even better than they did in video in my opinion.
The 120hz effect seemed to work best when the games where running at a high frame rate.
it’s also notable that the xbox 360 dashboard was animated much more smoothly with the 120hz.
So is the 120hz worth it…
sort of. If you have the money to blow and want the best, I’d say go with the samsung.
However if you just want the smooth motion, and dont’ mind minor artifacts from time to time, the vizio is going to save you about 800 bucks or more, and the picture is pretty great.–windblownmonkey
Just got the TV from Costco yesterday…so far…love it…(well, this is my first HD LCD panel…probably easily satisfied ..my previous set is a 53 inch Sony rear projection). I was surprise at how good the SD channels look…still need to get an HD Antenna… Someone mentioned that the motion-smooth feature makes movie look like tv drama…i certainly noticed that with the X-Men movie that i recorded off my DishDVR. I disable the Smooth feature and it looks like normal movie…Maybe it’s a feature that one has to get used to….very clear and even has a 3-D effect.
Now, the built-in speakers. Man, they are loud…Had some company over and we sang Karaoke using the built-in speaker…and they made a comment that these built-speakers were better than what thy have at home…(not sure what system they have). They were certainly better sounding than my Sony TV, which actually has pretty “big” speakers.
The remote is cheap…i won’t using it too much since i have a Harmony 880….
–inimacam
I bit the bullet and went to my local Costco last night and picked up the last 47″ XVT they had This TV replaces our VW42LF in the living room (the VW42LF is now in the bedroom).
I didn’t have too much time to play with the new TV last night, but let me tell you, this 47″ XVT absolutely destroys the VW42LF. I flicked around through a couple HD movies (Comcast) last night. I was watching Lord of the Rings on TNT, Harry Potter (I forget the station) and I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry on HBO HD and they all looked fantastic with the smooth motion set to low. A friend of mine who knows nothing about HDTVs said he felt like the characters were actually standing in front of him.
Overall I am extremely happy with this purchase. I can’t wait to get home and play with it some more.
–jota187
I went ahead and purchased the 42″ from Costco for $1099 this past weekend. I’m in heaven!
I was in search of a 24″ LCD monitor for my new computer and ended up with this. But overall, I’m glad with the purchase. The screen is lovely, sound is decent, and porn never looked so good.
J/K about the porn part… but I did get to play Assasins Creed on it with my PC. All the graphics settings on full blew my mind! The image was so crisp, bright, vivid, the blacks were great. I’ll definitely have to take some pictures and post them up.
Anyone have any questions for me regarding the TV? Or running the PC to the TV?
I did have one problem with my set and haven’t been able to figure this out. I run an HDMI cable from my PC to my TV. The HDMI source (the PC) doesn’t transmit audio over the HDMI cable. The TV has a set of RCA audio jacks next to the HDMI2 port, but when I plug into that using a 3.5mm-to-RCA cable, it still doesn’t get the audio. I called customer support and they told me to try another cable, which I didn’t have at the time. Any ideas?
–silversleeper
On Saturday I took back my VO42LF because it had a bad component port. Just my luck! Anyway I picked up the SV420XVT for 1079.99 from a cash card + $20. I quite liked the VO42LF. I found the out of the box picture very good. Calibrated it was excellent. The XVT exceeds it in every way. I did a quick and dirty calibration using cnet’s settings posted earlier in the thread. I set the backlight at 50 and left the smooth motion and real cinema effects on at their defaults. I’ll hopefully be able to get in depth with the settings this weekend but it looks fantastic now. There is some stuttering from time-to-time with smooth motion and real cinema on but It is reduced even more if real cinema is set to precision as cnet recommended. It’s an excellent value.
–sucram65
Like most of you, I had a very hard time locating the 47 XVT. I’ve checked with costco, sams, etc. I called and checked with my local sears. They had the 42 and 47 xvt in their inventory, but said it was for their in-store display only.
I asked the sales rep to pull the 42 xvt and set it up. The guy was cool, He went and got it, and put it on a stand by a Samy and sony. I was very impressed with how the 42 xvt looked beside the higher priced HDTVs.
I went back to the other sears that had the 47 xvt for display. I told the sales rep I wanted it. The guy was cool, he told me, sense the electroics manager was in no hurry to put it out for display, that I could go ahead and purchase it. The unit listed for 1499. I put it on sears charge, and that took off 10 percent. Came down to 1350. plus 81 tax, walked out the door for 1430.
So, what do I think? I feel for the money spent, that it is a very good set. Operating at 1080P and 120hz refresh rate it looks pretty darn good. Before I purchased this unit, I had a sony 34inch xbr CRT. I purchased this last year, but got tired of lugging a 300 lbs. TV every time I made a move. I sold it. However, I will say; that the CRT sets will always give you the best picture. I did a lot of research before I bought that unit. Now with that being said, the 47 XVT is a wonderful unit, and it’s big enough for most living rooms or even the bedroom if you want. I think the blacks are pretty dark, and most people are not going to discern the difference when you get it home. Second, I feel the whites are very bright, and there is a lot of room for adjustments to be made in the menu.
The standard def channels look grainy, but thats to be expected. All LCD’s look this way with SD.. When watching HD channels, the TV shows its can muster up against the bigger names. I have seen the other sets, and I’m impressed with them too, but not for over 2grand, for a smaller size or the same size as the XVTs. I have noticed “SOME” washout, artifacts, on the screen during HDTV. I have also watched several Blu-Ray movies with the PS3 on this unit. I have observed “SOME” tileing, or blocking in areas of faster movement. There has also been a slow motion effect to some parts of the picture. I’m not saying this to be critical, as I very sure that the higher priced sets with the 60hz have a lot of these same issues, and maybe even the 120hz sets as well. But once again, it takes someone with a critical eye to see these things, and trust me, I’m looking !
OVERALL, I am pleased for the money spent. I know that there may be better sets, but you’re going to pay a lot more for them. For most first timers, I would say go ahead and invest in a Vizio. They are trying to make a name for themselves. I think the 42 XVT might look a tad better than the 47 inch. I think the smaller 42 XVT makes the pixels more compact, just because its a smaller set. It looked better to me, but I did not have the chance to see the 47 XVT on display beside other HDTVs. I went ahead and bought this unit, knowing that I was going to be happy with my purchase.
I will advise new owners to buy your warranty through Vizio and not the retail outlet. Vizio is a lot cheaper than the mark up the retail chains are asking for warranty packages.
PS3 Info. For any of you that have a PS3 for Blu-ray watching, I noticed that I was only getting 1080i when watching a movie. Make sure you go into your PS3 menu settings/ BD-DVD settings/ BD 1080p 24Hz output (HDMI) and turn it from automatic to the ON position. If you don’t it will cause the movies to display in 1080i even if the disk is 1080p. After I made this change in the PS3 menu, I could press the info button on the Vizio remote, and it would display 1080P at the top. So far I’m pretty happy with my purchase. I’m waiting for the new 50 inch plasma next month. I was really waiting on the plasma, but Vizio said it would not be out until the end of September. That unit is rated at 90hz refresh rate vs. 120hz on the LCDs. So I just don’t know yet. I think the big kicker will be the ability of that set to upconvert SD to near HD quailty.
Hope this helps those of you who are looking to buy a 47 XVT.
–rlkelly
I purchased the SV42XVT about a week ago, and today I finally got to spend some time playing with its settings.
I’m using the set mainly as a computer display. I also have an Xbox 360 hooked up to it.
This is my first LCD TV. The only other display I can draw any real comparisons to is a 3-yr-old Dell 2405FPW.
These are the settings I ended up with at this point:
Quote:
Picture: Custom
Backlight: 50
Brightness: 55
Contrast: 35
Color: 50
Tint: 0
Sharpness: 3
Color Temperature: Normal
Everything else: Off
So far I’ve found two major things that annoy me.First, text and the Sharpness setting.
There doesn’t seem to be a “right” Sharpness setting for typical computer text (8pt-14pt) – at Sharpness < 3 things are just blurry. At Sharpness = 3, things are less blurry, but colored text on white background still tend to have a surrounding aura/glow (of the same color). Example: the green URL text on Google search results, or the reddish links on this page:
yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/29/230216 (sorry, can't link yet)
If I increase the Sharpess to 4 or above, the colored text gets darker and less saturated. The colored aura at Sharpness <= 3 is now replaced by an aura in white (if you have Vista and are running Aero, look at the window title to see roughly what I mean).
It seems that the TV is darkening the text and lightening the surrounding background to increase the contrast and thus the perceived sharpness. I am pretty sure that doesn't happen on any LCD monitor.
So with this TV I have to choose between a colored aura and a white aura. I can't seem to find any setting that doesn't let text influence the surrounding background.
Second, the Smooth Motion setting.
With Smooth Motion turned off, this TV is comparable to the monitor. Fast-moving things do get blurry, but it isn't anywhere near bad and doesn't really hinder me at gaming, even shooters.
One thing I tested is the singing part of Rock Band. It has the lyrics scrolling across the screen at a uniform speed. The text quality is comparable between the XVT and the 2405, however on the 2405 the blurriness seems to be more uniform, whereas I can almost spot 2 copies of the text on XVT. Not very obvious, and the text is still legible.
With Smooth Mothing turned on, the XVT's text get a LOT sharper. It's almost perfect. Except... the text is no longer scrolling 100% smoothly. There is a good amount of stuttering, and the text would jump forward and backward for a frame or two. Same thing with the circles for tapping your mic.
I also notice other "artifacts" that are only there when Smooth Motion is turned on. For example, the top search box and buttons on mininova, they all have a sharp 1 pixel black border. With Smooth Motion on, parts of the black borders would turn gray. I'm not exactly sure but it seems the black is just flashing off and on very fast.
As with the text aura issue above, I'd like to know whether the stuttering is unique to my TV, this model, this brand, or do all 120Hz TV have issues with scrolling text stuttering.
It seems that with Smooth Motion off, the TV behaves just like any other 60Hz TVs out there (for 60Hz sources anyway). Is there any reason to keep it if I'm not watching movies? And if I do want to watch movies, would I be able to find another 120Hz set that doesn't exhibit the stuttering problem I'm experiencing?
–llamamater
I picked this set up at Costco in Thornton on Friday and I can honestly say I have never seen a picture like this in my life. Everything appears to be 3D. I am watching “Invincible” on StarzHD right now and the characters are like they are actually in my living room.
Plain gorgeous …
–slacker9876
Intro
I’ve been a lurker on the forums for the past few weeks as I’ve tried to make up my mind on a tv. Thanks for all the feedback on various tvs, especially this one. I read most of this thread a week ago, so I may be a bit redundant to what others have already written.I saw the Vizio at my local Costco, and it had the best picture out of all the televisions I was looking at. It was side by side with most brand names, and I was surprised with the quality. It certainly got my attention, so I started doing my research. I returned three days later with confidence and ended up buying the 47 inch version for $300 more, since I became a believer in this set.
Setup
Out of the box setup was incredibly easy. The manual is fairly thick, but I haven’t bothered looking at it yet. A free HDMI cable was included in the box. That was the case for 42 inch and 47 inch at my Costco and may be the standard, but it says so on the box so it should be clear. I plugged my Comcast cable receiver into the tv, and was immediately impressed with the picture.Default Settings
The defaults are surprisingly viewable. After 3 days, I haven’t started tweaking the picture. While it can probably use some adjustments, the defaults are easily viewable and a great starting point.Smooth Motion Feature
I noticed on HBO’s high def broadcast of The Invasion and Slapshot that some movements seem to be in fast forward. It usually seems to be noticeable in subtle head movements or when there is camera tracking and everything is in motion at once. I saw this in other programming, although football looks gorgeous. I’m not sure if this is the ‘stutter’ or ‘halo’ that people have mentioned elsewhere. I was able to address this by turning the Smooth Motion feature down to low. After that adjustment, I have NO complaints about the picture.Powering Up/Switching Inputs
Whenever I’m done with my tv for the night, I leave the cable box running but turn off the tv itself. That means I use the remote to power on my Vizio each time I want to watch something. When the tv powers up to cable, it first retrieves data, then gives me a blue screen stating No Signal before eventually connecting to my cable. The process takes 16 seconds each time, which is annoying. This setup is with the HDMI cable.Similarly, if I switch to another input (gaming console/dvd player) and then switch back to cable, it takes 8-9 seconds to recognize the HDMI cable input. I don’t have this delay going to other inputs, just when I am going back to cable.
If I power up the tv to an input other than cable with HDMI, it takes 8-9 seconds.
Audio
The audio seems fine. I have no complaints, but it doesn’t knock my socks off. I’m interested in the speakers that they are releasing soon. I feel kind of strange considering speakers that come without a receiver, but I am entertaining the idea and will watch the reviews.Remote
I’ve seen some complaints about the remote control, but it seems fine to me.Good
Price
Picture
Setup
Free HDMI cable
Football looks espcially great.
Simple menu system
Lots of inputsBad
Smooth motion distorted some movies shown at 1080i on HBO (addressed by setting it to low).
Slow to power up
Very slow to power up/switch to HDMI cable boxParting shots
This television was a huge upgrade over my small HD Panasonic tv I bought two years ago. I continue to stare at my picture in wonder. While I’ve been watching HD broadcasts for 2 years, this is a whole new experience and compares favorably to any HD tv I’ve ever seen.–Shokata
Well I got the SV420XVT and to say the least im taking it back.
Mine had banding and it lagged once in every scene. Its noticeable and gets annyoing.
If it wouldn’t lag I would be happy with it.–computerdeth
Hello, this is my first post here at AVS Forum, though I’ve done some research here before.
I was able to significantly remove if not completely remove the smooth motion jutter by disabling “Enhanced Contrast Ratio” in the advanced picture menu. Using TivoHD I replayed the same scenes with and without and had much much better results with ECR turned off, jutter wise. Although the scene was not always smooth-motioned, shifting in and out a little, it was not any worse than not having it on at all, and was very viewable. All my tests were done on HBO/Cinemax HD. (Some one else can confirm this please before you make a purchase decision on this alone.)
Turning on Adaptive Lumina Control causes some noticable brightness flashing in some scenes, but generally improves the viewability of the darks.
The colors seem very balanced in HD content especially. The greens, blues, reds, and all colors are pleasing to the eye, though I don’t know if they are true to reality or not. I mean the colors look great compared to what I’m used to. I tuned based on the CNET review, I don’t have any HD test patterns (getting one from HDNet saturday on tivo). I think the vividness of the color may have to do with the 10 bit panel, but I’m not certain on this.
I bought the TV at Sam’s Club for $1089 +tax , and the model, since it was new, was not in line with other or similar class LCD’s, but by itself
. Still it is a very nice set.
P.S: You should probably turn noise reduction off for your digital sources
–paul88
Yeah I have had the tv for about 5 days and I’m not too sold on the picture. On sportscenter the faces of the anchors look way to orange/red, on my vx37l(2 years old) they looked a lot better. When I adjust the picture another channel looks off. Smooth motion does anything BUT smooth the motion out, what a crock of s that is.
–Deeselcyde
I’m back, as promised.
I received an email from Dell the evening after i placed the order (right after a call from some call center confirming the details), informing me that the item was out of stock and would be delayed. After waiting over a month for my 8800GT card from Dell last November and finally giving up, i was dismayed. However, the next day i received an email stating that the set was on its way. The delivery company called the day after (using an unlisted number, so i missed the call) to ask if they could deliver. Because i didn’t answer, they left a note (didn’t bother to right the bell ). I called and arranged for delivery on Monday (another three days ). On Monday they showed up at the end of the 10-2 time block i chose, carried the box up to the second floor as asked, and left. The box was in good condition.
After carefully pulling myself out of the gravitational field of the massive tv, i unboxed it and plugged in the DVI->HDMI adapter included with my vid card and then the HDMI cable included with the HDTV to the HDMI1 input. It worked.
I fumbled around looking for some of the settings (notably the parental control so i could enable PIP, which i finally found under the TV input mode). I was very impressed at the ability to get 1080P input from a standard VGA (RGB) input from my vid card after entering custom VESA parameters from the manual. So now i have HDMI input for standard monitor viewing and optional PIP of the RGB input as a “second display” for watching TV&tc. via my tuner card while working.
I fired up the X-men DVD on my computer (not buying a Sony HD optical drive until they sell them for less than $100 and i can watch the movies in linux) and tried watching it full-screen via HDMI. I noticed that the end of some scenes was truncated, some nasty jerkiness, and some bad transitions (where only one object would show up at first and then the area around it would resolve). I turned off all the fancy video processing except for Lumina (low) and the jerkiness and transition problems went away. I still get the truncation now and then; i’m not sure whether to fault the HDMI or the set itself. I haven’t yet fiddled with any picture settings besides the backlight (i turned that down to 40 or below, depending on room lighting), which was burning my retina.
So, my impressions so far, in bulleted form:
Pros:* Good color balance/fidelity (remember, compared to my old laptop LCD and my memory of my old CRT monitor)
* Extraordinarily bright (but adjustable per taste)
* Nice looking set with reasonaby thin bezel
* HDMI input from DVI->HDMI computer works fine
* 1080P input via RGB (VGA) possible (!!!)
* Fast motion doesn’t give me the vertigo/crossed-eye sensation that it does on most HDTVs
* Power consumption about the same as previous 21″ monitor/32″ tv (145W at ~40 backlight)
* PIP works as expected
* Custom settings are not lost during power outage (e.g. unplugging)
* Light enough to carry around by myself
* Speakers are loud, give decent stereo
* Quick response from Vizio after inquiry*Cons:
* NO DPMS/standby mode when computer turns off input (just a blue “No input” screen that never goes away and draws the same power; *i emailed Vizio and they replied that the set is primarily for TV usage so they don’t see that as an issue)
* Center speaker has buzzing that makes it almost intolerable for me
* Menus somewhat confusing
* I’d prefer wider rather than higher design (speakers are at bottom)
* Audible power supply buzz (i have acute hearing), but not louder than my cell phone charger
* Advanced video processing too flaky for use
* Doesn’t make me sexier–Pouletic
I’ve hit a couple more blemishes in the Vizio set that i need to mention.
While the set does save custom picture settings in nonvolatile memory (survives a power outage), it doesn’t use them when it is turned back on!
I noticed this when i discovered that my Kill-A-Watt was reading 195 Watts after a few hours of using the set (i thought it had been a bit bright). I pushed the menu button and it had “Custom” listed as the Picture settings. I entered the custom settings menu and found that it was still set as per my wishes (backlight 25, etc etc). When i pushed Menu twice to back out again, the backlight dimmed and the power consumption dropped to the 125W it should be at.
This is really unacceptable behavior. Be warned: your set does not actually engage custom settings until you go into the menu and back out every time you turn it off and back on!
The other thing i’ve noticed is a “bleed” of some fine details when looking at e.g. text. I’m not sure if it’s just more noticeable than my laptop LCD because the brightness and pixels are greater, but it does make things like webpages look a bit less sharp than i think they should. Perhaps there’s a setting i can change… (I used the settings recommended in the CNET review.) I must say that i like the higher K color temperature than the one they recommend, but it doesn’t make skin tones look as natural.
–Pouletic
Ditto. maybe I am too critical, but after almost a month back and forth setting and resetting color, tint, brightness, contrast with out success, I returned my 42″ xvt.
as mentioned before my 5 year old olevia with less available video settings looked as good or better than the xvt.
The refund was made very quickly at Costco. while there my buddy spotted a 42″ panasonic 1080p plasma for exactly the same price as the xvt. it is in my home for about a week. hardly had to do any video settings, just reduced the contrast and picture [brightness] for the break in period.
imho this display is far better than the xvt .
in no way am i knocking Vizio, or the xvt series.
I never really considered plasma because i thought a 1080p plasma would be out of my price range.
however with a 20,000 c/r and 1080p the pq is outstanding and can be viewed from any angle w/o loss of pq.–btc9800
I bought the 47″ XVT from Dell when they first offered them, stacked a few coupons to get it shipped after tax for less than the listed price on their site. After a week or so of slight break in, I used the CNET calibration settings.
Cox HD: Things like Discovery HD look incredible.
Philips 1080i Upconvert Player: Everything looks good on it.
1080i HD-DVD player: HD-DVD’s look incredible.
Popcorn Hour Box: Everything x264/720p and x264/1080p I’ve thrown at it looks incredible.
Xbox 360: Going to hook it up via the VGA port this weekend.The video quality is superb on my set, I am not sure why some people are complaining so much, either they have bad sets/bad settings or they are being hyper-critical of the set. *shrug*
–ironwolf
My first post here in the forum. My fiancee and I received the SV420XVT as a gift from my brother. (which is a very awesome thing to do) now
This is the first LCD HDTV I have ever owned. without getting into technical aspects. I find this TV to be awesome. I am not picky when it comes to looking for every single flaw in a picture. I have to say that the HD stations are beautiful. I adjusted the settings after researching this thread.
the question is would I have bought this TV if it was not given as a gift?
very much yes!
I find the build quality is very good. I know that Vizio has a good reputation for service and providing value for the buck.
–pgsdi
Hello.
This is my first post in this forum, but I have gleaned much from reading it over the years. I would like to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to post, help others, and share information. Your input is appreciated.
Based upon the reviews of others in this forum and the CNET review, I decided to purchase a SV470XVT as my first foray into HDTV (coming from a 27″ Samsung Tube TV.) I decided to buy it from Costco, because my purchasing choices are rather limited (Costco, Fred Meyers, and Wal Mart.) Everything else is an airplane or boat ride away…
After connecting my new Vizio to our cable companies HD DVR, I started to customize the settings as written in the CNET review. I noticed that I had to turn off the advanced video processing like smooth motion and real cinema mode in order to get a cable HD signal that was not distracting (some have also noticed this.) I also hooked up a kill-a-watt meter out of curiosity to see how much power the device was using.
I observed that when I used the settings described by CNET, that the TV was consuming about 130 watts of power. I then turned the TV off and back on again and watched the watt meter go up to about 250 watts. I first thought that the custom settings had not been saved, and verified that the settings were still there, but when I entered and exited the menu system, my power consumption suddenly dropped back down to 130 watts.
About this time I called Vizio to see what was going on. After about an hour and a half on the phone with different levels of technicial support, I finally spoke to someone who basically told me that the backlight levels on this TV are set at startup to display at a certain level. Anything you do to modify this setting will not take affect until you go into the menu system and back out again.
One of the tests I ran with Vizio technical support to verify this was to turn all of the custom settings down to zero, shut the TV off, and turn it back on again. It appears that only the backlight setting would not engage – everthing else in the custom settings engaged as set prior to turning the TV off. I was given no other explaination other than this is how the TV works.
I thought that this was a little odd, and went to Costco to see how other LCD TV’s handle this issue. I was able to turn the backlight down on a Sony TV of the same size, and the Sony kept this backlight setting after turning the TV off and back on again. I then decided to try this on the Vizio SV42XVT model. Surprisingly, this model does not even allow you to edit the backlight level (at least the one I was looking at.) I believe it is set at 90 and the menu gives no options for changing it.
So I stood there in the store, wondering if the ability to change the backlight setting, and the extremely small difference in picture quality (well this is subjective, but the store’s HD feed is not that great to begin with,) is worth $450.00 more? The other big question looming in my mind is how long will this set last as compared to a Sony or Samsung…
I don’t have firm answers for these questions yet, but I still have about 70 days to return it.
-I Hope this helps someone out there.
–NorthernLight
I bought the 47″ model for my parents this weekend after their old tube TV when out. I have to say after I got it dialed in with a calibration disk, I was very impressed with the way the picture looked with both the colors and blacks and noticed no motion blur or any other issues. The only thing I really had an issue with was the amount of choices for the aspect ratios on the set were not as advertised in the manual.
I didn’t notice any issues with the backlight settings not staying after it was adjusted like mentioned in the thread but I wasn’t specifically looking for it.
–Natrix1973
I’ve had this TV for about 3 weeks now. Started calibration with CNET settings than continued further using the Vikuiti 3M LCD calibration disk with blue filters. I’ve got smooth motion settings at low and cinema at precision.
From what I see it’s all about the source, I’ve got a DISH 722 DVR and a PS3 hooked up via HDMI.
First the good: I viewed Cars and I am Legend on Blu ray with the PS3 and the image looked great. I tried all 3 levels of smooth motion and I saw no stuttering or breakup at all with Cars or I am Legend. Cars looked pretty cool with smooth motion set to high. I am Legend on the other hand also looked kinda cool on high but distracted too much from the movie at the high smooth motion setting. Low was much better.
I also had HD recordings of Pirates of the Caribbean and Three Kings. With smooth motion set to high I saw enough stuttering that it wasn’t worth watching. Set to low I didn’t see stuttering with Pirates but I did see occasional stuttering with Three Kings.
The Bad: Black levels are not that great but on par with LCD. There are clouding issues but no big deal when you have a picture on the screen. Standard def material will stutter with smooth motion at any level. HD material on broadcast TV is hit and miss.In my opinion, this TV is for the price concious consumer who wants a great picture and is not a huge fanboy of the “3D / Soap Opera” effect made famous by Bestbuy and Samsung. If you have a bluray player you can enjoy the smooth motion settings to your hearts content. Although admittedly the newer TOC Samsungs do it better, but they also cost more. If you must have that Bestbuy/Samsung extreme 3D effect on everything you watch this is not the TV for you. Spend the extra cash and get the Samsung.
Hope this helps some people on the fence.
–DOH43
#1 by DanL on October 21, 2008 - 12:51 am
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Thanks for the compilation. I decided to go and get one of the 47″ XVTs and I am very pleased with it. Great picture and fantastic value. Thanks!
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#2 by Richard A. I. on December 7, 2008 - 1:57 am
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This is great compilation of info! – thanks 4 putting all this info in one place. – After careful review and comparisons i went ahead and purchased this 47″ XVT, and i must say this is an awesome set for the price – the picture is Pristine and the set performs wonderfully with HD material – I almost passed on this set because of some reviews but i’m glad i decided to see for myself because this is simply one of the best HDTV packages out there!!! – Compare any 120hz TV to this one and there is no way to get the same features/quality at this price! After purchasing this TV I really think people that complain about this set are being hyper-critical! All the 120hz TV’s i looked at even those from Sony/Samsung had some sort of artifacting in there motion-technology, and this Vizio offer flexible options to get the picture watchable to your taste! – There is simply no better price/quality value in a 120hz HDTV out there – PERIOD! – Great job VIZIO!!!
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