Official Sony HX820 Owner's Thread (46HX820, 55HX820) - Page 5

Given that I don't own this television, but I find it extremely hard to believe that those settings produce an accurate picture. The red flag is the backlight cranked to max. I've never seen an LCD look its best with its backlight turned to the highest setting. In other words, I wouldn't put much stock in Television Info's "calibrated" settings.

Regarding the statement that minimal tweaking is "one of the signs of a good television," that just seems sort of... dumb. Some of the best panels ever made have required a bunch of tweaking, from grayscale adjustments to CMS settings, to look their best. That isn't to say that they still didn't look great from just minor tweaking or even default profiles like their Cinema/Movie/Pure/THX/etc. modes, but that is hardly testing the capabilities of the product.

With that said, I might as well say something directly about the product as this has been a largely off-topic post. My goodness the online pricing of the 55" is getting ever more attractive! I'm still considering it, but as I can't find a local retailer to play with one of these directly its tough to pull the trigger. Coming from the Kuro, I'm afraid of things like less-than-smooth motion and poor viewing angles as I have a very horizontal living room and, in fact, no dead-center seating to speak of. (may be weird, but it would make sense if you seen it) Additionally, Amazon charges tax so my best deal is through a different e-tailer. The problem is that it seems the cheapest aren't as good as Amazon when it comes to returns regarding defects, and as many of us have experienced a lot can be wrong with a large-screened television right out of the box. I know I'll have a manufacturer's warranty to fall back on, but my dealings with Panasonic in the past have been less than inspiring and any manufacturer anywhere will be able to claim some glaring flaw is "within tolerances" if they need to.

Decisions, decisions...

i am a bit concerned about the motion problems in 24p, but hopefully my "untrained" eyes won't notice.

They are delivering it Tuesday morning. A day late but i don't mind as long as the tv didn't get damaged while shipping.

Inndeed

I have a untrained eye too. I'm 10 days in and this tv is freaking amazing.

Personally, I've found the importance of proper 24p handling to be overblown. I can think of very few scenes where it's a definitive benefit and, oddly, I sometimes even think 3:2 pulldown is desirable with certain content as it actually looks more natural whereas 24p cadence actually looks disjointed by comparison. I wish I could find it, but there was a great article written a while back on the actual benefits of 24p and why it shouldn't be a deal-breaker for most. It was an interesting read that helped reaffirm the stance that I already held.

In other words, don't get worried. Lock in some settings and then trust your eyes.

Today I had the opportunity to run a 24p test on the HX820. I used the Spears & Munsil High Def Benchmark Blu-ray Edition Calibration disk ( I purchased this calibration disk on Amazon). My equipment configuration included the Sony BDP-S780 blu-ray player and the HX820 TV. In my opinion the test was positive. I saw smooth motion with no evidence of stuttering.

Likewise I reset all the TV settings to default for this test. ( Note: I believe this test is also dependent upon the capabilities of the DVD/Bluray player you connect to the HX820. E.g. I did not observe the same level of results using the old PS3 as opposed to Sony's new BDP-S780--the BDP-S780 did a better job perhaps because of its 16 bit video processor--not really sure. In fact in my opinion the HX820 and BDP-S780 did quite well on all the other cadence tests too not just the 24P.

As many of you HX820 owners have already discovered there are a myriad of settings, advanced settings and setting combinations on this TV. So for the most part I have left the factory default settings in place ( based upon the recommendations of televisioninfo.com and selected the "scene" options ( Cinema, Auto, Sports, General etc.) depending upon the content I was viewing with one caveat :-) Based upon immolator's recommendations earlier in this forum I did set the LED Local Dimming ( in advanced settings) to "standard" to make sure I take advantage of the local dimming capability of this TV. Using the "eyeball" approach--I feel I achieved darker "blacks" with LED Local Dimming set to Standard. Additionally, I think I will continue to tweak the backlight +/- depending upon how much light is in the room for day or night time viewing.

In summary, from a consumer perspective I continue to be very happy with the performance of this TV

dawg and curly thanks for sharing your views, sounds promising!!

lbj2, thanks for taking the effort. makes me more desperate to get my hands on it now :P. 2 more days..its like time has stopped or something. incidentally i just got a free 32 inch samsung tv for my room today (came with furniture) and hopefully it will keep me busy tomorrow

Isrararrafi: congrats on the new TV..and free too. Wow

Also, while you are waiting for the HX820 you might want to check out the HX820 iManual on-line at
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/mod...mdl=KDL55HX820

If you select the iManual online, then Settings/Home Menu, then Picture Adjustments...you will see what I mean in that this TV has many settings to keep you busy for a while.

I had a few questions I just couldn't seem to find answers to, and was hoping someone here could help.

I just bought a UN46d6400 and am strongly considering returning it for a used 46 HX820 from Amazon.

I am very sensitive to motion blur (sometimes to the point of motion sickness), and I feel the D6400 has too much. I personally like the over-clear "soap opera effect" I have seen on some TVs. It is a 120hz panel and the automotion feature handles small movements well, but anything moving quick at all is very blurry to me. For example a HD soccer ball being passed has a pixelly spot sometimes trailing it. Without the feature, things are choppy, and with it they are unnatural and choppy. This was a big problem with Bluray and games.

So I guess I have 4 questions
1. I live in a small town and have only been able to see a NX 720 in person. It seems smooth, should I expect the same only slightly better from the HX820?
2. Without going to something as expensive as the HX929, is this the TV I want to minimize motion blur?
3. Because "game mode" on TV just turns off any extra image processing, will it always be the same on 120hz and 240hz panel TVs because the source material is the same?
4. Are there any HDTVs that image process fast enough that they can use "automotion plus" type features without large input lag? (PC and game console HDMI)

Thanks for reading,

Does the TV have 5.1 passthrough on the optical out? In other words, if one of the HDMI inputs has 5.1 sound, is the 5.1 sound output on the TV's optical or is it downmixed to stereo?

lbj2 lol yes...its pretty awesome to have my OWN tv in the bedroom.

and thanks for the link. read the whole thing already. i like reading manuals..but this one doesn't go into details much, guess i have to learn the stuffs myself and of course there are always ppl here willing to help

I looked at the 720 and thought their was a night and day difference in pq. The 720 was very noisy. While the 820 was crystal clear. I thought it was 120 vs 240 hz. But I could be wrong.

just received my tv. No damage at all. Alone at home, so can't set it up on the stand (its quite heavy). but that didn't stop me. just playing around with the setup and online contents now. have't seen any flashlighting or clouding (tried really hard but its morning here, so probably won't notice anything).

here are some pics while unpacking...the room has become a complete mess :P

Looks like you will be having lots of fun today!

if anyone is wondering how to enter URL in the browser, click options on your remote and u will see enter URL

Thanks! I went ahead and got it. Going to go through the pain of paying to return my D6400. Bought HX820 from Amazon open box. Better not be clouding...

I am looking into getting a Sony LED TV. However, I was wondering what the gaming input lag was for this tv. I've read some others and they were more laggy than a plasma. I thought Sony would hold their end because the PS3 is big in their company. I was also considering the 46HX729.

According to people posting in this thread so far, the input of this set is very low. No official timing measurements yet.

Ah, okay. I was just looking at the specs for the 46HX729 and under video features, picture mode, there is game-standard and game-original. There seems to be plenty of options to create a pleasant gaming experience.

Ok..time for a short review...

Played around with it for 3 hours... I will list the cons first

Minor flash lighting on the left edge which I was able to get rid of mostly by setting the brightness to 42 and backlight to minimum (for movies only). There was no clouding I could see even in a completely dark room.

There is a bit of unevenness in color...I tried an all grey picture and it was a bit off here and there.

The tv waasnt responding to the remote while I was going thru menus quickly..it just hung in settings menu even tho the tv had it's light blinking which means it was receiving the signal. I had to turn tv off and back up and everything was fine.

The browser just sucks...I might try wired connection to see if things speeds up.

Now the good parts...ltv looks quite sexy when it is off

The color to me seems to be pretty much spot on. I played the sony's eye candy video in full 1080p

There r loads of settings to get that perfect pic u r looking for

I tried to play with the picture adjustments and I have seen most people recommending warm 2, but I find it too yellowish and warm 1 does a better job according to me. Although a bluish tint is there, it's bearable to me.

I turned off most of the extra features. Motion flow to smooth and cine motion to auto 2.

It's still not perfect, but I am reaching there. I will post my settings tomorrow morning. I mostly followed cnet's recommendation regarding hx929.

I have just received my 55HX820 and will let you guys in the comming days know my findings.

However in the meanwhile - would anybody know which soundbar will fits the 55HX820 ? I know that there is one for the HX810, but will this one also fits also the 55HX820? Does the soundbar also need to be plugged into an electric fuse or not - because not maybe I can look across the border and buy it somewhere foreign ...

Thanks!

Ok here are my settings for regular tv...for a well lit room in the morning and dimly lit at night

Scene : General
picure mode : custom
backlight : 1
picture : 90
brightness: 49
color: 50
hue: 0
color temp: warm 1
sharpness : 50
noise/mpeg/dot reduction : off
reality creation : off
smooth gradation : low
motionflow: smooth
cinemotion: auto 2

advance settings:
black corrector: off
adv contrast enhancer: off
gamma :0
LED Dynamic control: Standard
Auto light limiter/clear white/liver color/detail henhancer/edge enhancer/skin neutralizier ff
Ip conversio preferencene:quality
White balance:
R-Gain: -5
G-Gain: -1
B-Gain: -6
R-Bias: 0
G-Bias: 0
B-Bias: 0

ambiet sensor" off

all the other sensors: off

power saving: off

These look to be the most realistic settings I've seen yet, with one exception. The picture being set so high (90) along with the sharpness (50.)

Typically, the last year or two the THX reps have had Sony's calibrations have been around 75-82'ish for picture and 0 for sharpness. Not saying 90 is wrong since don't know yet, mine is at home in the box now and replaces my 55NX810 which died after a few months. It just seems very high on the scale.

I will be posting my calibration in the next few days. I use a combination of the DVE Bluray and Disney BD WOW discs.

Aquayonex, Thanks for the feedback, i will try to get the color and sharpness lower and see how much i like the look

BTW. i made a mistake...all that edge enhancing and stuff...all of them are set to off, not low. I have not played with those settings because pretty much for every sony tv people say to disable them

I was reading an Amazon review today of someone who said the glue was loose on the glass so they could see light out of the side. Anyone notice that?

This problem raises concern for me as well. The last thing I want is dust getting between the LCD panel and Gorilla Glass. If there's a chance of this, I'll probably go with the 55HX729 after all.

Hopefully that's just a fluke thing and Sony fixes it right for the guy...

Speaking of Amazon..... anyone who bought this tv there for their new low price over the last week or so, be sure to submit for your refund, as 6ave.com (one of the qualifying price match retailers) has the tv for $41 cheaper right now...my refund was approved this morning.

Great thanks! I didn't know if I would see another price drop in my 14 day window after I purchased mine, but I guess I was wrong!

I have, well had, the 55NX810 which is the exact same physical design and had no issues with this whatsoever.

I would go with the HX820 over the HX729 any day. It's like picking up a new Mercedes Benz over a Honda Accord. I mean sure, Honda's are nice enough..., but it's no Benz.

Aside from the Gorilla Glass, what's the advantage of paying $400 more for the HX820 over the HX729? I'm constantly going back and forth between the two and need to make up my mind soon.