Westinghouse LVM-42W2 42-Inch 1080p LCD Video Monitor
Westinghouse LVM-42W2 42-Inch 1080p LCD Video Monitor
The new Westinghouse LVM-42W2 Digital 42″ 1080p Monitor was designed to match the way you view high-definition. Its 1920 x 1080 resolution display with over 2 million pixels deliver a viewing experience that’s almost like being there. Introducing the exciting new Westinghouse Digital 42? 1080p Monitor, designed specifically to match the way you view high definition content. This is the only display that should be connected to your HD cable box, satellite or multimedia PC! The LVM-42W2 includes a pair of 10 watt speakers and an integrated 10 watt subwoofer for a sound experience that makes you feel like you’re a part of your favorite shows and movies. Specifically optimized for use with the latest high definition sources. Don’t be trapped with only 1-choice. Westinghouse lets you attach all your favorite sources using uncompressed highest performance digital interfaces. Multiple high-bandwidth digital-interfaces mean you can have HD digital cable, HD satellite and a digital game console. Additionally, desktop and notebook PC users can enjoy the same fat pipe and the industry best Genesis Display Perfection technology. Native/Optimum Resolution - 1920 x 1080 Supported PC Resolutions - 1920 x 1080, 640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768 Twin 10 watt speakers, with 10 watt subwoofer Picture-In-Picture Inverse 3 - 2 pulldown Freezing Picture CCS (Cross Color Suppressor) 3D Noise Reduction 3D Video Processing & 3D Comb Filter Response Time - 8 ms extreme rapid response for playing high-action videogames Connectors - S-Video, Composite Video, HDMI-HDCP, DVI-HDCP (2), YPbPr Component Video (2), VGA/D-Sub/RGB, Audio mini jack Lamp Life - 60,000 hours (about 27 years based on 6 hours per day viewing) Installation Options - 8 Hole pattern, 75mm x 75mm VESA pattern, 100mm x 100mm VESA pattern wall mounts Progressive Scan Aspect Ratio Conversion Color - Silver/Black Dimensions(HxWxD) -
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars My TV is awesome
First off I have to say that we did not buy this at Amazon. However we ended up paying exactly the same price, should have gone to Amazon.
I bought this monitor the first week of February of 07, it arrived a few days later and I immediately put it on a TV stand in the living room where it resided for 7 months. I then wall mounted it using a peerless (SP850-S). The wall mount kit is perfect, it pans, tilts, swivels and telescopes. It is heavy duty and yet surprisingly thin. It Telescopes 10″ from the wall or lies flat at under 2″.
The TV is hooked up to an HDTV system running on a (nearly) silent PC using Beyond TV and Beyond Media. I have a media server in the basement collecting and distributing HDTV as well as SDTV and DVDs to all the HTPCs in the house. I run it at 1080p on the VGA input. The DVI input looks better, has less noise and is sharper, but for some reason the HTPC does not like the DVI output. So I use VGA.
It is hard to tell the difference between DVI and VGA most of the time, but you can tell sometimes. Even at that the picture is amazing, far sharper than my dads pioneer 50″ plasma and without that annoying glare to boot. The picture has been reliable and we have never had any problems with black levels or with ghosting (movement blur). I have played PC games in full 1080p on it without any problems. The PC running the games was taxed a bit with that resolution, but the Westinghouse never faltered.
It takes about 230-250 watts of power to run under normal circumstances. This does not seem to vary when the speakers are muted or the volume is turned down. Nor does it matter what the TV is playing. What does matter is the backlight levels. At 100 it takes 250 watts, at 50 (the lowest I have used it) it takes about 240) and if the screen is all black it takes only 230. When the TV goes to “sleep” meaning that it has no input on its current source and so it goes into power save mode, it takes only 3-4 watts of power. If you press the off button it takes <1 watt.
I am noticing some dark banding lines when using the VGA, but I do not believe this is due to the monitor itself but rather to the video card of the PC since if I put a different PC on that same interface the lines go away. But the other PC is not running 1920×1080 (1080p) so it is hard to tell if the PC is really at fault.
In the last 9 months the cost has dropped on this by $125 and a new model has come out with an integrated HDTV tuner. Even knowing that I think this is the best HDTV purchase around right now, providing the best value while giving truely impressive HD performance. This is not to say it does not have its problems, it has a terrible remote control for example and a terrible on screen menu system. But hopefully you never have to use either of them other than setting up the TV. Also it does not look as good as some of the higher end HDTVs, but at half the cost of most of them I am willing to sacrifice a tiny bit of overall picture quality.
You will not regret this purchase unless you get a DOA TV, in which case you might wish you had bought a different brand, I hear that Westinghouse is not the easiest company to deal with and I have noticed that many of the replacements seem as bad as those they replaced. But from where I sit it is worth a shot since this HDTV is a serious contender for the best HDTV I have ever seen, and is a shoe in for the best I (or anyone I know) have ever owned.
1 Stars Horrible Build Quality
Bought the TV because it was one of the cheapest 1080p units around at the time. But I’ve realized you get what you paid for. First, the HDMI is horrible, it makes my PS3 signal flash uncontrollably. There’s also no dedicated HDMI button on the controller; it cycles between 3 DVI/HDMI modes. That means it won’t work properly with my Logitech 880 remote. Then, my first unit failed on me with a screen problem.
Long story short, I got 2 separate replacements, and they were both refurb units in worse condition than my original box, and both failed (the first one was dead on arrival with a broken speaker and messed-up colors, which means they didn’t even test the thing before shooting it out the door). The second box failed about 2 months out of warranty, so I’m stuck with a $1500 piece of junk. Suffice it to say I’m never buying Westinghouse ever again.
1 Stars WORST TV I HAVE EVER OWNED!!!
This TV is a Showcase of horrific flaws in manufacturing and design! Where to begin…
1. The TV has vertical lines on both sides of the set 3-4 inches from edge.
2. There is also a vertical line that has showed up in the middle of the screen, that is ALWAYS visible and distracting while watching anything.
3. The HDMI input is CRAP! I have a PS3 (more than 1, and its not the PS3, it’s the TV that has the problem.) and I have to physically unplug and re-plug the hdmi cable at least 10 times, at most I’ve counted 32 times, just to get it to work. Westinghouse says its a problem with the HDCP, well its a BIG problem. However, they do not seem to think so, seeing how they refuse to fix it.
4. The Component video inputs are also defective. They have a ghosting/rainbow effect when viewing any source over these inputs.
5. The remote control is also defective, or I should say the IR receiver on the TV. The remotes signal will only get through 30% of the time. And you end up having to press the same button 2-3 times, just to get it to change inputs.
6. Worst for last! I have addressed all these issues with Westinghouse, and the only way to have SOME of the above mentioned problems fixed is to pay, at my own expense, for the shipping of this TV across country. Which would cost me literally half of what I payed for the actual TV.
It should also be mentioned that I have used only HIGH quality cables, Monster Cable 1000 Series, HDMI and Component. I also have been a Manager at Radioshack for years and have a lot of knowledge in the area of Home Theater. This TV has let me learn a wonderful lesson. NEVER CHEAP out on a TV. Save!!! to buy one of good quality, or don’t buy one at all!
4 Stars I still love it after 15 months
I read the poor reviews and took the legitimate ones seriously, so when I purchased this bad boy I crossed my fingers hoping there would be no problems (all the complaints that seemed “legit” to me were based on poor service). Much to my relief I’ve been using my Westinghouse LVM-42w2 for well over a year … and I still love it every day.
My opinionated “PROs”:
- aesthetically pleasing (other “budget” TVs are UGLY TO THE EXTREME)
- great functional “Spine Design” for inputs
- picture looks GREAT to me (see below for details on content I view)
- I can turn off the lighted “W” logo … but I choose not to! 
- the on-screen menu (though I rarely use it) is attractive and FAR LESS gaudy than most other OSDs I’ve seen on HDTVs
My opinionated “CONs”:
- yes, the remote is utterly suck-tastic, and…
- I would like to never use the remote, but HAVE TO for input switching because…
- input switching is painfully long, so I’d rather hit “DVI” twice on the Westy remote than “input” 6 times on my Comcast universal remote
- there is no “stretch” zoom option which allows wide-screen letterboxed SD content to be stretched to fill the screen (of course, I rarely watch SD content anymore….)
- I experience light “bleeding” in the corners … but I’ve seen this on many-an-LCD monitor (including my two computer monitors, both of which are Samsung), and it seems to dissipate with time as the Westy “warms up”
So yeah, there are qualifiers to just about all of my cons. Other people might point out that this doesn’t have a built-in tuner or more HDMI inputs, etc; but I wasn’t looking for features other than what this offers, so I’m happy as can be with it.
What I watch:
Comcast HD cable runs into the HDMI port. I did find that when I ran it via HDMI-to-DVI into one of the DVI ports the signal would only come through in 480p and be both letter- and pillar-boxed. I highly suspect this is because of a weak cable signal. Via the HDMI input my cable content looks fantastic, and I watch a lot of primetime HD shows as well as all the premium movie channels (HBOHD, ShowtimeHD, CinemaxHD, and StarzHD). All of it is 720p or 1080i; all looks great.
Apple TV runs HDMI into my Samsung DVD/home-theatre box which then runs HDMI-to-DVI into DVI1. DVDs are upconverted to 1080i and look quite good, in my opinion (especially considering that I’ve sworn off of most other SD content). The Apple TV also upconverts its content to 1080i and I’ve ripped many DVDs to it at their native resolutions which look very nearly as good as the actual DVDs. HD rental movies via the Apple TV (though 720p at the source) look as good or better than the HD movies I watch via the Comcast cable box.
PlayStation 2 runs into Component1. Once the PS2’s output was set to widescreen it looked just about as good as PS2 can look. Rock Band and Guitar Hero have seen may hours on this screen.
A Nintendo Wii also got a run via a component input on this screen with great success.
As you may have noticed I have not had the opportunity to test any “true HD” (1080p) sources on my Westy, but I can honestly report that 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i signals are all handled quite nicely.
Even if I win the lottery and can afford the greatest of the great “name brand” HDTVs I can honestly say that I will also continue to use this Westinghouse until the day one of us dies
1 Stars Not worth the Customer Service you are bound to have to deal with
I bought this TV because it was 1080p at a good price. I received the TV quickly, and for about 6 months, my TV experience was positive. Then the TV started powering down on its own. I quickly jumped on the web to check, and indeed the Westinghouse TV has had power issues in the past, albeit different than what I was seeing. I should have actually checked for bad press before buying, but hindsight being 20/20, I didn’t. So I contacted Westinghouse the first time.
The gentleman that answered was very helpful. I was dreading having to come up with a box to ship it back for repair, but he found a local repair facility. So I dropped it with them on August 23rd. They swapped out the power supply, a week later, the TV still had the issue. They then had to order a “logic board”, which was going to take a month. A MONTH? I called Westinghouse the second time. Told them what was going on, they told me that they couldn’t do anything for me, unless I went to pick the TV up from their recommended local repair shop, ship it to them, they would repair and send it back, but according to the “customer service” spokesman, it may take longer than a month.
Flash forward to the “month” later. I called the repair center. Again, they were super nice, but informed me that it would be another month. ????What???? I called Westinghouse back. I was livid. I explained that it had been a more than a month. I got a supervisor that basically told me that Westinghouse had no other way of helping me. I had brought up Apple computer as an example of a customer service story that went the right way (them shipping a replacement before receiving the original). He said, “well that’s why they cost so much, and I can’t afford them. We don’t do that here, and can’t.” Okay, so what can you do I asked. Well, you can call the repair facility and tell them about this other part distributor that we deal with, that may make it go faster.
They wanted me to do it. Okay. I called the repair center again. They had received the part (over a couple of days here). The swapped it in immediately, and the problem still persisted. (Takes a day to see the issue). So they now say its the panel, and it has to be shipped back to Westinghouse.
I called Westinghouse for the 4th time. The said, ok, we will take it from here. We will contact the rental center, get the TV and ship a replacement to you.
I went on a business trip for about a week, called Westinghouse 10 days later. I asked what was going on, they didn’t know. After waiting for them to find out, I was told that they would contact the Repair Center and take it from here….Deja vu….I informed them that they already said they would do that. The gentleman informed me that they had sent an email to corporate and were waiting for a response. Ten days ago. When I asked when I would have been contacted if I wouldn’t have called, they said, we don’t know. They did tell me that they only really have 2% of there TVs returned, and that I was “rare”. So 200 TVs bad out of 10,000. hmmmm.
As it stands today, 5 or 6 phone calls later, I have no TV. I have no idea of when the TV may be replaced/repaired. Best guess is another month. And the Westinghouse customer support supervisors are without a doubt the worst customer service I have ever experienced.
Consider yourselves warned. And if you do decide to throw caution to the wind and buy a Westinghouse anyway, I really hope it works for you.
–>latest: I still have no TV as of November 3rd, 2007, but I have gotten 1 phone call from Westinghouse saying they were sending a box to the Repair Center to have them ship it back.
Filed under: 1080p HDTV Reviews