While the title is short and sweet, I think it gets the point across. I picked up a 32-inch 1366x768 widescreen HDTV this past weekend. Sure, some of you are saying, “Bah, it’s not 1080p!” But I tell you what, it looks damn nice. Very damn nice. Pumped with a Cox (Motorola) dual-tuner HD DVR, the picture is stunning. The built-in OTA HD tuner is very sharp on PBS HD (how I missed you, Cox you suck for not carrying it yet). So far, I watched a CSI:Miami re-run (how those filtered, oversaturated colors glow in HD), a few sports games (including some NHL on a local network) and a couple of DVD movies. I must say, the picture and colors are absolutely stunning.

I’ve got the colors setup close to standard (6500K), but not perfect yet according to my colorimeter. I need to get the service manual to tweak it into perfect color bliss, since the AVSForum was zero help this time around. The brand is one you would not expect to look so good (meaning it is neither a Sony, Samsung, Panasonic or Sharp), but there are only so many companies that make panels and so far this one is very nice. Once calibrated, I’m expecting the reds to calm down a bit, but so far they look pretty good in the COLOR2 setting.

DVD looks good, not nearly as good as HD, but nice enough. I actually think my laptop looks better at close range for DVD, but that’s another story (1920x1200, nVidia decoder, TrueLife screen, Dolby Headphone, ‘nuf said). Perhaps it is my weak DVD player (Toshiba SD-3950, fully tweaked power supply, Burr-Brown custom audio section) that is the problem, it only has progressive out. I guess I’ll hook the laptop up to the panel via DVI/HDMI and see how movies look at that point.

The bottom of the panel is at about 6’ and lying in bed at about 3’ it’s a solid bright picture, no viewing angle problems that I’ve seen. It’s on the table stand for now, I may get a tilting wall mount later. The sound is decent, it even has a digital output for the DD5.1 audio section. I’m thinking about another set of DD headphones, but that is doubtful at this point considering the upcoming E500 from Shure.

I’m glad I bought the TV, it’s gorgeous and a nice upgrade for the bedroom. The living is still running a 9 year old 55” SD unit, probably until it croaks. But after experiencing the powerful LCD picture @ 32”, I’m going to have to wait for the 65” LCD units to come down in price because at this point, no other display technology comes close to LCD. Direct View FTW!

Oh, and for those dying to know, it’s a Westinghouse Digital LTV32-W6.