Model : KDL 40V5100
Product Features :
- 16 9 Full HD 1080P Resolution Panel
- Dynamic Contrast
- Bravia Engine 2 Fully Digital Video
- Bravia Link Compatibility
- Motionflow 120Hz Technology
>> Can We Just Go Back to the Trinitron
In the past I have always had good luck with Sony TV s and during the 1990 s I had a Sony 32 Trinitron that provided a picture and sound that was superb in every respect the state of the art for the time It was with some disappointment therefore that I found that the TV industry s venture into the Brave New World of HD has saddled an entire generation of TV viewers with substandard sets that are in many respects far worse than the non HD sets they have replaced The Sony Bravia series is unfortunately no exception to this rule
The Sony Bravia KDL 40V5100 is best when viewing live sports events If you like to watch golf basketball and football and little else this is the TV for you Unfortunately the Bravia does not do as well in other situations Here are some of the flaws I have noticed
1 Picture problems The only settings that produce an acceptable picture are in the Vivid range Turning off the automatic contrast enhancer helps but the picture quality in most cases is still unacceptable At its best the picture is sharp and crisp giving great definition but even on many HD channels there is considerable degradation of picture quality with feathering and blurring quite noticeable
The less said about non HD channels the better The picture performance in non HD is abysmal with dark scenes turning black and light scenes whiting out
Similarly no matter what the player non HD DVDs upconvert poorly Using an ordinary non HD TV to play DVDs is a far better choice and an important one if like me you have a large collection of these now obsolete items
Moreover for anyone who has a multi system non HD TV set i e one that can play PAL and SECAM in addition to the inferior NTSC format used in the USA the picture quality for DVDs is so much better than on the Sony Bravia that there is really no comparison
In addition of course the Sony Bravia series has significant fading problems when viewed from the side and it is grossly inferior in this respect to Plasma and normal non HD TV sets
2 Screen The high gloss screen and plastic borders are totally unsuited to TV viewing A Matte screen and non glare borders would provide far more comfortable viewing in all but a darkened theater situation Any light source reflects off the screen and is worse than for a regular non HD TV In this respect Plasma TVs are vastly superior
3 Sound The sound is OK most of the time but there are periodic and inexplicable dropouts as well as hissing and popping problems that are not helped by changing the connections to HDMI There is something fundamentally wrong with the sound system on the Sony 40V5100 and Sony better fix it fast if they don t want a class action lawsuit Sound levels also vary markedly from channel to channel for reasons that are not immediately apparent
4 Controls The remote control is awkward to operate with switching from TV to DVD to PC taking up to 15 seconds Similarly it takes about 15 seconds for the TV to turn on once you have pressed the on button for a sufficiently long time to persuade the little green power on light to finally put in an appearance When changing channels the lengthy handshake procedure results in a two second delay from HD to HD and five seconds from HD to non HD and often a green screen before the next channel displays Once again why am I supposed to view this as an improvement over a regular non HD TV where channel changing is virtually instantaneous
In sum the Sony Bravia series is a big disappointment Its one indisputable advantage is that in comparison to Plasmas and non HD TVs it is very light so when the time comes to throw it away it won t present a heavy lifting problem I still have a couple of serviceable Sony WEGA non HD TV s They aren t as good as the old Trinitrons from the 1990 s but at least they are tolerable I m going to see how long I can keep them going The Sony Bravia is going too right out the door
I have a request for anyone reading this review please let me know when someone finally produces a decent HDTV As far as I can tell no one has accomplished this feat quite yet
>> The best LCD TV ever
It is impresive as soon as you plugin and watch TV on it it is outstanding since the picture quality is not compared to my 720p former Sharp LCD screen I have PS3 and a Sony HT and they interact really good as well as the remote controls they TV s work with the PS3
The games with the Motion Flow as well as Bluray movies are out of this world the movies look so good that it seems that you are watching through a window than a TV screen It looks so good that you can see special effects flaws and details not seen on my other TV
The PS3 resolution changed like 200 better with the sony and the motion flow helps a lot when changing scenes on a fast action game
I updated the firmware connecting it to my router at home it was simple and the internet features as the gadgets YOUTUBE are ratter awesome it is a huge leap on tv functionalities not present on the past
I have windows 7 on my computer and I have no problem on viewing my pictures from my tv as well as listening to the music and watching video files as well
I did alter some of the custom settings on the screen and the image is nothing compared as any other TV screens on the market
>> Sony Bravia V Series
I have had this TV for about 5 weeks and it was easy to set up and the color after some minor adjustments is great I have owned several Sony TV s and they have all been great This one rates a 5 star rating also
