Official Sony HX850 Owner's Thread (46HX850, 55HX850) - Page 16

Originally Posted by HaRd2BeAr 

Use what looks best to your eyes. I personally found using Warm 2 plus turning green gain down in the white balance git rid of the dirty affect. Neutral on these set's isn't neutral as in no bias either way, i know this may sound strange to some but it is Sony's interpretation of neutral and is heavily blue tinted.
You could also tweak red gain but by eye is not the easiest or most accurate way.
Before anyone says why not just use neutral then instead of tweaking red out of warm. Well if you used Neutral, you would need to take huge amounts of blue push out and it would be very difficult to get colors natural.
The thing is, blue color errors are harder to detect than red or green. It's just how our eyes perceive the image and colors.
Aaron

Originally Posted by rajivr 

Thanks Aaron and Fegam for your detailed explanation. I have been watching neutral on Sony for 10 years, so warm2 is too drastic of a change, however I am gonna give Warm1 a decent run and see how I like it.
Is white balance adjustment as simple as holding a white paper in front of the TV and trying to match it with a white screen?
Aaron, what are your white balance settings for warm2?

Originally Posted by cardoski 

I went and looked at this TV today at the future shop. It was set up in torch mode so I convinced the sales guy to tone it down a bit. I have to say from what I have seen it looks real nice. Black are nice and so are the whites. I think I will pull the trigger tomorrow and get this set. Will be nice to see it not so ramped up. I also looked at a panasonic VT50 which is nice but the motion smoother was not very strong.I am hoping once calibrated this Sony has very strong motion interpolation. I just love that look.

Originally Posted by Fegam 

Good give warm 1 a try you won't regreated, try to uset it for several days at least, so your eyes will a accustom to the new settings, before you realise when you look at neutral again you'll see that the look of peoples faces and color saturation are much much better in warm 1. Another IMPORTANT THING I forget to tell you is that when I was using cinema 1 the picture looks nice and then I remeber reading somewhere that the LIGHT SENSOR SETTING was ON by default on this tv, so I look and there were right. This setting is located in preferences if I remeber correctly not in pictures settings and what it does is that adjust the backlight acording to room brigthness and let me tell you that doesn´t work very well (in any of my last 3 sony tvs including the HX850) in fact what its does is display the picture to dark to my taste. So I correctly set the Light Sensor to OFF and Viola! the picture went from looking nice to EXCELENT, beautifull definition and shadow detail . You will see the change if you haven't deactivate that setting yet, trust me, and remember that i haven´t made the full calibration yet.

Originally Posted by Fegam 

I agree with HaRd2BeAr that using Nuetral is not a very good choice because the white is not really white but blue tinted white. Its been that way always at least with sony tvs. I have an 2001 sony XBR CRT tv in my dinning room and even then neutral was blue tinted. Idon´t tweak the white balance because honestly i don't know how to do it without the proper tools of a calibrator. Is my understanding that without a colorimeter and the pertinent software to measure the color temp you cannot calibrate the white balance acurately, but if HaRd2BeAr knows a way to do it without it and get good results, please explaint to us. I have always wanted to know if there is a way to do it withou the proper tools?. I won't use clear white at al,l because options like that one or black corrector what they do is increase the black or white but crushing shadow detail in the process. stay away from those two!
rajivr, in the end like HaRd2BeAr said, used what looks best to your eyes just let tell you that that preferences change over time. From 1999 to 2003 I used neutral becuase i like it in CRT tvs. from 2003 to 2011 always used warm 1 because I cannot longer stand neutral and I percieved warm 2 to have to much red and soft whites. Maybe the problem were my tvs (sony S3000 and later sony Z5100) because i cannot do a professional calibration of the white balance even if I wanted to (in my country there are no professionals in this area unlike the US). Now in 2012 I'm really enjoying the Warm 2 setting in Cinema 1, the colos are full and well balance and i Know the white is not pure white but i like the way it is, and I think is because like the Cnet and FlatpanelsHD reviews said, the color the HX850 display in the cinema preset is very acurate, so it is very close to the specification of a proper profesional calibration. Just compare the same images in warm 1 and later in warm 2 and IMO the latter came out on top.

Originally Posted by rajivr 

Thanks Aaron and Fegam for your detailed explanation. I have been watching neutral on Sony for 10 years, so warm2 is too drastic of a change, however I am gonna give Warm1 a decent run and see how I like it.
Is white balance adjustment as simple as holding a white paper in front of the TV and trying to match it with a white screen?
Aaron, what are your white balance settings for warm2?

Originally Posted by Fegam 

Cardoski, I was looking at the VT50 and GT50 along with the sony HX850. The picture of the panasonic is truly amazing specially the VT50 but for me the deal breaker with the panny plasmas is that you can't apreciate this amazing picture in bright rooms. in fact i`ll tell i look at the tv in a medium bright room and the pictture specially the blacks tend to fade and wash out to much to my taste. My room is medium bright even with my curtains close, so dispite I wanted to try a plasma for the first time, My room conditions dictate I'm a LCD guy all the way. Why spend a lot of cash to only see an avarage picture during the day. (I try the THX day mode and even then the picture and colors tend to loose fullness and with a setting of picture/constrat of maximum 100). The sony is truly a very good tv, the reviewers from diferent US and european sites had named the HX850 as the best LCD of the year and I agree a 100%. I haven´t calibrated mine but out of the boc the cinema 1 seting gives a excelent picture, very close to professional standars, especially in the color temperature area. (read my answers to rajivr for more info in picture settings). If you like the soap opera efect, you can have it with this sony, just use motionflow on Smooth and you got it!, but for what I have seen the samsung LEDs tend to create a much more strong soap opera efect, but these tvs are much more also expensive that the sony (the direct competition will be the ES-7500 or the ES-8000) and IMO aren't worth the price difference (The gesture control of these TVs is CRAP, believe me I tried it but the smart tv platform is the best in the market). the HX850 has 5 settings for motionflow from least strong to very strong just stay away from IMPULSE, is just doesn't work

Originally Posted by cardoski 

Thank you for the reply. I am about 99% sold on the Sony. My main reason for a new TV is that my current set, an LG55LW5600 has very weak motion settings. Footballs when going across the screen ghost like crazy and there appears to be no motion interpolation what so ever.The color and blacks are good and overall it is a nice set. But my big thing is that darn Soap opera look. So your statement that Samsungs do better in that regard gives me Reason to pause.Even though I know all the reviewers including you give the Sony the thumbs up.I suppose I can always return it. Overall pretty nice issue to have, oh woe is me what ever shall I chose.

Originally Posted by rajivr 

8 and clear are for day time viewing, correct? For night time, in a dark room, do you reduce backlight to 3?

Originally Posted by cardoski 

Thank you for the reply. I am about 99% sold on the Sony. My main reason for a new TV is that my current set, an LG55LW5600 has very weak motion settings. Footballs when going across the screen, ghost like crazy and there appears to be no motion interpolation what so ever.The color and blacks are good and overall it is a nice set. But my big thing is that darn Soap opera look. So your statement that Samsungs do better in that regard gives me Reason to pause.Even though I know all the reviewers including you give the Sony the thumbs up.The Samung 55ES7500 is cheaper then the Sony where I live. I could care less about the motion control, I am going for best picture quality with strong motion interpolation. In fact I run a pretty powerful PC to my TV, (big reason not to get plasma for me) and use Pot player with SVP 3.1. This software adds extra frames to the picture to get motion smoothing, really cool software. But with my TV still not enough. So I am thinking a semi strong soap opera look with the blacks of the Sony may be a winner. Considering I have no such look now. I really wish I had never seen motion interpolation.

Originally Posted by Fegam 

Like Justing Sullings point out, i have read that some led samsungs have uniformity problems, so the best way to compare it with the sony in that regard is looking at them both is a local store. I have only see the 55 ES-7500 and I didin´t see any problems but you never now! My sony has a very good uniformity across the screen specially if you set the dynamic led on "standard". In some movies with letterbox bars, if the image is extremly bright you could see a tiny little white bleding in the corners but that situation is common for all edge lit led tvs and is almost inperceptible. to dertrmine what tv has better motion interpolation compare them side by side and see what you like the best (for the sony the strongest setting for motionflow is Smooth, for the samsung i don't know)

Originally Posted by Fegam 

Like Justing Sullings point out, i have read that some led samsungs have uniformity problems, so the best way to compare it with the sony in that regard is looking at them both is a local store. I have only see the 55 ES-7500 and I didin´t see any problems but you never now! My sony has a very good uniformity across the screen specially if you set the dynamic led on "standard". In some movies with letterbox bars, if the image is extremly bright you could see a tiny little white bleding in the corners but that situation is common for all edge lit led tvs and is almost inperceptible. to dertrmine what tv has better motion interpolation compare them side by side and see what you like the best (for the sony the strongest setting for motionflow is Smooth, for the samsung i don't know)

Originally Posted by HaRd2BeAr 

By strongest do you mean soap opera effect? Because to reduce motion blur clear plus is the best then clear.
Sorry if i have misunderstood.
Aaron

Originally Posted by Fegam 

Yes Aaron if you use Smooth then you'll have SOE. If you want to have a cinematic feel with good motion fluidity then used Clear or Clear Plus. I like to use Clear because when I was experimenting with motionflow I felt that Clear plus makes the image a litlle more darker than Clear, fact that I corroborate in a review I read (don´t remenber wich one right now but I think it was a european site) in wich they explained that Clear Plus interpolates new frames into the existing ones but also interpolates a black screen in there also, thus making the image a litlle more dark that Clear. Both settings are ok because both give you good motion and NO SOE, is just a matter of personal taste wich one you like the most. The reviewer said that you are fine with anyone of the two

Originally Posted by HaRd2BeAr 

White balance settings will vary set to set so be careful.
Scene: Cinema
Picture Cinema 1 night, cinema 2 day.
Backlight: 4 (night) 8 (day)
...

Originally Posted by DoctorM 

@Fegam: Not from experience, but from what I've read, you might want to go with Xpand x103 because they'll be less expensive and they're universal(ish).
I've also read that the TDGBR750 Titaniums (which are NOT cheap) are lighter and have less crosstalk than previous Sony models.
@Everyone: BEHOLD, the HX950: http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/sony-xbr-55hx950/4505-6482_7-35431205.html
(Out of my budget range.)

Originally Posted by claw 

The settings you posted work very well for me. Except that I have to back off the Backlight to 3 instead of 4. My eyes are very sensitive to bright light and at 4 the whites were blinding me.
I always watch in a darkened room even during the day.

Originally Posted by Fegam 

thanks DoctorM i will look up the glasses on amazon. I also read the article on HX950 and it look very nice but the price seems a little to much $4,500.00 for the 55" , taking in acount that the 55 hx850 was $2,600.00 and the 55 Hx929 was $3,500.00 when they came out. Tvs in that price range are not for the average man and even will be out of range for most of the videophiles out there. I´m happy with my 55 HX850 because it gives me a extremely nice picture for a great price (i remember that the HX and NX models of 2011 and 2012 were more expensive and had not so good image compare to the 850, especially in shadow detail, blacks and color reproduction). in my country any TV cost between 35% to 50% more that the list price of the U.S. so a television like the hx950 or the sharp elite are imposible to afford, the stores don't even bring them here.

Originally Posted by lathropmd 

Just had my HX850 delivered last night. Got it hooked up and watched the NFL season opener. Very nice! I know i still have a some tweaking to do for the picture quality, but did some basic settings based on the general concensus here on the forum and was pretty pleased with the results. I have to say that the sound is pretty bad, almost worse than expected, but luckily I have it hooked up to my Yamaha receiver. This TV was a replacement from Sony at a deep discount for my 55A10 that developed the light block issue after the first bulb change. I was able to get this new set delivered to my door for $830 after much communication with Sonylistens customer support team. Funny thing is that the shipping company that delivered it said they picked it up at the docks in Boston directly from China. Guess it is factory fresh. I really like the look, the stand is perfectly adequate, the off angle performance is better than expected, and the glare seems to be a non issue for me. I think Sony got it right with this one, and I am back in the Sony camp. Once I work the picture settings some more, i will post them for reference, as well as update my experience with the set. Great forum.

Originally Posted by kgunn 

Does the HX850 just blow everyone away when it comes to Blue Ray or is it just me??? Also, did we make the right choice with this model as oppossed to the Samsungs??
I'm interested to hear what everyone thinks..
Thanks

Originally Posted by DoctorM 

I'm still a bit on the fence myself. I'm waiting while watching the prices track down on the Sony's, and I suspect the HX929 are probably about to take a real hit.
The thing is, some reviews say the HX850 is either nearly identical to the 929 or possibly better (lacking the blooming). And yet the HX950 blurb on Cnet makes the 929 sound far and away better than the HX850.
For my own eyes, with both side by side (in bright mode unfortunately) they are pretty much indistinguishable. Is there a real difference when properly tweaked or is it really still better to save the money and get the 850?