Official Sony XBR2 (60" & 70") Owner's Thread - Page 132

are you sure? i just purchased one through sony style and it overlaps the manufacturers. just wondering if i got screwed

sears had it in november at $50 less than that . 1 day only. these are good prices at reliable B&M stores. expect lower prices closer to superbowl.

an upconverting player may have a better deinterlacer and scaler than that built into the set and therefore may produce a higher quality picture. do you really need an upconverter? no. i use my old Denon player and it has a great picture on most movies. would an upconverter like Oppo be better? i don't know but I'm going to find out.

Jim - Congrats on your purchase. Here is the stand I would have ordered if I could have bought the set last night. I saw it in a showroom, and it looked nice. Pretty good price, too.

http://www.audio-video-furniture.com...A-V-Center.htm

Anyone know what the advanced settings for Vivid are?

I got my 70" XBR2 from them also. They had a sale (15%) and I also had additional 20% off coupon. When the sales guy threw in the free delivery and the $150 Monster HDMI cable I had no reason not to buy. Also they had no payment and no interest until 2009! Just kinda makes you think what kind of mark ups they have on these sets!

SONY corp has 2 dif EW plans w/ dif terms & prices - Sony & SonyStyle.

SonyStyle - 11 month rule, but still cheaper than Sony even considering it overlaps to purchase date.

Sony - no 11 month rule, you can purchase it right up to the date the 1 yr manuf warranty ends, & it begins on the date the 1 yr manuf warranty ends.

verified by numerous calls to SonyStyle & Sony CS & EW.

This is what the guys at the Sony store told me but I'm going to call Sony tomorrow to verify this. I don't see whay Sony would sell a 4 yr warranty that overlaps their initial 1 yr warranty unless it's better, which could be the case.

I'll findout tomorrow and let you know.

this makes sense. thanks. from what i gather the Sony style one is essentially the same as the manufacturers all you are doing is purchasing an extension that overlaps. wish i had known about the one from Sony direct. my 4 year is actually a 3 year. but the price was good i thought.

I have been enjoying my 60XBR2, but, have noticed a few smudges and dust on the screen.
What is the best method and materials to clean the screen?
Tahnks.

if its on the inside you probably need a service call.
if its on the outside the manual says a damp cloth, however they do make screen cleaning solutions that come with micro fiber cloths. you certainly dont want to use anything with alcohol in it.

I did all the math & you definitely got the better deal, even w/ the overlap. on mine, IIRC the 2 yr SonyStyle is/was $99 whereas the Sony 1 yr EW is $179. that equates to $49.50/yr for SonyStyle.

the only reason I can see to not go w/ the SonyStyle is if you can't, 'cause you're between the 11th & 12th mo. on the original manuf warranty.

So basically there should be no difference in picture quality between a 1080i or 1080p source if your plugging directly into the Sony XBR2's HDMI?

The only advantage I see of 1080p is at 24fps, and this TV cannot take that frame rate natively correct?

Doesn't it take less bandwidth to display 1080p@24fps?

I was curious to find out myself so I went to my buyers club and got the wholesale price available to us. 2795 is the price for the 60 [I didnt check the 70 because its too big for my room] so do the math. I can get any sony product for dealer cost but I went to a local retailer because I wanted the service contract I was offered and which I think is a good deal: 5 years for 360 dollars and unlimited bulb replacement.

In what way is the 70 too big for your room? The 70 is 68" wide without speakers and the 60 is 67" wide.

I am sure the anal picture viewing distance police would arrest me now with my 60 as it dominates the room but is I believe at the minimum for viewing distance now. the 70 simply wouldnt make sense in the same room. trust me I would love to be rich enough and have a big enough room for the 70 after now owning and loving my 60. and of course there would be no dumbo ears.

I am with you on the rich enough part . But, I would gladly take 10 more inches of screen over the darned dumbo ears. My wife doesn't really like the ears either, but the picture quality is sooo good I find it easy to concentrate on what is on the screen.

My son used a water bottle and misted the screen of my SXRD. Right away I saw a tiny small black blob at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. Two hours later the black blob has grown to about the size of my fist. Am I screwed or will the moisture evaporate? I tried a hair-dryer on no heat to no avail. I plan on leaving the TV off until the moisture evaporates. Any thoughts on if damage has occurred?

I don't usually post but I have gotten good advice from this forum and I would like to share my calibration experiences with Jeff Mier from AccuCal. It was based on references here that encouraged me to contact Jeff.

Jeff came by my house this past Saturday and over the next 4 hours, he tuned my 60XBR2, HR10-250, PS3, XBOX360, and audio. Every input was tuned and tested. I was very impressed with Jeff's commitment to getting my system looking and sounding it's best.

Jeff's professionalism and capabilities are well documented in these forums. I understood what type of product I should expect from a technical perspective and Jeff did not dissappoint. I am very pleased with the picture. I think it's got a POP previously lacking. I am also very content knowing I've got the best picture possible on arguably the best product in the market that I can afford. In fact, it's Sunday night and I've been stuck watching my 'new' setup since Jeff left.

I also had Jeff calibrate my audio and the improvement has been just as dramatic. Jeff was able to get my sub in phase and leveled with the other speakers. All my gear is in a family area and in a corner as well. My settings had the sound muddy and boomy. The sound improvments are just as significant as the video.

I am very pleased with my experience with Jeff. Besides everthing you would expect from a calibration, I found Jeff to be willing to share his experiences and knowledge. A great experience and one I will highly recommend.

Thanks Jeff. You provide a great product and educate at the same time. Bonus.

Randy

Thanks Randy. I am glad you are pleased with the results.

What buyers club is that? I'm guessing 70" maybe around $4k.

Anyone find any good deals on matching stand?

I've been having a problem lately. When the screen has a lighter shaded image, it looks like there is noise, but in fact what I'm seeing is the matte finish of the screen. This is drastically reducing the sharpness of the image. I'd appreciate any insight.

I think this is called the Silk Screen Effect (SSE). Some folks think it looks like the shimmer you see on snow.

Of course having a name doesn't solve your problem, but maybe you could search for SSE and see if this sounds like the same thing.

Good luck.

I have the 70XBR2 and found the Oppo 981 to be only slightly better than my 4 year old Sony DVD player. The Oppo has slighly better resolution, but the Sony has better color. I ended up sending the 981 back and am going to wait for the next generation of Blue Ray player, which I hope will also do a better job of upconverting. The 981 is a nice player, but the small improvement was not worth it for me. The XBR2's seem to do a great job of deinterlacing and upconverting.

Is this normal? I got my 70' TV just a few days ago and takes almost 1 minute before it shows any picture when I turn it on. I'm constantly turning it off and on thinking it never turned on. Is this normal? It's been connected to analog cable for now because our Time Warner has been out for like 10 days. Please let me know if this is normal or if I should try and warranty this bad boy .

normal.

Sorry, I haven't replied till now. The Sony upscaling DVD player I have looks significantly better than the old Toshiba DVD player I have on the XBR2. When I first got the set I hooked up the Tosh DVD player and played Spiderman. It looked okay, but had that "SD" look (kinda fuzzy).
I did a little research and found the Sony DVP-NS75H. It was only around a $100.00 so I thought it was worth a try. I think the new DVD player looks a lot better, and gives the DVDs a more HD kind of look. This all could be due to the way its connected. The new Sony Upscaling uses HDMI while the old Tosh used component.

To sum it up. I am a novice at this, so I don't have any technical babble to prove one looks better than the other, but I saw a noticable increase in PQ with the upscaling DVD.

Beyond that, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were made for the XBR2. Watching HD discs on the XBR2 is really an experience.

It takes little time to starting seeing things. I would stop turning on & off frequently since I don't think it's good for the bulb.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm just surprised that $100 DVD player is doing better scaling than this top of the line TV. Maybe the feed from the Toshiba DVD player was not very good... Did you compare it using the same DVD movie?

the ultimate way to test the sony dvd against the XBR2 would be to go into its user menu & set it to output in 480i so the XBR2 can try the job. assume you have it outputin' in 1080i currently.

sidenote: man, have the AVS servers been suckin' air or what the last few days?