The trail VIZIO has blazed in the consumer electronics industry is not unlike that of Hyundai in the auto industry. Initially, both companies gained market share and notoriety for their low prices and high value offerings, though not necessarily for best-in-class quality. However, slowly but surely each company has managed to steadily raise the quality of its product while maintaining a notable price advantage over its higher-priced competition. And now, like Hyundai with their award-winning Sonata and industry-best warranty, VIZIO has somehow managed to become the world's largest LCD manufacturer with affordable products that just keep getting better. And the XVT473SV 47-inch LED TV is easily their finest display to date.
Like its 42- and 55-inch XVT3SV Series siblings, the 47-inch XVT473SV sports a laundry list of latest-and-greatest technologies such as full array LED backlighting with Smart Dimming, built-in Bluetooth, integrated 802.11n wireless, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard-equipped remote control, and the VIZIO Internet Apps suite ("VIA") which includes Netflix, VUDU, Rhapsody and lots more. And that's to say nothing of its superb picture quality.
Would you like to know more? (Sorry, I just watched Starship Troopers.)
First Impressions
While some consumers will opt to wall-mount the XVT473SV, VIZIO ships the unit with its tabletop stand pre-assembled. Why VIZIO chose to make this a non-swiveling stand is a mystery, but it is at least sturdy and sports a relatively compact footprint. Like many of the displays that have been through here recently, the unit sports a glossy black bezel that catches and reflects more light than I'd like to see, but we can at least be thankful for its lack of mirrors or shiny chrome. I'll say it again, and I'll continue to say it: matte finish please. The screen itself does have a matte coating which helps it to reduce screen glare, maintaining viewability even in bright rooms. It would be nice if the same could be said about the frame. Overall, the 3SV's all-black design is modest and handsome though hardly noteworthy.
What is noteworthy is the unit's cleverly-concealed "jag wheel" multi-function power button. Many displays these days are integrating slick-but-unnecessary touch controls along the front bezel. VIZIO forgoes this trend and instead tucks one side-facing, gear-style button in the lower left corner, invisible when looking at the display head-on. One push turns the display on, hold it for 3 seconds and the display turns off. Tap it once when the display is in use and you'll get an on-screen menu that lists Volume, Channel, and Source. Turn the gear wheel up or down to navigate and tap the button again to select. Nice. Seriously though, how often do you actually use the buttons on the TV? If you're anything like me, it's only when you can't find the remote.
Remote, Control
And now for something completely different. Recognizing the increasing need for a keyboard when updating your Facebook status or inputting your login credentials, VIZIO has given the XVT473SV a unique remote control that features a hidden slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The keys are decidedly tiny and you're apt to make a few typos, but the keyboard makes text entry much faster than the typical up-up-right-right-right-enter method ot phone keyboard data entry style employed on your average display. The news isn't all good, however, for the remote lacks backlighting and the unit feels a bit shifty in your hand on account of its split-in-two construction. I suspect we'll see this design evolve significantly over the years as the Internet and television continue their mind meld, but kudos to VIZIO for nudging things in the right direction.
Another unique feature of the XVT473SV is its use of integrated Bluetooth, which begins with its Bluetooth-friendly remote control. An initial setup wizard quickly pairs the remote to your display and just like that, line-of-sight infrared (IR) requirements become a thing of the past. The TV does also respond to IR codes, which is handy if you intend to use a Harmony or other universal remote control to operate it. Although VIZIO is unspecific about what other types of Bluetooth devices may be supported in the future, the owner's manual does imply that compatibility with other Bluetooth peripherals (stereo headphones, music players, soundbars, etc.) should be possible with a future software update. Here's hoping we see that happen.
Despite a few quirks and software glitches, the on-screen menu and navigation system employed by the XVT3SV series is quite good. Pushing the large "VIA" logo button on the remote brings up the application dock along the bottom. From here you can jump into Netflix, Rhapsody and other other apps which we'll get to in a moment. You can also click the HDTV SETTINGS widget, which is simply a shortcut to the TV's configuration and setup menu. Oddly, pressing the "Menu" button on the remote is a quicker way to access these settings, but this shortcut does not work when viewing an HDMI source. Similarly, the "Info" button on the remote - which provides a handy, on-screen confirmation of the active source and its video resolution (1080i, for example) - will only function as advertised when viewing an analog source. Hopefully these minor bugs can be ironed out with a software update, but neither issue rises above the level of nitpicking.
VIZIO Internet Apps
We've talked a lot about television apps lately, so suffice it to say the XVT3SV series delivers some but not all of the heavy hitters you'd expect. Netflix, Amazon VOD and VUDU? Check. Pandora and Rhapsody? You bet. Hulu Plus and YouTube? Negative Ghost Rider (although we are told that both Hulu Plus and YouTube will be "coming soon"). VIZIO does offer an app entitled "Web Videos" which appears to cull clips from various sources including CBS, FOX and PBS using a YouTube-esque interface. It behaved a little erratically during my evaluation period, but like all of these Internet-based apps, there's always the possibility of improvement over time. Yahoo Widgets and a healthy assortment of lesser-known widgets round out the app offerings. (Anyone up for a game of Fruit Splat?)
Picture quality on Netflix, definitely the most popular web app, was perfectly adequate and on a par with what we've seen on many other displays. With VIZIO's current Netflix implementation, you cannot search for movies and TV shows by title, so queue management still requires a computer -- or at least some type of device with a web browser -- to be nearby. That said, you can browse "Newest Arrivals" plus several other lists and genre samplings; this is a solid compromise to be sure, but here's hoping Netflix on VIZIO will someday be able to take better advantage of that slick keyboard remote.
Processing... Processing...
To get a sense for the XVT473SV's processing capabilities, I connected my OPPO DV-983H DVD player via component video and set the player's output to 480i. I also connected my Panasonic DMP-BD35 Blu-ray Disc player and set its output to 1080i. Running through IDT's HQV Benchmark 2.0 test patterns - both the standard definition DVD and high definition Blu-ray editions - the XVT473SV did an admirable job tackling most tests.
De-interlacing performance on the "Video Resolution" tests was quite good and resulted in virtually-imperceptible waviness on the oscillating bars; the waving flag revealed only minimal stair-stepping. The "Film Resolution" also yielded impressive results, with the VIZIO locking down the 3:2 film cadence after only one second, and eliminating that tell-tale moire distortion from the grandstands.
After being sufficiently pleased with the XVT473SV's deinterlacing capabilities, I connected an Accell Swivel HDMI cable and changed my Panasonic Blu-ray player's output resolution to 1080p/24. With the VIZIO's Smooth Motion dejudder processing turned off, I was relieved to see relatively smooth, native playback of film-based content such as The Dark Knight. Pans over Gotham City and later over downtown Hong Kong resulted in high resolution motion without the jerky stutter generated by 2:3 pulldown and without the overly smooth effects of motion interpolation. Some folks may enjoy the "benefits" of Smooth Motion and similar frame interpolation technologies, but I for one can't stomach the unnatural effect it has on movies, essentially giving film the look of a daytime soap opera.
Picture This
The overall picture put forth by the XVT473SV is surprisingly good. Out of the box, color saturation was refreshingly restrained with a uniformly-bright image boasting decent black levels. Post-calibration, things improved further. After some adjustments made starting in the "Movie" picture mode using the VIZIO's "Standard" color temperature preset, blacks were rendered inky and deep and color accuracy was superb thanks to the display's consistent grayscale tracking. Black-to-white ramp-style test patterns revealed no discernible color shift, a positive indicator that accurate skin tones lie ahead.
In addition to giving this display its wonderfully deep blacks, the XVT473SV's full array LED backlighting contributes to excellent brightness uniformity. We've seen a lot of edge-lit LED displays lately, and many of them (understandably) exhibit an inability to light the panel evenly, a problem that becomes particularly evident during dark scenes such as an outer space sequence during a sci-fi film. The XVT473SV had no such problems during critical viewing of Joss Whedon's supremely entertaining Serenity on Blu-ray Disc. Minor backlight blooming could be detected when Serenity (the ship) and other non-space picture elements were isolated "in the black" (as Kaylee would say) but this common side effect of locally-dimmed LEDs never rose to the point of distraction.
Like most LCD flat panels, the XVT473SV does its best work when you're looking at it straight-on. Off-axis viewing of the XVT473SV is what I'd classify as average, but I've seen better with other (more expensive) displays. Contrast performance suffers as you move further down the couch and you'll definitely want to mount this display as close to eye level as you can.
Watching an assortment of my favorite go-to Blu-ray Discs for picture evaluation (The Dark Knight, "Planet Earth," Drumline, and I Am Legend), I was consistently impressed by the XVT473SV. The 1080p panel revealed exquisite levels of detail during the BBC's awesome "Planet Earth" and Will Smith's red Mustang GT had great visual pop as it roared down the deserted streets of Manhattan. Skin tones were spot-on and it was hard to find fault with those aforementioned black levels. Well-tuned plasmas may still still have the edge in this department, but I've yet to see a plasma perform as well as the XVT473SV does in a brightly-lit room.
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Final Thoughts
VIZIO has come a long way and the proof lies in the XVT473SV. You could easily see a display manufacturer cramming this much technology into a display - internet apps, integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, a keyboard-equipped remote - and then failing to address the more important issue of picture quality. But VIZIO didn't go that route. Instead, VIZIO has developed their finest-performing HDTV to date, and added these exciting technologies as icing on the cake. If you're in the market for an LED-backlit LCD, VIZIO's XVT3SV Series should definitely be on your short list. It's on mine.
[editor's note: a 3D-enabled version of this set has just been introduced - the XVT3D474SV - for an MSRP of $1699.99 - worth consideration if you are interested in 3D capabilities.]
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Manufacturer's Specifications for VIZIO XVT473SV LCD HDTV:
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Manufacturer's Contact Information:
VIZIO, Inc.
39 Tesla
Irvine, CA 92618
Phone: 949-428-2525
Toll Free: 888 VIZIO CE (888.849.4623)
Online: www.vizio.com
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