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My XBR960 Review - As Promised |
sondogg
Rank: Sony Buff
Joined: Aug 29, 2004
Posts: 11
From:
 |  Posted: 2004-11-21 13:02
Hello everyone. I said that I would do a review of my new xbr960 when I got a chance, and now that I'm home for the day, I figure it would be a good time to do a write up on this TV. This may be a bit lengthy, but I'm going to try and go into as much detail as I can with not only the TV, but my viewing conditions as well. I'm going to assume that the readers will know a bit about this set as I will be trying to review it's features, so if by chance you do not know what this TV is capable of then I'd suggest some side reading first. There are many threads already on this TV. So if you need to grab a drink or take a bathroom break, now is the time. Lets get started.
* My Backround*
First off, I attend college and live in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. I live in an older apartment building with wiring most likely not up to date, (yes I have a surge protecter and a line conditioner for both my power line to the tv and cable line). I get no recption of any sort inside my apt. I have to go outside just to use my cell phone so the built in HD tuner I can't review because I cannot get any signals. This is a 2 room apt, about 500 sq/ft. The rooms are set up in a rectagle form, which means that the TV will be at MOST 9 feet away from me. Not too bad for a 34 inch screen, but still just a little bit too close, close enough to see scan lines on the screen at times. I have one window directly to the left of the screen, I have watched movies with both windows open and closed. Also, I have 1 lamp that I use in my apt when it is dark out, it is located beside my main viewing couch, to the right. The reason I'm pointing out my lighting is that in both cases, the light does not hit the tv directly, it is at an angle and I cannot tell you how bad the glare was on my older unit (non flat tube). There is no noticeable glare on the 960, and when there is, it really has to be looked for and its a nit picky thing. It's not an LCD screen, but I have not lost any enjoyment due to glare. I do not have a surround sound setup here (damn neighbors) so I cannot comment on the TV's optical or analog audio out's, but don't worry, I can get into the built in speakers.
*Delivery and out of the box impressions*
I had to order this set from Crutchfield as my local circuit city did not have any in stock. I did have a little trouble with Crutchfield as I had ordered the TV and there was a billing mixup, when the mixup was fixed the TV was out of stock and I had to wait an extra couple of weeks. When the TV arrived it was placed on the stand (the one that was made for this tv, Im sorry I don't remember the model number, but I do remember it was the xbr stand that ended in 3). The TV is a MONSTER, yes is weighs 200 pounds, front heavy does not describe it, and yes it takes up a good bit of space. I'd say the back of the TV sticks out close to 2 feet. Again, not surprising, I didn't buy an LCD or plasma screen so I knew that the cabinet would be a bit large. When the TV is on the stand, just looking at it without any power, it is gorgeous. There is a mixture of a charcoal black on the front and subtle hints of a muted silver color and a muted granite color. Absolutley beautiful, this TV is very unassuming, it looks sleek and contemporary, but doesn't call a lot of attention. Lets just say it fits very well in a college kids apartment, and I have no doubts the set would look better if it were placed in a more established home (you know, one that doesn't have half it's furniture from the thrift store  ) The stand is also very nice, but for the price of it (349.99) I could have gotten something much nicer and most likely of real wood, but again I do not have a huge deal of real estate in here so I had to do what I did. Now on to the TV's performance.
*Setup and Cable problems*
Since my order had been messed up and I had to wait on the TV, I was forced to cancel my appointment with Comcast to come out and get my hd service going. So try to visualize this with me, I have this new TV, I cant get OTA hd becasue my apt is encased in lead, I can't get comcast hd because they hadn't come out to install my cablecard yet (more on the card in a bit), I didn't have my DVD player because the 975 hadn't been released yet, and I didn't have my xbox here. So all I have with this beautiful new tv is my...... gamecube and SA cable. I did have components for my cube though so I would be able to do 480p and a lot of EA games (madden, ncaa 2005) will work with widescreen TV's. The cube look better then amazing. I can get more into that if there are any gamers around that would like to read it, but for the most part I think others are interested in the hd and dvd playback. Once this set is fired up you WILL have to calibrate it somehow. It has 4 presets, vivid which was way too bright, then standard which was dark, sports which was darker and movie which you could barely see it was so dark. I chose the vivid setting and played around for about an hour trying to get it right. It's not perfect now, but it's the best I can do having not bought a calibration DVD yet. Once it's calibrated and its done it's autoprogramming (this will take an hour and you can't watch or use the set, so it's best to have something to occupy yourself untill the time is up). Setup wasn't so bad, but any novice user will quickly be in over his head, hey who knows, maybe that means there will be a good deal of open boxed units at CC that folks could pick up. Just a thought.
*How does SA look on this TV?*
Well, it looks crappy. I know the tv is supposed to upconvert and smooth lines and all that, but I'm almost embarrased to show anyone regular SA on this set. It's grainy, it flickers, etc. But you all already knew that. Now as you get higher up the frequency band the picture gets better, and one thing I did notice the TV cleared up is when I'm watching a animated show (Simpsons, Family Guy) that I used to have solid colors, such as red, flicker on screen. This set clears all that up. It does do a good job of cleaning up the picture a bit, but you wont want to watch any SA on this TV at all. Digital cable does look good, but again its all 4:3, and the full screen modes and zoom modes don't really help when someone as picky as I am about picture is watching. I will say I'd much rather watch digital cable as opposed to SA, now Comcast just needs to put on something thats worth watching.
*How is the CableCard?*
Once the Comcast people finally got their, um, stuff together, they came out 2 weeks after I had gotten the TV. I had opted for a cable card install as I was going to use my components for my xbox and gamecube (hey, I'm a college kid), but I also wanted to try out the new cablecard slot and the hdmi hookup (more on that in a bit as well). Now I knew how to install a cablecard and what not, the person they sent out (the Senior Tech) had no idea. I made him let me do it because I didn't want anyone breaking a pc card off in my tv. A cable card is just a regular PCMCIA card that a laptop would use, which makes me think that once these become mainstream cable will be very easy to get for free. You can program these things if you know what your doing, but I havn't touched mine except for inserting it in the back of the set. Once you insert the CableCard, a screen pops up with a number, the cable guy calls the cable company and gives them the number on the screen, after that your good to go, right? Well not with Comcast. I was the first person in downtown Charleston to get a CableCard, so I got to be the one fixing all the bugs. It took him 4 hours of talking to a computer guy at Comcast to get my channels working, and when he left HBO still didnt work. But whatever, I got credit on my account and I had HD. The cablecard works very well. It's just like plugging the cable line directly into the back of your tv, but you can get just about everything comcast offers except for video on demand and pay per view, neither of which i use. Also, you lose the program guide. The TV has a guide built in, but its kind of hit or miss. It has all the channels listed, but maybe a quarter of the shows that are on at that time. If you opt for cablecard, maybe its subscription time for TVGuide.
*How does HD look?*
WOW. That's not an exageration what so ever. I have never seen something look so clear, not even watching a DVD on a 21 inch CRT moniter on my computer. The hd lineup I receive is espnhd, inhd 1 and 2, HBO (but not right away), CBS, ABC, DISCHD, and PBSHD. I hate espn because they only have 3 or 4 HD events a week besides sportscenter and I want to see all my games in HD. The other channels tend to show nature shows. One thing that I'm sure everybody that has HD service knows, anytime you take a HD camera underwated you WILL hypnotize anyone watching it. My God, my family lives in Florida on the guld, and I'd rather watch the ocean on this tv then go to the beach. The main thing about this set is the sheer detail. I have a 46 inch crt based projection tv at home in Florida, and I have a friend here that has a 55 inch (yes 55 inch hd tv when hes sitting not 10 feet away.) and this little guy smokes all of them. It will be hard to get into visual detail but let me try. On the bigger sets, you see textures of people's skin. On my set, you see their pores. On bigger sets you see blades of grass. On mine I see little bits of water on those little biades of grass. When watching a baseball game you see a wooden bat, on this tv I can see the grain of the wood and little specs of pine tar and dirt. Every bright color is very colorful and vibrant. The picture is spunky, almost like the picture it's showing isin't even really making the set work. And the blacks it can produce, I'll get more in depth with the blacks when I get to DVD viewing, but this is the best reproduction of black color I have ever seen. It gives picture depth and it feels like watching something in 3D, I've never experienced something like this from a TV set. I'm not trying to sound like I'm bragging, but in a way I am about this TV. The picture is just so damn clear. This is also a problem for me though. See, Comcast likes to cap its bandwidth, so even HD programming on this TV can look a little grainy ( I don't really know how 1's and 0's can look grainy, but I don't put it beyond Comcast to screw even a digital picture up.), the detail on this tube is so good that you notice the graniess, but you wont on my frinds 55 inch even though your almost sitting on it. Again though, this is Comcast's fault, the circuit city where I looked at this set had time warner and none of their HD had any problems. I will say that I cannot WAIT untill I can get either OTA programming or a sat. dish, but where I'm living now that cannot happen.
*OK, HD looks very good, how about DVD's?*
The DVD player was a bit of a problem as well. I ordered the 975n in Sept, I got it about 2 weeks ago. I had an old Pioneer player that was progressive and had component outs. I had just gotten the Star Wars Trilogy. I wanted to wait for the 975n, but come on, am I really going to wait 2 months to watch Star Wars? Nah. I popped in "A New Hope". Stunning picture. No ghosting, no blurring, no scan lines. Nothing. A toally pure picture. The blackness and depth of space feels almost opressive because the picture gets the viewer immersed. Ships flying around look real. Blaster beams look real and not edited in. Hell, you can see the strands of hair on Chewbaccha. This is with a 3 year old progressive player, nothing special and be picked up for 70ish bucks at Best Buy or Wal Mart. I played everything from Star Wars to Braveheart to American Beauty. All could not have performed better for me and really had me wanting my 975n. Once the 975n came in, all bets were off. I connected the player with my HDMI cable, did the quick setup and started up "A New Hope" again. It looked better. Don't ask me how, I know the 975 upconverts and all, but how the hell did the picutre get better? Blacks were deeper, picture was crisp, sound was right on the money. I'm very impressed with the HDMI connection since both audio and video go through the cable. There was no picture or sound lag at all, but were totally in movie theatre form. I'll get more into the 975 when I write a review of it, I do like it but it does have its share of nagging little problems. Lets just say that I don't know if that player is nessecary for this TV. You can make the judgement based on my next review if you'd like.
*How is the sound?*
The sound from the built in speakers is the best I have ever heard from a TV. I don't know what the audio power or frequency range is, but it gets the job done, very well I may add, in a smaller room. Regular audio is very good. The simulated surround is excellent. I was actually looking behind me in some scenes of Black Hawk Down because the speakers were able to make surround sounds sound like they were behind me. This could be because I have a wall right behind my viewing couch. I'm glad the speakers are the way they are because it kind of alleviated the need for a surround system in here. The volume control is wonderful, when watching something in HD or a DVD, you can set the volume and put the remote down. Everything from whispers to explosions are heard, but nothing overpowers anything else. Also, I don't know if there is a built in subwoofer in this set, but it sure as hell sounds like it. Watching the Led Zeppelin DVD "How the West Was Won" and the 8 mile movie really showed how well diffrent music styles play on this set. Zeppelin sounded powerful, but not overbearing. The guitar was crisp, Robert Plants vocals were dead on, and the drums had a very nice punch. The 8 Mile move on the other hand, around the end with the battle raps. Lets just say I was watching the movie at the same volume as the Zeppelin DVD and the rap scences were not only extremly clear and crisp, but the bass line shook things on my desk that is about 10 feet away from my TV. Very responsive and firm bass, nothing overboard, but excellent for a TV set's speakers.
*Conclusions*
The XBR960 is a winner. Bar none, this is the most impressive TV with the most impressive picture I have ever seen. Plasma, LCD, doesn't matter, this TV will blow those out of the water. The newer screens just cannot produce the picture of this CRT, and given the price diffrence I'd say the XBR960 is a steal if you can live with 34 inch's. I do have likes a few dislikes along with a lot of likes. I'll list them out for the readers.
*Likes*
Picture quality (HD and DVD only) bright, vibrant colors. Deep blacks, rich wood tones, etc.
HD is amazing on this set, even if it is Comcast's
DVD playback, amazing still.
Video game playback, Video games look awesome
Sound. The TV's sounds is the best I've heard from built in speakers.
Connections. This TV has every connection you can think of, but I would have liked another component or HDMI connection, maybe on the next revision.
Beautiful cabinet and looks perfect with matching stand. A very nice centerpiece for the room.
*Dislikes*
SA looks like garbage (maybe Comcast's fault, but I think the TV is almost too good for SA programming)
Not user friendly. You HAVE to read the manual if you don't know what your doing, and even then this TV does not explain much of the sets features fully. I still don't know how to fiddle with a few of the settings becasue they are not labeled.
This set needs calibration out of the box, no question.
Heavy, heavy, heavy.
Overall though, I love this TV. I can only imagine how it will look once I get OTA HD or Satalite. Should you buy this? If you can put up the money and have a space that doesn't require a 40+inch tv then yes. This set does have a few setbacks, but it is almost a professional grade TV, so once it's calibrated and what not then it will stay looking good. For 2200usd and with plasma's that can do true HD being around 4 grand. this set is a bargin.
I hope you all enjoyed this write up. I don't work for Sony or anybody that sells Sony's. These are all my thoughts, and don't worry, I'm not trying to justify the money spent on this set. I'm just very very pleased with the performace that I have gotten this far. I thank those of you that took the time to read through all of this, and I'll check on this thread to answer any questions you may have. Also, I am going to review my 975n dvd player here in the next few minutes. I will be sure to link all relating threads I make to each other for easier access.
Here is a link to my Sony 975V Review.
http://www.agoraquest.com/viewtopic.php?topic=17439&forum=50
[ This message was edited by: sondogg on 2004-11-21 14:31 ]
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jttar
Moderator
Premium Member
Rank: Sony Master
Joined: Feb 28, 2003
Posts: 9156
From: Chicago,IL, USA
 | Posted: 2004-11-21 20:57
sondogg,
You promised and you delivered two fold. Excellent review of the new XBR960. This is not the first that I had heard of loosing the guide with a cable card and it's a shame because nowdays with so many channels it's almost a necessity. Evidentally the cable cards are new to a lot of cable companies and they are still working out the bugs. There has been an ongoing update report in Sound and Vision magazine by columnist Bob Ankosko for the last two months with his experience with getting a cable card from Comcast and they still don't have it right. Anyway, thanks for taking the amount of time you did to share your experience and opinions. I'm off to read the 975V review.
Joe
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sondogg
Rank: Sony Buff
Joined: Aug 29, 2004
Posts: 11
From:
| Posted: 2004-11-22 15:59
On 2004-11-21 20:57, jttar wrote:
sondogg,
You promised and you delivered two fold. Excellent review of the new XBR960. This is not the first that I had heard of loosing the guide with a cable card and it's a shame because nowdays with so many channels it's almost a necessity. Evidentally the cable cards are new to a lot of cable companies and they are still working out the bugs. There has been an ongoing update report in Sound and Vision magazine by columnist Bob Ankosko for the last two months with his experience with getting a cable card from Comcast and they still don't have it right. Anyway, thanks for taking the amount of time you did to share your experience and opinions. I'm off to read the 975V review.
Joe
Jttar, thank you for your kind relpy. The cablecard so far has been pretty decent, really no diffrence from a box other than losing the VOD and PPV, along with the channel guide. When the Comcast tech was here, he told me Comcast should be rolling out the 2 way cablecards in the near future (maybe 2005). It's not that bad without a guide, I pretty much know whats going to be on and when, and it it is nice to have at least a channel listing. I can give up the VOD, PPV, and the guide for the most part because there isin't that damn cable box lag, and it is nice to be able to use one remote for the tv, cable, and dvd without having to drop a little chunk of change on a universal remote. It's still far from perfect, but it's coming alone nicely I think.
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batou
Rank: Sony Fan
Joined: Aug 11, 2004
Posts: 5
From: Boston
 | Posted: 2004-12-10 17:12
Hey sondogg, loved your review of the 960. I might have just thought you were a sony fanboy, but after getting my 960 2 weeks ago, I can attest to the quality of the pictue and the sound on this badboy. I figured the picture would be great, but was suprised by how good the sound is.
Anyway, I believe you wrote in your review that you have a component connection for your gamecube? I have not been able to find one. Can you tell me the make and model? I am really looking forward to replaying Zelda WW and Metroid` on this thing. Thanks.
-jim
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hotcross
Rank: Sony Enthusiant
Joined: Jun 26, 2004
Posts: 45
From:
| Posted: 2004-12-10 19:15
only through nintendo directly can you get the component cable.
the cable is worth every cent. mp and zelda look phenomenal as well as every other gc game that supports 480p
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