Ack! Perhaps I need a professional...
Goodiemob -- Thu, 11/22/2007 - 14:25
I recently bought the Panny 77U and was unsatisfied with the dim whites and anti-glare screen's PQ degradation...so I returned it.
I was about to get another panny sans glare screen but fancied an LCD screen with no glare issues.
The Sony KDL-52w3000 was priced well and looked great in the store so I picked it up last night, but now that I'm home I hate the colors!
Shows, movies and even commercials I'm used to seeing look "flat", washed out and even at times blurry and bland. Oh noes!
I've tweaked the settings to death. Do I need to hire some sort of calibrator to come here and open up my service menu?
Can I expect miracles? ACK! :evil:
Sorry to here about your flat panel tv troubles. First and foremost, I don’t like “Sony” anything (sorry if that offends anyone but lets not turn this into a battle of the brands) the Panasonic Plasmas are fantastic I prefer plasma technology over LCD just do a search of “plasma vs lcd” and you can read all the pros & cons and then decide for yourself. I'm sure the bad experience you had with the Panasonic was an isolated case thus I think you should give that piece another try always keep in mind, “NEVER” judge any TV by how it looks in the store display as most of the pathetic retailers rape all the tv adjustments to capture the buyer’s eyes and once you get it home,,,, well, you know the story. Where are you located?
Here in Newport News, VA.
Ah, the more I look at my set the more I hate it. I wonder if my set is just faulty? So washed out...
Anyways, I'm going to suffer the glare and just buy a Panasonic 700.
What type of signal are you feeding the TV and what type of connection are you using? HDMI, component?
Go back to default levels via the remote. Then pull up the review of the 46XBR LCD just reviewed recently in the Perfect Vision and start from there. Use those settings as your base.
Are we talking HDTv channels via cable or satellite, DVD sor what.
Room light levels?
And Audiovideoadvisor please give me a break I had Sony's for 30 years without a problem. I have a 13" Sony that is almost 30years old that has better picture than any Panasonic. There isnt a Panasonic TV made that can challenge a Sony.
SD definition TV is going to be soft on a lot of TVs. Sony's current scaler does a good job upscaling my Verizon FIOS and DVDs. HD is excellent.
I think the problem is your signal not the TV.
LCDs and plasmas have their pros and cons. Best plasma out there right now is the Pioneer Elite 1080p but it has a hard time competing against Sony's prior gneration SXRD XBR and current generation SXRD's. Straight up cost wise Sony wins
Sheepherder
Shenandoah Valley, VA
Wow, better than any Panny?
Sounds like a throw down is in the works, but I can opt out for now, Best Buy sold me a 50" 5080 Pioneer for $2,600.
What was really great was how people just walked around it like it was a Dynex and bought up more expensive LCD LG sets when they could have had this beautiful plasma for a couple hundred less.
Go figs. Thanks guys, I guess we'll never know what cursed my old W3000 -may god have mercy on its soul.
I, too, am sorry to hear of your troubles. I reviewed the Panny 58PZ750 (their top of the line) and found it to be excellent...not quite as good as the Pioneer Kuro plasmas, but a lot less expensive. I assume the 700 line (one step down from the 750 series) is also good, though I haven't seen one.
As for Sony, I reviewed the 40XBR4 LCD and found it to be superb. The W3000 series is one step below XBR4, so I wouldn't expect it to be all that much worse. Before you return it, try audiovideoadviser's suggestion and enter my user settings from the XBR4; I suspect the controls are much the same between the two lines. I'm not sure it will improve things, but it doesn't hurt to try.
The current Sony SXRD RPTVs are really great; I just finished my review of the 60A3000. I wouldn't say it's better than the Pioneer Kuro plasma, but it is petty darn close, and it's a whole lot less expensive. If you have the space and you want to save a bunch of money, that would be a good way to go. However, it's off-axis performance is not that great, so if you routinely have lots of people gathered around the TV, I'd go with plasma.
Most important, adjust the user controls of any TV you get using a calibration disc like Digital Video Essentials; my user settings are a good starting point for TVs closely related to the one you get, but it's best to tweak them for your particular situation using DVE or some such disc. Audiovideoadviser is right, never judge a TV by what it looks like in the store. And I would ask the same questions as sheepherder. I might also suspect it's the signal more than the TV that's causing your problems, but I would want to know what TV you were using before. Did it look better than what you're seeing now?
Scott Wilkinson
Video Editor
The Perfect Vision
Hmm, it seems I posted my reply just after you posted your most recent one. Congrats on the snagging the Pioneer 5080; I reviewed the Elite version of that same set, and I thought it was fantastic! I suggest trying my user settings for the Elite PRO-1150HD, which should get you close to the best possible picture without a full service-level calibration. (As I look back at that review, I recall that I did a full service-level calibration because it's a very expensive plasma, so I thought it was reasonable that buyers would spend a few hundred bucks to have it professionally calibrated. However, I also published my user settings, which I normally wouldn't do if I did a service-level calibration. I'm not sure why I did that, but the settings are there, so you might as well try them.) And you saved almost a grand off the list price...way to go, dude!
Scott Wilkinson
Video Editor
The Perfect Vision
sheepherder wrote:
And Audiovideoadvisor please give me a break I had Sony's for 30 years without a problem.
I wasn’t aware that my comment might affect you (sheepherder) exclusively out of all other Sony owners throughout the world :roll: no harm intended. By all means please continue to enjoy your Sony products for eons to come it takes all kinds to make this world turn :wink:
This set is amaze-zing.
I really do think something was broken in the Sony. The picture was much too awful and my older Sharp 62u was great while I had it. (Though I chucked it for banding)
Typically settings, inputs, and signals are to blame but I've had so many HDTV's on this same set up, I knew something was really wrong.
Luckily after coming around here for a bit I got some really great posts and with a little bit of Black Friday magic I got a set I'm really happy with.
I wonder how much I need to worry about burn in? Listen to some people and I'm a fool for not running a break in DVD for a week.
Other's say to avoid black bars, use power modes, and keep low contrast settings so I can watch whatever I want.
Gah, I suppose I'll follow the latter but the former does have me concerned a bit.
Thanks guys!
As I recall, the Pioneer I reviewed didn't really have much of an image-retention problem, even fresh out of the box. Still, for the first week or so, I would display only 16:9 material and avoid long periods of time tuned to stations with a news ticker along the bottom or other fixed-size elements. I see no need for a burn-in disc.
If you had no trouble with the Sharp D62 set, that clearly implies the Sony had problems.
I agree that the Pioneer is amazing; enjoy!
Scott Wilkinson
Video Editor
The Perfect Vision
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