I got my SXRD TV for my birthday last week. I am both ecstatic and disappointed.
It’s a 60″ Sony HDTV using “LCOS” technology (a kind of microdisplay rear projection similar to DLP or LCD Projection). At its best, the image is astounding, jaw-dropping. The local PBS station broadcasts full HD (1080i) travel, cooking and gardening shows that I have been watching just because the picture is so amazing. It’s really almost like looking out of a window. Color, clarity, definition is just about perfect.
However, it suffers from a defect common to all microdisplay rear projection TVs: something called the “silk-screen” effect. One way to describe it: it’s as if the image is being projected on a frosted glass surface (which might be near the truth). Most of the time you are not aware of this surface; you’re looking through it at the image behind. But sometimes with a light-colored moving surface such as a cloud you’re suddenly aware of the texture of the surface that is standing still as the image moves over it, and it can be distracting.
I think that most people don’t notice this effect, or if they do it doesn’t bother them. I’m afraid that I’m not in this majority. I’ve decided to give it another week or two and see if I get used to it. If not, I may have to take it back.
I’ve considered Plasma (too expensive, poor contrast, burn-in problems) and LCD (too small), DLP (I don’t like the picture as well as the SXRD, and they also suffer from the silk-screen effect) and Front Projection (too dim). There are other technologies coming out in the next few years (SED looks very promising), but nothing else available now or in the near future that looks any better.
So here I sit, both ecstatic and disappointed.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Ken // Mar 13, 2006 at 8:32 pm
I am an HD snob as well… I watch games, shows and movies I do not really care about simply because they are in HD! My favorite is Sunrise Earth on Discovery HD which is no commentary or music just a real time 1/2 hour sunrise from some beautiful place in the world. I love my plasma and I am confused about your issues with plasma technology? Is 10,000:1 contrast ratio not enough? The burn in problem has mostly been alleviated with pixel shift and prices are pretty low? My biggest issue with all of the HD sets is the mismatch in resolution with SD TV making standard TV pretty nasty to watch after it is scaled up in both size and resolution making it look worse than its CRT TV counterpart. The HD content makes it all worth it though! How many channels do you get in native HD? Off Air or Cable/ Dish etc..?
2 Daryl // Mar 13, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Ken,
You’re probably the ultimate HD snob in the family, since it’s your job to be!
I should have talked to you before I bought, but anyway: With Plasma what I see is that blacks are not fully black — they kind of reach a certain level and then flatten out. Maybe that was older technology I was looking at.
All the plasmas I have seen have the SD image stretched to fit the screen, making everybody look too wide horizontally, and basketballs are eggs. I was told this is to keep the edges of the screen aging evenly with the rest of the image.
Finally, I couldn’t be satisfied with anything less than 60″, and that looks like $7500 – $10000 for a plasma, kind of stretching my budget.
Lurking in the AV forums, the consensus seemed to be that Plasma and the SXRD were pretty close in picture quality, with trade-offs for each. Personally I prefer the picture I’ve seen on the SXRD, and feel the colors are more natural (except for that stupid silk-screen effect). Plasma also has the “screen door effect”, but I think at normal viewing distances that wouldn’t be an issue.
I agree that watching SD is worse than before; partly because of being spoiled by the HD image, but partly because of the upscaling and magnification of defects.
I currently only have off-air HD, only 2 or 3 channels in true 1080 HD, though there are about 10 digital signals, some of them in 720p depending on what is being broadcast. I’m looking at getting an HD package from my satellite company, Dish, and of course I will have to replace my Tivo with something that can handle HD. Brian and Carrie have a Dishplayer that records in digital HD, with two tuners, and that looks like what I will probably end up with.
3 Ken // Mar 13, 2006 at 9:29 pm
I should have talked to you before I bought, but anyway: With Plasma what I see is that blacks are not fully black — they kind of reach a certain level and then flatten out. Maybe that was older technology I was looking at.
I would agree with the older technology part… not true currently… I have metered down to RGB values as low as 5 to 10
All the plasmas I have seen have the SD image stretched to fit the screen, making everybody look too wide horizontally, and basketballs are eggs. I was told this is to keep the edges of the screen aging evenly with the rest of the image.
The screen ages the same with pixels turned on… all of the plasmas have aspect adjustments which range from presets to fully customizeable
I watch most SD in 4:3 and my plasma switches to 16:9 in HD.
Finally, I couldn’t be satisfied with anything less than 60″, and that looks like $7500 – $10000 for a plasma, kind of stretching my budget.
This is where you should have talked to me… I would say you could be looking between $5500 and $7000 for a 60″ to 63″
Lurking in the AV forums, the consensus seemed to be that Plasma and the SXRD were pretty close in picture quality, with trade-offs for each. Personally I prefer the picture I’ve seen on the SXRD, and feel the colors are more natural (except for that stupid silk-screen effect). Plasma also has the “screen door effect”, but I think at normal viewing distances that wouldn’t be an issue.
I agree that watching SD is worse than before; partly because of being spoiled by the HD image, but partly because of the upscaling and magnification of defects.
I currently only have off-air HD, only 2 or 3 channels in true 1080 HD, though there are about 10 digital signals, some of them in 720p depending on what is being broadcast. I’m looking at getting an HD package from my satellite company, Dish, and of course I will have to replace my Tivo with something that can handle HD. Brian and Carrie have a Dishplayer that records in digital HD, with two tuners, and that looks like what I will probably end up with.
I actually prefer a 720P to 1080i in much of the content I watch. Our eyes usually find Progressive scan much more pleasing. This is especially true with wide shots where horizontal detail (like panoramics, football, basketball etc…) is dominating the content. Now the ultimate is 1080P which is coming quickly to market. THat will be my next upgrade. Panasonic has an 80″ 1080p coming to market soon…
MMM 80″ HD 1080p, yummy!!!
Yes I am a geek, but geeks rule the world anyway.
4 Don // Mar 13, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Betty loves her 34″ Sony WEGA. Of course it’s a tube so it doesn’t suffer from any of that other stuff you folks mentioned. It also wieghs about 300 lbs and is at least 2′ deep. Oh well, the good with the bad I guess. Betty has the DirecTV dual HD tuner and she loves it. I have the SD dual on my Mitsubishi projection that’s 4 or 5 years old. It will be fine until it dies.
5 Daryl // Mar 13, 2006 at 11:58 pm
80″ 1080p? That’s sick!
6 Ken // Mar 14, 2006 at 3:47 pm
I know you have teenagers Daryl, but just to verify… is “sick” the current slang for off the hook awesome! or just gross, ill, generally not good? if it is the first then yes, it is “sick”
7 Daryl // Mar 14, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Yes, “sick” means fantastic.
8 Donna // Mar 14, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Ooh, that’s so bad. (See, I’m up on teenage slang, too!)
9 Daryl // Mar 14, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Donna, “Bad” is so yesterday.
10 Donna // Mar 14, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Oh thanks. I take it “so yesterday” is teen slang for “so progressive”! 😉