Official Sony XBR HX909 owners' thread (52HX909, 46HX909, HX9, HX900) - Page 3

Common forum behaviour, sadly.


Well, at least one cannot say that they are being paid by Sony...

They also did surprise me a bit by rating the HX909 even lower than I predicted they would, though I said that it will get "4 stars at most":
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post18399615

For clarifications sake on my part. I believe that cnet is competent in thier reviews to a point.

But I take what I need from his reviews like color measures and greyscale measures.

I also take into account for instance that he does not use special features on sets (which many times do not help the image) Sometimes on some sets though you can get more accurate and better image quality by using these engineered features.

I also take into account the solid fact that he reviews in a NO LIGHT enviroment which is heavily swayed and biased towards plasma technology. Also it is an unrealistic enviroment for 98 percent of people.

I do not listen to his subjective ******** like I detect blue in dark scenes. When he states that collor is excellent and shows the stats, Then says the greyscale tracks excellent from 20 to 80 ire at 6450 then guess what...the only blue hes seeing is watching a movie that was filmed with a blue lens for dark scenes.


With all that said I do believe that the xbr8 was king of the hill set as good as it gets and imo better than the kuro because you cant get blacker than off so his subjective best image on the kuro from 0 angle doesnt fly. Plus the xbr8 had a more accurate grayscale and color with user adjustments alone.

I also believe that this new hx xbr is quite inferior due to his color and greyscale comments alone.

Less zones..funneling light rather than just shining the light where it needs to be adds up to thinner case not better image. Its simple science.

Honestly its why I didnt even bother waiting to see this xbr8 replacement. Its to small and from a design science standpoint had little chance of being better than the xbr8

The HX909 is a nice display that I personally would like to have, but...it just needs to be priced accordingly. At this time the price/performance isn't quite there, especially for a 52". The improvements of the HX909 over a "lesser" model seem to be very incremental. For me personally it's, why not just get a 60" and live with a "very slight trade-off" in picture quality for the extra 8".

That's great to hear that the HX909 doesn't suffer from the cracking expansion/contraction noises as the NX700 and NX800 did, and that viewing angles are better too. (the 'cones' at the top and bottom of the screen were annoying as well)

Those issues were what caused me to return my NX700.

I'll probably end up buying the 52" HX909, but I'm not in a big hurry to buy it though, I figure I'll buy it in about 3-4 monhts after the price has gone down $800-$1000. in the meantime my EX700 will hold me over...

Can you confirm that the HX909 has metal construction on the back, like the EX700?

It seems it was the plastic construction on the back of the NX700 and NX800 that caused all the expansion/contraction cracking noises...

Given that you also previously had a NX800, can you quantify at all how much better the viewing angles of the HX909 are?

Thanks! Looking forward to seeing this moel in person soon.

If nothing else comes out that tickles my fancy, I too am waiting 'til around Christmas time to get the 52HX909. You really think it'll be that much cheaper in four months, chicagorunner? Cripes, I wouldn't even think the end of the year would bring it down in price THAT much. But hey, I'll love to be wrong. But I'm in no hurry to get it now, I have a 40" that'll do, plus I'm moving soon which will require the money more so than a new TV. So basically, Merry Christmas, future me!

$800-$1000 off of what? MSRP? It's already there.

Just went to my local Frys and looked at HX909. I'm both impressed and not impressed.

The design is much better in person than it looks in the pictures.

From about 3 feet I couldn't tell where TV ended and black bars of the movie started. Wow. It was playing Lord of the Rings via 3D Samsung blu-ray player. The picture was totally off as far as colors - almost made me think that sales stuff did something on purpose to the settings. No glasses were in sight - I'll have to go to Best Buy to check out 3D.

One other thing - it was set up in one of the isles, so I could not even step back far enough - only about 3-4 feet. But I have to say that viewing angles were much better than I expected.

Overall, I don't feel that it's big enough for my living room - so I might have to try 55hx800 instead....

Yo...BlankSlate...throw us a friggin bone here!
So far, all we've heard is that the reflections are good, off angle is better than the NX and blooming is managed...
This thread is dying a slow death of idle speculation and chance encounters.

very anxious to see this set, even though it probably won't hold a candle to the XBR8...also would like to see it compared to the LG 8500, because currently, i dont know how LED-backlit tvs can get better than that LG...

Well I went to the Sony store in Palo Alto today and I have to say the 909 looked great to my untrained eyes. It was playing Avatar in 2D and the colors were extremely vibrant and sharp, blacks looked excellent as well. While I was there I also watched the 8 series in 3D and I'm pretty torn on it really. For one thing the "3D" effect was better in some respects than I was expecting but at the same time the layered effect to many of the scenes looked extremely goofy and don't really simulate a 3 dimensional picture to me but look like if you were looking through a viewmaster. Also contrary to what many told me on these forums wearing the glasses most definitely cuts down on the vibrance/brightness of the display. It's like wearing a pair of lightly tinted sunglasses.

In the end I don't think I would buy a tv specifically for 3D BUT if I can find a tv with amazing 2D quality that also happens to have 3D I'd make the purchase but don't really see the 3D as a selling point. I just wish the newer Sony LCD's came in sizes larger than 55 inches because that's not really large enough imo for a main tv.

the layering should go away after a while. I get the same effect going to the cinema for 3D movies, but after 5-10 minutes my eyes seem to merge the layers together.

Samsung C5000 led(non-local dimming) lcd: .006 MLL
Panasonic G20 plasma: .0083 MLL

You can get an lcd without local dimming that has better blacks than every current plasma but the VT25(til the vt rises of course). I don't see why he should go easy on blooming in a dark environment, a normal backlit set shouldn't be outperforming a local-dimming set.

You realize that black level isn't the only important part to consider when evaluating contrast, don't you?

Why are you trying to turn this into a Plasma debate - could you move your discussion over to the PDP threads where it belongs. This thread is dedicated to LCD Discussions and not a debate of the friggin Panny Plasma otherwise your trolling! If you prefer the VT25 whoopee for you but who gives a crap we know how to click on over to the VT25 threads if we CHOOSE!

BTW Contrast has a depth number for Black but it has a peak for brightness and white which you plasma fanboys NEVER post as it sucks! There are two sides to the Contrast equation and plasma fans only mention one half of that two sided coin. Now can we return to discussing the HX909?

I can think of about 3 or 4 issues to improve on that set, but that would be a different thread.

Agreed. This is the HX909 owners thread, not yet another place to discuss the in's and out's of Plasma vs LCD or any other subject not directly related to this TV.

From Sony's source
"Dynamic contrast ratio compares the luminance of a 100 IRE (white)
signal with that of a 0 IRE (black) signal. When the TV receives a 0 IRE
signal the backlight is turned off and the luminance measurement is
0.00 cd/m . The resulting dynamic contrast ratio is infinite"

The XBR52HX909 is local dimming and has full array (not edge light)
LED backlight. That is also why it ain't the skinniest kid on the block, but is about half of the thickness of the XBR8 and about 40% of the 55XBR8s price,

the LE8500? or the xbr8? haha, banding, blooming, there's literally something wrong with every LCD, LED, and plasma set. You just have to take the good with the bad and realize you're never going to get a perfect set.

I figure they can't be worse than the XBR10s...which were...abysmal.

Is it a great set or not? Better than a Samsung 8000???

Besides the white level? Which should be properly calibrated between 35-40ftl? That gives the C5000 a native contrast ratio of 6666:1 if you choose 40ftl. If there is any more to it than that I guess I don't understand.

Where do you think I said I prefer the VT25? I said the VT25 is worse than the C5000 LCD. Learn to read.

If you would read my post you would see it is in reply to serialmike's contention that the HX909 review on Cnet is biased against LCD(and favoring plasma) because katz reviews in a dark room. I was saying that it is not biased towards plasma when you can get non-local dimming sets with black levels superior to all but the best plasma TVs.(and only until the best plasma rises)
My post was not off-topic in the least.

The numbers I posted are from Tom Huffman (source) The backlight does not need to turn off in order for the C5000 to achieve a .006 MLL.

So, again, CNET's review of the HX909 is not invalidated because he reviews in the dark, since LCD sets(normal backlit) are capable of besting the black levels of all plasma sets(even the VT25 since it will rise past .006).

You're making my point.

You're the one who suggested that "...currently, I dont know how LED-backlit tvs can get better than that LG... ".

I could, but that indeed would be a different thread.

Lot of extraneous posts, for what's supposed to be an owners thread.......

+1...where's the beef?

I wonder why this set would be so much cheaper than the XBR8? Is RGB LED's really that much more expensive and make such a difference compared to white LEDs? Seeing that black levels on the HX909 are better than the XBR8 my guess is that it does have more dimming zones yet still so much cheaper...

Could someone test the input lag on this set and post the results please? TV manufacturers need to start including this number in the specs of the TV as it's an extremely important factor for many people.

blankslate, do you play video games? I was wondering if there's any video game lag on the HX909, and if not I think I'll get a 52" one.