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Official Sony KDL-V26/32/40XBR1 Bravia LCD Thread - Page 3

post #61 of 1425
11/16/05 at 5:12pm
Perhaps the ghosting is happening on SD signals.

Jim, do you know if the NotreDame game was on HD? The Seahawk-Rams game I watched was on FOX HD.
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post #62 of 1425
11/16/05 at 5:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DFul4d View Post

I thought I would start this so owners can compare settings and discuss any issues.
These are my settings for OTA. I have different ones for my DVD player if anyone is interested.

My current settings are: (I am going from memory so these might be out of order)

Backlight: 3
Picture: 95
Brightness: 65 (i have found that turning up the brightness and turning down the backlight gives more shadow detail)
Color: 48
Sharpness: 18
Tint: Neutral
Color Temp: Warm 1
Noise Reduction: Off

Advanced
Black Corrector: Low
Contrast Enhancer: Low
Gamma: Off
Clear White: Off - I recently changed this. I found that it added a blue tint to the whites
Live Color: low
Color Space: Wide


Hi how do i get to advanced settings, and it wont let me change it to warm 1 or warm 2
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post #63 of 1425
11/16/05 at 6:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DFul4d View Post

...I watch a movie almost every night in the dark....

I'd be interested in your experiences with the display, but I wouldn't be interested in needing to watch it in the dark!
Algaray, I wasn't able to get either a Circuit City guy nor a BestBuy guy to tell me what format the feed was being broadcast. I was told the feed was "high def", but they didn't know if it was 720p or 1080i. Interestingly, the BestBuy guy told me the plasma unit was "capable of 1080i", so he was just quoting what he was told or what he read. Yes, the top of the helmet left a gold tracer line across the grass, although the rest of the picture was truly gorgeous.
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post #64 of 1425
11/16/05 at 7:30pm
I stopped by Circuit City on my way home and saw a 32" Bravia XBR. It had a recorded HD feed of a NotreDame game. The ghosting you described is noticeable along with noise where the picture looked grainy, blurry. This was universal with all the sets in the display... basically, the signal was very poor.

I walked to another display where they had the 40" Bravia XBR next to some plasmas, showing Duke slaughter Seton Hall on ESPN HD. Again, I could not believe how poor the signal was, players in the distance where fuzzy, couldn't see sweat on anyone. This was true of the plasmas next to it... Pioneer, Hitachi, Panasonic.

I would not base my buying decision solely on what I saw at Circuit City.
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post #65 of 1425
11/17/05 at 6:27am
Interesting! The Circuit City and the BestBuy feeds in my area were both fairly nice, showing great detail in their presentation on both the LCD and plasma displays. That Notre Dame game was an anomoly to the Sony display, and not the adjoining plasmas that were getting the same signal simultaneously.

What I'd like to hear is from those that have the set in their homes with a known good signal or a quality feed from a DVD player. Are there motion artifacts that are annoying on this set as there were on earlier LCDs? Is plasma still the way to go for deep blacks and good sports watching?
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post #66 of 1425
11/17/05 at 6:55am
I have only seen slight artifacting when standing about 2-3 feet from my 26" XBR. At viewing distance, there isn't any noticable to my eyes. I was watching Letterman last night in HD and couldn't believe how beautiful the picture was, crisp and vibrant. Monday night football was beautiful as well.
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post #67 of 1425
11/17/05 at 8:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Hef View Post

Interesting! The Circuit City and the BestBuy feeds in my area were both fairly nice, showing great detail in their presentation on both the LCD and plasma displays. That Notre Dame game was an anomoly to the Sony display, and not the adjoining plasmas that were getting the same signal simultaneously.

What I'd like to hear is from those that have the set in their homes with a known good signal or a quality feed from a DVD player. Are there motion artifacts that are annoying on this set as there were on earlier LCDs? Is plasma still the way to go for deep blacks and good sports watching?

Plasma is definitely the way to go for deep blacks and good sports-watching. My only problem with plasma is, I see rainbows. And that sucks. Royally.
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post #68 of 1425
11/17/05 at 8:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by algaray View Post

I stopped by Circuit City on my way home and saw a 32" Bravia XBR. It had a recorded HD feed of a NotreDame game. The ghosting you described is noticeable along with noise where the picture looked grainy, blurry. This was universal with all the sets in the display... basically, the signal was very poor.

I walked to another display where they had the 40" Bravia XBR next to some plasmas, showing Duke slaughter Seton Hall on ESPN HD. Again, I could not believe how poor the signal was, players in the distance where fuzzy, couldn't see sweat on anyone. This was true of the plasmas next to it... Pioneer, Hitachi, Panasonic.

I would not base my buying decision solely on what I saw at Circuit City.

Yeah. I have an HP 42PL00N and DVDs via 480p look better than anything in my local CC; not a hint of compression artifacts, ghosting, motion lag, pixelation, whatever. It's not there. Same thing goes for SD, signal looks better than I could have ever hoped.
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post #69 of 1425
11/17/05 at 9:50am
I wonder what the chances of having dead pixels in the future is. I've had an LCD monitor for my computer for 2 years now and haven't had a dead pixel yet.

I can imagine that even 1 or 2 white pixels can drive you nuts.
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post #70 of 1425
11/17/05 at 10:05am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Hef View Post

I'd be interested in your experiences with the display, but I wouldn't be interested in needing to watch it in the dark!
Algaray, I wasn't able to get either a Circuit City guy nor a BestBuy guy to tell me what format the feed was being broadcast. I was told the feed was "high def", but they didn't know if it was 720p or 1080i. Interestingly, the BestBuy guy told me the plasma unit was "capable of 1080i", so he was just quoting what he was told or what he read. Yes, the top of the helmet left a gold tracer line across the grass, although the rest of the picture was truly gorgeous.

The XBR has a status or info button or something, its located on the top right of the main circular button. It will tell you what the format of the incoming feed is.
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post #71 of 1425
11/17/05 at 10:33am
It has been asked before and everyone seems to know but unfortunately noone seem to bother to answer.

"How does one enter the service menu ?"

I keep reading about all those diffrent kind of settings which i can't seem to find.
Ofcourse i have contrast, noise, brightness etc.

but what about those "game modes" Is that an american only thing?

I'have an European version btw,
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post #72 of 1425
11/17/05 at 2:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by algaray View Post

I stopped by Circuit City on my way home and saw a 32" Bravia XBR. It had a recorded HD feed of a NotreDame game. The ghosting you described is noticeable along with noise where the picture looked grainy, blurry. This was universal with all the sets in the display... basically, the signal was very poor.

I walked to another display where they had the 40" Bravia XBR next to some plasmas, showing Duke slaughter Seton Hall on ESPN HD. Again, I could not believe how poor the signal was, players in the distance where fuzzy, couldn't see sweat on anyone. This was true of the plasmas next to it... Pioneer, Hitachi, Panasonic.

I would not base my buying decision solely on what I saw at Circuit City.


Ditto with my local CC. However, at least they leave the remotes adjacent to the sets so that one can play with the adjustment settings and are willing to switch the source feed from that nauseating HD loop found in every b&m store. Conversely, BB offers that same old feed, turns certain sets up to "Vivid" to increase sales, and hides the remotes so that customers cannot view the different settings per set.
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post #73 of 1425
11/17/05 at 2:21pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by RBFELLA View Post

Hi how do i get to advanced settings, and it wont let me change it to warm 1 or warm 2

You have to change the picture mode to custom. Vivid and standard wont go intothe advanced settings
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post #74 of 1425
11/17/05 at 2:37pm
I have a v40xbr and I watched literally several HOURS of programming at BB on several occasions. My first thoughts were that the HD programming looked great with a little artifacting, SD was pitiful at best I also had them hook up a DVD player with my pleading and it was pretty decent. So I made the big plunge and decided to buy after 3 weeks of wondering. WELL...LET ME TELL YOU!! Once I got this home and hooked it up to a Standard antenna in my attic for HD off air, a standard DVD player-NOT progressive & a DishN sat receiver that is SD only not HD YET!! The picture is absolutely STUNNING!! from all sources not just HD but ALL!
I was stunned by how much better once I hooked it up at home without all the cable splits or whatever at BB that the picture could be so much better I was so happy I could scream!! My wife also saw the difference and was amazed at how much better the picture was also. Since then I have returned to BB and they told me that was great and wanted that kind of customer feedback on the unit. All I can say is try at home before you judge...You might be amazed as I was.
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post #75 of 1425
11/17/05 at 5:54pm
I'm a newb so sorry if this sounds like a dumb Q.
Does the Bravia have PIP?
The CC website says no, but some of the user reviews on that same site say that yes it does.
I'd like to hook up two playstations and play side by side.
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post #76 of 1425
11/18/05 at 8:55pm
Good feedback Joejetcool. I'm at the top of the waiting list for the Bravia XBR. I'm getting comfortable going with the Sony.
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post #77 of 1425
11/19/05 at 4:47pm
I bought the 40" XBR1 a couple of days ago and am still getting use to it after years of CRTs. I tried plasma, but my room has floor to ceiling French doors on two sides and the glare made it impossible to see anything in the day. The Sony LCD is way better for this.

SD is a lot better than I expected. (I expected the worst!) If I sit at least 6 feet away, SD looks very nice. Any closer, I can see a lot of pic noise and smearing and almost the 'clayface' thing. I don't have HD yet, but I felt like any plasma or LCD I bought would look spectacular in HD. I have Dish Network BTW.

I have an old Toshiba DVD hooked up through component. From 6 feet it looks very nice but I thought I would get a more HD image. The DVD is outputting 480i. If I buy a new DVD player that outputs 720 or 1080i, will my DVD pic look a lot better? If so, any suggestions?

Thank you.
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post #78 of 1425
11/19/05 at 5:41pm
I saw the 40XBR1 today at a PC Richard store in NYC. Watched about 15 minutes of a football game in HD (TWC cable). The picture was stunning - no motion trails, vibrant, crisp colors, etc... They changed the channel to Nascar in HD because I was trying to find motion issues. All I saw was a great picture. It was very hard, however, to judge black levels because the showroom floor was so bright.

I am having a very hard time deciding between a Panasonic 42PX50U (which is what I visited the store intending to buy) and the Bravia. It didn't help that the cable feed to the Panasonic was obviously having a problem. For my needs - bedroom set used only at night and hooked up to an external sound system - I will likely buy the Panasonic but the Bravia looked smashing.
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post #79 of 1425
11/19/05 at 6:35pm
How do you take off the stand? coz I wanna mount it in my wall. Thanks
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post #80 of 1425
11/19/05 at 7:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by michael c View Post

I bought the 40" XBR1 a couple of days ago and am still getting use to it after years of CRTs. I tried plasma, but my room has floor to ceiling French doors on two sides and the glare made it impossible to see anything in the day. The Sony LCD is way better for this.

SD is a lot better than I expected. (I expected the worst!) If I sit at least 6 feet away, SD looks very nice. Any closer, I can see a lot of pic noise and smearing and almost the 'clayface' thing. I don't have HD yet, but I felt like any plasma or LCD I bought would look spectacular in HD. I have Dish Network BTW.

I have an old Toshiba DVD hooked up through component. From 6 feet it looks very nice but I thought I would get a more HD image. The DVD is outputting 480i. If I buy a new DVD player that outputs 720 or 1080i, will my DVD pic look a lot better? If so, any suggestions?

Thank you.

I've seen Sony DVP-NS70H-upconverted DVDs on the 40" Bravia XBR and thought they looked stunning. And I also thought blacks looked very very adequate on the unit as well.

The only thing I couldn't quite adjust to my satisfaction was flesh tones, which looked either too pinkish or too brown. I don't believe it's something that can be adjusted out, either - just one of the shortcomings of the technology at the current time.
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post #81 of 1425
11/19/05 at 7:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bulatao View Post

I'm a newb so sorry if this sounds like a dumb Q.
Does the Bravia have PIP?
The CC website says no, but some of the user reviews on that same site say that yes it does.
I'd like to hook up two playstations and play side by side.

The Bravia does not have PIP. As far as I know, none of Sony's TVs this year, with the exception of their tube displays, carry that feature.
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post #82 of 1425
11/19/05 at 9:09pm
For upsampling DVD player to replace your Toshiba, I would recommend one of the new Sony ES, DVP-NS3100ES check with oade.com, or the OppoDigital.com DVD player.
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post #83 of 1425
11/19/05 at 10:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoda1 View Post

The Bravia does not have PIP. As far as I know, none of Sony's TVs this year, with the exception of their tube displays, carry that feature.

Actually sony's top of the line rear projection LCOS display (SXRD) has Picture by picture. sony's implementation of PIP or PBP is really cool, if you have a chance you should check it out. you can even put two HD signals side by side.
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post #84 of 1425
11/20/05 at 7:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LisaM View Post

I saw the 40XBR1 today at a PC Richard store in NYC. Watched about 15 minutes of a football game in HD (TWC cable). The picture was stunning - no motion trails, vibrant, crisp colors, etc... They changed the channel to Nascar in HD because I was trying to find motion issues. All I saw was a great picture. It was very hard, however, to judge black levels because the showroom floor was so bright.

I am having a very hard time deciding between a Panasonic 42PX50U (which is what I visited the store intending to buy) and the Bravia. It didn't help that the cable feed to the Panasonic was obviously having a problem. For my needs - bedroom set used only at night and hooked up to an external sound system - I will likely buy the Panasonic but the Bravia looked smashing.

I am in the same boat, trying to decided between the Sony or the Panny. Might go shopping again today to check them out. Mine will be going in living room and be the daily watcher and used for video games as well.
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post #85 of 1425
11/20/05 at 9:37am
I have both, Panny 37" HD Plasma and the new sony 26" Bravia XBR. Both sets have excellent picture quality on HD programming and DVD material. I have to say however, than in my house, with Time Warner Cable, the Bravia beats the Panny on quality of the SD material. It must be sony's scaler, but I am floored at how good the picture is on the bravia at a viewing distance of about 8 feet. I have not had issues with color reproduction or black level and shadow detail. There are so many customizable options for the picture that I think the most fastidious user would find a setting they enjoy. I use the bravia in the master and the panny in the living room. I really like the LCD in the master because when I'm out of town on business my wife often falls asleep with the TV on, and I don't have to worry about what may be left on the screen overnight. Overall, the Bravia is an excellent display and shows how much progress LCD has made. I'm also lovin it because the smallest Plasma I can find is about 37" and that is just too big for my master bedroom.
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post #86 of 1425
11/20/05 at 9:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by TeeJayDM View Post

How do you take off the stand? coz I wanna mount it in my wall. Thanks


remove the four black screws on the back, bottom with a phillips screwdriver.
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post #87 of 1425
11/20/05 at 10:50am
For those of you that have the 40XBR1 LCD how many of you have Directv as their provider? Just asking because I plan on getting this TV some time in the future and was curious to know if I should lay down some serious money for the DTV dish HD DVR etc.. I have DTV now but I'm not an HD subscriber.....yet.

I only ask this because I've heard many talk about the low res HD that Direct TV puts out there.
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post #88 of 1425
11/20/05 at 1:16pm
Does anyone have opinions on how the 32XBR1 would compare to the 30XBR910 (Tube), PQ wise? I've been really disappointed with the 910, mainly because it has some pretty severe hue/noise/banding issues on the right side (purity related I imagine, the reason I hate CRTs). It's the kind that just screams at you on solid color horizontal pans (such as sky pans, I just cringe). I really wanted to take the thing back the first week I had it, but unfortunately, the fact that it's around 170 lbs and resides on the second floor (around 20 steps steep) makes it nightmare to man handle. So, I was kinda forced to just live with it.

Is anyone here coming off of one of Sony's WS tubes? (I imagine at least a few of you are) Which would you say you prefer, and what are the main shortcomings/differences you noticed? Being that I sit ~4' back, screen size isn't a major determinate, but I'm wondering if perhaps a DLP might be a better choice since I understand I'm really only paying for the direct view LCD's depth (which aside from weight, is irrelevant so far as I'm concerned).
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post #89 of 1425
11/20/05 at 2:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jugdish69 View Post

Overall, the Bravia is an excellent display and shows how much progress LCD has made.

The more I've seriously studied the current crop of LCDs, the more I'm convinced IMO, that the Bravia is simply the best. Before my return period was up, I decided to check out the Sharp 26" Aquos. No matter how carefully I adjusted the Sharp, the Sony displayed deeper blacks, better contrast ratio and superior colors. To be fair though, I went into the Sony service menu to optimize the colors and gray scale to my liking. I haven't done that with the Sharp.

However, the issues I'm seeing with the Sharp are not exclusively related to gray scale adjustments. Things like the contrast ratio and the ability to pull out detail and color CONSISTENTLY from scene to scene, is what sets the Sony apart. There is just a remarkable ability by the Sony to do this across the board, no matter what the picture content. On the Sharp, some scenes were fairly close, but many others diverged significantly. Only the Sony looked 'right' almost all of the time.

Keep in mind too, that for most of my viewing I was allowing the Sharp to use the HDMI input whereas the Sony was relegated to component! The Sony does better still when connected via HDMI (as do most displays). I tried briefly switching the inputs just to make sure there wasn't some weird behavior on the part of the Sharp via HDMI....there wasn't.

The one thing I did notice in the Sharp's defense, was slightly lower noise levels in dark scenes. This was most apparent at close viewing distances, but more difficult to detect at normal viewing distances. Interestingly, my Fujitsu plasma displayed the same noise that the Sony displayed. So I'm not sure if there was some negative by-product to the noise reduction that Sharp uses since it appears it was actually in the picture, but I didn't see it.

All in all, I'm more impressed than ever with the Sony Bravia.
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post #90 of 1425
11/20/05 at 2:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Ross View Post

The more I've seriously studied the current crop of LCDs, the more I'm convinced IMO, that the Bravia is simply the best. Before my return period was up, I decided to check out the Sharp 26" Aquos. No matter how carefully I adjusted the Sharp, the Sony displayed deeper blacks, better contrast ratio and superior colors. To be fair though, I went into the Sony service menu to optimize the colors and gray scale to my liking. I haven't done that with the Sharp.

However, the issues I'm seeing with the Sharp are not exclusively related to gray scale adjustments. Things like the contrast ratio and the ability to pull out detail and color CONSISTENTLY from scene to scene, is what sets the Sony apart. There is just a remarkable ability by the Sony to do this across the board, no matter what the picture content. On the Sharp, some scenes were fairly close, but many others diverged significantly. Only the Sony looked 'right' almost all of the time.

Keep in mind too, that for most of my viewing I was allowing the Sharp to use the HDMI input whereas the Sony was relegated to component! The Sony does better still when connected via HDMI (as do most displays). I tried briefly switching the inputs just to make sure there wasn't some weird behavior on the part of the Sharp via HDMI....there wasn't.

The one thing I did notice in the Sharp's defense, was slightly lower noise levels in dark scenes. This was most apparent at close viewing distances, but more difficult to detect at normal viewing distances. Interestingly, my Fujitsu plasma displayed the same noise that the Sony displayed. So I'm not sure if there was some negative by-product to the noise reduction that Sharp uses since it appears it was actually in the picture, but I didn't see it.

All in all, I'm more impressed than ever with the Sony Bravia.


This is probably going to be my next set. Just waiting for the price to come down.
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