AVS Forum banner

2017 Sony XBR 900E owners thread (No Price Talk)

3M views 20K replies 2K participants last post by  BP1Fanatic 
#1 ·
On Saturday I took delivery of an XBR65X900E. I like it so far, but my wife says it is too bright. We came from a 2007 46in Toshiba Regza LX177. I had to look up the date and model number on the back when we moved it on Saturday. My 6YO has mostly figured out the Android TV interface having come from Amazon Fire TV (it took like 10 minutes), but my wife has not tried yet and is a little apprehensive.

There has been some information I have found which was saying there is alot of display bloom, but I don't really see much display driven blooming. Some images do show a bloomed haze around a light at night, and others do not show a bloomed haze around lights at night, I think its haze in the air within the recorded image scene driving the blooming in a few cases.

HDR is pretty nice. We watched an episode of Blacklist last night and there was a scene where they showed a city view in Paris shot from above with a drone (or helicopter), and the range of color from bright street lights to whites on marble buildings to bright sky to dark shadowed streets was pretty impressive. Blacklist was a 1080 recording and it looked good with the upscaling. Watched episode 1 of Grand Tour in 4k, and it was also pretty impressive. Maybe this is how all 4k HDR TVs are though, and I'm just naive.

At one point when I was setting it up, my wife got bored and started watching Chicago PD on our old TV via PS Vue. Once I got the 900E set up, I played the same episode of Chicago PD and fast forwarded so the two image streams lined up within about one second of delay. From old 1080 to the new 1080 signal upscaled, there is quite a difference in detail. My wife did not like it at first, but she is thinking the old TV is how it should of looked because that is how it did look for the last 10 years.

I plan to run the zone test and some pictures. I see there is another user who has the 55 inch version, hopefully there will be more information rolling in soon on the other models. Sorry my initial pictures are pretty lousy, I'll be taking more tonight and this week.
 

Attachments

See less See more
2
#11,241 · (Edited)
Favorites channel button

You get it when you press Discover.
http://helpguide.sony.net/tv/eaep1/v1/en/01-03_03.html

A wasted remote button IMHO. Just another part of a crappy user interface. Still like my TV though :D
Thank you!

It's better than nothing.

So I press Discover on the remote, then scroll down to my Favorites 1 and then scroll horizontally through my Favorite channels.

What a mess. Really poor design.

But at least we can actually access the Favorites selected. Now I have to figure out how the rest of it is organized to select the Favorites for the rest of the options there ... Assuming I'm actually going to use it ...

... in thinking further about it, I pretty much know my favorite channels in my head. This menu is so convoluted, that it's probably just easier to manually enter the channel. It's not like it shows me what's on those channels in a guide which would help me quickly determine whether I want to switch to one of those channels, much less flip through them sequentially.
 
#11,243 ·
All,

Given BB's superbowl sale, I'm considering a 75" x900e. My new room has windows in the back of the room and floor-to-ceiling windows on the side. My 65" Samsung plasma is practically unwatchable because of all the reflections. Will this tv work in my room?

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Ken
 
#11,244 ·
Apologies if this is the wrong forum, I thought about putting it in the sound bar forum but thought it might be more appropriate here. I'll move it over if it's better there.

I just purchased the 75" 900E and love it but had a question about buying a Sony sound bar vs another company. Is there a reason for integration purposes to stick to Sony? I just picked up a CT800 sound bar and was hoping to find that there was a strong integration between the two products.

I've been playing around with the sound bar the past hour or two and am not finding much reason to stick with it, however I'm coming from an older Sony tv (the monolithic which I still love the design of and haven't seen anything better since) and haven't updated anything in years.
I really like my CT800 + the Z5's but I would be tempted to go for the new ATMOS Sony SB's if I were in the market now.
Of course BF deals made it a no-brainer when I got my whole setup.
It's pure Sony synergy...well, let me check again after this latest TV update...lol
 
#11,245 ·
All,

Given BB's superbowl sale, I'm considering a 75" x900e. My new room has windows in the back of the room and floor-to-ceiling windows on the side. My 65" Samsung plasma is practically unwatchable because of all the reflections. Will this tv work in my room?

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Ken
I would say yes. It gets very bright. We have windows in our living room and in the kitchen which is directly behind the living room and I keep the tv brightness on 25 out of 50 when watching tv during the day. I have zero problems.
 
#11,246 ·
4k UHD and 4k UHD w/ HDR are 2 different things.. Google Play seems to play 4k UHD on the Shield, but i can't tell because the Shield upscales everything apparently..

but yes, Google says buy Google or deal with no HDR, which the x900e is supposed to be a selling point of, even though the baked in Google App will NOT play HDR.. *although, the baked on app will play 4k too, or so it says..

can you say money hungry?
I hate how low rent the ui in Google Play movies is.
I have no idea what movies I own in UHD in Google except for the Spider-Man Homecoming I got free with the TV.
It doesn't show you anything that tells you how it is playing.

Vudu, Amazon, Apple... they all give you a way to verify if you are playing 4k content.

And I have a different issue with the baked in Google Play app, I think all movies in my library show the HDR flag whether they are or not.
love how it says "HDR available" lol, yeah if you own a Chromecast.... perhaps down the road when all this HDR vs DV gets sorted, all 4k w HDR will play some form if the tv is capable.. Netflix didn't work for a while and now it seems to be working for everyone
 
#11,247 · (Edited)
All,

Given BB's superbowl sale, I'm considering a 75" x900e. My new room has windows in the back of the room and floor-to-ceiling windows on the side. My 65" Samsung plasma is practically unwatchable because of all the reflections. Will this tv work in my room?

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Ken
Sort of depends on what you're watching in a room like that. I don't know any TV that's going to do justice to a darkly lit movie in HDR under those conditions.

My TV is next to an 8 foot sliding glass door with southern exposure. Most broadcast TV looks great, but dark movies don't, HDR or no. And if I really want to watch something mid-day, rather than just having it on in the background, I'll have to put it on the brightest setting -- but it does a decent job. But that bypasses the strengths of the 900E.

If you're not watching TV in that room at night, then you don't need the 900E. You should probably buy a bright Samsung MU8000, as you'll never see the subtle HDR effects, or appreciate the resulting inky blacks from auto-dimming zones, much less the edge light bleed on the Samsung. Or invest in some blackout curtains.
 
#11,248 ·
XBR 900e be updated to HDR10+?

Will the XBR 900e be updated to HDR10+. If not, might it be possible for a TV with HDR capability such as the Sony 900e with out native HDR 10+ functionality make use of HDR 10+ metadata if connected to an external processor such as HDR 10+ capable UHd Blu-ray player or preamp video processor. It would seem that the XBR 900e already has the ability to display the HDR material and only requires changing parameters from the metadata provided by
HDR 10+ standard.
 
#11,249 ·
Will the XBR 900e be updated to HDR10+. If not, might it be possible for a TV with HDR capability such as the Sony 900e with out native HDR 10+ functionality make use of HDR 10+ metadata if connected to an external processor such as HDR 10+ capable UHd Blu-ray player or preamp video processor. It would seem that the XBR 900e already has the ability to display the HDR material and only requires changing parameters from the metadata provided by
HDR 10+ standard.
Nobody knows.
 
#11,251 ·
Hmm, glad you mentioned about the Sony ES 1100 being underwhelming in SQ. I was seriously considering that. What kind of Sony receiver you have from 1999? What are the amp specs? My current setup is fine for DD 5.1, but I am curious about the newer audio formats and DD+ and DD+ Atmos from Amazon/Netflix.
I just looked back at my receipts and it was the 1080 I had purchased, not the 1100 so that may be the difference. My old (and current) receiver is a Sony STR-DE635 that puts out 80w per channel at 8 ohms and that is in 5 channels. I wanted so bad to keep the 1080 but after 3 days of messing with it I just couldn't get the sound I was used to with my old unit.
 
#11,253 ·
Hi all. I am thoroughly enjoying my 75" 900e. There is only one thing that is kinda driving me nuts and I can't really figure it out. It is related to ARC.

My TV's HDMI 3 port is connected to my receiver so that I can take advantage of ARC. I have a blu-ray player (Sony x800) that has 2 HDMI ports - 1 for sound only. I have that blu-ray player connected to the TV on HDMI 2 for video, and the blu-ray player audio-only hdmi port is connected to my receiver.

Now, every time I try to use my blu-ray player, the TV automatically switches the receiver to use ARC. I don't want this to happen. I want the receiver to be left alone so that I can get sound directly from my blu-ray player.

Does anyone know if there a way to disable this auto-switching that seems to happen due to ARC?
Try disabling HDMI CEC in both devices.
 
#11,254 ·
Will the XBR 900e be updated to HDR10+. If not, might it be possible for a TV with HDR capability such as the Sony 900e with out native HDR 10+ functionality make use of HDR 10+ metadata if connected to an external processor such as HDR 10+ capable UHd Blu-ray player or preamp video processor. It would seem that the XBR 900e already has the ability to display the HDR material and only requires changing parameters from the metadata provided by
HDR 10+ standard.
I am guessing no. My logic is DV and HDR10+ require processing power and if the X900 can not do DV I doubt it will handle HDR10+
 
#11,256 ·
Try disabling HDMI CEC in both devices.
Hi all. I am thoroughly enjoying my 75" 900e. There is only one thing that is kinda driving me nuts and I can't really figure it out. It is related to ARC.

My TV's HDMI 3 port is connected to my receiver so that I can take advantage of ARC. I have a blu-ray player (Sony x800) that has 2 HDMI ports - 1 for sound only. I have that blu-ray player connected to the TV on HDMI 2 for video, and the blu-ray player audio-only hdmi port is connected to my receiver.

Now, every time I try to use my blu-ray player, the TV automatically switches the receiver to use ARC. I don't want this to happen. I want the receiver to be left alone so that I can get sound directly from my blu-ray player.

Does anyone know if there a way to disable this auto-switching that seems to happen due to ARC?
I had the same issue. I pressed the sync menu button on remote and removed all devices. I have to manually switch imputs now but everything works like it should.
 
#11,259 ·
Pardon the interruption--- Hoping to get a quick pulsecheck on 900E owners-- are you still happy with your choice? Replacing a 55" Panasonic ST50 and trying to decide between a 55" 900E and a 65" 850E. Thanks!
I've had mine (75") several months now, and absolutely love it. Regular TWC looks better than I anticipated. Netflix and Amazon are beautiful. And some YouTube HDR Demos (using my Sony X800) are simply stunning.

The user interface can be slow and sluggish at times, which is frustrating, but it wouldn't deter me from buying this again.
 
#11,260 ·
This is going to be a silly question but I can't find the specifics anywhere. I am looking to upgrade my Bedroom TVS from the 830c to the 900e series. My problem is that all my TVS are Wall mounted and all cables are run behind the wall. I understand that the 900 e series uses a power brick. How long is the cable connection from the TV to the brick? I guess that is the DC end.
 
Top