Official Sony Kdl 40s4100 thread

I bought this TV about 3 weeks ago and recently these lines have been showing up during the first 5 minutes of turning on. The lines are vertical and appear to be green. It seems to be only just after turning the TV on, and lasts about 5 minutes. Any ideas? I chatted with a Sony rep and he walked me through a reset, didn't help.

I got this tv a couple of days back and it seems to automatically throttle the backlight depending on the brightness of the scenes on the screen. Does anyone else experience this? Is it normal behaviour? Any way to disable it?

Personally i think it's really anoying, especially not being able to disable it.

This happens through the HDMI input.

I asked Sony support about this. They're telling me this is a feature, and that it cannot be disabled. They say it's common on other (all) models of Sony TVs as well. I'm surprised how there's no mention of this anywhere online or in the manual. So i guess this is it.

So, what do you guys think about how this TV handles fast action from sports, action movies, and graphics/processing intensive video games (like racing and shooters)? For example, if you are playing a shooter, you stood your character in one spot and rapidly moved the camera from left to right. Does it turn into a big blob of pixels or smear? Can you differentiate between natural "camera blur" and motion blur that low end LCD's suffer from because they cannot keep up with the action?

One spec I cannot find anywhere about this panel is response time. It's a real kick in the teeth that Sony dares to call this a "Bravia" and it does not even have the Bravia engine in it.

I have dimming on my RCA DLP like you guys are talking about with this S4100, and that is a defect. The computer to correct that defect and lamp are both on back order, so I'm benefiting from the extended warranty.

I can't believe Sony has auto dimming in ALL of their TVs?

I just got this tv a week ago. So far I only have one issue. When I turn the TV on it takes at least 20 seconds for the picture to show up. The green led comes on immediately, but it acts like it's warming up or something. I don't think it just related to mine, because I had to return the first one I purchased due to a bad speaker.

Is this typical for others?

Does anyone have any recommendations for calibration settings with this tv? Just got mine a couple weeks back (unexpected purchase as my Trinitron HD circuit board got fried) and I'm pretty happy with it, especially for the price. The only real HD sources I have right now are a wii (component and 480p) and Verizon FIOS (HDMI @ 1080i).

My current setting (personally calibrated, not through a test pattern.. yet) is:
Backlight: 6
Picture: 80
Brightness: 41
Color: 50
Hue: 0
Color Temp: Neutral
Sharpness: 7
Noise: off

I have also changed the DVR from YCC to RGB Color Space.

I'm eager to see your posts!

Do you have it on custom,vivid, or standard, also what do you have it on for ps3

k1b2501tx, say it ain't so!!!!!!!!

I just got this TV last week and I love it except video through HDMI ports is too dark.
Fine detail is lost in dark scenes. I can bump up the backlight and brightness but then
bright scenes look a bit washed out.

Some one in the KDL-40V4100 thread said
that using custom (vs. std or vivid) turns off the auto dimming feature but it doesn't
seem to work on the KDL-40S4100. Maybe some thing in the service menu. Let me know
if you find a solution.

Mine takes about 10 seconds to start. The TV is booting Linux.

does this tv have sparkle problems too?

The S series do not sparkle

how do ps3 games look on it?

PS3 and 360 both look amazing on my S4100

I was considering purchasing a KDL40S4100, but the backlight throttle seems like it could be an issue, especially if it cannot be disabled.
Is this a dealbreaker for most people? There are a few replies here that people are enjoying this television. What are your thoughts on this issue?
Thanks for any advice you can provide.

I bought this televison for my home office mainly for a computer screen. I cannot be happier with it in that capacity but recently I added a Panasonic 30 Blu-ray player to the mix and the picture is not the best. It is 1080p/24 for the player as well as television but the picture does not look as good as it did when I had a PS3 hooked up.

How does the picture look for those of you who hooked up a blu-ray player via hdmi?

I bought this system a couple of weeks ago. SD content through a cable box and HDMI doensnt look so good but the HD Chanels are really nice


Does anybody have calibraiton settings for Component? I have an Xbox 360 through component hooked up to it (Was through VGA)

and im not very happy so far

OK, so I just bought this TV to replace my old ViewSonic 32" LCD and am overall impressed with the quality. My main gripe is with the interoperability between the TV and a PC. I use my TV as a secondary monitor for my HTPC. Ideally I use a DVI to HDMI cable to the TV and optical to the receiver. However, the HDMI input on this TV is overscanned and must be manually selected to Full Pixel each time the input is selected; a minor inconvenience.

So I tried the PC (VGA) input and was dismayed to find that I was confronted with strange green scan-lines running down my screen. I have tried numerous VGA cables, 2 separate computers and have even exchanged TVs with no luck. The PC Input provides the added benefit of power management such that the TV will go to standby much like a standard monitor and this is a feature I value greatly.

Has anyone else had any problems with the PC Input on this model? Have you found a solution to the problem?

Has anyone else had any trouble with the PC input on this tv? I was really interested in buying this, but now I fear i'll have problems hooking it up to my PC using VGA.

Can anyone comment on gaming image quality?

I'm looking to upgrade from a 26" Sharp Aquos, and I'm debating Samsung v Sony v Sharp, and this is one of the TVs in my price range. I might double it up as a monitor for my computer, but it would be a minor use for the set. I'm really interested in ghosting, color quality, bright/dark contrast, and as was said previously, if that "dimming" feature is a problem for people with video gaming habits such as mine...

Can anyone comment?

Also, can anyone comment on the difference(s) between the 4100 and 3000 series?

The GF and I just bought this TV last night, upgrading from a 44" LG rear-projection HDTV.

This TV looks stunning with my PS3 connected via HDMI and excellent with my component only 360 (only goes to 1080i ). I haven't noticed any glaring problems with ghosting, and so far I've played some Resistance 2, Mirror's Edge, Wipeout HD (oh god does Wipeout HD look stunning) on my PS3, Rez HD, Geometry Wars 2 and the GF has been playing Lego Batman on the 360 (so many different colors, and they are all vivid and really pop).

The TV has a feature to turn on and off auto-dimming based on the ambient lighting, I haven't noticed it dimming itself.

i bought this tv on saturday. the lcd blur is hardly noticeable, you have to be looking for it to notice it, besides that most games are incorporating motion blur when the camera moves fast anyways. i played call of duty 4 and gears of war 2 all weekend with VERY good results. This is a great tv for the price. the picture is very bright when the sun is at it's peak and there's a lot of light in the room. it took about 15 minutes to get it in the condo to watching tv, it was very simple. I have some really good settings for gaming over component, but i'm not at home, I will post them when I get there. I always hate how black mostly looks bright gray on lcd's, and this was the case when I took the tv out of the box, however, after some setting changes black is now black for video games. Black always looked just fine on cable. My parents have the 56" epson projection lcd and a 47" hitachi lcd, and the picture of this tv is far superior. i also saw this next to the samsung 40a550 and the sony's picture is more colorful.

I just picked one of these up today from CC for a great price using the Live Cash Back deal and also price matching it to Wally World. Can't wait to hook it up.

Is it just me or is this TV super obnoxious about not displaying over the air analogue and digital at their original aspect ratio?

I though I had finally solved the problem with:
Wide Mode: Normal (What the hell does this mean?)
Auto Wide: Off (Thinking that this control whether or not the TV chooses whether or not to stretch the image)
4:3 Default: Normal (Normal at least seems to temporarily = not stretched)

I read the manual page "describing" these settings, didn't help. Once I switch inputs and go back to TV everything is stretched. I know some people who just watch SD cable always stretched, and sure, Its good for my self esteem to feel that everyone is as fat as I am... um, just give me a keep aspect ratio option and call it a day. I'll use zoom on those evil non anamorphic widescreen DVD's, that's it. I use Vista Media Center for watching TV, so I'm not sure why I'm writing so much.



Also DaftHonk, If you are using an ATI (NVidia prob has this also) card you cane change to over scan option in the Catalyst Control center, that way you only have to do anything once. Kind of makes me wonder if my PS3 is being over scanned.

Hi Guys, I just bought an early Christmas present for the GF, picking up the Sony KDL 40S4100 at CC today. I am looking for someone who has some experience with settings.

Thanks to everyone and Happy Holidays.

Hey everyone. Well, Last Sunday I bought a Samsung A500 at 6th ave electronics for $799. Unfortunately , they are sold out of it so the gave me a choice of the s4100 or a sharp 42 inch. I chose this model and I guess I will get it next week.

Just picked up the 46" at Target. Very good price. We need some with good calibration settings to tweek this bad boy. I will continue to lurk....

Just picked up the s4100 this morning at at walmart for around 850. Xbox 360 with monster HD component cables looks jagged as hell, worse than my SD tv. My ps3 on the other hand.....is beyond incredible, the most beautiful thing i've ever see when playing wipeout HD I crash a lot just because it looks so amazing.