Sony KD-34XBR960 owners

My impression/review of the XBR960:

With flat panel TVs emerging nowadays such as plasmas and LCDs, most consumers are highly misinformed and believe that the quality of a flat panel is better than that of a tube (CRT) TV. This is not true at all. The image quality of a plasma or LCD TV is far worse than that of a CRT, such as the Sony KD-34XBR960. Even worse, more and more people are buying these flat panel TVs as a "status symbol" and do not understand true picture quality. Why do you think studios use CRT monitors during production and editing instead of a plasma TV? Most studios want the best, most accurate picture possible, so they use CRT monitors. The quality of the Sony KD-34XBR960 is much like a studio monitor, and surpasses all other displays regardless of cost. The dot pitch is so fine and the picture has so much realism to the point where all other displays look dull and muddy in comparison. Convergence and geometry is perfect out of the box, and the set looked fantastic. Its picture had depth and dimension, unlike the flat look of most plasma and LCD TVs. HD channels look amazing; they are very real and are not overly enhanced. The Sony's on-board processing and DRC is perfect and does not make sources look pixelated at all. The picture is fine, clear, and has exceptional detail. One caveat to remember: The set is shipped in "Vivid" mode, which is meant to grab your attention in the stores with a bright picture but lacking in clarity. It is way too bright and much too sharp. You can see outlines and picture artifacts in this mode. If you keep the TV in Vivid mode, you are guaranteed to burn the tubes in no time and shorten the life of the TV. Also, the vivid mode is very inaccurate in color reproduction. I have my set calibrated in the "Movie" mode, with a picture (white level) setting of 20/63 and a brightness (black level) setting of 30/63. Remember, it is very important to lower the "picture" setting because it controls the amount of white light on the screen. If you do this, the tube will last a very long time and you will see an exceptional image. On the other hand, the "brightness" setting controls the amount of dark areas you see in the picture. Turning this setting up will allow you to see more dark areas in a movie, but will not burn the tubes or impair image quality. An accurate image is better than a bright one. Finally, the color decoder needs adjustment as it emphasizes red severely and makes people look reddish or tanned. If you change the "color axis" setting from "Default" to "Monitor," the colors will be much more accurate and vibrant. If you adjust this set properly and take good care of it, it will produce the best picture of any TV and will last a very long time. (My old XBR TV is 16 years old and still going.) I have a neighbor who spent $10,000 on a plasma TV and the picture quality is far worse than this set. What kind of TV would you buy? Is status symbol more important than image quality?

Gaara,

I am interested in your settings for the set; if possible, can you post how you have the set tweaked?

I have also compared the XBR960 to a 50" SXRD, and although the SXRD was close, it was just too big for my room and the picture quality was not nearly as good as the 34" XBR.

Gaara wrote: »

Been a while, I did focus adjustments, overscan adjustments (not using hsiz/vsiz, using the ones independent for each scan rate), geometry adjustments, convergence adjustments, some gain adjustments...can't remember what else.

I eventually got my set ISF Calibrated, made a big difference in black levels and details in dark scenes. IMO I had the set looking pretty dam good, but it was a good improvement over what I had.

Similar to the adjustments I did on mine.

How'd you make the adjustments independent for each scan rate?

Gaara wrote: »

I'll see if I can find my info i wrote down on what I changed (its been a long time), it was in a different section then HSIZ and VSIZ and all of that. I found out that these can throw off convergence, so I never touched them in my current set.

I remember the settings were much further on in the service menu. I adjusted 480i and 480p independently, 480p to look best with movies 480i to look best with games. Whatever the settings were they didn't throw off convergence.

The adjustments I made to HSIZ and VSIZ required a complete adjustment of convergence, so I re-adjusted the convergence after doing the overscan.

But since there is a better way I'd like to know...

Thanks!

Gaara wrote: »

If you would like PM me your email addy and I can send you all the docs that I found on the service menu for the XBR910/960.

Jared

Done, thanks.

BTW, are you omegared from another forum? He also had an XBR960, Cinenova amp, etc...

Thanks! That's a lot of info!