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Official Sony XBR HX909 owners' thread (52HX909, 46HX909, HX9, HX900)

559K views 3K replies 414 participants last post by  guho 
#1 ·
Hi all. Lots of talk, expectations, speculation about this unit. Let's put HX praise, reviews, gripes, observations, calibration settings, etc. in a thread here, away from the massive "2010 Bravia" thread.


So I just received my 52HX909, replacing a 60NX800 that I had for a month. The sticker says it was manufactured in June 2010. Minty fresh.


I have it in a very bright room with floor-to-ceiling windows. In my first couple of hours, I can make a few positive observations:

1. Reflections are significantly darker and less distracting than the NX series

2. Reflections are not doubled as they are in the NX series (due to Opticontrast resin)

3. Off-axis viewing is better than the NX series


Non PQ observations:

1. I can see ribbon connectors through the top of the chassis in the back, likely feeding the matrix or columns of backlighting. Through the same grille in the back, I can also see several columns of white LEDs themselves.

2. The power cord is surprisingly thin, compared to the NX cord and has a non-polarized "electric razor" style end as opposed to the appliance or computer PSU style end.

3. I'm not hearing the plastic warm-up cool-down cracking (yet?) as I did on the NX. It never actually bothered me on the NX, but I see some people here talking about it.

4. The stand swivels (unlike the 60NX800). I suppose it will fit in a slotted metal Sony Bunchin stand (I've seen photos) but SonyStyle isn't currently saying so explicitly.


Not news to anyone following this TV's release but the first real English review appears to be CNET:
http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-t...-33943224.html
 
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#2,234 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by supersoldier11 /forum/post/20298164


And since I've yet to see his review up, I will mention that he seemed to be very impressed with the set. I asked him a million and one questions, one in particular being "how does this stack up to other LCD/LED sets that you've calibrated?" He said that it was a very close 2nd to the LG 55LXH. Then he mentioned that the LG is a 2D only set, to which I replied "so mine wins by default
". I was really looking forward to Chad's full review, but I imagine he's very busy as usual. Overall myself, and a friend that's been over my apt. all the time since I've gotten my set-up is very impressed with the PQ in both 2D and 3D after Chad's calibration. I started with Doug's settings, as listed in the official HX909 settings thread. Chad was also very cool to hang with as he was doing the calibration. Might I add that everything (PS3 & Directv HR24-200) are run through my Panny SC-BTT770 which goes to the HX909's HDMI-1 (both ARC). Even if you're not into the whole HTIB I highly recommend Panny's 2011 high end 3DBR players, as the PQ difference between my new one and the PS3 is literally night and day. I will NEVER watch a BR disc on my PS3 again now that I have the Panny.

thanks for posting your calibration results! i just got my HX909 going and have been debating going with Dougs settings. your review, comments and settings however, are more practical for my application as i use the Marantz AV7005 as my switcher and the HX909 is connected via HDMI1 (both ARC) as well. so all of my inputs (HR24500, PS3 and BD) all utilze the same input and i was hoping to find a professionally proven calibration that will make everything look good.


so my question to you is........does the PQ with your newly calibrated HDMI1 input look great regardless of the source you're using?


it's also interesting that Chad B's calibration results aren't all that different from Doug's.......can you tell a difference between the two calibrations?
 
#2,235 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by supersoldier11 /forum/post/20297953


See attachments. Hope this helps somebody. I wasn't sure if I should post them or not, but I was never told not to...

Why does everyone pump up the picture contrast and lower the backlight?

I use a receiver like a lot of other people do I would assume multiple inputs into the receiver and one HDMI going into the TV. How can you calibrate one input that uses many different sources?
 
#2,236 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by supersoldier11
See attachments. Hope this helps somebody. I wasn't sure if I should post them or not, but I was never told not to...
well i tried your calibration by Chad B and i gotta say........not impressed
it was way too dark. i set it up under "custom" then put on HBO HD which was playing Avatar. i then switched between the newly calibrated "custom", "standard" and "vivid". i then did the same thing watching Unstoppable on BD.


the Chad B (also changed to Doug's) calibration showed a more realistic (yet dark) picture 20% of the time but seemed to rob the color and bright detail. it was almost like watching digital TV and not HD TV. when i'd switch up to "standard" and "vivid" i could see the detail and brightness better. "vivid" looked great on the animation portions of Avatar but lacked the realism i'm looking for during the real filming. "standard" seem to have the best overall balance and that was consistant for all sources over the same input.


so i guess i'll try some other unprofessional calibrations. i think (for my taste) tweaking the "standard" is the way to go.
 
#2,237 ·
I like the way my picture looks. It looks...real. Like someone said, "looking through an open window". Things look natural, and colors pop. Blacks are fantastic (as we all know
), and he definitely made my white purer...it was previously more on the yellowish side (as he told me while examining it pre-cal and I've definitely noticed beautiful whites since). Check out a few scenes in Resident Evil 3DBR for that last part. There's a few scenes with nothing but pure black, pure white, and various grays. And at least one scene with those plus one small area of red. Looks unbelievable! That whole movie (whether you like the content or not) is basically a demo disc. But yeah...I'm very happy with everything I see on HDMI-1 whether its HD sports or movies on Direct TV (btw I just checked out a bit of Bulls vs. Pacers on ESPN 3D and OMFG!!) or PS3. Blu-Rays and 3DBR's look ungodly beautiful played on my Panny SC-BTT770. If you're using a PS3 as your BR and 3DBR player, you really have no idea what your HX909 is capable of...just as I didn't before I bought the Panny. I'm not even suggesting that this particular Panny 3DBR player (3D HTIB) is the end all to 3DBR players, just that its completely obvious that PS3 should no longer be considered as your only 3DBR player if you have a TV that even comes close to what ours can do.


Here's a fun experiment. I had a buddy come over and bring his PS3, so we could play Borderlands and chill here together and not have to play online with headsets, and also not use split screen. I pulled my Toshiba 32" Model "32NTHNGSPCL" lol
and we played full screen side by side over online connection. Seeing the same exact screens in the game side by side was truly unbelievable. We played with a few settings on the Toshiba, but no matter how we tried, the only way to set it so that you could see the enemies and not lose too much detail still had to be set so bright (not sure if the setting was "backlight" or "brightness" or whatever) that it was glowing next to my HX909 to the point where (IMO) looking at it was painful to my eyes. That was literal btw...the glow and amount of light that had to be emitted from the TV to make it watchable (playable in this case) without sacrificing too much detail was literally hurting my eyes. Having said all that...I can imagine a large % of the general population walking into my room, seeing the two TV's, and preferring by a large margin the bright, vibrant image that came from the smaller of the two...next to the "open window into another reality" that is my HX909. In fact, just yesterday my brother spent $2360 on a 2011 60" Sharp Quattron LC60LE835U. Sight unseen, and the set is so new that there's not a single review on it. To quote my brother why he bought it "The color and picture jump out at you like no other set in the store." He was referring to 2010 models that he's looked at, and despite me telling him that I've read lots of negative things about them as far as their colors just being flat out wrong, flawed design, etc, he still loves that Torch mode that he saw on the showroom. On a side note, Chad reviewed the 2011 70" Quattron and actually liked it, and he didn't have much positive to say about the 2010 models, so there's hope for my brother's set. I digress... I LOVE my HX909. I mean this is why we bought it right?? And I can tell you for certain, that after watching Alice in W. 3DBR and Legends of the Guardians 3DBR post calibration, that it CERTAINLY doesn't lose any color. If anything they're better than before. Chad said himself before he started calibrating that the calibration wouldn't blow my face off because the picture already looked really good. And him saying that it already looked good means a lot in and of itself.


I
 
#2,241 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by 2010SSRS /forum/post/20312713


well i tried your calibration by Chad B and i gotta say........not impressed
it was way too dark. i set it up under "custom" then put on HBO HD which was playing Avatar. i then switched between the newly calibrated "custom", "standard" and "vivid". i then did the same thing watching Unstoppable on BD.


the Chad B (also changed to Doug's) calibration showed a more realistic (yet dark) picture 20% of the time but seemed to rob the color and bright detail. it was almost like watching digital TV and not HD TV. when i'd switch up to "standard" and "vivid" i could see the detail and brightness better. "vivid" looked great on the animation portions of Avatar but lacked the realism i'm looking for during the real filming. "standard" seem to have the best overall balance and that was consistant for all sources over the same input.


so i guess i'll try some other unprofessional calibrations. i think (for my taste) tweaking the "standard" is the way to go.

Its better to calibrate "custom" than "standard". Its been said by a few people here that custom has less artificial processing and more accurate color than any other picture mode. Make sure "scene" is also set to "general.


Try out my settings. They arent professional or anything, just my own but i find them to still have alot of "pop" while still retaining a natural picture.


Picture Mode: Custom


Scene: General


Backlight 3

Picture 85

Brightness 50

Color 50

Hue 0

Color Temperature Warm 1

Sharpness 70 (i like an extra sharp picture, if its too sharp turn it down to 60)

Noise Reduction off

MPEG Noise Reduction off

Motionflow Clear 1

Cinemotion Auto 1


Black Corrector off

Adv Contrast Enhancer Off

Gamma 0

LED Dynamic Control Standard

Auto Light Limiter Off

Clear White Off

Live Color off

White Balance: Default



Detail Enhancer Low

Edge Enhancer Off


Power saver: Off
 
#2,243 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Viper2847 /forum/post/20315702


Its better to calibrate "custom" than "standard". Its been said by a few people here that custom has less artificial processing and more accurate color than any other picture mode. Make sure "scene" is also set to "general.


Try out my settings. They arent professional or anything, just my own but i find them to still have alot of "pop" while still retaining a natural picture.


Picture Mode: Custom


Scene: General


Backlight 3

Picture 85

Brightness 50

Color 50

Hue 0

Color Temperature Warm 1

Sharpness 70 (i like an extra sharp picture, if its too sharp turn it down to 60)

Noise Reduction off

MPEG Noise Reduction off

Motionflow Clear 1

Cinemotion Auto 1


Black Corrector off

Adv Contrast Enhancer Off

Gamma 0

LED Dynamic Control Standard

Auto Light Limiter Off

Clear White Off

Live Color off

White Balance: Default



Detail Enhancer Low

Edge Enhancer Off


Power saver: Off

i tried one almost exactly like this and it too was too dark for me.


when i bring up anything in HD and flip between custom, standard and vivid (custom being calibrated).......i find that vivid and even standard is brighter and shows more detail than ANY of the calibrations i've tried. i'm not a fan of vivid unless it's an automated movie and it would appear standard is the closest calibration to give me the detail and wow i'm looking for.
 
#2,246 ·
There I am, sitting in the waiting room of my dentist, about to undergo a tooth extraction
(for the coming bridge work) when what so I see in the pile of recent magazines... the current issue of consumer reports!
TV edition! (with how to get a doc on the cover...) No suprise to anyone here, 52" Hx909 top dog of the 3D lcd's. Unfortunately, "CR Recommend" was not on any of the lcd's
, but was on every 3D plasma
Just thought I'd pass that along, but it took a while to get the guy with the vice grips to let go of my jaw!
 
#2,248 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by 2010SSRS /forum/post/20312713


well i tried your calibration by Chad B and i gotta say........not impressed
it was way too dark. i set it up under "custom" then put on HBO HD which was playing Avatar. i then switched between the newly calibrated "custom", "standard" and "vivid". i then did the same thing watching Unstoppable on BD.


the Chad B (also changed to Doug's) calibration showed a more realistic (yet dark) picture 20% of the time but seemed to rob the color and bright detail. it was almost like watching digital TV and not HD TV. when i'd switch up to "standard" and "vivid" i could see the detail and brightness better. "vivid" looked great on the animation portions of Avatar but lacked the realism i'm looking for during the real filming. "standard" seem to have the best overall balance and that was consistant for all sources over the same input.


so i guess i'll try some other unprofessional calibrations. i think (for my taste) tweaking the "standard" is the way to go.


I can say the same exact words. Way too dark and not looking good. Soon as I put it on "Standard" and made just a couple very small tweaks the picture looks awesome with all my sources. My backlight has to be on 5 or 6 to get a perfect picture. Colors pop out and are very vivid. "Standard" option is the way to go for me....it just looks GOOD.
 
#2,251 ·
I'm trying to decide between the 52hx909 and 55nx720 -- both which I can get for the same price.


I understand hx909 has a silver trim and silver stand which is a different look than all the other monoliths -- is this very noticeable? I also noticed they got rid of this look on the 929. To me the looks are very important and wondering about this. I have no way of seeing either in store before buying, unfortunately.


I realize the full backlighting is a step up on the hx909. Is the additional 3 inches or gorilla glass an incentive to go with the newer nx720? Any other reason to choose one over the other?


thanks for the suggestions
 
#2,252 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by jack54321 /forum/post/20334116


I'm trying to decide between the 52hx909 and 55nx720 -- both which I can get for the same price.


I understand hx909 has a silver trim and silver stand which is a different look than all the other monoliths -- is this very noticeable? I also noticed they got rid of this look on the 929. To me the looks are very important and wondering about this. I have no way of seeing either in store before buying, unfortunately.


I realize the full backlighting is a step up on the hx909. Is the additional 3 inches or gorilla glass an incentive to go with the newer nx720? Any other reason to choose one over the other?


thanks for the suggestions

The border/stand on the HX909 is actually more of a metallic gray than silver. IMO its a very nice touch and matches well with the black monolithic design. The monolithic stand is definitely silver which also looks great.


I dont know why they got rid of that design for the newer models, i thought it was a step up compared to just going ALL black...


I would still argue that the thinner bezel design on the HX929 and NX720/810 is nicer than the thicker bezel on this model, but at the same time i think the gray trim and stand improve the looks of this set.


You'll basically have to choose between sacrificing a bit of size for better PQ or vice versa, your call.
 
#2,253 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Viper2847 /forum/post/20334548


The border/stand on the HX909 is actually more of a metallic gray than silver. IMO its a very nice touch and matches well with the black monolithic design. The monolithic stand is definitely silver which also looks great.


I dont know why they got rid of that design for the newer models, i thought it was a step up compared to just going ALL black...


I would still argue that the thinner bezel design on the HX929 and NX720/810 is nicer than the thicker bezel on this model, but at the same time i think the gray trim and stand improve the looks of this set.


You'll basically have to choose between sacrificing a bit of size for better PQ or vice versa, your call.

Thank you for the info & reply - very helpful indeed.
 
#2,258 ·
Just purchased a 46hx909 at the Frys in San Marcos California for under 1K. This is going to be our bedroom TV. I could not pass up this deal when I saw the same TV just a month ago for over 2K.
 
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