The OFFICIAL KD-36XS955 Thread... - Page 4

Yes. I just had to tune in at night to see the set really strut its stuff. I thought most of my posts in this thread were pretty positive, personally.


I can't compare a set I saw in a brightly-lit storeroom a few months ago to what's in my living room now. Maybe some people can, but I don't have that sort of memory. It doesn't seem strikingly better or worse than the other 4x3 HDTVs I've seen, but I'm not in a position to do a direct comparison. I am tempted to say that some of the other sets I've seen looked better from a shorter distance, though.


I doubt it. I don't think I'm saying anything incredibly negative about it, though. The worst thing I've said is that it looks pretty bad if I have my face really close to the set, which for all I know may be typical. I seem to remember my older set holding up better when I was right up against it, but since my couch is a little further than a foot away, it's not really a concern for me. Just surprised me a little, is all. Again, I haven't had a chance to calibrate the set yet, and maybe that will alleviate some of those concerns.


I'm pleased with the set, but it wasn't the sort of religious experience you seem to want it to be.

Grrrr. I continue to hate the stand. I have a digital cable box, a DVD player, and a receiver. The stand is so tiny that it can't accomodate all three. I don't know what kind of household Sony's design team is gearing this towards. I would think that anyone who would buy their highest-end 4x3 direct view CRT would have more than two components.

Edit - moved everything around, and things are fine now. I just wish I could keep it all in one place instead of shifting some things to a separate stand.


Now that I have HD service from my cable company, I can say this isn't true. It must be dependent on the material -- I remember the Olympics promo material looking fantastic in high-def when standing right next to the televisions in various stores, and now that I have HDNet, the same holds true with the XS955. I must not have been looking at material that really takes advantage of what the set is capable of displaying. My jaw nearly dropped the first time I saw HDNet, and it looks phenomenal no matter how close I get to the TV. I still need to fiddle with the settings some more -- whites are still blooming, and really dark scenes are so dim that I can barely make anything out, but I'm sure that can be corrected as I continue to adjust the settings.

That's always been the plan -- I just haven't gone out and picked one up yet. I probably will tomorrow.


DVDs seem to be a mixed bag. What I posted last night is still representative of my experience. My living room, despite my best efforts, is so drenched in sunlight during the day that I can't watch DVDs, but I may have some more comments on that tonight. (Going to be watching the fourth season of Mr. Show on DVD, which isn't exactly demo material, though.) Some DVDs look markedly better -- some DVDs don't seem quite as good. I put on probably fifteen different DVDs last night, and there were only a couple that really seemed to fall short of what I was hoping to see (Princess Mononoke and The Apple). The others looked really good.

No, I'm using the deinterlacer built into the set.


I was hoping it would be out before the XS955, but no such luck. I do plan on getting a player that upscales over HDMI as soon as an appealing looking one comes out.

I answered this when you asked me earlier.


The TV should deinterlace everything. I guess it would depend on whether or not the TV has a better de-interlacer than the DVD player. I don't think there are progressive-enabled DVDs, just progressive-scan players.

I like to keep everything dark, but there are eight million windows on the first floor of my house, and short of putting black-out drapes on everything or boarding 'em all up, there's no way I can stop light from leaking in from numerous different places.

The link to the manual for the set at sonystyledotcomyouareonyourownforthecompleteurlbecauseIamnot allowedtopostURLs presently results in download/attempt-to-view a corrput document which will not display.

The manual for the KD34XS955 claims to support the 36" set. I have yet to see the unit in Portland stores I have visited.

lahaina

The 34XS955 has been available for a pretty good while here in my neck of the woods. The manual is the same as the 34", BTW.

Man, I was SO HOT to get a big wide screen TV. About a month ago I started visiting the stores and finding web sites such as this one. It has almost become a hobby in itself. In the end I have decided that it is not hard finding a wonderful HDTV display--DLP, LCD, LCos, or Plasma (sure, they all have their +'s and -'s and I exclude the CRT projectors because I don't like the size of the beasts).

What makes me reluctant to buy is the fact that analog and SD are going to be around a long time and HDTV rollout timeframe is going to be a lot longer than most people seem to realize. Meanwhile, the projection and plasma sets display analog and SD content poorly compared to even the most unassuming CRT sets. Maybe its just me, but in discussions and the hype surrounding HDTV purchases, I see a lot of "I want to believe" thinking going on.

In the KD-36XS955 I suddenly see a great option. I get a much bigger and sharper analog and SD picture than my present 27" Trinitron and I do get the HDTV, albeit not as big as I had fantasized about. I can't see HDTV accounting for a very high percentage of our viewing for quite awhile. I'm not much into football or network TV, and we time shift almost everything with TiVo anyway. So this set looks like a great option for 4-5 years as (and if) HDTV becomes ubituitous and/or the wide screen units dramatically improve renditioning of analog and SD content.

I owe it to myself to see one in person before pulling the trigger on the deal, but i can hardly wait. Thanks to everyone who shares their knowledge here.

Some of the earlier posts discussed an extended warranty available via the "brick and mortar" Sony Style store. You may purchase the TV using the online Sony Style site and purchase the extended warranty with a follow-up call to 800.378.4590.

Regards,

RM

FYI-

The 34XS955 is up at circuitcity.com, on sale already too.

There's only one problem with that, the 36XS955 is also a digital TV and uses scalers and therefore will display SD content horribly. I know, I have it's older brother the 36hs510 (professionaly ISF calibrated no less) and can tell you firsthand, standard definition (analog) content completely blows.

I've been toying for some time with replacing my upstairs family television with a HDTV widescreen or 4:3. I was at Best Buy yesterday and showed the sleek 34 widescreen 955 to my daughter. It was displaying standard definition. Her response, "It looks kind of bad. Blurry." I have yet to see SD look good on a direct view HD set. This is the deal breaker for me. SD looks good on my Screenplay 7200 front projector. Why can't it look good on a direct view HDTV?

I wonder if that is true. I've looked at a lot of these television, albeit, none that I know were ISF calibrated, and the SD looks horrid. I kind of doubt that calibration would make such a huge difference in SD.

I realize that widescreen fill modes will degrade the image, but I recall going all the way back to the XBR 400 that the SD image looked horrible. That model was 4:3.

Believe me, I want SD to look good on these sets. I'd plunk down the money in a hurry if they did.

Speaking as a 36XS955 owner... I'd have to side with the others on this. I haven't spent any time messing with the way SD cable looks on my set since I rarely watch that, but straight out of the box, it's awful. Like, second generation EP VHS-level.

The picture settings are input-specific. If you know of a way to get Avia-ish test signals over basic or digital cable, please toss me the channel number and I'll give it a whirl. Whatever settings are required for SD cable to look any good, they're drastically different than any of the presets, and quick fiddling with the sliders doesn't accomplish much.


That's a pretty definitive statement considering that this is a television set you haven't even seen. As a pre-emptive request, in your response, please refrain from using the words "specs", "910", or "960".


While Monster component video cables may be overrated, they're not typically referred to as "garbage".

With all due respect, terms like "horribly" are pretty extreme and while they may be impactful to some they don't gain you much credibility at least from my perspective. I have also seen the 36hs510 showing both local and digital (SD) content and thought it had very high quality pictures. Can't beleive the 955 will be a step down, but as I said, I don't intend to buy sight unseen either. But I do have every expectation that the set will meet my needs.

Hey everyone, does anyone have this set yet and is using direct TV with it. I would like to know if I can expect to see a improvement over my analog television I'm using now. Most of my TV viewing will be used that way with DVDs and some HDTV through the built in tuner. If its not at least the same quality my wife is gonna kick my butt. I'll have to consider canceling my order if its the case.

Why can't tv's scale sd and hd both good? The 36 inch set will have a big picture both in analog and in hd. This is a big plus as where the 960 in sd was not that big of a picture and i can't get use to watching 27". Is it impossible or does it cost to much or is the technology not there to show both hd and sd good and i mean very good on the same tv set? It is a crime to plunk down $2,000 or more and expect a ****** picture on sd, or get an analog set and see your hd material small across the middle of the screen. The same thing with plasma, why can't they scale hd and sd both good on one plasma? I do not mind fiddling with the remote or doing whatever a little extra but please for my money give me good and i mean very good hd and sd on one tv set. I hope the 955 is it.

Are we into apples vs oranges here? Is the 955 showing bad source material more clearly or not showing the source material well? If the 955 is clearly showing flaws in the source material(compression) then it isn't a problem with the 955.