We finely stepped into the 21st century... and its wider.
Written: Feb 20 '09
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Pros: Clear picture. Multiple viewing modes. Great right out of the box.
Cons: Poor audio quality and volume. External speakers required. Could use another HDMI port.
The Bottom Line: All in all the Envision L32W761 32 inch LCD TV has been great for both old school TV reminiscing and new school TV and gaming fun. Well worth the price.
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| therustybrain's Full Review: Envision Monitors L32W761 32 in. TV |
For the last few months I have been reminiscing in my favorite games and TV shows of the past. Drinking 100 Pawtucket Patriots with Peter and Brian until Meg looks good. Strolling through the country side of San Andreas, setting off car bombs just so Im forced to walk all the way home. All because I have finely upgraded to a High Definition TV. The world looks so much better in HD... or does it?
For those of you familiar with my style of review you know I don't do too much, if any "Tech Talk". I feel that the products we buy are about the experiences we have with them not the number of doodads and power of the thingies. So here is my first foray into the wonderful and sometimes not so wonderful world of HD TV.
First let me get the tech talk out of the way its more about the peripherals anyhow. Look to techies for the more tech oriented reviews. I have my HD Digital Receiver from Verizon FiOS (http://www.epinions.com/content_406453128836) on the HDMI input. The Sony PS3 (http://www.epinions.com/content_400778104452) is connected via the Composite inputs and my old DVD player is set up via the S-Video. My only thoughts here are more directed to the outrageous cost of HDMI cables but that's a rant better served on a personal blog.
So on to the review of my first HD TV, the Envision L32W761 32 inch LCD TV.
Setup was pretty much no different than any TV I have ever setup over the last ## years except I had to screw in the base stand to the TV. Interesting point is that no tools are required. The screws that securely hold the base stand to the TV have little loop handles on them allowing you to very tightly screw them in. Considerate thinking and saves many of us the time hunting around for a screwdriver when we really want to be playing with our new toy.
The only other real difference is that the LCD is so light that I can easily turn it around to make plugging in the wires a breeze. Below the actual inputs are very clearly printed pictures, in color, of the input with a clearly written label under it. A significant improvement over the raised black on black lettering that plagued the dimly lit backs of many of the past TVs I have owned. I hope this is a labeling trend we will see more of. This made the set up even easier and let me figure out ahead of time exactly how best to lay out the cables so not to tangle them up during hookup. This may be the most important step in today's TV setup. Lay out the cables first then plug them in. There are so many and when they tangle up it will be a real mess. A mess not well hidden by the slim profile of the Envision LCD raised up on the stand.
On to the Tweaking I have heard so much about.
Turning it on we get to the "tweaking" that so many techies talk about. It seemed to me to be one of those things that 100 techies had 100 different and conflicting views on. I had really dreaded this moment because Im a big fan of "It works out of the box". I don't really like to fiddle with my purchases before they work right. But alas throughout my research tweaking was what they said I should do so tweaking is what I did. I fiddled around with the backlighting, color saturations, and a bunch of other settings that the tech heads told me would enhance my viewing experience. Then, after about 10 minutes of that, I set it all back to the default and began actually enjoying the TV. Answer, no tweaking seemed necessary with this TV. The default settings are in my view perfect. So there they stay. What this tells me is that this TV is set up just right from the start. My brightness is great, color perfect, sharpness needs not the slightest adjustment. Yet I have read so much on line about tweaking out your HD TV to get the best picture. Why? Maybe those other HD TVs just missed the mark. Not this one. Im very happy with all the settings just as the manufacturer set them up to be. One thing we do play with, however, is the Aspect Ratio.
There are three options for the "Aspect Ratio", something I hear a lot of techinies about. It boils down to this.
Normal is the standard TV format from the past. The picture covers the screen top to bottom but does not reach the sides of the actual screen leaving a black bar on either side creating a more square image that is clear and undistorted for "Old school" TV viewing. A comment on this. The sides of the TV case sort of slope in towards the screen creating an interesting illusion of blending with those black bars on the side when viewing in normal mode. Maybe its just me but I think it helps me to not notice them. As for the image. I guess its better. But the older the "old school" show the less you even notice it. Roughly any show pre 1985 tends to look "fuzzy" unless digitally remastered.
Wide will stretch the "Old School" square image to fit the screen left and right. Sometimes this is OK but tends to make everyone look fat. But this setting is really for shows shot in wide screen format and for these "New School" wide screen shows this setting is now the "Normal mode". We watch House this way and it is great but sometimes you see too much. More later on the pitfalls of HD in a moment.
Zoom takes the "Old School Square image and brings it forward until the right and left sided of the image meats the edges of the screen but the end result cuts of a significant amount of the top and bottom of the image. Not too desirable because so often the heads of the people are cut off. Very disconcerting. It took a while to figure out this mode but we have now found several shows that require it. Watched in normal mode these shows have a black box around them. When zoom mode is used the image comes neatly on the screen with little to none of the image being cut off. I don't know the technical reason for this method of broadcasting but the result is a very sharp picture that fills the screen well.
Cinema is some cross breed of Wide and Zoom that in the end seems to cut of the top and sides with a less than desirable effect to both "Old School" and "New School" programming. Maybe it has a use with some format of movie but I have not seen it yet.
We stick to "Normal" for regular TV and "Wide" for... well wide screen TV and of course the video games.
The picture is really where Im starting to see what I have been missing and the Envision L32W761 32 inch LCD has a truly beautiful picture. For the first time in a long time I can actually read credits at the end of movies and even the fine print at the bottom of the screen for the wonder drug that supposedly enlarges some part of your body or maybe shrinks it, is now clear enough to see it's a disclaimer stating the product does not work. Black backgrounds and fad to black commercial bumps are truly black. Something I had not even realized I was missing until I began re-watching my favorite cartoons on DVD when that fade to black that ordinarily would cut to commercial, but on DVD just sits for a second or two then goes back to the show. The first time around I actually panicked for a second thinking the TV had actually shut off. It was that smooth and perfect of a black. And that brings me to the wanderings through my nostalgic past.
This brave new world of HD TV has driven me to relive so many things I enjoyed in Regular D. After marveling at the detail and clarity of Hugh Laurie limping through the hospital and simply drooling at Niko Bellic's flash ride whipping its way through the glittering streets of Liberty City I decided I just had to see what this TV could do for the older games and TV shows I loved so much before I had this HD world.
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas has been a real blast to play all over again. The grafics of course are no better than on my old regular TV but the color and clarity is just in a whole new realm. Im seeing things in the game I never noticed before. Not because they are higher resolution but because they simply stand out so much more on this TV. When playing our favorite game together, Silent Hill 3, my wife and I began to question if it was even the same game. Details that slipped by in the shadowy background stood out clear and even more frightening now. The gore and mayhem lost on the old non HD TV was all too vivid on the Envision's wide 32 inch LCD. So much so that a good dose of cartoon humor was required to settle our dreams before going to bed.
So we put on Family guy in non-HD from our box set. The difference is truly astounding. It was simply as if we were watching the same show for the first time. The jokes were all the same but the image we were watching was all new. The Envision HD simply seemed to turn everything into a better remake of what we already loved. Real life shows has so many variables that its hard to decide what is "supposed to look that way" and what is being distorted by the TV. On the other hand cartoons are a great way to judge a TV because the lines of the animation stand out so well and the colors are much smother and basic. I highly recoment using cartoons to test any HD TV and the Envision has passed the test well.
When watching Family Guy we paused on Peters face and the outline was smooth with no "stair step" effect at all to be seen. That's something I saw a lot of in the past even on the one other HD TV I had watched Family Guy on before. This impressed me a great deal because that "stair step" effect does show up in the movement and can really detract from the show if pronounced. I see none of that on Envision. Nor do I see any flicker, streaking or for that matter any of the undesirable effects or artifacts I had heard might be present on a WS HD LCD TV. Even on the flicker prone video games we have nothing at all that even begins to look bad. Its picture perfect. Clear and detailed like I have never seen before.
So is this the Envision L32W761 32 inch LCD TV that has brought new life to our beloved past or is it simply the wonders of HD? Im going to lean in the direction of the former for the moment. But Im just leaning because my basis of comparison is only one other HD TV. A friends 3 to 4 year old Toshiba(?) I had an opportunity to watch a number of times had so underwhelmed me that it delayed my step into the HD world for 3 years. Although Im very glad to finely be able to experience it Im also glad I waited for the costs to come down and the quality to come up.
So that's a lot of positive for the Envision L32W761 32 inch LCD. But nothing is ever perfect. There must be a negative someplace. There is. For those paying attention you may have noticed that Nowhere in this narrative have I mentioned the audio qualities of the Envision L32W761 32 inch LCD. That's because they are seriously not worth mentioning. Of course because this is a review I will mention them.
Weak is the best word to describe them. For the simplest basis of comparison I will describe my old TV verses my new Envision using a Volume scale of 1 to 5. My scale works like this. Lets assume both TVs have a volume scale that has 25 notches on it. I divide that by five and assign my 1 to 5 scale starting at 5 on the TV bar. The reason for this is simple. None of us ever watch TV with the volume so low that it cant be heard at all so 1 is the lowest that the volume goes and can still be heard and 5 is the top of the scale.
Since there are several possible audio sources that we might be using Im going to rate the following which are the ones I most often used and therefore remember the best. Live TV, Recorded (DVR) TV, DVD and PS3 Video game audio sources. Each will be rated according to approximately where the volume needed to be set on the old TV verses the Envision L32W761 32 inch LCD.
Live TV: Old TV - 1 to 2 -v- Envision 3 and sometimes 4
DVR TV: Old TV - 2 to 3 -v- Envision 4 and often close to 5
DVD: Old TV - 1 to 3 depending on the DVD -v- Envision usually 3 to close to 5.
PS3: Old TV - 3 to 4 -v- Envision 3 to 5. Yes I actually had it all the way to the top in order to make out subtle dialog in one cut scene of Silent Hill.
The generally low volume levels can be dealt with but the flat and often the "tin can effect" does detract from some programming quite a lot. Especially the action films when explosions sound stifled and far away. Base is almost non-existent and very flat. Overcoming this seems to require the addition of external speakers. Not something I wanted to do because being in a Townhouse we have neighbors who share walls and most surround sound systems seem to travel through them better than the TV speakers do. Im still working on a solution that will both satisfy my need for better audio and keep my status as a good neighbor. I will update when and if I find one.
So this brings me to a bit of commentary on the pitfalls of HD. Bigger and clearer is not always better. We have both noticed that sometimes you don't want all that detail. Especially on close-ups of some actors I will leave unmentioned. So sometimes that big wide screen is not such a great thing.
Wrapping up the Envision L32W761 32 inch LCD experience from box to viewing. Setup is a breeze and the little things like the no tools required screws for the base are a clever and welcome touch. Picture perfect right out of the box. No tweaking required. The audio is flat and requires a big punch up on the "dial" to get to a level that can be heard. Setting that aside we simply love it so much we will probably be buying another to replace the last of the old school TVs we have.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 480
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Epinions.com ID:
therustybrain
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Member: Joshua Evans
Location: Washington DC
Reviews written: 23
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
Joshua is a writer, artist, and filmmaker. For more on Joshua see: www.KidKaos.us
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