I've already mentioned the artifacting and white clipping during the measurement section. During the viewing evaluation, I noted tons of jaggies, noise, and white clipping. Motion blur was rampant and the overall viewing experience was very poor. I tried using the set with a Denon DVD-3910 (a reference level DVD player) set to progressive and even that didn't help.

HDTV - 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games

It's hard not to spend some time watching the Olympics when they are on, since just about everyone else rolls over and plays reruns for two weeks afterwards. By the time it was over, I was well ready for it to be. I spent a lot of time with the Olympics noticing motion blur. Diving and Soccer in particular were rife with it. Westinghouse has this display listed with an 8ms response time. According to Westinghouse's own definition:

Response time is a measure of how long a display takes to change the image. A typical LCD television is 2 to 3 times faster than the average LCD computer monitor. TVs with fast response times are superior for playing computer games and viewing action movies and sports.

We'd have to wonder if Westinghouse borrowed too much from its PC monitor division in making these displays. The colors were well saturated and static pictures looked OK, but any motion was a mess of blurs. The closing ceremony was held at night and the amount of artifacting was legion and banding was evident near every light source. Notice the artifacting in the Olympics graphic in the last pic.

DVD - Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Much of this DVD looked just fine, though again fast motion and dark/light scenes were problems.

Various

Here are a few more pics I snapped thinking that I would use them in the review. At this point, it seems like it is just going to be more bashing so I'll just throw up a few. The dark, grainy blob is the arrows coming in at the end of LOTR: The Two Towers. The second is from the same movie and the kid's face looks fine but the figure in the foreground has a lot of noise. This is pretty typical of the performance with the characters looking OK but the backgrounds looking hazy and full of artifacts. The last two pictures are from Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound. While many of the scenes are shot sort of soft, notice the moiré on Gregory Peck's jacket and how undefined Ingrid Bergman's white coat is compared to the white window behind her. Overall, SD performance lacked the crispness I've seen with other displays.

Conclusion

What is really important in the end is not how thick a display is, its price, or calibration options - it is the quality of the picture. In the case of the Westinghouse TX-42F430S, that is pretty poor. Artifacting on nearly every scene, no substantial jaggie or noise reduction, and white clipping makes viewing this display almost painful. The only reason I could see someone being impressed with this set is if they went from a very old, very small set to this one without knowing how good an HD display can look. It's also incredibly inexpensive. I've read user reviews and "professional" reviews that laud this display as being on par with Tier 1 LCDs. I just can't fathom how anyone that spends any amount of time with this display can come to that conclusion.

Westinghouse TX-42F430S 42-inch LCD Display

$1199

Westinghouse Digital Electronics
1 (866) 287-5555
www.westinghousedigital.com

About Westinghouse Digital Electronics
Westinghouse Digital Electronics offers a complete suite of innovative LCD displays for the professional and consumer markets as well as LCD-based consumer electronic products that deliver the latest digital content for the ultimate entertainment or commercial display experience. Westinghouse Digital’s award-winning consumer HDTV line up includes a complete family of 720p and 1080p LCD HDTVs and HD 1080p monitors in a wide range of sizes and formats, HD Grade™ computer standard and widescreen monitors, and a full line of digital photo frames. Westinghouse Digital is the exclusive supplier of thousands of specially-designed LCD screens which deliver entertainment, news and advertising in major brand gas stations to millions of viewers each month.