So after long debating with myself I pulled the trigger and ordered this from costco.com yesterday http://www.vinc.com/products/detail.aspx?pid=5

Saw this hanging at my buddies house and the PQ is amazing, well to me at least especially for the money. I paid $1899 for it and have the whole lifetime return thing since its from costco. Cant wait to get this thing now.

 

Haven't heard much about Vizio plasmas. Are you going to hang it on a wall? HDMI? That's a great price if you can get 5 good years out of it.

 

Yea I'll probably hang it up.....I believe it has dual HDMI

 

seems like a nice tv, but when u compare it side by side with other plasmas, pq doesn't come close with the Vizio, but for the price, considering it has 2 hdmi and PIP, its a good buy. cuz when u think about it, when its sitting in your house, its not like ur gonna notice the pq difference, unless it is horrible in which this case it isnt

 

Personally, for that price I would have gave up a little bit of size for a name brand TV and gone with a Panasonic or Samsung 42" HDTV plasma. Unless the room is tremendous and you need a large TV you wouldn't miss the 8" and you would appreciate the higher PQ.

Vizio is the best of the off-brand TVs out there and it gets good reviews, but it still can't compare to the name brand sets. But like yunginTL said, it's not like you're comparing it to other sets while it's in your house, so if you like the PQ and it does what you need, then you're golden!!

 

^^^Honestly I've seen this set side by side next to some name brands and PQ is not really any worse, as a matter of fact in some cases looked a hella better. Yea that 8" is definately need my living room is 16x18 so i probably could have gone bigger but oh well. I just for some reason really fell in love with this set when I saw it at my friends house. So for the money spent I think I'll be pretty happy and if I dont like it I got it from costco so I can always exchange for something else.

 

I think you made a good decision. The picture quality on both the panasonic and samsung plasmas are horrid. I have seen only a couple Vizio's and the pq was actually pretty good. For the money I think you did well. Let me know if you need help with the installation, I can walk you through some steps if you need help.

 

It's weird b/c you always say that on here. I've been on several A/V forums and for the most part both brand of plasmas are widely loved across the board. I just find it odd that most people rave about the sets but you just don't like them for whatever reason. I've seen all in action and would never say that the Sammy and Panny are horrid, or that a Vizio can even compare.

I know you do this for a living and have much more hands on experience then I do, but that is what baffles me even further b/c what you type here generally does not match what most people think about those brands including enthusiasts, industry reps, A/V consultants, and other installers. I'm not trying to knock you in any way, shape, or form b/c I'm sure you're good at what you do... and like I said, that is why it puzzles me more. I don't know... it's just odd to me.

 

As long as you like it, that is all that matters. Aside from the plasma, did you look DLP? You could have gotten a 1080p DLP set for not much more in the same size or a larger 720p DLP set.

Just wondering if you bought it just to buy a plasma or if you really looked at all of the other technologies (LCD, DLP and other plasmas) and compared them price and feature-wise....

 

I think you should have went with the 46' Vizio LCD they now have at Costco. MY parents have the 50' Plasma and it doesnt not even compare to other plasmas I do not believe. The LCD is extremely sharp.

 

Thanks man....I might have to get some advice once it arrives.

Junior----- Yea I did look at all other brands and I was actually sold on the Sammy 56" 1080p, then I saw the Vizio at my friends and for some odd reason really loved it. I'm sure that the Sammy has a better PQ but I'm not a huge videophile, I'll mostly watch movies via sattelite, dvd and thats really about it, so I think it'll do the job well. And as I mentioned before if I dont like I'll just return it.

To answer the last posters question I saw that 46" but its just too small for the size of my room

 

Well I basically base my opinions on what I see. I obviously get to see a lot of different brands and technologies in different settings. I know that a lot of the people that rave about some of the brands I do not like, are people that bought that brand and have not really seen what else is out there. As far as people in the industry, I don't know what to say other then perhaps some of them rave about certain products because they are paid to do so. As I've said before in other threads, what really matters is that someone is happy with their purchase. Whether it be Vizio, Westinghouse, Panasonic or Pioneer does not matter. I may know there is something with a better picture, but that does not matter. What I believe to be a horrible picture may look amazing to someone else. I am fully aware of all the high remarks the Panasonic plasmas get. All I can chalk that up to is marketing. The salespeople in the store I do installations for try to sell the Panasonic the least out of any of the sets there, because they are afraid they will come back when people see the picture. As a whole, I like the company, but I just do not like any of their tv's.

Also, I do not judge whole company's based on one set. But I have seen a number of Samsung plasmas now for instance, and the picture quality really surprised me, it was just plain bad. No other way to put it. However, I did get a chance to setup a system with a brand new 61" Samsung DLP, and the picture quality was ahead of most of the DLP's I have seen, the build quality was solid and the look of the tv, even when off, was top notch. So I give a thumbs up to the Samsung DLP while I just cannot recommend their plasmas. Oh, and you'd love my tv. Its a 20 year old 27 inch Mitsubishi tube tv

 

pppshhhh... i LOVE and I say it again I LOVE my 50" Samsung Plasma..... my 4" thick TV with HD signal... it's just pure sex... Only problem I'm having right now is to get myself to watch regular channels after watching HD channels.... hopefully all the network can provide HD signal VERY soon...

I'm sure Vizio will get the job done and it's imperative that you are happy with your own purchase. Go enjoy your new plasma... especially when you have it hung on the wall. No offense guys, but that's one thing you DLP owners can't do. haha j/k

 

How exactly does this Costco return/exchange policy work anyway?? I mean do they really accept any reasonable return/exchange for lifetime of its product?? Seems too good to be true.

 

Looks good!

I am looking for a new set but I figure I may as well get something 1080p- which leads me to LCD technology. Right now, I am between a Sony and Samsung model- both 46"

 

^^^^^^

Sony. I went with the 40" 1080p model and it's great.

 

Yeah, try putting your plasma in a corner though.

I looked at Sony and Samsung LCD's and found Sony's color to be a bit better, while the contrast and sharpness of Samsung was better. Be careful about sports and games on LCD--bit of a delay or blocky picture during action shots. DLP is instant picture because the light doesn't have to travel through the liquid crystal. LCD is awesome for movies though.

 

Fair enough

 

Not too good to be true, that is their policy except on computers for that you get 6months. This has been a huge topic of discussion on several other boards. I can personally vouch for this policy. I just doint think that people should abuse or I'm sure eventually it will get changed. But it definately gives a peace of mind knowing that if anything was to ever go wrong with your tv you get a new one, no questions asked.

 

I think you should buy whatever looks good to YOUR eye! If you thought it looked good...you should (and did) buy it.

 

OK I'm pretty stoaked b/c when I ordered this plasma costco.com said it would take approx. 20business to receive the product. Well I ordered it Oct. 30 and I get a notice on my door yesterday that UPS attemted delivery. I call UPS to b/c I have no idea who would b sending anthing to me and come to find out its MY PLASMA . So I need to re-schedule with them for 2morrow. Anyhow my question is what cables do I need to by (hdmi, dvi, component?). I will have a receiver from Dish and am going to purchase a HTIB(1000watt Samsung one from Costco) system which I believe has HDMI connections. Appreciate the help guys.

 

Do you have teh satellite receiver yet? Whatever the best connection it supports is what I would buy.

Odds are it should have either HDMI or DVI, so you'll need to look at the back of the box and see what it has... then you'll know what cable you need to buy.

Whichever route you go... don't over pay for cables. I get all of my cables from www.monoprice.com . Highly recommend you do the same.

And I could be wrong, but I'm almost positive that none of the Home-Theater in a Box things come with HDMI connections (especially systems from Costco). That functionality is usually reserved for higher end receivers...

 

Any new receiver from Dish will support HDMI. This is a must for your optimal picture. If you use the Samsung amp (it is an amp, right?) I believe you can pass through your HDMI connection. IMO, it is not worth the upgrade in sound to use an amp without HDMI. Then component to your DVD if you connect one.

 

you're not going to get a "better picture" from HDMI than with any other digital connector. if the system is properly wired, you may not even get a better picture than with an analog connecter such as component or VGA.

The main benefit of HDMI technology is the "all-in-one" cable. Most HT aficianados won't even make the move to HDMI because of it's problems.

I'm not knocking it, I like the convenience. However, it's definately not a MUST or at all necessary.

Just

 

If he splits his audio and video through his amp, I believe he would lose picture quality. The convenience of one wire also ensures that sound and picture are exactly in sync. I guess I also buy into the fact the manual tells me the set was designed for HDMI and says HDMI>component.

I suppose the "loss" of quality would be so minor as to be negligible to a guy viewing plasma for the first time anyway.

 

Having the wires in one cable does not ensure it is in sync. The digital connections for the audio and video are totally seperate from one another in the HDMI cable. You can still get out of sync audio. Your making an assumption that is incorrect. And you will not lose picture or sound quality running HDMI though an A/V receiver.

Loss? Well here's one for you. The only way to run new HD HD-DVD audio right now is via analog and using 6-8 cables. The digital audio connection in the current HDMI spec does not have enough capacity. Everyone is waiting for the next HDMI specification to come out to run HD audio. If you try and run the new HD audio via HDMI or SPDIF, or Optical you get a compressed lower bit rate. As the connections in their current speicification do not have enough bandwidth to accomindate the uncompressed audio for all of the surround channels.

 

I realize that running HDMI through an amp is fine. I don't think he has HD-DVD. Is there a compression issue with mpeg-4 satellite HD signals and HDMI? What is the advantage of HDMI over component?

 

I know for a fact that the DISH receiver does have HDMI and optical outs. As far as the Samsung receiver goes, I'm pretty sure it has HDMI if not, it for sure has optical and component.

 

As an example, the way I have my main TV setup is

HDMI from cable box directly to TV
Optical Audio from Cable box to receiver

So technically my HDMI cable is only being used for video in my case. And I noticed a pretty large difference from component to HDMI with the cable box, which is why I use this setup.

Other then that, everything is run through my receiver via components since it does not have HDMI (older receiver). I have a DVD player, and my XBOX 360 hooked up this way.

 

so basically I'm going to need 1 HDMI cable, 1 optical audio and components since I'm going to be running everthing throught the A/V receiver.

 

This is how my new TV is setup now too, but only as of last night. Previously I was running component from the cable box direct to the TV until I bought an HDMI cable long enough to reach the set.

I didn't notice any improvement.

I'm guess your component cable was routing through your receiver? and/or it was the component cable that came with the box.

If you're experiencing notable quality differences between component & HDMI you likely have an underlying issue which could also be negatively affecting other signals in your system.