11 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
LC-37G4U and my Harmony remote
Date of Review: Sep 20, 2004
The Bottom Line: This LCD HDTV monitor produces excellent picture clarity, with no visible ghosting. Once you watch HD content you won't want to go back to regular TV.
Getting to the point where I was able to convince my wife we needed a new TV was the most difficult part of this purchase. It's taken me 4 years. So when I finally found a TV that received my wife's blessing I think it goes without saying I was very happy.
I'm sure many of you have been to the big electronics stores and watched the huge TVs in awe as they emit a dazzling picture, albeit in a perfect setting with no outdoor lighting ruining the picture, and with you sitting in the "sweet spot". Well, our family room has a wall of windows, all right behind the sweet spot, so the behemoth rear projection TVs were not going to work in our setting (shame, I really do love the big screen size). Even watching our CRT TV in daylight hours is somewhat troublesome. Well, the Sharp Aquos LC-37G4U addressed this problem, and I wasn't really expecting it too. Yes, I'd read the marketing literature that talked about the "Anti-glare" coating on the screen, but didn't really think it would make much of a difference … but it does. This TV produces a very clear picture, any time, day or night, from any angle.
Okay, so what else does it do? Well, we're getting a HD feed from Comcast, and the detail is magnificent. DVDs look really good too. My wife and I have differing opinions on regular TV feed. I think the picture looks great, but I've seen a lot of HDTVs in electronics store producing absolutely terrible pictures from a non-HD feed, so in my opinion, the Aquos does a great job. I always keep it in "Smart Stretch" mode when watching non-native widescreen images. The stretching is not that bad, as the top and bottom parts of the picture is chopped off. My wife thinks regular TV images look better on our old non-HD CRT. She's probably right, but I'll never admit it ;) My argument is always that "Your eyes have learnt that the bad picture is actually good, so when the Aquos shows you how bad the feed is you blame the TV". But seriously, I do think the Aquos does a better job than most of displaying non-HD video.
One thing I learnt whilst researching Plasma vs. LCD is that the Plasma's life is less than the LCD's bulb life, and once the Plasma dies you need to buy a new TV. Not so with the LCD, once the bulb dies you need to buy a replacement bulb … for about 300 bucks … now there's a technology I'm willing to buy into. (Of course by that time there'll be a much better imaging technology available, where I'll be able to watch hologram movies in the middle of my family room / home theatre)
*------ Harmony Remote Specific Section ------*
The TV was pretty straight forward to set up, however, getting my Harmony remote to work with it was another story. The TV has 6 different inputs; Antenna + 5 others, but switching between them is a bit of a chore. For example, I have my cable box on input 5, but there is no "Input 5" button on the remote, you have to use the "Input" toggle button to go from one input to the next. This can be annoying when you want to switch from watching cable to watching a DVD (on Input 2). The Harmony remote does solve this, as it is a stateful remote, it just took a lot of playing around programming it to get it to work. I ended up telling the remote to go to the antenna input (which you can go to directly), and then toggling to each of the next inputs until it gets to the right one. So, the result is that it now takes about 20 seconds to turn on the TV and have it on the right input. I just push 1 button on the remote, and that turns on the TV, Cable Box, Receiver, and then switches inputs on all devices to the right ones. It takes so long due to the delays needed between toggling inputs on the TV.
I'd highly recommend the Harmony remote for any home theatre setup where you want just 1 remote, see http://www.logitech.com/harmony for more info.
*------ End Harmony Remote Specific Section ------*
In summary, I'm really enjoying the TV, the screen is definitely not huge, but it gives an exceptional picture. I had to do some color tweeking when it first arrived, as they reds and blues were a bit too saturated. I removed the speakers so that it would fit in our cabinet, and I have a separate surround sound system. So I've never tried the sound on the TV, so I can't review that (I don't even know if it works!). Other than that the TV is awesome. Highly recommended.
Bought from BuyDig.com.
