Sony 40" and 46" V2500/V25L1 Owner's Thread

Apparently you did not use our friend the "search" button.
Here's the thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=702114

Thanks for starting this thread. I've had my 46" for 5 days now and have only watched OTA HD, Digital SD and D* sources. This TV like many is source dependent in providing the very best pict. When it's good it's outstanding and when it's bad it's fair. As might be expected Digital SD is usually good, D* SD is fair to almost good and D* HD is good. OTA is excellent.

Lots of tweaking and more to do as there are so many available. I'm using as a source of all my programming a D* HR10-250 DVR connected via HDMI.

One question I have is does it support 1080P thru HDMI? I have a DVI to HDMI connnector coming to connect my PC to the SONY and was wondering if someone can confirm that this works.

Yes, confirmed. And it appears to be 1-1 "pixel perfect". I just drew some single pixel lines and other stuff in a paint program and run calibration patterns and it passed everything as far as I can tell. Also, it doesn't show any speckles around text that some xbr2/3 owners have reported. It works as a bright, clear, and big, 1920 x 1080p monitor.

Set Color Space to Wide under Advanced for the 0 - 255 rgb color space sent thru dvi.

[Note to owners who bought from BB within the last 30 days -- you'll want to check the latest prices and get refunded the difference.]

ursa99: I agree about "source dependent". I'm sure I bore people on the other thread, but I still claim that when I've seen poor pq, it's been source (as I could see running the same on my crt). I also don't think this set has a problem with SD (480i) or ED (480p) or 720p or 1080i. With clean source all these look good to excellent.

Every time someone posts this set is bad w/ SD, I ask for specifics, and get nothing I can follow up on and reproduce. Lots of SD is bad, esp. digital SD. Play the Sin City or Phantom DVD and set it at 480i over component or even s-video or composite... and it'll impress. Tune in an analog station w/ an antenna, and a clear one isn't bad at all -- like watching on a crt. Okay, I'll give it a rest (for now)

I have a feeling that if you connected a BluRay HD to many of the sets that owners say don't display an acceptable picture their tune would change. Most of the HD sets are capable of displaying dazzling pictures if they are fed properly. What amuses me is that some owners want their TV to take a poor signal and somehow invent pixels to make it look good. Try giving it a good siganal and see what happens...

I am also glad to have a seperate owner's thread. My 46V2500 just arrived an hour ago. I'm currently in the process of setting it up. Any recommended settings suggestions would be appreciated. Couple of questions:

1) When I hook up my XBox 360, is there anything I have to do to to turn off Overscan, or is that the default setting?

2) What form of stretching (if any) does everyone use on SD content?

Anyone having backlight issues with their 46V2500? Had mine for about 2 weeks and noticed the other night when the room was pitch black a non-uniformity in the backlight (grey blob) at the top left corner of the set . I'm just outside the return to reseller window too I tried to take a pic of it with a digi cam but its next to impossible to hold the thing still enough, guess I'll have to try and find a tripod.

Aside I'm quite pleased with the set, SD is acceptable and HD looks very good (its no 1080p Pio Plasma but its also 1/3 the price )

Anyone had their set calibrated yet? I've just started playing with a few settings. The factory settings are very bright, almost painfully so. I've turned the backlight down to 3 to avoid getting a tan during white screens and bright scenes.

Not sure what inputs you are using as they all seem to have their own personality. I am using a HR10-250 TIVO via HDMI into the Sony 46". I have found that setting it to output 720P and letting the SONY upconvert to 1080P provides the best pict. I was disappointed with outputting 1080i from the TIVO into the SONY as this made the pict noisy/grainy and far from optimum. If you have a cable box that can be set to pass thru or native mode I would try that...

As far as settings go this is an ongoing process although I've slowed a bit lately. Your setting will vary depending on what input you use. I'll share those that I have for HDMI.

Backlight 4
Picture 69
Brightness 51
Color 47
Hue G 3
Temp Neutral
Sharpness 15
Noise Reduction Off

Advanced:

Black Corrector Off
Advanced C.E. Off
Gamma Low
Clear white Off
Color space Normal
MPEG Noise reduction Off

Your particular set and source material may require different settings. I found that initially I was watching a very bright pict but when I toned things down a bit the colors and detail got a lot better. Everyone has their own preference so whatever looks good to you is what is best.

I don't use stretch on SD, ever. It's like watching TNT HD which most of the time is stretched SD and doesnt' look good to me.

As far as XBOX, I don't have one but have read the component looks good and VGA can also provide increased resolution. Can't help you on overscan.

Good luck and enjoy.

-Ursa

Ursa,

Thank you for the settings. I will try them out today.

Another question for everyone. This is probably really dumb, but I'm new to this so go easy on me.

How do I get the TV to acknowledge channels digitally? I have a Time Warner Scientific Atlanta HD DVR. Right now it's hooked up through component cables, but I should be receiving my HDMI wire from monoprice early this week.

EDIT: One more stupid question. I know how to make the cable box output at 720P or 1080i, but how do I set the TV to upconvert to 1080p?

I'll take a whack at answering what I think you are asking...

When you get your HDMI cable plug it into either HDMI port on the TV then select either input 6 or 7 on the TV to view the HDMI signal.

Your TV is NATIVE 1080P so it upconverts everything to 1080P. You don't have to do anything. I don't have cable but have read that some boxes allow the signal to pass thru natively. It would be set to pass thru whatever resolution is broadcast and let the TV do the upconversion.

Ursa

Ursa, thanks for your help. So far I've been using a subtle variation of your settings and the picture looks great. I got my HDMI cable today so I'm looking forward to getting that up and running. Anyone else have any settings recommendations? Any screenshots?

I apoligize if I'm being obtuse, but I've hooked up the TV through HDMI and when I hit the display button it still says 1080i or 720p depending on the source material. It never says 1080p. Is that just the way it works, but the TV is upscaling anyway, or do I need to alter my settings?

^Is your source 1080p? I'm guessing that it's displaying the source resolution where you are seeing that.

Have had my 40v2500 for < 1week so I am just getting used to this whole lcd/hd thing. But Sunday nights world series game on this set was stunning IMHO. However last evenings game - this signal seemed very noisy I thought. I was thinking perhaps I had a bad cable ( I am just running component until I get my HDMI cable on order) but other hd channels seemed fine. I tried adj th NR but this made no difference. I am wondering how much of a difference HDMI will make over component.

yes, game three was very grainy HD. i wasn't impressed, but a quick check of discovery HD theater reassured me its the broadcasters signal. i have the motorola 6412 cable box and i was using the component at first. i got an HDMI cable yesterday and the difference is obvious. get one if you can

I'll have to play around with my HD Tivo, but right now I'm set at 1080i. Also, my settings are a bit different, my backlight and picture are maxed out with minimal differences in the color, hue and sharpness.

I guess it's all about trial and error.

does anyone have a wall mount for this TV they can recommend?

yeah, I find this happens when they use certain cameras (unfortunately, the main shot from behind the pitcher)...does anyone else notice that?

i'm going to try out the one costco has in their warehouse, decent price for a tilting mount.

I just recently purchased the 40 inch KDL - 40V2500, and I need some help. I have never used a optical cable for my audio, but I decided to hook my receiver up using this method. Anyway, when I hooked the cable up, I noticed that the optical cable did not stay in the port, and continuosly fell out. This is especially troubling considering I planned to attatch my tv to a Bello home entertainment center, and once I mount the tv, it will make it a challenge to continue to mess with the cables.

Is there anyway to get the optical cable to stay put, or should I just abandon this approach.

I know some people will ask why I didn't use an HDMI cable, and the reason is my receiver does not support HDMI, and I would have to upgrade my receiver.

The display indicates the source material coming into the set. The set can only display at it's native 1080p, which means it is always 'converting' these source inputs to 1080p for the screen, unless the source material is truly 1080p (which only the HD DVD formats can supply ... e.g. Blue Ray ... or some form of contrived feed that you see in some stores)

I'm glad there's now an owner's thread because frankly my 40v2500 is giving me alot of grief.

I'm now on my 3rd unit and starting to think that LCDs aren't for me after years of CRT use.

My acid test is powering on each unit (I've had three) and switching to a blank input.

I'm expecting this 'home' screen to be completely black or very nearly.

This 'home' screen is also on display everytime you change channels and during every darkened movie transition (so I saw it alot for each of the three units I tested).

This quick test should show how dark the LCD can get, and in the case of my three units the answer is 'not very'.

My first set had bright areas in the upper right (and way too much heat output), my second unit had bright areas everywhere, and my current unit is a bit better with fainter bright areas.

My viewing environment is windowless, but I do have two lights on either side of the display.

Unless I'm mistaken, this 'empty input' test should show how black the LCD can get (assuming you've adjusted the backlight).

I've tried this test on showroom LCDs and they never fail to be uniformly very dark without any bright spots at 100% backlight (although I can't control the store lighting).

I'm still working with my 3rd unit, but my initial impression is that these units aren't nearly dark enough for movie watching.

There's no doubt that bright HD looks great and I'm still keeping my CRT for SD cable, but is anyone really happy with these v2500s for movie watching?

The new Sharp 1080p unit just got the 'blacker than plasma' nod from CNET, so I don't understand why the v2500 fairs so poorly in this area (I'm limited to ~40" so the Sharp is out for me).

100% backlight? Why would you even look at it that way? All LCD will show a certain amount of uneveness with the backlight and brightness turned all the way up. But that is not the way you watch the sets. That's like turning up your stereo beyond the amplifiers' distortion free range where it's clipping and about to blow your speakers, and then saying it sounds like crap. The V2500 will not be as dark as a good CRT, but if you turn the backlight down to a reasonable level it should be quite respectable.


ron

My point is that showrooms run displays at 100% backlight and they still look good when changed to a blank input.

This might be due to bright lighting in showrooms, or perhaps they are sent higher quality units for display?

My units were set to low backlight and when I change to a blank input I see light & dark areas (in addition to the whole LCD not even being close to actual black).

Are v2500 owners happy with their black levels?

I mounted my 46V25L1 using this mount and it works very well. However, you have to improvise a bit. Since it's a universal mount, it comes with sets of both short bolts and long bolts. The short bolts were too short for my taste (not enough threads grabbed) and the long bolts were about 1/8" too long. I used one set of the included washers to cover the 4 indents where the threads are (ie, on the inside of the bracket) and added my own additional washers (4 per bolt) to allow me to use the long bolts and still be able to tighten.

Other than that, it was a piece of cake. Looks good, works good.

I believe that the optical cable is keyed in that it will only hold in place if put in properly keyed. Look closely at the cable and the input to insure they are properly aligned. I had a similar problem but with the above approach it did finally and securely connect. It won't exactly snap into place but it will stay put if properly insterrted.

ursa

[quote=Frank@N]My point is that showrooms run displays at 100% backlight and they still look good when changed to a blank input.

This might be due to bright lighting in showrooms, or perhaps they are sent higher quality units for display?
QUOTE]

This is 100% due to the bright, bright showrooms. In the bright room or bright daytime the blank screen on my Dell LCD looks totally black but at night it's another story. The backlight is not adjustable on the Dell so at night the blacks look medium grey. From what I've seen/read the Sharps, Samsungs, and Sony's are the best of LCD for black level, BUT that hinges on having cranked the backlight setting way down. I'm assuming you've done that. Even so, it won't be pure black when viewing in a dark room.

Just a little piece of info on the 40V2500.

Only had it for two days now, but using the VGA cable it did accept the resolution of 1600x1200 which is not listed as supported in the manual. Don't know if this is an isolated case or not. I will be switching to DVI=>HDMI pretty soon, but I'm impressed so far.