Official Sony XBR2 (60" & 70") Owner's Thread - Page 209

Of course!..... I forgot all about the 426".

SONY has added 80" to their TV range. Could this mean a new model- possibly an 80" SXRD RPU or LCD?

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/_3Cw...0&Dept=tvvideo

well i got my third replacement and i got the same problem so now i give up am just going to keep it, i cant believe sony can have so many tvs with pixel problems the only thing i will try is to call service and have them look at it to see if maybe there is a piece of dirt or something somewere in the light path because it looks like a solid black dot, that looks like its effecting pixels from all three panels and i assume if a pixel is out on one panel it would look very faint and what would be the chances of pixels out in the same place on all three panels unless a missing pixel can look this dark from one panel i just don't know its very frustrating

please keep us informed.

Dust particles have most likely been your issue. I have taken care of these in 2 ways. First is to gently tap the screen with your knuckle. Second was to take off screen and wipe down the inside. You don't have dead pixel problems it is just dust and if you look very close alot of RPTV's have this issue, but not a reason to return sets IMO. On a positive note you have given 2 people discounts for their "open box" XBR2 purchases although they might have to clean off some dust..

i hope that is all it is, is taking off the screen a hard job, if not i will try it because i tried to tap the screen which didn't help, also i had posted that when this happened on the first set the service tech was the one who told me the pixels were out so i just took his word for it but the idea of dirt in the light path seems like the more logical problem

I recently got my 60XBR2 calibrated by Jeff on Friday. There were great improvements in my video and Audio. I waited for months and never thought the day would come. He is a true professional, has great work ethics, knowledge, and treats his clients with respect. You could not find a more down to earth person. During the calibration, he took his time to ask me what I was thinking and he was extremely patient. His main goal is to make you happy and put a smile on your face.

Video: Wow what a big difference. Colors are more true life. My TV has vivid colors, but extremely accurate flesh tones. My Black levels were great and everyone always said the XBR black's were out of this world, but he took it to another level. I have now learned that you cannot just plug in anyone's settings from AVS and expect the same results. He spent over 5 hours getting everything right. He tested & calibrated every piece of equipment I had down to my PC. BLU-RAY and HD DVD never looked this great!

Audio: Allot of people forgot about the audio, which is a big mistake. My speaker's levels were all set wrong and my sub was all over the place. My system now has great balance, it sounds like I bought new audio gear. I have learned that audio is very as important as video. He spent a great amount of time on the audio. Jeff used his equipment, ear, and some of my input. Sound is clear, vocals are crisp, and the sub is clean with no rattle. 7.1 audio never sounded this great! I am enjoying the audio as much as my video now.

The calibrations are definitely worth the price and I fully recommend waiting for UMR when he goes on his next tour. He has great equipment and demo material to test audio and video, so you system never misses a beat. I had some friends over after UMR did his majic and they could tell the difference within seconds that my audio and video was way better from there last visit. I am off to enjoy my system!

bk1987..i had the shadow of ,what had to be an extremely small bug, on my screen 1 day. the shadow was less than 1/8" long crawling around on the right side and it never ventured past the right 3rd of the screen. i tapped the screen and it didnt miss a step. so i just left it alone and watched it crawl. i suppose the heat became to much for it and it disapeared after about 5 minutes and never returned. luckily it didn't fall anywhere thats noticeable when it died. dust certainly seems logical.

Thanks for the report. I've added it to the owner's list that is linked at the bottom of my post.

Thanks

Looking for thoughts of those who replaced an XBR1 set with an XBR2. I am in the bad XBR1 camp and wondering if I should go with XBR2 Sxrd, XBR3 LCD or maybe something completely different.

Thanks

i have another problem now with my third set, first of all, having three sets in the past few weeks i have noticed a slight variation in pq some were better than others but it was very slight ( i used the same picture settings) but i guess its to be expected to have some slight differences but the problem im having now is something i just cant live with which is the picture looks slightly out of focus its noticeable during normal watching, i have compared it mostly with my HD DVD player, playing hd and sd material and its most noticeable when there are words on the screen, its quite annoying! i have also tried different settings and nothing helped, now i have been in the service menu and checked the convergence and it looked ok so my question is does anybody know how to adjust the general focus in the service menu or is there some way to adjust it manually? im sorry if i seem like a pest with all these problems, im not a picky person these are problems my wife had noticed also so i know its not me expecting perfection ( which im not) i just seem to be very unlucky lately any help or suggestions you guys can give me would be greatly appreciated thanks

another user had a 70" out of focus. it was noticed by an ISF calibrator. he had to exchange his set. sorry.

Thanks to everyone here on this forum for making my tv purchase alot easier. I recently purchased the 60XBR2. I am going from a Pioneer Elite Pro520hd and I was wondering about the blacks on the XBR2. The picture is great and the shadow detail is amazing, but I noticed that when the screen is completely black on the Sony, its not as black as it was on the Pioneer. Is that just because the Pioneer is a CRT based tv. Thanks for all the help.

the only problem is i dont know if that is an option for me to exchange another set i will have to see monday morning i do have an extend warranty and they ( the store) may insist on repair,, this has all been a nightmare

I know someone who bought a Sony A2000 SXRD who also complained that the picture was out of focus. An ISF calibrator determined that it was a severe convergence problem which could not be resolved by calibration. Fortunately they were able to exchange their set for another A2000 and are now happy with that set. Are you positive that the problem is not convergence issue?

well i am not 100% sure but i have checked it on the last 2 sets and the convergence looked very simular, the last set the focus looked excellent. on this set when i put up the test pattern in the service menu the colors look about the same as the last set, there not perfect but close but on this set even the pattern has a slight blur to it, as i said before i will try once again to have this tv replaced but i have a feeling the store is going to give me a problem, they have been very accommodating up to this point but i feel they are going to push for the repair this time, but i don't know what they can repair unless they replace the whole Light Engine if thats the problem i just don't know i would hate to have to fight for a refund/ store credit because the store doesn't normally give refunds on tvs this size and i really love the PQ on these sets when there working correctly

i took a closer look at the convergence and it does look like its off but i don't know if there is a way to fix it. it seems like the red is 1 pixel off on the top right to the right and is 1 pixel off on the bottom left to the left it looks like blue is off the same but upper left to bottom right like a X cross pattern like both panels are not square i know you can adjust them left or right and up and down but is there any way to rotate them

I had a 70" that was out of focus. Sony wouldn't replace the set, they replaced the light engine twice, and it got a good bill of health from a ISF Calibrater last week.

Michael

thanks for the response im glad everything worked out for you. how noticeable was the focus on your set ? i have a feeling there going to replace the LE also so at least there is hope that i will get a tv im happy with

I didn't replace an XBR1 with an XBR2, but there's no reason my opinion is any worse (or better) than someone who has done the replacement... for a whole slew of reasons.

First... LCD panels just don't look like these SXRD projectors and aren't as large. If you can't FIT a larger screen (the 60" and 70" XBR2s are close to the same width if you remove the speakers from the 70" screen), then you're choice is made by the smaller screen size of the 50" LCD, but it doesn't have blacks as good as the SXRDs, and of course, the screen is smaller. My experience is that the screen can't be too big until there's no more room for speakers to the sides and below or above it. Also, LCD panels don't have color that's as accurate as the SXRDs - flat panel LCD color isn't bad, it's just not as accurate as these XBR2 rear projectors.

Should you go for an SXRD XBR2 right now? That depends on your timeline. I'm not sure when Sony will introduce the 2008 model replacements for the current 60" & 70" models... seems like it could be summer or fall since they seem to be in that window for past models. If you have time to wait until the 2008 models appear (and you can get one of those instead of a 2007 model - Sony would have to confirm or deny that) you might want to do that hoping that the 2008s will support 24p and HDMI 1.3 (as they are rumored to... that RUMOR with capital letters). But if Sony has you on a deadline for the replacement that means you can't wait for the 2008 models, then go for the biggest screen you can deal with (and weight!... the 70" set is over 200 lbs in the box and 160 or so out of the box while the 60" set is 160 lbs in the box and 125 lbs or so out of the box). And if you missed this in previous posts... if you purchased the Sony stand for the XBR1, Sony has been providing a new stand for the replacement XBR2 also but you have to ask for it. The XBR2s don't fit on the XBR1 stand.

Go to Amazon.com and order Joe Kane's Digital Video Essentials HD-DVD version. It's $23.95 and if you add $1.05 more to your order there's no shipping charge. It is loaded with images and test patterns to evaluate every aspect of image quality including focus. To see if a 1080p display is in focus, you need a 1080p source and this is the only one I know of so far. Inappropriate combinations of settings can make these sets look soft. The test patterns go all the way to 1080... 1 pixel wide lines. If those are resolved (you have to get real close to the screen), the set is in focus and the softness is something other than focus. It will also reveal whether the set you have now needs settings that are very different than previous models you looked at. It is very rare for 2 sets to use the same settings to produce similar images. I think it's NOT a good idea to list settings in forums or reviews since few sets will be at their best using any given list of settings. Digital video essentials is HD-DVD and DVD on one disc so it can be used to setup both (use component connections and HDMI from the HD-DVD player and setup HDMI for HD-DVD and setup component for DVD since VERY different settings are needed for those formats to get them looking good).

Any video display with a lamp is never going to be as black as crt rear projectors. When a CRT goes black (assuming it is setup properly) the black level is so low it appears that there is no light source at all - like turning off a light bulb. Fixed pixel projection relies on a lamp that is on all the time. Take that same light bulb and try to block all the light from it without turning it off... that's much more difficult. All that light from the lamp has to be blocked somehow. The blocking of the light is not easy with fixed pixel displays... LCDs don't stop 100% of light when they are fully "black" and DLP chips have to trap 100% of the light deflected from the light path to make black and that deflected light has to be 100% absorbed somehow without letting it back into the optical path... a big challenge.

The next frontier in video displays will be lasers. They will have blacker blacks than CRTs and higher contrast ratios than any fixed pixel display you can imagine. Screen sizes will be able to be very large. Pixel size and shape will be scalable to make all resolutions of images look as good as they possibly can. Still lots of technical issues with lasers-for-video, but some day the issues will all be resolved and we'll be seeing images we can only dream of today.

With very little modification the XBR2's can look exactly like the XBR1 looked on that stand.

Thanks Maxdb. I have one other issue, I was going through the Avia disc setup an I noticed that on a total black screen that the left side of the screen was a little bit brighter then the right side. Its not a very big difference, but enough to notice while watching a movie. It is noticable because it gives the blacks on the left side a little bit of a blue hue to them. Has anyone ever noticed this problem before? Thanks for the help.

Yet another ecstatic client of UMR -

After waiting months to get on his schedule, I finally had my AV system calibrated by UMR (W. Jeff Meier of AccuCal) last Thursday. This is a report on the improvements to my system (to both video and audio) that were wrought by his deft touch.

To start off, my AV setup consists of:

Display
Sony SXRD 70" 1080p television

Audio
Anthem AVM50 pre-amp/processor/video-scaler
Bryston 9BSST amplifier

Speakers
5 channels (Definitive Technology)

Mains - BP7000SC (w/ built-in powered subwoofers)
Center - CLR3000 (w/ built-in powered subwoofers)
Surrounds - BPVX/P (w/ built-in powered subwoofers)

Outboard Subwoofer
Velodyne DD-18

Components
Sony BDP-S1 Blu-Ray Player
DirecTV HD20-700 DVR
Oppo 970HD DVD Player
XBox 360
Nintendo Wii

Improvements to video -
I had plenty of time prior to Jeff's arrival to tweak the settings of both my TV as well as the video processor in my Anthem AVM-50. I bought the Avia calibration disc, followed this and other threads closely, faithfully implemented the recommended settings and thought I achieved a pretty good picture. Was I EVER wrong? With a critical eye, Jeff was able to achieve a dramatically better picture consistently across all my sources. He employed a variety of tools including professional equipment, custom software and access to service menus to achieve the optimum image - deeper blacks than I thought my TV was capable of delivering, an overall pop to the picture that is hard to explain (some called it a 3-D effect) and optimum colors.

I consider myself a fairly skilled person technically, but after watching Jeff's work, I realized what I have been missing during my past attempts to tune my system. Obviously, I did not have access to all the high-end technical tools that Jeff has at his disposal. More importantly, I lacked the critical eye and an immense knowledge of the interplay of all the settings that make up an image. There is no way a typical consumer like me could attain this knowledge simply by reading technical material, or by purchasing a commercial calibration disc. There is no substitute to the professional experience that Jeff has had accumulated by tuning hundreds of systems in a variety of conditions. Remember, he is applying optimized solutions that he honed over years of working in this area. There is more art to this craft than science (it is at least 50% each).

Improvements to audio -
My system is more complex in the audio area than in the video area because of an acoustically challenging room, need to integrate an outboard subwoofer with the built-in subwoofers in Definitive Technology speakers and due to the general inflexibility to move speakers/subwoofer around to optimal locations. Even with all these limitations, what Jeff was able to achieve with my audio is nothing less than stunning. I have invested quite heavily into a reasonably high-end audio and I have been unhappy with the quality of sound and lack of integration prior to Jeff's arrival. Jeff methodically worked the system until integration has been achieved between all the components and there is a true balance to the resulting sound. I have listened to high-end audio in dedicated home theaters in my friends' houses, some ostensibly calibrated by professionals. Nowhere in a home setting did I hear the dramatic sound that I hear in my own system now. There is stunning detail to it, surround sound is truly enveloping, bass is all-encompassing, voices are crystal clear, I can go on and on.

I always knew that sound is at least as important, if not more important, to true home theater experience as video. Most people don't realize it, but what draws you into the experience in a movie theater is mostly sound. Now I know that stunning realism could be achieved in a home setting - it does take somebody of Jeff's caliber to achieve it. Tuning audio is not a trivial matter because as complex as video is, audio is inherently more complex to calibrate due to variables such as room acoustics, integration between components and speaker placement that come into play. It is indeed rare to find a calibrator such as Jeff that is equally adept at both audio and video.

Audio is almost an after thought to most people - I just wish that more people realize how big a difference that properly tuned audio can make to either a home theater or music listening experience. I am really beside myself at the sound quality of my system now and am dragging out old DVDs and CDs that I haven't watched or heard in years just to hear the nuances of sound that I never heard before.

General -
Jeff is a consummate professional and would not rush the results. He took all day to calibrate my system with a scientific, methodical approach that only a trained engineer can bring to bear (there, a shout out to all the engineers on the forum).

Jeff's pricing is very competitive and his fee is probably the most well spent ever as far as I am concerned. I would pay that much just for the knowledge I gained by picking his brains while he was working on my system. As I said before, he is a consummate professional and you will be richer for the experience at the end of the day.

I apologize that this post turned out to be a lot longer than I envisioned when I started writing it, but I wanted to convey the truly spectacular experience that a properly calibrated AV system could deliver in a home setting. Take it from me folks, you really don't know what you have been missing until you have a professional of Jeff's caliber tune your system.

Thanks for the great report. It's been included in the list that is linked at the bottom of my post.

Thank you for the kind comments. It is always my pleasure to help my clients achieve greater results than they expect.

Does the Sony 70"XBR2 have a built-in ATSC tuner that allows you to receive OTA HD programming without a set-top HD "box"?

Thanks for response(s)

Yes, just attach a OTA antenna & if you can get a signal your in buisness!