The Official Kd-34xbr960 Thread - Page 5

Jamison, I am happy with the price I got, plus if I don't get it within the 30 days, I'll probably cancel.

I did not like the mixed opinions I heard about Warrantech. I feel better with the CC warranty. Just my opinion, of course. Yours may differ.

Has anyone found it in writing whether the 960 warranty is one year or two years?

Every warranty company has "Mixed" reviews. Just check the Newsgroups on dissatified CC and best buy customers. Warrantech does not have nearly as much naysayers as the plan CC has which is honored by the company "National Product Care Company" Also, Warrantech is one of the biggest warranty companies out there and has warranties on pretty much anything. I am going with them because of their praised warranty. remember, CC does not run the warranty... a THIRD party company does... Also remember that most of the Money that you spend for their warranty goes in their pockets. The Actual price of the CC warranty is really low...

It's on the Sonystyle web site. Televisions->Tube->XBR



It was an open box deal from their home theater room. I had them take it out from under a 910. No scratches, perfect.

All XBR sets have a 2-year warranty...at least new models...can't speak for older stuff except the 40XBR800 that I bought last year also has 2 years.

Very possible with Visa. AMEX, however, extends the original warranty terms so if the set came with in-home service then that's what you get under the extension.

Anyone know of a warranty company with worldwide coverage?

Sony Canada has confirmed to me that they won't be carrying the 960 so I'll have to buy it in the U.S. I know BB covers worldwide but doesn't have XBRs. Which one does?

That looks like the hold stand.

I mean "old" stand.

YUK, I like the Asian model. Why do they keep the best over there? If you go to www.Sony.JP, you will see that they sell XBR's up to 36", and don't sell the 34" in Japan. Why?

Their 36" is our 34". They measure the tube. We measure the opening in the bezel.

That's the stand I posted pictures weeks ago.

So whats the Lesson boys and girls?

Go buy the XBR1 on sale before the XBR3 comes out! Save you Lots of $$$

Back to this shipping date:

Shipping availability:
Available on or about Jul 16, 2004

I've been told that the first batch (to be shipped around July 2nd) is sold out and that SonyStyle is now selling the second batch due for delivery on the 16th.

Will CC and others get shipment with the first batch?
Should I pre-order From CC or wait untill it hits their warehouse?

So many questions....

I got a call from Tweeters today saying they expected to get them in within the next 2 weeks. CC also expected them in "soon" but didn't have an exact date.

I think it's still uncertain exactly when they will come in, although both seemed confident it would be "soon." I know it's frustratingly imprecise.

RJB,

I know you pre-ordered yours from CC. Do you think its a concern to be shipped from the warehouse to the store then to your house? Or do you think I should just wait until it hits the warehouse? Do you think this tv is going to be hard to get when it hits the warehouse or easy? If it's easy, i will wait... so...what do you think? Hard to get when it hits the warehouses?

Jamison, the guy at CC who seemed to be experienced and knew about the 960 (unlike a lot of these salesmen) told me it might be shipped before they are stocked in the stores, because they have to make room for them, set them up, etc. I would guess (but it's only a guess) that they won't sell out their whole stock in the first week or so, so if you're not in a hurry, you could probably wait and even see it in the store.

Do CC delivery crews work out of the warehouses or the stores. My salesmen said it may not come through his store to be delivered. Did he mean it might be delivered from another store (there is a smaller one closer to me) or the warehouse? I will try to ask that question when I talk to them again.

I know these things get moved around from Sony to the warehouse to the store, but if all TV's get shipped from the stores, it doesn't matter whether I order it from the store or on-line, does it? Or do you think the online purchases get shipped from the warehouse and store purchases get shipped from the stores? With my pre-order, I don't know if it will hit the store or not.

I think I will go back and buy it today. The ship date most likely is July 2nd. The deal is just too good. 0% and no payments for 21 months (march 2006) with the purchase of a HTIB (400 rebate on that). Sounds great, so I will purchase it today and start the Legal 30 day countdown for CC return policy. I just wish we can truely find out when this deal expires... I would wait if I knew I could get this deal at a later point.


The CC salesman tells me that they order the sets through their warehouse, not there store. So their stock inside the store is extremely low on sets.
I guess that would make sense if there are many CC in a given area. Saves $$ for CC .

I SAW THE XBR 910 TODAY AT GOODGUYS GREAT PICTURE IN HDTV; HOWEVER, WHEN I HAD THE SALESMAN SWITCH TO COMCAST CABLE, THE PICTURE WAS POOR. WE BOTH AGREED THE PICTURE WAS FUZZY, AND EVEN THAT THE EDGE BETWEEN THE PICTURE AND THE BLACK BARS FRAMING IT WAS TILTED INWARD; A CONCAVE SHAPE. DESPITE THE GREAT HDTV PICTURE, I WOULD HATE TO HAVE TO WATCH ALL NON-HDTV TELEVISION ON THIS SET.

NOT MY OPINON ALONE, IF YOU CHECK THE REVIEWS ON HTTP://WWW.CNET.COM YOU WILL SEE MANY POSTERS CLAIMING THE IMAGE ON NON-HDTV BROADCASTS IN NOT GOOD. OPINIONS? THANKS.

igreg,
I see you are a new member, welcome.
Please do not use capital letters for your post. It is the same as shouting or yelling at us.
Al

Funny you should mention that. I was in a decent home theatre store today and they had a 34xbr910 next to a 34hs420 and the 34hs420 (although it was clearly in torch mode) seemed quite a bit sharper than the xbr910. This certainly isn't what I would expect, especially with the xbr's super-fine pitch screen. But I could definitely see a lot more detail on the non-xbr set.

I tried the different presets (I remember reading that high brightness/contrast lowers the sharpness on the xbr) but it didn't help.

This was on a Hi-Def feed too. What gives?

This is not just This HDTV set. Its ALL hdtv sets! HDTV sets, in general, do not do well with Standard cable. The 960 actual enhances this so the standard cable actually looks better than what a regular set would look like.

I do not know what you are talking about with cnet. They actually gave the 910 the Number 1 spot as the best HDTV set on the market...

http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_KV-34XB...-30536650.html
Most poeple LOVE this set. The FEW (only 2 out of 34) people that mention the PQ of the 910 to an older set just plain do not know what they talking about. They are comparing the 910 to an NON hdtv set for standard cable. The 910 is not made for standard cable.

Keep in mind the 960 has worked out all of these kinks.

1.) preset memory or each input.
2.) increases standard PQ to better pq (some say, better then a regular set)

many more smaller improvements.

I'm just saying that I saw it side-by-side with a 34hs420 and the hs420 was quite a bit sharper. The image on the xbr910 looked smooth.

This could have been for any number of reasons (poor calibration, different cables, etc.), but it was quite noticeable. The skin tones looked a lot better on the xbr than anything else in the store though!

MY KD-34XBR960 HAS LEFT THE SONYSTYLE WAREHOUSE!!!!!



Sweet 2nd-gen SuperFinePitch CRT, I eagerly await your arrival.

Does anyone know what kind of signal is typically fed to the TVs at CC?

I thought that I might get bombarded for having used capital letters; I know it's not proper, but I accidently had the caps lock on and didn't feel it was necessary to retype the entire message. Hope you weren't too offended.

Back to my point...........for those that say HDTV sets are not meant for non-HDTV displays. I have yet to see non-HDTV dispays on most of the sets; if they are as bad as the XBR 910, I will be putting off an HDTV purchase for some time. I'll have to bring a DVD recorded disk off DirecTV and try it on the various plasma and direct view CRT sets and see if any can scale the image to where it can at least match my current fine picture on my 27" Proton set, from which I can receive up to 550i with DirecTV. I have read columns by "experts" who claim that 1024i sets are worse on non-HDTV soures because more scaling has to be done; these same sources say an EDTV actually gives you better image quaility with either DVD or standard definition.

For the poster that didn't believe that CNET reviewers criticized the XBR 910's non-HDTV performance, here are the quotes directly:

1)

Call me inexperienced or impatient with this generation of CRT, but I could not after 4 weeks get a picture to look anywhere near as good as a Sony 32" (kv-32xbr96s) I bought EIGHT years ago. I must note that I only connected a progressive-scan dvd player (Sony's own DVP-NC555ES). All of the presets looked horrible. I had to adjust the settings EVERY TIME for every different dvd I loaded in, which was very inconvenient. I had to turn the picture and brightness levels nearly all the way up to achieve a halfway decent picture. The best modes were either Movie or Pro. I hooked a videogame console up to it and it looked horrific. The images were blurry, snowy - not sharp and clean at all. I attempted to increase resolution somewhat by bringing in the edges (horizontal and vertical overscan) by accessing the service menu. Again, hardly any improvement. The DRC Palette controls are a joke. I could make out hardly any changes in picture quality no matter how far in any direction I adjusted. Again, this for me was a HUGE disappointment. I ended up returning the set with a new found appreciation of my OLD Trinitron XBR2.

2) When watch 4:3 ratio source, the image can be fuzzy wether is from DVD or TV. Moreover, when play some (not all) wide screen DVD, for some reason, the images is not as sharp as I would hoped for.

3) The HD picture is awesome!! However, any analog signal (show) still looks pretty bad, and that is not in comparison to HD, but rather, in comparison to my other Sony.

4. Regular programming is nothing to write home about, but the HD is incredible!

5. One catch...this TV is not made for non-HD broadcasts.

6. Regular over the air, and Standard Dish signal does not look good.

7. I will concede that analog broadcasts do not look as good as hoped.

8. The analog reception on this set is not as good as it is on my 36 in Sony.

9. I'm just an average viewer. I have a 32 inch Sony which I love. I've had the XBR910 almost a week and the set is easy to use and has some good features. But all I am doing is constantly adjusting this set. The picture on a regular TV station is HORRIFIC!! Some stations are clear (somewhat) and others are terrible! I keep trying to adjust, and it is annoying. I'm visiting the retailer (Tweeter) this week to see if this is my set or if this is to be expected. All I know is that my regular Sony never needs adjustment and every TV station looks the same. That can't be said of this set. I had a non-progressive scan DVD hooked up and picture was not cystal clear. I bought a low-end progressive scan DVD player with component video hook-ups and the picture showed little-to-no change. Taking that back today to see if a higher end player will make a difference. I compared the same movie on my 32 inch Sony and the clarity is better. I don't know if this is just a bad set or if this is what should be expected. This set is just too high maintenace for me. I can't stand the thought that I paid $2250 and anything other than a close-up shot of people looks horrible. The DRC settings are pretty useless. Little change between them and, honestly, I'm tired of tweeking this thing all of the time. If something changes drastically (like this set gets repaired) I'll provide an update. I have 60 days to return it and I'm seriously thinking of doing that except for the fact that I have to pack it back up and cart the 200 lb monster back to the store.

Are these reviewers all mistaken? If not, can you really justify spending the $ for this set when you are limited to a 28" poor non-HDTV signal with uneven edges. The HDTV picture was fantastic, but unless the standard picture with DirecTV is at least on par with my current set, I can not justify the purchase at any price. Perhaps DirecTV's great image quality will make the difference over the cable version I saw today. Further, the signal may not have been pristine, or the store may not be using the best connection (S-Video).

Appreciate anyone with personal experience on receiving non-HDTV signals on this set. For me at least, this is the deal breaker on this set. Thanks!