3. Color

The LVM-47w1 boasts support for 16.7 million colors, and while some adjustment to tint and color level were required, color saturation was excellent. I found all colors to be evenly balanced for the most part, with flesh tones slightly reddish. There is some blue cast with certain source material, but changing the color temperature from 'Neutral' to 'Warm' seemed to help when needed. The LVM-47w1 is quite punchy in bright, colorful scenes, but does not go overboard.

Contrast/Black Level

If there is any substantial weakness of the LVM-47w1, it is contrast performance. Broadcast programming and sports material display contrast very well, but film-based television/movies show considerable loss of shadow detail or 'black crush'. Dark scenes, particularly with movies, show large areas of a scene that appear as large 'gray masses' with no detail at all. This is not entirely surprising as most LCDs have at least some issues with overall contrast performance.

Video Processing

The LVM-47w1 video processing was very good with HDTV content, but not great with non-HD signals. While this might be a result of the ultra-high resolution of 1080p displays, most digital and analog cable signals had a considerable amount of signal noise. Motion artifacts or 'jaggies' were handled adequately with film-based scenes from non-HD sources, and most HD material scaling from 720p to 1080p was handled very well. DVD sources look considerably better than any digital cable signal, but not better than most 768p LCD displays tested.

One issue with the LVM-47w1 is that when using the HDMI input, there is no full screen stretch mode, only a normal and 'fill' mode that stretches a 4:3 image about halfway to the horizontal edges of the display. For many viewers who prefer watching the full screen with all sources, this could be a significant problem. As expected, the 6.5 ms response time is more than enough to completely eliminate any motion ghosting, which used to be a major issue with LCD displays.

Viewing Position

With most 768p (1366x768 pixels) LCD displays I've viewed, the primary reason you cannot sit very close to the display is that you start to see the pixel structure, or experience "Screen Door Effect". Most 768p 42 inch LCDs can be viewed comfortably from 7-8 feet and 50 inch LCDs from about 8-10 feet. However, with the increased resolution and tighter pixel structure of the 1080p LVM-47w1, I had to get really close to see any pixel structure at all: about 3 to 4 feet. This makes sense, as 1080p displays have just about double the pixels of 768p displays. However, since you can sit so much closer without experiencing Screen Door Effect, you start to notice other 'issues' that will force most viewers to back up anyway.

The primary issue I experienced was compression artifacts from the HDTV signal. Most HDTV service providers are not sending the full HDTV bandwidth for every channel, so you see things like macro-blocking and other types of noise related to the signal. This is an ongoing issue with HDTV providers and not an issue with the display itself. The result was that for broadcasts with really good quality signals, I could sit as close as 6-7 feet comfortably. However, most content would force me to back up to about 8-9 feet so I didn't notice the signal noise.

Westinghouse claims a 176 degree viewing angle, but as with all LCD displays this measurement is not realistic. Contrast and brightness decrease if you move too far from center vertically or horizontally.

Sound Quality

When using the HDMI cable, the sound quality of the removable speakers was slightly better than average compared to other LCD displays, with clear crisp dialogue. Perhaps the "10 Watt Subwoofer" feature makes a difference, but you sure won't have any trouble mistaking the sound of the LVM-47w1 for that of a dedicated home theater surround system.