You get what you pay for, October 8, 2009

This is an inexpensive integrated DVD and 19-inch LCD HDTV. So I wasn’t expecting the best quality.

With default “middle” settings, the colors are washed out and too bright. Also, faces appear a little too pink. I fiddled with the brightness, contrast, color and tint settings and found a reasonable compromise. Not great but OK.

The volume of the TV and DVD are quite different. The DVD at 100% is about the same as the TV at 50%. When on my treadmill I have the TV set at about 80% (turning it up any further seems to have little additional increase in perceived volume). It’s just barely enough to hear. The DVD is hopeless even at 100% and will not overcome the volume of the treadmill at all. This issue is common for sets of this size, so I wouldn’t consider this a unique issue.

The volume for playing CDs has he same issue. The audio quality playing CDs is absolutely horrid: tinny and compressed. Even with headphones.

Functionally I don’t like the way the DVD works versus the TV. It would be nice if I could bounce between the two at whim and pick up where I left off. Unfortunately, switching to a non-DVD function basically turns off the DVD completely, so when you come back to it, you are starting over and have to scan your way back to where you think you left off.

Channel switching with digital channels is an issue. This works OK but sometimes there’s a delay. It works best in analog channels, with fairly little delay. But in digital channels it can get really fussy. You go up channel by one and you can wait a few seconds before you finally get signal. If there is no signal, or not a perceivable one, switching to the next good channel or typing it in can take forever. A solid minute before the set becomes responsive. Pretty bad. Not sure what causes that.

For aesthetics, I would prefer the cable connect below rather than the side. Coax cables are fairly stiff and need room to bend, so it looks rather ugly hanging out the side of the TV to give it room to make it’s way around.

UNBELIEVABLE! I left an objective review on Favi’s website where they had a couple of very positive reviews of he product. I wrote exactly what was working well and what wasn’t. It was up for about a day, then they removed it! They are biasing the reviews on their site. No email or anything from their support department. I provided all my contact info.

I will NEVER buy another Favi or recommend them to anyone.

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Yes and no, October 9, 2009

By 

J. Berger (USA) – See all my reviews

  

UPDATE: Five months later, predictably, the DVD player had died…

ORIGINAL REVIEW: I bought this TV for my office and for certain specific features, including most importantly the ability to play PAL video (I work in television and need cross-compatibility). Because of this feature, I’m keeping the TV but if I had bought it for an entertainment machine, I would probably have returned it.

The best thing about this TV/DVD combo is that it accepts numerous inputs, including VGA and other video ports, USB and flash cards and the aforementioned PAL DVDs. These were a selling point for me, however, the PAL playback is the only feature that has worked without a hitch.

* The VGA works adequately but the TV sometimes doesn’t recognize the computer — I have to turn the TV off and on, or switch inputs multiple times before the VGA shows up. The computer recognizes the TV adequately as a plug and play device but I found no drivers or firmware updates available on the Web site support section to help make the whole thing work smoother. VGA display is soft, as you would expect with a TV. Text is readable but not crisp. Streaming on Netflix via WMC looked terrible on my first try. I am considering trying a lower resolution.

* Using a USB stick I tried various types of files. JPGs looked unacceptably jaggy — far worse than the same images on my computer monitor or a DVD picture frame; I would never use this for a digital photo frame unless it looks better reading from a CD. I tried playing AVIs, MPEGs and WMV video. Few of the files were recognized and none played. This was a real disappointment as I had looked forward to this feature. Interface for reading from the card was about the industry standard, which is to say not pretty or terribly intuitive but you can basically get it to work.

* TV display is adequate depending on input. The display does fairly well with SD video, however HD was slightly distorted by the TV’s 16:10 aspect ratio. While you can adjust zoom on the DVD player, it doesn’t work with the TV input and there is no control for aspect ratio. This also means you can’t pillarbox SD images, but here the 16:10 ratio works in your favor and the picture looks fine.

HD was crisp at times, and heavily pixelated at other times, with identical clips looking fine on my Samsung 32 inch TV (i.e., it’s the TV not the source file). Native HD through the cable connection and tuner was superior to HDMI, which was noticably pixelated at times. This is on my desk, so I am sitting close, but even allowing for this, the display needs work. Unfortunately, less than half the channels on my cable system were recognized through the onboard tuner and only the local stations were in HD, so HDMI from the cable box appears to be my best option if I want to view in HD.

* Sound is fine, if unremarkable.

* Menus are clunky, but very few TVs have smooth and easy controls. They’re comparable to the industry standards but not a selling point.

If I were only interested in having a nice looking TV/DVD combo, especially if it were for pleasure use, there are better models priced lower. But for the PAL functionality, and since the main use for the TV is a combination monitor/office news TV, I’ll probably keep it, with reservations. But buyers should be aware of the model’s limitations.

One other plus: I had a query to FAVI about Amazon’s shipping estimate. I got an instant response and follow-up within a couple of hours, so big points for service.

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Very good HDTV DVD player, January 16, 2009

By 

Bruce R. Gibson (St Paul MN) – See all my reviews

  

I bought this to receive over air HDTV with just antenna-no cable or dish.

In St Paul MN I can get 25 digital stations. I have 2 other HDTVs and this one has the best reception. You need the right antenna though. This one works great indoors- Antennas Direct DB2 Multi Directional HDTV Antenna and its available on amazon. The DVD player woks great too. It plays DVDs my other player cant read.

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