Left to My Devices: Wide Is Beautiful

Wide-screen fever hits a gadget lover where it hurts--in the pocketbook.

Michael S. Lasky, PC World

Questions or comments? Write to Michael Lasky.

The holiday season is over, but the techno-lust for large-format flat-panel TV monitors that took consumer electronic dealers by surprise continues unabated. Left to my devices, I usually like to play with gadgets that fit in my hand; but after viewing just one wide-screen LCD TV, I too came down with a raging case of large-screen fever.

It didn't hurt that just before Christmas, Westinghouse Digital offered to loan me its new HDTV-Ready Dual Tuner LCD TV with DVI (model W33001). The fever was already coursing through my body, so I took a bite--or should I say, the bait.

While 30 inches is considered the smallest of the large-screen TV formats--they get as big as 80 inches (hey, that's more than 6 feet of TV!)--it still seems generous for any flat panel. The W33001 weighs just 40 pounds. I say "just" because the 20-inch CRT television it replaced in my living room weighs 54 pounds.

I'm no expert on flat-screen technology. I auditioned this LCD like any other consumer who's been wowed by technology that's increased the size and clarity of televisions while shrinking their weight and bulk. I wanted to see for myself exactly what has made them big hits in electronic stores.

I wasn't interested in the finer points of comparative screen quality. They all look pretty good to me. But I was impressed by this model's versatile set of features.

Ring Around the Picture

First off, the W33001 includes two tuners, which permits instant picture-in-picture without the need to utilize another tuner, say from a VCR. In fact, you can view up to 13 channels at once: The large center picture with sound is ringed by 12 satellite windows that display real-time stills from other channels. I could switch to any one of these channels with a couple of clicks on the remote.

The W33001 has inputs for a PC and supports resolutions up to 1280 by 1024. It also has S-Video, DVI-in (a digital video connector that bypasses analog signals for pure digital throughput from a PC), four audio connections, and support for an optional subwoofer.

The wide screen is adjustable to a panoramic view, a fit-all view, or a normal or square-shaped view framed on either side by black bars. I could toggle through the different display options using one button on the remote.

A Remote Gotcha!

Alas, the nearly foot-long remote control--which has more buttons than a cantaloupe has seeds--is so complicated that most of the TV's manual is devoted to showing how to use it. I am still using old-fashioned trial-and-error experimentation to figure out what various buttons do. I suppose that's the nature of the beast for all remotes these days, and I shouldn't single out Westinghouse here.

But I can knock the company for the way it touts dual cable-ready tuners, which ostensibly give you those 13 simultaneous channel views. Why? Because in reality the only way the tuners work is if you connect your cable line directly to the TV--not through the cable box many of us have these days. To see the available channels, you must first fine-tune the TV, a simple, one-click procedure the TV does automatically to find all available channels.

The problem is, when I connect my cable via the cable box, it sends only the signal of the station it is on (normally channel 3) and not the other 124 channels. On those, the TV picks up more snow than a hard winter in Buffalo. And if I connect the cable directly to the TV, I don't get the premium channels that only the box can decode, such as ESPN and HBO. This might happen with other flat-panel TVs as well, but Westinghouse makes a big deal about how special this 13-in-1 screen feature is. It is special to see 13 stations on screen at once, but it's less special that the channels you can view are limited by the signal source.

Why LCD Is So Popular

I most enjoyed the Westinghouse Digital W33001 for viewing DVDs in the movie-theater 16:9 aspect ratio. The wide-screen LCD seems custom-made for this, with its crisp imaging and sound output capabilities. The generous 170-degree viewing angle is impressive, too: It allows everybody in the room to see the screen without any distortion or loss of clarity. Of course, most of the numerous other flat panels on the market probably offer similar qualities. And that explains why consumers are willing to pay the hefty price these TVs command. The W33001 costs $2999, which is about average comparative to other 30-inch units, including some that do not have as many features.

And yes, like many other newer TVs, the W33001 is HDTV-ready. If you have an HDTV tuner, you can plug in and instantly see the crystalline images that HD produces when available on cable or over the air.

I'm going to be returning my loaner model soon, but I will now have to bite the bullet and buy one for myself. It's like sitting in first class on a plane: After that, coach seems much worse than you ever thought it was before.

Gadget Shorts

Audible Otis: I've always enjoyed listening to books on tape--but, hey, this is the digital age. Audible.com has a better method and a better player. Otis, a 64MB digital audio player, is made specifically to listen to books and radio shows with discrete chapters, or tracks. I download the latest bestsellers and have a subscription to some of the shows broadcast on National Public Radio. Otis lets me choose the listening format I want--low, medium, or high sound quality, or CD-burnable--depending on how many megabytes I want to eat up. At medium quality, I get about 15 hours. But buying a Secure Digital memory card for the device's expansion slot lets me hold a vocal virtual library. The player is free with a year's subscription to Audible.com, or $129 without.

PNY Executive PNY Executive Attaché: USB flash memory comes in many forms these days, from the ubiquitous thumb drive to wrist watches. Now PNY Technologies has a fancy-schmancy USB 2.0 ball-point pen with 128MB to 512MB of memory. The top-of-the-line Signature Series with 512MB comes in blue-and-black marble lacquer, and includes a USB extension cable and replacement ink cartridge. To access the memory, you simply screw off the top end of the pen to reveal the USB plug. Prices range from $80 to $150, depending on the amount of memory. It will be available in February 2004.