Official Sony XBR8 Series Owner's Thread - Page 23

oh okay...and here i was hoping you had some inside dope that sees the xbr8 selling price coming down to a more realistic level.

the msrp markup is not necessily excessive when compared to the other sony models in the line. the fixed selling price obviously is excessive for the xbr8's.

for example, the v4100 thru xbr6 models currently are being sold at 25% to 38% off the original msrp. and recently some models/sizes have seen price reductions near 45% off original msrp.

in addition, the effective msrp has been lowered recently by sony on many models and sizes by some 6% - 15%.

i guess in the end we all have to decide how much we want a particular level of perceived quality. i don't blame sony for testing the waters for a sales scheme that the u.s. supreme court has ruled is now lawful (blaming the current u.s.supreme court is another matter however). hopefully sony will decide that they can make more money allowing their dealers to compete openly. and perhaps learn that their strategy to lift perceived value by mandating escessive price levels is backfiring.

(but maybe not, because i am still seriously considering making the xbr8 purchase...damnit.)

TVbc

When a tv has been new to market for less than 6 months, and it has come down nearly 40% this causes two things to happen.

Anger the poor soul that not even 6 months ago paid 40% more.

Lose all the buyers in the past 6 months that are now out of the market, but would be driving a sony if the 40% had been from the start.

Actually 3...it means your marketing team should be fired for mis pricing by such a wide margin. Such a shame that reality was so far from the truth. If the team read this forum, they would have known what to price the set at. Like 20% above what everyone thought it shoyld sell for.

Or

4. Jacked up the MSRP so high and placed a price protection that Sony hasn't sold many as they've wished so now they are all crapping themselves--SELL, SELL, SELL...

All,

Long time devoted sony fan in search of a replacement tv. I had the original KDE-42XBR950 Plasma from like 4~5 years ago. Finally got sick of the fact that the 950 doesn't have HDMI+hdcp so i'm replacing it. I walked into Best Buy here just to kill some time today and came across some yellow tag pricing at the magnolia section. The XBR8 pricing was DRAMATICALLY lower than msrp; it was lower than the best price i can find online (even from unauthroized dealers). Needless to say i jumped on the price immediately. From what I understand posting pricing is not allowed on the forum so PM me if you guys are interested in finding out what I paid; will gladly scan a receipt for anyone who's interested too. Thanks

-john

^^ Hi jhu321,

Update: The 950 DOES have HDCP HDMI. Well at least according to the manual.

http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/co...0813183922437_[20080806]BN68-01689A-01Eng-0806.pdf

Sorry when I PASTE in the URL, it comes out weird.

the 950 i have is the 4 year old sony plasma 950 not the current lcd samsung 950... the model numbers are similar sorry for the confusion

Ohhh! My bad. I mis-read your post. Sorry about that.

Would u like to PM me john?

eh... not really :P but if you want the information you can pm me and i'll reply

-john

Didn't the Xbr4 come out in July/August the year before? That would give it a 10-11 month life cycle, about right for Sony of late. Every model is discontinued eventually.

But I agree with other posters that extreme price drops in the first half of a model's life cycle will eventually alienate (or at least delay) early adopters.

Thanks! It is too kind of you!

Anyone who uses this set have opinions to share about the DRC feature? I really haven't used it. Why does it say it is only available for 480i sources, but mention Blu-ray (since most players convert everything to 1080p)?

I am more interested, if anyone know the answers to the following:

With Motion Enhancer OFF, the display repeats each frame of 24p content 5 times to achieve 120Hz, and with one of the "on" setting, it does some form of interpolation?

Cinemotion in Mode 2 detects 30 (or 60) fps content to which telecine has been applied and performed inverse to re-achieve 24 fps, but without doing any math to interpolate frames, and Mode 1 does the same but interpolates frames (smooths)? In either mode, Motion enhancer then performs whatever you have it set to perform on the created frames?

With Cinemotion OFF, Motion enhancer will not be applied to 30 (or 60) fps sources?

Cinemotion does not affect 24p sources (Blu-ray)?

I'm trying to figure out, if I need to go into the menu every time I change my medium type (BD to DVD or reverse) and change these settings.

Some CES 09 news are out;

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...5&postcount=33

Sony have to react! They need a new and cheaper LED-LCD in spring and if this is coming, who will buy the X4500/XBR8? Without 240Hz nobody will buy the X4500, if there is a cheaper Sony LED LCD with LD. BE2 Pro is not so important for the mainstream market than 240Hz (in the EU only Sony promotion for 240hz and the Z4500 and not the expensive X4500).

Without a cheaper LED-LCD Sony loses buyers to Samsung, LG and other manufactures with LED-LCDs. It seems the X4500/XBR8 isn´t future proof for one year.

Who expects it to be? There'll always be something that looks better and costs less out the following year. That's just the nature of the game.

Sony in HOT WATER cutting jobs rather cutting outrageous profits on their TVS

they are cutting jobs AND cutting production -- which means they are not going to be doing wholesale price reductions


TVbc

good for them! bad for us!

Screw this, I got a great deal on a XBR8 and I'm going to buy it, I'll probably commit suicide next year when better things comes out, but thats life. There's always something better around the corner, maybe I should just stop visiting these kind of forums when I buy the tv

i personally follow the belief that there are 2 class of purchases... for purchases with a replacement cycle of more than 3~5 years then i will buy the top of the line right now regardless of price because that'll get me the best bang for the buck over the next 3~5 years...

if the product has a replacement cycle thats <2 years then i buy the mid->bottom of the line; just barely enough to meet my needs.

just my .02

Yes, they are:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081209/bs_nm/us_sony_6

It's all around bad news for Sony - but it's good for consumers. Sony tried to introduce outrageous new price points for LCD TVs this year and failed miserably. They can either realize that and bring their prices in line with the competition and what consumers are willing to pay, or they will get more pain. And get rid of their stup1d price locks. A lot of their pain is self-inflicted; they tried to screw consumers all around this year, I am glad they are getting a lesson.

It's always the same with every company. If a company is in financial difficulty, instead of blaming themselves, the top guys cut jobs so the little guys down the ladder would get whacked first. It's always like that and it would never change. In fact, they think they do such a good job that they would ask for some outrageous end of the year bonuses.

I'm reposting this calibration report so that owner's of the same model will have a chance to read it. I will include it in the flat panel (Post#2) list of reports that's linked at the bottom of my post.

Has anyone started a calibration settings thread for the XBR8 series? I would like to see what settings owners of the 55xbr8 are using.

If you have any colour coordinate and greyscale tracking reports for it, I'd be interested in seeing just how well it came up.

The only calibrations that I've ever been directly involved (as a spectator) in were for our two HD TV sets.

Kevin Miller or Zurbaran1 might have them.

I really don't understand the price lock anyway. Can someone else who does explain it better to me. The way I see it is it cost Sony xxxx dollars to manaufacturer said tv. They then sell it to various authorized Sony dealers and what not and the tvs trickle out to B&M stores all over the world. At that point Sony has received their money so what is the point of a price lock? If another B&M store decides they are willing to make a lower profit on the tv and sell it for xxxx what does Sony miss out on? It is the 2nd party people the price lock makes more money for, not Sony. Am I completely wrong?

It is not about money. It is about building a loyal dealer network. The high end shops won't sell Sony if you can get the same set at BB for 30% less. Sony wants to have their high end sets in high end dealers. It isn't any different with high end products from other manufacturers.

When the only folks selling your stuff is WalMart and Discount Joe's the brand takes a big hit as far as perceived quality is concerned. This practice has been going on for decades and I don't see it changing anytime soon.

That's the theory, but Sony has totally screwed up the execution of it. It only works if the high end stores have profits to protect, which won't happen if the set is too expensive to sell.

More reality than theory... and whether it's too expensive is subjective at best. I think there are plenty of folks that have no problem spending 5 to 10 grand on an audio/video component. Of course products like these are not really designed for the masses.

I'm not talking about Wal Mart and low end places. I'm talking about the same authorized dealers that can give you price breaks on XBR6's. If the store is "high end" enough to carry the product in the first place, I just don't understand why they aren't authorized to sell at whatever price they want. The only justification I can think of is that if someone buys an XBR8 for 4500 bucks from a B&M store who you know is STILL making money off you then people will realize how over priced these sets REALLY are.

This is different for other high end dealers. I have a specialty shop near me that carried the Pioneer Elite and I got $1500 knocked off the 60" MSRP. It is still a high end store and you aren't going to find an Elite Kuro at Wal Mart. Pioneer already has their money so they aren't losing out. I just don't understand Sony on this. Do they actually believe they are that much better than everyone else? I used to be a huge Sony fan because of the superior product but their arrogance of late along with a product that isn't vastly superior to everything else is mind boggling as to why they would continue down this path.