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LCDs and the City

June 9th, 2008

Last Thursday, Sony took over a brownstone at 632 Hudson Street in New York City and filled it with LCD HDTVs to show emphatically that they are committed to making LCD the HDTV of choice (and hopefully, Sony the brand of choice) for consumers.

The 2008 lineup includes seven new models that are part of the Bravia XBR premium line, and two of those use LED backlights with local dimming. The 55-inch KDL-55XBR8 got plenty of attention from the press, particularly in the upstairs demo room where it was matched against an "unnamed" current model 50-inch plasma "that begins with a P."

Sure enough, the black levels on Sony’s set were as deep as you could hope for, while colors really popped. The "unnamed" plasma was later determined to be a Pioneer model, but evidently not a KURO display as its blacks were too high. There’s also a 46-inch variation in the line (KDL-46XBR8) that uses Sony’s Triluminous LED backlight technology. The LEDs are discrete RGB types with two green, one red, and one blue element in each array (no word on how many arrays are used in the 55-inch and 46-inch backlights).

Downstairs, a 70-inch KDL-70XBR7 model was show using a conventional cold-cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL). It is only about 5 inches thick. Both it and its smaller sibling (KDL-40XBR7) have expanded color gamut capability, 10-bit signal processing, and Motionflow 120 Hz processing. Four HDMI inputs are standard on XBR 8 and 7-series LCD TVs.

These sets are followed by the XBR6-series of LCD TVs. There are four models in 32-inch, 37-inch, 46-inch, and 52-inch sizes, and all are full 1080p displays. They also have Motionflow 120 Hz processing, support xvYCC color, a full rack of HDMI inputs, and a USB connection for viewing of photos and playback of music files. All of the new sets also support Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) devices through a home network. (No prices were announced for any of the XBR-series TVs.)

Sony’s also worked up a partnership with YouTube, which (along with Wired.com and C-Spot) will be directly accessible through Bravia Internet Video Link on all current and new HDTVs. The image quality was pretty good when enlarged to fill the height of the 40-inch set used in the demo. (With YouTube, it’s all about the content anyway, not picture quality!)

In the front downstairs room, Sony had a demo of "Casino Royale" on Blu-ray, running side-by-side with the same movie played back through an upconverting 1080p DVD player. Two 40-inch Bravia TVs were used in the demo. To be sure, the Blu-ray version had more detail and sharpness - but I’ve seen better upconverted red laser content, too.

As good as Blu-ray looks, it’s still proving to be a hard sell. A recent NPD study showed that only six percent of respondents in a recent survey plan to purchase a BD player in the near future. According to NPD, "…many consumers are content with standard-definition DVD players and content. The leading reasons cited as barriers to purchase were a perceived high cost of BD players and a belief that standard-definition DVD is "good enough."

I mentioned to Sony executives that they should figure on discounting prices much more steeply if the format was to take off any time soon - $500 is just too much for mainstream buyers, who are settling for smaller HDTV screen sizes and upscaling DVD players during the current economic slowdown. (One likely reason for high BD player prices is a scarcity of players and some of the key components inside them, according to one of the Sony representatives at the event.)

Paying homage to the old saw "Televisions are furniture!" Sony had a demonstration of custom color speaker grille trim pieces for the bottom and sides of XBR models in the upstairs kitchen and dining area. These grilles come in silver, gold, red, and brown and are easy to install by the customer.

Finally, I’ve been trying for some time to get a review sample of Sony’s 11-inch XEL-1 SM-OLED TV without success. Apparently the PR department has only one or two models allocated for its use, but there were at least four of them running during the line show. So close, yet so far away…

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