Out of the box experience – Fantastic. The box is gorgeous, the instructions on the top tell you how to easily (for such a big TV) undo the clips and sleeve-off the box.

Set up – Couldn’t be simpler. Quick start guide is accurate. Instructions manual is in English only, not 7 languages, and is plainly written, not some computer converted Chinese. I couldn’t get the Vizio remote to control the DirecTV box though. Will have to look for a code I suppose. Not a biggie. Will get it. (Edit: Thanks to AVS Forum, someone pointed out I must have my receiver set to RF mode in Remote Control set up. I changed it to IR, and voilà, all set. I had to “Try The Next Code” to get up to Code 4. All set). Luckily, my 2-year old receiver is 3D ready – HR21-700. DirecTV said just “plug it in, the receiver will walk you through the set up once it recognizes the 3D TV”. Not quite right, for me anyway, but a restart of the receiver and I was up and running.

2D-HD – I started with Kill Bill 2 on TNTHD and it looked great. Some HD looks better than others, not surprisingly. For example, 30 Rock must use some type of softening lens.

AppleTV (720p) – YouTube looks a little better than I thought it would. From Apple’s movie catalog, previews of 300 and The Bucket List looked sharp. Netflix streaming looked as good as it did on my 50″ Sammy, and that’s a good thing. Photos from Mobile Me via my iPhone looked great.

3D on DirecTV – Started with n3D, which I now realize is very analogous to Mark Cuban’s HDNET back in the early days of HD. It’s where you should go for the fun initial impression. A lot of scenic/nature content. It impresses right away.

Family take – 11-year old boy loves it. Despicable Me in 3D is wow-ing him. 15-year old daughter too. I prefer the premium glasses, but the kids like the basic ones. Daughter’s friend was tickled the basic (flat) glasses fit over her eye glasses. Wife’s first reaction was good, then made a comment about it making her cross-eyed, then backed up and liked it. She is also most impressed with Despicable Me and says it feels less gimmicky than past 3D experiences (where something just jumps out at you now and then).

3D sports – I downloaded the National Championship game (Auburn vs Oregon) via DirecTV and although I like it better than the active shutter, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer a plain crisp HD for sports. I watch a ton of sports, and my initial reaction to sports in 3D with both passive 3D (this set) and active 3D (the other available 3D technology) is mixed at this point in time.

Vizio 3D Blu-Ray player – Started with Dinosaurs, IMAX Under The Sea, Alice in Wonderland, and Polar Express. The player is quick and intuitive with the Internet app screen as the main screen. Disney’s Alice in Wonderland is fabulous and I’m most surprised by how pleasing the image depths are. IMAX Under The Sea has the cool IMAX 3D number countdown at the beginning – fun. The sea images give “whoa” reactions from the family. This is THE 3D Blu-Ray to throw in first – Jim Carrey narrated and beautiful. The tech of the whole thing falls away after a few minutes and the experience is immersive from then on. The player is snappy.

3D thoughts, as this set is passive 3D (vs active 3D)

Passive 3D gets everything right it claims, IMO. The glasses are light and easy. It’s nice they are inexpensive (I bought10 pairs of RealD glasses from Amazon for 10 – Pairs – Brand New Sealed – 3D Circular Polarized 3D Glasses same as RealD for Disney Digital -Legend of the Guardians (10 Pairs) -they work great). Also easy to sit and glance down at my lap top now and then. I surely don’t wish I was worried about the active 3D syncing, battery life, and if someone is going to sit on them. My brother-in-law walked in and I tossed a pair of glasses across the room. He slapped them on and said “Wow, that’s awesome”. He also has 3 kids under 6 years old. No way he ever buys 0 glasses (which is what the active version of 3D requires) for that bunch.

The knocks on passive 3D are a little over stated for me. You’ll find these concerns if you surf around the internet researching 3D TV options.

- Claim: “Black lines” – They are (barely) there, however, they only are appreciable if you get within 3-4 feet of the screen. I liken it to the screen door…

This TV does not disappoint. Now, I strictly use it as a monitor. I feed all items through my new Yamaha RX-A3000 receiver (which I recommend without any hesitation whatsoever.) Components fed through the receiver include; Blu-ray, HD-DVD, Laser Disc (I know), DirecTV HD, and the audio items. Everything works on HDMI, with the exception of the Laser Disc, which I am using S-video and Optical audio.

I have to say that I am far more than pleased with the results of this set. I do concur, that it is highly reflective (as is my Sharp quattron). I have blinds to deal with this issue. The only technical knock I can give it, is that it could have blacker blacks. Most, including myself, could care less. I am not entering it in a beauty contest, and it will not piss me off. I am quite happy, and my movies look fantastic on it.

The amazon pricing and delivery service only topped off my decision. One week in, I wonder what kept me from taking this leap of faith earlier. Well, I guess it was lack of reviews, so I guess I hope this will help you as well.

Oh yeah, as far as 3D goes, I consider it a novelty, and minimal usage anyways. However, I have been more than impressed by the results, and for as much as I can see anyone actually using it, I cannot understand all of the possibel technical knocks on this system. It is far better than I could have imagined it to be. In fact with the right video sources, I can’t see how anyone knocks it at all.

The price is not low, but in comparison to alternatives in its size; it blows away the competition. Based upon things I have read and understand, there will always be some minor negatives to any LED sets 65″ and over.

Join the club, take the leap of faith, you will not be disappointed! And most importantly, enjoy.

Unfortunately, the set we got was defective and we had to return it. The defect was something in the backlight. The lower two-thirds of the screen would go half-gray sometimes, usually on a fadeout. Or the whole picture would go black for a half-second. This was a repeatable error, though it did not occur at the same place every time. I don’t know if the set we got was a lemon or if this behavior shows up in other units, but it was clearly not acceptable behavior in a high-end set.

We also noticed that when the image panned across a gray or white background that the backlighting was slightly uneven.

We were very disappointed because we’ve seen a lot of Vizio sets in a lot of places, including all over some of our favorite restaurants, and the picture has always been good, and if it were only a defective backlight, we would have replaced the set.

If you get a set without the backlight problem, you’ll be very happy with the 2D picture. The price is certainly attractive and the set delivers enough bang-per-buck that you will be satisfied with it for many years.

But if you’re looking for a good 3D set, this is not your best choice. While the polarized glasses are much less expensive and much more comfortable to wear than active-shutter glasses, the 3D on this set has visible artifacts. Apparently, it uses interleaved frame-lines for the 3D image, because scan lines are visible in the 3D image, unless you move far enough back. But even allowing for that, the 3D quality is still problematic because fast movement in 3D is not smooth, it flickers. And when you have a sharp vertical line between a dark shape and a light one, when that object moves you’ll see a brief red edge, particularly noticeable on the hero’s face and hair in Monster House.

The Vizio TVs are good in general, but our experience with this particular unit was disappointing. We had high hopes for the polarized 3D and if that had worked as promised we might have considered an exchange. Now, we’re going to wait for the next generation Panasonic Viera.

As always, do your research, and make sure that wherever you buy, there’s a good return policy.