New Sony 'Picture Power' models.

I've always been a fan of Sony's, I've alwaysed liked the contrast levels and trinitron tube which I've always found give a crisper image.

Not sure if I'm a fan of these processing technologies though. I suppose it's ok for enhancing weaker sources. The ideal for me would be the best physical display device for acheiving the closest representation of the original source. If you can turn it off that's great and at least then you can choose.

Aesthetically I'm not to keen on the two tone design. However the black surround being adjacent to the actual picture would probably be quite effective in making the picture stand out, especially in the dark. I find that with the modern silver tellys although they look nicer as a piece of furniture when you turn the lights down for movies you can still see ambient light reflecting off the tv housing. I'd prefer to see picture only. Any other thoughts on this two tone effect?

Simon
 
Oddly enough, it seems that for the UK market the FQ86 at least will not have the two-tone but will look exactly like the FQ70.
I'm hoping to have a good poke around a 32FQ86 quite soon, from what I've been told these sets have a vastly increased amount of processing power and speed. They also supposedly can identify mpeg artifacts and avoid sharpenning them up, which has been a problem with previous systems for Sony and Philips.
Once I have had an investigate I will post my opinions of the 'Picture Power' system.
 
I've got the 36hq100 and that has picture power had it about a month apart from some red colour smearing which originally thought was down to svm, now i think its something to do with the convergence, if anyone has any tips on calibrating that would be helpful. Apart from that which drives me mad, as long as you sit about 6 metres away its fine as Sony say the pictures very good, although some of the block noise on low quality stuff is poorly handled, hi res stuff works great. Also there are some times weird elements going on around characters if sat too close.
 
I had a look at a 36" HQ100 the other day and I have to say I wasn't impressed!

I've been waiting to see it in case it might be a suitable alternative to my PD30 which suffers from the very annoying "dirty screen" problem. However, on first sight I have to say that I prefer my defective PD30!!

Deficiencies/faults I saw on the Sony (10 minute audition):-

1. Pink screen effect. Similar to "dirty screen" on PD30 - but a bit milder and pinker.

2. Halos around moving objects - like Philips Pixel Plus. Try the 1st scene from Superman where the guys are walking through the lobby in front of the marble pillars. In "super digital 100hz" mode (or whatever it's called) there's a definite halo around the teller guy's head, just like my old Philips. Switching to "normal" 100hz mode gets rid of the halo at the expense of jerky motion.

3. Picture does not generally look as "sharp" as the PD30, although the tube is definitely a HD one.

Overall I'd give this 8 out of 10 and the PD30 9 out of 10. If my PD30 had no dirty screen effect I'd give it 10.

Still trying to decide what to do now...
 
blindlemon said:
Deficiencies/faults I saw on the Sony (10 minute audition):-

1. Pink screen effect. Similar to "dirty screen" on PD30 - but a bit milder and pinker.

Can you describe this please, I might have a similar thing on my TV.
 
Looking at a perfectly white screen there was a slight pinkish "halo" around the outer 30% of the screen. Most obvious at the sides as it's a 16:9 screen.

Looking at panning shots (snow scenes etc., which I use to show up the "dirty screen" effect on PD30s) it was clear that the pinkish areas were an artefact of the CRT as they remained fixed while the picture panned underneath. This is the same as the "dirty screen" effect on my PD30 except that the colour of the marks on the PD30 is greyish rather than pink.

In Sony's favour I have to say that the density of the pink staining was less than the dirty marks on any of the 36PD30s I've seen (about 6 now) - and therefore less noticeable if you weren't looking for it. However, it was there all the same.

Also in Sony's favour there was no evidence of other colour staining at the corners of the screen - again, unlike my PD30. The geometry also looked very good.

However, the pinkish staining and the Philips-style halos around moving objects, combined with an overall slightly less impressive picture were enough to put me off.
 
I had the KV-36HQ100 which feature Picture Power. Part of Picture Power as a motion compensation technology titled something like "Advanced 100 Hz digital *something*" which sucked big time; lots of artifacts around moving artifacts (the Philly set has these also but to a reduced level) and worst of all the image seemed to break down when there was movement. Motion compensation problems went away when I activated the old 100 Hz filter via service menu but to be honest this set is so costly that I expected more. Also some red smearning near white areas was visible meaning the whites had a reddish tint. Needless to say, I don't have this set any more.
 
How blindlemon describes this pink screen effect is pretty accurate. I know it's something I've questioned about before in the forums. All the Sony sets I've looked at in shops suffer from it to some degree. I originally discovered it on my set (KD32DX40) it has it most apparent at the top left hand corner of the screen. The easiest way to spot it is to look at black and white images, the effect occurs closer to white than black so greys are also affected. Look from the widest angle possible, you will see a lot of pink, then pan around from say right to centre to left and back again. You will see the pink dissapear as you get to centre. You may still have some pink left in the centre view. Usually the most prominent areas are down the left and right hand side of the picture. It would appear that this is where there are slight deformations or indentations on the apeture grille. Its probably something to do with the manufacture process. Once you've found it you'll often be able to spot it, but most viewing is unaffected I find. I speak from my own findings. It's one of those imperfections I guess.

Simon
 
I had my first look today at a 36-HQ100 in the Sony Centre in Milton Keynes.

It was setup very badly, making in next to impossible to get a decent idea of it's performance, but what I did notice was that the line structure was quite noticeable. There was an old 36-FS76 next to it, again very badly setup, but the DRC rendered the line structure invisible.

It's quite possible that the line structure I saw was caused by the terrible calibration, but when I read in the specifications that this set lacked DRC I wondered if problems like this would occur.
 
fatbob said:
I had my first look today at a 36-HQ100 in the Sony Centre in Milton Keynes.

It was setup very badly, making in next to impossible to get a decent idea of it's performance, but what I did notice was that the line structure was quite noticeable. There was an old 36-FS76 next to it, again very badly setup, but the DRC rendered the line structure invisible.

My old HQ100 also had this "line structure" very visible. One other reason why I don't have this set any more.
 
just taken delivery of the FQ86. I am still trrying to sort out the AV inputs as the manual makes no reference to connecting a DVDR - do I connect as DVD? Ill give a report once its alls running
 
blindlemon said:
Looking at panning shots (snow scenes etc., which I use to show up the "dirty screen" effect on PD30s) it was clear that the pinkish areas were an artefact of the CRT as they remained fixed while the picture panned underneath. This is the same as the "dirty screen" effect on my PD30 except that the colour of the marks on the PD30 is greyish rather than pink.

It is interesting that you should say that about the Panny.

I don't know if this really has any bearing on the colour output and it's set kelvin value for white level but I was looking at a bunch of sets this evening just doing some general comparisons while looking for a specific tv. All the TV's were showing the same source. While comparing, a Black and white video came on and to my disbelief ALL bar 2 sets looked bluey grey and white!
The 2 sets that actually looked a natural black, grey and white were...... a Panasonic and Toshiba (even the Loewe's being viewed did not achieve this).
 

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