It's just not a brand with a track record in this market.
They certainly make some impressively low cost stuff, but to my eye it doesn't look as good-- but that's a pretty casual appraisal.
I've seen some good reviews as well, so I'm going to try and find out more about reliability and side by side performance and such.
If they can deliver 90% of the quality and comparable reliability at the prices they're charging, they're stuff would really be worth looking into.
Westinghouse has long been nothing more than a licensed-out brand name. The last big thing Westinghouse did was purchase a patent license from Tesla for AC power systems. To compare one Westinghouse product to another by virture of brand quality is irrelevant, since they all utilize OEMs, and not even consistent OEMs as is the case with HP, Dell and other commodity electronics firms.
Something else I noticed in the store recently, are High Def SDTVs. Normal 4:3 Flat CRTs, with the capability to display HD, but usually only in 480i, though I did see one model with 720. So would HD be worthwhile on an SDTV? The main advantage would be price, they run about $260 for a 27". Our present NTSC TV is getting on in years and needs replacing, but there is no way we can afford an LCD HDTV this year, much less a plasma screen, so would one of these be worthwhile?
Something else I noticed in the store recently, are High Def SDTVs. Normal 4:3 Flat CRTs, with the capability to display HD, but usually only in 480i, though I did see one model with 720. So would HD be worthwhile on an SDTV?
This sounds like a total oxymoron. 480i is not an HD format, and if you convert HD into 480i, you get no benefit; you might as well just watch regular TV.
Something else I noticed in the store recently, are High Def SDTVs. Normal 4:3 Flat CRTs, with the capability to display HD, but usually only in 480i, though I did see one model with 720. So would HD be worthwhile on an SDTV? The main advantage would be price, they run about $260 for a 27". Our present NTSC TV is getting on in years and needs replacing, but there is no way we can afford an LCD HDTV this year, much less a plasma screen, so would one of these be worthwhile?
I'm not sure what you're referring to.
There were some 4:3 HD CRT sets early on, they could display letterboxed HD but still use the whole screen for SD, which made sense back when HD was a bit of a rarity.
If that's what you mean, be aware that with some HD services (Comcast, for one) a 4:3 set ends up displaying everything letterboxed, which means SD becomes a cropped part of the cropped letterbox. A smaller, 4:3 box inside the full screen, in other words, which kind of sucks.
If there are CRTs out there being sold as SD boxes that can downconvert HD for SD display, that would be completely pointless. and offer no advantage whatsoever over a standard SD TV.
Westinghouse has long been nothing more than a licensed-out brand name. The last big thing Westinghouse did was purchase a patent license from Tesla for AC power systems. To compare one Westinghouse product to another by virture of brand quality is irrelevant, since they all utilize OEMs, and not even consistent OEMs as is the case with HP, Dell and other commodity electronics firms.
I think that's more true of some prior Westinghouse licensing schemes, which put out some truly dreadful far eastern product This iteration is "Westinghouse Digital".
Westinghouse Digital did license the name from CBS/Viacom to give themselves "brand recognition" in the North American market, and they are pretty much a parts aggregator, but there are lots of great commodity flat panel parts out there, and Westinghouse Digital appears to be doing a pretty good job of choosing well performing parts, putting them together into attractive packages and selling them for rock bottom prices.
True, unknowable sourcing means anyone considering a Westinghouse display would do well to carefully evaluate the particular model they were interested in, but that's more true of bigger brand names than most people realize.
They haven't been in this market for long but they have a number of very well reviewed products at killer price points. This stuff isn't the crap Korean "Westinghouse" CRT TV being sold at Sears of yore, and if they keep it up I see no reason not to come to trust the "brand".
Your eye can only perceive so much - look at a 12" CRT displaying a 480i image, it is incredibly good (better than a 50" screen displaying a 720p image, I think). I don't know where the limits of perception are, but definitely the larger the screen, the more resolution you need to get the same level of image clarity.
Also, the viewing distance has a big effect on how much resolution you need to max out your vision. Sit 3' from a 50" screen, and you probably can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p - but sit 15' away, and I don't think that you could. I can barely tell the difference between a good upsampler on 480i and 720p.
-- I was unsatisfied with the above answer, so here is a better one:
If you have 20/20 vision, that means that you are able to perceive resolution lines that are 1/60th of a degree apart. Your vision spans 30 degrees, so if you sit far enough away from the TV that it fills your whole vision, then you can perceive a horizontal resolution of 1800 pixels.
Since HDTVs are 16x9, 1013x1800 should be the maximum that you can perceive. 1080P is 1080x1920, so it is above that limit, and a 50" TV at 15 feet occupies only 15 degrees of vision, so half of that resolution should be fine.
That is not quite right -- the human visual filed is approximately 180 degrees, not 30 degrees. A person with 20/20 vision can resolve lines separate by 1/60th of a degree at the eye when viewed from 20 feet away.
Now it is true that SMPTE and most home-theater sites say that TVs should be placed so that they take up only 30 degrees of you visual filed, but that is because if you are any closer you will perceive the scan lines, pixel breakup and other video artifacts. So it is the low resolution TVs that are the limiting factor: human vision is too good to allow you to view from a closer location ( and have the picture take up a correspondingly larger portion of your visual field).
Of course, that was for regular TV, 1080P HDTVs should allow you to sit closer to your TV without seeing video artifacts, so you can have it take up a larger portion of you visual filed (when I go to a movie I always sit towards that front where the screen takes up about 70 degrees of my visual field -- I will be very happy when I can do the same at home).
They haven't been in this market for long but they have a number of very well reviewed products at killer price points. This stuff isn't the crap Korean "Westinghouse" CRT TV being sold at Sears of yore, and if they keep it up I see no reason not to come to trust the "brand".
If you like it, go for it. The point is more that there's no guarantee of quality consistency from one model to the next. In other words, the Westinghouse corporate slogan couldn't be further from the truth.
I just checked wetinghouse's website. Reading the corporate timeline is painful. It goes from highlighting events such as popularization of electricity (thanks to AC), to radio devices (more from the Tesla connection), to a screw-in mount for a ceiling fan (2004).
That is not quite right -- the human visual filed is approximately 180 degrees, not 30 degrees. A person with 20/20 vision can resolve lines separate by 1/60th of a degree at the eye when viewed from 20 feet away.
I was not including your peripherial vision - try to look at a display that is more than 30 degrees wide - you will have to move your eyes or head to take it all in (like when you look at the 30" Apple display - if your eyes are 27" away from the screen it is 45 degrees wide).
Also - if you are measuring in degrees it does not matter how far you are from the screen.
If you like it, go for it. The point is more that there's no guarantee of quality consistency from one model to the next. In other words, the Westinghouse corporate slogan couldn't be further from the truth.
I just checked wetinghouse's website. Reading the corporate timeline is painful. It goes from highlighting events such as popularization of electricity (thanks to AC), to radio devices (more from the Tesla connection), to a screw-in mount for a ceiling fan (2004).
No, I get that. If anything, I have negative associations for the Westinghouse brand because of the crap products sold under that name in the past.
What I'm saying is that the entity that is currently licensing the brand under "Westinghouse Digital" seems to be doing a pretty good job, and that it doesn't appear to be a hit and miss "Let's just slap the badge on whatever we can pick up cheap" operation.
Just because they don't design or manufacturer their own parts doesn't mean they don't have an interest in building a reputation for quality, and it wouldn't be in their best interests to mix crap and quality indiscriminately.
First off, I recommend purchasing at Costco if you are at all hesitant. They have a fairly liberal 6 month return policy, so if you're not happy with your setup you can take it back.
I purchased a 50" Panasonic plasma several months ago. My goal was to have a set for the Olympics and at the same time evaluate some of the technologies to see what would work.
For plasma I wanted to know if the glare would be an issue. The downside is 720 resolution. Comparing the 50" to the 42", the 50" has square pixels, which is one of the reasons I picked the larger unit.
I've been very pleased with the unit overall. Great picture and the user interface is fairly good. However, I sit just close enough where I'd prefer the native 1080p resolution. Also, my apartment has a lot of windows so glare is somewhat of an issue. For these reasons, and the fact that I want additional HDMI inputs, I'm thinking of getting a 45" 1080p LCD TV instead of this 50" 720p plasma.
Also, I think there are 1080p plasmas starting to come out, but they're relatively new and generally found in the large size units... 60"+. I could be wrong.
Guess I made a mistake, they are 'digital' not 'high def'.
Quote:
Built-in ATSC and NTSC tuners for access to both digital and analog over-the-air programming. Note: Digital content, regardless of broadcast resolution, will be displayed at standard-definition (480i) screen resolution.
I am looking too--to replace a 5 year old Mitsubishi--granted not that old--but a bit behind in technology--also granted that anything one buys is by definition already obsolete.
I didn't consider plasmas because of burn in--
I am looking at either DLP or Sony's new LYCOS technology--and am considering the new Samsung LED DLP which is about to be released--or a new Sony when they have a 1080P input--Sony has problems with current sets--many of them have been returned, but some people are happy--
I personally feel that you should check out all the chat rooms like the one that was mentioned in one of the responses-(AVS forums)-Costco is a good suggestion, but you have to take the set home yourself and set it up --and they don't have the latest machines.
Read the chat rooms--maybe wait till Fall when all the new stuff comes out--
Guess I made a mistake, they are 'digital' not 'high def'.
So basically, no advantage over a regular SDTV?
Oh, I see. This is an SD TV that has a tuner in it capable of acquiring and displaying digital broadcasts.
The only reason I could see for a set like this even existing is for when the FCC mandated switch to all digital occurs and people want to be able to still get OTA reception without spending much money.
Other than that, no, no upside at all over an analogue set, and I'll wager that by the time digital reception becomes mandatory you'll be able to buy an outboard digital tuner for less than the difference in cost of this set over its analogue counterpart.
I am looking too--to replace a 5 year old Mitsubishi--granted not that old--but a bit behind in technology--also granted that anything one buys is by definition already obsolete.
I didn't consider plasmas because of burn in--
I am looking at either DLP or Sony's new LYCOS technology--and am considering the new Samsung LED DLP which is about to be released--or a new Sony when they have a 1080P input--Sony has problems with current sets--many of them have been returned, but some people are happy--
I personally feel that you should check out all the chat rooms like the one that was mentioned in one of the responses-(AVS forums)-Costco is a good suggestion, but you have to take the set home yourself and set it up --and they don't have the latest machines.
Read the chat rooms--maybe wait till Fall when all the new stuff comes out--
Just my standard advisory note that burn in hasn't been much of an issue on plasmas for a while.
Certainly if I were looking at rear projection sets I'd hold out for LED (assuming they look good) to save on bulb costs. Personally, I don't care for the added size and loss of off-axis viewing.
I still think plasmas offer the best value right now, although certainly LCDs are coming on hard, both in performance and price point.
One thing I've noticed is that plasmas seem to handle SD much better than LCD (some of which are all but unwatchable with SD broadcast), at least for now.
I was not including your peripherial vision - try to look at a display that is more than 30 degrees wide - you will have to move your eyes or head to take it all in (like when you look at the 30" Apple display - if your eyes are 27" away from the screen it is 45 degrees wide).
Central vision is only about 10 degrees, so we are both including peripheral vision. And I don't need to move your eyes around a 30" screen to see all of it. Now, if you are talking about reading some text on it, then you have to move your eyes, but you even have to move your eyes around on a 12" display (or a book for that matter), so I don't really see the point. I like to have movies fill up about a 60-70 degree arc of vision, and so does the rest of my family (other people like sit farther back in treaters and have the screen take up a smaller arc of their visual field). Normal TVs do not have high enough resolution to allow me it sit so the screen takes up as much of my visual field as I would like. The often quoted 30 degrees wide viewing angle is just a compromise recommendation from the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE), and was based on older resolutions, not current HDTV technology.
I like to have movies fill up about a 60-70 degree arc of vision, and so does the rest of my family (other people like sit farther back in treaters and have the screen take up a smaller arc of their visual field).
I just tried it out - that is like 8" from my 23" monitor, or 4' from my 120" screen. If you like that, more power to you, but I will keep my 30 degrees.
Comments
Originally posted by wmf
No one has mentioned Westinghouse yet; I've heard good things about their TVs.
It's just not a brand with a track record in this market.
They certainly make some impressively low cost stuff, but to my eye it doesn't look as good-- but that's a pretty casual appraisal.
I've seen some good reviews as well, so I'm going to try and find out more about reliability and side by side performance and such.
If they can deliver 90% of the quality and comparable reliability at the prices they're charging, they're stuff would really be worth looking into.
Originally posted by addabox
It's just not a brand with a track record in this market.
They certainly make some impressively low cost stuff, but to my eye it doesn't look as good-- but that's a pretty casual appraisal.
I've seen some good reviews as well, so I'm going to try and find out more about reliability and side by side performance and such.
If they can deliver 90% of the quality and comparable reliability at the prices they're charging, they're stuff would really be worth looking into.
Westinghouse has long been nothing more than a licensed-out brand name. The last big thing Westinghouse did was purchase a patent license from Tesla for AC power systems. To compare one Westinghouse product to another by virture of brand quality is irrelevant, since they all utilize OEMs, and not even consistent OEMs as is the case with HP, Dell and other commodity electronics firms.
Originally posted by iPoster
Something else I noticed in the store recently, are High Def SDTVs. Normal 4:3 Flat CRTs, with the capability to display HD, but usually only in 480i, though I did see one model with 720. So would HD be worthwhile on an SDTV?
This sounds like a total oxymoron. 480i is not an HD format, and if you convert HD into 480i, you get no benefit; you might as well just watch regular TV.
Originally posted by iPoster
Something else I noticed in the store recently, are High Def SDTVs. Normal 4:3 Flat CRTs, with the capability to display HD, but usually only in 480i, though I did see one model with 720. So would HD be worthwhile on an SDTV? The main advantage would be price, they run about $260 for a 27". Our present NTSC TV is getting on in years and needs replacing, but there is no way we can afford an LCD HDTV this year, much less a plasma screen, so would one of these be worthwhile?
I'm not sure what you're referring to.
There were some 4:3 HD CRT sets early on, they could display letterboxed HD but still use the whole screen for SD, which made sense back when HD was a bit of a rarity.
If that's what you mean, be aware that with some HD services (Comcast, for one) a 4:3 set ends up displaying everything letterboxed, which means SD becomes a cropped part of the cropped letterbox. A smaller, 4:3 box inside the full screen, in other words, which kind of sucks.
If there are CRTs out there being sold as SD boxes that can downconvert HD for SD display, that would be completely pointless. and offer no advantage whatsoever over a standard SD TV.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
Westinghouse has long been nothing more than a licensed-out brand name. The last big thing Westinghouse did was purchase a patent license from Tesla for AC power systems. To compare one Westinghouse product to another by virture of brand quality is irrelevant, since they all utilize OEMs, and not even consistent OEMs as is the case with HP, Dell and other commodity electronics firms.
I think that's more true of some prior Westinghouse licensing schemes, which put out some truly dreadful far eastern product This iteration is "Westinghouse Digital".
Westinghouse Digital did license the name from CBS/Viacom to give themselves "brand recognition" in the North American market, and they are pretty much a parts aggregator, but there are lots of great commodity flat panel parts out there, and Westinghouse Digital appears to be doing a pretty good job of choosing well performing parts, putting them together into attractive packages and selling them for rock bottom prices.
True, unknowable sourcing means anyone considering a Westinghouse display would do well to carefully evaluate the particular model they were interested in, but that's more true of bigger brand names than most people realize.
They haven't been in this market for long but they have a number of very well reviewed products at killer price points. This stuff isn't the crap Korean "Westinghouse" CRT TV being sold at Sears of yore, and if they keep it up I see no reason not to come to trust the "brand".
Originally posted by e1618978
Your eye can only perceive so much - look at a 12" CRT displaying a 480i image, it is incredibly good (better than a 50" screen displaying a 720p image, I think). I don't know where the limits of perception are, but definitely the larger the screen, the more resolution you need to get the same level of image clarity.
Also, the viewing distance has a big effect on how much resolution you need to max out your vision. Sit 3' from a 50" screen, and you probably can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p - but sit 15' away, and I don't think that you could. I can barely tell the difference between a good upsampler on 480i and 720p.
-- I was unsatisfied with the above answer, so here is a better one:
If you have 20/20 vision, that means that you are able to perceive resolution lines that are 1/60th of a degree apart. Your vision spans 30 degrees, so if you sit far enough away from the TV that it fills your whole vision, then you can perceive a horizontal resolution of 1800 pixels.
Since HDTVs are 16x9, 1013x1800 should be the maximum that you can perceive. 1080P is 1080x1920, so it is above that limit, and a 50" TV at 15 feet occupies only 15 degrees of vision, so half of that resolution should be fine.
That is not quite right -- the human visual filed is approximately 180 degrees, not 30 degrees. A person with 20/20 vision can resolve lines separate by 1/60th of a degree at the eye when viewed from 20 feet away.
Now it is true that SMPTE and most home-theater sites say that TVs should be placed so that they take up only 30 degrees of you visual filed, but that is because if you are any closer you will perceive the scan lines, pixel breakup and other video artifacts. So it is the low resolution TVs that are the limiting factor: human vision is too good to allow you to view from a closer location ( and have the picture take up a correspondingly larger portion of your visual field).
Of course, that was for regular TV, 1080P HDTVs should allow you to sit closer to your TV without seeing video artifacts, so you can have it take up a larger portion of you visual filed (when I go to a movie I always sit towards that front where the screen takes up about 70 degrees of my visual field -- I will be very happy when I can do the same at home).
Originally posted by addabox
They haven't been in this market for long but they have a number of very well reviewed products at killer price points. This stuff isn't the crap Korean "Westinghouse" CRT TV being sold at Sears of yore, and if they keep it up I see no reason not to come to trust the "brand".
If you like it, go for it. The point is more that there's no guarantee of quality consistency from one model to the next. In other words, the Westinghouse corporate slogan couldn't be further from the truth.
I just checked wetinghouse's website. Reading the corporate timeline is painful. It goes from highlighting events such as popularization of electricity (thanks to AC), to radio devices (more from the Tesla connection), to a screw-in mount for a ceiling fan (2004).
Originally posted by Res
That is not quite right -- the human visual filed is approximately 180 degrees, not 30 degrees. A person with 20/20 vision can resolve lines separate by 1/60th of a degree at the eye when viewed from 20 feet away.
I was not including your peripherial vision - try to look at a display that is more than 30 degrees wide - you will have to move your eyes or head to take it all in (like when you look at the 30" Apple display - if your eyes are 27" away from the screen it is 45 degrees wide).
Also - if you are measuring in degrees it does not matter how far you are from the screen.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
If you like it, go for it. The point is more that there's no guarantee of quality consistency from one model to the next. In other words, the Westinghouse corporate slogan couldn't be further from the truth.
I just checked wetinghouse's website. Reading the corporate timeline is painful. It goes from highlighting events such as popularization of electricity (thanks to AC), to radio devices (more from the Tesla connection), to a screw-in mount for a ceiling fan (2004).
No, I get that. If anything, I have negative associations for the Westinghouse brand because of the crap products sold under that name in the past.
What I'm saying is that the entity that is currently licensing the brand under "Westinghouse Digital" seems to be doing a pretty good job, and that it doesn't appear to be a hit and miss "Let's just slap the badge on whatever we can pick up cheap" operation.
Just because they don't design or manufacturer their own parts doesn't mean they don't have an interest in building a reputation for quality, and it wouldn't be in their best interests to mix crap and quality indiscriminately.
I purchased a 50" Panasonic plasma several months ago. My goal was to have a set for the Olympics and at the same time evaluate some of the technologies to see what would work.
For plasma I wanted to know if the glare would be an issue. The downside is 720 resolution. Comparing the 50" to the 42", the 50" has square pixels, which is one of the reasons I picked the larger unit.
I've been very pleased with the unit overall. Great picture and the user interface is fairly good. However, I sit just close enough where I'd prefer the native 1080p resolution. Also, my apartment has a lot of windows so glare is somewhat of an issue. For these reasons, and the fact that I want additional HDMI inputs, I'm thinking of getting a 45" 1080p LCD TV instead of this 50" 720p plasma.
Also, I think there are 1080p plasmas starting to come out, but they're relatively new and generally found in the large size units... 60"+. I could be wrong.
Originally posted by addabox
I'm not sure what you're referring to.
This is what I was talking about.
Guess I made a mistake, they are 'digital' not 'high def'.
Built-in ATSC and NTSC tuners for access to both digital and analog over-the-air programming. Note: Digital content, regardless of broadcast resolution, will be displayed at standard-definition (480i) screen resolution.
So basically, no advantage over a regular SDTV?
I didn't consider plasmas because of burn in--
I am looking at either DLP or Sony's new LYCOS technology--and am considering the new Samsung LED DLP which is about to be released--or a new Sony when they have a 1080P input--Sony has problems with current sets--many of them have been returned, but some people are happy--
I personally feel that you should check out all the chat rooms like the one that was mentioned in one of the responses-(AVS forums)-Costco is a good suggestion, but you have to take the set home yourself and set it up --and they don't have the latest machines.
Read the chat rooms--maybe wait till Fall when all the new stuff comes out--
Originally posted by iPoster
This is what I was talking about.
Guess I made a mistake, they are 'digital' not 'high def'.
So basically, no advantage over a regular SDTV?
Oh, I see. This is an SD TV that has a tuner in it capable of acquiring and displaying digital broadcasts.
The only reason I could see for a set like this even existing is for when the FCC mandated switch to all digital occurs and people want to be able to still get OTA reception without spending much money.
Other than that, no, no upside at all over an analogue set, and I'll wager that by the time digital reception becomes mandatory you'll be able to buy an outboard digital tuner for less than the difference in cost of this set over its analogue counterpart.
Originally posted by sammick
I am looking too--to replace a 5 year old Mitsubishi--granted not that old--but a bit behind in technology--also granted that anything one buys is by definition already obsolete.
I didn't consider plasmas because of burn in--
I am looking at either DLP or Sony's new LYCOS technology--and am considering the new Samsung LED DLP which is about to be released--or a new Sony when they have a 1080P input--Sony has problems with current sets--many of them have been returned, but some people are happy--
I personally feel that you should check out all the chat rooms like the one that was mentioned in one of the responses-(AVS forums)-Costco is a good suggestion, but you have to take the set home yourself and set it up --and they don't have the latest machines.
Read the chat rooms--maybe wait till Fall when all the new stuff comes out--
Just my standard advisory note that burn in hasn't been much of an issue on plasmas for a while.
Certainly if I were looking at rear projection sets I'd hold out for LED (assuming they look good) to save on bulb costs. Personally, I don't care for the added size and loss of off-axis viewing.
I still think plasmas offer the best value right now, although certainly LCDs are coming on hard, both in performance and price point.
One thing I've noticed is that plasmas seem to handle SD much better than LCD (some of which are all but unwatchable with SD broadcast), at least for now.
sports
games
DVD's
commercial T.V. (not HDTV)
also the need for HDMI or DVI inputs--for better or worse this may be the new standard.
No matter what one buys tho --anything new will probably be better than a 10 year old tube T.V.
Originally posted by sammick
Read the chat rooms--maybe wait till Fall when all the new stuff comes out--
But. . . the World Cup is in June.
And yes, all of the games will be broadcast in HD, even in the US of A.
Originally posted by e1618978
I was not including your peripherial vision - try to look at a display that is more than 30 degrees wide - you will have to move your eyes or head to take it all in (like when you look at the 30" Apple display - if your eyes are 27" away from the screen it is 45 degrees wide).
Central vision is only about 10 degrees, so we are both including peripheral vision. And I don't need to move your eyes around a 30" screen to see all of it. Now, if you are talking about reading some text on it, then you have to move your eyes, but you even have to move your eyes around on a 12" display (or a book for that matter), so I don't really see the point. I like to have movies fill up about a 60-70 degree arc of vision, and so does the rest of my family (other people like sit farther back in treaters and have the screen take up a smaller arc of their visual field). Normal TVs do not have high enough resolution to allow me it sit so the screen takes up as much of my visual field as I would like. The often quoted 30 degrees wide viewing angle is just a compromise recommendation from the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE), and was based on older resolutions, not current HDTV technology.
c|net has an article on HDTVS that talks about recommended viewing distances (and other useful information). http://www.cnet.com/4520-7874_1-5108580-2.html?tag=arw
Originally posted by Res
I like to have movies fill up about a 60-70 degree arc of vision, and so does the rest of my family (other people like sit farther back in treaters and have the screen take up a smaller arc of their visual field).
I just tried it out - that is like 8" from my 23" monitor, or 4' from my 120" screen. If you like that, more power to you, but I will keep my 30 degrees.
supposed to come out in May but it's been pushed back to June or
July. Cnet rated it best HDTV at CES. It doesn't use a color wheel so no
chance of the rainbow effect. I'm a gamer so there is no chance of
screen burn-in as well. It accepts 1080p inputs through HDMI & I read
that the color is incredible because of the LED lightsource. Another
nice thing is that the LED's are supposed to last 20,000 hours
compared to 6-8,000 for standard bulbs. I read that 20,000 hours may
be a conservative estimate as well. Also It only takes 7 seconds to
start up compared to 30 seconds for regular DLPs. They're also quieter
because the LEDs don't generate as much heat.
The wait for this tv has been driving me a little nuts. It's listed at
Crutchfield.com & on Samsung's website.