Westinghouse Electric LTV-32w3 32" HDTV LCD TV

We found this Westinghouse LTV-32w3 online for only $399, and decided that, for a 32" LCD TV, that price was worth almost any hardship. Of course, we were expecting all of the problems that this TV threw at us - faulty ports, terrible speakers, lousy display options. Still, after having used this TV for a few months, I'm definitely a fan, for the price we paid.

The Westinghouse LTV-32w3

This TV is a somewhat subdued model among a fleet of HDTVs that exist out there. The highest resolution monitors offer a full 1080 lines of vertical resolution, for what they call 1080p, or progressive, quality video. Instead, this monitor is 1366x768, so it can handle 720p, but only 1080i, or interlaced. This means you're not getting the absolute clearest picture you could get at this size, but it's still significantly better than your 640x480 standard non-HDTV screens.

The TV has a number of inputs, some of which actually work. Here's what's involved:

1 composite (yellow-red-white, last 2 are audio) input. Yes, that's right, just one. Apparently the folks at Westinghouse thought you might only have one device made before 2005 that you still use. I have about 5, but fortunately they also make use of...

1 S-video input. Again, a little lacking on the old-fashioned inputs. S-video is still not the best quality image, but it's 100% better than composite. However, it's not as good as...

2 component (red-green-blue-red-white, the last 2 for audio) inputs. This is about as good as you'll get with an analog video signal, and both ports work consistently.

1 DVI (white computer monitor jack) in, which DOES NOT work. I have confirmed this with almost every other review I read. We tried a computer as well as our digital cable box, and neither did anything. Don't rely on it.

1 VGA (blue computer monitor jack) in, which may work. I didn't actually get around to testing this, but it may be a similar problem.

1 HDMI-HDCP (slim digital port, found on newer DVD players and DVR cable boxes) port, which I believe does work. This is the only way you're going to get a digital signal onto the screen, so hopefully your newer peripherals don't use the other interface.

1 RJ45 (serial) input, for service. No idea why you'd need this, but okay.

1 antenna (coaxial) input. At first this didn't work, but we unplugged the unit and then it eventually worked. This is really the only thing that separates 'HDTV' from 'HD LCD monitor', which you could just as easily use if you had that HDMI jack on your cable box. But since our cable only has coaxial output, we're stuck with this unit, which has the built-in tuner.

5 RCA audio inputs, all of which accompany above video inputs. They all work just fine.

1 RCA audio output, which is necessary if you want sound at a decent volume by routing it to a stereo/receiver.

Features

This TV is a fairly stripped-down model, but if you just want to be able to watch HD broadcasts, movies with a good player, or run your favorite next-gen video game console, you'll definitely be satisfied. The TV supposedly has a picture-in-picture feature, but the options are SEVERELY limited. For example, you cannot watch TV while using almost any of the other inputs. I was not able to put on S-Video with the component, nor was I able to have any input with the coaxial (standard TV cable). This, to me, seems like the feature was an afterthought, so don't plan on using it.

The TV lets you stretch a standard 4:3 image out to 16:9 widescreen format, but it will not let you zoom in to 4:3 to fill the whole screen (for example if you are watching a 4:3 broadcast that is letterboxed and want to just zoom in without distorting the image). This means you'll either have to do this through your cable box, or not at all.

All of the inputs have their own button on the remote, although one of my least favorite glitches with the TV is that if you have multiple inputs powered up at the same time, the TV will automatically jump to its favorite. Sometimes I'll be playing a video game and the TV will decide it's time to go back to watching the cable feed. Quite annoying, but easily avoidable if you turn all but one device off at a time.

The Picture

The screen is very clear, and has a great viewing angle. You can watch movies in low light and in bright lighting situations, and there doesn't seem to be any bleedthrough on black images or at the edges of the screen. It's a really good monitor for the price, and being an LCD, has a very long lifetime as compared to a plasma screen.

Problems

This TV has been known to have some issues. When we first got it, the cable decoder didn't work, and after much fiddling, we discovered we had to actually unplug it and plug it back in to reset some fuses. This is also the solution for any time where it may become unresponsive to any input, which I have read happening on other peoples' sets, but has not yet happened to ours in the 7 months we've been using it.

As mentioned above, the picture-in-picture settings are terrible.

The random input switching is a problem as well, but not life-altering.

The image is not a true 1080p, so hooking up a PC will give you terrible picture quality. Don't look to this as a PC monitor replacement for your multimedia living room PC, if you have one.

Overall

We've been using this TV since April, and I am very pleased with the screen quality. As a TV, I would like more features. But as a monitor, this is definitely worth picking up if you're new to the flat-panel TV world and don't feel like going for broke on your first attempt. You won't have true 1080p resolution, but for older movies and most next-gen video game consoles, the 720p or 1080i settings should be sufficient. My only regrets are that the picture-in-picture settings don't work and that the DVI port doesn't work, but again, without 1080p your computer resolution will suffer. The TV gets fairly hot, but it turns on quickly and provides a great viewing experience. For the budget consumer, look for this TV, but just know that you're not buying top of the line.

UPDATE!!! February 13, 2008

There has been an interesting glitch in this TV's otherwise amicable performance. We'll be watching the TV, and all of a sudden, the picture just goes completely haywire. It gets completely distorted and looks like its posting to the screen at unsupported refresh rates, or something. All you see is a mess of lines updating incredibly fast, although the sound continues to work. This is a bad sign for this TV. We have tried a great many things to resolve this, including hard reset, factory resets, unplugging all inputs, and a good ol' fashioned bashing to the frame, all to no avail. However, we're trying a new solution with reasonable success so far (no documented cases of picture failure in ~8 hours viewing time), and that is to place a large box fan behind the TV for better cooling. The frame of the TV gets very hot, and we suspect some part of the circuitry does not like this. So by having a fan increase the cooling rate, the frame stays noticeably cooler, and we don't seem to have the problem anymore.

We're going to build a circuit to monitor the temperature and turn a quieter fan on, but I suspect you won't be able to do this. If this is indeed the case, caviat emptor when you purchase this TV!!!!