The OFFICIAL KD-36XS955 Thread... - Page 5

Admittedly, my expectations for SD quality could be unrealistic, and other people's thresholds for what's good could very well be completely different than my own. As it is, it's watchable and teeters on 'okay', but I'd rather watch analog stuff on an analog set and stick with digital stuff on this digital set.

I cant wait for you to get your set too. I might be able to read a few posts...ah nevermind

What other threads?? !! ??


bob

The threads for the 30XS955 and the 34XS955.

But those are 16:9, right? I thought the big issue is whether 4:3 sd/analog will look better on this set than on a widescreen hdtv?

bob

Yes, I was just linking to what JamisonBWolsh is referring to.

So far, I don't think anyone but me has commented on the way SD cable looks on the 36XS955. It's watchable, but not great, in my opinion. I haven't spent a lot of time messing with the settings to improve it (I don't really watch anything other than DVDs and HD, so I haven't felt motivated to give it much effort), and its appearance out of the box may not be representative of the best the set can offer with tweaked settings.

Some of the positive comments about the way SD looks on the smaller widescreen models could be possibly be attributed to their smaller size.

To me, what you say makes ultimate sense. Just the slight bloom from the phosphor in a CRT is going to cover a lot of small sins. A little tweaking, and a decent signal and I'd have a very hard time believing that a 4:3 set from Sony can't offer a very good to excellent SD picture. Also, just the fact that a set, any set, is bigger is going to reduce the perceived quality when picture on same is viewed close up. Sit back (and I do mean back) a little, pop a cold one and enjoy.

You guys need to so some research. Hd sets have to upconvert all signals to native 1080i, including 480i. This is where the big problem is, not the SD signal. It's the poor quality of the conversion from 480i to 1080i that is the problem. Analog sets are native 480i. I'm sure that just like audio gear, the quality of the conversion is critical. I have (IMO) the best analog set ever made, the Sony 32 XBR Squared (xbr-100). I guarantee my set will blow away any hdtv on sd/analog material.

bob

http://www.avrev.com/news/0904/21.silicon.html

"Silicon Optix Announces The Realta Chip - Bringing Teranex's Hollywood Quality Video to the Home"

This may solve our upconversion problem. I hope it can be utilized in the CRT product lines.

Very cool, Gold

Check this!

http://siliconoptixlive.dimentians.c...0x202_blur.wmv

bob

It looks like that Realta chip might just be for pixel-type purely digital displays. This might be the boost that non-CRTs need to improve PQ. Oh well, it's probably a while off, and a lot of it is probably marketing smoke and mirrors.

It doesn't take much research to find HD sets that don't have to upconvert all signals to native 1080i. A lot of direct view sets support both 480p and 1080i natively. My lowly Sanyo does. Samsung TXPs do, as well as several others. http://www.samsungusa.com/pdf/SamsungHDTV.pdf says:

DynaFlat HD Monitors include:
Native resolutions 1080i (HD) and 480P (progressive scan)

Any of these sets only need a good line doubler to display good SD at 480p. It also eliminates the time lag waiting to generate the upconverted 1080i. The set I had that did convert to 1080i introduced audio sync issues when I was sending audio directly to an AV receiver and had audio coming from the TV. No similar delay with the Sanyo (or Samsung).

Mine was scheduled for delivery Monday but the driver said he didn't have the equipment to move it 13 steps into my basement...should get it tommorrow...wonder if they will forget to do anything else this time...not mpressed with the "white glove" service.

Those who received it...did they set up the "free" stand and then get the TV running?

The guys who delivered mine offered to set up the stand, but I declined. (I still had a 230 lb. TV on another stand I had to get out of the way first.)

The place that was supposed to deliver mine said they would bring both at the same time, set up the stand and connect the TV. On a side note the delivery people called on Monday to say both the TV and the stand arrived. The TV was damaged during transit to them. she stated she did all the paper work to get a replacement and it would be around 10 days until it arrived. On Wednesday, todays date I called Sony to see if they could get it delivered faster. The guy at customer service told me that Sony will mark my TV as returned when they received it back and I would have to place a whole new order. I told him that was ridiculous and then I talked to a manager who stated the same. He said they could get the new one to me in early October. I told him I was definitely not reordering through them. I guess it was not meant to be.

You people have got me scared with all this talk about a digital set's poor picture when showing an analog signal. We watch cable all day on Dish and some cops and robbers now and then at night. (I do get a signal from Raleigh - fringe but OK usually - about 60 miles - that we use fairly often) My set is dyijg (an old 32" XBR) and I thought the 36xs955 was what I wanted but now maybe I should look at something like the KV-36FS320. Maybe the HDTV set should be put off for a couple of more years. What do you think?
Jerry

The old 40XBR800 could do 960i and 1080i. Too bad nobody can do that trick anymore.

That is a worthless statement. Settings that look good for DVDs as calibrated with Avia are not ideal settings for analog cable. There's a reason the picture settings are input-specific.

They just deleivered mine 15 minutes ago...2nd try and they still had a hard time getting it down the steps to the basement. They marred up the front a liitle bit which is really only notoicable to me...they plugged it in... saw static and said that's all they do. They did not wear white gloves.

I'll put together the stand, set up tonite, and then report

Keep us posted

My first Sony TV was a 20" that I bought about 20 years ago. I, to this day, remember how vivid and bright the picture was on that set. The 20" died a bout 5 years ago and I upgraded to a Sony 32". I remember getting the 32" delivered and setting it up on the same cable outlet that I had my 20" on. I turned on the 32" set for the first time and was shocked by how bad the picture was. I was disgusted by the cable picture on the 32", especially since the 15 year old 20" looked so good on cable.

I though something was wrong with the set until I put a DVD on. Wow, was a difference, the DVD looked great, so for the first time I discovered just how bad a picture cable provides. Some channels looked OK, some were pathetically bad. I called comcast, they came out, made adjustments with their stuff, but still a really bad picture on some channels.

Moral of story, IMHO, the better the TV, the worse the SD PQ is. It's the source that is the problem, not the television

To answer your question Jamisonbwolsh, I'm not sure. I'm gonna wait it out a few and see what the reviews are and then maybe buy it somewhere.

Just not true. The difference is substantial. ANalog TV's display analog source much much better, period. You are fooling yourself and misinforming people.