Official Sony XBR8 Series Owner's Thread - Page 26

While you may not enjoy a truly calibrated picture, a professional calibration isn't personal judgement. It is calibrating the set to accurate gray scale and color points. While they may be able to bump up brightness or do other things to tweak it to your liking the whole point is to maintain the color standard to achieve what it was supposed to look like according to the artist,director,programmer or whoever.

So is it worth the Price for the XBR8?

BTW, the settings at tweaktv.com are different for the 46XBR8 than they are for the 55XBR8. (Backlight/Picture is 2/90 for the 46" and 3/95 for the 55".)

I like the 46" settings (for my 46XBR8) but I slightly prefer lower Picture (68) and higher BL (4). A nice thing about this TV is that the higher BL doesn't seem to me to impair the "blacks".

You'd think that for a backlight setting of 3 or 4....that the max number might be 10ish??? LOL

who in the world needs anything between 11 and 95 backlight...

very strange

Well, Dubz4lif3, that's a question each of us has to answer for ourselves. But I love my XBR8, so it's worth the price to me. The blacks and overall color is amazing. The detail is gorgeous even a few inches from the screen. After spending several days looking at the "floating speaker" design, I even like that aspect of it. It's beautiful and stylish, whether on or off, and if you have a Bravia link to an AV home theatre setup, it's awesome. I've watched more TV in the last few days than in the last year! I'm thrilled to finally have mine. I have no regrets at all.

amazon is selling tv plus sony 500 dvd player for $6100, shipped. Imho, still a lot of dough to shell out, not worth it.

I still can't believe this TV is cheaper in Europe than in America, its allways been the other way around.

Anyways, I have this tv, I'm very happy with the blu ray PQ but I'm a bit disappointed in the blacks when watching in a dark room. I haven't played with the settings that much, I'm using "Daylight" settings as I prefer it the most, can anyone recommend some better settings? To get better blacks if possible....



Its $6200

Heck, it's cheaper in New Zealand than America. A nice change of pace from paying a 50% premium, that's for sure.


First stop would be to tune the brightness and contrast with a calibration disc or a THX optimizer.

With local dimming full black should be totally black (and there's something wrong if it isn't), but blacks in mixed scenes will never be as good as the best plasmas by virtue of it being an LCD.

have you tried the cnet settings they used for their review of the 55xbr8? they are for a dark room setting, and they aren't listed in the review but at their blog Crave.





that's for the set only. the bundled deal is actually cheaper. WOOHOO !

AND btw, i am sick and tired of hearing how you people who speak english with a funny accent are paying cheap for the XBR8

Any more so than people who speak English with a funny accent (Americans) are paying crazy for it?

Your eyes are the only ones who can answer that. For me it was yes.


The settings from tweaktv is actually pretty good when the pic mode is in standard. When in vivid gotta tweak it a little more. Overall i'm impressed with the quality of this unit each and everday. Once i have it professionally calibrated i can't even imagine.


LOL

Well, it's the day after Christmas and I was just curious if any more people splurged on this set?

For the current owners...everything still good? Still satisfied with your purchase?

I ve been tweaking the settings for 3 weeks now on my 55xbr8/x4500 and came up with a conclusion that default Cinema setting are the best. No need for pro calibration too. So far I am very pleased with this set. VERY pleased. Its not perfect of course but to me definitely was worth the hefty price. I have tried it with 3 calibration settings from tweaktv, ultimateav and cnet. ultimateav settings suck, their backlight is way too low and they activated drc1. tweaktv settings are almost identical to default Cinema settings. After comparing all their calibration settings it turned out that Cinema is very balanced.

Now first I will tell you about the TV negative sides.
1 - It still has motion blur, even with motionplus on its highest setting. BUT even on medium it's barely noticable.
2 - flashlight effect is present and IS noticable even with LED Backlight on. The good thing is it's very subtle, not noticable when viewing normal content.
3 - Blooming is present too. Its very noticable some times, like white PS3 icon on black background. On normal content it's non-existent.
4 - Cant stream videos right to TV via USB. but I use PS3 anyway.

Thats it for negatives, now to pluses.
1 - Awesome black levels, sometimes cant see the border line with TV frame.
2 - Contrast is... Well its just mind blowing.
3 - Awesome default Cinema settings.
4 - NO INPUT LAG with PS3 or Wii, with everything turned off except LED Backlight.
5 - Colours are fantastic, superb.
6 - dejudder modes work VERY well, especially for games.
7 - dejudder Clear mode is great for sports, no triple effect or smudging.
8 - design is awesome, pictures on the net don't do it justice.
9 - very good, but not very great, speakers
10 - NO DEAD or STUCK pixels
11 - 100+ Hz does a great job in reducing judder and blur.
12 - razor sharp details
13 - very good build quality (At least in Europe)
14 - semi-matte screen is great
15 - friendly user interface. XMB is good
16 - myriad user setting options
17 - noise reduction works flawlessly
18 - SD upscaling and pq are good for 1080p TV, definitely watchable
19 - lots of connectivity options, DLNA compliant
20 - 1000 lines motion resolution on Clear setting
21 - consumes little energy for that size
22 - overall best PQ I have ever seen on any TV

Later I will explain some peculiarities of some options, gaming, and add pictures.

I am back with settings explanations.

Motionflow - IS NOT 120 Hz mode. 120 Hz CANT be turned off on this TV. Motionflow is a different technology for removing judder and blur. This set has 4 options: Clear, Standart, Smooth/High and Off. For BD 24p movies I prefer off, at least the first time I watch it. For gaming Standart is your best bet... or if you cant stand a 5-7ms lag with Motionflow turned on, then Off is the best. But to my eyes Motionflow is essential for gaming, and the lag is ALMOST unnoticable even with online gaming. Standart mode does not seem to introduce any artifacts, unlike Smooth/High(So just dont touch these at all). Standart shows 500 lines of motion resolution(If you can actually see the difference with your eyes). Clear mode is something really strange. It has 1000 lines of motion resolution(!), but its smoothing effect is the same as Standart (500 mr). What gives additional 500 lines you may ask? Its LED Strobed backlight or LED Backlight sequential firing. Its actually the same as Samsungs Smart Motion Plus. This sequential LED firing is what gives this Clear mode the most smooth, clear, look of all Motionflow options. But the judder in this mode can some times be more obvious then on other modes. Actually, judder-wise its the weakest of all modes. Its true power is that it shows not just a smooth image, but also a very sharp movement. I recommend it for sports. BUT it has 1 major flaw too. Clear mode significantly lowers peak brightness, and its very noticable. My LED Backlight is set to 3, but with Clear mode on, its the same as if it was set to Min! It can be fixed by raising Backlight to 10, but Clear mode also eliminates the so-needed natural haloing/glare effect. In-movie reflections look like bright spots and not like reflections. It kind off ads depth to the picture but is actually very unnatural. Though you do see more details with this mode on, I'd recommend it only for sports where reflection, glare are actually can be distractive. Clear should be set to off for movies and games. Standart is the best all-around choice.

Next time I will talk about DRC and Clarity/Reality settings.

Thanks for posting the information HDTVLOVER3!

That's good to hear you are enjoying your set. Regarding your statements on Clear Mode, are you saying that having Clear Mode on seems to negate the effect of having a semi-matte screen for reduced glare and reflections from external light sources?

Or are you saying that somehow it is the internal light from the viewed material shining towards the viewer that is somehow unnatural or annoying? Perhaps when you take your pictures, you can include one of these as an example.

Actually the break-in period is less critical for an LCD screen then for a plasma. For LCD, the recommended period is 75-100 hours. For plasma 150-200. This according to TweakTV.

thank you sir for your 2-part (so far) report.

would you elaborate a bit more please on viewing sports on the xbr8.

i'm talking american football, basketball...but especially soccer (football), games of the premier league and champions league especially, but others as well. this is very important to me in my final buy decision.

i went to the av. uk site expecting to see tons of posts about this set and the 52xbr7 240 Hz model and how great (or not) they are for football. i found almost none.

what's your impression specifically watching football on the xbr8, both pro's and cons (as you have so helpfully done with your other posts). and did you get a chance to compare the xbr8 (x4500) with the 240Hz xbr7 (z4500?).

thank you very much

TVbc

and according to the FAQ of ISF Forums, 'break-in' isn't needed at all for LCD's. they do recommend operating it for ~100 hours or so strictly to make sure there isn't some component or electronics failure during that time that would make a pro calibration a waste of good money if you end up returning the set; which means it might be a good idea to wait until your return period is up.

but as far as needing the burnin period in order to do an accurate calibration, that apparently is suburban legend, and if you are doing your own calibration, there is no need to wait. so those experts say.

TVbc

HDTVLover3, thank you for your informative posts. I think I, and others, would benefit if you posted all of your settings.

Separately, I am not taking issue with your opinions, but I offer the following comments:


Have you had your XBR8 ISF calibrated by a professional? If so, then your opinion that the TV does not need pro calibration is well founded. However, if that is not the case, then I think we have to wait for someone (me?) to have their XBR8 professionally calibrated and then offer their opinion on whether the picture is (substantially) better than the with the default settings.


Again, I understand this is subjective and your opinion. What other models have you seen . . . the Pioneer Kuro Elite . . . Qualia 004 or 006?

I did not had my TV pro calibrated, but some people I know did. The only thing that was in need of calibration for their tvs was White Balance. The common thing is that calibrators lower b-bias to -6,-7(Eliminating bluish tint). Some people actually enjoy this bluish tint to all colours. I find it better at 0 then -7 though. Personal preference here.

I saw pro-111fd and Samsung. XBR8 looked better then Samsung, and not worse the pro-111fd.

Sports on XBR8 look very good. Plasmas still fair a little better though. If you are a sport fanatic you will enjoy plasma more, but with Clear mode on there is almost no difference. Soccer, football all look great but not perfect. To me on Clear its very good. Very sharp and smooth movement. I, personally, enjoy watching sports on this TV. Clear mode is essential for it. Cons are thers still motion blur, but its VERY subtle.

Clear mode does not affect SCREEN itself or screen glare. It affects content. Example...
In a movie they show a roof with metallic coating. Its very sunny and it should reflect sun. Without Clear on it does so in a natural way, with a little haloing and natural brightness(you get an "aura" of sorts around such bright parts and it should be there). But turn Clear on and instead of seeing a reflection effect, it will look like if the roof itself emits light and much weaker too. Another example is a bright sun in the sky. Whith Clear you see only a centre and its not bright as it should be. Without Clear you see that it gets much brighter and more natural.

Gotcha! Thanks for clearing up the CLEAR mode comments .

thanks for the feedback. it is helpful. my viewing habits and daytime lighting situation preclude plasma, which is what is driving me to the xbr8 despite the horrendous pricing here.

is there any european forum that seems to talk about this (sports motion with xbr8, 240Hz xbr7, european equivalents) in english or even other languages that i can use google translator that you know of ?

thanks again

TVbc

Well there's of course the UK AVForums, which has two threads of stuff about the X4500, as well as a fair bit of talk on the Z4500 that I really haven't delved very far into personally, but it'd probably be unwise to expect a whole lot of depth to the information as the site doesn't have quite the scientific side that this one does.

For translated stuff, www.hifi-forum.de is probably the best place to start, but while you'll find stuff there that you won't find here, don't expect pages and pages of new information. There are also decent sized forums in France, the Netherlands, Greece, Norway, etc.

I was offered a chance to purchase a 55"XBR8 today that has been used in a high end video store as a demo since November 21 at a reduced price -- is this a good idea to buy a set that has probably been running for 10 hours a day for over 6 weeks or am I better off just paying the current price and getting a new one?

Any ideas out there if Sony will further reduce the price of these units anytime soon?

thanks. as i said, i went to av.uk and was disappointed in the lack of info about the xbr8 and xbr7240hz as far as sports motion was concerned. for some reason i expected tons of posts about watching football (soccer). maybe i'll try a post over there.

i just tried the german site, and i thought i'd at least be able to navigate the site, but i was lost...hell getting by that damn persistent popup was hard enough LOL

thanks

TVbc

As there are no phosphors anywhere in the XBR8, there will be no problems with dimming or burn in. Check for stuck pixels and backlight clouding while it's up and running. Beyond that it's just a matter of deciding whether the discount is great enough to warrant getting a TV that any Tom, Dick or Harry might have been putting their grubby fingers on. Without knowing how much is being cut off the price I can't give you any help with making that call.

Sony have been steadily dropping the price for a while, but only in small steps. Don't expect it to be $1000 cheaper within a month.



Yeah, I know. As I stated, the place lacks the depth of debate and scientific rigour that this place has, although as a corollary to that it also has less bickering and partisanship. Increadibly, the X4500 thread is predominantly positive and supportive, which is a pretty stark contrast compared to a flick through this thread.


Yeah, I hate that popup with a vengence, too. It's only there for unregistered readers, but registering to a forum in a language you can't speak just to kill a popup is kinda sad. I guess there is always add blockers. Other than that, I can help you navigate it if you're looking for something. My comprehension of the German language is not that great, but it's sufficient to find my way around a forum and have a vague idea of what is being said.

[quote=Carled;15394850]As there are no phosphors anywhere in the XBR8, there will be no problems with dimming or burn in. Check for stuck pixels and backlight clouding while it's up and running. Beyond that it's just a matter of deciding whether the discount is great enough to warrant getting a TV that any Tom, Dick or Harry might have been putting their grubby fingers on. Without knowing how much is being cut off the price I can't give you any help with making that call.

Sony have been steadily dropping the price for a while, but only in small steps. Don't expect it to be $1000 cheaper within a month.



The price drop is about $700 over current pricing and the store is a high end AV outlet here not a big box store.

I'll be interested in hearing your results, if you do have a professional calibration done. I have to partially agree with the other poster about whether a professional calibration is necessary, if you are pretty savvy about display calibration yourself. I am learning this as I go. The Cinema setting out of the box is pretty decent, and when I switch between my custom settings and the default Cinema settings while watching movies, I am hard pressed to discern a difference.

Here's what we're faced with. The set does not clip whites at the high end, so setting contrast by eye is not very accurate. At most backlight settings, if you lower the contrast to achieve a luminance with a full white window that is appropriate for a dark or dim room, you have to lower the contrast what I feel is excessively...much lower than any published settings I have seen. Lower than 70 even. The only way around this is to lower the backlight setting to minimum, which I feel crushes blacks too much to be visually satisfactory (gamma 2.3 at 10%IRE, average gamma 2.25, which is not too bad). With the backlight setting this low, you would have to increase the brightness to a point that makes below blacks plainly visible in pluge patterns, if you set the 10%IRE luminance to an appropriate target. If you increase the backlight setting to 2 (I find the letterboxes and flashlighting to be distracting at a setting of 3) and leave the brightness and contrast essentially unchanged, the gamma stays pretty close to the same, but you get better detail in the dark parts of the picture, and black levels still stay very nice. You do have a subtle, but indeed noticeable, lightening of the letterboxes in wide format movies. For those who spend more time critiquing their electronics than enjoying them, it may be intolerable. But let me get back to the problem with this. With a backlight of 2, and contrast at 85, the luminance is around 61fL at 100% white. This is much too high for a completely dark room and even too high for a room with display backlighting, such as mine, where 30-40fL would be better. I have watched it with both settings (backlight min and backlight 2) and I subjectively prefer the higher backlight. Gamma, color temperature, RGB tracking aren't sacrificed either way.

The other poster is also correct in stating that RGBbias and RGBgain need some tweaking, if you have the appropriate equipment, and you can't simply use posted settings. Mine are much different from some posted settings. Using the 30% and 80%IRE windows to adjust, I achieve a deltaE of less than 3 across the grayscale. I could possibly do better with more time or choosing different points, but less than 3 is good enough. Using the 20%IRE window feels very cumbersome with my meter.

I have considered getting professional calibration done just to satisfy my curiosity, but I am not sure if a few hundred dollars is worth the nominal improvements that a calibrator may or may not be able to achieve. Please at least post results of you calibration. I am most interested in improving my picture at the black end of the grayscale, as we all are.

Overall, in agreement with the other poster, there are a lot of discerning movie and television watchers who should be completely satisfied with the Cinema setting out of the box.

For just $700 I wouldn't bother, that sounds pretty stingy. But it's something to decide for yourself.

61? I think a lot of us would need to wear sunglasses to put up with that. I guess it would be alright for a family TV in a well-lit lounge, though. I wonder if you could put a sheet of ND4 in front of the screen...?

Thanks for your post.