Official Sony Bravia LCD Uneven Backlight/Cloudy Thread - Page 14

You are certainly not alone in your love for this set. Mine is fantastic when I can't see the clouds. I may try another round of laying it face down and see if that makes any improvement! I also still have the original box. Any thoughts on if setting it back in there to lie it face down would be better/worse than laying it face down on the dining room table?

I live in the UK and just purchased a BRAVIA W2000 LCD 40" panel. Although it's not the exact same model as the US XBR2s mentioned in this thread, I con confirm that there is some clouding/mura present on the screen. The manufacturing date on mine is 11/2006. I'm not too bothered about it tbh, but I can see how it would irritate some people and it's definitely a problem SONY will need to address if they wish to keep their more demanding customers. If it was worse I'd be more inclined to go through the whole replacement routine, but it has no bad pixels and isn't nearly as noticeable as the worst examples shown in this thread. Just thought I would add my .02 and prove that it's a worldwide problem across many of the different SONY BRAVIA range. I was in a local branch of COMET on Saturday, and I noticed that both of the BRAVIA LCDs they had of this size also showed the defects, so the problem looks fairly widespread. If SONY manage to fix it next year, I'll probably pull a warranty replacement, but until then I'm living with it. Gears of War on the XB360 looks incredible.

I've added my vote for cloudy display btw.

Good info, Seev. I honestly think something has to have changed in the assembly process on these sets to make this happen. I'm hoping that it diminished over time like someone else in this thread suggested. I remember when I got my first Apple Cinema Display that you could see the backlights shiningh through on the bottom. That is no longer the case after having it sit on my desk for 2 years. I wonder if the panels truly do need to "settle in" to even out the weight distribution or something. But like asummerlin said, it does seem like some robot cranked the torque on the casing! Anyone brave enough to loosen the screws on their unit?

Also, Seev, mine isn't as bad as some of the worst pictures in here, either. If it was, I'd probably go crazy. But for now, it's liveable. I've noticed it while watching a couple of movies and it some certain spots of Resistance: Fall of Man, but that's about it.

I bet Gears of War does look incredible, because everything on my Playstation 3 certainly does!!

Sharp has the banding issue, and to me that was more offensive than something I'd only see on dark pictures in a dark setting.

The fact that so many Sony owners are keeping the set hoping for a cloudiness fix should say something about the overall picture quality outside those dark scenes. Adjusted properly (and the grayscale adjustments outside the service menu are great) it definitely delivers the "looking through a window" effect on HD broadcasts and HD-DVD. The SD upscaling isn't bad either, I've certainly seen worse scale and stretch modes.

Hey all.

I just bought a KDL-46XBR2 from BB on the 24th. Immediately I noticed the clouding. It is very annoying!

What I did notice is that the warmer the screen gets, the worse the clouding is. When the TV is cold, its not noticable except for a tiny bit in the upper left corner. But after the TV has been on for a bit its much more pronounced.

I called the local BB and they want me to cart the thing in and have it replaced, but I too am afraid I will get an even worse display. For the last several years I have only purchased Sony TVs and audio gear. They have always been of good quality and pretty cutting edge. Now I am beginning to wonder. When you drop $3100 on a TV you expect to have everything work great.

I chatted with some idiot online at Sony's site. He kept wanting me to turn the power off and on and also reset the thing to factory settings via the menu. No matter how many times I told the guy it had no effect, he was pretty sure it would. Grr.. Finally he told me to call the local service center.. Problem with that is, when I put in my zip code (83301) there are no service centers listed! LOL

So it appears that if I want to gamble and return this TV for another one, thats my only choice. In any event, I have less than 30 days to make up my mind.

Its not a small or light TV by any means, and the box it came in was not designed to be put back together for return. So I have to laugh when the people at Best Buy say "Just box it up and bring it back and we'll get you a new one". Yeah right.

Oh, but if I purchased their service plan for almost a quarter of the price of the TV, they will send someone out to replace it for me. LOL No thanks.

I think I will experiment with placing some small fans on the tv to get some more air flow and see if that helps. My only concern with that is introducing more dust into the TV than would normally accumulate. Hate to find out a few months later that I have created a black cloud due to dust accumulation. LOL

Wish I had seen this thread before I purchased this TV.

Rob

Are you sure the clouding gets worse after the TV warms up (for more than several minutes)? I used to think this as well, but tend now to believe it appears more pronounced simply because my eyes needed a few minutes to adjust to the room lighting, etc. The TV can be carefully placed back in the original box (provided it's still in good shape after unpacking. Because I cut the nylon bands, I simply wrapped a few rounds of packing tape around each end of the box, which made it strong enough to still carry by the handholds.

The first 46" XBR that I saw at BB had the white cloud problem. During lunch
today, I went to another BB and saw another 46" XBR. It did not have the
problem. I'm pretty sure has been on since the store opened in the morning.
Surprisingly, the salesman at this BB/Magnolia immediatly figured out what I
was trying to see. He said that 46" XBR doesn't have the white cloud problem.
Apparently I was not the first one to ask that question. He told me the display
unit was manufacturered in 10/06.

So only the 46" XBR units are affected by this problem? What about the 40" and 52" ones? Also, what about the V2500 models?

The above comment and others got me to thinking. If the cloudiness is *possibly* due to the shifting of the fluid (I am sure glass manufacturing tolerances could enter in the equation too), causing a thinning out of the fluid in certain regions of the screen... thus letting some light seep through. Then what if this fluid could be redistributed in one way or another- building on the "lay it on it's face" for a while concept.

While static forces may be adequate in some circumstances, I would imagine the viscosity of the fluid might be high enough so that some additional vibration besides static weight may be required for this to be effective.

I thought to myself, I wish I had a shaker table to place the display on, an in a controlled fashion, apply low levels of vibration along specific axes, or better yet, in a circular pattern to help redistribute the fluid more evenly. Alas, I don't have a shaker table. Then, when I saw the above comment, I saw a poor mans shaker table- the car.

Now, I do not yet have a display, let alone one that has this problem. But I was planning on placing an order for one today. and was hoping that a remedy might be found for this.

So, if anyone is willing, that has a very cloudy display, try placing the set face down (Flat) in the back of your car (back in it's box hopefully), and drive around, trying to choose a slightly rough road (but not too rough!), for a while (the theory being- the longer, the better). Maybe rotating the display so that each edge (or end) is closest to the front of the vehicle for part of the trip (if possible- I know it's big) will help too. I am not sure what the dynamic forces need to be but in theory this could help redistribute the fluid and "clear up" the display.

Years ago, to degauss tube type TV Sets, and get an even color distrubution, a technician would have to use a large ElectroMagnetic Ring, plugged into an AC source that would set up an AC magnetic field, which he would then wave slowing in a circular motion in front of the TV set, which would then level out and remove the magnetic hot spots on the picture tube. He would keep doing this, for a while, while also backing away from the TV until he was a long ways away 10-15 feet, at which point we hould unplug the electromagnet and then the picture purity would be nice. This problem reminds me of that.

Just a thought, but it has a chance- for what it's worth.

The theory sounds good, but when I bought my set from Best Buy, the box was placed face down in the back of my minivan, then traveled 30 minutes over New England roads (potholes and all!), and I still have cloud issues on my set. Perhaps the corner styrofoam places too much stress at the corners when traveling like this, and placing the set directly on a table top (without the box), perhaps will even out the weight distribution better. Who knows???

you know
I don't think getting technical advice from a Best Buy salesperson is a good idea.

More like he heard of the problem (returns) & doesn't see anything wrong with the one on display.

btw has anyone heard back from Sony?
I know a few people called them to report this. any new news?

Also has any tried physically taking apart the TV?
Maybe if someone can loosen the screen from frame somehow & put it back together again.
It would be good to nice if that theory of stress can be debunked or not.

Has anyone ever had a Sony technician come out to the house and inspect/repair
this problem? If so, what did the Sony technician say? If this problem is as
widespread as it appears, I'm sure the techs should have some experience with
it, no?

As for driving around with the 46" XBR facing down.... what will happen if we can
get NASA or the Russians to bring one of these babies into space? How will zero
gravity do to LCD screens? (sorry... but couldn't resist asking... )

Well.... this BB employees was more understanding... (unlike the first one who
thought I was crazy) He said he also says he's see the problem when a
customer returned it. He recommended that I let them take it out of the box
at the store and plug it in... They're not allowed to open the box until the
customer pays for the TV. If it has the white cloud problem, I can just return
it on the spot. (can't exchance, because it's the last one they have in stock and
no other BB within 30 miles has another one in-stock at the moment)

I recently purchased the Sony KDL 46XBR2 and would like to take part in this survey. How are you guys judging this cloudy issue? With the TV on or Off, what are you setting the controls at?

Has anybody calibrated their sets? Could you please share all of your settings for all of us to mimic.

Thanks

I've e-mailed Sony tier 2 tech support pictures and the build date -- September 2006 -- of the replacement 46XBR2 they sent me that turned out being worse than my set. For those that don't read back through the thread, based on a users research and finding of what can be the technical description of the problem we're seeing here are a couple links to pdfs describing the Mura defect in LCD's.

http://www.magictouch.com/Mura.pdf

http://www.orbitech.com.tw/doc/app-7.pdf

I'll let everyone know when I hear back from Sony.

TV on. No signal on the source you're on for best results. Myself and a lot of people are using petmic10's settings since he had his set professionally calibrated and he's a cool guy to let all of us know.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post8867644

A technician that works at my local Sony authorized repair center brought out my replacement 46XBR2. I had him sit down and look at my set and the replacement (replacement being much worse) to see what he thought. He seemed pretty passive about it. He said they don't see many Sony TV's in the shop and hadn't seen or heard of the issue before I e-mailed pictures of my set to him a couple weeks ago.

If you do get a set other than October or earlier please get some pictures on here for us. My fingers are crossed too.

I did some googling and found several research papers on algorithms to locate the mura (looks like it is a problem :-) - perhaps during automated manufacturing.
The areas affected look to be smaller than what we are seeing - some talk about few pixels.

Someone in the LCD industry should be able to tell what these are and why?

I returned may badly clouded 40XBR2 (September 06) to Best Buy yesterday and exchanged for the same model that was also manufactured in September 06. Although the backlighting on the replacement unit isn't perfect, it is a million times better than that of the first unit (not noticeable to the untrained eye). When I brought the first tv home, I put it in the bed of a pickup truck laying face down. I brought the replacement tv home in a SUV with better suspension and faced it upright. I'm not sure if that had anything to do with the clouding. I purchased these tv's at the same time from the same store they are most likely from the same batch. I regret not writing the serial number down on the first one....

I received my 46XBR2 about two weeks ago, right about the time this issues was identified and this thread was started My build date is September 2006, pictures attached. The first is with no input, the second w/ the (now reference) opening to Star Wars episode IV on an HDMI input (I believe video 8). The really serious issue with these dark scenes arises when the camera pans - the pan down to the planet right after the scrolling intro made me gasp as those clouds just hung in position and ruined the effect. This set is too expensive to have issues like this, IMO.

I am still inside my 30 day window, but from the poll results it is more than likely I will get another one with clouds, maybe even worse. It's a shame because everything else about this set's PQ is fantastic. Still on the fence ...

So far, zswman, your pictures look to be affected the least. You have some clouding, but it's very minimal, at least from what I can see in your photos and using other photos in this thread as a reference.

What seems odd about yours is that the common thread of the upper left hand corner being badly affected for the rest of us doesn't seem to be an issue with yours. If it is, I can't tell with the box being displayed on your "no input" shot.

Regardless of how badly it is affected, it's still bothersome to you and that's all that matters. And you're right, the set is too expensive to exhibit these problems. I would recommend the process of laying your set flat for a bit of time. That helped some of my weaker clouded areas and perhaps longer periods of laying the set flat will clear up the areas that are showing a larger area of clouds.

What stinks is that buying this set seems to be a crap shoot at the moment and it shouldn't be that way. Hopefully Sony addresses the issue in the near future and either replaces our sets or tells us how we can remedy the problem ourselves.

zswman: I agree w/Instantpop - your's looks comparatively better than others. But - if you're not happy, don't accept it.

Interesting that there is no upper left cloud - one of the only ones w/out it.

It's hard for me to tell exactly how bad your set it because I think the compression on your photos is too high. Can you export them at a higher quality and repost them?

On Friday I went in, not jump, on the sale on the 46XBR2 hoping that perhaps i'd be the 40% that would not get an affected TV.

I was wrong. BTW, its a build date of November 2006. I must say though that fresh out of the box, the problem was quite prevalent. After adjustment and tuning in part to Petmic's settings, the only really noticeable blob left was the one on the upper left-hand corner however slight. Otherwise, I didn't see it anywhere else any more. Still, now that i know about it, it annoys me even in material thats not too dark. I know its there, and my eyes inherently hunt for it and it never slips by though others in the room still complement on the picture quality.

Any case, I called the sony style store up, and they indicated to me that they are all out of stock. However, theres a new shipment coming in in a couple of weeks. So I'm returning this one and getting one fresh off of the new batch en route to me. Hopefully build date is late Nov or later.

So basically it looks like our best option is to stick with the lastest production date, correct? Seems like November and over is ok. I don't plan on getting the 40XBR3 until sometime February/March 2007, so my odds of getting a cloudless panel should be good, hopefully..

And for the people who put it face-down in your car, how the hell you do that? Did you put it in the trunck? Placed face-down in the back seat? Or did you put in the trunk face-down and tied it, with that thing whatever people use to tie their trunks for something too big =.=.

It makes sense, the backlight needs time to come to full power. when you first turn on an LCD tv the backlight is still warming up, give it 10 minutes to be at full power.

I just installed my XBR3 last Friday. I immediately saw this backlight problem as a gross non uniformity and as usual most of the people I know discount my observations because I am consistently difficult to please. I am so thankful that I found this forum because I thought I was going crazy and had no one else to discuss this with. After reading the posts and viewing the pictures....the problem you discuss is exactly the problem I saw the minute I turned on the set.