Sony KD-27FS170 27-Inch FD Trinitron WEGA Digital TV

by Sony

Product Details

• Item Weight: 99.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 113 pounds
• Shipping: This item can only be shipped to the 48 contiguous states. We regret it cannot be shipped to APO/FPO, Hawaii, Alaska, or Puerto Rico.
• ASIN: B000EOWRIU
• Item model number: KD27FS170
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,337 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

You don't have to take out a second mortgage to enjoy crisply colorful, high definition-quality video and audio with the 27-inch Sony Trinitron KD27FS170 flat CRT television. The visually flat FD Trintron tube minimizes annoying glare from light sources, enhancing contrast, and corner-to-corner detail is rendered more accurately because images aren't distorted by a curved screen. It features both built-in analog and digital tuners, which enables you to receive digital ATSC programming via terrestrial signals (over-the-air) for watching highly detailed HD broadcasts.

You'll get great picture reproduction from compatible cable/satellite set-top boxes and DVD players using the three-jack component video (Y/Pb/Pr) inputs, 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.

The KD27FS170 has a 4:3 aspect ratio and produces standard definition, 480i (interlaced) resolution, but the picture quality will be greatly enhanced using the component video connection. Also, this set provides a wide screen mode for watching digital 16:9 (widescreen) broadcasts in their original widescreen format, or you can choose the zoom function to fill the 4:3 aspect ratio screen.

The digital 3-line comb filter compares each horizontal scanning line with the lines above and below, separating black-and-white detail from color information to virtually eliminate edge crawls and rainbow effects while enhancing horizontal resolution and minimizing video noise. It also offers the following convenience features:

• Parental Control (V-Chip) helps parents monitor what their children watch on TV by establishing rating limits.
• Favorite Channel function enables you to set up and select from up to five of your favorite channels.
• Program Palette presets offer combinations of picture settings engineered to make the most of specific entertainment types (choose from Vivid, Standard, Movie and Sports).
• Front panel controls allows access to the on-screen menus without the use of a remote control.
• Front composite A/V inputs let you quickly connect video games, camcorders, or stereo/mono equipment.
• Meets Energy Star guidelines for energy efficiency.

This set has built-in stereo speakers that produce 5 watts of power per channel (for 10 watts of total power) as well as Dolby Digital for 5.1-channel surround sound. It offers the following connection options:

• Composite (RCA audio/video): 2 inputs (1 front)
• S-Video: 1 input (audio connection uses composite left/right audio jacks)
• Component (Y/Pb/Pr): 1 input (with left/right audio jacks)
• RF: 1 analog VHF/UHF and 1 digital ATSC

What's in the Box
Flat-screen CRT television, remote control (with batteries), printed operating instructions

Warranty
1 year parts, 90 days labor, 2 years picture tube

Product Description

FD Trinitron WEGA Flat Screen --- FD Trinitron WEGA Flat Screen Technology is the basis of Sony's award-winning line of visually flat televisions. The FD Trinitron sets deliver incredible image accuracy, wide viewing angles, outstanding contrast, and corn

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sony KD-27FS170 27" FD Trinitron WEGA Digital TV, April 29, 2006

By 

Eddie - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony KD-27FS170 27-Inch FD Trinitron WEGA Digital TV (Electronics)

This is a great TV by means of picture quality. Component input is superb. S-Video is really good also. I only have a few complaints though. There is no option to adjust the treble or bass for the audio. Also there is no audio out so you cant hook up a stereo or other speakers. Also when the screen is almost all white such as watching a hockey game you can see two pink shades of colored lines about 3-4 inches thick running vertical on the left and right side of the screen, which is probably the speaker's(built in the tv) magnetic field causing that. Other than the few complaints the tv is really nice. Thats why I give it 4 of 5!

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent "second" or "bedroom" television, December 5, 2006

By 

AngryGames (Boise, ID) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony KD-27FS170 27-Inch FD Trinitron WEGA Digital TV (Electronics)

After spending the last two weeks reviewing as many $300-$400 27" tv's as I could find (that were also for sale locally as I refuse to purchase such an item over the internet and have it shipped), I finally went off to Best Buy last night.

They had this television, and a nice Samsung SlimFit 27" tube SDTV, as well as a couple of Insignia and Samsung and Toshiba tube HDTV's (both 4:3 and 16:9).

After wandering around the tv department for almost two hours, I finally made the girlfriend happy by selecting one. For $405.99, and being a Sony Trinitron, I decided this was the best deal going. I liked the Samsung 30" widescreen 720p HDTV, but didn't want to spend $699.

The main reasoning is that it is replacing a 12+ year old Sony 19" tv + vhs combo unit. We have DirecTV TiVo in the bedroom, and a dvd player, and an original Xbox game console. The old tv just wasn't cutting it anymore, and the menu/description text on the TiVo was almost unreadable.

We hooked it up, fooled around with it a bit, and I have to say I am extremely impressed:

1. The picture is definitely the best non-HD tube picture I've seen. After staring at that 19" Sony combo for almost 12 years (we do have a 42" Mitsubishi HD as our main tv for NHL hockey and Xbox360), I'm still sort of amazed.

I'm using the DirecTV TiVo unit with S-Video out + the RCA audio (white/red) into the S-Video and secondary RCA inputs

2. The Xbox games...you can actually see what is going on clearly, and you can read all of the text in all of the games properly! The Xbox is plugged into the Component input with Monster Cables (we had it plugged into the 42" HD until Xbox360).

3. The DVD still looks fantastic. I wish I could set it (and the Xbox) to Progressive Scan mode (480p), but honestly, it is just a bedroom tv after all, and I didn't want to pay anymore for a better LCD/Plasma/HD-tube tv, and I didn't want to buy a weak LCD/Tube HD unit for around the same money ($500-ish is where they were for 24" to 27" tube and LCD HD's).

I have the DVD player plugged in with the audio/video RCA cables to the front inputs on the tv.



Overall, a great looking television, but there were some issues:

1. Tickers from CNN or ESPN, etc, they were very blurry/fuzzy at the bottom right and bottom left corners on Vivid and Standard settings.

Movie sharpened up most of these lower artifacts, but left the picture too dark.

Pro lightened up a little over Movie, but not much, and the colors were "cool" instead of "warm".

Raising Picture and Sharpness and Brightness would correct this, but then the top half of the picture would get a bit blurry or fuzzy during fast action (we watched a bit of the Predators vs Coyotes NHL game as well as news where we could see real skin tones, and ESPN Sportscenter for some basketball highlights, all good ways to judge color mix to get it right)


A little tweaking in Pro and Movie however, fixed this right up. Got a little brighter, but still not as bright as Standard (and Vivid is just awful anyway). The entire picture seems evenly sharp and clean, the colors are not really all that warm overall but a lot warmer than before, and the color tones are still a little dark but after spending 10 minutes watching anything, you tend to stop noticing (and then turing on the Xbox...you forget all about it as the Xbox is bright and shiny like it should be!)

2. Everytime you turned it on, it wanted to go through initial setup and wanted me to connect a coaxial cable (again, I have the DirecTV box hooked up via S-Video). Finally I did, just to shut it up (I'd have done it anyway if this was a PiP model as the tv doesn't have enough inputs to accept anything more than coaxial).

Just for testing, we watched a bit of each channel for a while for about 15 seconds on the coaxial, and then switched it to the S-Video and you could instantly see the picture sharpen up. It wasn't really bad with coaxial, but it definitely is noticeably sharper with S-Video and Component Video inputs.

The message went away.

3. Digital...I guess since I am using digital satellite, I have no need of this (and I have no digital antennae anway). I wish I could turn this off though so I wouldn't accidentally have to go into the menus then back out once in a while.

4. As previous reviews have said, not enough inputs, and especially no side inputs. Front inputs are still great for DV cams etc, but side inputs or enough rear inputs is necessary with every darn device a lot of us have these days (PS2, Xbox, Xbox360, Wii, DVD, DV cam, VHS, TiVo, etc).

5. Audio outputs are missing too, and that is a shame, but not as bad for us as for some others. I wish it had headphone jack more than anything as I have a nice pair of wireless headphones for late night watching...or gaming (she sleeps like a rock thankfully but I'd still like to have something better than whisper-low audio!).

It isn't really all that bad because we'll be hooking up an older bookshelf stereo unit to it, placing the speakers on either side of the headboard of the bed so the volume won't need to be loud, and then I can also use my headphones.

A home theater setup in the bedroom though...not interested.


6. 16:9 setting. I've tried with DVD, Xbox, satellite, and I haven't found a real use for this yet. At BestBuy, the display was set to this 16:9 mode, but I'm very sure because the entire feed through all of the display units was in HD (all of the HD units displayed the exact same video as the ED and SD units).

It looked very sharp in the store. Our living room tv has the HD box, and the bedroom the TiVo, so we'll probably never use this feature (and if we wanted HD there, we'd have purchased the HD model(s) for extra).




Overall, I am very impressed with this television. Our main use is watching recorded TiVo bits like Dexter and The Wire (hockey is for HD on the main tv) and our Xbox.

I would highly recommend this television to anyone that isn't ready to jump to HD, or wants a second television that doesn't have to have all the HD features.

I especially recommend this to 18-35 year olds (like me, 33) who have a game console and want/need a television for it. This is the best non-HD television in my opinion.

If you want HD though, it will be superior (provided you get an HD television and have HD programming or HD game console)

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars digital audio too loud, May 31, 2006

By 

gabe (oregon, the canada of california) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony KD-27FS170 27-Inch FD Trinitron WEGA Digital TV (Electronics)

This is a great tv in general. Actually, I returned 6 to the store until I found one with minimal tube distortion. If you don't know what tube distotion is just try looking at an image with static straight lines. Most tubes will bend in random areas (most sony flat tubes anyway!).

On the digital broadcast input the volume is approx. 30% louder than on the analog inputs. I like to listen to TV at low volume, and this makes the digital signal basically unusable for me.