[mmm]

I have just brought the Sony KV32FQ80 and couldnt wait to unwrap it and set it up.

Got it unwwrapped and all connected...and erm...I have not over the moon...

There are two main problems :

1. The power supply buzzes, and it's quite loud. Phoned up the suppliers, and they say it's because it is a 100hz tv. is this BS

2. At the left and right most edges of the screen, the picture appears to be fuzzy. The suppiers said to turn down the contrast and brightness and it should go away. sounds like BS to me

The other problem (not as serious) is that the white on the screen seems to be too be a little too bright. I have tried to reduce the brightness and contrast settings to try and balance out the white glaring, but this reduces the detail level. Any ideas

For the amount of money I paid for this heavy lump of electronics, I was expecting a top-dog bit of kit. And yet I feel a little disappointed

Any help would be grateful.

regards

m

[mh66639]

My FS76 buzzes too, I won't stand for it though (fix it or take it away), sounds like a consistanly on electric razor.

My first FS76 was fine...sounds like Sony received a cheap batch of power supplies.

Matt.

[devastator]

My FQ80 also buzzes and has the whites blooming+geometry not very good.
Have asked for a replacement. Sony have ordered this. We'll see.

[mmm]

Hopefully getting a phone call from the customer service department tomorrow (monday) about resolving the problems.

Incidently, I went to a Sony shop and had a look at their FQ80, and they too had the fuzzy edges !! but not a buzzing power supply.

Interesting !!

Let you know (if you are really that intereted) how it goes.

regards

m

Just received my FQ80. It also buzzes! More worryingly the picture shows a lot of digital artifacts on both Sky and Telewest. Have tried rebooting all the hardware and input set to RGB , 100 DRC but the picture is terrible. Terestial is fine. JL swapping it out on Monday.

[mmm]

without appearing to thick...what do artifacts look like ?

regards

m

Artifacts look like the "blockyness" when watching Real Player streamed video or poor quality MPEGS.

[mmm]

Thought that was a feature for Sky !!

Had that artifact thing on a bog standard 4:3 29" toshiba with Sky...and as that didnt have the 100hz doobry like the FQ80 I guess that is just Sky sending ****ty signals...

regards
m

I had a clean picture on both Sky and Telewest with my old Sony 25".

[mmm]

thankfully the FQ80 doesnt appear to have these artifacts...

regards

m

Have just exchanged my FQ80 for a NX200.
DVB's are slightly sharper than Sky but that could be due to having an average quality scart from the Sky box. Digital artefacts are about the same unfortunately. More annoying is the out of focus teletext on the left hand side of the screen. JL getting a call on Friday!

[karl.g]

I had an FQ75 with the left hand side out of focus on teletext. The geometry also curved downwards on this section. About a week later I saw the end of the film Ali, which has text full across the screen. More disturbingly I couldn’t read the scrolling text at the end of the film as it was out of focus. I guess about a quarter of the screen was out of focus!

[YellowCows]

OK, Guys, here's the low-down,

The whole FQ series is plagued with the fuzzy sides. Indeed, the problem is prevalent on the whole WEGA line, I believe. How do I know? because I went through this pain and uncertainty for six (yes, you heard that right, SIX) MONTHS!

I first went for a 32FQ75 in June of last year, and noticed the softness down the sides almost immediately. I thought this was a fault with my telly, called Sony, who denied any knowledge of this, and recommended I ask for a replacement. After much protesting, my dealer relented and delivered another unit. This one had the exact same problem, only this time the geometry was twice as kinky as the first set! I wouldn't take it, called Sony again, got more denials, claims of 'uniform sharpness' (TOTAL BS!!) and 'accurate focus' (what drivel!), and suggestions that I ask for ANOTHER replacement. Needless to say, the dealer wasn't having it, but then neither was I, and after a multitude of phone calls (the dealer was in another town), between me, the dealer and SONY, they agreed to swap the telly again for me.

Unfortunately, they were pulling a fast one on me this time, as the 2nd replacement set not only had soft sides and atrocious geometry, but it was a EUROPEAN model, and the silver frame around the tube was unstuck (meaning dust could get inbetween). It was clearly ex-display. Needless to say, I asked for a refund, and after many unpleasant exchanges, I got one.

My life was telly-free for some time, before I decided to try once again for another set (foolishly loyal to Sony, as I was), and finally managed to find a good dealer, who supplied me with a set that had acceptable geometry, but naturally, the soft focus down the sides was still evident.

Naturally, there simply had to be a catch with SONY - my new set also had a faulty scart board (not all the pins on SCARTs 1 & 2 were connected), so flash-forward to a month later, a repair man arrived who took away the faulty board (rendering the TV unusable) for 4 weeks, and subsequently returned with a 'fixed' one, which finally worked. The work was done under warranty, but as I had grown accustomed to by then, the 'sting' was that I had to pay the 30 squid call-out charge. NICE!!

One good thing that happened as a consequence of my ordeal was that the engineer explained the soft focus problem to me. The flatscreen used in the Wega sets meant that the gun delivers good focus in the middle of the screen, but not at the edges. It was designed to cope with a set that is (at least roughly) as wide as it is tall (i.e. 4:3), and the distance the picture has to travel to the sides is so much greater with a flatscreen 16:9 television, than it does to the centre, resulting in less accurate (read 'softer') focus down the sides.

This is why older 16:9 tubes didn't suffer the same kind of focus problems as the flat variety, because the left and right edges were curved inwards to compensate for the greater distance the light would have travel to reach the sides.

Furthermore, the 'brighter' the picture, the worse the 'ringing' effect (blooming of white images and text). Therefore, you do have to turn down your Contrast, Brightness and Sharpness settings to reduce the 'halo' and fuzzy effect. Nothing will eradiate the problem entirely, though - it's inherent in the Sony sets - so don't believe those who tell you otherwise. If you can, use a home-theatre setup guide such as AVIA to calibrate the set to the optimum levels, so you know for sure you've done your best.

BTW, SONY UK (who actually make these tellies for the whole of Europe), are aware of these issues, deny it as they might. So I'm very disappointed to hear the FQ80's still exhibit this damn nuiscance! JUST ADMIT IT, SONY!! They ought to tell their customer service reps about this issue, if they're not actively telling them to deny knowledge of it, so that customers wouldn't have to keep returning their sets with such frequency.

That, or they can maybe...ummm...actually FIX the friggin WEGA TUBES!

Moory

Hi. I have until now always liked the Trinitron picture and have an aperture grille PC Monitor. Does anyone else apart from Sony use this system for TVs? What other manufacturer can I try? Panasonic 100Hz Tv's have all had bad press for bad digital processing. Wasn't that keen on the finish of the Toshiba picture frame TV's , but if the picture is good.....

[YellowCows]

Hi Pete,

These are my own personal impressions on the various tubes/tellys (within the £1000-£1500 price backet) out there:

-Panasonic - great colour (rich, vivid), horrible processing (moire, blocking smearing), geometry problems. New prog scan 32" model takes both NTSC & PAL prog scan DVD component-in (rare feature in a UK CRT set)

-Sony - See above. However, plus points are - good, 'natural' colour, v. well contained, GREAT RGB pictures, best looks of the Japanese bunch, DRC does make a difference (especially with NTSC), 50Hz mode flicker is too much in PAL, though, IMHO

-Toshiba (Strata range - I wouldn't go for picture frame range) - amazing detail (for a set without detail-enhancement technology), extremely vivid and well-contained colour, progressive mode is just as good as DRC , IMO, if not better (because you can actually watch it in 50Hz PAL, and also the picture is more 'natural', i.e less processing-heavy), component is a BIG plus (esp. if you have NTSC prog scan DVD player). Downside - few units are free from geometry 'kinks', though these can be sorted out with some tweaking of the service menus; sound quality is inferior (sound is 'boxy' from the TV's internal speakers) to high-end models from Sony, and Philips for instance; only 1 RGB scart, quite basic user enhancement features, and the dreaded 'dark patches' on the sides of the screen that some people complain of. These are just the added thickness of the glass (it's thicker on the sides of the 36-inchers than in the middle, giving the illusion of a 'dirty' patch). Many don't notice them at all.

-Philips - Usually one I avoided, because of the 'softer' focus Philips tubes had in the past, but Pixel Plus is amazing. Sharp, vivd, detailed, well-contained images without the flicker! From what I've seen, the features are prodigious (far more than, say, the Toshiba's) and they are actually useful. Philips seems to have the geometry down pat on these sets as well. The sets have 4 Scarts (2 RGB), but bear in mind the other 2 are composite-only, so no S-video (this is bad if, for instance you have an S-VHS VCR as you won't be able to hook it up using the best connection method, unless you use the side inputs, which is just messy!). Some people say the processing makes the picture look somewhat 'unnatural', but I don't think so myself. I wouldn't use all the processing and 'natural motion' modes together, though - to minimise on digital artefacting. Furthermore, I've seen threads on this board about the Ferrite Bars (scrolling black bars) that some of these sets suffer from - read 4urself http://www.avforums.com/forums/showt...threadid=34226 .One thing to note, Asian Pixel+ models are HDTV-capable, and come with PC VGA and prog-scan component-in. Now why do we still only get half-measures in the UK - they're all made in the same factory, so give us the same features!!

- JVC - not too familiar with this brand. I usually never gave it much thought, as I have always thought their styling is ugly, and their technology run-of-the-mill. Having said that, there's a new model, the HV-32D25W - which, on paper at least, blows all the competition (incl. Pixel+) clear out of the water. First off, its resolution is up to HDTV-spec (hurray!), it has resolution enhancement technology that beats DRC and Pixel+ (1250i lines @ 75Hz - literally double the maximum PAL resolution at near flicker-free refresh rate), a built-in de-interlacer (or Progressive Scan) GREAT connectivity (which is v.v. important to me) with 3 Scarts (2 RGB, 1 S-video) as well as component-in (specs say they are progressive-input compatible, but I don't know for sure - spec sheets are not always factual), as well as all the features you'd expect from a top-end (non-DVB) telly - twin tuners, multi PIP/PAP/PAT etc.). Having not actually seen this model in action, however, the only drawback I can confirm is the styiling - standard lumpy JVC frame - yuck!

If I were in the market for a widescreen telly today, I'd look seriously at the JVC (I'd overlook the uggo design for the features), Philips and Toshiba (Strata) sets. Historically, I wouldn't even think twice about going for Sony, but sadly, our favourite brand is being tarnished by their slowness to introduce technologies available in other markets, and their seeming inability (or unwillingness) to solve the faults of their existing lines.

SERIOUSLY, though - GO AND SEE THEM FOR YOURSELF before you decide. There IS NO panacea out there - none of these TV's is without fault - you just have to pick one whose pictures you think you'll keep liking, and whose faults you can live with over time...

Hope that helps

Moory

[mh66639]

Moory,

6 months...I've had to swap out my FQ75s for two years - then got a refund.

I've currently got a FS76 - and VERY happy. NO focus problems anywhere (and I've looked) I setup with platinum DVD - a geometry is 99% perfect too.

Sony can do it if they spend more £££ on QA!


Matt.

[Merlins]

Hi,

I had the same issues as many people with the FQ75
and in the end just got it swapped with the FQ80
a couple of weeks ago. I had to wait so long as they
were getting new stock flown in to SONY for the swap
outs. I have been going through all the issue I had and have
heard about the FQ80 and so far the geometry is perfect which
surprised me, the sound is not too bad but seem to need
to keep it on the Dynamic setting to get anything decent.
Also found by lowering the sharpness setting the picture
got a lot clearer and so gave a good picture on both Scart
and through the aireal. The only problem I have noticed so far
is that the Power supply does Buzz quite a bit but not to sure
if its louder then the FQ75. But I think the main thing is at least
it does not have the dreaded scrolling bars..

I would like to know if there were any other problems I should look for as the original FQ80 thread has disapeared.

[mh66639]

I'm still "on-top" of the buzzing thing...seems like Sony have a fix.

They are going to try the proposed fix, if that doesn't solve it, Sony themselves will investigate the problems further (say no more)

I'll keep the forum updated when i hear more. I know many of you are suffering with a buzz.

Regards,
Matt.

I've got an engineer visiting c/o J.L. to look at the out of focus left hand column Teletext. Look forward to an update on the buzzing , which both the previous FQ80 the current NX200 exhibit.

Do any of you other FQ80 owners have good geometry in the top right? When watching a 'superwide' DVD (i.e. wider than 16:9, with black bars at the top and bottom) I get a clear bend down at the top right.

I should be getting a replacement from HoF in a week or so, but I wondered whether I should get my hopes up or not for something 'perfect'!

Cheers,

Mark.

I'm getiing a refund for my Sony NX-200. TV has out of focus Teletext on left hand side. ENgineer said it's a "feature". Back to the drawing board! Any ideas? JVC has a new model out HV-32D25W but can't find out any info on the web. Or a Loewe.