Picture Quality on Standard TV Channels? Can someone tell me how this will look with standard satellite television channels? I would love to have a large television for viewing movies, but don't want to pay the additional monthly charges for HD. I currently have a 27" tube that looks fantastic in standard definition and am worried about picture quality if I upgrade my set. Picture Quality on Standard TV Channels? Can someone tell me how this will look with standard satellite television channels? I would love to have a large television for viewing movies, but... » Read More Picture Quality on Standard TV Channels? Can someone tell me how this will look with standard satellite television channels? I would love to have a large television for viewing movies, but don't want to pay the additional monthly charges for HD. I currently have a 27" tube that looks fantastic in standard definition and am worried about picture quality if I upgrade my set. « Show Less
927590
I just purchased this tv and the picture quality for regular channels is very poor... movies look great, but I am not satisfied with watching regular talk shows.Samsung LN46B550 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color
1950731
This will be the case for any HDTV at this size. Feed it a low quality source and the TV will show all how degraded the picture really is. It's not the fault of the HDTV. One thing you can do is to lower the contrast and brightness to minimize the flaws. Turn off all the dynamic contrast settings. There's a "film mode" that works well.
697833
I am certainly no TV guru but, I had purchased the LN40A550 & returned it & bought the LN40A650 & could not be happier! We noticed immediately that the picture looked faded on the 550 & went to one of the local retailers & found that this is a common complaint on these units. They actually had a LN40A550 & LN40A650 side by side in the store & there is a huge difference. We are very impressed with the picture quality regardless of what we are watching. We have had many friends commenting on the awesome picture on this TV. Hope this helps. Les
869413
How big of a difference is the picture with the glitch when watching a BD? I am strongly leaning towards buying this TV. If this is only a minor flaw I am going to buy it, I just don't see paying $700 more dollars for the 860 just for this glitch. Is watching BD without cinema smooth that much of a difference? Thank you.
834399
Personaly because this tv is so revealing, it doesn't look very good. On hd contnet it looks realy sharp but on lesser stuff not so good. The other night I was watching my favorite actress jessica alba in the eye from 2008 and it really looked horrible because it was in standard def. If your going to get a tv like this and spend this much, you need to put the best quality input into it.
962124
Items viewed on the Archos screen look great. However, they are not so sharp when I view them on my 46" HD TV - that may be because of the output resolution or simply because of the big screen size! I'm still testing.
2010485
I am not sure how helpful this reply is, but I am in the process of upgrading an existing TV and spent about half an hour just looking at the 55" and up TV's at Best Buy yesterday for about half an hour. I watched about 8 different sets which included both Plasma (Samsung & Panasonic) along with LED edge-lit tv's from Samsung, LG, Sharp and Sony. I have to say that I only saw this on one TV and that was a Sharp 60" set. This set was set to ultra-torch mode and looked pretty crappy in general. I attributed the issue to the settings being cranked too high. I can't guarentee you that the problem would completely disappear with either a DIY adjustment or with professional calibration but I am sure it would be much, much less noticeable. My guess is that the lower end Sharp sets are going to be a little more tempermental and need more adjustments and tradeoffs. I would really like to see one of these sets in a real world set up and adjusted properly (I want a 60" TV with a smaller bexel due to space restrictions (Panny 60" ST30 is just a little too big). I really did like the looks of the LG 55LW5600. I have plasma right now and like it, but I am not convinced the blacks really are that good despite what David K. says on CNET. Some of the edge-lit LED sets do have decent black levels and detail in darker scenes. Maybe not as good as the Panny's, but they are so much brighter (will be used in a well-lit living room) and whites are white and not gray!
909352
Regular (NON HD) TV always looks awful on the big screen HD TVs. Upgrade yourself to high def and never go back.
1031971
I bought one recently because my (1) my old TV died and my TV service (Verizon FIOS) offers several HDTV channels. There are HDTV channels for all the major networks and several of the cable channels: ESPN, HBO, etc. I watch baseball (Red Sox) on HDTV and I'll be able to watch football in HDTV in the Fall. So it was easier for me to decide to switch to HDTV. As for your existing DVD movies, while they're not HD, they will look better on a 56" DLP. The HDTV screen aspect ratio is much closer to that of the original movies, so if you watch the movie in its original format, the "letterbox" effect isn't as dramatic. I'm very pleased with the way my DVDs look on HDTV ... not HDTV quality, but MUCH closer to a movie theater experience than before. If my old TV hadn't died, I probably would have waited until HDTV was the "norm" as you are considering doing. In retrospect, I'm glad it died. Paul
1161855
HDTV is definitly here. However, there is a cavet. An HDTV program not produced originally in an HDTV format (720p, 1080i) but what I like to call EDTV format (400i, 480p, 576i, 576p) and has been upconverted from EDTV to HDTV resolutions just can't compare to a natively produced HDTV program. There is alot of HDTV programming, but there is also a lot of EDTV programming out. While EDTV looks better than regular television, it only slightly an improvement. If you haven't seen your first high-definition image your in for a treat. 1080p is a bonus resolution that, at this time, is only supported by Blu-Ray/HD-DVD movies and computer inputs in all their glory. It is not necessary for broadcast or cable television, yet. The only gain to waiting a year is holding on to your money. Yes, the initial outlay for a television is expensive, especially if you haven't seen it in action, but once you have it and start enjoying you'll soon realize I am glad I bought the tv. Until broadcast television and high-definition movies increase the resolution past 1080p, a 1080p tv all your going to need. Just make sure you pay attention to the connectivity on the back of the set.
1341299
Is this TV capable of "24p"? I'm not sure what that is, but it supposedly improves the picture quality, so, and Panasonic just introduced this kick-ass BD player, which I would sooo consider buying after I get a new TV, since my 3-year old LCD (Dynex) totally stopped working about a month ago...(I'm using my gramma's 14" DTV for now, would upgrade yesterday, but I'll be w/o the necessary cash probably for another 8+ months...). Thanks.
70354
I went today to look at HDtv's. I saw both the 46XBR4 and the 3000W and another 3000? Sony. All I can say is that by far the XBR4 was crisper and brighter, it looked more like reality. They had ESPN-HD feed on from Direct-TV. Is the difference worth the price, that's something you have to decide. Go look at them, I saw them at CC. I actually spent a good hour in a recliner they had setup and just watched the 46XBR4 comparing it to the sets around it. This is the one I'm getting, it was simply the best picture constantly, even better than models bigger in size with 1080p. It really stood out in the finer details when next to the other sets.
221632
Hello. I am almost close to selecting KDL52V4100. All you owners of the TV, would u know if the screen has matte finish? I wanted to see this TV in BB but could not find it. so I havent seen it. I have seen SHARP and LG HDTVs and they have excellent matte finish. Can you please tell me how is screen finish for this SONY TV ?
713611
Update: Watched a dvd last night (the same dvd I first tried) and the picture was perfect - even using HDMI 1080p setting! This time I chose "Anynet HDMI DVD" from the source list on my tv settings, which I don't remember being an option before. I previously chose "DVI". I wonder if that made the difference. Hmm. Anyway....glad my dvd's now look just as great as the HD channels. Thank you for responding C.Woodruff. :)LadyR
454365
Just pruchased this tv and its great. You should be able to get over the air HD signals if you are near a decent sized city so you will get the major channels in HD with a standard rabbit ears. Basic looks pretty good and it has zoom feature so the SD signal will fit the sreeen. DVDs look good too. i just use the composite hookups from a standsrd dvd and it worked great.
820056
Some channels are HD, most are not. HD ones are pretty good. Non hd Quality is not terrible.
671574
Sorry I missed your question earlier, but hopefully you can change your mind about the Panasonic. Viera has awful color and any SD source just looks atrocious. My experience with this SONY is that most SD cable looks sharp and clean, with good motion handling and less noise that you'd expect from the typical LCD. It all depends on how you're viewing your SD cable. Most cable providers send digital, analog, and HDTV network channels thru their line. I have a splitter on my cable line, sending one output to the set's RF input and the other to my cable box and then thru S-video cable. SD cable boxes today are mostly SD-digital. The digital SD stations actually look quite good, far better than you'd expect from an LCD. SD-DVD is even better, and BluRay looks best if your player can downscale to 720p (the SONY's own built-in 1080 downscaler is likely not as competent as the one on your BR player). The HD feeds thru your cable line look outstanding with 1080, 720, nd even 480 signals -- pure analog SD thru that line is tolerable, but not nearly as crisp as the SD-digital versions of those same channels. Thru your cable box, pure analog stations look a bit grim, red, and undersaturated; but digital-SD stations look very clean, almost as nice as SD-DVD. I'd avoid the Panasonic. In fact, this SONY might not be perfect (you'll have to use the RGB controls to tone down the really heavy Red), but it's the best 26" LCD I've seen in a while. Samsung makes a 26" that looks good in reviews, but build quality and reliability are extremely poor, and the Samsung suffers from motion artifacts that look much worse than with the SONY.
389433
You can adjust the aspect ratio so that it fills the entire screen, but that would distort the picture somewhat. I like to put it in 4:3 mode, so it looks like a normal picture. Burn-in warnings be damned! But you'll be watching the important stuff through the HD air antenna anyway. I think the SD picture is just okay. It's a bit pixelated (probably because of the size of the TV) and the colors don't seem as sharp as my 23-year old Sony Trinitron. Once you see the HD picture, SD will look that much worse.