Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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183 of 187 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Remarkable TV for the money, June 8, 2008
This is a remarkable TV for the money, with a great picure and resolution up to 1080p (P for progressive scan -- 1080 lines of resolution with no interlace), and also support for 24 frames-per-second movie playback with Blu-ray high definition DVDs.
Setting up is straightfoward -- you set up the stand where you want it, lift the TV onto it, and tighten 4 screws. It can also be wall mounted. On the back are the large range of inputs: three HDMI, two component, one S-Video, two standard video (RCA jacks) and one VGA port. You can guarantee that whatever you have, you'll be able to connect it to this TV.
The best quality of output and convenience comes from HDMI connections (order some low cost HDMI cables from Amazon; my local stores wanted $50-$179!) A Blu-ray DVD player connected to the TV via HDMI delivers outstanding picture quality at 1080p, with amazing detail. It's so good, in fact, that I found myself noticing film grain more often -- you can practically count the grains!
This TV supports 24 frames-per-second ("24p" in the jargon), which matches the screen refresh rate to that used in movies. The visible difference shows up in shots where the camera pans (moves parallel to the scene). With regular TV playback, panning makes the scene blurry and you can't see much detail because extra "interpolated" frames are inserted to match the TV frame rate. Panning shots in "Casino Royale" blu-ray DVD were clear at 24p, revealing some visual jokes I missed before (e.g. the Richard Branson cameo at airport security). For movies like The Bourne Ultimatum with lots of camera movement, 24p makes the whole movie clearer.
Screen contrast of the TV is also very good. Blacks appear black, color is not overdone (though there is a "vivid" setting if you want to boost saturation). Lower resolution sources at 480i look pretty good -- they are upscaled nicely by the TV. Connecting a Wii with the standard video cables worked fine and produced a good picture.
For HDTV sources, this TV does excellent noise reduction and yet still delivers crisp detail and good color. This is where other LCD TVs fall down, and Sony really has done a great job with the Bravia engine.
Sound from the internal speakers is very good indeed, with dialogue particularly clear. Home theater speakers are better, but then that's true for any TV.
I am very happy with my purchase -- the TV has a stellar set of features at a great price versus more expensive versions with more bells and whistles... which I don't need. It is not the cheapest LCD TV in the 40" size, but the picture quality and number of source inputs sets it apart.
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79 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cableless man meets HD world, July 29, 2008
I consider my self pretty low tech and wanted to leave my review for people who may be in the same boat as I am. I wanted a larger TV and I wanted simplicity, quality and not to wonder if it was all a waste.
Well I am super satisified with this TV for the following reasons.
1. Easy to set up. I don't have cable and it just scanned for all the HD and analog stations and that was pretty much about it.
2. Great sound. I don't have a stereo system to hook up to and so it was important that the TV's speakers could, well, speak for themselves. They are very good.
3. Picture is super and seems to adjust itself to suit whatever type of input (HD, Analog, DVD, Video) is coming in. People Don't look short and squat. Everything looks great, and full size and I don't have to do any adjusting when I change a channel.
Note: I will say that using a standard video tape produces an okay picture, but I assume this is the same for every TV. When I play DVD using my computer and connect to TV with HDMI cable, picture is excellent. So just using the antenna cable is not good enough with my current DVD player. I will likely update it or just play it through my computer.
Also, as other reviews say, set up (base mount) was easy. Slide it on base and tighten four screws.
Anyway, I'm sure I'm missing 75% of the features of this baby, but for the "simple cave man HD TV Guy" I am completely satisfied.
Also, TV doesn't make any buzzing or humming noises (hey, that stuff bugs me so I thought I'd add it).
Good luck with your purchase.
David
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36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sony quality can't be beat, June 5, 2008
I had a 32" Sony LCD set that was very similar to this one. I would have initially gotten a 40" but my wife wanted to put it in a TV cabinet and the 40" was too big. After some shopping we couldn't find a cabinet that would fit in the desired location that would even hold the 32". At that point we found a buyer for the old set and bought this one. I mention that because there is one slight shortcoming with the new set, relative to the old one. With the old set I was able to hook my HD DVD player to the HDMI 1 input and then hook the optical audio output of the TV to my Sony surround sound system. The TV then passed the audio to the surround sound system, no matter whether the source was the internal TV tuner or the DVD player, connected to HDMI 1. With the new set, if I switch to HDMI 1, I get no sound from the a/v system. After conferring with a couple Sony tech representatives (whom I thought weren't very knowledgeable) we came to the conclusion that I would have to connect the DVD player through the surround sound a/v system and then into the TV. The a/v system has three HDMI connections as well, so this should be doable. However, it will take one more HDMI cable (I have a couple on order so I haven't verified this will work yet) and may be a little more cumbersome when it comes to switching between the TV tuner and the DVD player. But - presuming I get past this glitch, the picture is awesome!
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