Rating: 
Summary: I had to return mine :(
Review: When connected to my home-theater system via S-video, it sent an unacceptably loud hum/buzz/hiss back thru the audio system when the LCD display was on. When I switched video inputs via the front-panel, the display would momentarily blank, the noise would disappear, and as soon as the display came back on it would start up again. I have no way of knowing if I had a defective unit, or this was a design-flaw.Otherwise I found this unit fascinating and impressive. I ran it a lot using S-video from both DirecTV satellite and from DVD. Depending on the quality of the source, it could produce amazing images with no scan-lines. The cool thing about it is that it can upconvert 480i to 1024p and make it look pretty decent. However, mediocre source (read Cable TV and VHS) will look poor-to-terrible, because this unit mercilessly reveals flaws in the source material that a regular "soft" TV display conceals. Also, amusingly, it occasionally revealed small blocky MPEG artifacts on some of the "standard" DirecTV channels, which I don't normally see; its well-known that they dynamically allocate bandwidth, giving more to Premium and sports channels. I would expect digital Cable to fare worse. I adjusted this unit using the "Video Essentials" DVD. The big plus was its absolutely unbelievable horizontal resolution. I saw fine resolution detail in vertical-line test displays that I had never seen before; this probably explains why it looks poor with low-quality source material. High res + 480i upconversion + poor source = bad picture, especially when there is a lot of motion. The two BIG downsides were: 1) it cannot do absolute blacks well at all, and 2) the most damning is that the gray-temperature is set VERY high, making blacks and grays look distinctly "bluish", and there is NO adjustment to compensate which I am aware of. These two problems will kill this unit off for most videophiles; it's a common design problem. Note that my final settings for S-video were: Brightness 50; Contrast 50; Sharpness 0 (DEFINITELY!); Color 95 (strange but true) and Tint 50. Consider for future HDTV that this unit is not 16:9, and it does not have component video inputs (present in the pricier 171MP model).
Rating:
Summary: I had to return mine :(
Review: When connected to my home-theater system via S-video, it sent an unacceptably loud hum/buzz/hiss back thru the audio system when the LCD display was on. When I switched video inputs via the front-panel, the display would momentarily blank, the noise would disappear, and as soon as the display came back on it would start up again. I have no way of knowing if I had a defective unit, or this was a design-flaw. Otherwise I found this unit fascinating and impressive. I ran it a lot using S-video from both DirecTV satellite and from DVD. Depending on the quality of the source, it could produce amazing images with no scan-lines. The cool thing about it is that it can upconvert 480i to 1024p and make it look pretty decent. However, mediocre source (read Cable TV and VHS) will look poor-to-terrible, because this unit mercilessly reveals flaws in the source material that a regular "soft" TV display conceals. Also, amusingly, it occasionally revealed small blocky MPEG artifacts on some of the "standard" DirecTV channels, which I don't normally see; its well-known that they dynamically allocate bandwidth, giving more to Premium and sports channels. I would expect digital Cable to fare worse. I adjusted this unit using the "Video Essentials" DVD. The big plus was its absolutely unbelievable horizontal resolution. I saw fine resolution detail in vertical-line test displays that I had never seen before; this probably explains why it looks poor with low-quality source material. High res + 480i upconversion + poor source = bad picture, especially when there is a lot of motion. The two BIG downsides were: 1) it cannot do absolute blacks well at all, and 2) the most damning is that the gray-temperature is set VERY high, making blacks and grays look distinctly "bluish", and there is NO adjustment to compensate which I am aware of. These two problems will kill this unit off for most videophiles; it's a common design problem. Note that my final settings for S-video were: Brightness 50; Contrast 50; Sharpness 0 (DEFINITELY!); Color 95 (strange but true) and Tint 50. Consider for future HDTV that this unit is not 16:9, and it does not have component video inputs (present in the pricier 171MP model).
Rating: 
Summary: Indulgence At Its Best !
Review: When seated and staring at a monitor for hours, why not be good to yourself. This is the best way to go. The 170mp has an incredible image, that is easy on the eyes. With the added advantage of a tv tuner, this is the one to have. Although the small speakers don't pack much punch, it is a simple task to connect to outboard pc system speakers. Overall, a really cool piece of equipment. Go ahead... Indulge yourself.
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