JVC HD56FN97 56-Inch 1080p HDILA Rear Projection TV

• Provides more accurate gradation of shades in shadow areas/dark scenes
• Makes it possible to optimize the HD-ILA for best picture under a wider range of room lighting conditions

Since this is my FIRST HDTV purchase and my user experiences with HD Televisions in the past have been limited, I can't say that I'm an expert on the subject of HDTVs. The following is MY experience with this purchase and ultimately my opinion...

After purchasing this HDTV from Amazon, I waited in anticipation for EAGLE to deliver it as soon as possible. It was scheduled to come during the week of Jan 4-10 and surprisingly came almost a week earlier. I was delighted. After asking the Delivery person to help me move the HDTV to my living room, against EAGLE's policy, he agreed to help. The box was definitely large and cumbersome, though it didn't weigh nearly as much as stated, probably closer to 60lbs. Muscling it up some stairs and depositing it into my living room. I thanked him and proceeded to unpack the HDTV.

It came packed in a very large box with a break-away base, this allowed me to lift the box off without actually removing the HDTV from it secure Styrofoam base. All four corners were also secured with large blocks of Styrofoam packaging.

Against the stated warning, I -alonelifted the TV onto a 60" credenza in my living room. Since all the major parts are housed in the base of the HDTV, it was counter-balanced well, unlike standard TVs which are primarily top/front heavy.

The base is roughly a 4" high, 18" deep, and 30" wide pedestal, and the TV measures about 55" wide, and about 45" high. All the inputs are on the RIGHT (Rear and Side). The Power cord is in the middle of the rear.

I have a Stereo Receiver, Comcast Digital Box, DVD Player and Xbox360 that I hooked up to this television. Both the DVD player and Xbox360 occupy the two component inputs and two RCA inputs. The Digital Box is through the Digital coaxial and standard coaxial inputs achieved with a supplied coaxial splitter. Unoccupied at this time are the two HDMI inputs -the only inputs that support 1080p-, the VGA input, the other two RCA inputs and a Cable Card input.

I have had exceptional reactions to the quality and performance of the JVC HD-56FN97. Out of the box, it's not perfect. The first run though was to set up the Digital Cable. It performed a standard channel scan, going through all the standard channel signals and then any Digital channel signals. After this set up, I flipped through a few of the channels. I wasn't overly impressed with the color or picture, but after fiddling with the color setting in the HDTV's menu -which is a complete messI was able to get satisfactory coloring. There is a noticeable green cast on some channels. Since I don't have an HD channel package through my cable provider, the standard cable did not take full advantage of my HDTV's capabilities. The picture looked rather flat, grainy and did not support the wide screen format. There's an Aspect menu feature that lets you change this format from Panorama (simulated 16:9), Cinema (zoomed and cropped 4:3), Full (stretched 4:3) and Standard (4:3). Most of the time while watching Cable, it was set for Standard (4:3).

Next, I set up the Xbox360. One of the most frustrating problems I had with the JVC HD-56FN97 was the Input selection menu. It wasn't intuitive nor was it easy to maneuver through. Using the remote -which was less than aesthetically pleasingI had to scroll through a list of inputs, wait till the TV received the signal, and then scroll to the next, till I reached the desired input. This was done using the remote's directional pad or the CH+ CHbuttons and then selecting the OK button. I would have preferred a direct button to go to the desired input. This was Not expected for a Next-Gen television. The settings menu was set up the exact same way, being even more involved and less intuitive. You'll probably use the manual often till you get comfortable with all the less than descriptive names JVC used.

The picture quality of the Xbox360 was probably the BEST. Though I had to set it to 1080i, the highest HD signal the component inputs would allow. The colors were vibrant, the picture was crisp, and during game play there was very little blur noticeable. I played both Gears of War and Call of Duty 2, and was very impressed with the overall picture quality and performance. This TV was made for GAMING.

DVD's on the other hand did not seem as crisp. More noticeable while watching full screen DVDs, and less so with Wide screen DVDs. The coloring and picture was still better than Standard TV. The Wide screen DVDs used the auto-detected wide screen (16:9) format also. I have yet to experience HD-DVD or Blu-ray DVDs, but would imagine that the output would be even better. This is an impressive television for MOVIES.

My only true complaint is the remote and menu system. A work around I've found was with the purchase of the Logitech Harmony universal remote for Xbox. After setting all my components up, using it's computer based programming feature, I was able to set specific buttons for all my inputs finally. Of course, this remote offers more useful features (such as Activies), but that's for a different review.

In conclusion, the JVC HD-56FN97 HDTV is a great home theater / gaming television with ample features and inputs and exceptional quality and performance. At the price it's also great buy considering all the inputs and features. I failed to mention earlier; the LCoS projector technology that JVC uses -under the HD-ILA nameis also exceptional. I have yet to see any rainbow effects or any "pixelation". I imagine my impressions will only grow when I take full advantage of the two HDMI inputs. JVC makes an affordable, quality HDTV.

I hope this review is helpful towards making your informative HDTV purchase.

Buy JVC HD56FN97 56-Inch 1080p HDILA Rear Projection TV Now

Cablevision Hd Channels look great on this set. Cooling fan a little noisy but not a deal breaker. Tv will need setup for best picture

A lot cheaper then the equivalent Sony and didnt see any difference

between the two sets in the store. SD Channels look good on this set even when expanded to fill the screen. Paid around 1500 for this TV and I am

very happy with it.

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Just bought the TV from the Craigslist 2 days ago. Perfect condition, 2 mo old lamp. For $90. That's right.

Would I buy this TV for more than that? Probably not more than $150.

The best picture on this TV comes from Blu-ray, X-Box, pretty much any source with true 1080p output. Next in line is Netflix streaming via my laptop through HDMI port. With upscaling DVD player via HDMI, the picture becomes slightly more coarse, and colors get more washed out, but still OK to watch.

Anything else outside the HDMI looks bad, even component video from my Pioneer Elite DV-45A (not upscaling). Maybe using the receiver that could upgrade component to HDMI help, I don't know.

The fan is noisy, but tolerable. Audio is acceptable, and covers the fan noise even at lowest volumes. The TV can work as a center channel, too. Despite the size, it's quite light (~80#), and easily transportable by 2 people.

Overall, I'm REALLY happy with paying $90 for 56" rear-projection 1080p in perfect shape, as I am planning to get PS3 anyway.

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I purchased a floor model JVC HD-56FN97 from a different store for Christmas because I was floored at the price of $899 that I got and I succumbed to temptation to by my first HDTV.

I love this set! The picture at full 1080p resolution, which is not so hard to find anymore, is just breathtaking, and the 56" size is enough to make it feel like being at the movies. It's amazing! There is no lag effect with this set (maybe because it's a projection TV), frankly I think it's way better than most LCD's that I've seen. The only drawback is you can't hang it on your wall since it's about as deep as an old fashioned TV, but I wasn't hanging mine anyway.

The only downside so far are two things, for which I'm subtracting 1 star from my review:

1. At factory settings the color green/yellow does tend to explode on the screen with neon life! I have made some adjustments to tone things down that have fixed most of this, but there is still a slight tendency to be a little overdone on the green/yellows. I have read elsewhere that you can completely correct this by accessing the Service Menu, but then again that's not something you should have to do! Anyway just by adjusting picture settings and using HDMI input it is no longer a big deal. Frankly the picture is just amazing, especially at this price.

2. The menus are not super easy to use in particular changing between input sources is a pain, and I find I have to do it frequently. The main problem is there is about a 3 second delay with each input as you scroll through them. It should let you scroll through the input choices and only do the picture adjustment delay when you actually switch inputs!

Overall I've got to say I'm super happy with this set. Those are really the only drawbacks for me. Having a 56" 1080p set that looks awesome in this price range (even the $1550 shown here) seems like a great deal to me.

I bought this TV almost a year ago. The only problem I had with delivery was it came much sooner then expected. I ordered it Dec 19 and Amazon estimated a January delivery date, which was fine because I going to be out of town Christmas week. Eagled called Dec 23 to arrange delivery! Eagle held it for a week until we got back into town.

This is my first HD TV, so I don't have anything to compare it against. I don't see the green hue noted by other reviews. The first thing I noticed was the cooling fan was really loud. A co-worker bought the same model and said his was quiet, so I called the TV repairman and they replaced one of fans because it was very loud. The TV has 3 fans.

After using the TV for 6-7 months, the bulb blew up, which is very pre-mature at 600 hours. Fortunately, the bulb was under warranty, which normally costs $200 to replace. I didn't want to wait 2-3 weeks for the TV repairman to come out and replace the bulb, so I drove across town to picked it up myself. The bulb is easy to replace.

I have basic analog cable, which carries the HD broadcast channels un-encrypted (clear QAM), so I just plug the cable into the digital coax input to get digital HD channels. The analog SD channels don't look very good, but I suspect this is common for most HD TV's.

I use my 5.1 sound system, which sounds much better than the TV speakers, which is probably common with most TV's.

I recently purchased an HD-DVD player (Toshiba hd-d3/a3) and it works fine with the HDMI input. I have The Bourne Identity on DVD and HD-DVD and noticed more detail in some of the scenes, but the improvement of the HD-DVD over the up-converted DVD wasn't huge.

Pros

o Great picture for the money.

o Good connectivity options

Cons

o Poor user software interface (setup menu's)

o Slow switching between channels

o Long term longevity doesn't look promising after replacing the fan and bulb the first year.

o PC input only supports 1024x768 and I cannot get the HDMI input to work with the DVI-D output of my computer (the manual says this isn't supported)

Overall, I'm happy with the TV and hope it lasts a long time.