The Official Sony 2006 KDS-(XX)A2000 [NO PRICE TALK] SXRD Owner's Thread - Page 234

Just received delivery of a new 50A2000 this afternoon and I'm wondering how I should configure my Comcast HD cable box -- outputting 720P or 1080i? Is there a consensus among A2000 owners who have Comcast? Thanks in advance for your replies!

While proper adjustment is a bit fiddly at first it usually only needs to be done once per source device since most sets will memorize different settings for each input. In the case of the Sonys they will memorize 3 different sets of basic adjustments for each input--one each for vivid, standard, and custom modes.

Thus one can, if necessary, store separate daytime and night-time settings for each input according to ambient light in the room and just toggle between them as necessary with one button on the remote.

I'm interested in this as well as I have Comcast. My current HD box does not have HDMI but I called them yesterday and they said they'd bring one out when I'm ready.

And yet another helpful post.

Thanks Steve!

Once I work the best deal, I'm going to get it.

Do the discs come with the reqiured filters?

You might also want to look at the DVE disk which is more orientated toward digital TV sets.

This link points to information provided by Eliab and David Abrams that makes it easier to use.

Avical's DVE user-level video calibration tutorial

I bought my Dad a Sony 46E2000 (LCD). Didn't like it at all for other reasons. We were watching some DVD's on that set and I noticed the green tint on faces/beard stubble. The scene had to be shadowy (say the back seat of a car at night) with an additional light source shining in for it to happen (the camera or street lights, etc). Until reading these posts and replacing that set with a 50A2000 which may even be worse (green problem), I assumed it was the program source. I was planning to take the movie upstairs and compare on my older 57"Sony CRT RPT. I have NEVER noticed this phenomenon before so it really was obvious to me the first time I saw it-color was fine and then people turned green and then they were fine when the shadows changed. As everyone says, with most programming it is not a big deal and the colors are accurate.

Okay so what's going on: The Sony E2000 3LCD RPT's have the green tint so it's not SXRD technology per se as some suggest. From what I can see, the various modes don't make much difference so it's not a sheer light output issue either.

I watched Collateral (T. Cruise, Jamie Foxx) last night on the A2000. Lots of shadowy car shots, night shots, beard shots, black skin shots. What a torture test! Big problem with this movie. I see a complete green tinge, say to a night sky, but only when something else lights up the sky in that scene, like a helicopter's searchlights or a skyscraper skyline with lit windows. Plain black is fine but throw in some people in less than black shadows with secondary light and things go green??? It's not the programming.

Jamie Foxx and Jada Pinkett look green-tinged in shadowy night shots but perfect in normal light. The green beard effect was there with white-skinned actors in shadowy scenes. It's as if a secondary light source contrasting with the dark scene or even something as small as dark beard hairs trips up the set and it goes green. Can anyone explain exactly what the problem is?

I am not planning to exchange because I do not think it is a defect or something broken-it is a design error. Either opt out of Sony light engines of that ilk or get something else. I will fiddle and see if I can get it to be acceptable.

One other biggie: I have Verizon FIOS cable service. Either this set does not like moving objects (even noticeable with DVD) or my service is compromised. HD still images, especially close up look awesome. I don't know if the camera goes out of focus or whether as soon as there is even SLIGHT movement of the person or image from dead stationary, details soften out until the image becomes still again and then they snap into focus. Watch the details in people's faces as they move and the face goes from sharp to soft. Maybe it's the camera, but I suspect that the Sony is poor at upconverting everything to 1080P. If this TV was for watching 1080 slides, I'd recommend it. Probably 1080P sources are great too.

I had Verizon FIOS out to the house and they claim the signal is adequate. I find SD very soft looking. image break-up ranges from noticeable to terrible. Can't tell if it is station to station variations or differences in what the broadcast is sending on a particular day or time. Sometimes time of day seems to matter. Sports can be pretty bad (look in the background or during motion) but occassionally an HD broadcast is somewhat decent (Fox football was watchable in HD the other day). HD close-ups with sports always look best. The announcers look great except for the subtle detail loss with motion. SD sports are terrible-the TV cannot handle motion and upconversion at the same time I guess. Even golf swings look bad. Sometimes I see little rainbows on the club shaft or other white objects when watching golf.

This is all so new to me, I do not know whether to blame the TV, the cable service, the broadcaster, the particular show at that moment, etc. I am NOT impressed with digital artifacts in this supposed HD world. I am becoming VERY sensitive to motion artifacts. I had it with Comcast in HD, switched to FIOS 'cause they promised a cure and same problem, maybe worse.

Watch the Sony image and you'll see smoothing out of the intoxicating details of faces and patterns in suits (herringbone, plaid) with even the slightest motion. I see it with DVD and HD. SD is so bad it's always smooth. What I don't know is if the program is smoothing out the detail because the camera pans and changes focus or if it's the TV processing. I never was aware of this upstairs with my CRT RPT, so I suspecet the 1080P processing 'till I prove otherwise. I think this is a really annoying problem. When people move around they go from great detail to "paint by numbers looking".

Would I like a Panasonic 50" 720P plasma any better?? Considering this option. Will play for another week or so until 30 days gets close.

Good luck with the green tint. Watch Collateral and see how bad it is.

I just purchased the 50A2000, and I get to pick it up this Friday since they were out-of-stock, but got the Sony Thanksgiving $1899 price.

I had the same early impressions of this set in the Sears store at the Mall of America. On my 2nd visit -- 2 days later, I noticed it again and noted it to sales person "this is supposed to be one of the best hd models on the market and the picture and text detail looks muddy and out-of-focus".

He then starting changing the input sources on the box, and then it became glorious.

Apparently, in this store, they had the same source content fed to the set via rca, svideo, component, and hdmi. It was apparently set to S-Video. Once he changed the input source to either component or hdmi, the picture became amazingly clear and vibrant...before then it was lackluster and looked a bit worse than other HD sets around it.

Bottom line, when evaluating these sets in person, you need to ask and physically confirm which input sources are wired, the resolution and type of the source material, and which ones the HD set is actually utilizing when viewing material.

The 60A2000 is available online for $100 more.

Would you please PM me more info.

Can someone point me to some TV stand alternatives to the Sony one for a 50A2000?

I have been looking around online all day for a friend for this 60 inch model. His 10 year old sony 53 inch just died. Please PM me a place or two I can have him get it in that range.

If you turn down the color all the way down to B&W do you see a slight green tinge on some scenes? Watch your A2000 in B&W for a few minutes and see if you see a green tinge. When I do this I detect a slight green tinge which should not be there at all. I believe that this might be causing the green tinge issue of those of us who see it on our A2000s.

Can someone clarify something for me?

I'm interested in the KDS-50A2000 set. One set says it has VGA input, the next doesn't. Sony's website doesn't have the right manual, they have the manual for the KDS-60A2000.

Better yet, could someone please post a picture of the back of the KDS-50A2000? I would greatly appreciate it.

The inputs should be identical... Here is a picture of the back (minus the 2 HDMI inputs)

http://www.hometheatermag.com/rearpr...00/index1.html

I've seen several posts about deals on A2000's in this thread, but given that the title states "No Price Talk", I presume price discussion is discouraged here. Is there an accepted place that those of us looking for an A2000 (specifically a 60A2000 for me) can share pricing info and deal news (like the thanksgiving compusa/xbox deal) without having to PM each other?
Thank you,
Chris

The only DVD I have were this green tinge on shadows of faces is evident for me is on Mission Impossible III and only certain scenes. It's never been evident on Satellite programming. I'm pretty sure this infrequent issue is source material related, perhaps due to the lighting used for specific scenes and not a problem with the Sony. The tinge is most obvious with the A2000 when I play the scene where Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) meets his IMF partner in the 7/11. However, when I play the same scene on a CRT TV, the same shadows have a similar green tint to them. I think the Sony may just be too faithful to the source material and that's why it looks like it does making source imperfections more obvious. You can change the green bias and gain settings to aleveate the issue, but then the color of everything ielse is further from NTSC settings so I don't think it makes much sence to do this for what appears to be such an infrequent, source material related problem .

After having my set for a couple of days and fiddling with the settings for a long time, I've concluded a similar thing. Set the colors to the best of the HD channels. I've set mine to the HDNET channels, and the HD versions of ESPN, Showitme and HBO. Those all come in beautifully. Then just leave it at those settings.

Then, when watching SD channels, those seem to have good colors somewhere around 75-80% of the time. The problems are usually on one or 2 particular channels or else within a good channel when they move to a secondary camera. It's amazing how it can shift from slight: purplish to orangeish to greenish. I believe this is just variations in the source which this TV picks up on more than others. So I don't fiddle with the settings any more. I just watch with some amusment at the way these cable channels aren't able to keep their color quality consistent.

This is my 3rd big screen HD TV and I must say the HD channels and DVDs look much better on this set than any of the others. The HD is much sharper, shows better details, fewer artifacts, and has more true and vibrant colors than any of the others. There is some variation on trueness of colors in HD depending on the channel, but its all within the range of acceptability. For example Letterman consistently comes through in spectacular, true color. But Leno comes through sort of brownish.

Is the green tinge really that bad where I shouldn't get the set? Is it that distracting?

And that's great news that it has VGA. I'll be able to watch upscaled DVDs and play games/HD-DVD in 1080p from my Xbox 360.

I hooked up an antenna to my Sony 50A2000 and I find that the reception is not nearly as good as with my Samsung HL-S5087W, which is sitting right next to this Sony (until I sell the Samsung).

There are a number of channels I can pick up with the Samsung. Then when I connect the antenna to the Sony (with the antenna still in the exact same place) I can't pick up those channels. Just a few other closer channels.

This is not a deal killer with the Sony, since I don't watch wth the antenna very often anyway. I have cable. But I was wondering, has anyone else noticed any problems with OTA reception?

Reflex,
I have the official Sony stand for the 60A2000. I don't have the exact dimensions available, however it consists of 2 glass shelves. I have on the top a Denon 5 disc CD changer and an SA 8300HD. On the bottom I have a Sony ES receiver and next to it I have double stacked a Sony 5 disc DVD changer and a Sony Hi 8 VCR. It is a very nice looking stand matching the look of the set perfectly. The TV ends up about 20" off of the floor, not a bad height for the room I have the set in.
Gary Holland

Technically, in the Great Found Deals forum (AVS Club membership required).

Thanks a lot Gary... really apreciate that tidbit there.... im going to measure that out here in a few minutes to get an idea, I have no worries about there being enough room, I just like to obsess over this kind of detail! Thanks!

Just received my KDS60 from Circuit City. The price was great but I see GREEN faces. I used the settings as some suggested here. It was built in August. Should I call Sony or return it? I may not keep it if it can't be fixed. Thanks.

How bad is this green blob deal? I'm starting to really get concerned about this as I'm about ready to make a purchase. None of the TV's we looked at in BB/CC came close to the Sony A2000 in the sub-$3k sets.

The true "green blob" issue is not present on the A2000. It is nowhere as frequent or obvious as the XBR1. Many of the issues people are having has nothing to do with the actual green blob problem. Most are problems range from poor calibration or poor signal source. I would not be afraid to buy another A2000 if I had the room for one. I have had my A2000 for almost 4 months and no problems at all.

I agree with you. Snoop D was spectacularly realistic on Leno the other day. I get great African-American skin tones.

I don't know if it's the "green blob" or not, but there is definitely some green tone on the faces, mostly around eyes, neck, and areas where the face meets the hair (what's the term for that? Hair line?). I looked at CNBC, HDnet, Discovery HD, MTV HD, NBC's Today Show in HD, they all have it. I haven' t had a chance to look at the DVD pictures yet. I would really want to keep this TV if this issue can be solved since I got a really good price for. This is my sixth HD TV.

My July build 60A2000 has a green tone concentrated in the center 40% of the screen. It makes gray scale calibration a bit of a hit or miss effort. I would not call it a blob but it is not desirable.

Richard.

This have absolutely nothing to do with the old green blob problem. What you are seeing may be result of poor calibration, poor source, poor connection(s) or convergency. If this was the green blob, then you would see the whole face greenish, not just in some parts of the face.