Rated 
The Almost Perfect HDTV has Arrived!
Started Sep 25, 2007
Strengths: Outstanding picture quality, excellent shadow detail, matte screen (no unwanted reflections)
Weaknesses: Some mura(clouds), Manual is not helpful, Picture mode is set to Vivid by default which washes out the picture and loses half of the HD resolution
When I first got the TV, I was starting to feel that I made a bad decision. There were clouds that showed up whenever the scene was dark or totally black. Because I was so excited to just turn it on, I had forgotten to check the Picture Mode. It was set to Vivid, which made the colors pop right at you but it also made the picture look a little washed up. One other thing is that it also loses half of the picture resolution so avoid using Vivid or Standard at all costs. Cinema or Custom retains the full resolution so keep this in mind when you are viewing HD content.
After I calibrated my TV, I can easily say that the picture quality is stunning! The black levels were deep, but it didn't sacrifice the shadow detail which was extremely important to me. As an added bonus, the clouds were gone and the screen displayed incredible uniformity.
UPDATE: Reading posts from other owners, it appears that the clouds will fade away after approximately 100 hours of operation. While that may not always be the case, you should contact Sony Technical Support or swap for a second set.
For HTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer) users, this TV supports 'Full Pixel', which is 1:1 pixel mapping that basically makes it look like a large computer monitor. Text is very easy to read and I was able to surf the Internet 8 feet away.
One word of caution is to be careful about applying Cinemotion to 'Auto 1' and Motion Enhancer to 'High' to HD content. It makes the picture appear as if you were there at the set, but there were a lot of motion trails & judder. I recommend setting Cinemotion to 'Auto2' and Motion Enhancer to 'Standard' for HD content. The manual doesn't explain the settings very clear so this was purely based on experimentation.
One more thing, when you are checking out this TV at a retail store, be sure to ask for a remote. Make sure that the picture mode is set to Cinema or Custom as it will show you the true potential of the XBR4. There are a lot of options you can tweak under Picture Settings to tweak the picture to your liking.
If you want the best picture quality with great looks (I love the floating glass), give this one a long look and you'll be amazed!!
Report this as inappropriate
