47 inch vizio lcd panel factory

Size class of the display as declared by the manufacturer. Often this is the rounded value of the actual size of the diagonal in inches.47 in (inches)

There are various panel technologies. Each has its own specific features - viewing angles, color reproduction, response time, brightness/contrast, production cost, etc. The image quality depends directly on the type of the display panel used.IPS

The most widely used panels are those with 6, 8, and 10 bits for each of the RGB components of the pixel. They provide 18-, 24-, and 30-bit color, respectively.8 bits

Frame Rate Control (FRC) is a method, which allows the pixels to show more color tones. With quick cyclic switching between different color tones, an illusion for a new intermediate color tone is created. For example, by using FRC, a 6-bit display panel is able to show 16.7 millioin colors, which are typical for 8-bit display panels, and not the standard 262200 colors, instead. There are different FRC algorithms.No

The maximum number of colors, which the display is able to reproduce, depends on the type of the panel in use and color enhancing technologies like FRC.16777216 colors

Information of the number of pixels in a unit of length. With the decrease of the display size and the increase of its resolution, the pixel density increases.46 ppi (pixels per inch)

The backlight is the source of light of the LCD display panels. The type of backlight determines the image quality and the color space of the display. There are various backlights such as CCFL, LED, WLED, RGB-LED, and etc.Edge LED

During the recent Labor Day weekend, many retailers were advertising delicious deals and fantastic financing offers on HDTVs. Some of the sales were so appetizing, so hard to pass up, that they managed to get my good, fence-sitting friend to finally hop down from his lofty vantage point and accompany me to the store. With hopes of finding a new flat panel for his living room, we headed on down to the bright lights of the big city. Interestingly, although countless press releases and HDTV-related emails pass through my inbox on a daily basis, it had been quite some time since I last walked The Wall of Televisions and confronted the truly dizzying array of flat panel choices facing today"s TV shopper. Where does one begin?

Size is usually a good place to start. 42 inches has become a popular option, but in many rooms it can seem a tad small and commonplace. My friend"s better half had already informed him that 50 inches was NOT allowed - that"s just way too big, apparently. Consequently, we landed on the 46/47-inch size range - not too big, not too small. Next came the inevitable LCD versus plasma debate.

On account of its superior performance during daytime viewing and its (typically) lower rate of power consumption, we decided to focus on LCD flat panels as opposed to plasma. There are also considerably more LCD models to choose from. Plasma, despite its superior picture quality in a darkened theater, seems to be losing its allure among TV makers.

The final decision had to do with options. The only "Must Haves" in my book were a healthy array of HDMI inputs and picture calibration flexibility. 120Hz or 240Hz processing was not high on the list, but more on that later. Although the LED backlighting available on select LCD models can sometimes deliver deeper blacks - and in turn a more attractive picture - its novelty will still add several hundred dollars to your bottom line. So, to recap, my friend and I were on the prowl for a high value LCD flat panel in the 46/47-inch size category. The store we were at didn"t carry VIZIO brand displays, but if they had, I have no doubt that the SV471XVT would have made the short list of final contenders.

Like its predecessor/sibling, the SV470XVT, Vizio"s SV471XVT continues the manufacturer"s tradition of delivering solid-performing, well-equipped displays at an affordable price. The 471 offers a handful of improvements over the 470, chief among them a brighter panel, (arguably) improved motion processing and a USB port for photo and video playback.

Upon plugging in and powering up the SV471XVT, I immediately formed two first impressions. One was good, the other not so much. The latter came from the large "VIZIO" light which sits front and center below the screen. The prominent logo glows orange when the TV is in standby mode and white when the set is powered on. For the same reason I always insist car dealers leave their name badges and license plate frames off my new car, I would prefer not to see a constant, glowing reminder of who made my television. I hoped to find a menu setting which would disable this power status indicator, but no such luck. This minor irritant certainly wouldn"t stop me from buying the SV471XVT, but it does blemish the face of an otherwise attractive television.

Once I unwrinkled my nose and stopped staring at the logo, a smile replaced my mild frown. The SV471XVT features an attractive and intuitive wizard which quickly guides you through the display"s initial setup. Since I live in the rural backwoods of northeast Connecticut where over-the-air HDTV reception is sketchy at best (and because cable television operators are collectively The Devil), I"m a DISH Network satellite customer. So, although the SV471XVT offers built-in ATSC, NTSC and QAM tuners, I didn"t have much use for them. This greatly reduced the time needed to pass though the setup wizard, but I do give VIZIO props for an elegant and well-executed welcome for new users.

The SV471XVT comes well equipped to handle the bulk of your connectivity needs. On the rear jack pack you"ll find three HDMI ports with a fourth conveniently located on the side panel. For analog HD connections, you get one component video input out back and another on the side panel. Composite and S-video ports are also available but if you know what"s good for you you"ll avoid using these at all costs. Flat panel HDTVs have a hard enough time with standard definition programming as it is. If you deliver it via composite or S-video, you"re just asking for trouble. Rounding out the connections, you"ll find a VGA/PC input on the back panel and a USB port on the side panel - a convenient location when connecting flash drives or an external hard drive.  I tried the former and browsed a few photos with relative ease. It should also be noted that the SV471XVT lacks internet connectivity, so you won"t find an ethernet port or integrated wireless on this display.

Rather than hook up my full surround sound rig, I simply connected my DISH Network ViP722 satellite receiver and Philips BDP7200 Blu-ray Disc player using BetterCables HDMI and component video cables, respectively. While switching between inputs, I noted an interesting capability of the SV471XVT. Although many modern displays and projectors (including the SV471XVT) allow you to maintain different picture settings for each input, the SV471XVT also maintains independent volume controls, remembering the last volume used for each. This is helpful if one of your devices is frequently louder or softer than standard television, but it can also be frustrating when you"re trying to keep quiet at night and you switch inputs only to find the volume much louder than it was a minute ago.

While we"re on the subject of volume, I should mention that the SV471XVT"s audio performance was above average for flat panel displays. Though I wouldn"t trade it for my Noble Fidelity in-wall setup, the Vizio"s SRS TruSurround HD option provided the most satisfying and immersive experience of the choices available. One other feature that" was fun to play with is SRS TruVolume, which attempts to reduce volume inconsistencies between regular programming and commercials, not to mention the sometimes vast volume differences that can exist between two different stations.  Although not a cure-all, it certainly did help minimize this irritating phenomenon on more than a few occasions.

Ergonomics and User Interface (UI) can make or break long-term satisfaction with any piece of gear - especially your television. The SV471XVT gets fair marks in this department - but they could be better. The supplied remote is well-designed and the most commonly-used controls (Channel, Volume, Source) are all smartly placed on the bottom half of the remote for convenient thumb access. The cursor pad was my only major complaint; it felt rather chintzy and was somewhat temperamental when it came to registering clicks.

The SV471XVT"s on-screen menu system was frustrating at first but soon became easy enough to live with.  I like to be able to see everything a menu contains without scrolling, but the Vizio engineers opted for a less-is-more approach. Consequently, the menu is rather small and its confusing text layout makes accessing sub-menus less than intuitive. (Do I click ENTER here or do I click left and right?) Once you get the hang of it, it"s easy enough to live with, but there is definitely some room for improvement.

Before breaking out the HQV test disc and a few Blu-rays, I first spent some time time performing a full picture calibration using Datacolor"s SpyderTV PRO 2007 colorimeter and software. The SV471XVT offers a number of different Picture preset modes, though any of them can be adjusted to your preferred settings. I used "Movie" as my starting point to see how close to accurate this preset was.

Before making changes to the core settings, I identified the "Normal" color temperature preset as being the most accurate and closest to the D65 target (6500 Kelvin for the color white that is). I next disabled the SV471XVT"s assortment of processing "features," namely Noise Reduction, Advanced Adaptive Luma, Color Enhancement and Backlight Control. (Though I will say this, I did find myself setting Noise Reduction to Low during some standard definition viewing. I generally leave it off at all times, but Low did make a worthwhile improvement at times.)

Using SpyderTV PRO, I gave minor boosts to Brightness and Color and made slight reductions to both Contrast and Tint. The SV471XVT"s "Movie" preset tended to skew a bit heavy on the blue, so I also had to reign that in a bit to achieve optimum results. Overall, the SV471XVT did very well in the color temperature and color accuracy departments, so I was eager to see how it handled the HQV gauntlet and some regular programming.

Let"s take those in reverse order and start with the ugly. 120Hz and 240Hz "smooth motion" technology is all the rage in LCD flat panels right now, but I"m not among its fans. Attempting to reduce judder from film sources and make on-screen motion appear less blurry -- historically a problem for LCDs -- these "smoothing" algorithms have the nasty side effect of making 24fps film look like the evening news and just plain wrong. It"s quite disconcerting for many viewers (including yours truly) and you really have to see it firsthand to fully appreciate its effect. The SV471XVT offers 120Hz processing combined with a scanning backlight to achieve what VIZIO calls "240 SPS" or 240 "Scenes Per Second."  Except for those times where I verified my continued dislike for this feature, I left the "Smooth Motion" setting in the OFF position.  Your tastes may vary, though, so experiment with this setting on your own.

Using my Philips BDP7200 Blu-ray player connected via component video, I fired up the HQV Benchmark DVD and Blu-ray version using 480i and 1080i output, respectively. Although the SV471XVT passed the high def jaggies tests, the standard definition version presented some unsightly stair-stepping on the second and third moving bars within the circle. This means the set"s diagonal filter algorithm is not ideal.  The flower and sailboat noise tests revealed a fair amount of video noise at times, but engaging the "Low" mode on the Vizio"s Noise Reduction feature did help minimize the offense.

The SV471XVT also stumbled a bit during the Film Resolution Loss Test resulting in some often distracting flicker and moiré artifacts on the "Super Speedway" segment.  Eventually it locked onto the underlying 3:2 cadence and the moiré disappeared but it took longer than we"ve seen in other TVs and Blu-ray players.  This means the set has some difficulty recognizing and correcting for the inherent 3:2 cadence embedded in 24 frame/second sources (which includes most movies).

Processing issues aside, it"s real world programming that matters most and for the most part, the SV471XVT was a pleasure to watch.  Although standard definition programming and regular DVDs looked less than fantastic on the SV471XVT, I have yet to encounter a flat panel display where those sources have looked much better. Like all flat panel HDTVs, the SV471XVT does its best work when fed a high resolution HD signal, preferably via HDMI. With the exception of blacks, which often looked more charcoal gray than black, the SV471XVT was an able performer.

Whether it was U.S. Open tennis on DISH"s TennisHD network, or the Blu-ray edition of the film Drum Line (an exceptional-looking disc - thanks for the recommendation, boss) the SV471XVT put forth a bright, mostly uniform and accurately-colored picture. As a matter of fact, the 1080p/24 image on Drum Line looked staggeringly good at times and my only real complaint pertained to viewing angle; the SV471XVT"s viewing angle is quite narrow and as such I wouldn"t recommend sitting at the far end of the sectional sofa when watching this TV.

Despite the hard time it had with a few of the HQV torture tests and its relatively narrow viewing angle, the SV471XVT is still a large and attractive display that"s capable of delivering tremendous color and clarity with high definition programming. Feed it HD, sit in the middle of the room and you should be a happy camper. And with its list price of only $1,499 the SV471XVT does offer considerable bang for the buck and warrants your serious consideration.

Editor’s note: This review of the Vizio XVT3SV series is based on our hands-on testing and evaluation of the 55-inch XVT553SV. According to the manufacturer, the image quality and features should be equivalent for each TV in this model line.

Vizio has built a reputation for manufacturing flat-screen TVs that deliver great value for the money, and their XVT3SV series does not disappoint. These TVs routinely come close to the top-rated models in our Top HDTVs charts for image quality and energy efficiency at only two-thirds the price.

One nice Vizio accessory is a Bluetooth remote with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Roughly the size of a smartphone (but thicker than most), this remote doesn’t require line-of-site proximity to communicate with the set (no more worrying that your soft drink or your pet may interfere with your channel surfing)—and the keyboard comes in handy if you use any VIA (Vizio Internet Applications) features that require data entry. The keyboard’s keys aren’t that large, and holding down the function key while typing can be awkward–but using it sure beats relying on a conventional remote’s arrow keypad to navigate an on-screen software keyboard, which is what most sets require.

Samsung C8000 series, the Vizio set collected good to very good ratings across the board. Its minor weaknesses were in details and sharpness, and it also evinced a slight flicker in our motion tests. This isn’t too surprising for a set with a native refresh rate of 120Hz. (Vizio bills its refresh technology as “240Hz SPS,” but the fine print explains that the set displays 240 scenes per second by combining “advanced 120Hz technology” with a scanning backlight.

In any event, the set’s image quality ratings put it in the top quarter of those we’ve looked at during the past few months. Its audio quality was fairly good, too, pumped out by two 15-watt speakers that use convincing surround-sound simulation technology. It’s also one of the greenest HDTV model lines we’ve tested; the 55-inch model consumed just 66 watts of electricity per hour on average. Disappointingly, its power-off consumption was 0.9 watt, compared with 0 for many LED-backlit sets, but you can correct this fault by hooking the set up via a power-surge strip that you disconnect when not in use.

Vizio’s attention to HDTV setup continues to raise the bar for competing vendors. With the XVT3SV series, its first-time setup wizard starts by having you set up your Internet connection, via ethernet or either 2.4GHz or 5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi. Having the 5GHz option available can be quite helpful: It supports many more connections, so it’s less prone to interference. (Of course, a wired connection is generally better if you plan to stream media over the Internet—for example, by using Netflix on Demand.)

As usual, Vizio’s on-screen menus provide tons of customization options: presets for optimizing video quality based on content type, advanced image adjustments, picture-in-picture mode, specialized functions like automatically adjusting volume levels, and more. All are readily accessible through nicely designed menus that offer explanations for features as you navigate through them. For additional help, the set comes with an excellent quick-start guide–a poster-size sheet in glossy color that clearly identifies available connections and what they’re for. The owner’s manual is equally slick, handsome, and helpful.

Vizio’s VIA services doesn’t offer as many Internet apps as Sony and Samsung, but they include a number of big guns (such as Facebook, Flickr, Netflix, Pandora, Twitter, and Yahoo Widgets). They’re easily accessible, too, via a pop-up dock that you can customize by adding the services and content that interest you. Different household members can create their own docks tied to the profiles they create on the set.

A Vizio spokesperson told us that media player functionality would be added via a firmware upgrade, but it’s annoying that Vizio is shipping a product that lacks such an important feature.

Aside from this oddity, the XVT3SV series shapes up as new proof of Vizio’s oft-stated commitment to delivering high-end quality at low prices. But we recommend waiting for that firmware upgrade before running to the store.

From the front the Vizio V047L is dominated by the 47-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 1080p. Below the screen is the Vizio logo, which lights up white when turned on and orange when turned off. On the same glossy bar as the Vizio logo to the far right is the remote control sensor. Below this glossy bar is the main speaker for the TV, which is textured in a grid pattern that extends up and around the LCD.

On the back of the Vizio V047L you find all of the TV"s ports, arranged in a single strip that sits in a cutout near the bottom of the TV facing down. Below the ports is a legend that tells you what each port is for, and is color coded.

On the right side of the Vizio V047L you find the control panel for turning the TV on/off, changing channels and volume as well as navigating the menu. Normally you"ll use the remote for these functions, but if you ever feel like getting off your couch, or if the remote has gone missing, this is where you"ll find the stuff.

The Vizio VO47L sits on a removable stand that does not rotate. In order to remove the stand you will need to remove the four screws that hold it in place. The TV can also be wall mounted with four mounting points found on the back of the Vizio VO47L.

TV controls are found on the right side of the Vizio VO47L, arranged vertically near the bottom of the right edge. From top to bottom you find Power, Menu, CH+, CH-, VOL+, VOL- and Input controls.

The Vizio VO47L ships with the TV itself, a universal remote with batteries, HDMI Cable, Power Cord, Safety Strap, Cleaning Cloth and User Manual. Getting it out of the box is a typical affair, nothing special here.

The Vizio VO47L is styled in black with a glossy bezel around the LCD and a textured edging around that. The TV measures 4.5 inches deep without the stand, which is not super slim, but better than average. The Vizio VO47L"s styling is not particularly impressive, but it"s not ugly either. Those who don"t need their TV to make a fashion statement will likely find it"s styling just fine.

Part of our standard calibration process is to put the backlight to maximum and then to find the settings that produce the closes to 6500k for the color temperature. For this Vizio, none of the color temperature settings were particularly close, so we used a manual setting.

the VO47L is built around a thin film transistor (TFT) active matrix display, which has full HD resolution and a quoted dot pitch of .5415mm on both the horizontal and vertical dimensions.  To further examine the specifics of this, we look at the dot pattern of the screen using a microscope. The photo on the right (taken at a 20x setting with a microscope), shows the dot pattern of the display and the slightly unusual sideways-V shape of the LCD elements; each < shape is a single element. They are in groups of three; one red, green and blue element forms a single pixel. Because they are so small, the eye blurs the colors together to form a single color. In this image, the screen is showing white; all of the elements are active.Vizio does not reveal the number of individual elements, but given that this is a Full HD display, there are probably around 5760 horizontal and 1024 vertical.

Deep blacks on the TV screen mean that your movies look good; there"s nothing worse than the dramatic scenes of your favorite film noir turned into a grey goo because the display can"t produce a decent black. The VO47L had fair to middling performance here; we measured the deepest black at 0.44 cd/m2 (candelas per square meter, a measure of luminance where lower is better), which is in the middle of the pack; several displays that we have tested have had deeper blacks. The Panasonic TH-46PZ80U, for instance had a much deeper black (0.06 cd/m2) and the JVC LT-47X899 had a slightly better black (at 0.37 cd/m2).

The flip side of the coin is how bright the whites are, and we measured the VO47L at an impressively bright 313.8 cd/m2, which is pretty damn bright. Brightness is only part of the performance of a display, but it is an important part; more brightness means that the display will be more visible in bright daylight, making it more suitable for daytime use. The VO47L had no problem here; over 300 cd/m2 means there is plenty of screen brightness. If you rally want to crank it to the maximum, you ca gnet it to 395.47 cd/m2 by pushing up the brightness and contrast controls, but this is not recommended; it has a serious effect on the color accuracy of the display.

The relationship between the black and white is the contrast ratio; it gives a good indication of the range of shades that the display can manage to produce. We measured the contrast ratio of the VO47L at 713:18, which is a decent, if unspectacular ratio. Because they had better blacks, several other displays had better scores here; the Samsung LN46A750 had a significantly higher contrast ratio of 2842:1. But the VO47L is comparable with other similarly priced displays; the JVC LT-47X899 was only slightly higher at 830:1.

One thing to note here; our figures are different from the contrast ratio figures quoted by the manufacturer (such as Vizio"s 2000:1 for the VO47L) because they measure the ratio between the dark with the backlight turned down, and the brightest white with it turned up (sometimes called dynamic contrast). We measure the contrast ratio with the backlight on the highest setting, so our figures are usually much lower than the manufacturer quoted ones. Our figures are more representative of the performance you would see in the real world, though.

The uniformity of the screen is also important; there"s no benefit to having the brightest white and deepest blacks if they don"t remain the same across the screen. The VO47L again had middling performance here; we found both white and black screen sot be reasonably uniform, but there were definite lighter areas in the black screen, and the corners were somewhat dimmer in the white screens. These issues were definitely noticeable when watching a video, but they didn"t detract overly from the image quality.

As you can see, the Vizio is pretty close to the ideal here; the curve is flat and ties in well with the trend. Form this we cna also work out a figure for the gamma; we look for a figure for this of between 2.4 and 2.5, and the VO47LF was at 2.33, just a touch outside of the ideal range. But that"s close enough that it won"t be an issue for most users.

The VO47LF is a 1080p display with the full 1080p resolution, but it doesn"t always get a 1080p signal to display; many devices output signals in the lower HDTV formats, and the display has to work with these. So, we test how good of a job the display does by feeding it a series of test screens in various high definition signal formats. Let"s look at each of these in turn.

480p signals are produced by many standard definition devices that have digital outputs, such as high-end DVD players or some standard definition cable boxes. We found that the VO47LF did a reasonable job of working with these; the text in our test screens was sharp and very legible. We didn"t notice any significant issues with problems caused by the dithering that the display uses to upscale the image, edges and lines looked clean and sharp. The video was overscanned by about 4 per cent, which is pretty standard for this type of video.

720p high definition signals are often used by broadcasters when they are showing sports, as progressive video provides smoother movement than the higher resolution, but interlaced, 1080i. We found that the VO47LF  again did a reasonable job here; the images were sharp and clear. Again, the image was overscanned (by about 3 per cent), which is a little unusual: most displays don"t overscan 720p images.

1080i video is the most common form of high definition video; it"s what most over the air high definition signals are sent in, and it"s what most high definition cable boxes produce. The VO47LF did a decent job here too; images were sharp, but the interlacing of the signal was obvious; moving objects had a somewhat jagged look.

Your washing machine might make your whites whiter than white, but your television should not; you want a TV that keeps your whites the same, however bright they are. So, we test the color temperature performance of displays such as the VO47L by looking at how similar the whites it displays are at differing intensities. To do this, we calibrate the TV to produce a white at as close to 6500k as possible at the maximum intensity of white, then gradually reduce the intensity of the white and see how much the color temperature varies. The graph below represents the results of this test; a perfect display would have a completely flat curve here, indicating that the color temperature did not change as the intensity of the white decreased.

As you can see from this, the VO47L did a very decent job; the variations of the color temperature as the intensity of the white decreases are very small. In fact, the differences are so small that they aren"t perceptible. Another way to look at this is to look at the color values of the white instead of the color temperature; if the color of the white changes significantly, you"ll see a color cast. The graph below shows this; the center of the graph is the color of the white at maximum intensity, and our measurements of the white as the intensity decreases are shown on the black line. The red line indicates the smallest color difference that the human eye can perceive. On this chart, a perfect TV would have all of the measurements in the center.

The VO47L did well here again; most of the measured points (the dots) are within the red line, and the ones that are outside of it are only just outside. This means that there are some color shifts in the whites, but only minor ones that should not be visible to most people.

As you can see from this, the graphs are all fairly smooth, although the red and blue are a little bumpy. This bumpiness translates into some minor issues, such as some slight evidence of banding on subtle color changes like blue skies and clothing. The blue also tops out a little soon, meaning that the blue elements of the screen reach their peak intensity before the signal does; they just have no more to give. This is a minor issue, though; we would not expect this to present a problem in daily viewing. Overall, the Vizio VO47LF had decent, but unspectacular performance on the RGB curves.

There are limits to most things in life, including color. For a HDTV, the limits to follow are defined by a group of international experts in a standard called Rec.709. This contains the limits of the colors that a HDTV signal should contain, and thus represent what colors a TV should show. So we test this and see how close every TV we look at gets to these limits. The results for the Vizio VO47LF are below; the solid line is the limits for the Vizio, while the dotted line is the limits set in the standard.

Again, the VO47LF did reasonably well here; it didn"t hit the limits right on, but it did get pretty close; the main errors are in the green and blue, both of which are slightly off.  For all of you imaging geeks out there, the chromaticity coordinates for our tests are in the chart below, as well as the error (the difference between the ideal and the measured).

The VO47LF lacks the 120 Mhz refresh rate of many of the other displays that we have looked at, and it shows; the video is noticeably jerkier and less smooth than other displays. It"s certainly not unwatchable, but it lacks the smoothness of the more expensive models, and video with a lot of movement in particular can turn into a blurry mess. One of the standard sequences we use to test is a clip from the hand-held camera action movie Cloverfield, and this was particularly difficult to watch; small details on the action sequences were just not visible.

The VO47LF only did a lackluster job of detecting and processing a TV signal that included a telecine processing. Although it did  detect the telecine on the Silicon Optix HQV test disc that we use and tried to process it, the result was a blocky, jerky mess. This test disc is designed to highlight issues, but our experience with a real video with 3:2 encoding wasn"t much better; there was still some noticeable jerkiness and jittering to the image. The VO47LF was able to work with a 24 frames per second video image, though, and preserved as much of the filmic look of the source as the issues we mentioned above allowed.

The viewing angle of the 46W4100 was a problem; we found that moving even a few degrees away from right in front of the display meant that the blacks got lighter, and the whites got much paler. We test this by measuring the contrast ratio of the TV at a variety of angles, and working out when the contrast ratio has fallen by 50 per cent. We found that this happened on the VO47LF at 39 degrees, for a total viewing angle of 77 degrees. This might not sound like much, but it"s pretty decent performance for an LCD; many have a significantly smaller angle (such as the 30 degrees total viewing angle of the Sony 46W4100). Plasma TVs (such as the Panasonic TH-46PZU) have a much wider viewing angle; in our tests, the Panasonic had a total viewing angle of 156 degrees.

We did also find that colors on the Vizio got somewhat pale at angles as well; reds in particular faded into pale shadows of their original selves when you were viewing from an angle of 35 degrees or more.

Like all HDTVs, the front of the VO47LF is a big piece of shiny plastic that shows reflections. But Vizio did put a matte layer on top of the screen that diffuses reflections to some degree, so they tend to be more diffuse patches than well-defined spots of light. And, as this screen is pretty bright, reflections do tend to be less irritating as all but the brightest are drowned out by the screen light. As long as you"re careful where you put your lights, there shouldn"t be a big issues with reflections on this screen.

The VO47L offers several features in the advanced video menu that claim to help improve the image quality. To test these, we test each one with a variety of video sources. Here"s what we found...

The Vizio VO47L"s remote measures 8 1/8 inches long by 2 1/16 inches wide and tapers from 1 1/4 inches thick at the base to 7/8 inches at the front. The remote has a soft touch finish on the back that makes it easier to hold, and it is also contoured to provide a better fit in your hand. There are also a couple of ridges on the back near the middle that we believe are meant to help hold the remote better, but we did not find they helped.

When holding the remote with your thumb on the main directional pad (D-pad) we found the remote was a bit bottom heavy, something that only gets worse as you shift your hand up the remote to access controls above the D-pad. The Vizio VO47L"s buttons are backlit in a brownish/orange light whenever you hit a button. The light is easy on the eyes, which is nice to see when you are using the backlight in dark conditions.

The Vizio VO47L"s remote is pretty long at 8 1/8 inches, with buttons laid out along it"s entire length except for the very bottom of the remote. This means you"ll inevitably have to shift your hand up and down quite a bit to reach some controls. Of more importance are whether the most important controls are within easy reach. Sitting with your thumb on the D-Pad we found that most users could reach all of the central controls without a major shift of the hand. This includes the D-Pad, Menu, Last, Mute Channel and Volume controls. Those with smaller hands may need to shift a bit, but not too much.

If you want to get your hands on the number pad or playback controls, however, you"ll have to shift your hand quite a bit. In particular we found the number pad to be annoying to use as shifting your hand up makes the bottom heavy remote more difficult to use. This also makes it a bit of a pain to switch to another channel that isn"t in easy reach using the Channel up/down buttons. We were able to control the Vizio VO47L with its remote at an angle of twenty degrees from the plane of the screen.

On the plus side the Vizio VO47L"s remote is well labeled. As with most remotes there are a few arcane items, what does MTS mean for instance? That said the number of unintelligible labels is far fewer than many other remotes and most are easy to understand, making it easy to pick up the remote and use it without too much confusion.

The Vizio VO47L"s remote can be used to control additional items in your home theater setup. To test this functionality we set up the remote to control our cable box provided by Comcast. We found the process simple, set the remote to the cable mode with the button found near the top. Point it at your cable box and press and hold the SET button until the LED blinks twice. Then enter the appropriate code for your cable box or other device, a list of codes is found in the back of the Vizio VO47L"s manual. Sometimes there are multiple codes for a single manufacturer so repeat the process until you get the LED to blink twice letting you know the process is complete.

The Vizio VO47L"s audio quality is nothing to write home about, but it isn"t terrible either. Voices can be discerned easily, even with a lot of background noise in the scene, and we detected no major problems that will throw people off. If you"re used to the standard sound quality that a TV provides the Vizio VO47L will neither impress you nor disappoint you.

The Vizio VO47L offers a simulated surround sound system, as is typical of most TVs nowadays. Unfortunately we found that it did not do much to actually simulate surround sound. The major effect seems to be to turn up the volume on background sounds, so you can hear that footstep coming a bit better, but at the cost of foreground sounds being muted, so you"ll be straining to hear the dialogue. Compared to even an inexpensive surround sound system there"s no comparison. We recommend that if you want surround sound to go buy a set of speakers, even a cheap set, and otherwise leave the simulated surround sound off.

The Vizio VO47L"s speakers measured 87.6 decibels in our test of loudness. This is quite loud enough that no one should have any trouble hearing the TV, in fact we believe that anyone who turns it up this loud will likely be deafened in short order. We made this measurement using a sound pressure meter from five feet away with the volume at maximum and using pink noise as our reference sound.

The Vizio VO47L has a good range of input ports, but it lacks the large number of some port types that other TV"s have. Below you can see the input ports available on the Vizio VO47L. In particular we note that there are fewer analog video and audio in ports than some other TV"s have. There are 4 HDMI ports, however. The antenna port supports an antenna for digital over the air (OTA) tv and digital cable. It does no support analog cable. Analog OTA is TK. There"s also a one eight inch audio input for getting audio from a computer or Mp3 player to your TV.

The only output ports on the Vizio VO47L are an analog audio out and a digital audio out that supports SPDIF, for content that includes digital audio.

The Vizio VO47L"s ports are all placed along a single strip, facing down, found on the back of the TV at the top of a cavity that sits just above the stand. This means you know where you need to look to find the connection you want, which is good, but the placement means that if getting to the back of your TV is difficult so is getting to any port on the TV. The fact that the stand does not allow you to rotate your TV makes this even more problematic. If you have your TV stuck up against a wall or corner you"ll have to physically move it or or climb behind it to connect or disconnect any cables, not very convenient at all. On the plus side the ports are well labeled and organized, but since you can"t read the label unless you get behind your TV this doesn"t mitigate matters very much.

The VO47L takes a fairly simplistic approach to menus; they are organized into three sections; one for picture, one for audio and the last one for setup controls. This fairly simple approach makes the on-screen menus easy to use; you enter the on-screen menu by pressing the menu button on the remote and navigate with the direction buttons. The OK button in the center of the directional controls selects the current option. The controls themselves are also fairly straightforward; when you select a control such as brightness or backlight, the main menu disappears and a bar appears that shows the

The audio controls of the VO47L are a fairly standard set; there are controls for volume, bass, treble and balance, all with a range of 100 steps. There is also a control to enable or disable the Surround sound option and another to disable the built-in speakers completely. For more details of the audio performance of this display, see the audio section of our review.

The DTV/TV Tuner setup menu is where you configure the built-in DTV and analog cable tuner. Like all TVs sold in the past few years, the VO47L includes a DTV tuner thant can receive over the air digital TV channels, as well as analog cable channels. It does not, however, support digital cable channels without a seperate cable box. The DTV/TV Tuner menu provides options for setting the type of signal, for searching for and choosing channels and the time zone and daylight saving settings that the TV guide uses.

The Setup menu is also home to the picture-in-picture (PIP) controls. The VO47L offers two styles of PIP; one (called PIP) with a small inserted image in the corner, and another with the two videos side by side.

The Vizio VO47L"s manual does a good job, with large color illustrations, a good table of contents and large headers at the top of each page that make it easy to find what you"re looking for. There"s even an index in the back, a feature that many TV manuals don"t include.

The Vizio VO47L supports 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i content. The Vizio VO47L does not support 24p or 3:2 pulldown, which are used to enhance content produced on film or to look like film. It also doesn"t support xvYCC, which is a new system for increasing the range of colors available to content.

At a cost of $37.40 per year for power the Vizio VO47L"s power consumption is just above average. We test power consumption by setting the screen"s brightness to 200 cd/m2, a level that is good for watching in dark or lit conditions. We play back a standard sequence and get an average power use of six minutes. As with all LCDs how high you set the backlight will have a significant impact on your power consumption. You can see below that setting it to maximum pushes your annual cost up to $60.67. This assumes watching five hours of television a day and uses the average national cost for electricity. For this reason we recommend that you keep LCD displays at the lowest backlight setting you find comfortable.

Vizio has gained a large chunk of the HDTV market by producing decent, low cost screens, and the VO47L continues this trend; it provides great value for money for the TV buyer on a tight budget.

Sharp LC-46D64U - The Sharp is at a similar price point to the Vizio, but the Vizio has an edge in image quality. Neither TV is going to win any gold medals in the imaging olympics, but the Vizio is a better screen overall.

Panasonic TH-PZ80U - This plasma screen is similarly priced to the Vizio, so the choice comes down to the pros and cons of the LCD vs plasma display types. The LCD-based Vizio is significantly brighter; put the two screens side by side and the Vizio is much more appealing to the eye. The Panasonic plasma does has better viewing angle and color accuracy, though, and those who assume that plasmas are expensive will be pleasantly surprised by the price.

JVC LT-47X899 - The JVC has significantly better image quality than the Vizio, but it is much more expensive. Is the improved image quality worth the extra? For most people, the answer is probably no; the Vizio is good enough for general use and is much cheaper.

Looking to replace an old LCD panel (or even, horrors, a tube) with something new, modern, and feature-packed? Ah, who are we kidding, "feature-packed" is code for "not in my budget."

It might be today. For a limited time, and while supplies last, Amazon has the VIZIO E3D470VX 47-inch LCD HDTV for $598 shipped. When it comes to features, this model"s about as packed as they come.

For starters, it"s a 3D TV, one that relies on lightweight passive glasses rather than expensive, inconvenient active-shutter glasses. Vizio supplies two pairs, but you can expand your collection by bringing home the specs they hand out at the movie theater. (You paid for them; you"re allowed to keep them.) I have a passive-tech 3D TV, and it works great.

The E3D470VX is also an Internet-savvy TV, with built-in Wi-Fi and Vizio"s impressive app collection, which includes Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, Netflix, Vudu, YouTube, Pandora, Flickr, and loads more. Roku box? Who needs a Roku box?

Another sweet perk: Vizio"s remote has a QWERTY keyboard on its backside, making it infinitely easier to enter search terms, update your status (Facebook and Twitter are among the available apps), and the like.

This is a 120Hz LCD with four HDMI inputs and two USB ports (suitable for listening to MP3s or viewing JPEG photos). I think my sole complaint is that it"s not LED-backlit.

Speaking of complaints, CNET had a few, most notably the E3D470VX"s 2D picture quality. However, more than 300 Amazon buyers rated the TV 4.3 stars out of 5 on average. At Wal-Mart, it earned 4.5 stars (again out of 5) from 235 users.

Based on the specs alone, there"s obviously a lot to like here. I have a smaller Vizio TV with the same built-in Wi-Fi and apps, and I find the picture quality to be above average. If you"re looking for a spacious screen with lots of goodies, this deal is hard to beat.