Official Sony KDL 32EX400 40EX400 46EX400 EX401 - Page 9

Does it output the audio from all the sources though (HDMI, component, etc.)? Also is the audio lagging behind the visuals?

First time posting. Thought I'd share my settings for my 40EX401. This is using the DVE hd bd on my ps3. The environment I view in is either at day with all my windows closed off or at night (with or without the light on).

Scene: General
Mode: Custom
Backlight: Min
Picture: 94
Brightness: 52
Color: 48
Hue: 0
Color Temperature: Warm 2
Sharpness: Min

Power Saving is on high (which seems to automatically turn the backlight to it's lowest possible value).

All other controls like cinemotion, ambient sensor or contrast enhancer are turned off and white balance is left at default.

Not the most accurate colors, but the black levels are outstanding.

The ex401s at Costco I'm looking at are 1080p. I had originally thought the only difference from the ex400s was that the Costco versions had an all-black bezel instead of the gray strip at the bottom. But all the ex401s I've seen have the gray strip, too. The ex501 series at Costco are all black, though, whereas the ex500 series also have the gray strip.

My Costco has the 40ex401 in stock. I just haven't seen the 46ex401 in awhile.

Yes it outputs from all the sources.

I can't really tell that it's lagging behind the visuals, but it probably is. The only reason I can detect the input lag is because I have my PC outputting audio through HDMI to the TV, but I also have my headphones plugged in directly to my soundcard. If I listen to something on the PC, the sound comes through the headphones before it comes through the speakers.

Like I said earlier though, this is an issue with every HDTV I've ever tried. At least on my Sharp the audio out from the TV was lagless. Sadly it isn't the case here. I expect the issue will only ever show when playing rhythm games (and I'm extremely picky about fast audio response in rhythm games).


Yeah this TV does have outstanding blacks if you can use it with a low backlight.

As for the color accuracy, I suggesting switching to Warm 1. It's this TV's neutral setting, from the calibration I've done with DVE's color filters. Both green and blue are very accurate, though the TV pushes more red than it should. The accuracy is actually very good considering this is an LCD.

Thank you, very much! I may go ahead and get this (gonna spend some time watching the EX400 in various stores locally first) and hopefully I won't notice the lag. Oh well, either way, I'll probably be getting a new receiver eventually anyway and then I can just use the HDMI pass through on that for audio.

Thinking about using this as a PC monitor, just have a few questions. I have an external 2.1 sound system, I plug it into the green audio port on the back of my tower, will I be able to use the set with the tv? Or would I need an adapter? Will I have any problems if I use a HDMI cable to hook it up to my PC? I can't use the VGA at the moment.

I'm on using VGA with the same sound system and it works fine. As for HDMI, I suppose as long as your pc has an HDMI port then it should work fine. Mine doesn't so I can only get a resolution of 1360x768 until I get an HDMI/VGA cable.

Yup, PC has HDMI. I'm about 45 inches away, so the 40" would be too big right? Sounds good, now all I have to do is wait for SCII to come out(14 days!)

I've been reading a lot of reviews of the 46EX400 and it seems the sound is the biggest complaint I've noticed since the speakers are pointed downwards. Anyone that has it can tell me if it's really that bad? All the reviews say to make sure you have a sound system. I live in an apartment so I won't be doing surround sound.

The sound is a lot better if you tweak it a bit in the options. Leave the bass as is (or even reduce it if need be), turn up the treble to around 6-8, and turn off the surround effect. It's not that great, but not terrible either.

Hey guys, I have a quick question. I purchased the B series yesterday from walmart, model no: KDL-32BX300, it appears to be almost identical to this tv except for less hdmi ins (which for a bedroom tv) i only need 1 no light sensor, which i don't use, and it's a 720p native set. However the set accepts the full 1080p signal and scales it down to 768p instead of forcing 1080i. I was curious if anyone thinks I would really notice a difference in this size panel with true 1080p resolution? I've tried both 1080p and 720p sets in this size and have not noticed a detail difference. Also how prone is this tv to the buzzing sound in the back of the TV i've read about in a couple reviews on best buy's site. Thanks

I was mainly asking the differences because. I was able to keep my extended two year warranty from walmart with the BX300 exchange. If I were to return the tv and buy the ex from best buy i would not be able to afford an extended warranty. Plus I have a 42" panasonic plasma as my main tv in the living room that's full 1080p, which sadly is waiting for warranty work. Anyway since i have the 42" would it be wiser to stick with the 720p for the bedroom and keep the extended warranty? From my professional resources It's been said most people cant tell the difference in a smaller screen and the main differences show up on a larger screen say 40" or bigger. Thanks for the feedback.

One last thing, my set has the 24p feature as well as this set, so I have the most important features I was looking for in this set. And considering what happened with the panasonic I think it wise to keep one tv with an extended warranty. cause if the panasonic goes out again, after the 1 year warranty is up, it's done. what broke cost as much as the tv.

You don't need surround sound. Just buy a receiver off Craigslist (got mine for $40) and a pair of speakers. You can get something which will blow any TV away for cheap.

Yea stereo imaging can be quite something else even with cheaper speakers and woofers. Especially in comparison to your TV's built in speakers.

As for 1080p vs 1080i, if you primarily use a screen as a television most content is either 720p or 1080i so its sort of a non-factor in that regard. A screen with a resolution of x768 on the other hand.... can't say I would be too happy with that considering overscan is involved somewhere for full screen 16:9 content. I hate overscan with a passion, my first HDTV(which I still own) is a 61 inch DLP which has some nasty overscan that can't be tweaked. Which is ok for movies and television even if it can cut off TV broadcast icons and the such but for any kind of gaming application on a console(PC not included since you can actually view content in your screens native resolution) any kind of cut off is just plain annoying.
(this was written at 7:20 AM with no sleep so bear with me please )

As for screen size... as large as you can handle. Obviously you don't want to be staring at a 40-50 inch screen if your only sitting 3-4 feet away.

I sit about 11-12 feet from my huge TV, and from that distance I could handle probably up to an 80 inch screen. Where I sit at my desk, I think 32 inches is about as high as I can handle. 24inch was actually small for me and now that I have a 32 inch screen I am glad I didn't try 27in because that would of been too small too probably for my tastes .

I just bought a Sony Bravia LCD...model KDL-46EX400. I've never previously owned my own hdtv so im just curious what the best picture settings would be for this model. If anyone can help out i'd appreciate it.

As a professional, producer, I think out of the box Sony has done an excellent Job of calibration. I Personally would set the scene mode to Cinema for movies and tv shows, it balances out the source differences Nicely, Also I ran the avsHD calibration disc in cinema mode, and brightness and contrast appear to be right on according to the recommendations.

One area I've seen the cinema mode shine, is watching old content such as knight rider from netflix streaming, even as old as blurry that old content can be It has an excellent color balance.

If you want to tweak your own settings I'd use:

Standard with picture set to 84 and brightness set to 52 and color temp set to warm 1 or 2. Those were the most accurate settings I found that my eyes were comfortable looking at.

Hope this helps!

Games look vibrant and nicely saturated so I guess it's Comcast, but it's just strange. I'll be watching, say Sportscenter, and highlights taken in hd will be at one moment awesome and the next dull and gritty, as I said. I noticed it during the world cup as well. They'd switch to some shot from the sidelines and it would just suck the color out of the picture, but then the next shot of the pitch would look perfectly fine. I'm just curious if you all have seen it as well, and if there's something that could account for it.

I don't have cable TV, I use digital OTA here, and colors are fine. Keep in mind though not all camera shots are perfect, plus it could have been something with comcast. It's been said OTA is better then cable for HD, as OTA isn't compressed like cable or sat are. However, I can't compare personally, I only have what sources i follow say. Also depending on the source, My plasma TV will always seem to be more deep in color range then my ex400 LCD, but this is just the difference between LCD and plasma technology. Either way, both TVS are both colorful and have a good solid calibration of colors and clarity.

This is the single issue I have with this television. Blu-rays are great, gaming is awesome. I guess I'm expecting too much from Comcast. Go figure. You wouldn't happen to have any settings to share, particularly white balance? My whites are very pinkish.

hi everyone i connected laptop on this lcd via vga but not sound what cable need to sound? i hear that minijack minijack like the headphone entrance? .. sorry for my english hehe

I pulled the trigger and bought the 40ex401 at Costco. My first HDTV (if you don't count my 21.5" 1080P Acer monitor...haha) and I'm very happy with it. I used serielmike's settings from the ex500 thread and made a few small tweaks for my taste.

When I first looked at this set, I was completely turned off by the gray bezel on the bottom. But I can honestly say it's now a non-factor--I don't notice it at all. It may help that the 40ex401 has more of a matte gray bezel (not quite as nice as the ex500 bezel, which is more of a gunmetal/aluminum texture) as opposed to the more glossy gray bezel on the ex400.

Noticed some lag playing Guitar Hero on the PS2, but in-game calibration fixed it. Didn't notice any lag playing Madden.

Hey guys, I tried playing mpeg2 files from a flash drive on this tv last night. The files play fine, but they play in the center of the screen, the video doesn't fill the screen. Also the zoom option in the play method options for video is greyed out. the video resolution is 720X480. Any ideas ?

Thanks

Check your manual. I'm pretty sure it specifies that the TV won't zoom any input higher than 480i/p resolution.

Doug

Does this mean I'm stuck with a little tiny window of video in the middle of the tv screen when playing from a flash drive? The original sources are 720p h:264 files (mpeg 4) is there a way to encode HD content to mpeg 2? I'm more familiar with working with quicktime and mp4 formatted video. Tow of the major formats in production mpeg2 i've only used when it comes to dvd video. By the way I am a mac user because of working with professional video, plus the fact I've grown up with macs and it's my platform of choice.

Anyway,

Thanks input is welcome here.

Hey folks...can someone please tell me if the 40ex400/401 has variable audio output to an external amp when the internal speakers are shut off?

thanks!

I just picked up the 32" EX400 from Best Buy today in hopes of using it as a PC monitor, and everything seemed to be going smoothly until I launched a game. Everything looks very pixelated and just ugly, where as my desktop and all other programs were crisp.

It's connected to a GTX 285 via HDMI (in HDMI Input 1) and I've double-checked that it's set to 1920x1080, and I believe I have all the TV settings set correctly as well- Graphics, Full Pixel, Sharpness 0%. It also only seems to be when the games are in fullscreen, since when they're in windowed mode everything is crisp and clear.

Any ideas?

Edit- Nevermind. I switched from HDMI to VGA and it works now. Not sure why HDMI didn't though.

Put it back on HDMI(its better than VGA), go into your nvidia graphics card settings and you'll see a new option called "Content type reported to the display" in "Desktop color settings". Select Desktop and viola your good to go. Same thing happened to me.

was wondering if anyone knew the exact motion response time on the ex400?

thanks

Hello there. Its been a wile since I posted about this tv. I too have the 40ex400 and I still am very happy with it. I too love the blacks it is able to produce. I have many uses for this tv, especially gaming; survival horror games mostly and tomb raiders type games, and its not to dark where I cant see in places. I have not noticed any lag but I'm not looking for it either. I also play like DDR and raceing games and still dont notice any. I have had this tv now since I want to say Middle Feb to early March and am still very happy with it. Perfect set, no buzzing and I am not able to see the lines people are talking about on these sets. I tried posting pics but it keeps telling me to install something. I must be doing it wrong or something.

The only thing I can think of you need to view pics on here is possibly flash player. One thing you could do is use photobucket to upload your photos to, then use their img code copier to create a image link that can be pasted into this thread.

Example:
Here is a link to a photo of pirates of the Caribbean on my 42" plasma in the living room:

Thanx for your reply. I have flash player but it did say something about photo pucket but thats the install thing I was talking about. I dont install other software like that on to any of my computers. Most places allow you to do so right from the message box, but I dont see an upload button.