Sony Grand WEGA KF42SX200

Just thought i'd post an update, i've moved my room around and i'm now sat about 3 metres away from my 42" and the picture has improved drastically, no pixelation on DVD's only slight pixelation on lower bandwidth channels (BBC 3) VGA is very good, very clear, both my scart inputs are RGB, PS2 looks fantastic, Dreamcast via VGA is stunning. The slowdown problem as well is no way near as bad as some people on here make out, watched the footy the other night and it looks great!! I think it all comes down to viewing distance just like any LCD screen.

I highly recommend this TV, and is a lot better than the cheaper LG, toshiba plasma's at the same price! And with 30 month's interest free you can't go wrong! Speak to Anne Marie at robert whyte's she is very helpful.
 
Hi Mark
Yup the icons on vga running xp pro are very clear also using style xp it looks fantastic
If you are thinking about plasma remember "screen burn" I dont know that much about it but Im sure if you ask someone will keep you right.
all in all this tv is just the job for using as a wide screen monitor and the 5 year guarantee is only £170.00 and plasma is £1200.00 in Comet
Cheers
Lasswade
 
Thanks for your comments,

i spoke to Alison at Robert Whyte a moment ago and asked a few questions about the products. She seems to think that the sony's bulb would last 3-5 years and would not be covered by any warranty as it's listed as a consumable, and that the plasma's pq would be a lot better. The only thing that concerns me about the plasma is that it comes with composite/s-video inputs as standard which i thought were the crappest ones? you can get scart and component add-on boards but they can cost £100-£200..

maybe i should buy the sony and the panasonic.. ;)
 
Just wondering if you guys had anymore updates on the 300 as I will hopefully picking a graded one up on wednesday next week.

another thing you may be able to help me with is, I have seen on the back of the 200 that it has a input for using the tv speakers as your centre speaker off a amp, does the 300 have this?

By the way the TV is costing £1099.
 
c.grex said:
Just wondering if you guys had anymore updates on the 300 as I will hopefully picking a graded one up on wednesday next week.

another thing you may be able to help me with is, I have seen on the back of the 200 that it has a input for using the tv speakers as your centre speaker off a amp, does the 300 have this?

By the way the TV is costing £1099.

If you don't mind me asking, where from
 
probably robert whyte, im thinking of getting the graded one too
 
marc_angelus said:
probably robert whyte, im thinking of getting the graded one too


yep , they have them on ebay.

I will be picking it up wednesday.
 
c.grex said:
yep , they have them on ebay.

I will be picking it up wednesday.


Is hes selling anymore, cos I can't find any on ebay for the price you have quoted, there are fixed price buy now!!!

Any chance of link :lease:
 
Hey all,

I bought myself one of these TVs from Robert Whyte about a fortnight ago - mainly based on the recommendations from this thread and here's my two cents worth for anyone who is interested.

Firstly a big thankyou to Robert Whyte who had exceptional customer service, the first set they sent me got badly damaged in transit and they were fantastic in getting it collected and replaced. It's one thing to have good service when everything goes right, but when things are wrong it is quite another.

Well, on to the screen....

I bought the 300 model and just to confirm there are two RGB scarts and one S-Video scart as well as a VGA and front connectors, I currently have this set up with a NTL cable and an Xbox in the RGBs and my old panasonic DVD player in the S-video (this may swap around if I get a better DVD player, but as my xbox doesn't have S-Video this was the best way to set it up so that nothing had to go to composite) I also have a PC attached using a Radeon 9800 video card's second output. Basically it had ideal connections for the bits and pieces that I have which was one of the reasons that I bought it - the VGA was a big selling point for me.

Over all the inputs, as expected, the black levels are less than stellar - I would say that it goes down to about 10% grey. In the light this isn't a problem, but at night it is noticable and took a few days to get used to. However, thanks to the nearly completely non reflective coating on the screen watching it in the light is not a problem and when atmosphere isn't too important I tend to watch it with the lights on to offset the brightness of the screen.

The NTL is by far the worst picture but as I have also watched NTL on a £3000 plasma screen I can be sure that this is the general poor quality of NTL rather than the screen, I would much rather they had less channels at higher bitrates. As long as they don't drop any of the ones I watch......

The xbox and the DVD player, on the other hand, are fantastic. I've been working through a few of my films that I have for just this sort of thing (Final Fantasy, Jurrasic Park III etc.) and other than the black levels I can honestly say that the picture is on a par with the best I have seen other sets produce.

However the main reason I bought the set was for the VGA input and I am very pleased with it. I've watch plenty of films and TV programs over the connection and after a little messing with the brightness and contrast to get the picture to my liking I've got good DivX encodes rivaling the original DVD (perhaps lacking a bit of detail in the dark areas, but obviously this is DivX rather than the screen). I borrowed Doom 3 of a friend and while I didn't think much of the game it was a huge, atmospheric image which made playing it a totally different experience to my 15'' LCD monitor.

My gripes about the set are few, other than black levels. As I don't use the arial input I can't comment on the slowdown issue, but I haven't experienced it through any of the SCARTs. However as I don't use the normal channels there are 10 keys on the (very stylish) remote that are unused while I have to cycle through the inputs using the one external key to get what I want. It would be nice if you could remap scarts to numbers.
My other complaint is that while the tech docs on the Sony site say that it uses WXGA LCD panels the VGA input is a standard one so only accepts square ratios (I run it at 1024 x 768) BSPlayer has an Anamorphic aspect ratio setting that fixes problems this causes with video, but I would like to be able to run IE and windows on it in the correct ratio - if anyone knows anything about this let me know.

So after all of that I have to admit that if someone offered me one of the higher end plasmas that I have seen in a direct swap I would ditch it in a heartbeat but for £1100 (graded) it can't be beat. (CRTs and RP were out thanks to their weight and size - I move quite often)

Any questions or suggestions about my widescreen VGA issues let me know.

Cheers

Martin Harris
 
The NTL is by far the worst picture but as I have also watched NTL on a £3000 plasma screen I can be sure that this is the general poor quality of NTL rather than the screen, I would much rather they had less channels at higher bitrates. As long as they don't drop any of the ones I watch......

I've picked my SX300 up today and skyplus is just same. As you have said DVD ect run fine.

However as I don't use the normal channels there are 10 keys on the (very stylish) remote that are unused while I have to cycle through the inputs using the one external key to get what I want. It would be nice if you could remap scarts to numbers.

I have swapped my 8 year old sony 28" for the 300 and that had remapped scart numbers, so I'll miss that


So after all of that I have to admit that if someone offered me one of the higher end plasmas that I have seen in a direct swap I would ditch it in a heartbeat but for £1100 (graded) it can't be beat. (CRTs and RP were out thanks to their weight and size - I move quite often)

Just the same as me, I'm very inpressed with the 300, I too have been watching it all afternoon and haven't had any problems with slow down, so for the money you can't beat it.
 
martin harris and c.g rex did you get the 42" or 50" versions of the 300?
And how bad is the sky picture quality, for example is footy watchable??
 
I have the 42'' version.

It is true to say that all a bigger picture does is show up the problems more, but basically the NTL picture is very watchable. I don't have the premium channels so I can't tell you about Sky Sports directly it does seem to be that the more popular channels get more bandwidth so BBC1 is better than Challenge.

However there is MPEG artifacting on all channels paticularly around text (so the scores in football for example) or any other areas of high contrast. When this is mixed with motion on a smaller channel - anyone welding in Scrapheap Challenge on Discovery Home and Leisure springs to mind - that area of the image can descend into blockiness.

This is not meant to put you off the screen in anyway though, part of my job is making MPEGs of various qualities from DVD through to internet streaming and I can tell the difference between a image problem caused by the screen or the source and it is an issue with NTL (apparently Sky too, though I have no personal experience). If you intend to buy any screen over about 32'' then it is worth being prepared to realise that the crystal clear NTL feed that you may be looking at on your old 18'' (as I was) may not been as clean as you think it is.

Perfectly watchable, but not a patch on a good source like DVD, I'd go so far to say that I get better image quality downloading DivXs of HDTV shows from the US and watching them through the VGA.

Another long post - I'll try and be a bit more concise in the future, but I hope it helped.

Martin
 
I've had my KF-42SX300U for about 2 weeks now(only just found this thread).
I agree with the general comments posted. The quality when watching DVD's is excellent. Sky+ is good on some channels and worse on others (sky one and E4 tend to be good while UKgold and Living TV tend to be a bit grainy) These channels are obviously watched by my wife and not me! ( :blush: )

The main problem I have is theres no Component inputs on the TV so progressive scan is out! ( i didn't know much about AV stuff before buying the TV and have since learnt a lot!) I was interested in a Iscan to clean up the sky+ image but then realised it outputs progressive :mad: oh well!

Would be happy to hear from anyone who has one!

Cheers
Lee
 
cheers guys! And Martin thanks for the long posts, given that these TV;s are hard to find on display where they have been set up well. Feedback from current users is invaluable.
Even the sony centre on t'court road in London has it set up with some lousy feed that probably doesnt do it justice!
 
Can someone explain what "graded" means please!!

I getting into all sorts of problems with TV's. Had convinced myself to buy the Sony KD32DX200 {or possibly the 32FQ86}.

They are big though.. and while my lounge is an ok size, my wife is concerned they'll spoil the look.

Seems that LCD is possibly the way to go. Can't believe this set is so cheap. I'd always thought LCD and plasma was really expensive from the fiew glances I've allowed myself in shops.

I wont be using a home cinema set up straight away: will the sound from the TV be ok? {bear in mind I'm used to a 6 yr old 25 inch thingy so anythings prolly better!!}

Oh and {sorry..just remebered..} to keep my two kids off the set {4yrs and 1yr old} can these sets be easily mounted on the wall??

Back to the drawing board - more months of viewings/demos/review readings..
 
say you buy a TV and it doesnt work for some reason when you get it. You send it back and get a brand new replacement. The Manufacturer then repairs the TV make it to all intents and purposes, brand new again. However the manufacturer can no longer sell this item as brand new, hence the "A-Grade" tag that accompanies the television.

Also this TV is not an LCD TV, but a rear projection TV with an LCD screen on it. The technology is a lot different which is why it costs so much less than a plasma or LCD tv.

And you can't mount this on the wall! Unless you have steel walls ;)

Marc
 
I've just noticed something on my Sony, there seems to be a black dot in the top right hand corner of the screen, only really noticable to an anal bastard like myself, do these lcd rears suffer from dead pixels :confused: I might call Robert Whytes and see what they say!!
 
Like any LCD they can get dead pixels, I'd ring and see what they say. You may find you have to have more than one dead one for something to be done.

I buy and sell computer gear and I know its a right bastard when you spot one, cos you always see it from then on!
 
Cheers for that info, i'll ring them to see what they say, but you are right i always seem to focus on it :suicide: , the Mrs doesn't even know it's there (Bless!)
 
I've got my 300 ordered now, it should be delivered next Friday :) I've yet to decide where exactly to put it, as the only thing at the right height, and big enough to put it on is the "monitor" stand on my desk, which wouldnt exactly be ideal for when i'm sitting at my desk, but i've never seen a 3 foot high tv stand before, and i need something high enough so that i can see the tv from my bed.

Thanks to everyone for their comments on this TV. From what i've gathered, there are issues, but on the whole, the people who notice them and can't accept them are TV experts while those who don't really notice or care about them as much are TV enthusiasts. I would classify myself as an enthusiast, so i think this was the right choice for me, as my other option, the Panasonic PW6 would have cost me over £2000 after buying the pedestal and addon boards, and this all in all cost me £1179.
 
I've got my KF-42SX300 set up now, and here are my impressions:

Picture quality: DVD's are excellent in some scenes, and really ropey in others. I've posted a seperate thread to see if someone can advise me if the image should be better. PS2 quality is excellent, though playing PS2 on a 42" screen shows up how rubbish PS2 graphics are on some games, and VGA is excellent. Can run in 800x600, 1024x768 or 1360x768 (although the latter has problems due to the screen offset being wrong, causing the left hand side of the screen to be missing - something i could probably fix if i knew how to get into the service menu) There is a bit of ghosting but this is 100% due to a rubbish vga splitter box i borrowed from work, shame it'll cost nigh on £100 to get a decent vga splitter and vga cables..

Design: I really like the look of this set. The silver/grey and black offset each other nicely and it's a really nice focal point for my room. One small gripe is that the TV has a light on it even when it's powered off, unless you totally unplug it.

The "grey" factor: OK this pisses me off, at the moment it's ruining my movie viewing experience cos every time there's a scene with darkness in it, all i can think about it how bloody grey it is, but hopefully after a few weeks/months i'll stop noticing it. Heck if my parents can stop noticing that the black on their TV is actually green, i can stop noticing it being grey.. If not, i'll have to resort to finding some polarized plastic to stick over the screen..

Features: The menu on the TV is a bit lacking in some areas, most notably the fact that you cant map channels to the various AV/RGB/VGA inputs, meaning to get a PC display, i sometimes have to push the mode select button 5 times, rather stupid if you ask me. Also there's no option to adjust luminance, which might reduce the grey factor at the expense of less white (there's more than enough at present to afford to lose a little) Other areas are good though, there are a lot of sound options, although i've turned off the TV speakers, as i expect have most of us with this set. There are a fair few options for adjusting picture colour/brightness/contrast etc, but they dont seem to have much effect unless you move them up by 20 or 30.

All in all, i'm happy with the set, but disappointed with some aspects at the same time. I hope i can get used to the grey, and sort out the DVD quality, because then i will be totally happy. 7/10
 

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