Sony Bravia KDL-40V3000

Summary: So I'll start out by saying that I recently switched out for this Sony set from the Samsung LN-T4066F which is an awesome TV set. It was a gamble ...

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Summary: So I'll start out by saying that I recently switched out for this Sony set from the Samsung LN-T4066F which is an awesome TV set. It was a gamble because I had two days left on my return/exchange policy so if I didn't end up liking this TV, I was stuck with it. Well the good news is, I enjoy the Sony set. I had no problems with my Samsung, I just liked the overall picture quality better on the Sony. I work at Best Buy in home theater so I had an opportunity to compare them and the Sony looked better majority of the time. My two biggest complaints about the Samsung were that one, Samsung took the overall styling of the TV into huge consideration this year with their piano black finish, chrome accents, blue lights, etc., I at first enjoyed this styling tremendously but after using it day in and day out, it began to get distracting. Two, the Samsung had a glossy finish to the screen which again, I thoroughly enjoyed in the store but that too began to get distracting because of some minor glare issues and it was impossible to keep clean. Anyway it is a phenomenal set but the Sony is a better fit for me. The V series is a great line up for Sony. It's consumer friendly compared to the XBR and the picture is quite comparable (until the XBR 4 and 5's come out). One thing that caught my attention about the Sony V3000 is the black level reproduction, they're extremely good for an LCD. The overall color reproduction seemed to be extremely accurate too, even more so than the XBR2. This model was setup next to the XBR2 and 9/10 it looked superior to it, which says quite a bit since the XBR2 is an amazing set. I also enjoyed the styling a bit more on this Sony compared to the Samsung and the XBR2 because it has the glossy black finish, but it's not overdone, it doesn't effect the viewing experience as much.
When I first unboxed the TV and set it up, I was shocked and dumbfounded to see that it only incorporates 2 HDMI inputs, 2 (the website and Sony on the phone said it had 3)! The new damn Westinghouses have 4! That was a HUGE let down on the part of Sony and extremely cheap of them. I have my Xbox 360 hooked up through the PC connection and it looks a little smoother than it did when I hooked it up through component. A good thing to note is this year's V series allows 1080p to be transfered and reproduced on the screen through the set's PC input, the V2500 would only go up to 1366 x 768 I believe. I'm not sure if the V2500 allowed this or not but the V3000 also allows 1080p inputs through component. I will never use those but some people may, which is why I'm making note of them. My only other source as of now is straight analog cable. I complained about the number of HDMI inputs because I plan on picking up their new BDSP300 blu-ray player and an Xbox 360 Elite, so there would be two HDMI uses right there. Anyway, back to my cable source... one thing I was kind of bummed about is the analog channels were suppose to be upconverted to near 1080p quality via the Bravia Engine EX but they really aren't that impressive. They are better on this set than they were on the Samsung though. This set includes a QAM tuner so I do pick up all of my locals in HD which look awesome. The sound quality on this set is much stronger than the Samsung's was too. Anyway, sorry this review was all over the place. The set has been great overall so far! If you have any questions about it, feel free to contact me. Hoped this help somewhat!

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Summary: First of all, I have had several Sony "HD" tv's with this set having the best picture. The Sony XBR Plasma, KDL-40S2500, and KDL-40S3000. I just returned the KDL-40S3000 ...

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Summary: First of all, I have had several Sony "HD" tv's with this set having the best picture. The Sony XBR Plasma, KDL-40S2500, and KDL-40S3000. I just returned the KDL-40S3000 not for a problem or bad picture, but wanted a better overall picture.

With that said, this "V" series set has better contrast, black level and better detail than the "S" series set which is very good as well. The "S" series had some problem converting 1080i signals. The KDL-40V3000 with full 1080P does much better with my Direct HD-TV 1080i signals. However, the "S" series set was very good with 720P. As for picture settings, the facory Standard setting works for me, but the Vivid setting has great color and contrast. You may need to turn down the back light setting to "low" with the vivid setting. Also, the light sensor on this set works very well. Turn down the lights and the picture dims as well. Great for movies. Blue-ray DVD's look outstanding on this set with the component or HDMI inputs. HDMI being best overall with good quality cables. I use Acoustic Research.

As far as standard tv (480i) this set does a good job of up-converting the standard tv signal. Not "HD" quality but a good picture. There is a section in the manual in regards to this. It does clean it up, so don't blame the tv for improper set-up.

Overall, this is a great set for Hometheater and for standard analog tv as well. I hope you enjoy this fine tv as much as I do.

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Summary: I've been researching HDTV's for months, looking for something that would be suitable for gaming, mostly. Picture quality, response time, input lag, and price were all major factors ...

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Summary: I've been researching HDTV's for months, looking for something that would be suitable for gaming, mostly. Picture quality, response time, input lag, and price were all major factors for me.

I had the choice narrowed down to a Bravia flat-panel LCD or the 46" LCD rear-projection TV. I couldn't settle for the RP model -- the 'silk screen' effect is there no matter what the reps might say. It's especially noticable as a glittering/shimmering on scenes with bright, solid colors, but once you learn to see it you can notice it as a matte-like effect that's present at all times. Tweaking the setting can reduce the effect, but not eliminate it.

The 46" flat-panel was the equivalent TV, but it was too expensive ($2600 vs $1500 for the RP)! That's when I started looking at the 40" LCD ($1760 @ Best Buy). It was the smallest, cheapest 1080p native resolution LCD TV on the market with all the options I was interested in.

There's a built-in Game Mode, which (with proper settings) looks PHENOMENAL with the XBox 360 running through the HDMI input. My laptop is set to the same resolution as the TV, and it looks great through the PC input as well. There's no noticable input lag at all -- the response on the display to my key presses was instant, or at least too fast for me to notice any delay at all.

The N64 (hooked up through the composite input) looks terrible in comparison, but no worse than it did on my old Trinitron CRT TV.

DVD's (played thru the XBox) look good. Different settings required to get the best picture, so I have to manually change that every time I swap b/w gaming and movie watching. It doesn't appear that you can save multiple custom settings (for the same input, though every input has its own settings), and one is with Game/Text Mode on and the other with it off, but the menus are very friendy and efficent so it only takes a few seconds either way.

Standard def satellite TV took a bit more work to get a decent picture. It looks bad regardless (once your are accustomed to a high def signal -- I hadn't watched regular TV in months and was stunned by how bad it looks regardless of the TV), but the picture on this new Sony LCD is no worse than it looked on my previous TV, a top of the line Sony Trinitron CRT.

Overall I am extremely pleased with my purchase. It's chock-full of features and excels at what I got it for (top end HD and gaming). The TV might be overkill for someone just looking for a HD-replacement for regular HD-TV viewing, but if you can budget for the TV you can't go wrong! Definitely pick up a video tweaking DVD though, or have someone do it for you, or at the very least dig into the picture setting options and tweak them to your liking, as the default setting leave much to be desired and you would be cheating yourself out of the highest quality picture by not adjusting them!

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Summary: I rated my Sony KDL-52XBR2 an 8, I have to say the Sony KDL-40V3000 seems be a little more accurate with primary colors, it also has advanced picture adjustments on ...

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Summary: I rated my Sony KDL-52XBR2 an 8, I have to say the Sony KDL-40V3000 seems be a little more accurate with primary colors, it also has advanced picture adjustments on more than one picture mode, but I only rated it a 7. The new cross media bar menu is just too much trouble than its worth. I have a PS3 so I've worked with a cross media bar before, and I still can't seem to get used to it on this lcd. I pitty those who purchase this lcd who are newbies to the new menu system.

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Summary: i purchased this as an upgrade to a samsung 30' crt hdtv. i stuck with the crt series simply because i felt viewing angle and contrast were superior on these ...

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Summary: i purchased this as an upgrade to a samsung 30' crt hdtv. i stuck with the crt series simply because i felt viewing angle and contrast were superior on these sets. well after two years that is no longer the case, and my samsung slimfit tube was experiencing numerous problems, none of which were ever satisfactorily solved. picking up this sony bravia set, though, has made me incredibly happy.

first the overall build quality of the set is what one would expect from sony. it's aesthetically pleasing as well as being one of the better 1080p displays on the market. contrast levels are comparable to crt units, blacks look incredibly black on this, and the rest of the color spectrum is equally well represented after some minor tweaking. as a matter of fact, this sets lamp is so bright at default settings that you'll probably want to turn it down around 50%, which still provides stunning contrast and color representation.

the built in digital processing features of this model really set it apart from other manufacturers. if the image isn't sharp enough for you over your satellite or ota antenna you have multiple options for reducing signal and mpeg noise. the options available for sound settings are equally robust, but my favorite feature has to be the automatic brightness adjustment. when enabled this feature adjusts the set to the proper brightness setting based on the ambient light levels in the room. very cool.

all in all this is a great set that will take some time to see all its features fully exploited. best purchase i've made so far this year. highly recommended.

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Summary: Great TV, HD looks amazing, better than I have seen on other LCDs.

Summary: Great TV, HD looks amazing, better than I have seen on other LCDs.

Summary: This is one of the best televsions you can buy for the money. It has an excellent picture with very vivid colors. Easily as good as any other top tier ...

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Summary: This is one of the best televsions you can buy for the money. It has an excellent picture with very vivid colors. Easily as good as any other top tier lcd. In fact, it has the same lcd as the more expensive XBR's minus the 120hz chipset. It upconverts the SD signals and has one of the better looking SD pictures I have seen. The only major issue I have had is that the picture and picture will only allow the second pip screen to come from the component input. So I can play my PS3 and watch tv at the same time being that they are both running on HDMI. The sound quality is average to what I would expect from Sony.

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Summary: Sony acctually came a long way to get this Tv looking better compare to last year's model. I actually liked the samsung TVs better that is until this model ...

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Summary: Sony acctually came a long way to get this Tv looking better compare to last year's model. I actually liked the samsung TVs better that is until this model came out. It has great contrast levels, color saturation and a very crisp sharp picture. This TV actually shows better than the current samsung models. The Tv is sexy and more reliable than samsung LCDs.

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Summary: When visiting Japan, we went to a large electronics store. The whole back wall was covered with LCD and Plasma TV's of many different brands and screen sizes up ...

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Summary: When visiting Japan, we went to a large electronics store. The whole back wall was covered with LCD and Plasma TV's of many different brands and screen sizes up to 65 inches. They were showing the same signal/program on all the TV's. I always came back to the Sony KDL-40V3000 for the best picture .

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Summary: I was sold on a 40" Samsung 1080p until I saw this one. After much research and thought, I went with Sony and I am not at all sorry. This ...

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Summary: I was sold on a 40" Samsung 1080p until I saw this one. After much research and thought, I went with Sony and I am not at all sorry. This TV has the most vivid and sharp colors of any set in this price range. And it's a very user freindly set, easy to set up. Works wonderfully with games and Blu-ray. Highly recommended.

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