The Perfect Vision
Sony KDL-40XBR4 Additional Notes and Technical Ratings
Under the Hood | Adjustment Notes | Test Discs | Technical Ratings
Under the Hood
According to the Sony web site, the KDL-40XBR4 follows 10-bit processing with a 10-bit display, which is a more reasonable claim than the “bit exaggeration” engaged in by certain other manufacturers.
The Sony’s “1:1 mode” is called Full Pixel. This mode eliminates overscanning, and is essential for optimal performance with 1080i/p signals.
Having included HDMI inputs conforming to the new v1.3 spec on the KDL-40XBR4, Sony has implemented the new spec’s optional xvYCC expanded colorspace, which can show “1.8 times as many natural colors as existing HDTV signals.” For now, this capability is germane only to owners of a few Sony camcorders.
Adjustment Notes
The Sony’s out-of-the-box Warm2 color temperature comes as close to perfect as we’ve ever seen. The color primaries also measure spot on, so there’s no need to mess with the set’s lavishly extensive Colorspace controls.
Contrast can be turned up all the way to 100% without clipping, resulting in prodigious light output. On the other end of the spectrum, the black level was one of the darkest we’ve ever measured on an LCD set, bettering all but the best plasma’s. Combine these two characteristics, and the result is a phenomenal contrast ratio.
The backlight was maxed out of the box, but it doesn’t need to be. Even when turned all the way down, the Sony produced excellent white levels and deep blacks. You can easily turn up the backlight to compensate for ambient room lighting without affecting the contrast ratio, though with so much light output on tap, I doubt you’ll need to unless you’re watching TV in full daylight.
The Sharpness control causes little or no ringing on horizontal lines, and only a tiny amount on vertical lines. Unlike most sets, which require a minimal setting, here you can leave it at 50.
Test Discs
The HQV Benchmark DVD showed a moderate amount of jaggies, especially on the waving flag. The detail test looked fantastic, with crisp and natural textures. Sony’s DNR circuit reduces noise without noticeably softening the picture, so it can be left on. Motion Adaptive Noise Reduction, on the other hand, has little affect on noise but does sacrifice detail; it should be left off. The set locks into 3:2 pulldown very quickly. Surprisingly, the XBR flunked the Mixed 3:2 Film with Video Titles test -- the horizontally scrolling text crawl did not remain clear, but broke up into horizontal lines.
The HQV Benchmark HD DVD’s Video Resolution Loss Test was rock solid, with no flickering and a smoothly rotating bar. No jaggies were apparent on the Diagonal Filtering test. The Film Resolution Loss Test showed definite flickering on the highest frequency vertical and next-to-highest-frequency horizontal patches. Turning DRC on makes this worse.
The luma burst pattern on Microsoft engineer Stacey Spears’ test HD DVD looked okay, though the chroma burst showed some roll off at 37MHz. The XBR again picked up 3:2 pulldown almost instantly. The curved yellow trim on the sailing ship showed some jaggies, and there was a bit of moiré visible on the screen door in the montage of images.
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