Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)One of my big criteria for choosing this was that it had to display standard-definition (SD) TV well. I am feeding it from a Dish Network 322 standard def tuner. I looked at a lot of TVs and settled on this as the one that did the best on standard TV. Frankly, lots of good-brand
TVs look great on hi-def signals, and nobody will ever complain. It's on standard-def where they really fall apart. And like it or not, a LOT of the TV you watch is still going to be standard-def for a while, so don't take this weakness lightly.
Before I go any further, let me say that in my opinion, "best on standard TV" means this one was the least horrible. No flat-panel, even the most expensive Bravia XBR blah blah blah that you can buy, displays a picture as clear and well-defined as a conventional CRT tube TV. Nothing. No LCD, no Plasma. And no LCD or Plasma TV does as good a job with hi-def as a hi-def CRT TV, either.
This TV has excellent color and brightness. It's not that.
But there will always be those little washy blurry artifacts in the image compared to a CRT TV. I have yet to see any flat panel, LCD or Plasma, that does not suffer from this. Go look critically at every darn one in Best Buy or Circuit City, and you'll see what I mean. Look especially around displayed lettering. Watch when credits roll against a light background. Then watch that on a CRT TV.
LCD and Plasma have big screens, they are lightweight, and there is a lot of hype behind them. But if you ever sit a hi-def CRT TV next to any flat-panel in the store and watch them, you'll see what a crock the whole flat-panel "spin" is.
My main reason for going flat panel was size. You simply can't go much above about 34" in a CRT. But if that's big enough, check on the Sony Bravia 34" XBR CRT HDTV. It's hi-def, CRT, and only costs $950. It's 200 lbs, but there is no better TV in the world, for hi or standard def. That's what I would have bought if it were up to me, but alas, I am not the only one in the house using the TV, and I'm not a TV "nut" so ....
Now, back to the review...
We have an XBox 360 hooked up via the 3-cable component inputs. The other reviewer was mistaken here. You absolutely DO get hi-definition 720p or 1080i out of an XBox 360 with the already-supplied component cables. You do not need to buy the VGA cable for it. You have to dig through some menus on the Xbox to explicitly set its output mode to 1080i or 720p, or it will continue to put out 480i, even though you hooked up the component cables.
The hi-def game play is amazing on this TV. I am not a gamer. My son is. But Gears of War and Call of Duty 3 look unbelievably crisp and quick.
Even Halo 2, which is NOT a hi-def game (but is 480p), is far better on this TV than on a standard-def TV (but not better than on a hi-def CRT). It is not laggy or smeary, which are important for game play.
Hi-def movies and TV signals are superb (just judging from watching and comparing this TV on those signals in stores... I don't have a hi-def TV signal) This TV is very quick. There is minimal lag, smear, etc. The blacks are very good, and the contrast is good. In a darkened room with the lights off, the black areas of the picture look pretty darn black. You don't see fuzzy "gray".
(Remember, this is all in the "flat-screen" comparison world. Compared to a CRT, the speed is so-so, the blacks are so-so, the sharpness is "okay").
Okay, so what about regular TV?
Well... it's like regular TV on all flat-panel hi-def sets. If you had a regular Sony Trinitron tube set, it would blow the doors off this thing, and any other flat-panel. But it is definitely tolerable.
It has a good selection of zoom/wide/scale modes so you can display 4:3 standard TV channels comfortably on the screen without silly wide stretching distortions. I prefer to leave it "standard" which fills the right and left with black zones, but the "zoom" works well, and fills the screen by blowing up the 4:3 image and cropping it, which usualy doesn't hurt. You can use this mode if you hate the black bars.
The remote is VERY nice. By far the best flat-panel remote I tried. And I tried a LOT of them. I compared TVs for about 6 weeks before buying this one. This remote is very simple and intuitive. Most of what you ever need to do like select an input or switch the wide/normal/stretch modes is available directly from a button touch. You don't have to wade through levels of annoying menus.
Standard definition on a composite cable from a Nintendo Wii system looks very good, much better than I would have thought. We will eventually get the 3-wire component cable for it so it can display 480p instead of 480i, and that will only make it better.
Inputs:
There are only 5 inputs on this TV. The literature is very misleading.
There is 1 HDMI, 1 VGA and 1 component input. There are two more that each can be used for Composite OR S-Video. But the documentation makes it sound like the TV has 2 composite and 2 S-Video inputs, and that simply isn't true. If you try to use BOTH the composite and S-Video jacks on a single input, the TV switches to S-Video EVEN IF THE S-Video DEVICE IS TURNED OFF, as long as the cable is connected, which is a real drag. It would have been nice to be able to hook a DVD to the S-Video jack and the VCR to the composite jack on the same input, and have the TV show one or the other based on which one is turned on.
Curiously, the composite (yellow cable, NOT "component") from my Dish receiver looks BETTER than the S-Video, and just the opposite should be true. However, I will try a better S-Video cable to see if that matters. Frankly, I doubt it. My guess is that the Dish receiver comb-filters its composite signal to make a somewhat bogus S-Video output. If that's true, then you are better off sending the composite signal to the Sony TV, and letting IT comb-filter the signal. It probably has a much better filter than the Dish receiver.
EDIT ON 1/6/06: Well I bought a mid-priced better S-Video cable with gold-plated connectors ("Manhattan Cable", bought it from Radio Shack for about $20). Lo and behold, it does indeed improve the S-Video picture from the Dish receiver. The S-Video picture is now slightly better than the composite - a bit shaper, clearer, brighter, with better variation between colors and dark/light (better contrast and color definition).Prepare to buy cables. This thing comes with NONE except a VGA cable which is quite useless unless you plan to hook a computer up to this monitor.
If you have multiple devices, expect to have to invest in a selector box. We have:
Dish receiver for TV
DVD player
VCR
Two game systems
The DVD, Wii, and Xbox 360 will have to share the one component input, so I need a 3-way selector box for that.
----------
Summary:
This TV is excellent for what it is: an LCD flat panel. But I knock it for the misleading input info, and complete lack of included cables. Also,
beware of all the hi-def flat-panel hype, and check whatever you buy on STANDARD DEF TV before you buy. If the guy in the store won't show you the TV on a standard cable or satellite signal, walk out the door.
Click Here to see more reviews about:
Sony Bravia KLV-40U100M 40-Inch HDTV Tunerless LCD MonitorThe sleekly styled, silver 40-inch Sony Bravia KLV40U100M is packed with the latest high-performance video features, including a wide viewing angle, and a fast response time (great for sports and action movies). Designed to receive HD and standard TV signals via set top boxes (cable or satellite), the KLV40U100M is a tunerless model providing exceptional value and performance for those who have a set-top HD-tuner or do not intend to receive over-th-air broadcasts. It also offers digital HDMI video connectivity and a bottom speaker design that helps save space. The thin profile of this Bravia TV accommodates VESA compliant mounting systems (separately available). The removable pedestal swivels 30 degrees left and right and also tilts forward 3 degrees and backward 8 degrees for additional placement flexibility.
The KLV40U100M has a 1366 x 768-pixel resolution, 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, 178-degree viewing angle, and 1300:1 contrast ratio. (The higher the contrast ratio, the greater a TV's ability to display subtle color details and not get washed out by ambient room light.) The Cinemotion 3:2 pulldown cinema video processing detects and compensates film--which is shot at 24 frames per second (fps) compared with video's 30 fps rate--to video for a smooth theaterlike experience at home.
THis set includes the following connections:
Composite (RCA audio/video): 2 inputs (rear)
S-Video: 2 input (rear) with input detection
Component (Y/Pb/Pr): 2 inputs (with left/right audio jacks)
HDMI: 1 input (with L/R RCA audio connections)
PC: 1 D-Sub15 input (with L/R stereo mini plug connection)
Total audio inputs: 3 (rear)
Headphone: 1
Tech Talk HDMI is a lossless, uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface to link any audio/video source (such as a set-top box, DVD player, or AV receiver) with your TV--all over a single cable. HDMI supports standard, enhanced or high definition video, plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable. It supports all ATSC formats--standard (SDTV), enhanced (EDTV), and high (HDTV).
Component video (also called Y/Pb/Pr) features a three-jack video input, which provides separate connections for luminance (Y), blue color difference (PB) and red color difference (PR). This results in increased bandwidth for color information, resulting in a more accurate picture with clearer color reproduction and less bleeding than you would get with S-Video or composite (RCA yellow video plug) connections. You will need a separate RCA left/right audio cable for sound.
The SRS WOW feature widens the soundstage by processing standard two-channel stereo material as well as multi-channel encoded material for a dramatic improvement in the playback of any stereo audio over a two-speaker system. And in case you were wondering, BRAVIA is short for "Best Resolution Audio Visual Integrated Architecture."
What's in the Box 40-inch Bravia Tunerless LCD HD monitor, tabletop stand, remote control (with batteries), coaxial cable, HD15-to-HD15 cable, printed operating instructions
Warranty 1 year for parts and labor; in-home diagnostic warranty service for one year (for LCD TVs from the Bravia U-Series and S-Series measuring over 30 inches)
Click here for more information about Sony Bravia KLV-40U100M 40-Inch HDTV Tunerless LCD Monitor
