Official Sony XBR2 (60" & 70") Owner's Thread - Page 282

Does the technician need to take the set to the shop to replace the optical block or can it be done as an in-home repair? We have one authorized TV repair center for any brand here in this sheet hole and leaving the television there would be like dropping it off at a flea market in Tijuana. It is a real dump! I'm pretty pissed off after spending just under $4k on this display just 24 months ago.

It can be done in-home. My optical block was replaced in-home with no problem- 5 business days after I first called. Someone else reported their repair facility carting the display off to the shop for weeks.

Good luck.

mine was done in home and i believe most here was too. i also recall one maybe 2 people who had theirs done in the shop. it took my guy ( also from one of those repair everything shops) about 2 hours if i recall correctly. i did have to wait about 3 weeks after the initial call for him to come out but when he did he had an OB with him. good luck.

Well, it looks like I now have the dreaded burn in that was never supposed to happen with SXRD sets. It seems to have come from the CNBC HD bottom crawler. It shows up in all shades of blue, gray and some white. I confirmed it with the DVE HD disks color test patterns. I am sickened by this. Well, at least its covered now. Time to call Sony...Will

First the bad news

The yellow stain on my 70" XBR2 has returned. You might recall that I reported in August about my *first* optical block (OB) replacement. The yellow stain on the original OB was very subtle compared to the problems that I had seen on XBR1 SXRD's, but it was noticeable under most circumstances so I had the OB replaced.

After the OB replacement the new OB looked great, at first. About late September/early October I began noticing a large yellow stain on the right side of the screen on startup that would disappear completely after 15-30 minutes warm-up. By ~early November I began noticing a curvilinear yellow band on the far right side of the screen that did not disappear completely after warm-up. This band is far enough to the right that it does not appear on 4:3 programming, and it is only really noticeable on light blue/gray/green backgrounds. If a white background is bright enough, I don't see it. There is also a persistent very faint yellow discoloration extending from the band across the middle of the screen that is only rarely noticeable after warm-up.

The band and discoloration are faint enough that I couldn't reliably photograph the problem for you, and most people wouldn't notice it if they weren't looking for it, so I considered it unfortunate, but acceptable for now- but it is there. Other than the yellow stain, my current OB is phenomenal. ("Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?") I know that the problem will likely worsen over time and I will eventually have to have the OB replaced (and who knows, I might get a "perfect" OB next time), but the picture is OK for now and I'm concerned about having the OB replaced so often that Sony gives up and just refunds the purchase price rather than fix the problem. The fan is now set to its high altitude setting (I didn't notice any increase in fan noise at that setting) and the lamp is set to power-saving in an attempt to keep the OB cooler and delay the progression of the staining- thinking that the yellow staining is a heat related problem. I really like this display- despite the problems- and I'm hoping to nurse it along until there's an acceptable 70"+ replacement.

Now the good news

Jeff Meier/umr from AccuCal came by yesterday for a "home theater" calibration ("family room" calibration, really ). I had him come despite knowing about the yellow stain in the hopes that he could improve the problem and make the rest of the display better. I also really wanted his audio calibration for my system.

Upon seeing the stain on a solid light gray background, he questioned whether a calibration would be worthwhile and gave me the option of cancelling. After discussing our thoughts on it and deciding to proceed, he checked the current settings/color and found that the necessary calibration changes would only serve to improve the yellow staining and make it less noticeable. (Apparently sometimes the necessary changes can increase the yellow/green color of a stain.)

Jeff of course made multiple changes to settings and made big improvements. I thought that the picture was good before he came, but now the yellow stain is indeed less noticeable and the colors across the board are more realistic. Despite being more realistic, the colors (and picture as a whole) have more "pop" with the brightness, gray scale, and other adjustments and there is a less washed-out more 3D look to the screen. If I didn't misunderstand, he said that despite the yellow stain my display had as good a gamma as any display he had seen when he was finished.

The audio calibration was just as worthwhile. I don't have anywhere near a high-end system (but it's not an inexpensive home-theater-in-a-box either) and the sound is clearly improved now. I don't have an educated ear, but I was particularly pleased with how he seemed to improve the clarity from the center channel speaker and really improved bass management.

I would certainly recommend a umr calibration. I'm thinking that if/when my OB continues to deteriorate and is replaced *again*, I'll have him come back on his next tour to adjust it.

Hope my experience helps someone.

Anyone know which settings on the Sony may help to reduce what they apparently are calling "solarization" these days? See it often with DVDs, particularly on various black and white titles, and somewhat on color ones. Also see it somewhat from time to time on blu-rays, but not very often.

Also, same question regarding what settings on the players may be causing this to be so apparent.

Solarization? That's a new term for me. From Wikipedia it sounds like another term for staining, but it sounds like you're talking about something different. So what the heck? Teach me...

Thanks for the calibration report. I've included it the RPTV (Post#1) list that's linked at the bottom of my post.

Also, thanks for the PM that let me know about your report. I used to read all the Sony, Mitsubishi and Samsung RPTV threads, but after I switched to plasma, I haven't been able to keep up.

It seems to be the term for the phenomenon where when there are very similar shades of the same color, in black & white these are various shades of gray, they tend to appear as different patches of the two different colors, so an outline between the two is pretty obvious. Notice this a lot during fade outs and fade ins. The transitions are not smooth, they are discreet. Also notice this a lot in the backgrounds of DVDs where the colors are fairly close to each other. [First really noticed these with "Ikuru", the clouds at the beginning of "Ryan's Daughter" and the backgrounds in various scenes in "Once". But have seen it somewhat often since first noticing it, most recently in some of the "Forbidden Hollywood v2" films. And also see it with some Blu-Rays, where the transitions aren't quite smooth in some of the graphics, perhaps in some other places.

(Think I most recently saw the term solarization in a review for one of the Kuro plasmas, or perhaps of one of the sets that was being compared to a Kuro.)

(I reduced the contrast (or was it brightness) somewhat and this seems to have helped, but result is a darker picture...)

So, looking at suggestions for what I may do (besides contrast/brightness) to reduce or eliminate this trait of my current setup. [Recall that turning "off" gamma a while back seemed to get rid of what seemed at the time to be a (pixel-thin) dotted-black line that occurred between these transitions, but won't swear to that now many months later...]

Edit: Here it was... http://www.guidetohometheater.com/fl...50/index3.html (5 paragraphs down).

Hopefully someone knows...

Does the 70" SXRD use 10 bit video processing?

If I feed it a 10 bit 422 signal, I do get a picture, but I was curious to know if the Sony processed the signal at 10 bits or just dropped the extra information.

I believe I am also seeing the return of the stain as well - and have for several weeks. OB had a June or July date code on it (I could search this thread backwards and find out exactly) but needless to say, its pretty clear these are not a newer design - just same old same old. Tweeter replaced the last one - Sony probably could have saved some bucks with the change out under warranty for the replacement instead of the set warranty, lol, but since Tweeter is gone, guess Sony will just end up paying the entire fee over again.

Hey BeachComber l have been checking this board daily hoping for some insight on your gamma settings (along with some other xbr2 owners as well I'm sure). Any info on your gamma settings? or what to adjust in the SM?

Solarization: Solarization refers to a phenomenon in physics where a material undergoes a temporary change in color after being subjected to high energy electromagnetic radiation, such as ultraviolet light or X-rays. Clear glass and many plastics will turn amber, green or other colors when subjected to X-radiation, and glass may turn blue after long term solar exposure in the desert. It is believed that solarization is caused by the formation of internal defects, called color centers, which selectively absorb portions of the visible light spectrum. Solarization may also permanently degrade a material's physical or mechanical properties, and is one of the mechanisms involved in the breakdown of plastics within the environment. Wikipedia

And from cnet's HDTV World Glossary:


Wikipedia on Posterization

So... now that we all know what it is... how to compensate? (TV and/or player)

Thanks. I had also found that definition in Wikipedia, but I don't believe it applies to what fmalczewski is describing. In fact, when I first read it it sounded like a possible reason for our staining issues.

Aren't all HDMI circuits 10 bit where DVI are 8 bit?

I am not sure... What I really want to know is if the Sony uses the full 10 bits during processing or if it converts to 8 bit first?

I just wanted to add that the burn in line that I mentioned now stretches on the x-axis from end to end. Also, in just 48 hours, it has nearly tripled in width. It started out as a 5 mm hazy line and is now nearly a 15 mm hazy line. Has anyone experienced a progression so quickly such as this?

I have called Sony and I am waiting for a technician from a local Platinum Repair Center to call me back. I hope that I can convince him/her that this is an OB issue so that his/her time is not wasted by just coming by and saying "Oh, this needs a new optical block". I would much rather the tech come with part in hand.

I also wanted to add that this issue does not manifest itself right at power-on. The set definitely needs to warm up first.

I also inquired whether or not the new optical blocks are a re-design or if the parts are identical. I was told by the CS rep to call back and ask someone in Customer Relations. If I hear anything that is not obviously BS, I will pass it along. Thanks for listening...Will

mine has come back too. i posted about it on 11-12-08 here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=8309

since then i have noticed that my new stain has gotten bigger, its about 12" now, centered on the screen. it appears as green until the set warms up. after warm up most of the time i dont see it . but sometimes i do and when i do it appears as a yellow stain.

UMR does do a great job with these sets. he did my original OB. but there's no way I'm gonna pay him to tweak a set with a bad OB. until i get a stable OB from Sony or get another set there wont be any more pro calibrations for me. i can tweak it to where it is acceptable to me.

he does do a great job on the audio too. after he left i felt like i needed more bass for music. so i marked where he had the gain set on my sub then bumped it up until it was where i liked it for heavy metal. for movies though he definitely had the sweet spot set.

As the part number is still the same and now 3 people will OBs with date codes from the last 6 months have seen the same issue, its clear its the same old OB. It's pretty obvious that Sony does not know how to fix the problem or they would have rolled out the Z70XBR5 which they had already designed and built.

I realize the sample size is small, but doesn't it seem that the new OBs are failing quicker than the original OBs? If so, any theory why?

A short while ago, I asked about the TVGoS not working properly on my TV. I don't have any set top boxes or terminals since I only subscribe to non-digital cable service with my cable company. But I was still getting TVGoS feature without any issues until a while go.

Some of you suggested a few things to try, but after a bit more searching, I think I found the source of the problem here, http://www.esksfans.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21523. I'm in Edmonton, AB, as well as being a Shaw subscriber like the OP in that link.

I guess some of you might be saying, well, I should be subscribing to at least the digital TV programming, if not the HDTV programming with my cable company with a TV like that so, that serves you right. But I think this just bites. I think it just reeks of petty cash grab by Shaw on their customers with this policy.

Some may argue that customers like myself were getting TVGoS for free, so we should start paying for it, but we're all cable subscribers paying for the channels. It's not as though we were getting the channels out of thin air.

Has any cable companies in the States started doing this as well?

[P.S.] The "Trouble Shooter" the OP is referring to in the above link is a segment in our local station's news program which ripped off customers enlist the help of the show to contact and obtain more information and sometimes rectify the problems they're facing.]
[P.S.S.] It seems that those with some type of a PVR or a DVR subscribing to digital service with the same cable company, Shaw, are facing this problem as well. http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/77/143317: Guess they're trying to grab some cash from all customers with their own proprietary hardware. They must be patting themselves in the back.]

I posted the same problem as a result of CNBC HD last week. Is it yellow and a couple inches from the bottom? How dark is it? My line isn't the entire width of the screen, only where streamer is, so from the left to where the other data is presented.

My TVGoS has been messed up too, first trying to activate it would cause my TV to stop taking commands from my remote.
After a circuit board replacement it will accept remote commands but TVGoS refuses to complete setup.
Now I get my TVGoS OTA since I have DirecTV so this is probably completely unrelated but I'll find out after they come out to check it.

OK, will do. I'll report back if I find anything else as well.

All,

Now, I have discovered that when the set is first turned on and for about 90 or so minutes, the 15mm wide hazy blue line is NOT visible. Also, the line is not just on the bottom of the screen. I now have a vertical line that is the left border for 4x3 material.

This is still 'burn in', right? I certainly would not consider it image retention since my experience with that phenomena is that it goes away within a few minutes.

I also wanted to let everyone know that I spoke to a Supervisor at Sony Customer Relations. He swears that starting about 45 days ago, the OB that is being sent out to the field is a re-designed/re-engineered unit. I then called back the service center that is coming tomorrow to take a picture of my TV's problem for Sony. I asked to speak to a Technician or Service Manager. It ended up being a tech. He stated that the OBs were different, as well.

Whether or not this is true, I cannot say. I am just relaying back to all of you what was told to me. Thoughts??? Will

Vinuneuro,

My line is blue and it is about 55mm from the bottom of the screen. The line is actually brighter than the background where it shows itself. Oddly, it is not always all the way across the screen. Sometimes it is in the area where, I believe, 4x3 material would be shown.

As I stated in my post directly above this one, it now looks like it is starting to appear to be forming a square or rectangle, as I now have a vertical line manifesting on the left side of the screen. This line appears to be the left border for 4x3 material.

Thanks...Will

I should have learned my lesson when I had my Sony 55" LCD projection (2004 top line) replaced in 2006 after 3 optical blocks... I then purchased the NEW 2006 Sony KDS-R60XBR2 thinking the new LCOs and new technology had solved the issues from its predecessors. I was dead wrong on that. The now almost 2 year old KDS-R60XBR2 is going for its 3rd optical block. Purple stains in the corners and a horizontal purpple line on the left lower corner. It is not easy to spend over 4K on a TV and see it becoming a piece of garbage... I do have the extend warranty on this one too... I will see if I can get the extended warranty folks to exchange this one again. I am glad these models do not exist anymore... I will go for a LCD TV, but NOT a PROJECTION LCD... Hurray !!!

Indeed, it was permanent. I tried several standard methods of getting rid of LCD image retention, and could not get rid of the 4:3 burn-in until I got a new OB.