Official 2005 Sony KDSR-50/60XBR1 SXRD Owner's Thread - Page 52

I saw the 60XBR1 today at Best Buy today and it is spectacular! I purchased the KDF-50WE655 last March and am very happy with it. However, the new Sony SXRD sets are absolutely the best looking RP HD TVs I have seen. For that matter, the KDSR-60XBR! is the best HD set I have ever seen (not ever seeing the Qualia).

OTA is not a cablecard, just a little zenith indoor antenna. I really don't see much difference between it and the dvr. Only thing is it doesn't get cbs's hd channel. At least in Chicago, it's vhf freq and this antenna only does uhf.

Also you only need the cablecard for the channels you pay extra for like HBO and the digital channels > 100 (I think). The built in tuner gets all the regular channels. Not sure if other cable companies will have like me... Comcast gives you the 6 basic ones I mentioned with basic cable and they come in (for Chicago) as 2.1, 5.5, 7.1, 9.1, 11.1, and 12.1 which are pretty much the regular chicago OTA channell with a subchannel (.X) after it (except Fox which is analog 3 on comcast)

I can see pixels if I put my nose to the screen. Have u tried this Gazelle? It's not real noticeable but they are there. I believe this is probably due to the compression used by *D.

I know what you mean, but the 60" with the speakers would really take up my whole wall and would probably look overwhelming.

how much were they asking for it? Circuit City put theirs up today and want $4999

Yes i've tried it. Can't see any pixels with my nose up to the screen, but i have a TWC feed. Less compressed than *D.

I just got a Comcast CableCARD installed on Thursday. I would say the picture is a slighltly better though the CableCARD than it is with the Motorola DVR using the DVI out. It's pretty darn close, though, and I had to flip back and forth a bunch of times in order to see a difference.

I wonder if you were seeing actual pixels or just the screen texture that seems to cause the sse? I spent quite a bit of time tonight with my 'nose to the screen' and there were no visible pixels that I could detect.

I got my KDS-R60XBR1 yesterday, and of course the picture is great. Today, I tried a few other features. I hooked up my Sony Digital Camcorder using the I.Link connection. The video looked good, and I can control my camcorder using the KDS remote to play, pause, rewind, etc. -- all through the i.link connector.

Then I tried the memory stick picture viewer. Pretty cool. It shows your pictures in thumbnail form and then lets you start a slideshow. One of the options for the slideshow is background piano music -- already built into the TV. Several options for picture transitions are built-in, besides fade.

When the slideshow gets to an mpeg movie, it fades out the piano and plays the mpeg with sound, then it resumes the still photos and fades the piano back in again. Well thought out.

The twin-view works well, although I with they would have let you step through channels on the muted image while the unmuted image is frozen. It appears that only the picture with the sound on can step through channels.

Monday I get the cablecard installed, so this weekend has been 480i only.

On my set the pixel structure is very faint and can be seen when your very close. It looks like little square boxes that flash. On fast action scenes they become more pronounced. I believe what I am seeing is HD compression from *D. Try viewing a DVD and you should see it too. Let me know.

Is that across the board (both SD and HD), or is that only comparing SD on both? Curious. I've heard that SD is supposed to be quite a bit better using cable card on quite a few other sets. I haven't heard that there was any improvement on HD though.

Thanks Gweem, that's what I was wondering.

My local CC in Columbus, Ohio was willing to give me $400 off plus free delivery. This was a week before this past Friday before they had them in the stores but had a bunch in the warehouse. I would definately try to get them to give you 10% off at least.

I'll be interested to hear how the CableCard performs as many folks have experienced problems with the cable card.

The pixel structure on the SXRD is visible, but frankly the best way to see it is to take a look at the Qualia first, so you know what to look for. On the Qualia, there is a grid effect which is ever so slightly darker than the bright pixel centers -- imagine screen door effect except that instead of black lines, the grid is filled with the colors of the surrounding pixels and is almost as bright. (And this is still only visible from extremely close up, of course.) The SXRD has the same effect, but even less obvious, so if you're not familiar with what it looks like on the Qualia, it would be tough to see it at all.

Dixie: are we seeing the pixel structure or compression? I noticed that what I'm seeing is uniformed across the screen and gets more noticeable as the camera pans or when there is action. I had an A20 LCD and on that set the SDE was very visible. It actually looks about the same on the SXRD accept that it's barely noticeable on the SXRD and easily seen on the LCD.

Screen door effect at 1 foot. You have got to be kidding.

I think that if that is the worst problem you can find with this display, then it speaks volumes about the lack of real problems.

If Circuit City is carrying Dynaudio , I'll eat my shorts I would suggest if you have anything outside of a cheesy cube for your center channel, to not put it on top of your TV. That is just asking for something to happen.

I've had TWC up here twice unsuccessfully trying to install a cablecard. Hopefully i'll have better luck next week...

Uhhh...can anybody tell me the best way to clean snot off the screen? Thanks.

P.S. Best not to look for pixel structure this time of the year if you have allergies.

Water and microfiber cloth

I'm pretty sure that what we're both describing is the pixel structure -- it's fixed and uniform, although I hadn't noticed that motion makes it particularly more visible. It looks analogous to SDE, although since the "grid" matches the colors of the surrounding pixels, instead of being black, it is completely invisible at any sane and reasonable watching distance.

JimP -- I agree completely. I love the set and want to marry it. (Fortunately, so does my wife. ) This discussion is inspired purely by academic interest in the display mechanism, not by any quixotic attempt to nitpick.

I live in Juneau, AK, but the wife and I were in Seattle last week and had a look at the new SXRD's. We were planning on a 50" HDTV, but liked the KDS-R60XBR1 so much we went for it. The TV and a couple of BDI stands are on the barge from Seattle and will be delivered to us on Monday or Tuesday.

Here's the question. Our viewing distance will be around 10 feet. That seems about right for HD (not much of that right now in Juneau, but hopefully more soon) and DVD viewing. But I'm a little concerned about SD. Is SD on the KDS-R60XBR1 "watchable" at 10 feet? Also, I was wondering if it would be feasible to use the twin view option to reduce the image size for an SD program to make it a little more watchable. I'm thinking about using the twin view without any input for the second image, and then just adjusting the size of the primary image to whatever looks the best.

Any thoughts?

This set ayn't that good, Dudes

If you have a PC hooked up to your SXRD then please please help me!

My original plan was to hookup my pc to the TV with a VGA cable. This works but the image does not fill the screen...black border on four sides. No amount of fussing can get it to fill the screen, which means when I watch a DVD using WinDVD it doesnt fill the screen (showstopper)

Then I read a post about a guy with the same issue and he connected up using the DVI->HDMI adapter and voila it worked for him (filled the screen)

For me I can't get the TV to even show an image using DVi out to HDMI...however if I use a DVI-VGA adapter it works (just doesnt fill the screen) so I know my DVI port on me video card is good (tried both ATI and Nvidia)

I also know my HDMI port is good on the TV because i can plug my satellite reciever into it using the SAT's DVi out using the same cable and it fills the screen

So right now my theories are that the VGA port on the TV is not capable of filling the screen, and so if I want to fill the screen I must use the DVI->HDMI connection and for some reason the HDMI ports will behave properly (filling the screen)

However i can't get the darn thing to read my PC on its HDMI ports. i tried pre-setting the resolution to 640x480, 720p etc...just nothing

I just want to watch a dvd fullscreen on my pc

Please help

So has anyone found the offical bulb life yet? I saw earlier that Widescreen thought it was 8,000 hours but can anyone confirm this from another source?

Does this model come with a protective screen overlay that can be replaced? We purchased some for our current Toshiba CRT based RPTV and our kids have destroyed two so far.

If the screen gets scratched, can a replacement screen be easily put on?

Thanks for the info. I have not looked that carefully at the Qualia. Suffice it to say that with a pixel structure that is nearly invisible, the sxrd isn't going to 'suffer' from ssd.

I'm still not sure I'm seeing pixel structure and yes I love the set and this is just a discussion so don't get offended. Not sure why anyone would anyway. Anyway, try watching fast moving scenes and tell me if the pixels become more pronounced. At 10 feet away I sometimes can makeout the flashing pixels or whatever I'm seeing. I really have to look for it and it's not a big deal. I'm just really interested in what I'm actually seeing. I see these light colored flashing bozes on DVD too.

Nominated for "funniest post of the week!!!!!!!!!"