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Vizio SmartCast M-Series M50 Ultra HD 4K HDR Smart TV Review
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May 30, 2025
Thinking it's time to jump into the 4K world with a new Ultra HD television? Then you definitely want to check out the new Vizio M-series HDR Smart TV. This review explains how it works, talks about the innovative Vizio design, explores 4K resolution and how much content is available (answer: not so much yet), and demonstrates the unique tablet-based smart controls and tightly integrated Google ChromeCast aka SmartCast. Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ invites you into his living room and shows off the 50-inch M-Series, with content from Netflix and Comcast Xfinity streaming live from the 6-inch Vizio Android control tablet. It's pretty slick...
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[Music]
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hi Dave Taylor here again and this time
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I want to talk about television cool who
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doesn't watch TV or media of some sort
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whether it's broadcast or streaming or
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even content from your computer or even
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your smartphone so what I'm looking at
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today is my newest and really I love
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this TV this is the Vio smartcast M
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series Ultra HD HDR TV it's a lot of
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letters it's a lot of stuff I'm looking
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at a 50inch unit I'll show you in just a
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second but I want to tell you about it a
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little bit first and it's basically a 4K
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television so when they talk about Ultra
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HD that's really 4K now 4K turns out is
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actually basically twice the horizontal
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resolution of HD so HD is ton is
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1,80 horizontal lines right and vertical
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lines there's more obviously cuz it's a
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16 by 9 ratio you know this you have a
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TV right but 4K is actually simply twice
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that so it's actually 2160 horizontal
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lines and then the vertical gets you
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3,840 vertical lines so you can imagine
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this mesh it's a lot of dots and it
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gives you a gorgeous picture now it's
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still a challenge to find 4K content but
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we're getting there and the coolest
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thing about this is this is really like
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the next generation of television
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because instead of having the TV be
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smart it actually Vio has put all the
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smarts into a peripheral device and
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that's the smartcast so it works through
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what Google calls chomecast so actually
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any of honestly over a thousand apps
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support chomecast right now so you can
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use your own phone your own computer and
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you can push content straight to your TV
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I do it all the time it's super cool
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there you are you're on your laptop and
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you find a YouTube video you want to
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watch it's literally a single click of
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the mouse and you're watching it on your
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big Vio TV super nice now again I'll get
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to the TV in just a second but let me
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just talk through the remotes it comes
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with a remote it's a very low button
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remote which is nice because hey you
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don't need this remote because it comes
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with you ready for this it comes with an
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actual 6-in Android tablet and this
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tablet lets you control everything about
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the television different apps right so
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here is the app that controls the TV
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it's not going to win any Design Awards
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but it gives me all the functionality I
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want including deciding what content I
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want and what sources I want the TV to
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use but where this gets really cool is I
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also have all of the other apps that I
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want to work with so I have Netflix NBC
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Sports I have sling TV I have a client
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for Plex my own inside the house media
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server so if I go on to Netflix for
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example this is going to blow your mind
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this is basically a tiny
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TV so I can actually watch my content on
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the tablet or at any point along the way
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and I'll give you a closeup here there's
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a little chomecast button I simply tap
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the button choose the TV and in a matter
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of a second or two now the content's on
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the TV now let me switch the camera
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around and I'll show you what I'm
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talking about and then I'll show you a
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little bit about the TV then we'll come
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back and I'll talk some more about it
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specs so hang on so here's the Vio
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smartcast M series 50in and as you can
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see I also have a Vio Soundbar and look
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on the lower right you can see there's a
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little dock stand that's for the tablet
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it's a little wireless charging stand
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super easy you use your tablet and
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whenever it looks like it's running low
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on battery you put it on its stand and
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it charges now what you're seeing on
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screen is you're seeing the screen saver
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yes when you're in chomecast or
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smartcast mode you have a screen saver
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and it's just automatically picking up
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pictures but let's go ahead and choose a
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different input so I'm going to go ahead
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and switch to my cable TV just for a
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minute and I don't actually know what
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show we're seeing here so let's go ahead
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and go to the programming
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guide and again you know all of this is
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all being done from the tablet it's
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really really straightforward now
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getting to the guide I had to use the
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Comcast xinity remote but once I'm there
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I can certainly use the tablet's app for
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Comcast and actually go and manage the
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channels and such but let's go back to
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Netflix and again I don't really have to
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do too much that's really stressful in
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terms of switching and buttons and
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everything I just go ahead and find show
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I want to watch and here's an example
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let's watch the movie U
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571 and notice on the top right there's
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a little square with like a little radar
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on one the lower left if I tap on that
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I'm then offered the option of where I
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want to send it so now I can send this
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signal to the Vio and as you can see on
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the big screen it goes straight onto
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Netflix and it's now ready to cast so
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back on my tablet I simply push
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play there we go so now what's
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interesting is that on the tablet in the
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Netflix
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app I have these controls so I can pause
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and play and all this sort of stuff
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meanwhile the TV is doing a beautiful
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job of showing me the movie and it's
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Crystal Clear it's not like I have any
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sort of um penalty because I'm using uh
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smartcast or chomecast or anything so
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it's a really cool way to deal with the
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TV and like I said it's just a different
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way let me pause this um it's just a
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different way of thinking about a TV and
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I paused it by tapping the pause button
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on the tablet so super cool it's hard to
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show you the colors and the Vivid screen
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of a television through a video so this
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is something where you might want to
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swing by like a Best Buy or Costco and
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have a look at how the screen is so
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bright and Vivid but I hope this gives
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you a sense of the TV itself so let me
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switch back to being on camera pretty
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nice isn't it so here's something to
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know though is if you're going to use an
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antenna you're going to need some sort
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of a tuner cuz again I said this is the
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next generation of smart TV cuz the
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smarts are in our tablet instead of
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being in the TV which by the way is
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super great because you don't want to
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deal with does you know do these people
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have a version of their app for my TV
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now it's just do they have an app an
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Android or an IOS app that actually
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supports chomecast boom you're good to
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go so as new ones come online there's
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going to be lots and lots of support for
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chomecast cuz it works really smoothly
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and every single one will be compatible
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with your television super cool but if
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you need a tuner you're going to need to
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find one and the thing is is that the
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vast majority of people don't use the
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tuner in the television I know on my TV
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it always lived on Channel 3 it always
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lived on my HDMI 1 input whatever cuz I
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have a cable box if you don't have a
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cable box you might have a satellite box
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but either way that's how you tune your
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channels so the TV doesn't actually need
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a tuner so that works out great now what
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else can I tell you so this is high
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dynamic range with Dolby vision and it's
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completely 4K compatible I have a 4K
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Blu-ray player I can play 4K discs on
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the TV they are breathtaking
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unfortunately there are about 30 4K
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discs available all right now so I'm a
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little ahead of the curve there um
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there's 4K streaming content from
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services like Netflix not its entire
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library but boy when you watch something
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like the opening titles to sensate it is
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stunning it's really really clean um
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Ultra HD resolution is 3840 by 2160 I
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already mentioned that uh 120 MHz
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refresh rate and that's worth paying
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attention to cuz a lot of lowbudget TVs
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have lower refresh rates and where you
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see that is when there's motion so you
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know you see the action movie where the
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guy is running across the screen and
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you're seeing blurring
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of the of the actual motion not good
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same with sports you know it's a a
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basketball game and there's crazy go
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action going on on the court on 120 MHz
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you're going to not see any blurring all
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everything I've watched looks really
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Crystal Clear has a 20 million to1
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contrast ratio and can support you ready
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for this 1.07 billion different colors
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now I haven't actually tested that so
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I'm taking viio at their word for that
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but odds are pretty good that actually
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is accurate um in terms of inputs this
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is something that I think is really
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important cuz I'm always hooking up
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weird different devices it has four HDMI
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inputs supporting hdcp 2.2 and one
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component and ethernet cuz you want your
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TV to have access to that as needed and
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two USB ports so very handy it's only 30
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lb this is the 50-in unit so the bigger
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the unit obviously the heavier it is but
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not monster heavy and I remember TVs
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back back in the day the CRTs where they
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were deeper than they were big and those
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things were beasts they were could weigh
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100 lb or more so 30 lb I mean that's
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easy two people job but in fact I
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actually don't tell anyone but I
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actually move this around all by myself
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30 lbs is not a monster um in terms of
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the tablet itself it is interestingly
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sort of a no-name tablet it's just Vio
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has a Vio logo on it comes with 8 gig of
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storage it's a
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720p display screen
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and it's a remote so it actually works
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out really cool and I haven't tried it
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yet but I'm confident that I could
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actually Chrome use the chomecast
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service or smartcast to push like
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streaming AMC onto the TV and
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simultaneously watch their story sync on
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the tablet which is pretty slick
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actually um it's a really interesting
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completely different way to think about
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it now I will say to be fair a lot of
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people people are complaining about the
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tablet and they're complaining about
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this design and saying where are my
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smart apps on the TV and I think they
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just sort of need to figure out there's
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this sort of Step you have to take where
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you just
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say okay I am now in a smartcast world
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and this is the brains of my television
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even though it's actually a separate
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device oh hang on a second while we're
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talking about things um see down here
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there's that little red button actually
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maybe it's down there on one of these
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Corners there's a little red button and
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that button lets you subscribe to my
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YouTube channel so I'm going to
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encourage you to go ahead and click on
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that button and subscribe cuz I don't
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just look at Vio TVs I look at tons of
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different stuff and you don't want to
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miss anything okay so pitch over back to
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the tablet so this actually is a fully
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functional Android tablet if you want to
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you can be checking your Gmail and
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surfing the web on it and you can be
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doing all of that while it's all Al
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controlling the TV because once you have
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something set up with smartcast or
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chomecast it's just going to keep
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running regardless of whether you stay
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in that app or not so super
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convenient how much would you pay for
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this well the 50in M series Ultra HD the
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one that I have runs 849 at vizio.com
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but if you're a Savvy Shopper you can
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find it for at least $100 Less in
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various online sources I'm not going to
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point to any because they might change
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over time but honestly for under $1,000
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this is a screaming good deal and again
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the only thing you have to sort of get
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over the mental hump is that this is the
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smarts of your TV it's not all the apps
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running on the television itself anyway
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I really like it I really like my Vio
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smartcast M series 50-in Ultra HD HDR
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TV say all that twice fast anyway I
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think you should check it out out and
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this is Dave Taylor and I will catch you
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in my next video
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[Music]
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