When you find that cable please let me know. I haven't looked much because of my schedule :(

Check out monoprice.com. I bought a 15' SVGA cable from them. It was inexpensive and works fine.


Mitch

I didn't have any luck in getting BB to honor the coupon and the sale price. The guy ringing me up even tried to apply the coupon, but the computer wouldn't accept it due to the sale price.

I bought one anyway and am picking it up Tuesday.

Does anyone know what the contrast ratio or the response time is for the sony a10 models?

OMG I cant believe the prices on the 42A10. They are practically giving these TVs away. What is the reason for such huge drops?

Because of these insane price drops I actually paid more for last years model. :) My 30 day return period ended 3 days ago. Oh well I'm still very happy with my 42we655.

Its cool that a lot more people should be able to afford these TVs now.

OMG I cant believe the prices on the 42A10. They are practically giving these TVs away. What is the reason for such huge drops?

...snip....


I was wondering that too. Since it was only BB and not others like Sears and Circuit City, I'd think that this is just some promotion of BB's. BB also had a pretty good discount on one of the Panasonics too.

I tried to get the 30 day guarantee price match from CC on my 42" I bought last week, after seeing the BB price but since neither of the two BB's in town had them in stock they would not honor it I was pretty damn pissed after driving a half hour there and finding that out. I'm very happy with the tv but damn $200 off what I paid would have been very nice I thought the deal I got was a steal. This is definately the best deal in televisions I have ever seen it looks better than any dlp out and I think its better then the panny plasma's (I can see way to many artifacts).

OMG I cant believe the prices on the 42A10. They are practically giving these TVs away. What is the reason for such huge drops?

Because of these insane price drops I actually paid more for last years model. :) My 30 day return period ended 3 days ago. Oh well I'm still very happy with my 42we655.

Its cool that a lot more people should be able to afford these TVs now.

One word: Panny plasma.

We just returned from Sears...

Boy was that salesman unhappy with our BEST BUY flyer... Not rude or anything, but it did take the wind out of his sails....

We went with the 42" A-10...

Sears does not stock it, which I did not know before actually buying the unit. But they do deliver inside including setup for $50. This is a better deal than any online merchant.

So we got the 42 A-10 for $1599.99
Less the 10% Price Match

I just couldn't argue for the 50" at that price/value... Especially since I sit closer than anyone else and the set will most likely look better with SD than a 50".

This will be light years ahead of my 32" 11 year old RCA CRT....

Delivery wont be until a week from Monday, but hey, that gives me time to order new component cables and install an antenna for free HD!

Great forum here folks... I think we all have made a good decision with the Wega!

Scott
Tampa BayTell me you went to the Westshore Sears, because that's where I'm going tomorrow. Either there or Circuit City on Dale Mabry.

Great forum...I've been working with a local retailer to buy a 50a10, receiver, surround system, Bello furniture, etc. Spent a lot of time there over the last few days looking/talking/deciding and they have been good to work with (higher end retailer, not a BB or CC)...finally got pricing all squared away by closing and found out they sold the last 50 before I pulled the trigger...I am getting 4 bens off the tv and they will honor that when new come in (mid month or so)...OR, they offered me the floor model for another 150 off (I asked for 200 off but they wouldn't go that low)...floor display has been out only 10 days or so, I am told the tv's are turned off at night, I get full warranty and manuals but no box....the set looks great to me, no obvious flaws, etc...what else should I be concerned with or haven't thought about? Would you take the deal? Thx!

Explain to me this built in HD Tuner. Are you saying I can get HD without a box from my cable provider. Just the TV?

That's right...depending how close you are to the TV transmitter site you will need an antenna. Real close to the transmitter just a little indoor UHF antenna...further away you may need a bigger outdoor antenna. The HD over the air broadcasts are mostly on the UHF channels. This set has a built in tuner for that.

You will get the best possible picture by watching the "over the air" broadcast.

Explain to me this built in HD Tuner. Are you saying I can get HD without a box from my cable provider. Just the TV?
It depends on what TV stations in your area are broadcasting in HD and how good the reception is. Where I live I can get ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, and PBS in HD OTA.

I get my local HD channels through my local cable company (Mediacom) in addition to several more I can't get OTA. That and renting a DVR cable box is more preferable since I'm not at home 6 nights a week.

Great forum...I've been working with a local retailer to buy a 50a10, receiver, surround system, Bello furniture, etc. Spent a lot of time there over the last few days looking/talking/deciding and they have been good to work with (higher end retailer, not a BB or CC)...finally got pricing all squared away by closing and found out they sold the last 50 before I pulled the trigger...I am getting 4 bens off the tv and they will honor that when new come in (mid month or so)...OR, they offered me the floor model for another 150 off (I asked for 200 off but they wouldn't go that low)...floor display has been out only 10 days or so, I am told the tv's are turned off at night, I get full warranty and manuals but no box....the set looks great to me, no obvious flaws, etc...what else should I be concerned with or haven't thought about? Would you take the deal? Thx!

From one Mondo to another, if it's only been on the floor for 2 weeks at around 10 hours a day, thats only about 140 hours on the bulb. If you are able to save a significant amount of money and are really anxious to get your gear set up, I would go for it. i bought a Toshiba crt rptv a few years ago off the floor (from a high end store and it was actually isf tweaked) and have never had a problem. My 50 a10 comes tomorrow.

It depends on what TV stations in your area are broadcasting in HD and how good the reception is. Where I live I can get ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, and PBS in HD OTA.

I get my local HD channels through my local cable company (Mediacom) in addition to several more I can't get OTA. That and renting a DVR cable box is more preferable since I'm not at home 6 nights a week.


If I get an indoor HD antenna to use along with a Comcast Motorola DVR, am I able to cancel my HD service with Comcast, keep the DVR, and get local HD programs without having to fool with buttons and switches?

Tell me you went to the Westshore Sears, because that's where I'm going tomorrow. Either there or Circuit City on Dale Mabry.

Nope - Tyrone Mall Sears...

But all Sears stores have the price match policy, just bring the Best Buy Ad with you!

If I get an indoor HD antenna to use along with a Comcast Motorola DVR, am I able to cancel my HD service with Comcast, keep the DVR, and get local HD programs without having to fool with buttons and switches?
Yes. But you won't be able to record any local OTA HD stuff on the DVR box that Comcast provides--unless there's a way I haven't heard about. ;)

One word: Panny plasma.

I had decided against the 42" A10, to wait for the 42" X50U Panny Plasma. But even with the Panny's recent MSRP price cut, plus 10% off, it's still $1200+ over the new BB A10 price, if you also get them to accept the coupon. I just can't justify that. I live in the Detroit Metro area, so I'm going to the 5+ BB in my area until someone gives me the additional 10% off coupon.

Yes. But you won't be able to record any local OTA HD stuff on the DVR box that Comcast provides--unless there's a way I haven't heard about. ;)

If you go with Direct TV - And their HD box, you can record OTA broadcasts from what I understand. That is with the present generation HD TiVo Box. When they switch to MPEG4 and their own non-TiVo box, I doubt OTA will be in the mix if you are in a major market. All HD locals will come direct from the satellite.

I have been reading this forum for a while and watching the prices. I was not that overwelmed with the SD receptioin I saw in the stores, but loved the set's design and HD picture. I told myself that if I could get 20% off I would grab it. Well yesterday morning when the BB ad showed up I could not beleive that they had it advertised for 20% discount. I went quickly up to the local Sears store in in about 30 minutes was driving home with the set and their 110% price match. The best buying experience ever. Now that the set is home and setup ( not fully adjusted), I think the picure is great. Even to SD channels through a standard coaxial cable is pretty good.

I'm thinking very hard whether to buy the 42" today but I can't seem to get past these issues.

The reasons I'm holding back,

1. Need to buy a HD Direct Tivo :mad:
2. Then the Direct TV HD MPEG 4 change over :mad:
3. Only one HDMI input :confused:
4. Not enough HD channels :mad:
5. Future 1080p
6. And the final main problem SD bothers my eyes on every HDTV I've tried. :mad:

I'm dying to watch NFL in HD. :D

[QUOTE=norm3]I'm thinking very hard whether to buy the 42" today but I can't seem to get past these issues.

The reasons I'm holding back,

1. Need to buy a HD Direct Tivo :mad:
2. Then the Direct TV HD MPEG 4 change over :mad:
3. Only one HDMI input :confused:
4. Not enough HD channels :mad:
5. Future 1080p
6. And the final main problem SD bothers my eyes on every HDTV I've tried. :mad:

Norm--

I have a 19" Black&White Sylvania that you will love...when do you want to come over and pick it up ? :rolleyes:

I'm thinking very hard whether to buy the 42" today but I can't seem to get past these issues.

The reasons I'm holding back,

1. Need to buy a HD Direct Tivo :mad:
2. Then the Direct TV HD MPEG 4 change over :mad:
3. Only one HDMI input :confused:
4. Not enough HD channels :mad:
5. Future 1080p
6. And the final main problem SD bothers my eyes on every HDTV I've tried. :mad:

I'm dying to watch NFL in HD. :D

Isnt watching football in HD enough of a reason?

Just out of curiousity, why buy the service plan for 400 dollars when the bulbs only cost 200? If the bulb is truely rated at 6000 hours or so, you could easily outlast the 4yr warranty.. chris

The salesman that sold me my tv told me that if you get near the end of the warranty and the bulb has not burned out, wait for a hot day, let you house get nice and hot, run the tv for a few hours, then turn off the tv and unplug the set before the cooling fan can cool down the bulb. Now, you'll need the bulb replaced... Worth a try...

I'm thinking very hard whether to buy the 42" today but I can't seem to get past these issues.

The reasons I'm holding back,

1. Need to buy a HD Direct Tivo :mad:
2. Then the Direct TV HD MPEG 4 change over :mad:
3. Only one HDMI input :confused:
4. Not enough HD channels :mad:
5. Future 1080p
6. And the final main problem SD bothers my eyes on every HDTV I've tried. :mad:

I'm dying to watch NFL in HD. :D

1080 P broadcast is not going to happen until 2010 or later. SCRATCH THAT OFF YOUR LIST

HDMI splitter boxes will be more available and cheaper than todays prices. SCRATCH THAT OFF YOUR LIST

The HD channels that are on now are worth it. Plus more to come. SCRATCH THAT OFF YOUR LIST

SD channels on this set will surprise you on these A10's. SCRATCH THAT OFF YOUR LIST

Get your Direct HD Tivo with the assurance that it will be replaced with the MPEG 4 conversion. SCRATCH THAT OFF YOUR LIST

Any other things holding you back :D

The salesman that sold me my tv told me that if you get near the end of the warranty and the bulb has not burned out, wait for a hot day, let you house get nice and hot, run the tv for a few hours, then turn off the tv and unplug the set before the cooling fan can cool down the bulb. Now, you'll need the bulb replaced... Worth a try...

I think not... :confused:

Woohoo. I just got back from CC with a $237 price match credit to my account on the 42" A10. I was prepared to have to argue because none of the local BB stores have any in stock. However, the manager said they had already reduced their prices to match BB so not argument was necessary.

So, bottom line, I got the set for $1579.98. :)

I'm thinking very hard whether to buy the 42" today but I can't seem to get past these issues.

The reasons I'm holding back,

3. Only one HDMI input :confused:

I'm dying to watch NFL in HD. :D


Problem solve with below link. In a few months the price will come down further :D

http://www.thetwistergroup.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=EXT-HDMI142%20D21531&source=nx

Problem solve with below link. In a few months the price will come down further :D

http://www.thetwistergroup.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=EXT-HDMI142%20D21531&source=nx

Isn't that a splitter? I think a switch or combiner is needed...(i.e. multiple HDMI sources into one input...)

Will the sale price end tonight?

I heard they may add an extra HDMI on recievers?

With the BB sales price why is it $400 off the 42 and only $125 off the 50?

I got my 50 from BB for less than what they have it at now on sale using a price match, so the $125 off still isn't lower than what I paid. If you took $400 off the 50" price then we would be talking.

Was nobody buying the 42"s? So they sunk the price to make them almost irresistible?

I am glad I got the 50" but if that 42" price goes any lower I might have second thoughts.

Re: Only one HDMI input

Yes, but component looks really, really good. In most cases, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. So, you may be okay with just one. At least it should be okay until the HDMI switchers come down in price (if you decide you really do need two HDMI inputs).

Re: SD quality

Those of you that are new to the forum, be advised that the SD quality will greatly improve if you let the TV upconvert from 480i with its DRC circuitry. So contrary to logic, set your Set Top Box and/or DVD player to 480i, or NOT progressive output, and try it. If you already have an upconverting DVD player, then it MAY do better than the DRC circuitry.

Re: BestBuy sale

Thanks! I went to CC today and got $94 back. AVSFORUM is our friend.

HDMI makes further sense if you plan on using the optical audio out from the TV. Which I do plan on using. Reason being, HDMI keeps the audio in digital format. So you would have digital audio all the way to your receiver.

I would add the point that Sony's implementation of HDMI on these sets carries only left/right stereo and not 5.1 (which, when one thinks hard enough about it actually is a sensible thing to do), so using the HDMI and Sony's digital optical out to your receiver will mean you will not get the aural benefit af a 5.1 broadcast - it will be stripped down to POS ("Plain Old Stereo" . . . hmmm, now, that's a good acronym . . . . .)

So if you're set up for 5.1 sound and you're hooked up via cable box and HDMI, it's best to avoid the TV's digital audio out and instead use the digital out on the cable box going directly to your receiver - this will get you 5.1 when it's broadcast.

[QUOTE=abward]Re: Only one HDMI input

Yes, but component looks really, really good. In most cases, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. So, you may be okay with just one. At least it should be okay until the HDMI switchers come down in price (if you decide you really do need two HDMI inputs).

Re: SD quality

Those of you that are new to the forum, be advised that the SD quality will greatly improve if you let the TV upconvert from 480i with its DRC circuitry. So contrary to logic, set your Set Top Box and/or DVD player to 480i, or NOT progressive output, and try it. If you already have an upconverting DVD player, then it MAY do better than the DRC circuitry.

Abward , would the Toshiba DVD model SD-4980 take care of the upconverting? If not could you suggest some Dvd players to purchase?

Abward , would the Toshiba DVD model SD-4980 take care of the upconverting? If not, could you suggest some Dvd players to purchase?

Where does one find the 10% BB coupon?

I believe that it is a BB Rewards Members thing. At least, that is how I got mine.

I would add the point that Sony's implementation of HDMI on these sets carries only left/right stereo and not 5.1 (which, when one thinks hard enough about it actually is a sensible thing to do), so using the HDMI and Sony's digital optical out to your receiver will mean you will not get the aural benefit af a 5.1 broadcast - it will be stripped down to POS ("Plain Old Stereo" . . . hmmm, now, that's a good acronym . . . . .)

So if you're set up for 5.1 sound and you're hooked up via cable box and HDMI, it's best to avoid the TV's digital audio out and instead use the digital out on the cable box going directly to your receiver - this will get you 5.1 when it's broadcast.

The way you explained this is not clear: What does HDMI have to do w/ anything here re: using digital optical out from TV? (Could be any connection...)

Assuming the part about digital optical out is true, why does this make sense "when one thinks hard about it"? If you use Cablecard then you can only get stereo out to receiver? Why would this make sense? How many TVs are like this?

Well, I got the last 42" set in the Tampa Bay area out of the Citrus Park Circuit City (unless Sears still has one). As I understand it Best Buy is completely out of stock in the area (I checked there first and the CC salesman confirmed he had been hearing it all day) but my CC sales guy still had no problem matching the price for me. In and out of there in 30 minutes, I'm getting it on Wednesday.

To those interested, the 50" is listed at $2249 but my sales guy told me he would do $1999. This is the Circuit City on Dale Mabry Hwy just north of 275.

Now I just need a stand...

I believe that it is a BB Rewards Members thing. At least, that is how I got mine.
I can post a link to it that can be printed, but I don't want to break the rules. If it's kosher I'll do it.

Hello everyone, this is my first post here so forgive me if this is the wrong place to ask but I wanted to know how the 42" a10 compares to the 42" panny edtv(plasma). Its is also onsale at BB for 200 more than the sony.

Thanks!

The way you explained this is not clear: What does HDMI have to do w/ anything here re: using digital optical out from TV? (Could be any connection...)

Assuming the part about digital optical out is true, why does this make sense "when one thinks hard about it"? If you use Cablecard then you can only get stereo out to receiver? Why would this make sense? How many TVs are like this?


No, he is saying that your cable (or DBS) receiver will ouput 5.1 Dolby Digital out of the back of the receiver's output.

The thing to remeber about HDMI is that it is capable of using ONE cable for video as well as audio. However, manufacturers do not have to include audio with video. Also the current 1.1 spec (1.2 was just ratified about 2 weeks ago) calls for up to 12 bits to be used for video. Having said that most only use 10 (or sometimes only 8). I do not think that even the highest of the high end manufacturers use the full 12 bits at this time.

That 12 bits would allow (all other things being equal) potentialloy more bandwidth of video resolution than even the best component at this time.

Hello everyone, this is my first post here so forgive me if this is the wrong place to ask but I wanted to know how the 42" a10 compares to the 42" panny edtv(plasma). Its is also onsale at BB for 200 more than the sony.

Thanks!
I was on the fence about this same choice... my only advice is to look at both. It depends on what you'll be watching most of the time also. I plan to use OTA HD whenever possible, otherwise HD through my cable box (720p usually) and the Panny just won't be as sharp. The guy I was speaking with at CC said he sold 33 (!) of those plasmas yesterday though... a lot of people have a very high opinion of them.

The salesman that sold me my tv told me that if you get near the end of the warranty and the bulb has not burned out, wait for a hot day, let you house get nice and hot, run the tv for a few hours, then turn off the tv and unplug the set before the cooling fan can cool down the bulb. Now, you'll need the bulb replaced... Worth a try...

Isn't that immoral?

I looked at the Panny Plasma when I went to CC today. They had a 42" A10 about 2 tv's down from it. The Panny was displaying NFL network in SD and I got the A10 to display the same thing.

In the short time that I viewed (20 minutes) I noticed a strange glow on the outlines of anything displayed on screen with the plasma that was not present with the A10 or any other LCD screen in the vicinity. Another plasma nearby had the same "glowing edge" but it wasn't as prominent. The "glowing edge" would be around the face of a head coach for example. It seemed to be most evident on skin tone edges when meeting any other info being displayed on the TV.

No clue what that was all about. Too hot of a feed to the TV or something?

I switched the Panny to an HD feed and it looked fine then. Back to SD and there it was again.

I'll have to go to another store and see if it looks any different.

Ok, I couldn't resist. I just bought the 42" from CC price matched BB, its not in stock so I got free delivery. I also bought the HD Direct Tivo.

Hello everyone, this is my first post here so forgive me if this is the wrong place to ask but I wanted to know how the 42" a10 compares to the 42" panny edtv(plasma). Its is also onsale at BB for 200 more than the sony.

Thanks!

Without getting into a technical discussion about plasma versus LCD, the panny is EDTV while the Sony is HDTV. Big advantage to the Sony...

Isn't that immoral?

"Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening." :)
-Alexander Woollcott-

The stand that I purchased has a shelf for a center channel speaker. Do you think that vibrations from a center speaker has any affect on the tv long term? I have always had my speaker on a shelf on the wall but since there is a shelf I was going to use it

Woohoo. I just got back from CC with a $237 price match credit to my account on the 42" A10. I was prepared to have to argue because none of the local BB stores have any in stock. However, the manager said they had already reduced their prices to match BB so not argument was necessary.

So, bottom line, I got the set for $1579.98. :)


Right on, i contacted abt today, after reading about the bestbuy.com price last night. Thank goodness, b/c today (9/5/05) was EXACTLY 30-days since i bought the TV, therefore, the last day there price match was in effect for me. AVSforum.com saved me about 180 bucks! Thanks!!!

I finally pulled the trigger on a A10. I first bought a 50 from BB, but found it too big from 8 ft away. I really noticed the SDE. I took it back and got the 42 inch. It actually is a great size for the room I have.

I have cable going into the TV directly - do not want to pay for the box. I have Terk OTA antenna -which works well for all my local stations. What I found is that HD is hit and miss. A little disappointed, but I am sure I will get used to it. My biggest complaint is that things don't looks sharp. For example, up close the football players in the HD broadcast tonight look great, but from a wide view, they seem a little blurry.

My biggest concern was in watching golf this afternoon. It was terrible. The trees in the background shuddered and flickered as the camera panned. I watch a lot of golf, so I am concerned. I used the custom settings from the thread.

Anybody else have this experience? Or advice to fix it? I could get Time Warner out to check the cable signal. The golf was over cable, not Antenna.

Although I didn't watch golf today, I have watched HD golf (on CBS, iirc) before and noticed that some camera angles/views were not HD but rather SD - even though the picture on the TV was still 16x9. Generally, it seemed that the views around key greens were HD (e.g. the 18th hole).

So, you may have been experiencing this mixing of camera technology.


Mitch

Explain to me this built in HD Tuner. Are you saying I can get HD without a box from my cable provider. Just the TV?
Yes, some others have already pointed out that you can get over-the-air reception with an antenna but the tuner is also cable-ready. That means that with a cablecard from the cable company plugged into the TV to de-scramble the encrypted channels you can get all the cable stations that you subscribe to without a box. The rent on the cablecard is usually much less than for an HD box. I have even heard of people that get basic cable and a cblemodem and the TV gets all the unscrambled HD channels without paying for digital cable because the cable companies can't always filter out digital channels when a cable modem is installed.

The stand that I purchased has a shelf for a center channel speaker. Do you think that vibrations from a center speaker has any affect on the tv long term? I have always had my speaker on a shelf on the wall but since there is a shelf I was going to use it

I think you should be fine seeing as how the tv itself has speakers inside it that vibrate as well, although they are not as powerful as the speakers that you get with a Home Theatre system. I know that some people place the speaker directly on top of the set itself and that has to be worse than placing the speaker on the stand itself, so you should be ok.

I went into Best Buy yesterday evening but they had sold out of the 42" already -- they didn't even have a floor model. The salesperson didn't even know they carried a 42" and was quick to point out the older version of the 50". He actually became angry when I mentioned it was in this week's ad! After going back and forth between the floor and warehouse he finally said that sony was discontinuing this model and the only way I could get one was to buy one and have it sent to the store at the end of this month. I didn't quite believe him, so I said no thanks.

This morning I remembered we had a local Sony Style store, so my wife and I went to see if they had a unit to look at. They did, and while we were checking it out the salesperson asked if we were looking to buy one. He mentioned a handful of other customers had come in recently to buy the same model, all of them having seen the sale at Best Buy. He was able to price match against their sale and with the warranty and free shipping it actually came out cheaper, not to mention a few weeks earlier in shipping to my house.

Now to find a good deal on HD TiVos. :)

People who have the a10's and are using the hdmi input - can anyone tell me if their are any differences in $20 hdmi cables vs. $100 cables on your sets?
I realize this has been covered but I wonder from the a10 owner crowd.

Also - at 6ft, is there any need for the thicker 24awg cable as oposed to the cheaper (price anyway) 28awg cables?

I just want to make sure I am getting the best pq, as everyone else, and have to ask these questions because I am extremely indecisive tonight, as I am ready to buy the cable : )

I have found out that most bestbuys do not carry many of their tv's at all. I believe they do this because it saves space, makes you decide on the extra delivery charge, has you look at more exspensive models, and also so that other stores with 110% price match if its in stock do can not do so. I guess its another way for BB to screw us.

Hmm. I simply cannot bring myself to buy a TV. Is there something wrong with me? I think this is like the longest fit of indecisiveness I've ever experienced. I've boiled down my choices to three different TVs, utilizing three different technologies: a.) The Panasonic 37 PX50U plasma, b.) the Sony KDF-E42A10 LCD rear-projection, and c.) the Sony 34" XBR 960 direct-view tube.

I've taken a number of trips to see the A10, and the funny thing is, the TV looks a lot better at Best Buy than it does at Circuit City, for some odd reason. The set at Best Buy looks like it renders much better blacks, and I can't for the life of me understand why this is so. I adjusted both TVs at both stores exactly the same, but it just seems that the Best Buy set looks a lot better.

Anyway, I just can't seem to bring myself to buy this TV. The main attraction for me, is that there's no potential for burn-in. The main drawback for me is that the set renders some pretty poor blacks, particularly in dark scenes, where the finer details of a scene just get lost in a cloud of pure dark gray. The size is awesome, the depth is perfect and the price is beyond good, but I can't warm up to the picture on rear-projection LCD, they just leave a lot to be desired in a lot of areas of PQ. I feel like the A10 would be great set dedicated to gaming.

The XBR 960 is amazing, but it's so damn big and heavy and is 8" smaller and more expensive than the A10. I'm also reading reports on this forum that CRTs aren't quite as reliable as they used to be because manufacturer's are getting lazy with their production and devoting more time and energy to the newer technologies. The Panny plasma rocks my world, but I really don't wanna have to wait 1000 hours to burn in the set and then, finally, be able to enjoy it.

I think I might get the Panny, punish it for 4 days, keep a loop going on it for 5 days straight with the contrast up fairly high and see what happens. If there's no evidence of burn-in after those 4-5 grueling days, than I think I'll feel better about heavy gaming on it in the future.

Anyway, I'd love to see some screenshots of DVD and gaming on the A10 (other than the ones that have already been posted.) I'm going through a big dilemma right now. It's like I wanna get this OVER WITH already before I drive myself crazy! Help a brother out!

I'm in the exact same dilema, considering the same three sets. I have an entertainment amoire that is 40" wide so I'm limited to the set width which these three sets satisfy. I had initially convinced myself to buy the 34xbr960 since it has the best picture bar none, but considering the small size and large weight, after countless hours of research, I settled on the 37px50u. I would have long since purchased it, but am waiting until fall when I return to my Florida residence to accept delivery. In the interim, I stumbled upon the e42a10, and now am confused once again as to what I should do. I'm trying to sort out the benefits of the larger picture size and richer feature set of the e42a10 versus the picture quality of the 37px50u. I may have to flip a coin.

The XBR 960 is amazing, but it's so damn big and heavy and is 8" smaller and more expensive than the A10. I'm also reading reports on this forum that CRTs aren't quite as reliable as they used to be because manufacturer's are getting lazy with their production and devoting more time and energy to the newer technologies. The Panny plasma rocks my world, but I really don't wanna have to wait 1000 hours to burn in the set and then, finally, be able to enjoy it.

I was also deciding on the XBR960 and the 42A10 and I got the A10. The only problem with the 960 is that it needs an ISF calibration done to it to get the best PQ from it. So, you really need to add another $300+ to the price of it if you want a top-notch picture. Most of these TVs have poor geometry and convergence out of the box, and for the price it just seems a bit rediculous. Weight and bulk wasn't that big of a deal for me, but 34 inches seems a bit too small to really get immersed in a football game or movie. I had a 30" Sony prior to the 42A10 and it just wasn't cutting it anymore.

The A10 can achieve a decent black level with the proper Iris, Advanced Iris, Picture, and Brightness setting. The Black Corrector should also be turned OFF. The process kills most shadow detail in dark scenes. Go back to the store and do some more tweaking.

Tip: there should be some ambient light in the room at all times to help offset the grayish looking blacks on the A10. Watching this TV in a completely dark room is not recommended.

crazy! Help a brother out!


Buy the a10 and the Plaz on your credit card and put them side by side in your den to test. The looser goes back before the 30 days and you are only billed for the winner? :D

As far as HDMI cables I bought my monster cables when I bought the TV to use until my Cheaper cables came in from the internet. I could not till any difference in PQ. :cool:

Alright, another run-down on the 50A10. Have had the set since saturday night, tweaked each input setting for what i was using it for (input 4 for xbox, input 5 for DVD and input 2 for the PS2) Halo running at 16:9 in 480p looked amazing. The quality of all the textures and the details on the characters is breath-taking. The TV is too good for the xbox though, since it makes the system show its limitations more than if you viewed it on a non-HD tv. Fable and Jade Empire looked amazing as well! This TV brought out details in all 3 games that i had never seen before! GT4 looked better but this TV really shows the limitation of the PS2, a lot worse than the xbox. Also, NO GAME LAG at all! I tested it in Halo 2 extensively, online and offline. All this tv did was make my Halo 2 online play awesome!

DVD viewing was also a beautiful time! At the moment, i am only running a cheap magnavox dvd player with progressive scan (spent all my money on the tv and stand! :rolleyes: ) However, the picture still looked amazing. SDE was not noticeable unless i was at 6 feet or closer and looking for it. I tested it with LOTR part 3. The battle scenes were AWESOME! I tweaked the settings and the Iris so that it gave a good balance between blacks and shadows,mind you blacks still looked great! Popped in the Incredibles and Finding Nemo and watched it with the girlfriend, she said she had never seen a picture so nice.

Now i know i used a lot of praise for the 50A10, but it really deserves it. This set has some great features for the size and price. I don't care much for PIP or a memory stick slot so losing those features were fine with me. Take your time to make a decision, over 2 months of research and atleast 10 hours of viewing different tvs in stores.

Also, any xbox owners ever want to chat about the set, hit me up on xbox live!
Gamertag: DeathMoJo

I just saved myself $220 by doing a Pricematch from the BB advertisement on my A10 that was purchased at CC last month, no questions asked.

From reading the flyer, it seems to me that the CC Pricematch terms are slightly different for people who have already bought the set. According to the mumbo-jumbo, you can only BUY a set under Pricematch if it is in-stock at this price at the competitor's local store. However, if you already bought the set from CC in the past, it only needs to be ADVERTISED for this price in order to get your savings.

So if you already bought an A10 from CC at a higher price within the last 30 days and want to get some money back, I would take the BB flyer and your receipt back to your CC customer service desk even if you know that your local BB is already out of stock.

I did the exact opposite sort of.

CC was sold out with the A10 50" at $2XXX

I then went to BB and they had one left. I bought it immediately at a much higher price. While I waited two other people came by and talked to BB employees who looked up the TV in the computer only to tell them they had none in stock. Talk about instant feel good about your set purchase.

I then went to CC the next day and they printed out the price which BB matched plus 10%.

Then this weekend CC lowered the price another $50 so I went back to BB and they price matched it yet again.

If I find a lower price I am going back to BB again.

Each week it gets cheaper! ;)

This thread is getting bogged down with all the fatwalletish posts.

FFFred has your set been calibrated yet?

Abward , would the Toshiba DVD model SD-4980 take care of the upconverting? If not, could you suggest some Dvd players to purchase?

Sorry, I no nothing about that DVD player (and any other either) other than what I see in a quick Google. Since it is upconverting, I would try it both ways. Since it is not a real expensive one, I am thinking that the DRC circuit will do better.

Re HDMI cables

I payed 8 bucks for a cable on eBay. It was a 6 foot, gold-plated, shielded cable with double ferrite cores. It was from monoprice.

The theory is that since this is a digital signal, and the signal is either there or not (i.e. there is no quality of the signal involved), virtually any reasonably-made cable will do. Why spend $100?

I'm in the exact same dilema, considering the same three sets. I have an entertainment amoire that is 40" wide so I'm limited to the set width which these three sets satisfy. I had initially convinced myself to buy the 34xbr960 since it has the best picture bar none, but considering the small size and large weight, after countless hours of research, I settled on the 37px50u. I would have long since purchased it, but am waiting until fall when I return to my Florida residence to accept delivery. In the interim, I stumbled upon the e42a10, and now am confused once again as to what I should do. I'm trying to sort out the benefits of the larger picture size and richer feature set of the e42a10 versus the picture quality of the 37px50u. I may have to flip a coin.

Please see my append with pictures on page 64 of this thread. I have 40.75". I went with the A10, and I am happy I did.

Be carefull with ventilation. You will want to consider assisting the air flow with fans.

I reconfigured so that all my audio goes through the A/V receiver, and the fans plug into the accessory AC outlet on the back of the A/V receiver. My remote switches the A/V receiver and the A10 on/off at the same time. Now, the fans are on only when the system is on.

The BB savings is great, but I actually lucked out and did a little better. Bought my 42" A10 for $1799 at CC over a week ago. Saw an add in the paper for pcrichards labor day weekend sale in NJ for $1488. Took the add to CC and got my refund, no questions asked. Man that felt good.

First off I want to thank everyone in this forum for the past couple weeks for helping make my decision on my new tv....I was torn between the 50a10 and the samsung dlp's and I only had about a week to make my decision as BB was replacing my CRT Panasonic *choose the 50a10 for no lag in gaming*. This forum helped save me time and also helped me get a tv that had everthing I was looking for. Thanks!

So far over the weekend I've thrown SD, HD (via mediacom) DVD via component, and since I have a HTPC I also did comparisons using the HD Component ATI card I was using and the new PC Input. I was very impressed with everthing I threw at it. Tonight I'm going to pick up an antenna so I can compare OTA and also since I can't get CBS HD cause Mediacomm doesn't have a contract with them yet. I do wish only that the 50a10 had two S-video inputs as I have a Tivo and PS2 that use them, but in about a year one or both will be out with newer component option. Don't have anything HDMI to throw at it, but since HDMI is also tied to alot of digital rights managment I don't really want it.

And the extended warranty to me is very worth it when you think if any little thing goes wrong and you need to service it you have to bring this thing in yourself if you don't have the warranty. Unless you have a truck that's going to be a pain. Plus after having one on my CRT, and having only one problem with it in 3 years I was able to go buy this wonderful tv for less than the extended warranty cause BB couldn't order in the parts.

I do have a question though. If you switch your cable box to output at 480i (mine can do 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i set to 16x9) what will that do for the HD programming out of the box? Will it be downconverting 720p and 1080i HD signals?

Thanks again for everyones great input and honest reviews...I love this tv but still miss the 36" panasonic cause it was a great tv too :( even if i was heavy as hell

Alright, another run-down on the 50A10. Have had the set since saturday night, tweaked each input setting for what i was using it for (input 4 for xbox, input 5 for DVD and input 2 for the PS2) Halo running at 16:9 in 480p looked amazing. The quality of all the textures and the details on the characters is breath-taking. The TV is too good for the xbox though, since it makes the system show its limitations more than if you viewed it on a non-HD tv. Fable and Jade Empire looked amazing as well! This TV brought out details in all 3 games that i had never seen before! GT4 looked better but this TV really shows the limitation of the PS2, a lot worse than the xbox. Also, NO GAME LAG at all! I tested it in Halo 2 extensively, online and offline. All this tv did was make my Halo 2 online play awesome!

DVD viewing was also a beautiful time! At the moment, i am only running a cheap magnavox dvd player with progressive scan (spent all my money on the tv and stand! :rolleyes: ) However, the picture still looked amazing. SDE was not noticeable unless i was at 6 feet or closer and looking for it. I tested it with LOTR part 3. The battle scenes were AWESOME! I tweaked the settings and the Iris so that it gave a good balance between blacks and shadows,mind you blacks still looked great! Popped in the Incredibles and Finding Nemo and watched it with the girlfriend, she said she had never seen a picture so nice.

Now i know i used a lot of praise for the 50A10, but it really deserves it. This set has some great features for the size and price. I don't care much for PIP or a memory stick slot so losing those features were fine with me. Take your time to make a decision, over 2 months of research and atleast 10 hours of viewing different tvs in stores.

Also, any xbox owners ever want to chat about the set, hit me up on xbox live!
Gamertag: DeathMoJo


MoJo, did you notice any black crush in the dark areas of Halo? I noticed black crush quite a bit on a 55" Sony A20 at BB.

I got one of these sets (42") on Saturday and later that evening noticed a blotch of blue on the upper left corner. On dark scenes, the screen would appear black but the upper left corner was blue-ish. This extended 5 or 6 inches from the corner, in a 1/4 circle shape. Almost as if some light was "leaking" out of that corner.

I went in yesterday and got another set in exchange. To my dismay, this one does it as well - not ONCE, but TWICE! Now I have the 1/4 blue circle on the upper right hand corner, and I have a full 8" pink circle on the bottom left corner. Whenever there's a dark scene it's very noticeable - almost as if someone was pointing a low-powered flashlight at the screen.

From what I've read, I'm assuming that this is the result of some dust particles in the light engine. But these are BRAND NEW sets! Has anyone noticed this on their set (usually more noticeable at night, with no background light)? Is this "normal" for these sets and we just have to live with it? I'm going to exchange it again, but I'm getting worried about Sony's "quality control". This last unit I got had a huge piece of cloth stuck under the speakers - sticking out of the TV cabinet. I might go for the 44" Panny instead.

Any comments? Anyone else seen this before?

Thanks!!!

From what I've read, I'm assuming that this is the result of some dust particles in the light engine. But these are BRAND NEW sets! Has anyone noticed this on their set (usually more noticeable at night, with no background light)? Is this "normal" for these sets and we just have to live with it? I'm going to exchange it again, but I'm getting worried about Sony's "quality control". This last unit I got had a huge piece of cloth stuck under the speakers - sticking out of the TV cabinet. I might go for the 44" Panny instead.

Any comments? Anyone else seen this before?

Thanks!!!

"Made in Mexico," I presume? :D The discoloration is normal on these TVs. Some are better than others, but you could go through several exchanges before you found one that looked "better" than the last one. It's not worth the hassle. CNET made note of it in their 50A10 review.

If I get an indoor HD antenna to use along with a Comcast Motorola DVR, am I able to cancel my HD service with Comcast, keep the DVR, and get local HD programs without having to fool with buttons and switches?

In Indy, the Comcast DVR includes HD service at no extra charge, so you wouldn't save any money at all getting your HD over the air. Not sure if that applies where you are.

Hi all, just a quick question..

Other than the Iris, can someone tell me why everyone is pimping the A10s over the A20s so much?

Thanks! :)

Hi all, just a quick question..

Other than the Iris, can someone tell me why everyone is pimping the A10s over the A20s so much?

Thanks! :)
For me it's the size and look of the enclosure. By putting the speakers at the bottom, the width works for my space. I assume a lot of people who are interested in the A10 don't have room for the A20 since it's a bigger screen and has the side speakers. If I had the space for a set that wide, I'd be looking more towards the SXRD's. I like the look of the A10 better than the SXRD's too. If they would offer that light engine in the A10 enclosure I'd be all over it.

I do wish only that the 50a10 had two S-video inputs as I have a Tivo and PS2 that use them, but in about a year one or both will be out with newer component option.

The Playstation 2 already has component cables available for it! :)

The way you explained this is not clear: What does HDMI have to do w/ anything here re: using digital optical out from TV? (Could be any connection...)

Assuming the part about digital optical out is true, why does this make sense "when one thinks hard about it"? If you use Cablecard then you can only get stereo out to receiver? Why would this make sense? How many TVs are like this?

I second what AKAStp said: "If you receive programming via the TV's ATSC tuner (via OTA or Cablecard) you will get DD 5.1 out of the TV's digital optical jack to your A/V receiver, provided the source material provides it.

As the HDMI input will not accept DD 5.1 then it can't be passed through to the digital optical output so all you get is stereo. So if you want to listen to DD 5.1 from your HD cable box you need to run a digital optical connection direct to your A/V receiver rather than via HDMI through the TV. "

Sellis, you may not have realized that I was responding to a prior poster who discussed specifically using his set top box and HDMI; not cable cards or OTA signals. This is why I limited my statements to STB/HDMI set ups, to wit: "So if you're set up for 5.1 sound and you're hooked up via cable box and HDMI . . . . . "

Also, the reason it makes sense "when one thinks hard enough about it" that Sony (and I understand most other TV makers outfitting their units with HDMI) only accepts stereo via HDMI when HDMI apparently can carry full-blown 5.1 is that you don't save any cables and actually introduce an additional set of circuitry (the TV's) between the originator of the sound (the STB) and the receiver if you used the HDMI to carry the 5.1 sound (i.e., STB -viaHDMI- TV -viaoptical- RECEIVER). Using the digital out on the STB, the set up simply avoids the TV altogether and it's a direct connection from the STB to the receiver (STB -viaOptical- RECEIVER). You use the same amount of cables if you used HDMI for 5.1 (the HDMI and an optical cable) as you do when you use the STB digital out to carry the 5.1 sound to the receiver. So, there is no real benefit (no cable savings, not better and perhaps degraded sound, etc.) if you used HDMI to carry 5.1 into the TV. There. That's why I said "when one thinks hard enough about it."

I've boiled down my choices to three different TVs, utilizing three different technologies: a.) The Panasonic 37 PX50U plasma, b.) the Sony KDF-E42A10 LCD rear-projection, and c.) the Sony 34" XBR 960 direct-view tube.
Anyway, I'd love to see some screenshots of DVD and gaming on the A10 (other than the ones that have already been posted.) I'm going through a big dilemma right now. It's like I wanna get this OVER WITH already before I drive myself crazy! Help a brother out!


I had a similar decision to make sans the plasma (too small for the tradeoffs).
I got them (@ CC) to place the 42A10 and xbr960 basically next to each other. I then loaded the trusty NS50P with Sin City and browsed about specifically looking for black level problems since I've never owned a non-tube before.

At the end of the day I didn't SEE enough of a difference in the two to justify paying the same amount for the smaller screen. I know the xbr has better ultimate picture quality, but I went with the A10.

I've never researched a purchase more than this TV (house and car included), and I don't regret the purchase at all. Then the next day BB made the deal even sweeter by saving me another $240 over the XBR.

As the HDMI input will not accept DD 5.1 I never knew that, Thats so lame HDMI can't handle 5.1, Now I really can't understand the hype about HDMI when it was first announced. The CC guy said they don't use the HDMI they use Compontant because there's not much of a difference. So I'm going to use my Compontant cables with the optical rather than fork out $150.00 for an HDMI cable.

I never knew that, Thats so lame HDMI can't handle 5.1, Now I really can't understand the hype about HDMI when it was first announced. The CC guy said they don't use the HDMI they use Compontant because there's not much of a difference. So I Decided to use my Compontant cables with the optical rather than fork out $150.00 for an HDMI cable.

I think you mis-placed a decimal. HDMI cable should cost you $15, not $150

$149.00 is what Monster HDMI cost at CC.

I bet this would give you the same results (http://www.svideo.com/hdmihdmisp10.html)

The Playstation 2 already has component cables available for it! :)


Yeah, sadly my area stores all nicely happen to be out of the inexpensive component cables and all they like to carry are the $50 versions from Monster. I'll probably hunt online to find the cheap versions....hopefully with free shipping. Awefully silly to pay 5 bucks in shipping when the cable costs $10 :cool: Fortunately I do have a component switch box which will make all this easier since I also have 4 other items all running off components.

Here's the CC cable Link ( http://makeashorterlink.com/?I20014FBB)

Or will I need HDMI to watch some shows on HD Direct Tivo?

Should I use HDMI or Compontant? Will I need the HDCP that comes with the HDMI?

Don't be too hard on him, he's just brainwashed by Monster or a salesperson to think the $150 cable makes a worthwhile difference. It's possible that a Monster cable will help in some very specific cases, but most of the time a less expensive cable does the same job with no perceptible performance difference, whether it's an audio, video, or speaker cable.

I'm not brainwashed thats the only cables they had left they sold out yesterday. I didn't buy them.

This thread is getting bogged down with all the fatwalletish posts.

FFFred has your set been calibrated yet?

Nope, not yet. The calibrator went on vacation and I do believe he needs to do some more reading up on this set, given the marked differences between this set and all of its predecessors. I expect it'll happen in the next two weeks or so, hopefully. Thanks for asking . .

I agree with you about the deluge of fatwalletish how-much-discount-where-get-$xxxx-deal-sweet-coupon posts. I for one am very happy that the Sears Friends or Foe sale, or whatever that was called, is finally over - that took up a lot of bandwidth, remember?

I'm not brainwashed thats the only cables they had left they sold out yesterday. I didn't buy them.

Indeed, it seems more and more that Monster-priced Monster cables are just all that the big box stores seem to offer. You go in, buy the TV, and they say, "oh here, you'll need this cable." And in their hand is the Monster cable, at the Monster price . . . . A lot of consumers just don't know that there are much cheaper equivalent-quality options available. The big box stores sure aren't going to tell you.

Indeed, it seems more and more that Monster-priced Monster cables are just all that the big box stores seem to offer. You go in, buy the TV, and they say, "oh here, you'll need this cable." And in their hand is the Monster cable, at the Monster price . . . . A lot of consumers just don't know that there are equivalent-quality options available. The big box stores sure aren't going to tell you.

yeah, I took the wind out the sail of the the CC kid who was pushing the $150 cable & $250 surge supressor/line conditioner on me. I told him no thanks, I can get the cable ALOT cheaper and the surge for less than 1/2 their price on-line. he really looked bad when I told him the $600 pure av battery backup can be found for $280 online....

Not to sound too FWish, but now that this weekend is over, what's the best deal on the 42 and 50 A10 now? I see CC with cheaper prices online, but not sure about in store. 10% coupons are expired now ya?

I agree with you about the deluge of fatwalletish how-much-discount-where-get-$xxxx-deal-sweet-coupon posts. I for one am very happy that the Sears Friends or Foe sale, or whatever that was called, is finally over - that took up a lot of bandwidth, remember?

Now that most of us have our sets at whatever pricing it's time to enjoy them, or not. What I'd like to know is what happens when 2way cablecards come out? Will we have to purchase an upgrade slot or new TV or will this set take the next generation cards?

I agree with you about the deluge of fatwalletish how-much-discount-where-get-$xxxx-deal-sweet-coupon posts. I for one am very happy that the Sears Friends or Foe sale, or whatever that was called, is finally over - that took up a lot of bandwidth, remember?

Now that most of us have our sets at whatever pricing it's time to enjoy them, or not. What I'd like to know is what happens when 2way cablecards come out? Will we have to purchase an upgrade slot or new TV or will this set take the next generation cards?

Not to sound too FWish, but now that this weekend is over, what's the best deal on the 42 and 50 A10 now? I see CC with cheaper prices online, but not sure about in store. 10% coupons are expired now ya?

Bestbuy's sale price on the 42a10 is good all week, most local retailers pricematch each other so it shouldn't be too hard to find a place that will sell to you. If you're in NYC/NJ area, it sounds like PC Richards is the place to go instead.

The wording on BB's 10% coupon was "off regular pricing" - hat's off to those of you who managed to get this on top of the sale price!!

I wouldn't mind trying to take a stab at getting 10% off at BB. The coupon says feb 2-5 though unless there's another one floating around.

Do you guys typically buy the stand at the store too or do you order that as well?

Now that most of us have our sets at whatever pricing it's time to enjoy them, or not. What I'd like to know is what happens when 2way cablecards come out? Will we have to purchase an upgrade slot or new TV or will this set take the next generation cards?

Well hopefully they will made it backwards compatible so that the older generation sets can use the newer cards. The older sets might not be able to use all the new features of the 2way card but at least they will (hopefully) be useable.

I ended up buying the TV from CC yesterday. I could not pass up the $400 off on the TV. The only problem is that I have to wait a couple weeks before I can use the TV because we are moving into a new house. I have read alot of good things and a couple of bad things on the TV. I can't wait to see what reality is really like!

I picked up the TV monday at BB. got the sale price plus 10% off with a preferred customer coupon. I'm liking the TV so far, but with my computer hooked up to it thru VGA, The video display keeps popping up all the time. 'Video 7 PC' (I set the lable to PC for video 7). It pops up goes away and then pops up again sometimes a few minutes later, sometimes a few seconds later. anyone else having this problem?

You know what feature I would like to see?
The ability to create a smaller view. Instead of blowing up 4:3 image to widescreen dimensions, I would like to make it smaller - say along the lines of a 32" or even 27" standard TV screen instead of the 40" size that 4:3 shows in.
I think this would be a great feature when watching some not-so-great-pq-wise SD stuff.
For example, use the freeze feature and watch the little screen image that comes on. It's (as would be expected) sharper and a bit less frustrating to watch, for lack of a better term.

So, now the question is whether or not anyone will figure out a firmware/software hack for this and a way to update the firmware/software in the TV to get this feature. (I'm not holding my breath. But, I do remember in the original "Sony 720p set" thread someone posted a link to some Linux software for the TV. So, it is possible ....)

BTW, I thought Sin City looked awesome on the TV the other night.


Mitch

Now that most of us have our sets at whatever pricing it's time to enjoy them, or not. What I'd like to know is what happens when 2way cablecards come out? Will we have to purchase an upgrade slot or new TV or will this set take the next generation cards?

Wow, 2-way cablecards! I hope they work out the glitches with the one-way ones first. My cable company, RCN, in the bay area CA, couldn't get it to work after three visits to my house. The cable guy says they never work. He said he has encountered numerous customers who try it, and eventually in frustration return it. I like the STB better anyway - better program info at the push of a button, DVR capability two tuners, better audio . . . plus all that 2-way stuff. The cable card for me was just a test, one that failed spectacularly . . .

I know elsewhere these cards work fine. Not here. Not RCN. Not a chance.

Indeed, it seems more and more that Monster-priced Monster cables are just all that the big box stores seem to offer. You go in, buy the TV, and they say, "oh here, you'll need this cable." And in their hand is the Monster cable, at the Monster price . . . . A lot of consumers just don't know that there are much cheaper equivalent-quality options available. The big box stores sure aren't going to tell you.

Let them push the Monster cables on you, and take them home so you can watch TV. Then go to an online cable store and order the cheaper ones. Return the expensive Monster cables before 30 days. ;)

Well, I finally pulled the trigger on the 42'' A10 yesterday (just couldn't pass up the $1600 price tag), and I am very happy with my decision. IMO, the set has great PQ though Time Warner's cheap ($28) HDMI cables, and my Xbox and PS2 look great as well. Haven't tried any DVD's or the Gamecube yet. I am using the Scientific Atlanta HD8300 HD DVR.

Anyways, I was wondering if anyone else has had the same audio problem that I've had. Basically, I hooked up the HDMI cable from the DVR to the TV, and I found that I was without sound. I was able to get sound from the coax. connection, so I figured it wasn't a problem with the speakers. My first thought was that I had a problem with the audio output from the DVR, or the HDMI cable itself. I tried running some audio cables (Red & White) from the DVR to the audio input for the HDMI (in case you are using DVI --> HDMI), and that still didn't work. So that ruled out the HDMI cable (I think). Next, I got a crazy idea and decided to put the stereo audio cables from the DVR to the audio inputs for component video 4. Well, what do you know? I had audio coming from the TV's speakers.

So what do you guys think the problem is? Do I have a defective set that will not accept audio signals through the HDMI input? Are there any more simple tests I can run to pinpoint the exact problem?

BTW, I am currently using my surround receiver (digital optical cable from the DVR) for my TV's audio, but would like to be able to use the TV's speakers for watching TV.

Please help... and thanks. :)

Let them push the Monster cables on you, and take them home so you can watch TV. Then go to an online cable store and order the cheaper ones. Return the expensive Monster cables before 30 days. ;)

EX-cellent . . . . .

I picked up the TV monday at BB. got the sale price plus 10% off with a preferred customer coupon. I'm liking the TV so far, but with my computer hooked up to it thru VGA, The video display keeps popping up all the time. 'Video 7 PC' (I set the lable to PC for video 7). It pops up goes away and then pops up again sometimes a few minutes later, sometimes a few seconds later. anyone else having this problem?


You may have already checked this but on your PC when its hooked up to the Sony, what's the monitor refresh rate set to? On mine it defaulted to 85 hz which was way too much...i dropped it down to 75hz. I could easily go to 60 hz since anything more for that on a regular LCD monitor is too much, but I noticed slight lag in response time in games at 60 hz. What is your resolution set to? I was able to get mine just a bit below 1280 x 1024. If its in the 640 x 480 range the popping may be Windows (if thats what your using) trying to auto bump the resolution on you in it's attempt to "help"

Could someone that still has the shipping box from their 50A10 let me know the outside dimensions of the box. Also before you unpacked it did you notice if it was packed with styrofoam holding it securely in place in the box at the top and bottom so it could be laid on its back to transport it a short distance. Thanks.

The dimensions have been posted already for both boxes. Do a search of this thread.

what resolution is everyone running for their pc connection????

are people getting overscan problems @ 1280x720?

i managed good results @ 1200x666 @ 16:9 using powerstrip

what magic have you worked?

Hi-

On my 50A10, when watching content that fades to black, the TV turns the very last part of the fade into a sharp CUT to black.

It's most noticeable when watching credits fade up and down over black. The first few moments of LOTR 3, for instance. Credit looks good, fades most of the way down, and then BANG it's jet black. Jet black holds for a moment, then BANG we cut into a fade-up that has already been happening for a few frames. The change is most obvious in the black background (most of the screen, in this case) which pops from black to mostly-gray as the credits are fading up and down.

It's very obvious and annoying.

Could anyone throw in their LOTR 3 disc and watch those first 15 seconds, tell me if my set has a glitch or if this is normal activity?

NOTE: This is similar to what happens if you've got your advanced iris turned up too high. However, I have turned off my advanced iris, turned off the black and gamma correctors, and tried all of the different manual iris settings (min to max) and the problem I'm describing is always the same.

Thanks in advance.

Hi-

On my 50A10, when watching content that fades to black, the TV turns the very last part of the fade into a sharp CUT to black.

It's most noticeable when watching credits fade up and down over black. The first few moments of LOTR 3, for instance. Credit looks good, fades most of the way down, and then BANG it's jet black. Jet black holds for a moment, then BANG we cut into a fade-up that has already been happening for a few frames. The change is most obvious in the black background (most of the screen, in this case) which pops from black to mostly-gray as the credits are fading up and down.

It's very obvious and annoying.

Sounds like the iris is winking at you...

http://akamaipix.crutchfield.com/products/2005/158/h158KD42A10-o_MT-iris.jpeg

Gee thanks for nothing. I'll remember that when I'm about to help someone else out by answering a commonly asked question. :rolleyes:
I would not have asked if I had been able to find the answer by a search. I've been here long enough to know how to search for information.
Suggestion: If you can't be helpful then don't answer!

I thought Abward has being extremely helpful, and sincere in his/her response. I did a search-within-forum for "+box +dimensions" and found the exact info you were looking for in about 20 seconds. Given your proficiency in searching these forums (which I do not dispute), I have no doubt you could have done the same, even quicker than me.

Gee thanks for nothing. I'll remember that when I'm about to help someone else out by answering a commonly asked question. :rolleyes:
I would not have asked if I had been able to find the answer by a search. I've been here long enough to know how to search for information.
Suggestion: If you can't be helpful then don't answer!

I was going to leave my prior post as it stands and have you do the search. Otherwise, how will you learn? (put smile face thing here) Fortunately, I've had a change of heart; I'm just too nice a guy I guess. Had you done the search I mentioned in my prior post, it would have yielded and still yields the following language a few posts down the first page of results:

"The box size of the Sony e50A10 is 50"x37"x20.5 inches."

There. Now I've avoided the accusation of being unhelpful.

I thought Abward has being extremely helpful, and sincere in his/her response. I did a search-within-forum for "+box +dimensions" and found the exact info you were looking for in about 20 seconds. Given your proficiency in searching these forums (which I do not dispute), I have no doubt you could have done the same, even quicker than me.


OK,
I just tried that search myself and came back with tons of posts.
What are the + signs in front of the words for?
Is there something else to do?
Thanks

Could someone that still has the shipping box from their 50A10 let me know the outside dimensions of the box. Also before you unpacked it did you notice if it was packed with styrofoam holding it securely in place in the box at the top and bottom so it could be laid on its back to transport it a short distance. Thanks.


It does have styrofoam at the top and bottom, I would be leery of transporting it laid down though. The top pieces of styrofoam aren't very big.

When I brought my 50" home from circuit city it wouldn't fit standing up in our pacifica, so I laid it down and drove the 20 mile trip home. Made it here safe with no problems although CC was worried about me taking, my only other option was to have it delivered 3 days later. just be careful driving and you should have no problems.

When I brought my 50" home from circuit city it wouldn't fit standing up in our pacifica, so I laid it down and drove the 20 mile trip home. Made it here safe with no problems although CC was worried about me taking, my only other option was to have it delivered 3 days later. just be careful driving and you should have no problems.

What I've been told, the inside optics are easily damaged or shifted in any position but standing straight up :eek:

Does anyone have any suggestions for a stand for the 42A10. I want one that's not too deep. I have a stand that is exactly the width of the TV but It has a door in it and I can't get all my components in it. One that can accept components side by side. Also under $300 would be helpfull....

as long as you laid it on its the back on not on the screen it will be fine. I use to work at a a/v store and had to do it sometimes and never had any problems.

OK,
I just tried that search myself and came back with tons of posts.
What are the + signs in front of the words for?
Is there something else to do?
Thanks

First, make sure you're using the "search this thread" link at the almost-top right of the page instead of the general search link at top-middle (or so). Not doing that will return "box" and "dimensions" for this entire AVS forum site - not useful.

The + before each word further narrows the search. It means that word must be in a post for it to be a hit. Without them, the search "box dimensions" returns posts with EITHER box OR dimensions but not necessarily both - that can be a lot of hits. With the +'s, each word so prefixed MUST be in the post for a hit - ie, Box AND dimensions. That narrows the search down even more. Doing this resulted in me finding the info in the I think sixth or seventh post returned by the search on the first page of hits. Part of it is I admit a bit of an art - you gotta click on the posts and poke around a little bit, but it's not that tough once you do it.

I found about the +'s by going to the Advanced Search Link and then the Help (or something like that) link. Good luck!

The 50a10 was delivered yesterday. I was very surprised out how good it looked out of the box, even though on vivid and glowing, the picture was crystal clear. After a few tweaks that I have read on this board, then altering to my taste, the picture looks great. I admit I was nervous, but I think this tv will be a very nice replacement for my toshiba 42h81. The 50 is a perfect size from my 9 ft away sofa. Didnt get to check the dvd out yet, but Im sure that will be just as good. Stickers came off with no problem too. I guess IM done for now.
Sony 50a10
yamaha rxv995

I wasnt done and my computer went down
Sony 50a10
yamaha rxv995
Focal JM Lab mains, center, surrounds
Definative Tech sub
Toshiba progressive dvd
Onkyo cd
Now IM done

Hey FFFred,

My search of +box +inches beat yours by 2.8 seconds. :p

I guess we need to turn post #1 in this thread to more of an FAQ post. A lot of information has been gathered by this community since the A10s came out. We could then point everyone to post #1 when the same questions keep getting asked almost every day. I do understand that over 2600 posts are hard to go through, and that people may not know how to search efficiently.

How shall we go about doing this? Have a team scrub through say 30 pages each and gather up FAQs?

Does anyone have any suggestions for a stand for the 42A10. I want one that's not too deep. I have a stand that is exactly the width of the TV but It has a door in it and I can't get all my components in it. One that can accept components side by side. Also under $300 would be helpfull....

Sure, TechCraft has some really nice stands, many models, easy to assemble. I picked out a glass, black laquer and silver stand that matches the TV perfectly. Fits well in a corner or angled. Most are under $300.00. Got mine at the local Ultimate Electronics but I think that CC and BB carry them also.

I picked up the 42A10 yesterday afternoon and did the initial setup last night. It is only hooked up to the HDTiVo via HDMI thus far, so I haven't done any calibration via Avia yet. I did use settings that someone posted earlier in this thread.

My initial impressions are pretty good. The HD picture is very detailed and the SD is no worse and maybe a bit better than the 36" Panasonic HD tube that it is replacing. Even in custom mode with all the "enhancers" turned off, the picture is still very colorful. My only complaints thus far are that shadow detail is poor and the larger screen really starts to show the over-compression artifacts from local and DirecTV HD programming.

The shadow detail is a limitation of LCD technology, so I'll just need to decide if I can live with it. Further calibrating it with Avia might help a bit as well.

Could someone that still has the shipping box from their 50A10 let me know the outside dimensions of the box. Also before you unpacked it did you notice if it was packed with styrofoam holding it securely in place in the box at the top and bottom so it could be laid on its back to transport it a short distance. Thanks.


Yes, the box does have styrofoam.....top and bottom. BTW, you do NOT want to lay it on its "back" when transporting it.......even for a "short" distance!

Does anyone have any suggestions for a stand for the 42A10. I want one that's not too deep. I have a stand that is exactly the width of the TV but It has a door in it and I can't get all my components in it. One that can accept components side by side. Also under $300 would be helpfull....

I bought a 36" tv stand at best buy for my 50A10. The tv hangs over abour 2/5" on each side but for the 42" it should be just fine. There are 3 glass shelves and it is a silver color that matches the tv. it's about 20" deep, so it's a little deeper then the tv. the best part was that it was only $79, and with myy $70.00 reward zone coupons it only cost me $9. I've been very happy with it and for the price I don't think it can be beat. I can't remember the brand but I'm sure if you went to BB and looked at their 36" tv stands you'd be able to find it.

Quick question, I'm having a CableCard (CC) installed today on my 42A10, is there anything i need to watch out for or are there known problems with the a10's and CC? Cable company is Comcast, i currently have a CC installed in my 60XS955 and saw big improvements on SD and a nice tweak on HD.

Well, I finally pulled the trigger on the 42'' A10 yesterday (just couldn't pass up the $1600 price tag), and I am very happy with my decision. IMO, the set has great PQ though Time Warner's cheap ($28) HDMI cables, and my Xbox and PS2 look great as well. Haven't tried any DVD's or the Gamecube yet. I am using the Scientific Atlanta HD8300 HD DVR.

Anyways, I was wondering if anyone else has had the same audio problem that I've had. Basically, I hooked up the HDMI cable from the DVR to the TV, and I found that I was without sound. I was able to get sound from the coax. connection, so I figured it wasn't a problem with the speakers. My first thought was that I had a problem with the audio output from the DVR, or the HDMI cable itself. I tried running some audio cables (Red & White) from the DVR to the audio input for the HDMI (in case you are using DVI --> HDMI), and that still didn't work. So that ruled out the HDMI cable (I think). Next, I got a crazy idea and decided to put the stereo audio cables from the DVR to the audio inputs for component video 4. Well, what do you know? I had audio coming from the TV's speakers.

So what do you guys think the problem is? Do I have a defective set that will not accept audio signals through the HDMI input? Are there any more simple tests I can run to pinpoint the exact problem?

BTW, I am currently using my surround receiver (digital optical cable from the DVR) for my TV's audio, but would like to be able to use the TV's speakers for watching TV.

Please help... and thanks. :)

Not sure if this is 100% correct and I'm not sure I understand your setup 100% B/c you said you have Optical from your DVR to your Reciever but you want to watch TV w TV speakers.

With HDMI, on that input you need to go into setup, audio, and turn the TV speakers to off-the Video will pass via HDMI and audio via optical to your reciever.

On the antenna input you can have the speaker on to use the TV's speakers if that is what you are doing.

If that is not what you are doing I guess you would have to turn the speaker on/off at your discretion on the cable box input.

My Scientific Atlanta HD8300 has optical going to my reciever, HDMI into the TV. Speakers on the TV are set to "off" and everything works fine.

Well, I finally pulled the trigger on the 42'' A10 yesterday (just couldn't pass up the $1600 price tag), and I am very happy with my decision. IMO, the set has great PQ though Time Warner's cheap ($28) HDMI cables, and my Xbox and PS2 look great as well. Haven't tried any DVD's or the Gamecube yet. I am using the Scientific Atlanta HD8300 HD DVR.

Anyways, I was wondering if anyone else has had the same audio problem that I've had. Basically, I hooked up the HDMI cable from the DVR to the TV, and I found that I was without sound. I was able to get sound from the coax. connection, so I figured it wasn't a problem with the speakers. My first thought was that I had a problem with the audio output from the DVR, or the HDMI cable itself. I tried running some audio cables (Red & White) from the DVR to the audio input for the HDMI (in case you are using DVI --> HDMI), and that still didn't work. So that ruled out the HDMI cable (I think). Next, I got a crazy idea and decided to put the stereo audio cables from the DVR to the audio inputs for component video 4. Well, what do you know? I had audio coming from the TV's speakers.

So what do you guys think the problem is? Do I have a defective set that will not accept audio signals through the HDMI input? Are there any more simple tests I can run to pinpoint the exact problem?

BTW, I am currently using my surround receiver (digital optical cable from the DVR) for my TV's audio, but would like to be able to use the TV's speakers for watching TV.

Please help... and thanks. :)

The problem is not with your TV it is with your DVR. If you have a Scientific Atlanta 8300HD then there are problems with the audio over HDMI. Some people can’t get any sound over HDMI and others can only get stereo sound. Currently I am not aware of anyone who has gotten 5.1 Dolby Digital to work over HDMI with the 8300HD and a Sony TV or any other TV for that matter. The solution to the problem is to get an 8300HD with the audio menu. This might require a cable company software update if they use the passport software. TWC-NC in Raliegh NC just updated this about 2 weeks ago. This menu will allow you to use Digital coaxial or optical audio output to your receiver. If you don’t want DD then you should be able to use the rca audio outputs from the cable box. You might have to adjust the Audio menu in the cable box to output 2.0 audio over rca or HDMI though. I wouldn’t suggest using the TV speakers though. If your receiver has a night mode then use that with the optical cable for watching standard Non-Digital TV programs. This will eliminate the low frequencies and increase the vocals in the center channel. That works pretty well for me.

Here are the box dimensions, W x H x D, in case anyone else is having trouble finding them. I'll message CFoote and have him put them in the first post.

42" box dimensions - 43.5" x 33.5" x 18.5"

50" box dimensions - 50" x 37" x 20.5"

First of all, Id like to thank everyone in this thread. Y'all helped out a ton! Got my 42" and HT system set up the other day and it is killer! This is my first HT system (just got out of college and am now a Graduate Student) and I am very happy with it. Tweaked it some so it looks more to my liking but im really waiting for about another 6 weeks when the store I bought it from will come out to ISF calibrate it. (Paid MSRP but figured the prof install of the sound system I got from them plus the future calibration made up for the price difference). Thanks again for helping me find a great TV!

Louis

Sony E42A10
Yamaha RX-V657
Marantz DV4500
Comcast Digital Cable w/ Motorola DCT6412
L/R B&W 602 S3
C B&W LCR60 S3
SL/SR B&W 602 S1

Proud new owner of a Sony 50" A10. Bought it yesterday with matching stand and warranty, but won't be able to pick it up until Saturday, which is no big deal because I have quite a few rearrangements and things to make to make room for the set. Plus, Saturday is just in time for most of the college football games!

I had been doing a lot of research for the last couple of years and finally decided it was time to buy. I was initially sold on DLP but after seeing the sony I thought it met all my needs and was the best bang for the buck. I'm a college student, so price was definitely an issue when deciding which set to buy. Will be getting the Xbox 360 in Nov and can't wait to see how it looks.

All of us proud owners should start a seperate thread for the picture settings and tweaks to the service menu so that we don't have to dig through pages and pages of text. Can't wait to get it on Sat and start tweaking the picture.

Also, does anyone have any idea how long it will be before someone figures out how to fix the red push and such in the service menu? Thanks in advance!

what resolution is everyone running for their pc connection????

are people getting overscan problems @ 1280x720?

i managed good results @ 1200x666 @ 16:9 using powerstrip

what magic have you worked?

I am a newbee, I have a laptop that I would like to hook up to my 42" A10. What is "POWERSTRIP" that you are refering to? How do you use it? Thanks

Just got back from WalMart. In the auto dept. , they have 3 microcloths for $3.00. These should be great for screen cleaning as they are very soft.

Proud new owner of a Sony 50" A10. Bought it yesterday with matching stand and warranty, but won't be able to pick it up until Saturday, which is no big deal because I have quite a few rearrangements and things to make to make room for the set. Plus, Saturday is just in time for most of the college football games!

I had been doing a lot of research for the last couple of years and finally decided it was time to buy. I was initially sold on DLP but after seeing the sony I thought it met all my needs and was the best bang for the buck. I'm a college student, so price was definitely an issue when deciding which set to buy. Will be getting the Xbox 360 in Nov and can't wait to see how it looks.

All of us proud owners should start a seperate thread for the picture settings and tweaks to the service menu so that we don't have to dig through pages and pages of text. Can't wait to get it on Sat and start tweaking the picture.

Also, does anyone have any idea how long it will be before someone figures out how to fix the red push and such in the service menu? Thanks in advance!

Congrats. I hope AkaStp does not mind too much, but there is already a thread for tweaks: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=567709&highlight=V+tweaks

It does not get used much though. If you search back, you will see lots of discussion on the service menu, red push, and tweak settings people have done.

Post yours too after you have tried some of them.

Alright, another run-down on the 50A10. Have had the set since saturday night, tweaked each input setting for what i was using it for (input 4 for xbox, input 5 for DVD and input 2 for the PS2) Halo running at 16:9 in 480p looked amazing. The quality of all the textures and the details on the characters is breath-taking. The TV is too good for the xbox though, since it makes the system show its limitations more than if you viewed it on a non-HD tv. Fable and Jade Empire looked amazing as well! This TV brought out details in all 3 games that i had never seen before! GT4 looked better but this TV really shows the limitation of the PS2, a lot worse than the xbox. Also, NO GAME LAG at all! I tested it in Halo 2 extensively, online and offline. All this tv did was make my Halo 2 online play awesome!

Could you please post your video settings for your xbox input?

Thanks!

Does anyone have any suggestions for a stand for the 42A10. I want one that's not too deep. I have a stand that is exactly the width of the TV but It has a door in it and I can't get all my components in it. One that can accept components side by side. Also under $300 would be helpfull....

www.racksandstands.com

I just got my 42 today. Everything looks great but when my TV is off I noticed the screen in the very middle is lighter than on the sides. I wonder why.

I just got my 42 today. Everything looks great but when my TV is off I noticed the screen in the very middle is lighter than on the sides. I wonder why.

Relax...it is totally normal on most RPTV's. It is just the light from your room reflecting inside the TV. This question comes up again and again. Not a problem at all. You shouldn't look at your TV when it is off anyhow. :)

Just got back from WalMart. In the auto dept. , they have 3 microcloths for $3.00. These should be great for screen cleaning as they are very soft.


Yeah I was wondering about this myself.

Saw some of the options at BB for cleaning but thought there must be a better method.

Kool, Thanx.

Just brought home and set up the 50" A10. Picture is amazing, better than my Sony 46" RPTV (I have them right next to each other to compare picture quality.

The blacks are just fine, no issues at all. The scrolling text on Fox News is crisp as can be, not blurry like it is on my RPTV.

So far, I love it!

Although I can't get the picture to come through via the HDMI cable that I picked up. I had to use component cables.

Will HDMI improve the SD at all on the 42? I have yet to set up the HD Direct Tivo.

Yes, the box does have styrofoam.....top and bottom. BTW, you do NOT want to lay it on its "back" when transporting it.......even for a "short" distance!

Is transporting on its back truly an issue? Any reference to this in the owner's manual etc? (I'm not disagreeing, I'm just curious...)

About how long is the bulb expected to last on the A10 sets?
The TV at our house can be used 7 hours during a school day and then in the summer time or weekends it could be on for 15 hours. My concern is that the bulb would need replacing after a year or two at this rate ... maybe 3000 hours a year. I saw where the replacement bulb cost ~ 350$ and thought that was pretty darn expensive to be replacing every year or two.

I think you can buy your extended warranty directly from Sony. I did this with a Sony Vaio Computer after purchasing same from Best Buy...

Anyone have the link or any idea if this offer is still available?

I can find the prices of the extended warrantys (very attractive) on the Sony Website, But no link on how to buy them....



Maybe another set of eyes or fingers can help me find the link to where to buy this warranty?

The Sears Warranty was just too expensive!


Good pick up. I checked your link and agree, very good warranty at a great price. Called Sonystyle Sales who said they would be happy to sell you a warranty no matter where you bought it. Call them with the serial number, sales receipt info, and your credit card and the warranty will be in effect. The paperwork may not arrive for a month but in that time you just call with your serial number and they can see the warranty coverage that you chose.

Is transporting on its back truly an issue? Any reference to this in the owner's manual etc? (I'm not disagreeing, I'm just curious...)

Well, if it wasn't an issue, Sony has now wasted a bunch of ink printing on the box "transport upright - do not lay on side". :D

The problem is not with your TV it is with your DVR. If you have a Scientific Atlanta 8300HD then there are problems with the audio over HDMI. Some people can’t get any sound over HDMI and others can only get stereo sound. Currently I am not aware of anyone who has gotten 5.1 Dolby Digital to work over HDMI with the 8300HD and a Sony TV or any other TV for that matter. The solution to the problem is to get an 8300HD with the audio menu. This might require a cable company software update if they use the passport software. TWC-NC in Raliegh NC just updated this about 2 weeks ago. This menu will allow you to use Digital coaxial or optical audio output to your receiver. If you don’t want DD then you should be able to use the rca audio outputs from the cable box. You might have to adjust the Audio menu in the cable box to output 2.0 audio over rca or HDMI though. I wouldn’t suggest using the TV speakers though. If your receiver has a night mode then use that with the optical cable for watching standard Non-Digital TV programs. This will eliminate the low frequencies and increase the vocals in the center channel. That works pretty well for me.

Well, I mentioned that I was currently using optical to my receiver, and that it was working fine. Yes, it works, and is a good solution, but if I am having a problem with the audio on my HDMI input and also the RCA audio input supplied for DVI --> HDMI cables, I will simply not accept a defective TV. This is why I'm trying to find the exact problem.

Also, I tried using the RCA audio output from the SA HD8300 to the RCA audio input on the TV (the one associated with the HDMI input), and I was getting no audio. Here's the funny thing... moving the RCA audio input from HDMI to Component actually worked. This is why I'm thinking that my problem may be with BOTH the audio input over HDMI, and the audio input over the RCA audio "associated" with the HDMI input. I get no audio with either.

I'm probably making this too confusing, but please help. Also, if further clarification is still needed, please ask.

Thanks for all the help. I'd really hate to have to return this otherwise fine TV, but I'll do it if it is indeed defective.

So the native resolution on this TV is 1280 x 720 Progressive right?

That means a 1080i input is de-interlaced to 720p?

Sorry for the noob question. :)

Thanks abward for the reply, didn't realize there was already a thread for these topics. Thaks for the heads up! :)

After having the TV for about a week and a half, I'm really happy with it. I was worried at first that 50" might be too big at 8-9 ft, but it's perfect. No dead or stuck pixels, and I'm not seeing any of the color blotches that others are talking about. I've got all lights off looking at my PC input right now, which has gone to blank screen saver, and it looks uniform to me. Perhaps a wee bit darker as you move towards the edges, but in a uniform manner, not blotchy, and I had to stare at it with a discriminating eye to even notice that much. I don't hear any fan noise, and when I got close to listen for it, I heard the TiVo fan before I noticed the TV fan. I haven't tried and don't care about the speakers, everything runs through the receiver. The only real issue I've had is SSE, which I've never seen before as this is my first non-tube TV, but I'm getting used to it. SD material looks fine (DirecTivo R10 via S-video), DVDs look great (Samsung HD950 via HDMI), and the PC input is a blast (attached a couple UT2004 pics for anyone who cares). The number of inputs is really nice... got to decommission the Mad Catz HDTV switcher and plug the XBOX and PS2 straight into the TV, and had an opportunity to plug in the camcorder over the weekend using the side input. This is without a doubt the nicest TV I've ever had the pleasure of using.

stevenmh, post more pics!!!

About how long is the bulb expected to last on the A10 sets?
The TV at our house can be used 7 hours during a school day and then in the summer time or weekends it could be on for 15 hours. My concern is that the bulb would need replacing after a year or two at this rate ... maybe 3000 hours a year. I saw where the replacement bulb cost ~ 350$ and thought that was pretty darn expensive to be replacing every year or two.

The lamp will last longer if you don't turn the TV on and off a lot during the day/night. Once it's on leave it on. If you turn it off leave it off until you get home from work, activities, etc. Use common sense.

A new lamp for the A10 costs about $200 right now. The Sony warranty covers lamp replacement if it should burn out before it expires. It might be wise to buy a backup lamp now in case it does go out.

I have a 42" gwIII and am considering upgrading to this set. I sit 7-7.5 feet away from the 42" but find it small.

I am considering the 50" at 7.5-8.5 feet. Is is worth the upgrade? What's the closest you guys sit to the 50"?

I have seen SDE on my 42" but it doesn't bother me.

comcast cable boxes dont have a hdmi out,They have a dvi out. would a dvi-hdmi cable from the box to the a10 do the job?
No longer true: Moto 6412 phase 3 has HDMI out.
(Apologies if this has been corrected already. I'm behind in my reading.)

Correction: 6412, not 6413! Sorry.

I just bought a E50A10 from Nebraska Furniture Mart and Paid $2200.00, Is that an alright price, or does someone know of where it is cheaper and I could get a price match. Also I have a option of buying an warranty from them.

Option 1= 3 years parts & labor, including the bulb $250

Option 2= 5 years parts & labor, but does not cover the bulb $300

Whats my better choice or none at all.

Thanks Adam

stevenmh

looks like you have a border around those unreal pics...why doesn't the game fill the entire screen?

attached a couple UT2004 pics for anyone who caresi.
Are you running powerstrip? If so, what at what resolution settings? Got my PC setup yesterday, and at native res, it seems I'm losing an inch or so of desktop around the edges (somethings to do with the TV not doing 1:1 pixel mapping I'd imagine?). I prefer to settle with a small black border while using the PC, rather than loose part of the screen. Any advice (video card I'm using is a eVGA GeForce 6600 256MB DDR)?

Is the exact width 46 3/4"? I am so close to being able to fit the 50". If it were an inch or 2 less it would be perfect.

Also I am approx 8' from the set, would the 50" be considered to large?

Also am I correct that the general consensus seems to be that the E50A10 is a great television?

Also I am approx 8' from the set, would the 50" be considered to large?

Also am I correct that the general consensus seems to be that the E50A10 is a great television?

SDE will be quite noticeable at that distance. Whether that will bother you or not is another matter. For a 50" screen you should really be sitting 9'-10' away. I'd recommend the 42A10 for an 8' sitting distance. I have the 42A10 and it's perfect at 8' and no noticeable SDE.

The A10 is a really nice HDTV with a lot of versatility. I have some minor PQ issues with it but I realize that no TV is perfect. Find a good deal on it and you'll be set.

dark rain, I have the 50a10 and am 8ft away. See NO SDE.

I have a 42" gwIII and am considering upgrading to this set. I sit 7-7.5 feet away from the 42" but find it small.

I am considering the 50" at 7.5-8.5 feet. Is is worth the upgrade? What's the closest you guys sit to the 50"?

I have seen SDE on my 42" but it doesn't bother me.

That would be pretty close to a 50 inch model...some would love it, and others would be bothered by it. You will see more SDE on the 50 than the 42 at that distance. Go to a store, measure out your viewing distance, and watch the TV carefully for a while. See if fast motion bothers you, and check for SDE. If it passes the test, go for it. Would be best to buy where you can return it though, just in case you decide it is too big for your room size.

dark rain, I have the 50a10 and am 8ft away. See NO SDE.
I must have better eyesight because I start noticing SDE on my 42A10 at 7 feet.

Well, I mentioned that I was currently using optical to my receiver, and that it was working fine. Yes, it works, and is a good solution, but if I am having a problem with the audio on my HDMI input and also the RCA audio input supplied for DVI --> HDMI cables, I will simply not accept a defective TV. This is why I'm trying to find the exact problem.

Also, I tried using the RCA audio output from the SA HD8300 to the RCA audio input on the TV (the one associated with the HDMI input), and I was getting no audio. Here's the funny thing... moving the RCA audio input from HDMI to Component actually worked. This is why I'm thinking that my problem may be with BOTH the audio input over HDMI, and the audio input over the RCA audio "associated" with the HDMI input. I get no audio with either.

I'm probably making this too confusing, but please help. Also, if further clarification is still needed, please ask.

Thanks for all the help. I'd really hate to have to return this otherwise fine TV, but I'll do it if it is indeed defective.
What Cable company do you have? What city and state are you in? What software are they using(Passport or Sara)? What version are you on? Do you have the audio menu under the advanced settings menu in the cable box? Find this information out and then we can see if the cable box is the culprit. Are you able to get a Dolby digital signal through the optical cable while watching the HDMI video? If you are then that is the best solution. If you want to make sure you don’t have a defective TV then just plug in the HDMI cable turn on the video. Then plug two rca cables into the HDMI analog inputs and use something that you know works for the source like a DVD player or a video game system. Make sure your TV speakers are not set to off or pass through. You should be able to see the HDMI video with the analog audio. If that doesn’t work then your TV might be defective. I doubt that it is defective though. HDMI is not ready for prime time yet. It doesn’t really work right as it is designed right now.

Hey Adam_1983, I too just bought mine from Nebraska Furniture Mart here in Omaha. Was gonna go to sears but NFM was the way better deal, especially with the 30 month no interest financing. They also had a deal that if you got the tv you got 25% off the stand, so it was a great deal. I went with the 5 year warranty for $299 because I checked sears and best buys warranties thoroughly and NFM actually protects a lot more than the sears one and bestbuy one. I know it doesn't cover the bulb, but I figure that if the bulb goes bad I'll have to spend another $199 and it would still be a hundred dollars cheaper than the sears warranty.

I must have better eyesight because I start noticing SDE on my 42A10 at 7 feet.

That is a good point. Your eyesight has a lot to do with whether you see SDE clearly or not. If you don't see perfectly at the distance the TV is from you, it will mask the SDE quite a bit.

stevenmh

looks like you have a border around those unreal pics...why doesn't the game fill the entire screen?

Press the "Zoom" button on your remote and the border will disappear. At least is does for me.

I'm new to this forum but had a couple questions I hope someone might have some insight into. I just got the 42" A10 and was wondering..

1. I have the PC connected to an NVidia 6800 GT and it displays the screen but it won't display videos as its not fast enough it seems. I also can't get the widescreen functionality to work either. I have the PC set to 1680x1050 but the TV won't scale down or maybe I don't have a setting right as I have to scroll around on the TV to get to certain parts of the desktop for example.

2. I've seen that some members have PDFs or Word Docs on what settings look best in their opinion on the Samsung DLPs for example. Does anyone have one for the A10 that I could look at and make some adjustments for?

3. I have a HD DVR box, XBox, and new Sony upconverting DVD player. I was guessing that I would be best served using the HDMI for the DVD player but I'm not sure.

4. My HD DVR box wants me to select the resolutions that the TV has. It has 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i for options. If I select all of them it takes a while to switch channels as it trys to find whatever is best. Leaving it at just 1080i is the fastest and looks the best but should I also have 720p as an option or no? Thanks!

Jeff

Hey Adam_1983, I too just bought mine from Nebraska Furniture Mart here in Omaha. Was gonna go to sears but NFM was the way better deal, especially with the 30 month no interest financing. They also had a deal that if you got the tv you got 25% off the stand, so it was a great deal. I went with the 5 year warranty for $299 because I checked sears and best buys warranties thoroughly and NFM actually protects a lot more than the sears one and bestbuy one. I know it doesn't cover the bulb, but I figure that if the bulb goes bad I'll have to spend another $199 and it would still be a hundred dollars cheaper than the sears warranty.


They did not offer me a deal on the stand, I wish they would have. I also picked the 5 year over the 3, but wanted to see what everyone else was doing. Thanks for the response.

Adam

I really want to buy the 42a10 but everytime I see DVD on it I change my mind. For some reason DVD looks really bad. Went to a local place and they had a Sony progressive scan hooked up to Panasonic Plasma 42" HD and it looked great. Hooked same DVD player up to 42a10 and it looked really bad.

I would like to get the A10 as it is over a $1000 less than the plasma!!!!!!

I just bought a E50A10 from Nebraska Furniture Mart and Paid $2200.00, Is that an alright price, or does someone know of where it is cheaper and I could get a price match. Also I have a option of buying an warranty from them.

Option 1= 3 years parts & labor, including the bulb $250

Option 2= 5 years parts & labor, but does not cover the bulb $300

Whats my better choice or none at all.

Thanks Adam


Service Plans for Televisions (LCD, CRT, Projection) at Sonystyle start on day of purchase. It does not matter where you purchased the TV. While I've read in this forum that the bulb is covered, I'd call Sony to check.

TV Price range $1,500.01- $2,500.00

2 Year Service Plan $65
3 Year Service Plan $150
4 Year Service Plan $200
5 Year Service Plan $280

I really want to buy the 42a10 but everytime I see DVD on it I change my mind. For some reason DVD looks really bad. Went to a local place and they had a Sony progressive scan hooked up to Panasonic Plasma 42" HD and it looked great. Hooked same DVD player up to 42a10 and it looked really bad.

I would like to get the A10 as it is over a $1000 less than the plasma!!!!!!

Honestly I think this is just due to showroom lack of quality. A guy at Best Buy hooked up a dvd for me and i was stunned by the lack of quality. Grays and fast motion of falling down a cave (LOTR II) just faded to a digi blend (ala mid 90's video games on CD ROM). Tried the same scene at a different store and it was much improved (though still far from good). I have to assume that with proper setup and settings adjustment DVDs look good, otherwise people would be screaming in this thread.

Honestly I think this is just due to showroom lack of quality. A guy at Best Buy hooked up a dvd for me and i was stunned by the lack of quality. Grays and fast motion of falling down a cave (LOTR II) just faded to a digi blend (ala mid 90's video games on CD ROM). Tried the same scene at a different store and it was much improved (though still far from good). I have to assume that with proper setup and settings adjustment DVDs look good, otherwise people would be screaming in this thread.

I would have to say the Panny plamsas overall trump the Sony A-10. Not that the A-10 is really bad, the Panny is just better. When Consumer Reports tested the GWIV Sony (the model preceding the A-10), they rated HD PQ as 'good', and DVD and Standard Def TV as only 'fair'. The better plasmas rated much better. The A-10 looks rather 'hazy' compared to the looking thru a window look of the Panny plasmas. But the A-10 is a better value for most people.

Both the 42" A-10 and 42" ED Panny are right around $1500 now. I guess anyone looking for this sized TV should do themselves a favor and look at both sets.

I really want to buy the 42a10 but everytime I see DVD on it I change my mind. For some reason DVD looks really bad. Went to a local place and they had a Sony progressive scan hooked up to Panasonic Plasma 42" HD and it looked great. Hooked same DVD player up to 42a10 and it looked really bad.

I would like to get the A10 as it is over a $1000 less than the plasma!!!!!!

It's most likely because the picture settings on the A10 weren't set up right for DVDs. Remember that DVDs are 480i (SD) and need to be upconverted to 720p on the A10. This means that the DVD player needs to have a really good deinterlacer to get a decent image. I haven't tested the A10's deinterlacer since my Sony 775 DVD player does it better. Condsidering that DVDs are a SD source, quality varies greatly between discs. A DVE or AVIA calibration is necessary for proper black level, color, sharpness, etc. Although once calibrated I tend to tweak by eye a bit because the color is usually too saturated and the image looks a bit soft.

My custom A10 settings for my Sony 775 DVD player (set to 480p over component) are like this:

Iris - 0 or 1 (depends on room lighting)
Picture - 63
Brightness - 51
Color - 38
Hue - 0
Color Temp - Neutral or Warm 1 (depends on my mood)
Sharpness - 45

Noise Reduction - Off
Black Corrector - Off
Advanced Iris - Low or Medium (depends on film)
Clear White - Off
Live Color - Off
Gamma - Low

Never run the 'Standard' or 'Vivid' modes for DVDs as they both look like crap. They're generic settings and you just can't tweak them very much.

Both the 42" A-10 and 42" ED Panny are right around $1500 now. I guess anyone looking for this sized TV should do themselves a favor and look at both sets.

True, but the ED Panny has an inferior PQ to the HD Panny. At 10 feet plus viewing distance though, the ED Panny may still trump the A-10 for overall quality of viewing. Good idea to check all of them out.

I've decided on the 50"... but just need 1 question answered:

Where was this TV made? USA? Mexico? Taiwan? Japan?

I'm going to purchase this TV in the USA and bring it back to Canada as it is not released yet in Canada... provided of course it was manufactured in North America somewhere and qualifies under the North American Free Trade Agreement to be duty-free. Still gotta pay taxes tho :/

Those are pretty much the same settings I came to by eye. It really didn't take that long either here's the movies I did it with and how.

Fight Club - first scene, there is a side shot of Edward Norton and with the regular settings you can not see his ear so then I changed my settings so that I could see his ear then brought down the the settings so it was only visible.

The fellowship of the ring - second scene the shire, Here I set the color of the grass and leaves, the color is suppost to be colorfull so don't set it all the way down. There are a few close up of both Frodo and Gandolf thats where I set the sharpness so that their faces were still very sharp but the trees in the background were blurred.

Spiderman - I used this whole movie to tweak all the settings I had just changed. The burning building scene with the green goblin was good for tweaking the blacklevels, sharpness, and color. Another good scene to tweak from was the parade scene.

Thats all I used and ended up with a very good result.

Service Plans for Televisions (LCD, CRT, Projection) at Sonystyle start on day of purchase. It does not matter where you purchased the TV. While I've read in this forum that the bulb is covered, I'd call Sony to check.



I just called Sony and the warranty does not cover bulbs but it does cover the LCDs going bad.

I've decided on the 50"... but just need 1 question answered:

Where was this TV made? USA? Mexico? Taiwan? Japan?

I'm going to purchase this TV in the USA and bring it back to Canada as it is not released yet in Canada... provided of course it was manufactured in North America somewhere and qualifies under the North American Free Trade Agreement to be duty-free. Still gotta pay taxes tho :/

So far as I have heard they are either made in Pennsylvania, or Mexico. I don't think any of them come from overseas.

I've decided on the 50"... but just need 1 question answered:

Where was this TV made? USA? Mexico? Taiwan? Japan?

I'm going to purchase this TV in the USA and bring it back to Canada as it is not released yet in Canada... provided of course it was manufactured in North America somewhere and qualifies under the North American Free Trade Agreement to be duty-free. Still gotta pay taxes tho :/

Some are made in the USA and some are made in Mexico.

I just called Sony and the warranty does not cover bulbs but it does cover the LCDs going bad.

Not much of a warranty then, the bulb is by far the most likely thing to fail on these TV's.

I just called Sony and the warranty does not cover bulbs but it does cover the LCDs going bad.

They may have changed it, but I think the bulb is covered if it blows early on without a reason. That is to say that if mine burned out right now the bulb would be considered defective, thus covered under warranty.

Sweet!

Thanks for the info! I'll be one of the first to get it in Canada! And I think the Canadian version doesnt have the tuner build in as it violates some stupid Canadian something or other.

They may have changed it, but I think the bulb is covered if it blows early on without a reason. That is to say that if mine burned out right now the bulb would be considered defective, thus covered under warranty.

The bulbs are automatically covered for the first year under the standard Sony warranty. After that you are either on your own, or you must find an extended warranty that covers them.

What Cable company do you have? What city and state are you in? What software are they using(Passport or Sara)? What version are you on? Do you have the audio menu under the advanced settings menu in the cable box? Find this information out and then we can see if the cable box is the culprit. Are you able to get a Dolby digital signal through the optical cable while watching the HDMI video? If you are then that is the best solution. If you want to make sure you don’t have a defective TV then just plug in the HDMI cable turn on the video. Then plug two rca cables into the HDMI analog inputs and use something that you know works for the source like a DVD player or a video game system. Make sure your TV speakers are not set to off or pass through. You should be able to see the HDMI video with the analog audio. If that doesn’t work then your TV might be defective. I doubt that it is defective though. HDMI is not ready for prime time yet. It doesn’t really work right as it is designed right now.

Time Warner Cable
Cincinnati, OH
Passport (I'm pretty sure)
Not sure about ver. number
I believe I have some audio options in the advanced settings menu, but I'll have to check for sure when I get home.

As far as dolby digital through the optical cable, I'm not sure, because I haven't seen any DD programs yet. I get 2 channel stereo through optical at the very least. I'll check again when I get home.

I also already tried the RCA cables from the DVR box to the HDMI analog audio inputs. That did not work. I get the HDMI video, but no audio (using only the HDMI cable, or HDMI + RCA audio). But I was able to get audio when I moved the RCA audio cables from the HDMI analog audio inputs to the Component Video (5) audio inputs.

Well, it's been 3 years since I started researching TVs and I've finally pulled the trigger...
From the start, I was looking at 34" Sony XBRs, but I remained patient as new technology became more popular and prices fell. For the last year I was bouncing between the Sony RP LCDs and Samsung DLP sets, but held out figuring prices would drop yet again. Finally this year, the release of the A10s...perfect price point, great PQ, and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I read about 70 pages on this thread convinced this was the TV for me BUT THEN...my eyes drifted at the stores...to plasmas and LCDs. The prices on LCDs and plasmas had always been out of my price range, but with the recent price drops I began to take notice and I couldn't help but acknowledge how outstanding the PQ is on some of these sets. I checked out the Panny plasmas, but it was the Sharp 37" LCD Aquos that won my heart over. I made the purchase at Costco (backed with their awesome lifetime return policy) for the MSRP price of a 42" A10 and boom, the Sharp became my very first HDTV and I couldn't be more satisfied. No SDE, no rainbows, no burn in, no reflection, just a pure beautiful image at an affordable price. I figure from here on out, I'll take a break from the countless hours of reading these boards and just enjoy my television. Sorry if this post is completely off topic, I just wanted to thank everyone here, especially in this thread, for taking the time to share their experience and expertise on not just the A10, but the technology of televisions as a whole. You all have truly shaped my decision, despite it being for a different tv. For those of you who've been reading countless pages and holding out for months or years...my advice, just continue to be patient! If you are having second thoughts, the TV is not for you. You will know she's the one when you find her!

Are you running powerstrip? If so, what at what resolution settings? Got my PC setup yesterday, and at native res, it seems I'm losing an inch or so of desktop around the edges (somethings to do with the TV not doing 1:1 pixel mapping I'd imagine?). I prefer to settle with a small black border while using the PC, rather than loose part of the screen. Any advice (video card I'm using is a eVGA GeForce 6600 256MB DDR)?

No... one of the reasons I got this TV was so that I could STOP using Powerstrip. I previously used it with a 32" CRT HDTV, but 640x480 was the only res I could get to work consistently, and it was tedious to switch between monitor and TV.

I'm using an ATI X800XT, and all I do is select 1280x720 using the Windows Display Properties resolution slider. Depending on the zoom setting, I either get about 1 inch of underscan or overscan around the image. Toggle your zoom button and you should be able to switch from overscan to underscan. I have not seen anybody yet find a service menu tweak to get rid of the scaling on the PC input and do 1:1 mapping at native res. It would be nice if that could be worked out, but in the meantime, I don't let the black border bother me. It still looks great.

I'm new to this forum but had a couple questions I hope someone might have some insight into. I just got the 42" A10 and was wondering..

1. I have the PC connected to an NVidia 6800 GT and it displays the screen but it won't display videos as its not fast enough it seems. I also can't get the widescreen functionality to work either. I have the PC set to 1680x1050 but the TV won't scale down or maybe I don't have a setting right as I have to scroll around on the TV to get to certain parts of the desktop for example.

2. I've seen that some members have PDFs or Word Docs on what settings look best in their opinion on the Samsung DLPs for example. Does anyone have one for the A10 that I could look at and make some adjustments for?

3. I have a HD DVR box, XBox, and new Sony upconverting DVD player. I was guessing that I would be best served using the HDMI for the DVD player but I'm not sure.

4. My HD DVR box wants me to select the resolutions that the TV has. It has 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i for options. If I select all of them it takes a while to switch channels as it trys to find whatever is best. Leaving it at just 1080i is the fastest and looks the best but should I also have 720p as an option or no? Thanks!

Jeff

(1) I responded to your PM on this.

(2) The settings for the PC input aren't as broad as the settings for the other inputs, but it does have two canned sets of settings... one for video and one for text. I played around with the limited settings for each but didn't feel like I got it looking any better than stock. I use the video mode for games and text mode for everything else. Using text mode for gaming makes the colors washed out and the details not as crisp. Using the video mode for internet/email/office causes the text to be too sharp and hard on the eyes. It was a good idea for them to make two separate PC modes that's easy to switch between. I can post some pics when I get home tonight of office/email/internet.

(3) I bought a Samsung HD950 with the TV so I could use HDMI. It looks good to me. My main reason for wanting DVD on HDMI was actually so I would have the two rear components to use for my consoles and get rid of the cheap component switchbox I had. If you have both HDMI and component inputs available, I'd say try both and see which looks best to you.

(4) I'm surprised 1080i looks best, since the TV will downscale it to 720p anyway. My DVD player has the same resolution options, maybe I should play with them and see how 1080i looks. I just assumed 720p would be best and didn't compare.

Time Warner Cable
Cincinnati, OH
Passport (I'm pretty sure)
Not sure about ver. number
I believe I have some audio options in the advanced settings menu, but I'll have to check for sure when I get home.

As far as dolby digital through the optical cable, I'm not sure, because I haven't seen any DD programs yet. I get 2 channel stereo through optical at the very least. I'll check again when I get home.

I also already tried the RCA cables from the DVR box to the HDMI analog audio inputs. That did not work. I get the HDMI video, but no audio (using only the HDMI cable, or HDMI + RCA audio). But I was able to get audio when I moved the RCA audio cables from the HDMI analog audio inputs to the Component Video (5) audio inputs.

Ok you should be able to go into the advanced menu on the cable box. Set the audio output to HDMI. There should be three options that are something like HDMI, analog output, and Digital output. See if you can get at least 2.0 audio through the HDMI cable. Also check the audio menu on your TV. There might be a setting that automatically passes the audio through the TV. My Sony WF TV has an option to turn off the speakers. Make sure that the speakers are turned on. That setting might be specific to the HDMI input so that it is off when you have the audio plugged into the HDMI inputs but it is on for all other inputs. Did you try to get the audio to work with a different source other than the cable box? Also make sure that the audio output in the cable box is set to 100% for both recorded and real time material. That setting is also in the advanced menu. I wonder if the problem could be that the audio inputs associated with the HDMI port on the TV will only pass the audio through. That would explain why you don’t hear any sound on the HDMI input but you do on the component inputs. Try using the audio outputs from the TV. See if you can pass the audio through the TV to your audio receiver. I know that works for my WF series TV. That is the way I had to listen to it until they got us the new audio menu. I am still a little confused about why you want to get this to work though? There is no good reason to use the speakers on the TV if you have a receiver.

Some are made in the USA and some are made in Mexico.


It would be nice to know if one had more problems than the other?
Maybe we should start a poll of returned A10's from Mexico vs. Pittsburgh!

I've decided on the 50"... but just need 1 question answered:

Where was this TV made? USA? Mexico? Taiwan? Japan?

I'm going to purchase this TV in the USA and bring it back to Canada as it is not released yet in Canada... provided of course it was manufactured in North America somewhere and qualifies under the North American Free Trade Agreement to be duty-free. Still gotta pay taxes tho :/

Perhaps more accurately, these were ASSEMBLED in Mexico/USA. Most likely the innards were made in Taiwan, maybe some parts in China/Japan. That's my bet. That doesn't affect NAFTA considerations, though; otherwise NO consumer electronics (except of course high-end/botique stuff made entirely in the USA) would qualify under NAFTA.

BTW, my Mexican-assembled / Asian-made 50 inch set performs about as good as I think an A10 can perform, sans calibration, and that's good enough for me. I love it. But I will have it calibrated, just as soon as the ISF community figures out how to calibrate these . . .

Well if the TV downscales it to 720p anyways then maybe I should just set it on that. I never tried it with just 720p by itself but the 1080i looked pretty good so I dunno.

As for the individual settings, what I'm hearing is that for each specific mode, for example video 4, you can make specific adjustments and the TV will remember that, if you switch between 4 and 5 for example. That makes sense and is why that one guy had settings listed for the DVD option of the TV.

Thanks!

Ok you should be able to go into the advanced menu on the cable box. Set the audio output to HDMI. There should be three options that are something like HDMI, analog output, and Digital output. See if you can get at least 2.0 audio through the HDMI cable. Also check the audio menu on your TV. There might be a setting that automatically passes the audio through the TV. My Sony WF TV has an option to turn off the speakers. Make sure that the speakers are turned on. That setting might be specific to the HDMI input so that it is off when you have the audio plugged into the HDMI inputs but it is on for all other inputs. Did you try to get the audio to work with a different source other than the cable box? Also make sure that the audio output in the cable box is set to 100% for both recorded and real time material. That setting is also in the advanced menu. I wonder if the problem could be that the audio inputs associated with the HDMI port on the TV will only pass the audio through. That would explain why you don’t hear any sound on the HDMI input but you do on the component inputs. Try using the audio outputs from the TV. See if you can pass the audio through the TV to your audio receiver. I know that works for my WF series TV. That is the way I had to listen to it until they got us the new audio menu. I am still a little confused about why you want to get this to work though? There is no good reason to use the speakers on the TV if you have a receiver.

Crap. Checked everything in the SA HD8300 advanced menu, and the Sony menu, and still nothing. All audio was set to 100%, speakers were on, tried the different digital audio outputs, and still, nothing worked.

Next, I tried a different RCA audio source into the analog RCA inputs for the HDMI connection (used my Gamecube instead of the Time Warner box), and still, nothing.

I'm pretty sure it's the input on the TV. It simply isn't able to receive a signal on input #6 (HDMI) over either the HDMI cable directly, or through the extra RCA audio inputs. I think I've exhausted all options.

I'll probably be returning the set as soon as they're back in stock at CC. And to answer your question, I would normally listen to the audio through my receiver as you suggested, but there are just some times when I would rather just have the option to use the TV speakers (i.e. early in the morning when I'm trying to catch a little Sportscenter or Weather Channel before I head out the door, etc.). There are times when I don't need the full surround effect, and would rather just turn on as few devices as possible. But actually, the most important reason I'm concerned about this issue is because I refuse to accept a defective product. Even if it is something "trivial," these manufacturers should be responsible for any problems encountered with the products they sell. That's just the way it should be.

Anyways, thanks for your help mpgxsvcd and everyone else. If anyone else wants to chime in, feel free. I probably won't be returning the TV until they have them back in stock next week.

im waiting for my install next week for a comcast cablecard and dvr, anyone get the cablecard to work in the downtown chicago area? what shoudl i remind the tech guy to do? Seems to be quirky.

I have Time warner cable, and they are telling me that if I want to use the cable card I can not have DVR. Is this correct or are they wrong.

As for the individual settings, what I'm hearing is that for each specific mode, for example video 4, you can make specific adjustments and the TV will remember that, if you switch between 4 and 5 for example. That makes sense and is why that one guy had settings listed for the DVD option of the TV.



That is indeed the case. However, when you go to adjust the settings on Video 7 (VGA), it doesn't have all the same adjustments available as the other inputs. For instance, no sharpness control. However, Video 7 does have the unique feature of being able to switch between two modes... text mode and video mode... from either the settings menu or the 'picture' button on the remote. It's evident that video mode has a higher sharpness level than text mode.

I have Time warner cable, and they are telling me that if I want to use the cable card I can not have DVR. Is this correct or are they wrong.

Correct, you need a separate DVR box as Cable Card only has 1 way information. For DVR and other info you need 2 way communication.

Correct, you need a separate DVR box as Cable Card only has 1 way information. For DVR and other info you need 2 way communication.


So has anyone received a cable card from their cable company and a DVR box, will they do this.

Just got the Sony 42" A10. Have SD DirecTv and also an outside antenna on a 30' tower w/rotor. If local TV stations are broadcasting the HD signal, will the signals be on all VHF channels (2-9) or on UHF channels( to 69) or on all VHF/UHF channels? This will give me some direction in what to look for.

I can't figure out powerstrip. I tried creating a custom resolution of 1100x660 and it had the same amount of overscan. Any ideas?

I am using a Zenith Sat520 with my A10, this unit has svearal outputs, Native, Hybrid 1 (720P,480P ), hybrid 2 (1080I,480P ), all 1080I & all 720P. Which output would be the best to use.

It sounds like the custom resolution isn't actually being applied. Powerstrip can be very ornery.

IMO, I would skip Powerstrip and just output 1280x720 using Windows display properties. The way I see it, Sony has set a deliberate underscan on Video 7 for some reason. The only way to get 1:1 pixel mapping at 1280x720 on this set is to find a way to undo that. Setting a custom resolution in Powerstrip is basically just another way to apply zoom to the picture, all you're doing is finding that perfect zoom level since the canned zoom levels on the TV are too much and result in overscan. It's still not 1:1 pixel mapping, because whatever resolution you send is going to be rescaled to 720p, and therefore isn't going to have a significant impact on PQ. 1:1 will only take place when you send 1280x720 output to a native 1280x720 screen. The only reason to go through the pain and suffering of learning how to develop custom resolutions in Powerstrip with this TV would be if that black border REALLY, REALLY bothers you. I speak on this from experience. I took the time to learn Powerstrip and generate a custom resolution for my previous 32" CRT HDTV. It was difficult and I had to redo it every time I updated my video drivers. Eventually I just stopped updating my drivers to avoid dealing with it. It was tedious to swap back and forth between the TV and the monitor, and became even more so when I upgraded from a CRT monitor to an LCD monitor, because the LCD shut down on the custom resolution. I'm using the A10 as a monitor right now as I type from the couch, and I'm not noticing the black border. I *am* noticing how nice it was to swap to a standard resolution from the Windows display panel without any need to involve Powerstrip and ATI hot keys.

My advice is to not let that black border bother you, and consider it a bonus if somebody ever figures out how to enable 1:1 pixel mapping in the service menu. Even if somebody does, it may turn out that a 720p signal goes off the edge of the visible screen a bit, which is why Sony underscanned it a bit in the first place.

So has anyone received a cable card from their cable company and a DVR box, will they do this.

Sure they will. They just charge you for both, which isn't so bad because the cable card adds a whopping $2 or less to your monthly bill - very little. That's the good news. The only good news. Here's what I mean:

I did exactly what you described for three weeks, both devices hooked up / plugged in. Three cable-guy visits later, and two cable card replacements later, I just had them yank the cable card. It never worked right. It kept losing all HD. What's the point if you can't get HD? Just plug the damned coax into your TV in that case.

Other personal gripes I have with the cable card(s) I got, even when they did work correctly (for a few days):

-- The cable card rarely displayed program information, or when it did, it was only on some stations and very sparse info. With any cable box, you just press "info" or guide and there you go - full program information, always, every time, every channel.

--If you want to see what's on later, or just see what's on other channels, with the cable card you're stuck with the old-fashioned way: literally change the channel to your local cable station's TVGuide-type channel, where the channels/shows/times gently scroll down - so 20th Century. And maddening, when you know that with any cable box, you just press "guide" or whatever your remote might call it, and up pops the full programming guide, where YOU decide if and where it scrolls to. My cable box even keeps the current channel playing in one corner while I scroll through listings, which I like a lot. Nothing revolutionary these days, I know, but it's not there with the cable card.

Essentially, if you get a cable card, might as well order up a subscription to TVGuide in paper form to go with it - that little booklet gives you a lot more interactivtivity than the cable card can muster as far as I can tell.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but even when these cable card things work, they really offer so little functionality. That really should change in later versions, I think. If not, then we know there's a conspiracy. Definitely a conspiracy. Of some sort.

What Format Setting should I use on the HD Direct Tivo with the 42"?

I just got the 42" Sony and have had it about two weeks.

I just noticed today when the screen in darker, like when switching channels, that there is a light green spot a little larger that a dollar coin, on the screen just to the left of the middle of the screen.

Are these dead pixels and should they be concentrated in one area? I got this TV from an online dealer and I suspect Sony will have to be called. Should I expect them to be able to repair this or will they have to replace the set?

Thank you for your help.

Brad

stevenmh, post more pics!!!

As requested...

I have Time warner cable, and they are telling me that if I want to use the cable card I can not have DVR. Is this correct or are they wrong.

I have both. Actually 2 HD DVR's and a cablecard. Time Warner Cable in Charlotte, NC.

As long as you are paying for it, they should not know or care how many HDTV's you actually have.

More...

And some more...

Here's the stand I bought for it.

I picked it up Saturday from Best Buy for $250. It's on sale this week for $220, gotta go back and get my price adjustment. Anyway, it's the Bush VS74377 and I really like it. It's the only one I could find, either locally or online, that would hold everything I needed including the center channel.

Thank you stevenmh. :)

Just got the Sony 42" A10. Have SD DirecTv and also an outside antenna on a 30' tower w/rotor. If local TV stations are broadcasting the HD signal, will the signals be on all VHF channels (2-9) or on UHF channels( to 69) or on all VHF/UHF channels? This will give me some direction in what to look for.

Go to www.antennaweb.org, type in your zipcode, hit enter, filter for digital stations, and see where you need to point your antenna.


Mitch

Here's the stand I bought for it.

I picked it up Saturday from Best Buy for $250. It's on sale this week for $220, gotta go back and get my price adjustment. Anyway, it's the Bush VS74377 and I really like it. It's the only one I could find, either locally or online, that would hold everything I needed including the center channel.


Are those your toys?? The little ones, not the big one. :)

What Format Setting should I use on the HD Direct Tivo with the 42"?

I haven't done extensive comparisons, but I am using 720p from my HDTiVo since that is the native resolution of the TV.

I just picked up the 42A10 from Best Buy ($1599 this week) and was looking for a way to test the picture. Hooked up an old set of rabbit ears and presto... NFL football in HD!!! I can get Fox, NBC, ABC, and CBS without even adjusting the antenna. Make sure you go through WegaGate and add Digital channels to autodetect.

The picture is great with the HD content. Regular SD content looked so-so - not sure which wide mode I like for that content.

Anybody have a Panasonic S77 with the 42" A10? HDMI looks like crap. It seems like the color palette is off. I have tried every single setting in both the TV and the DVD player, no avail. Weird color banding and flesh tones are especially horrible with a green tint. This is not the same as the macroblocking seen in the Faroudja chip, it seems to be completely different. Using component out looks gorgeous though, so I'm not worried, but why the hell did I buy a $200 DVD player? Sure as hell not for my TWO DVD-A discs, that's for sure...

I was wondering

Has Sony said ANYWHERE the technical specs for contrast and brightness for the E42A10?

can't find the numbers anywhere not even in-store best buy

Are those your toys?? The little ones, not the big one. :)

The ones on the stand are part of my Transformers collection. The ones on the floor belong to the dogs. I can't get them to pick their stuff up when they're done. :)

Here's the stand I bought for it.

I picked it up Saturday from Best Buy for $250. It's on sale this week for $220, gotta go back and get my price adjustment. Anyway, it's the Bush VS74377 and I really like it. It's the only one I could find, either locally or online, that would hold everything I needed including the center channel.

Thanks for the pictures! That's pretty cool, love the miniatures....(I'm guessing thats a pretty expensive collection there)

Does the Bush stand have an adjustable shelf? My center channel is a little bit taller than yours and wasn't sure if that shelf adjusted or not....

It sounds like the custom resolution isn't actually being applied. Powerstrip can be very ornery.

IMO, I would skip Powerstrip and just output 1280x720 using Windows display properties. The way I see it, Sony has set a deliberate underscan on Video 7 for some reason. The only way to get 1:1 pixel mapping at 1280x720 on this set is to find a way to undo that.
I actually haven't had time to fool with my PC since yesterday (Red Sox/Patriots combo in HD last night...). I use the HDMI input (DVI output into my Zektor DVS5.1 switcher, to HDMI). I would think this would be the ideal way to go for my setup, but I'm wondering if input 7 would offer any overall advantage to staying digital with the DVI/HDMI route? Any insight? I'm new to this HTPC game (I still need to spend a lot of time with it, esp. since the color is off when playing DVD's from the PC - games and pictures look great).

I was concerned about how the 50a10 would handle fast motion. Happy to say football last night looked great!!!!! Now I can relax and enjoy. Now I have to wait and see how the NBA looks.

What Format Setting should I use on the HD Direct Tivo with the 42"?

I recommend, if possible, to let 1080i, 720p, and 480i pass through to the A10.

The scaler in the A10 is pretty good for 1080i down to 720p.

720p will be passed through without being touched.

480i will be scaled up using the DRC circuit in the A10.

480p should not be outputted from the Tivo...let the A10 scale 480i instead.

Same comment applies for DVD players...You will likely get a better DVD picture by turning off 480p (progressive scan) in your DVD player. Try it.

I ordered a S77 a few days ago and it's supposed to arrive today. Will let you know how it looks on my 42A10.



Anybody have a Panasonic S77 with the 42" A10? HDMI looks like crap. It seems like the color palette is off. I have tried every single setting in both the TV and the DVD player, no avail. Weird color banding and flesh tones are especially horrible with a green tint. This is not the same as the macroblocking seen in the Faroudja chip, it seems to be completely different. Using component out looks gorgeous though, so I'm not worried, but why the hell did I buy a $200 DVD player? Sure as hell not for my TWO DVD-A discs, that's for sure...

stevenmh I noticed you still have the stickers on the front of your A10. If you plan to remove them be careful and do it very slowly. I posted previously and you may have seen that when I removed paint from the bezel came off!!!! Tried to fix but looks like crap. Did a lot of *^&^% and &^%&% and finally did convince seller to replace.

The big 3LCD one did the damage.

It sounds like the custom resolution isn't actually being applied. Powerstrip can be very ornery.

IMO, I would skip Powerstrip and just output 1280x720 using Windows display properties. The way I see it, Sony has set a deliberate underscan on Video 7 for some reason. The only way to get 1:1 pixel mapping at 1280x720 on this set is to find a way to undo that. Setting a custom resolution in Powerstrip is basically just another way to apply zoom to the picture, all you're doing is finding that perfect zoom level since the canned zoom levels on the TV are too much and result in overscan. It's still not 1:1 pixel mapping, because whatever resolution you send is going to be rescaled to 720p, and therefore isn't going to have a significant impact on PQ. 1:1 will only take place when you send 1280x720 output to a native 1280x720 screen. The only reason to go through the pain and suffering of learning how to develop custom resolutions in Powerstrip with this TV would be if that black border REALLY, REALLY bothers you. I speak on this from experience. I took the time to learn Powerstrip and generate a custom resolution for my previous 32" CRT HDTV. It was difficult and I had to redo it every time I updated my video drivers. Eventually I just stopped updating my drivers to avoid dealing with it. It was tedious to swap back and forth between the TV and the monitor, and became even more so when I upgraded from a CRT monitor to an LCD monitor, because the LCD shut down on the custom resolution. I'm using the A10 as a monitor right now as I type from the couch, and I'm not noticing the black border. I *am* noticing how nice it was to swap to a standard resolution from the Windows display panel without any need to involve Powerstrip and ATI hot keys.

My advice is to not let that black border bother you, and consider it a bonus if somebody ever figures out how to enable 1:1 pixel mapping in the service menu. Even if somebody does, it may turn out that a 720p signal goes off the edge of the visible screen a bit, which is why Sony underscanned it a bit in the first place.


Can’t you just send the TV a custom resolution using either the Nvidia or the ATI custom resolution feature? The latest ATI and Nvidia drivers both have a custom resolution feature for DVI that acts very much like powerstrip. You can send the TV its native 1280x720 picture with your desktop reduced down to something like 11??x666. It should still maintain the 1:1 pixel mapping because you are still sending it a 1280x720 signal just with a black border around the desktop to compensate for the overscan that is built into a TV. Has anyone tried this? The A20 is the first Sony LCD that could do this because all of the previous Sony LCD TVs converted the 1280x720 signal into a ~788p signal with overscan. No matter what you fed those TVs they always scaled the image and it could not accept its native 788p signal.

Here's the stand I bought for it.

I picked it up Saturday from Best Buy for $250. It's on sale this week for $220, gotta go back and get my price adjustment. Anyway, it's the Bush VS74377 and I really like it. It's the only one I could find, either locally or online, that would hold everything I needed including the center channel.

That's the exact same stand I bought for my A10.

DRC Mode and DRC Palete setting

What do you use for ...



HDtv...standard tv...and dvd..

and is it worth turning off auto noise reduction to get to it?

P.S> just got the set..Yankees in HD looked Perfect..nice to finally see white lines with out a slight red edge for a change...graduated from a 40" sony CRT set.

Two questions to the wise ones at the top of the mountain...

First some background info. I have the E50A10, I am running a DCT-6200 moto box from comcast over component cables, outputing @ 720p and sending 480i for SD. I am having 2 issues.

1. Is anyone else seeing any quick color shifts in their HD viewing? Every once in a while I see this, its quick, but noticable. But I only see it in HD material, not SD or DVD. Could this be the box or something with tv?

2. There is a HUGE brightness/contrast difference for my HD and SD material. If I set the brightness/contrast to where shadow detail is perfect for HD, the SD material looks washed out, if I tune for SD, my HD material is too dark. Is it only me, or do others see this?

I have similar settings to what others have posted, with most of the Advanced video settings set to OFF (except Iris and Gamma which are set to LOW).

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Can’t you just send the TV a custom resolution using either the Nvidia or the ATI custom resolution feature? The latest ATI and Nvidia drivers both have a custom resolution feature for DVI that acts very much like powerstrip. You can send the TV its native 1280x720 picture with your desktop reduced down to something like 11??x666. It should still maintain the 1:1 pixel mapping because you are still sending it a 1280x720 signal just with a black border around the desktop to compensate for the overscan that is built into a TV. Has anyone tried this? The A20 is the first Sony LCD that could do this because all of the previous Sony LCD TVs converted the 1280x720 signal into a ~788p signal with overscan. No matter what you fed those TVs they always scaled the image and it could not accept its native 788p signal.

Since I have a notebook with an x600, I can't use ATI's mobility drivers... powerstrip is my only option for setting custom resolutions. I tried to set the custom 1280x720p resolution, and the A10 choked on it... wouldn't display anything. Setting it to 1280x768 (my laptop panel's native resolution) got a signal, as did 1200x666.

I'll see if I can find some modded drivers with the in-built custom resolution functionality that I can use on my notebook and test 1280x720 again.

As far as I can tell, the PC input configuration options in the service menu do absolutely nothing.

Kai

Two questions to the wise ones at the top of the mountain...

First some background info. I have the E50A10, I am running a DCT-6200 moto box from comcast over component cables, outputing @ 720p and sending 480i for SD. I am having 2 issues.

1. Is anyone else seeing any quick color shifts in their HD viewing? Every once in a while I see this, its quick, but noticable. But I only see it in HD material, not SD or DVD. Could this be the box or something with tv?

2. There is a HUGE brightness/contrast difference for my HD and SD material. If I set the brightness/contrast to where shadow detail is perfect for HD, the SD material looks washed out, if I tune for SD, my HD material is too dark. Is it only me, or do others see this?

I have similar settings to what others have posted, with most of the Advanced video settings set to OFF (except Iris and Gamma which are set to LOW).

Thanks for any help you can offer.

I have seen the "color shift" you're describing a few times... and its on all sources, not just HD. It is barely noticible, and the only reason I caught it was because I was testing my tweaks and focusing on one area of the screen.

The only time I have noticed it was when the "advanced iris" was on. When I turn it off, I don't see it.

Kai

I'm finally going to bite the bullet and get the 42A10 at Best Buy. Can't go wrong for $1599. My question is this: Has Best Buy had trouble stocking these TV's in the NY / Long Island area? I have to have it delivered, because I only have a VW Jetta, so weather or not they have it in the store isn't an issue, but does anybody know how long it typically takes to get one from their warehouse?

I'm finally going to bite the bullet and get the 42A10 at Best Buy. Can't go wrong for $1599. My question is this: Has Best Buy had trouble stocking these TV's in the NY / Long Island area? I have to have it delivered, because I only have a VW Jetta, so weather or not they have it in the store isn't an issue, but does anybody know how long it typically takes to get one from their warehouse?


Go to their website and check delivery availability. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it's better than nothing. If that doesn't work, just call customer service or your local Best Buy.

P.S. - I can't think of a single TV I've been interested in that Best Buy has EVER had in stock, i.e. in their store. I think they fail to stock up on purpose, so that they can charge a delivery fee.

Will be picking my new sony 50" A10 up on Sat. morning and have a couple of questions.

My digital cable box has a DVI output and realize that my tv only has an HDMI input. I realize I can get an adapter, but when visiting BestBuy's site, there are all sorts of different adapters. One has a female DVI to male HDMI and vice versa. My question is which adapter would I need and do I go with a DVI cord or an HDMI cord? Also, since my tv doesn't have a DVI input and I'm forcing the input through the adapter, does that have any effect on picture quality or any other negative impact? Would it just be better to use my component cables and wait for my cable company to upgrade their box?

Thanks in advance! :)

Okay, those pictures from the computers hooked up to this TV looked impressive enough I'm starting to think about doing that myself. Our computers are in different rooms, however, and I'm not keen on running reeeeeeeeally long cables all throughout the house. My wife does have a nice laptop, and it should have a monitor out on it somewhere.

My question is this: is there such a thing as a "wireless" VGA adapter or something? Or would I just have to buy a long cable?

thx,
ojo

[QUOTE=FFFred]Sure they will. They just charge you for both, which isn't so bad because the cable card adds a whopping $2 or less to your monthly bill - very little. That's the good news.

I would opt for the cable box with built in HD recorder..and forget cable card

Will be picking my new sony 50" A10 up on Sat. morning and have a couple of questions.

My digital cable box has a DVI output and realize that my tv only has an HDMI input. I realize I can get an adapter, but when visiting BestBuy's site, there are all sorts of different adapters. One has a female DVI to male HDMI and vice versa. My question is which adapter would I need and do I go with a DVI cord or an HDMI cord? Also, since my tv doesn't have a DVI input and I'm forcing the input through the adapter, does that have any effect on picture quality or any other negative impact? Would it just be better to use my component cables and wait for my cable company to upgrade their box?

Thanks in advance! :)

Congrats, you'll enjoy the set! As for your DVI/HDMI dilemma, just buy a DVI to HDMI cable. You don't need an adapter. The DVI connector end will be female, the HDMI connector end will be male. This is the standard way the cable is sold. Just be sure you don't spend lots of money on an expensive cable, a generic cable with gold-plated connectors will do just fine. The transmission is digital, so there will be no degradation to the signal due to the conversion.

I can't seem to change my Sony dvd players mode its on 'auto (progressive)'.

Here's the stand I bought for it.

I picked it up Saturday from Best Buy for $250. It's on sale this week for $220, gotta go back and get my price adjustment. Anyway, it's the Bush VS74377 and I really like it. It's the only one I could find, either locally or online, that would hold everything I needed including the center channel.

Hey, I've got that same stand (in black) for my WF55! It really complements the set well and is really sturdy.

[QUOTE=FFFred]Sure they will. They just charge you for both, which isn't so bad because the cable card adds a whopping $2 or less to your monthly bill - very little. That's the good news.

I would opt for the cable box with built in HD recorder..and forget cable card

Absolutely couldn't agree more . . . .

There are some posts where people are looking for a TV stand. If anyone needs a corner stand for their 42" A10, I picked one up at CC that works really well for me. On the CC site, the description says it fits up to 36" TVs but it handles the A10 just fine. The width of the front of the tv is just about an exact match to the width of the stand. The glass is frosted on all shelves and it has a nice wood finish. If your tv is in a room with hardwood floors, which mine is, it's a nice complement to the floor. If anyone would like to see how the TV looks on the stand let me know and I'll take some pictures. The stand is made by Gusdorf and costs $149.

Congrats, you'll enjoy the set! As for your DVI/HDMI dilemma, just buy a DVI to HDMI cable. You don't need an adapter. The DVI connector end will be female, the HDMI connector end will be male. This is the standard way the cable is sold. Just be sure you don't spend lots of money on an expensive cable, a generic cable with gold-plated connectors will do just fine. The transmission is digital, so there will be no degradation to the signal due to the conversion.

Thanks Russelps, this helps out a lot. Also, does the audio go through the DVI like HDMI does or do I need to get a digital audio optical cable? Thanks again!

I am so tempted to buy the 42 incher at a local Great Indoors store for 30% off MSRP (local price match plus 10% difference and a mail-in-rebate). Stepping up from a Sony 36 inch HD would be nice (although not a huge step up and an actually smaller 4x3 image). I might wait and buy a Sony 60 inch widescreen LCD projection next summer once I get the new Directv HD DVR early next year (hopefully it is released by then).

Anyone have any thoughts? I have a 20ft by 20ft room and sit about 9-10 feet away from the TV.

Okay, those pictures from the computers hooked up to this TV looked impressive enough I'm starting to think about doing that myself. Our computers are in different rooms, however, and I'm not keen on running reeeeeeeeally long cables all throughout the house. My wife does have a nice laptop, and it should have a monitor out on it somewhere.

My question is this: is there such a thing as a "wireless" VGA adapter or something? Or would I just have to buy a long cable?

thx,
ojo

I went hunting for a wireless VGA adapter when I first got the set as well and the only thing I found was:
http://www.smarthome.com/7743B.html

It was too expensive for my tastes, and since I wanted to use it with a laptop, the less than portable transmitter is a problem.
I was really hoping for something that would attach to my laptop and not be any bigger than, say, a USB memory stick.

Anyway, I decided to just go and buy a 15' VGA cable - especially since I didn't picture myself using it too much and save $150.


Mitch

DVI does not carry audio so you'll need to run a seperate analog connection (red & white) from your cable box to the TV. You can also run a digital optical connection from your cable box to your a/v receiver.

I will not have my home theatre system for another couple of months. Can I still run a digital optical connection from the cable box to the tv? Thanks!

I am so tempted to buy the 42 incher at a local Great Indoors store for 30% off MSRP (local price match plus 10% difference and a mail-in-rebate). Stepping up from a Sony 36 inch HD would be nice (although not a huge step up and an actually smaller 4x3 image). I might wait and buy a Sony 60 inch widescreen LCD projection next summer once I get the new Directv HD DVR early next year (hopefully it is released by then).

Anyone have any thoughts? I have a 20ft by 20ft room and sit about 9-10 feet away from the TV.

I would go for at least a 50 incher at that distance. You will buy the 42 and want bigger in no time. Trust me.. cause I have a 42 that is one-year old and want BIGGER already... :)

Unfortunately, the D* HD Tivo (HR10-250) does not have a native passthrough mode, it can only pass fixed resolutions of 1080i or 720p or 480p. It would be nice if it did have a native passthrough mode so as to allow processing as you outlined above.


We have the Samsung HD 931 (about 2yrs old) and its and upscan DVD player recommended to be set to 480progressive. I use component and save the HDMI for the STB. Are you saying or implying that I might get a better picture if I turn the progressive OFF??? BTW, the PQ (though its not DVI PQ) is pretty good but if you think that turning the progressive scan (little blue light off) I'd be willing to try it. Thanks!

I have seen the "color shift" you're describing a few times... and its on all sources, not just HD. It is barely noticible, and the only reason I caught it was because I was testing my tweaks and focusing on one area of the screen.

The only time I have noticed it was when the "advanced iris" was on. When I turn it off, I don't see it.

Kai


Thanks, Kai. The color shift is real quick and most times not noticeable, but now that I saw it, I see it more often. As long as its normal I will forget about it.

Whew :cool:

WoW on the big screen:

http://photobucket.com/albums/v605/Ricfutures/?action=view&current=DSC01102.jpg

This TV is keeps amazing me.

We have the Samsung HD 931 (about 2yrs old) and its and upscan DVD player recommended to be set to 480progressive. I use component and save the HDMI for the STB. Are you saying or implying that I might get a better picture if I turn the progressive OFF??? BTW, the PQ (though its not DVI PQ) is pretty good but if you think that turning the progressive scan (little blue light off) I'd be willing to try it. Thanks!


Try it. On my Pioneer DVD recorder, it looks better with Progressive scan off.

Unfortunately, the D* HD Tivo (HR10-250) does not have a native passthrough mode, it can only pass fixed resolutions of 1080i or 720p or 480p. It would be nice if it did have a native passthrough mode so as to allow processing as you outlined above.


I leave my HD TiVo set to 1080i as most HD is broadcast in that format. If it's sports, etc... I change it to 720p.

Hello all. After much to-do, I opted for the 50A10 and am not looking back. Bright and beautiful from all angles, not like your momma's big screen. My first big purchase without buyer's remorse!

Here's the deal, a minor problem, but sometimes you just gotta know why. I'm in MN with Comcast analog cable only. Fortunately, this tv has a QAM tuner so it picks up the unencrypted digital signals off the cable coax too. Even got free HBOHD this last week while it was being provided for free unencrypted.

There's some issues with the tuner that I think aren't right. I know most of you have cable boxes, and I'm not going there, so if you don't maybe you've encountered these issues.

Anyway:

1) Some digital signals don't get loaded in the channel list even though you can go directly to them by keying in 69.2, 69.3, 74.5 etc. Unfortunately, most of these channels are the 1080i/720p free locals that I'm interested in. (Yes, I get them on the Antenna input, but still want them off the cable input if I can.) So, even if I rescan or click Add digital channels, it never finds them, but sure enough, I can key in 74.5, and there it is in all it's glory. No, they're not all remapping to other channels, but some of them do.

2) Sure, I can add these channels to the Favorites list, by tuning to them and clicking Add, but then I can't label them, because in order to label them they have to also be in the Channels list. (At least I couldn't find a way to do it.)

3) I thought it had something to do with the QAM not finding channels above 69, which is the normal UHF range, but it is finding other digital content like 480i simulcast channels in the 100.+ ranges. (and those lousy music (no video) channels)

4) I wish there was a way to add a channel to the channel list (Not the Favorites List) by just keying in a channel number, but I haven't found one. Is there?

5) Right now I just have them in my favorites, but it's hard to remember that 79.2 is FOX-HD, or whatever. Sure, I can use the OTA HD Antenna input I suppose.

Thanks for any and all responses. (The channel numbers listed aren't exact, I was doing this from memory, and I AM over 40!)

-cp

Sony KDF-E50A10
Tivo (NOT HD, in another room)
DVD (Cheapo RCA)
SoundSystem (looking into, the ex has my old Yamaha setup)
OTA (Silver Sensor)