The OFFICIAL Sony KD-34XBR970 34" HDTV Thread...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=644666

May want to get the mods to merge these.

Please explain where you got this information from. I have researched substantially and find nothing that indicates the 960 series has been or is being discontinued. I have no doubt it eventually will either cease production or be replaced, but there is no evidence or information leading to that currently.

Same request goes for your insinuation that no one except Sony will offer a 34" CRT come spring. Where is this information coming from? Do you have proof that Toshiba will no longer offer the Orion or other manufactured version of a CRT in the 34" size? Or that any other Manufacturer won't have an offering?

Please provide substantiation of your claims.
Thank you

"The Sony KD-34XBR970 will be the only 34" widescreen CRT TV available in the market (beginning in spring) this year."

what about the 960N that is pretty new and also has a Super Fine Pitch tube?

the 970 doesn't indicate Super Fine Pitch tube on it anywhere, if it was a replacement (which I highly doubt) that would be a huge downgrade.

Uh oh, here we go again...

What about Zenith? They make 34 inch tube tv's also..

[quote=cireaasirefan]It's really hard to say whether the XBR960 is going to be discontinued or not. Sony claims that it will be discontinued......

We've already discussed before that the MT Picture Displays factory in Troy is closing at spring. Do a search. Toshiba already announced new direct-view CRT models at January, and no new 34" was announced.....QUOTE]
(1) Where is the proof that Sony said this...provide a link or some real proof!
(2) Tosh announced no new 34" TV's in Jan, that means nothing. They may just coninue with what they have, or there may be announcements from them or someone else in the future. I just think it is irresponsible to make a bold statement that Sony will be the only Manufacturer, when in reality it is only your opinion.

Sorry, but I really like reading this forum and getting solid information from the postings...yours continue to be peppered with speculation and personal opinion that you try to pass off as valid insider information. Provide proof and you will get my apology!

I think it's pretty much all under the LG flag by this point.


http://www.zenith.com/index.asp?url=...asp%3Fcat%3D46


The last Zenith 34 inch WS I knew of was the c34w37. If you can find it, it's pretty solid at $700-$800 thereabouts.

I have its 4:3 32 inch brother, the Zenith c32v37, in my "home gym" currently. Pretty solid TV's for under a grand, imho. You could do worse.

One thing I have to give Zenith/LG credit for is the design. Specifically, the perfectly flat top that lets you rest a center channel speaker on there without a moment's hesitaiton or worry.


Anyways...

You and Greenland laid down the rules of the other thread. If they were merged our friend here wouldn't be able to post anything.

Yeah they are. They have them in Brandsmart USA,a huge electronics strore down here in Miami. They always have them on sale for like 800 with built in hdtv tuner.

waltchan, I'm not trying to start anything or flame you, but I do have a honest question. Why do you feel it incumbent upon you to start a new thread on virtually every model TV that comes out, even if you do not own it nor know anything about it? I really am curious and fascinated by this phenomenon. Can you educate me? Is there some thrill to seeing your "name" first on all those threads? Again, not trying to start anything, just really interested in the why.

Hmmm, I understand that, but I guess I'm trying to figure out why its you that starts all these threads.......

Not bad. I wouldn't pay much more than that for them, though.

Nice to see that Sony HAS brought the 970 back to the website listing. Notice that, to the the disappointment of many, that there have been no improvements or changed specs for this model.

It still looks like a solids set, just no SFP.

I thought about this as well, and wondered why there is an official thread on a TV not available

I would think the first member to own one, would create the official thread or something

I agree--an owner of the TV, after having used the set for awhile, should create the thread and post his observations about it, so that the thread has some basis in credibility. Now we have threads on TVs that are not out, with no owners of the sets, and so all you get are people posting their speculations. The single biggest time waster to me is wading through a bunch of posts containing nothing but guesses and speculations. Unfortunately, it looks like we're going to have to suffer through a lot more of that because of the apparant carte blanche given to a certain speculator. Makes it that much more difficult for someone like me who's trying to seperate the wheat from the chaff. Looks like we're going to have more chaff to sift through.

Oh well, back to my bedtime story--The Boy Who Cried Wolf--some good lessons in that one....

why don't you look at the manual that you just posted above?

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...me=specs&var2=

One HDMI only.

And you wonder why everyone breaks your chops?

[quote=cireaasirefan]


....................

Since we are posting about being curious (as you did above), I'm wondering why:
-If you know the set hasn't been released
-If you have viewed SonyStyle.com like the rest of us
-If, because of the above 2 statements, you therefore know that this topic will be nothing but the speculation you referred to.

If all of the above is true, then why do you bother reading this topic. You know it will be speculation, therefore it will waste your time as you indicated. I get the feeling that you are not happy about the wasting of time, so why not move on to topics with information of importance/interest to you.

I might be wrong (and if so I apologize) but I don't think you are a moderator on this forum. Therefore it doesn't seem like the weight of deciding which topics are important to the rest of us and which ones aren't is on your shoulders.

I've been lurking here for quite a while now, and to be honest, it seems like sometimes some of you are going out of your way (and spending a lot of time) trying to find excuses for antagonizing WaltChan. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend him. I have no feelings either way towards him or any of you.

So no hard feelings towards anyone, these are just some observations I've been thinking about for a while now.

And just so everyone knows, I don't actually own an HDTV. I just dream about owning one, but am too cheap, so I just lurk here and read about everyone else's experiences!!

why would they drop cablcard from this set ?

Here's the manual for the HS420: http://www.sonystyle.com/intershopro.../KV34HS420.pdf


Why am I showing you that?

The exclusion of cable card capability lends further credence to what most of us are believing at this point: The XBR970 is nothing more than a rebadged HS420. The HS420's do not have Cable Card capability and never have.

It wasn't "dropped" at all. It never was on the HS420 and that's all this thing is, with a new coat of paint and the XBR logo.



To my eyes, the manual for the XBR970 and this Hs420 are virtually identical. I believe they're the same TV, or awfully close to it.

To the best of my knowledge, only the XS955 and XBR960 series had Cable Card capabilities.

Correct.

I have the 34HS420 - and it has no cablecard, no QAM, no digital tuner of any kind.

This new 970 appears to be a hybrid, some weird combination of essentially the HS420 with a sprinkling of XS features (e.g. digital tuner, enhanced DRC, enhanced stretch mode, imput memory). I suspect the enhancements are all coded and that there's probably no new hardware except the tuners.

I will be watching this new set very closely. If the set actually ships with the advertised features I will be interested in researching whether or not they are features already existing in the HS420 line but not advertised. There's much about the entire Wega line that's similar and common.

I believe we've already heard that some have discovered features on the XS model that we believed to only be on the XBR line - I believe this was discovered when using a Harmony Remote?

Bottom LIne - this is an enhanced HS420 with no SFP tube.

justsc I believe these features were only on early releases of the XS
the owner with the 34" model had one from October and mine the 30" is from November of 04'

other owners with newer build dates could not access these functions AFAIK

here are pictures justsc

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post7141478

In these days of cutbacks in the CRT market I would think the easiest/cheapest way for Sony to come up with such a TV is to use the existing XS/XBR chassis to start and delete features to save money. It would probably be difficult/expensive to add a tuner to the 420 chassis.

So it could be a rebadged XBR with a 420 tube and features such as cable card removed.

then why didn't Sony label this as an HS5xxx instead of xbr970. some are going to think this tv is the successor to the xbr960, which has a lot more features than the 970

You just answered your own question.