Sceptre 37" LCD HDTV

[Acanthus]

You will not be able to game at that resolution, but it will run 2d fine.

 

[Todd33]

I have the Sceptre, it's my TV and monitor via DVI/HDMI. It looks very good. I game in native and 1378x768 and 1280x720. I don't use the speakers, I never attached them. I use a Sony 5.1 setup via my Audigy 2 ZS coax.

WoW at 1920x1080 4x/8x looks amazing, as does HL2.

 

[milodesc]

hmm what kind of video card would i need in order to have some decent gaming? Would i need to constantly upgrade my video card when new games come out w/ this monitor? I'm not a huge gamer, but after spending $$$ building a computer I wouldn't like to be limited on what i can do w/ it because of my monitor's resolution.

I guess if i wanted to play games on it i could just get a separate lower resolution monitor to play on, but it would suck to play games on a smaller monitor when i have a huge screen nearby!

skyking - have you tried gaming at this resolution and did it work alright?

anyone have any opinions on this?

 

[VenomXTF]

milodesc, you can game at lower resolutions too. The native resolution is just one that will look the best. The other resolutions will look anywhere from good and maybe even perfect depending on how good the TV can scale resolutions up to the native res.

This tv supports 720P and 480P also. Which it should display perfectly. 720P is 1280x720 and 480P is 852x480. I would guess gaming at 1280x720 would be fast enough and look great on that TV.

 

[milodesc]

oh yea! i forgot about being able to play games in the non-native resolution. Thanks VenomXTF.

That may be exactly what i do...

Oh 1 more question. I see in my windows setting that 1280x768 is an option for my resolution, but I don't see 1280x720. is that just because the monitor I'm using only supports 1280x768 or is it because my video card doesn't allow this resolution. would i need a utility like powerstrip to get the 1280x768 resolution?

 

[DestruyaUR]

Originally posted by: Wag

Originally posted by: IGBT
..has anybody ordered one of these yet??

Would love to except they offered up a coupon for this earlier this year, so I'm holding off.

I think larger 1080p LCD panels will be the norm pretty soon anyways.

The only reason they aren't now is all the big-name companies made millions of the 1280x720 and 1366x768 panels and are only releasing the 1920x1080 panels on their high end products because they don't want to be stuck with a glut of unsellable product.......especially when people are largely ignorant and still think of ANY LCD TV as "state of the art."

 

[DestruyaUR]

Originally posted by: milodesc
would you need a monster computer to drive that sort of resolution (1920x1080 )? I'm running and AMD 3500+, 1GB RAM and a ATI 9800 Pro video card. I'm not sure my system could handle this.

are my concerns valid?

It depends on what you intend to do. For desktop and DVDs, no problem. For gaming at 1920x1080 (kinda sucks since most games only have a 1920x1200 option for monitors), you might be running into problems. That's a lot of data and a 9800 Pro is getting a tad long in the tooth.

 

[jefbak]

If anyone plans to by and HDV camcorder in the future go for the native 1920 x 1080 res. That is what my sony hdr-fx1 produces and so this is the resolution I need to any serious video editing (which is what I would use for).
LCD only really looks good at it's native resolution for reasons I don't understand.

There is new version of this tv out so make sure you get the new one (lots of problems fixed as is discussed in the AVS forums).

I read that the colors can also be adjusted individually if you use the DVI input which in indepenseable for color calibration.

I don't see the point of getting anything less than 1920 x 1080 at this point, it can only mean that the the lower res monitors of the same size are going to be worth very little very soon don't you think?

 

[Boobers]

It's now $1599.99 at Costco

Todd33: Do you have to do anything special to run WoW at native resolution (1920 x 1080 ) on this LCD?

 

[Rocktavio]

wOOt! I ordered one. I can offset the cost by selling my current 2005FP. This will be much nicer and I will finally be able to surf the internet from the comfort of my couch.

They are just taking too long to ship it. Does anyone know how long it takes? I tried going to a couple of the local Costco B&M but none of them had it... Asking the guy on the floor was no use either. He had no clue what the Sceptre brand was. Oh well, I guess I bite the bullet and pay for shipping. At least it is $100 off right now which covers the $70 shipping to Oregon and then some.

Hurray! What Video card/CPU/memory combo are people using to run games at full resolution on this thing?

 

[shiznit]

you can set an option in your video card driver for "centered output". that means you can play at any resolution you want and the will be NO SCALING! you can play at 1280x1080 and there will be black bars on either side. my friend has a dell 2405 and he sets his nvidia driver to centered output to play BF2 @ 1600x1200 cause his card cant handle 1920x1200. this is a great deal considering costco's amazing return policy, and if i hadnt wrecked my car last week i would get it imediately. since it has ntsc tuner, i wonder if you can PIP an analog cable picture into a corner of the 1920x1080 dvi desktop picture, with the tv sound coming out of the speakers, and then i could use my OTA antenna on the atsc tuner to watch local HD channels. CS:S and LOST and football in 1920x1080, that would be heaven. btw jefbak, we have similar rigs, opteron rules.

 

[mpitts]

I ordered one on Wednesday. It shipped from Ontario, California (not Canada) yesterday.

I am in the Atlanta area, so I should have it by Wednesday of next week. I will report back with a mini-review and some pictures once I get it.

I can't wait to hook my Xbox 360 and HTPC up to this bad boy.

 

[VooDooAddict]

Instead of this ... I'll be snagging the 27" Viewsonic 8ms 1280x720 panel before the end of the year for about $800. (Cosco/Fry's/CompUSA would be places to pick it up so you can return it if there are any dead pixels.)

Reasons for me to get the 27" instead of the 37" Beast...
- Nice usable and PC friendly 1280x720.
- I hate gaming on LCDs with non-native scalled resolutions. I also hate the thought of dumping so much $$ every year to stay current enough with video cards to continute playing everything at 1920x1080.
- The Viewsonic will actually fit on my desk and be usable from a little more then 2' away. The Sceptre would need to be a bit farther away. Which for me would require a nice wall mount. (more $$)
- I could concievebly bring the Viewsonic to a LAN party. (Still crazy yes, but definetly in the realm of possiblity.. No way I'd be able to transport any of the 37" monsters.
- The speekers on the Viewsonic aren't too bad, not Home Theatre Sound ... but good enough to be useful at some point durring it's life.

[In case you were wondering... Yes, the above is primarily to convince myself NOT to go for the well priced 1920x1080 panel. As it would be a great excuse to then also buy a 7800GTX 512.]

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: Boobers
It's now $1599.99 at Costco

Todd33: Do you have to do anything special to run WoW at native resolution (1920 x 1080 ) on this LCD?

No, it's built into the game as an option.

I also play BF2 and FEAR at 1368x768, it still looks great, there is no need to run native if your video card cannot keep up.

 

[wmansfield]

The Westinghouse 37" LCD 1920x1080 also supports 1280x1024 through the DVI ports. This way you can play video/2d at 1080 and play games at 1280x1024 which doesn't require a monster card. I'm assuming this would be scaled slightly to fill the vertical area of the monitor, not sure if it would stretch across into a 16:9 format or leave bars at each side though...

The next time I catch the WHouse 37" on sale I will probably pick one up.

 

[jefbak]

Sweet Shiznit, thanks for the info. So with my 7800GT nvida card I should be able to run 1920x1080 centered output. Or will I have to run 1920x1200 with letterboxing?
I am just installing my opteron system, it has been about a 3 day process mostly becasue of all the video apps I have to re-install.
How do to setup centered output with nivia's desktop manager?

 

[shiznit]

set the desktop resolution to native 1920x1080, choose centered output in the driver and then play the game at whaever resolution you want and there will be NO SCALING. nView display settings, device settings, device adjustments, centerd output. try it now if you have an LCD to get an idea. i was using it about a year ago to play CS:S on my old crappy radeon 8500 @ 1024x768 on my 19" 1280x1240 LCD with no scaling.

 

[shiznit]

in my case the 1024x768 picture is centered inside the native 1280x1024 image and the extra pixels around the image are black. this works at any resolution, so certain cutscenes that run at low res, will run in a small 800x600 (or whatever it is) box inside the overall 1280x1024 resolution. it looks a little weird but its still a true native res and no scaling. even @ 1280x1024 that Sceptre will be sweet, 1680x1050 even better, and where you have muscle use the full 1080p. i hope they dont discontinue it before i can save up enough to buy it.
i also use centered output to run my samsung dlp at a little less than 1280x720 (still native) because it overscans. FFdshow upscaling makes 480p DVDs look almost like 720p, and an avs forums member runs it on this sceptre upscaling dvds to full 1080p and says it looks spectacular. if they could only come out with a multithreaded build.

 

[alrocky]

Originally posted by: VooDooAddict
Instead of this ... I'll be snagging the 27" Viewsonic 8ms 1280x720 panel before the end of the year for about $800. (Cosco/Fry's/CompUSA would be places to pick it up so you can return it if there are any dead pixels.)

[In case you were wondering... Yes, the above is primarily to convince myself NOT to go for the well priced 1920x1080 panel.]

The Viewsonic N2750W? Picked up one at Costco last May for $850. Considering getting this Sceptre 37" and only one day left to think about it since the $1600 sale price ends tomorrow.

 

[mrphones]

Costco has the best return policy. Just buy it, if it sucks you can return it and they won't care why or "When" you bring it back.....

 

[shiznit]

its down to $1499 AR.

 

[ThePhantom]

Good stuff, are there any "official" reviews on this TV yet?

 

[LIVAN]

37 inch computer monitor isn't cool. It's stupid. You are just asking for a headache. 24 inch is perfect. 30 is pushing it big time. 37, lmao.

 

[ThePhantom]

It's a TV.

 

[LanceM]

Regarding the 37" Westinghouse a few posts back:

I've owned one for about a week, now. Love the dang thing. Yeah, sometimes it's hard to find a "happy medium" while configuring an LCD (at least one that you expect to play games, watch movies, and run a PC on), but I'm extremely happy with this monitor. Would definitely recommend it to personal friends.