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Oct 17, 2007 Lakeshooter     I have an existing entertainment center with limited space for the tv but wanted...

My Experience: I have an existing entertainment center with limited space for the tv but wanted a widescreen hdtv after my RCA CRT crapped out on me. The 540i was offered online for a very good price for the feature set. With the speaker panel removed (I have a 7.1 system and don't need the TV speakers) the unit fits perfectly.

Picture quality with a simple progressive scan DVD player is much better that my SDTV and rarely gets jaggies even with fast motion. The scaling is well done and there are no stretching or squashing artifacts. HALO 2 in the original Xbox with a VGA converter looks amazing on the VGA input (not listed on this site, BTW).

Overall, I am extremely happy with the price/feature/performance confluence of this set. If this is an indicator of their other products (and it seems to be a lower quality sample) then I definitely recommend Syntax/Olevia.

Almost forgot, the customer support is excellent. The unit was delivered while I was not home and left sitting on my front porch with a damaged box. When I opened it, I found the base's plastic covering cracked. Though there was no structural problem as the actual base is heavy steel and the plastic is just cladding, I was...upset. The retailer suggested contacting Olevia before filing a shipping claim, so I did so. They answered quickly and when I explained the situation they immediately shipped a replacement base at no cost to me. Excellent.

Problems: The only problem I have is that when the room lighting is low the set seems to have trouble finding the correct brightness level on standard definition s-video input. The level will go up, then down and back quite a bit. It's not a huge change but it is noticeable. No problems on EDTV or HDTV sources, though - including component.