55" Vizio 550XVT (120Hz, CCFL not LED) $1150 (1 Viewer)

[Oren]

Guys, I can get the 55" Vizio 550XVT (120Hz, CCFL not LED) for $1150 . I was eyeing the 551 (pseudo 240Hz, LED), or even thinking of waiting for the 552 (same as 551 but with networking, widgets, etc.), but this seems too good to pass up. I'm having a hard time rationalizing paying $750 more for the 551. (Note, I'm limping along with an old projector now.) Thoughts?

 

[Parker Clack]

CCFL looks good. For that price I would get it. I don't have any issues with CCFL vs. LED. The only difference being the thickness of the cabinet really. I would take the time to check them both out though and see if the difference in picture quality is worth the extra $750 dollars to your own eyes.

Parker

 

[Oren]

You see these things in the store and you have no idea what the settings are. One may look better than another, but it could be because the settings are off (either accidentally or intentionally). If you ask for the remote to peruse the menus, that's a 30 minute hunting expedition.

Having said that, I did view them, and the 551 seemed to struggle with moving graphics. There was a video loop that included falling gift bows, and the 551 was a blurry, skipping mess (judder?) while the 550 was smooth. But that surprises me, and for all I know the settings were wrong.

 

[Parker Clack]

Can you take the 550 home and return it if it doesn't work for you? There is nothing like seeing it in your own place. At $1,150 that is a price that is going to be hard to beat.

One of things that Vizio always had going for it was its price. Now with the economy the way that it is many of the other manufacturers are dropping the price on their sets to keep up. You need to do yourself a favor and look at the sets from Panasonic, LG, Samsung and Sony. You might find something that you like even more from them in the same price range or maybe even cheaper.

Parker

 

[Oren]

Yes, I can return it. And now having bought it, I just might do that. The thing is absolutely huge in my living room, and frankly, static pictures look great (though there is glare) but moving edges look awful.

I notice I prefer the matte look of a projected image (for the last five years I've been using an 800x600 projector on a white wall). I may stick with projectors, which would also give me more, not less, placement options. Which would also give me more options for furniture placement.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Where can you get it that cheap? I've been debating whether to get one of these- I've heard good and bad things about them. There's also an LG 55-inch for about the same price which I haven't heard any opinions on, and a Toshiba for a little more.

What's the motion problem with the Vizio? Can you spot it easily on instore demo material? (The only place I can see one of these in action is at Wal-Mart.)

 

[Oren]

Juddering was pretty bad. I caught a scene Band of Brothers, and as a truck drove across the screen the edge juddering was bad.

The deal was not for the XVT, though, It was for the 550M. In any case, it has steered me in a better direction (for my needs) - smaller and plasma.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Well damn- I haven't really noticed that on existing TVs, but now that I know what it is I know it would drive me nuts. I'll have to look for that more critically before I buy anything. Any opinions on the 55-inch LG or Toshiba? Are any other manufacturers going to be putting out affordable TVs in this size soon?

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Well, after being enlightened about the juddering problem, I went looking for it- Oddly it showed up on both the Vizio and LG 55-inchers I looked at, but looking at them at another store I did NOT see the problem, and I made sure the "soap opera effect" was turned off on those. Wondering if this is just specific to certain things hooked up to them? The Wal-Mart demo material is pathetic at most stores BTW- it looked like it was being sent through an analog RF feed, and all the TVs in the store were zoomed-in. On top of that, a lot of the stuff they show on that is a picture in the upper-right corner with a text box around the rest of the screen, so seeing that cropped looked especially crap-tastic.

I'm thinking of the 55-inch Toshiba LCD if these other 2 turn out to be unacceptable- I like that it has a freeze-frame button so I can get a better freeze-frame on my old analog formats- don't know if the Vizio or LG have this. Gonna bite on something by Christmas hopefully!

 

[Oren]

Yeah, it's very difficult to compare. I went to a Sony store over the weekend, and they had a nice setup, with their four lines (S1 to XBR9), in 40", side by side, with a video loop highlighting the things to look for. That was really helpful. Obviously, it's only Sony, but even within that one brand it was helpful to see the differences highlighted within their lineup. I've realized that the TV is just not something I want to skimp on.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Checked another Wal-Mart today and they had a slightly better quality video source- it was the same in-store thing through component cables but the picture wasn't zoomed and there wasn't any interference. Most of the stuff had the large border they use for product info with a commercial playing in a square in the corner of the screen, but they had a few full-screen sports clips with horizontal camera movement- I made sure all the motion-enhancements were turned off, and watched the backgrounds for judder, and I didn't see any. I'm sure I would have noticed if there was any; the Vizio I did notice it on earlier was at a Target store (only a few Targets carry these.)

The LG I saw the judder on was at a Best Buy playing a Blu-Ray disc with some ads for Best Buy's installation service and for Sony TVs (I love when they show stuff promoting one brand of TV on another company's set.) I couldn't get to any of the controls to try and fix that. The same day I looked at the same TV at Fry's, which was in a darker room and they were playing a Blu-Ray of the Speed Racer movie- that looked fine to me. So, I don't know what the cause of judder is- if it only does it with certain components or if it's a problem that shows up on some TVs and not others of the same model.

So at least the Vizio is still in the running to be my next TV right now, I still have a few weeks before I pull the trigger so if anyone wants to convince me not to get one please do so. The price is certainly right ($1399 at Wal-Mart, as much as I hate to support that company), and I like that it can display PAL format with no conversion (DVD players that convert PAL to NTSC mess up the frame rate on material shot on videotape- film looks fine though.) I think it can also display closed-captions through the component inputs, but I don't know whether or not it will always show the right aspect ratio on standard-def stations through the TV tuner. I don't plan on watching a lot of TV, but it would still be nice to flip through channels and not see anything stretched- a friend has an older Vizio that doesn't do this, so you have to adjust it to 16x9 for the HD channels or to 4x3 for the standard-def digital and the few low-power analog stations that are still on. The Vizio DOES have a freeze-frame function, so I can still-frame my CLV laserdiscs if I ever have to use a player without digital freeze-frame.

I also have a region-free DVD player that does not upconvert- the problem with these is you also have to switch the aspect ratio on the TV, which is a pain if you have a disc with both 16x9 and 4x3 material on it. Supposedly some TVs will sense the format and adjust automatically, but the Vizios I've seen don't do this, and I'm not sure which brands do. (The Toshiba has an "Auto-Aspect" setting which may be what I want- Best Buy would probably look at me strange if I asked to bring in the player and try it out on it.) I may have to just find another region-free player, since ones that upconvert will squeeze 4x3 pictures and put black bars on the sides so that you can leave the TV in 16x9 mode and everything will display properly.