Official Sony Bravia LCD Uneven Backlight/Cloudy Thread - Page 251

I bought a 40XBR3. It has a very light cloud in the middle that never shows up with any real input (even in dark scenes), but it has a more moderate cloud/flashlight in the top right that is driving me insane.

My 30 days were about up. (30 days of me trying to talk myself into thinking it was ok.) Viper technique made no difference, even after multiple tries. September build.

So, I decided, after seeing the recent message about the new Samsungs, to go check them out as a viable exchange.

The store didn't have the LT-4661F (it's the non-gloss one), but they did have the LT-4665F.... and it happened to be sitting right next to a 46XBR2.

There was no comparison. The 46XBR2 looked much superior... unfortunately. Even after fiddling with tons of settings on the LT-4665F, I couldn't get it to look as nice (or as detailed) as the Sony (even without petmic settings).

The reflection was also pretty bad, while the Sony had none. (I never intended on getting the LT-4665F anyways, as I knew the reflection would bother me. I was more interested in the non-gloss LT-4661F.)

However, that being said, the Samsung still was good enough... less money than the Sony... and had a PERFECTLY smooth blackness in dark scenes and no input.

The Sony, even with the lights on, had clouds.

This is such a pain in the ass. Anyhow, I decided to try Sony one more time... and if it still has clouds, I'm going with the Samsung... because even with slightly less quality, at least there's no flashlights or clouds to annoy me. Here's to hoping that the new Sony is cloudless. Sigh.

Also, I'm a bit wary of the new firmware that has the autodimming.

I also would like to know if people with the new firmware have tried what Woodyee suggested, and increase your brightness to 50 or higher. Does that turn off the autodimming?

If so, then we have nothing to fear about the new firmware, right?

Hi folks - just recently purchased a 40v2500 and am very pleased. No clouds at all - and only a very faint flashlight in the lower left corner (really diffuse, gotta really look to see it) and a smaller brighter flashlight in the upper right. But as I said, no clouds to speak of.

I have a Feb. '07 model. I went to check the serial number on the back of the set (I'd already discarded the packaging) and found a small white sticker. The sticker had a bar code, a serial number and the following info: "Manufactured - February 2007". There's probably a sticker on the backs of all new sets - I just haven't seen them mentioned anywhere. The serial # is 8145XXX.

I purchased through Amazon, and I seem to recall they shipped directly from Sony. Buy I can't confirm that. BTW, we might have steered away from the 40v2500, but Amazon had it for $1850 w/free shipping (this was at the beginning of March). What's more, my wife had a Sony credit card with enough points to drop the price into the $1200 range. So we couldn't resist. Had it been closer to the normal $2K range, we would've passed (because of the clouding risk, which we knew about).

Incidentally, after shutting off the set one night, I tried the massage technique on the smaller flashlight. The next day it was gone. However, it seems to re-appear (very faintly) as the set warms up. If it really starts to bug me, I might try the Viper technique. But as of yet, it's too small to bother. As for the other, fainter flashlight - I'm barely seeing it. Maybe it's fading on its own!

All in all, I'm pleased with the set. Best of luck to all!

Why would anyone stick with a Samsung LCD if the 4665 model was a glass screen? Hell, if that was the case, you might as well get a plasma which gives ZERO clouds or flashlighting issues and has 1080p availability now. I bought the 46XBR3 because my room is too bright for plasma. If not for that issue, I'd never buy a LCD until they figured out how to get rid of this pathetic issue they are having.

For what it is worth, if Sony does refund my $$, I'm going to get the new model Samsung...I read a fews things and apparently, thus far, it has ZERO issues with flashlighting or clouds. Maybe Sony has also fixed the issue and will be releasing a newer model, and in that case, I'll request that model or else I'm done with them completely.

Boy that's for sure. I'm getting a Sammy 5265 because of the picture quality but the Sony bezels are absolutely awesome - its almost like a nice piece of furniture rather than a TV...

FINALLY!!

After spending much time on the phone with Sony and service techs telling me my screen needs to be replaced, Sony has agreed to refund me the TV. I'm going to take them up on their offer, and I'm seriously considering the Samsung LN-T4665F or SAMSUNG LN-T5265F. I believe these are the newest in LCD TV's and from what I have read, are free of clouding and flashlighting completely. I was hoping that Sony would release a TV of similiar quality so I could just to an exchange, but that seems unlikely at this point.

I'm going to wait 2 more weeks until processing this to see what the outcome of the new Samsungs are. It seems that the 4665 is not available to many but the 5265 is. Kind of odd I guess. My room is brightly lit and 17x15 in size, so I hope a 52 inch is not too big. I sit about 10 feet from the TV so I'm guessing it's not a big issue.

Anyone else seen the new Samsung? I think if you press Sony long enough, you can get the $$ back . I bought my TV from Plasmabay.com and paid only $3250 for the 46XBR3 at the time, and at that time, most of them were being sold for about $4000 or more. They are advertising the 5665F as in stock for $3150, down from $5000. Not a bad deal.

Anyway, I hope this is the end of my postings since I really just want a great TV and I'm willing to pay the extra for the best. Too bad Sony just can't get it right.

HI,

Bought 46XBR2 2 weeks ago from tweeter. The model date is 1/2007 and it is made in Mexico. I can see some clouding (also not extremely noticable) in dark scenes. Tghinking about exchanging for another XBR. I have 2 questions:

1) My set is made in Mexico, might be a naive question but anyone have XBR2 manufactured anywhere else? If so, does the clouding still occur?

2) Went on sonystyle .com and found this:

"....However, the setting, under certain dark viewing conditions, especially blank screens with no video source, may cause the screens on some of these televisions to exhibit slightly uneven uniformity. This condition is not usually visible under typical viewing conditions, such as watching movies or television programming, and generally should not affect your viewing experience.

Should you find that this condition does affect your viewing enjoyment; there are a few settings that you can make to minimize this condition:

Setup Menu --> Light Sensor: ON
Setup Menu --> Power Saving: Low or High
Picture Menu --> Reduce the Backlight Level (Factory Setting: 10) "

My Backlight is on 4 or 5 and I have not changed other menues as suggested above. has anyone tested Sony's suggestion? Does it help to minimize clouding? Thanks.

Yes, and many have found the loss of PQ unacceptable, but give it a try for yourself and see what you feel. Since the picture is darkened overall, there is less impact of clouding, but again at a loss of PQ. Again though, you should try it with your set and in your situation. The settings are easy enough to turn on and off.

Jay S.

My brand new Sony KDL-40V2500, delivered and set-up yesterday(Mar 28), has this "cloudy backlight" problem. I was able to reduce the effect somewhat with picture adjustments but now everyone comments (negative) about how dark the picture is. It's definitely not the "bright" LCD picture I was expecting compared to my previous Samsung DLP. This set was manufactured in JANUARY 2007!

All,
I still have the side by side July '06/Feb. 07 comparison going so this was easy enough to try. On the new set, with the new firmware, setting the brightness to 51 did seem to stop the autodimming, even with ACE turned on and at various levels. What I can't say is whether or not this was because setting it to 51 had increased the brightness of what was on the screen to a point where the FW didn't think it needed to self-adjust, or because at 51 there is something in the FW that says "Don't auto-dim". So I don't know what if anything is proven for sure. The program was a "Birth of the Universe" show and there are certain scenes where the autodimming was very very obvious compared to the July set. On the July set (old FW), there is no autodimming regardless of Brightness being more or less than 50. The only difference is the screen is brighter or dimmer which is really the only impact that should be happening when you think about it!

In my case the Feb. 07 set has other issues including clouding and corner lighting that comes through, so turning off auto-dimming (even if that is what this was doing in some fashion) hurts rather than helps.

Jay S.

These 2006 models manufactured in Mexico are what I consider defective (a poor manufacturing process creates this problem), Samsung and Sony built this plant together and both of their older sets have uneven backlighting and ghosting (technical term AREA MURA). However the good news is my new 2007 Samsung that was just released three weeks ago has NO ghosting, I will post my photo again of my first three MURA plagued sets and then finally the last one which is as black as you could imagine. I'm not doing a Sony vs. Sammy comparison, but I'm just letting you know that Sony *should* be releasing new units out of this plant now.

Are you sure that's not just the new firmware we're hearing about that 'blacks' the screen
when there's no input?

Can you put in a Star Wars or Superman Returns DVD - some scene with space in it or a lot
of black and reshoot?

I've been through four units in six months, I know the difference. Even when I bump up the contrast and brightness to max, and put the backlight to full at a 10 setting there is no uneven ghosting, just one uniform washed out screen like it should be. I heard that they are using an LED for the backlight and not a bulb like the old units but I can't get confirmation on this.

Also, can you look at the info on the 4th picture and tell me the ISO, shutter speed, and
aperture (fstop) on that shot?

I'd like to reproduce the shot in darkness with my Sony and compare what the result looks
like... is there any other post-processing done to that 4th photo besides resizing and
inserting it into the big 4-screen shot shown above?

Sorry for being off topic but even though it doesn't show up here, in the quote, I love your sign off statement!

Ok, I just received the new 46XBR3. Won't know about clouding until tonight.

However, I did verify (Feb 2007 build, so it has the new firmware) that WITHOUT changing any other settings, if I put the brightness to 51... even on a no input... it stops autodimming.

That at least MAY allow us to control the autodimming on the set.

However, if there are clouds tonight, this is definitely going back in exchange for a LN-T4661F... even though the picture quality is not as good as the XBR3. I'm just tired of this whole cloud mess.

Isn't this a little backwards though? You would think it would operate in reverse. Why turn the dimming off when the brightness is higher and more likely to show the flaw??? Do you think someone coded a "when x >= 50 turn off dimming" when it should have been "when x <= 50 turn off dimming" ? It is all SMOP (Simple Matter Of Programming)

Jay S.

screw sony i am getting this tv Samsung LN-T4665F

I would find out first if Sony has new '07 models out. Also the model you mentioned has a glossy finish, not a flat matte one, so if you do a lot of day viewing or have the TV in a bright room you will get lots of glare.

Yes, if my information is right, the clouding still exists even in some of the Made in Japan and Made in Spain sets (which are sold in Asia and Europe).

Yeah, it's the signature I carry around to quite a few different boards I post on.

Go Cocks!

So today i stalked the mall once again to see what crop of LCDs they had available.

Went by Sears, and asked them about the new Samsung...but hell they were clueless. they didnt even know there was a new one out, so they couldnt tell me when they would arrive either. Checked all lcds, it wasnt there.

The xbrs arent being displayed cent
er stage like they used to anymore either...theyre hidden towards a corner.

Went by Sony Store just to torture myself a bit, and they had a 52" xbr3 on display playing blue ray promo movies. the picture looked amazing. it gave me goosebumps. there were a couple of dark scenes displayed , and i tried looking for the clouds...but couldnt find them. then again the scenes were much too short to really inspect the screen and the room wasnt dark.

so.. if i remember correctly... some people here have bought the 52" xbr3 and also noticed the clouding issue, or was it less of an issue for the 52" screens?

also ... a question for people with "cloudless" sets... are any of these newly built ? do the cloudless sets have the new firmware installed as well?

All,
I tried this tonight on the newer Feb. 07 build I have, and if you still want to see if there is clouding with a blank input, just turn the Brightness up past 50. I wondered why the default was 48. This works even in Torch (Vivid) mode. The screen will not dim with a Brightness setting of 50 or greater.

Jay S.

LN-T4661F has clouds. Just picked one up tonight with them. Not as bad as my Sharp 46D92 but still noticable with the nights out. However, cloud free Sammy's can be had.

Ok, what you just said tarnishes my goodbye optimism but I'll post it anyhow. =(

I REALLY wanted the XBR3 to work out. But, it just plain isn't going to. The new set I got today has the worst clouds I have seen yet. FAR worse than my Sept build (this one is a Feb).

I'm absolutely amazed at how horrible it is. Not only are there three major clouds (with a whitish/purplish haze), but one of the corners has severe flashlighting. AND, these show up with light in the room (the old one only showed problems in the dark).

I'm done. This month long saga is over, because I just called Best Buy, and they are going to exchange it for a LN-T4661F.

So far, only a couple of people have seen clouds with the LN-T4661F, and all said they went away in a couple of days. Most don't see clouds at all, and many were Sony owners.

I personally think the LN-T4661F has an ugly bezel, and the picture quality is slightly worse than the XBR. But, if it makes the cloud and flashlighting problems go away, then I'm a happy(ier) camper.

I really appreciate everyone who has posted in this thread, and who has helped me understand what's going on.

But, unfortunately, I am now reluctantly no longer a Sony owner among you. I hope Sony learns some sort of lesson from all of the disgruntled customers they have made, because I have always been a loyal Sony customer in the past, and might be one again in the distant future.

I called Sony recently to ask about the refund option. They played stupid and acted suprised. They moved my call up to customer relations and they gave me a local repair company phone number. So to get the refund you have to go through the motions with service calls and then they will process it? Its really goofy that they are going to make people waste time on this to get a refund. You know its funny I could tell the 2 people I spoke with at Sony were sick of lying to customers about this. They had to do the old put me on hold and talk with my supervisor trick.

Be warned that Sears charges a 15% re-stocking fee for any returned item regardless of the reason of the return.

If you buy the Sony at Sears, and it has the clouds and flashilights, you are SOL if you want to return it without a huge fee.

As a newbie to this problem, this has been an incredile thread. From being dead set on buying the 40V2500 to being completely hesistant, I have been reading this post for hours. The only question I have is: how "affected" is the 40V2500 as compared to the XBRs. It seems that there is absolutely no reason to get the XBR at this point, but the documentation on the V2500 has been, and pardon the pun, but "cloudy" to this point, i.e. not that many people have said much. What do you think, should I even bother with the 40V2500 and start the return frenzy?

After getting my 4th 46XBR2 TV. I got one that has a slight flashlight on the lower left, but no clouding without any adjustments. I wouldn't take this tv if I had to make adjustments to mask the clouding or any defect, but that's just me. It is so amazing and different seeing this display with no clouds. The dark scenes look so amazing. I was watching a Discovery channel HD show this morning talking about Space, and it was amazing to see the deep blacks and no hint of any cloud or anything like it. This is why I went through all of this for. It was worth it. Mine is a Feb 2007 build by the way.

I bought my 46XBR2 at Sears. Before purchasing it, I asked about
the 15% re-stocking fee and was told that the fee would be waived
if the item is defective. I told the salesman this model is known for
the clouding problem and explained to him what clouding means.
Both he and his supervisor agreed such problem would be considered
defective.

My first set was cloudy. My salesman called up the Delivery Department
to arrange for an exchange. The Delivery Department said they would
need to send a tech out to verify the problem. Otherwise, the 15% re-stocking
fee would be charged even for exchanges. I didn't know the re-stocking
fee was applicable to exchanges as well! Anyway, the tech came and
verified the clouding problem. When the second set was delivered,
I asked the delivery men to let me try it out in the garage first, with
lights out. I could see a cloud right away by playing a DVD with
dark scenes. I rejected the delivery on the spot. This time, I
didn't need to prove the problem to a tech because the delivery men
were my witnesses. With my third set, I also verified it in the garage
first before accepting it. I thought I had a perfect set. Unfortunately,
it turned out that this set has minor flashlights which would show up
only after it has been running for 45 minutes or so.

(The reason I purchased my set from Sears instead of CC and BB was
because the Sears in my area would match the price of Frys' online store.
It saved me $500 compared to the sale price at CC and BB.)

I dont suffer from clouding I got a early xbr3 sept 06 build, but does any people see clouding during live video input. I only see peoples issue during non input settings. Does it really matter how the screen looks when their is no input. As long as you dont notice it during normal video viewing???