Sony Bravia XBR KDL-55XBR8 55-Inch 1080p 120Hz Triluminos LED LCD HDTV
Posted by TVReviews on September 28, 2009 · 3 Comments
From the ManufacturerTake the next step forward in HDTV technology with the KDL-55XBR8 BRAVIA XBR8 LCD flat panel HDTV. In addition to Full HD 1080p, this XBR-8 Series TV features TRILUMINOS RGB Dynamic LED backlight which produces breathtaking images with enhanced color purity that result in deep blacks and bright whites with startling depth and exceptional shadow detail. You’ll also see the difference with Motionflow 120Hz PRO technology which enhances motion and delivers a smoother and clearer picture. Your 1080p HD images will look more breathtaking than ever thanks to the BRAVIA Engine 2 PRO fully digital video processor. This XBR-8 Series TV has DMex functionality which lets you expand the capabilities of your HDTV by adding optional BRAVIA Link modules (sold separately), plus it comes with plenty of connectivity options to connect your video sources. A bold new design with a color-accented speaker grille complements the gloss black finish, which also hints at the flo…
Buy Sony Bravia XBR KDL-55XBR8 55-Inch 1080p 120Hz Triluminos LED LCD HDTV at Amazon
I actually own one. It is hard to imagine how a picture on a TV based on the current ATSC encoding could look any better. The blacks are “black-black”. The colors are intense. The picture is bright. The only limitation I can see has more to do with the source material than with the TV itself.
I have DirectTV HD and Sony blu-ray, I also have rabbit ears for local TV. I will for the purposes of this review, ignore Analog TV and VCR, both of which are beyond obsolete.
With standard 480 source, the mosquito filtering is poor or non-existant. I am not sure if this is because of the TV, because of the upscaling of the DirectTV HD-DVR or because of the original network processing. However with true HD source (either 720P or 1080i), the results are stunning. The 3-D processing (two dimensions of the picture and one dimension of time) to interpolate intermediate frames is just stunning. With any other TV, I have learned how to see the macro blocking when the compression is running at the limit, but this TV does an incredible job of not only smoothing out the inter-frame judder, but it remarkably sharpens the picture for those interpolated frames as well. When I pause a picture with the DVR, you can see macro blocks, but as soon as you press “play”, you can actually see the motion processor cutting in.
The results with a good blu-ray disk are, well, get your popcorn and 64 oz cup of soda because it is better than a movie theater since it is brighter.
I have two complaints, both of them “nits”. The first is that it takes way too much effort to set the sleep timer. Obviously Sony did not anticipate that a lot of users would use this TV to fall asleep on the couch with. Its not a big deal, but other TVs have a one button sleep button – the height of lazy, I’ll admit. The other thing is that the “universal” remote doesn’t know how to control the DirectTV HD-DVR. Like all other universal remotes, you still need a remote caddy in your La-Z-Boy to keep all of your other ones…
Of course the obvious down side is the $7,000 price, but YGWYPF.
This television is fantastic – only problem is ….it’s too good! It reveals all of the garbage signals that the hd providers are outputting! The various compression techniques, the huge breakups and distortions, out of focus imagery – All is revealed in larger than life quality on this monitor! But, that’s why I got it. This TV is directly connected to an HD editorial suite for client viewing and when monitoring a fully uncompressed HD 4:2:2 image via HDMI from the edit suite it’s amazing.
Bluray is great too –
Too bad HD content on cable and dish is so substandard.
(And also that no one seems to be aware of this) So much for the new horizon of digital!
I bought this TV more than a week ago. Here are my reviews:
Pros:
Picture quality: BD-excellent, regular DVD-very good, regular TV programming-average.
Sound quality: very good.
Remote Control: looks good and easy to operate.
Setup: relatively easy.
Cons:
It takes at least half an hour to perform Auto Channel Search, just like the manual says.
The manual also indicates that it takes more than 24 hours to complete the onscreen TV guide setup. So far it has been more than a week, but the status info still shows “In Progress”, or no TV guide yet!
Price: still way too high, even though it has dropped from $6,999 to $5,999.
Wait until further price drop if you can!