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By David Mackenzie

The V-Series has actually been around since the beginning of BRAVIA in 2005, and has traditionally taken its place in the comfortable mid-range spot (the first V-Series BRAVIAs were featured prominently in the company’s original memorable adverts). Although specifications have changed in order to move with the times, the same would appear to hold true today: the Sony KDL40V4000 features the now ubiquitous 1920×1080p LCD panel, but doesn’t feature a 100hz system or some of Sony’s fancier video processing or convenience features. Does this no-nonsense 40″ HDTV display do what it sets out to do well? Read on.

Detail & Resolution

Over HDMI, and with the [Full Pixel] mode turned on, the Sony KDL40V4000 successfully resolved each nuance of the horizontal and vertical 1920×1080 line patterns.

Video Processing

The Sony KDL40V4000’s standard-def video processing is average. At first, we were about to say that this television featured the worst standard definition scaling (upconversion) we’d ever seen, but fortunately, this turned out to be a bug. An explanation: when the TV is fed with 480i, 480p, 576i, or 576p video, and Sharpness is set to “Minimum”, the TV actually applies the maximum amount of sharpening, resulting in a very poor quality picture with a huge amount of ringing.

Picture Quality

High Definition (Blu-ray)

For testing the 1080p performance of the Sony KDL40V4000 LCD television, I picked out Resident Evil: Extinction, a video transfer which looks beautiful from start to finish (yes, even during the scenes of zombie splattering). The superb contrast being offered by the LCD panel rendered a dark scene near the end in a particularly stunning fashion. On other displays, particularly those that share the same S-PVA panel type (which can suffer from response time issues when not carefully implemented), the shadows around Milla Jovovich drag and blend into her face noticeably as she walks around, but the effect was absolutely minimal here.

the KDL40V4000’s design is unmistakably Sony. Resembling a slightly less prestigious W4000 series, the company’s “Draw the LINE” design concept is in effect, visible as an indentation between the area below the screen and the dotted speaker grille. The indentation here is covered in gloss black plastic rather than the glass-like perspex of the W-Series model, but the result is still appealing, despite the inclusion of a glossy finish (which can be distracting and reflective in certain rooms).

The back of the chassis features recessed handgrips, which eased the process of unboxing the LCD HDTV, fitting it onto its stand, and finally placing it into position.

Connections

A single back panel houses two HDMI inputs (there’s a third on the side), a set of Component video and stereo audio inputs, two SCART terminals (which can each accept RGB, Composite, and on the second input, also S-Video), an aerial input, and a VGA/PC input. In addition to the third HDMI input, the recessed side panel also features a Composite video input and accompanying stereo audio jacks. In common with several other recent European HDTVs, there is no traditional S-Video jack, but we can’t imagine anyone really missing it. If you have S-Video equipment that you absolutely must use, you can do so by feeding it through the S-Video compatible SCART terminal with an adapter.

Unlike older Sony displays which have featured the blue and yellow “WEGA GATE” style menu, the Sony KDL40V4000 instead features elegant menus which resemble a slightly cut-down version of the premium “Xross Media Bar” design, which incidentally leaves out the Xross Media Bar in favour of a standard list. Whilst accessing menus, the entire screen is covered in transparent blue. Upon making a picture adjustment, the transparent blue gives way to reveal the TV picture below, allowing the user to see the effects of the change.

Sony’s EPG design does not appear to have undergone any radical changes since the previous models, but this isn’t a problem, because it’s easy on the eyes, suitably responsive, and easy to use. The information banner is nice and small, and appears momentarily at the top of the screen after changing channels.

Benchmark Test Results

Power Consumption

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By David Mackenzie

The TH50PZ800B’s bezel design is more or less consistent with Panasonic’s other Plasma displays. Its stand-out feature is the rather attractive silver curve at the bottom of the display, which features a unique “curved” Power button, as well as a rugged-feeling flap which lifts smoothly upwards to reveal front-mounted HDMI, legacy video, and SD card inputs, and some buttons. Panasonic dubs this arrangement the “Horizontal Arch design”, and we have to say, we like it quite a lot.

Panasonic TH50PZ800B is a 50″ plasma television positioned at the high end of the company’s lineup. Key features of this model include the Full HD 1920×1080p resolution, a quoted contrast ratio of 30,000:1, and the company’s V-REAL PRO 3 processing engine

Connections

The Panasonic TH50PZ800B plasma TV includes connectivity options to suit most purposes. The back panel features two SCART terminals (one of which can also accept S-Video feeds), analogue Component video and stereo audio inputs, three HDMIs, and a VGA PC input.

The fourth HDMI port is located under the flap on the front of the Panasonic TH50PZ800B (alongside the SD Card input and legacy S-Video and Composite video inputs).

The top-level adjustment in the Picture menu is for the [Viewing Mode], which allows selection of [Dynamic], [Normal], [Cinema] or [Eco]. The Panasonic TH50PZ800B plasma television does not feature per-input settings; but these four modes can be applied to inputs to partially address the problem (however, there are subtle differences in the video output between the modes, even if both are configured identically in the menu).

[Colour Balance] controls the Greyscale, with options for blue-tinted video [Cool], less-blue tinted video (oddly labeled as [Normal]), and [Warm], which we selected. [Colour Management] makes an almost unnoticeable change to the saturation of certain colours, and is not a Colour Management System like the name suggests. Finally, [P-NR] uses spatial noise reduction in an attempt to soften areas of the picture where noise often lies. This is a relatively ineffective noise reduction technique, as most objectionable noise is fast moving and would be better tackled with a temporal filter.

The [Setup] menu houses additional video tweaks, with options to toggle the [Intelligent Frame Creation] interpolation feature, [Picture Overscan] (which can be used to achieve 1:1 mapping on 1080i/1080p sources), and the [Side Panel] option to change the intensity of the side-bars for 4:3 content (the default option is [High] which uses grey-coloured bars, to help avoid image retention).

The Panasonic TH50PZ800B HDTV will certainly please gamers with its low level of input lag (which we measured at around 10-20ms). However, as most next-generation console games do not contain consistent frame rates, we assumed that users might like to turn on the [Intelligent Frame Creation] mode to improve fluidity. This created two adverse effects: firstly, the level of input lag was upped to 30ms, and secondly, scanline-esque jaggedness and jitter were introduced, suggesting that IFC function converts internally to 1080i for its operation.

Benchmark Test Results

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Originally by: PETER PUTMAN, CTS

If you are like many consumers who are in the market for a new television, you’ve probably dreamed about making it a plasma or LCD flat screen HDTV.

Maybe you spent some time looking over the Sunday circulars from Best Buy, Circuit City, and other major retailers. Perhaps you spent some time on the Internet, shopping around for the best price. You may even have read a few product reviews here and there.

It’s also probable that, like your fellow shoppers, you aren’t quite sure exactly what the difference is between LCD and plasma. Sure, they’re both flat. One seems to be brighter than the other, but a little washed out at times. Some are marked HDTV — you might know what that means — but what does ‘EDTV’ mean?

Is your new flat-screen TV going to ‘burn in’, ‘burn out’, or burn up? Just how long will it last before you have to replace it? Does the gas leak out of a plasma TV? Will sunlight hurt your LCD TV?

And just who are all of these companies selling LCD and plasma TVs? Sure, you’re heard of Sony and Samsung, Panasonic and Philips, Polaroid and Toshiba. But who the heck is Maxent? Funai? Ovideon? Syntax? Vizio?

For us journalists, covering the fast-growing market for plasma and LCD TVs can be a real challenge at times. For consumers, it can be frustrating, confusing, intimidating, and expensive. There are an awful lot of products to choose from, but they’re not all ‘created equally’. Nor do they offer the same resolution and connector options.

In the interest of clearing up some of this confusion, I’ve prepared a list of things you should know about plasma and LCD TV technology, and some shopping tips to take along when you are searching for the ‘perfect’ flat screen TV. You know the old saying — ‘forewarned is forearmed!” (I won’t get into technical discussions of how plasma and LCD TVs work; you can find that information elsewhere on this web site.)

THE FACTS ON PLASMA

Both plasma and LCD technology are ‘mainstream’. Numerous companies sell these TVs in a variety of sizes, and prices are dropping faster than an elevator with a broken lift cable. Because of increasing consumer demand (and the fact that the United States is the #2 market worldwide for TVs), plenty of companies have gotten into the game.
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Sony’s OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) TV, the XEL-1, is truly the next big thing in television technology. It boasts a 3 millimeter thin panel and offers unparalleled picture quality with amazing contrast, outstanding brightness, exceptional color reproduction, and a rapid response time. It delivers astounding performance in all the key picture quality categories. OLED technology can completely turn off pixels when reproducing black, resulting in more outstanding dark scene detail and a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1. OLED also creates unmatched color expression and detail and enables rapid response times for smooth and natural reproduction of fast moving images like those found in sports and action movies. The XEL-1 features the latest connectivity options including two HDMI™ inputs, a digital tuner, and a Memory Stick® media slot for viewing high-resolution photos.

The organic material itself is formed using two competing processes — small molecule, developed by Kodak, and dispersed polymer, first invented at Cambridge University and taken privately by spin-off CDT (recently acquired by Sumimoto Chemical of Japan). All OLED display manufacturers license one or the other of these two processes.

The base, which is surprisingly heavy, is where the speaker system is located. The rear panel connectors are also minimal, with two HDMI 1.3 inputs for external video and audio sources, a single RF connector for analog and digital TV signals, and a USB connector that’s labeled “for service only” unless the optional Bravia DMex module is connected. There’s also a side-mounted 1/8” mini stereo jack for headphones.

Perhaps the most significant thing about the XEL-1 is that it’s the first TV I’ve tested in recent years that has no analog video input connections whatsoever — no composite, no S-video, not even a component connection. It’s HDMI all the way, or nothing.

The supplied remote is also super-thin, but it has large buttons (hooray!) that are easy to find in a darkened room. In addition to Volume and Channel controls (set off by themselves), there are four silver buttons for Options (menu adjustments), Input (HDMI1/2 or TV), Return, and Favorites (pre-selected channels).

he Wide button lets you choose between three different aspect ratios – Full, Wide Zoom, and Zoom. Full is used to show 4:3 and 16:9 content in their native aspect ratios, while Zoom fills the width of the screen with 4:3 content and Wide Zoom is good for filling the screen with letterboxed 4:3 programs.

There’s not too much to adjust in the Picture menu. Basically, you get the Big 5 settings, plus four different color temperatures (Cool, Neutral, Warm 1, and Warm 2). You’ll also find three steps each (plus off) of analog and MPEG noise reduction, three steps of black levels enhancement (contrast expansion), three different and unidentified gamma settings, and a Clear White function that boosts contrast at the high end.
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Bask in the super-realistic details and high-quality 1080p resolution of this SAMSUNG DLP HDTV. Only Cinema Smooth™ technology delivers a wide range of brilliant colors and sharp definition you have to see to believe. Plus, make action-packed images much faster, smoother, and flicker-free with the 3D-ready HL56A650 DLP® TV. Wonder how this 56” screen will fit in your living room? Display this work of art anywhere – the slim depth fits where others won’t.

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