Well after over threee months of waiting my PB set showed up last Wednesday......1 week ahead of the scheduled delivery date! Friday all of the Thanksgiving guests left and I could finally pay attention to the TV. I was shocked when I effortlessy lifted the unit out of the box, I set it into position and admired it for a minute while checking it over......very nice fit and finish as well as layout. I connected everything and finally the moment of truth came......I turned it on.
Here's my connections:
DVD - Sony DVPNS900V Progressive scan player, "Better Cables" silver serpant component cables connected to "Component 2 on TV"
Sateliite - 5th gen Sony Dolby Digital Receiver, A50 I think connected via Tributaries S-Video cable......I'm on the fence about a SIR-TS160 via DVI
Cable - Analog cable Via Antenna A & B.....(Adelphia Cable...ugh.)
I turned the TV onto cable first........just what I had feared, nearly unwatchable. I have not done anything to try to improve this yet. I then went onto Satellite. It was better but still the picture was as described here for months.....poor to fair. I watched a Sci-Fi film where a shuttle was taking off from a planet in a sand storm at dusk...blowing sand, dark out etc. It had to be the worst PQ I've ever seen. It actualy looked like a windows monitor on it's lowest color setting...16 I believe. The sand blowing in the storm looked like solid sheets of color.....color banding I believe it's called. I've noticed this everywhere in Cable and satellite.....especially in dark scenes. I notice it on floors, walls etc. The best way I can describe it is when a color transistions from one color to another....like a shadow on a wall, instead of a smooth transition from one end of the wall to the other it goes in waves of color (bands) from one end to the other....no blending. I then watched 'Ice Age" and "Monsters Inc." on DVD. It was probably the finest images I've ever seen on a TV....utterly fantastic PQ. I'd have to say that the months of reviews I've read to this point are correct. DVD and HD (I assume) are fantastic and Cable / Satellite suck. I'm certainly keeping the set because I've seen it's potential and am very impressed.....I just need to get it set up properly (colorfacts arrived Friday
And figure out how to feed this thing the best signals possible. I'm considering the HD-Satellite receivers and connecting my PC for scaling. Overall I'm very happy with the TV and displeased with Satelitte and cable service. The unit is mounted above a firplace so it sits high, it's tilted 8 degress forward and operates fine in this position. The only geometry flaw I've noticed is in the 4:3 mode I do have some pincushion towards the bottom....the image narrows on both sides towards the bottom of the screen. I've got dozens of question for you folks (Tom Roper) so I'll post a few to start out.
I connected the DVD to component 2 (480P/720P/1080I) instead of component 1 (480I/480P) I'm happy with it here but is there any reason it should be connected to C1 like the manual states? Does C1 go through any more, less or different processing than C2&3?
Also, I can't find a DVI cable anywhere yet I want to connect my PC to the TV for calibration and testing. My video card supports VGA, DVI and S-video so without a DVI cable I've got VGA and S-Video. Two questions here, how is the VGA input different than the DVI? Second since I'm using both S-Video inputs in the back If I connect the PC to the S-video input on the side will I be using the same circuitry as the two on the back? I wan't to make sure that if I calibrate the S-video from this input that I'll be calibrating all three S-Video inputs from this one on the side and that it's not separate.
Thanks All for your help.
Jeff
Here's my connections:
DVD - Sony DVPNS900V Progressive scan player, "Better Cables" silver serpant component cables connected to "Component 2 on TV"
Sateliite - 5th gen Sony Dolby Digital Receiver, A50 I think connected via Tributaries S-Video cable......I'm on the fence about a SIR-TS160 via DVI
Cable - Analog cable Via Antenna A & B.....(Adelphia Cable...ugh.)
I turned the TV onto cable first........just what I had feared, nearly unwatchable. I have not done anything to try to improve this yet. I then went onto Satellite. It was better but still the picture was as described here for months.....poor to fair. I watched a Sci-Fi film where a shuttle was taking off from a planet in a sand storm at dusk...blowing sand, dark out etc. It had to be the worst PQ I've ever seen. It actualy looked like a windows monitor on it's lowest color setting...16 I believe. The sand blowing in the storm looked like solid sheets of color.....color banding I believe it's called. I've noticed this everywhere in Cable and satellite.....especially in dark scenes. I notice it on floors, walls etc. The best way I can describe it is when a color transistions from one color to another....like a shadow on a wall, instead of a smooth transition from one end of the wall to the other it goes in waves of color (bands) from one end to the other....no blending. I then watched 'Ice Age" and "Monsters Inc." on DVD. It was probably the finest images I've ever seen on a TV....utterly fantastic PQ. I'd have to say that the months of reviews I've read to this point are correct. DVD and HD (I assume) are fantastic and Cable / Satellite suck. I'm certainly keeping the set because I've seen it's potential and am very impressed.....I just need to get it set up properly (colorfacts arrived Friday
I connected the DVD to component 2 (480P/720P/1080I) instead of component 1 (480I/480P) I'm happy with it here but is there any reason it should be connected to C1 like the manual states? Does C1 go through any more, less or different processing than C2&3?
Also, I can't find a DVI cable anywhere yet I want to connect my PC to the TV for calibration and testing. My video card supports VGA, DVI and S-video so without a DVI cable I've got VGA and S-Video. Two questions here, how is the VGA input different than the DVI? Second since I'm using both S-Video inputs in the back If I connect the PC to the S-video input on the side will I be using the same circuitry as the two on the back? I wan't to make sure that if I calibrate the S-video from this input that I'll be calibrating all three S-Video inputs from this one on the side and that it's not separate.
Thanks All for your help.
Jeff