Costco Westinghouse 42" 1080 $599+tax B&M

[fastcuda]

I got a westinghouse 42" at the Santa Rosa CA Costco today, and it has 1 yr man warranty, costco doubles it to 2 years and if you apply and buy it with an american express card, they extend it another year, so $599 plus tax for a 42 with a 3 yr warranty is pretty hot if you ask me!

 

[DragonKnight]

How's the quality? We have the same model up here in at the Woodinville Costco for the same price. I was hoping to use it with my workstation and possibly a future PS3. Much thanks!

 

[fastcuda]

I'm having trouble getting my pc to work with it, I don't have a dvi cable right now and hooking it up to my 4870 with a dvi to vga and using the vga input doesn't want to work for any wide screen resolutions. I'm going to have to order a cable from monoprice and then I'll tell you, overall seems sturdy with a heavy stand, but no adjustments on it for height or tilt. It's model TX-42F450S has 1080 pure whatever that is, sigh, should have ordered a few hdmi dvi cables when I ordered some stereo cables last week from monoprice, wal mart is gonna have junki for high prices. I hate a new toy I can't use, I'm like a kid that way.

 

[dodger2020]

Some LCD televisions will only work at specific resolutions. Also that is a 120Hz panel so check that in your display settings as well. I've never had a 120hz lcd so I don't know if that'll help you or not.

 

[thephatp]

I can't believe how much prices have dropped in the past 2 years or so. When I first started looking at Westinghouse, the 42" was about double the price here. Good deal if you ask me (especially since you'll pay just under that for a 24" monitor). :0

 

[2Xtreme21]

I heard this was a YMMV... some Costco's are selling this for $799. The one by me does sell it for $599 and I was seriously debating picking one up. I've heard semi-good things about the TV (some say the dark colors look washed out or dull), but a 42" 1080p for $600 is definitely hot, regardless of the quality.

Edit:

We're about to go give Costco a nice boost in revenue. 4 of us are heading over at lunch time to go pick one up. I don't have any HD sources at the moment, unfortunately, but I really can't pass this one up.

 

[mugs]

Are you sure American Express extends the warranty to 3 years? I thought they extended the manufacturer's warranty, not store warranties.

Also, would be nice to put the price in the thread title.

 

[onza]

Originally posted by: mugs
Are you sure American Express extends the warranty to 3 years? I thought they extended the manufacturer's warranty, not store warranties.

Also, would be nice to put the price in the thread title.

It's 3 yrs if you use an AMEX card.

2years otherwise

 

[rivan]

I saw this at my local Costco and was debating picking it up. Totally tempted. Anyone have a link to a trusted review source?

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: rivan
I saw this at my local Costco and was debating picking it up. Totally tempted. Anyone have a link to a trusted review source?

Here's a decent one

I'll let you know how it is tonight when I hook it up.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: onza

Originally posted by: mugs
Are you sure American Express extends the warranty to 3 years? I thought they extended the manufacturer's warranty, not store warranties.

Also, would be nice to put the price in the thread title.

It's 3 yrs if you use an AMEX card.

2years otherwise

Thank you for restating what the OP said, that reassured me. :laugh:

Amex's website says they extend manufacturers' warranties:
http://www212.americanexpress....&type=intbenefitdetail

The Extended Warranty will extend the terms of the original U.S. manufacturer's warranty for up to one additional year on eligible purchases with warranties of 5 years or less, when the purchase is charged to the Card.

It doesn't say anything about extending store warranties. Is the manufacturer's warranty on this TV 2 years?

 

[2Xtreme21]

Picked one up. Didn't do the extended warranty and total came to $641.99 with tax. The display model's picture was badly washed out, but I think the signal coming in was not that great as all the TV's next to it looked similar. Will post updates tonight when I get it hooked up.

 

[Psynaut]

I use the 37" Westinghouse as a monitor and it is excellent with very sharp text. I have been considering going bigger, and was wondering how the 42" would work as a monitor and whether small text would remains sharp and clear. I would love to hear your review of this as a monitor.

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21
Picked one up. Didn't do the extended warranty and total came to $641.99 with tax. The display model's picture was badly washed out, but I think the signal coming in was not that great as all the TV's next to it looked similar. Will post updates tonight when I get it hooked up.

Do let us know. I want to see how it is hooked up with a PS3, or something kind of video signal at 720 or 1080p

 

[ElFenix]

i'd so be on this if i had room for a 42"

 

[fastcuda]

Update: I got a dvi to hdmi cable for wally world, same thing no display over 640x480, so I call westinghouse, they told me to unplug it and plug it back in, WHY do all trouble/help lines tell you to do this, has never worked for me on anything ever. So it didn't work and he said probably bad boards and a bunch of stuff not communicating, go replace it, so I am 2 hours from nearest costco, so I start experimenting and find out that only HDMI 4 works and only if you set your computer on 1920 X 1080 at 60hz before you hook it to the tv, so now I have a picture thats about an inch short of the edges. But its working sort of!!!!
So I go to switch resolutions to 1920X1200 and its not in the list on my ATI drivers, but the set is recognized as a westinghouse now at least, the guy on the phone said 1920x1200 was native resolution but the manual says set at 1920x1080? I found a button on the remote it has normal, which displays an inch or so black around the desktop area, fill, which is close but cuts off a little around the edges, like only 1/4 of the windows start icon is still showing and half the text on boxes on bottom bar, also an ovescan setting which zooms in and loses a lot.

am I happy, not sure yet, I'll wait and see what the real tech that takes 24 hours to call me says, I'll use it for now and post how I like it later, picture is as nice, almost as clear as the 37 inch westinghouse, but letters are a little blurry on this one......or maybe its my old eyes lol, put on my glass's and pretty nice picture and text

 

[JBT]

if its a 1080p tv it should only be 1920x1080 not 1200...

 

[Tegeril]

Should be 1920x1080 and you should be able to solve the black edge situation with your video card. Basically, the TV is not scaling the signal up, and you should use your GPU software to do it. It's very easy in any recent Nvidia or AMD driver control panel.

 

[fastcuda]

Thank you for the information about the upscaling, I will try that if I can get it working again, I played wow for a little bit, kinda big and colors looked strange to me but wow upscaled it fine and it fit the screen right, text was kinda hard to read for me maybe a too big too close issue. I think I'll get used to it. I also watched a little justin tv on the internet in h.264, used stretch and it looked amazing. New problem now I inserted a commercial store bought dvd, it blue screened and said no video tuner hardware installed and now it says no signal and no picture again. I tried unplugging it and everything and can't get it to work again. I had played the dvd on the computer before, and have never seen that message before, think it blue screened the tv for some reason.

It powers up, shows a westinghouse signal and says searching, then no signal, tried all the hdmi inputs, then I plugged back in my dell 24 and all was good, I inserted the DVD that blue screened it and it plays fine. I think I got a bad one, please post if you have a good or bad exp with this, if its a bad batch I'll get something else instead of an exchange.

Update: another round on the phone with the experts at westinghouse, he told me that it was because I was using a dvi to hdmi adapter cable, and I should be using the vga cable, which I hooked up for him while I was on the phone and did not work again. Then he told me it was because I was using a dvi to vga adapter and I should be using a video card like his nvidia geforce 9400gt instead of my ATI 4870, because my card should have a vga and a hdmi plug like his does LMAO, this thing is going back, if the people that made this thing are anything like the people they hire on there help line its amazing any of them work at all!!!

 

[DragonKnight]

^That sucks. I was reading up on AVS Forums and it looks like users were having trouble with Westinghouse HDTV's in general. Still a wee bit tempted to buy it by the sheer challenge of it...but we'll see.

 

[imported_BS]

LOL, The Westinghouse guy doesn't have a clue what the hell he is talking about, Your wasting your time with him, I have my older Westinghouse TX-47 hooked up to an ATI HD4850 and it works perfectly, First thing I would do is get the latest ATI driver. It should work fine through a VGA cable as well but it is no where as sharp as the HDMI input. So the next question for you didn't your 4870 come with a DVI to HDMI adapter? It should have, What is also nice about this is your ATI card will pass your computer sound to the TV when using the ATI HDMI adapter. Just realize if you get that far that only one of the ports on your 4870 supports sound so if it doesn't work on the one switch ports. Latest ATI drivers include the ATI HDMI sound driver. Second your display is not causing your Blue screen. Its a piece of hardware it doesn't cause your computer to Blue screen, something else is going on there. Make sure you are set to 60hz in the driver before connecting. Also just get a cheap HDMI cable to connect into your ATI HDMI dongle that should have came with your 4870. Other then messing with the scaling you should be good to go. And yes the Rez on the TV is 1920x1080.
My last point on the Westinghouse TX line is that it is not of high quality, Many problems have been had with these TV's, My TX-47 started going south after 18 months so I opened it up and messed around with it, Put it back togeather again and it started working right again, But for $600 it should be a nice display for you. I just question the longevity of them.

 

[fastcuda]

ok BS, well I tried the newest drivers, and yes I have the adapter, is that different than using a dvi to hdmi cable? The first thing I did was uninstall all ati and install all new when I had problems with this so this has all been with the newest drivers. I would love to save a trip back to return this and the 3 year warranty that I did call and confirm with american express should be ok for longevity. However westinghouse did say if I wanted it fixed I would have to pay shipping to them. So that could get expensive.

 

[2Xtreme21]

My update:

We have SD FIOS TV at the moment, plugged it in using COAX and everything showed up. The first thing I noticed, and it was rather discouraging, was the SHITTY picture of SD broadcasting. I shrinked it down to "normal" (480i) size and it made it at least viewable, but the colors were just awful. That said, I ran the FIOS cable directly into the TV rather than through the STB and it picked up all my local channels in full 1080i, which looked spectacular. Every HD channel was just beautiful. We have a 50" Sony HDTV downstairs with HD coming in, and it literally wiped the floor with how much better it looked. So I have a call in to Verizon to send another HD STB (for an extra $3/mo., it's worth it), and all should be good.

Really interested in getting a PS3 / 360 to go with it, as I couldn't believe how good the picture looked in HD.

Bottom line (for me):

PROs
- CHEAP
- Amazing HD picture
- Easy set up
- Lots of inputs
- Good viewing angle
- No visible ghosting, bleeding, etc.

CONs
- SD broadcasting is nearly unwatchable without shrinking the picture to 480i
- No DVI port
- Remote sucks

I ordered an HDMI/DVI cable last night and I'll be trying to hook up my PC to it when it comes in. I may have to get another video card as the 8600gt I have is not HDCP compliant (I don't think).

 

[cholley]

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21
My update:

We have SD FIOS TV at the moment, plugged it in using COAX and everything showed up. The first thing I noticed, and it was rather discouraging, was the SHITTY picture of SD broadcasting. I shrinked it down to "normal" (480i) size and it made it at least viewable, but the colors were just awful. That said, I ran the FIOS cable directly into the TV rather than through the STB and it picked up all my local channels in full 1080i, which looked spectacular. Every HD channel was just beautiful. We have a 50" Sony HDTV downstairs with HD coming in, and it literally wiped the floor with how much better it looked. So I have a call in to Verizon to send another HD STB (for an extra $3/mo., it's worth it), and all should be good.

Really interested in getting a PS3 / 360 to go with it, as I couldn't believe how good the picture looked in HD.

Bottom line (for me):

PROs
- CHEAP
- Amazing HD picture
- Easy set up
- Lots of inputs
- Good viewing angle
- No visible ghosting, bleeding, etc.

CONs
- SD broadcasting is nearly unwatchable without shrinking the picture to 480i
- No DVI port
- Remote sucks

I ordered an HDMI/DVI cable last night and I'll be trying to hook up my PC to it when it comes in. I may have to get another video card as the 8600gt I have is not HDCP compliant (I don't think).

HD is good but the problem is were at the mercy of the signals offered

 

[imported_BS]

Originally posted by: fastcuda
ok BS, well I tried the newest drivers, and yes I have the adapter, is that different than using a dvi to hdmi cable? The first thing I did was uninstall all ati and install all new when I had problems with this so this has all been with the newest drivers. I would love to save a trip back to return this and the 3 year warranty that I did call and confirm with american express should be ok for longevity. However westinghouse did say if I wanted it fixed I would have to pay shipping to them. So that could get expensive.

Yea it is different, The ATI dongle passes sound to the TV where a DVI to HDMI cable does not. Its cheaper to just buy a $5 HDMI cable I do believe anyways.