[mintsponge]

Hi all,

I bought my own TV for the first time recently, it's a Sony Bravia KDL-49WE753. It's great but it has a huge problem in that it's as reflective as a mirror, and it completely ruins the picture in dark scenes because I can see myself and my armchair, and the wall behind me.

The obvious option is to turn off the lights but if I do that, I get eye strain and headaches when a bright scene comes on. I've calibrated my TV for watching in a dark room and reducing the contrast any further to the point where bright scenes don't give me a headache makes the picture look dull and terrible for the darker scenes.

I've tried bias lighting (2 different ones from Amazon) and while it helps a bit, it doesn't really do nearly enough to combat the eyestrain issue. When used at the supposed ideal brightness (10% of the TV brightness), it simply doesn't make much difference, and when raised to high brightness it causes eyestrain and reflections of its own.

Basically it seems to me that I've got 3 options to choose from:

1) Eyestrain and headaches
2) Horrible reflections in the picture
3) Very dull and ruined picture contrast

Can anyone on this forum give me any advice on how to get out of this bind? Does anyone have the same issue? I'm quite upset because the TV was an expensive purchase for me. I have seen some people complaining about glossy screen reflections but clearly there aren't many people having their TV experience ruined like me, so what is it you guys do differently?

Thank you

 

[mthomas47]

Hi all,

I bought my own TV for the first time recently, it's a Sony Bravia KDL-49WE753. It's great but it has a huge problem in that it's as reflective as a mirror, and it completely ruins the picture in dark scenes because I can see myself and my armchair, and the wall behind me.

The obvious option is to turn off the lights but if I do that, I get eye strain and headaches when a bright scene comes on. I've calibrated my TV for watching in a dark room and reducing the contrast any further to the point where bright scenes don't give me a headache makes the picture look dull and terrible for the darker scenes.

I've tried bias lighting (2 different ones from Amazon) and while it helps a bit, it doesn't really do nearly enough to combat the eyestrain issue. When used at the supposed ideal brightness (10% of the TV brightness), it simply doesn't make much difference, and when raised to high brightness it causes eyestrain and reflections of its own.

Basically it seems to me that I've got 3 options to choose from:

1) Eyestrain and headaches
2) Horrible reflections in the picture
3) Very dull and ruined picture contrast

Can anyone on this forum give me any advice on how to get out of this bind? Does anyone have the same issue? I'm quite upset because the TV was an expensive purchase for me. I have seen some people complaining about glossy screen reflections but clearly there aren't many people having their TV experience ruined like me, so what is it you guys do differently?

Thank you

Hi,

There are a couple of things I would consider trying. First, I might put a nightlight, or something similar in the room, in a location where it won't reflect into the TV. Second, if you haven't already had your display professionally calibrated, I would turn down the brightness a bit. Many TV's come with very bright factory-default settings, similar to what you see in the stores with artificially vivid colors. If you are already susceptible to eyestrain and headaches, an extremely bright setting for your display won't be doing you any favors.

The combination of a dim light somewhere else in the room, where it can't reflect into the screen, and a bit better adjustment of the brightness setting of the display, should help.

Regards,
Mike

 

[mintsponge]

Thank you for replying.

I have tried putting lamps in various positions in the room but have found that they also caused reflections (it’s not direct light reflections that are the problem, but indirect - the reflection of myself, armchair and wall appearing in the screen). I can try a very dim nightlight type of lamp but I feel the problem then would be that it wouldn’t provide enough light to ‘protect’ my eyes from the screen’s brightness.

I am hesitant to reduce the contrast of my display further than I already have (backlight is on minimum) because it really impacts the picture quality, but I suppose if there are no other solutions to this problem then I’ll have to settle for some kind of compromise between picture quality, reflections and eye strain.

 

[KidHorn]

I would return or exchange it, if at all possible. While all TVs will reflect some, some have a more matte screen than others.

 

[cah95046]

Hi all,

I bought my own TV for the first time recently, it's a Sony Bravia KDL-49WE753. It's great but it has a huge problem in that it's as reflective as a mirror, and it completely ruins the picture in dark scenes because I can see myself and my armchair, and the wall behind me.

The obvious option is to turn off the lights but if I do that, I get eye strain and headaches when a bright scene comes on. I've calibrated my TV for watching in a dark room and reducing the contrast any further to the point where bright scenes don't give me a headache makes the picture look dull and terrible for the darker scenes.

I've tried bias lighting (2 different ones from Amazon) and while it helps a bit, it doesn't really do nearly enough to combat the eyestrain issue. When used at the supposed ideal brightness (10% of the TV brightness), it simply doesn't make much difference, and when raised to high brightness it causes eyestrain and reflections of its own.

Basically it seems to me that I've got 3 options to choose from:

1) Eyestrain and headaches
2) Horrible reflections in the picture
3) Very dull and ruined picture contrast

Can anyone on this forum give me any advice on how to get out of this bind? Does anyone have the same issue? I'm quite upset because the TV was an expensive purchase for me. I have seen some people complaining about glossy screen reflections but clearly there aren't many people having their TV experience ruined like me, so what is it you guys do differently?

Thank you

yep, a lot of focus on black levels and contrast is pointless if screen reelections are overlooked.

check rtings review site. They measure screen reflections.

 

[evlo]

well they measure reflections, but it does to reflect reality very much