Sony 52 XBR4 or Panny TH-58PZ700U?

I was sold on the sony but i have read a lot of things that the xbr4 has very bad ghosting and clouding issues. These are the 2 tvs i have narrowed down to but i need some help. the price is the same on the 2 and it doesnt matter if i go plasma or lcd because i have a lcd in my bedroom where i game at. I have a philips 42pf9631d/37 curently in my living room and i want the new tv to be leaps and bounds better (if i go xbr4 then i might move the phlips 42 into the bedrom and get rid of my 37 olevia lcd and make the xbr my gaming tv). well opinions and suggestions are welcome. thanks.

Yes you are correct. I just put up a Sony 52 in a customers house on Saturday, and I noticed the same thing. I ran both Component and HDMI from that Sat receiver and noticed the same thing... I was awefull... SD tv was unwatchable. So I play with the backlighting controls, and MPEG noise reduction a bit, it seemed to smoothen it out abit but still not close to being good for the money. I also tried several settings 1080i vs 720p, and finally after some deliberation, we ended up settling on the 720p. SO, this is the interesting thing, He bought a LG combo player... The HD DVD, looked normal, but the Blu side was grainy? I tried several settings, and once again we were at 720p looking the sharpest for both formats...? Well needless to say after about 4 hours of messing around with the stupid set up, he wanted to try a different set... Oh crap! So needless to say I called my distributer up 10 minutes before close, and all he had left was a 50 hitachi plasma, and a 52" toshiba 1080p regza... We went with the Regza panel. Well after farting around with the mount for 45 mins, we had it up. I did some basic picture control settings, and bam... No problems, HD sat in 1080' looked sharp and clean, no flaws. 720p looked a bit beamy on the contrast, and nice sharp images. 1080i looked natural, stayed with that setting. On the HD DVD/BR player, we cranked it right up to 1080p, and presto!!! It looked great!!! Both HD and BR played beautifully. I wouldn't personally get the LG machine but for basic operation it does that task. I did however mention to him that the HD DVD feature may not all be there(from my experience with the one I bought) He said he would try it for a couple weeks, and let me know.

If that helps?

good stuff ReaggieP

Thanks Reggie, that's some good info in there.

ReaggieP said -

Quote:
"I just put up a Sony 52 in a customers house on Saturday, and I noticed the same thing. I ran both Component and HDMI from that Sat receiver and noticed the same thing... It was aweful..."

The new 2007 Sony XBR4 series has a flaw from one of the "Motionflow" image processing settings, as documented in reviews, such as on CNET.com - "smooth motion seems unnatural for film-based material and introduces some artifacts".

I've seen this "120hz" TV a few times, at a local Circuit City, and ironically there is a "motion blur" that is very noticeable, even on slight movement. But I always thought it depending on the TV's settings, since a few posters on AVS state they have reduced the overall "ghosting" effect, after many attempts in setting adjustment.

More on this TV's performance from Cnet.com -

We also noticed a few artifacts produced by the Sony's processing, particularly in High mode. During Chapter 7 of Flags the camera follows a plane as it takes off quickly, and at a certain point in the pan the entire frame suddenly "locks in" to smooth mode, and a palm tree in the foreground unnaturally becomes solid where before it had evinced judder. We saw that effect in both modes, but in High the plane also evinced a faint, decidedly unnatural "ghost" that followed behind it. Sony's engineers told us they'd designed the set to function primarily in Standard mode, and that some artifacts might arise from the more aggressive smoothing action of High. In a scene from Digital Video Essentials on HD DVD, we also noticed (in both modes again) that the yellow fence behind a pair of frolicking youths suddenly scrambled and broke up, then resumed normal appearance the next instant. Again, the scrambling was more apparent in High mode.

While this LCD HDTV is commendable, I still recommend the Sharp D64U series, both for price and performance, as Sharp's image processing and other settings offers excellent image detail, especially "shadow detail' among scenes with much depth, without false contouring (unlike other displays).

My favorite TV technology though is PLASMA, and I would recommmend the Panasonic model mentioned above against any LCD, especially for important 'home theater' viewing of movies and concerts, such as when watching with the lights turned off (dark room), as the plasma's superior contrast is more pronounced over any LCD. And plasma offers higher resolution in scenes among moving images, usually providing 800-900 lines (out of 1080), vs 500-600 of LCD. This is quite noticeable when viewing movies with lots of rapid action, such as the 'Bourne' movies, and sporting events on TV, etc.

-LH (the Loverboy)

well i was able to pick up the XBR4 and use my %8 off AAA coupon at CC. The crazy thing is one CC had it for $2999 and the next one had it for $3399, i wanted to buy it at a BB to get rewards but ended up going back to the first CC because of the huge difference in price. It washed out to just under $3k out the door and i got the free blu ray pack as well. I hooked it up last night and played with the settings and this tv looks leaps and bounds better then my philips plasma. I tried to get it to ghost and there was no such thing on my set.

like reaggie wrote, any 1080p toshiba regza would be better than either TV.

[Post edited by posters5 on Feb 7, 2008]

Quote:
While this LCD HDTV is commendable, I still recommend the Sharp D64U series, both for price and performance, as Sharp's image processing and other settings offers excellent image detail, especially "shadow detail' among scenes with much depth, without false contouring (unlike other displays).

as always thanks for the good info. and wanted to thank you again, i picked up a d64 and i love it love it love it. got it for 1500, with free blu player and the 3 free movies. the player still sealed just hit 300 on ebay. also sold the free discs. plus got rewards coming aswell.

many who game/watch movies... that seen it. loved it so far aswell.

Well it looks like you already made your decision but I would have gone with the Panasonic TH-58PZ700U you asked about. I have owned that exact same model since it first came out last spring, and it's an awesome TV.

Mine is located in my theater room in my basement, so reflections off of the screen are a non-issue. My Toshiba A1 HD DVD and my Samsung BDP-1400 Blu player both look stellar on the Panny plasma. For cablevision viewing I have a Motorola hi def box thru Shaw up in Canada, also looks great.

The black levels on my set are as good as anything out there except for the new Kuro line from Pioneer, and overall picture quality is just superb. I spent a fortune on this set as I got it when it was first released, but it has been worth every penny.

None of the above...

Pioneer all the way!