Viewsonic Vt2430

This unit's main claim to fame is that, at this time, its about the only 1080p HDTV available in this size-range which has the full set of video inputs. I decided to take a chance and upgrade my old 23" 720p "HD-ready" bedroom set, since I was hankering to go up to 1080 with a built-in ATSC tuner. And yes I can definitely tell the difference from 720.

ATSC tuner: works fine, reasonable sensitivity, broadcast 1080i is spectacular of course.

QAM tuner: I've just been experimenting with clear-QAM, which my CableCo now provides quite a bit of (I do not yet subscribe to digital cable, and have no set-top box). The only annoyance is that when I use the set's handy programming function to manually "name" each channel (up to 8 characters I think) it sometimes looses some of the entries. Also every once in a while some "hidden" channels suddenly start showing up, and I have to manually "hide" them all over again. Luckily in Cable mode the tuner correctly intermixes legacy NTSC analog and clear-QAM digital channels transparently; I don't have to switch modes.

HDMI from DVD player: I use it with an upconverting DVD player; aspect-ratio has to be changed manually. Wide-screen DVDs look great.

HDMI from computer: from my older Mac laptop's DVI output; worked great and the Mac's video auto-sensed the full 1080 screen size and set it up as monitor #2 which was VERY convenient; I didn't have to adjust anything. The image was perfect. I suspect that if people experience problems with PC video, they may be encountering issues with their video cards or drivers, and not the monitor.

Composite video: I've used it with an old VCR, no problems. The upconversion is OK; this depends greatly on the quality of the source of course.

Sound: I don't use the built-in speakers; I've got the audio-output connected to my sound system.

I haven't tried these inputs: VGA / Component / S-video

The picture quality of the panel is reasonable for this low price-range - its certainly better than my old 720 panel, especially the black-levels - but its not going to win any videophile awards. Sometimes the blacks are a bit "plugged". I notice a very small amount of light-leakage around the edges when the screen is black.

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