Sony Bravia KDL-40XBR4

Summary: I have spent months trying to find a great set, and purchased this one about a week ago. I had first gone in to Circuit City for one of the ...

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Summary: I have spent months trying to find a great set, and purchased this one about a week ago. I had first gone in to Circuit City for one of the top models from Consumer Reports (Sharp or Sony), but saw a 46" Samsung right next to them that clearly had better contrast, detail, speed, etc. I took that one home, and returned it the next day. It couldn't handle blacks, shadows, speed, and was too big for the room, so in standard def, every pixel seemed to be visible.

I then spent four hours at Circuit City--I am not a professional user, so all I can rely on is my eyes. I looked at the Sony 3000 line, and was impressed. The sales guy also had an XBR4 about to be unpacked, and offered to set it up next to the Sharp, Sony XBR2 and Samsung, among others. We also tested a normal HDMI Panasonic DVD player, the Panasonic Blu-Ray player, and the Sony Blu-Ray player. The test disc was disc one of the Planet Earth series, using the "Pole to Pole" episode. Notably, we used the "bird scene" where there are thousands of birds flying on the screen at once to test speed/refresh; and the scene where the earth is viewed from space, with the lower left portion in darkness, the upper right portion in daylight, and as the earth revolves, the blackness in the lower left fades away to daylight.

On all previous models, the bird scene was too much. The sets quickly lost track of the birds and became a mass of black and white blocks. The XBR did a much better job, but still lost track a bit in the middle of the scene--by the end, though, you could once again make out individual birds.

On the black-fading-to-daylight scene, the Samsung in particular had so much problem that you couldn't even tell what was going on in the scene (not sure what the right word is to describe this, but instead of a gradual gradient from black to grey, there are big bands or puddles of one color, followed by another, and still another--almost like the set only has a few shades of grey, and can only assign portions of the screen one color at a time). Here again, the XBR4 did a much better job, but I could still see bands of greys as the black got lighter and lighter--they were, however, much smaller and less noticeable than on all the other sets.

Regarding the different players, this was a real eye-opener. We tested all of them on the XBR4. On the Sony BR, anytime a scene had fast vertical action, there were VERY noticeable horizontal lines across small parts of the scene (hands, feet, etc.) At first, I thought this was from the set, but we tried the Panasonic BR next, and the picture was perfect on that one, so it was clearly the Sony player that was at fault. Since the format of the Planet Earth disc is 480p, I expected that the normal Panasonic DVD player via HDMI would produce an identical picture as the BR players. Boy was I wrong. All I can say is that switching from the BR to the standard player was like switching from high-def to low-def TV. I'm not sure what the BR players do to a normal DVD, but the difference was remarkable, and I spent the extra $$ on the BR player. BR movies obviously look amazing, though even they are not without problems.

Since I got the XBR4 home, I have intentionally watched a variety of sources, with comments following.

Standard def: This is decent overall, but pixels/blocks are noticeable in most programs. Low light scenes (X-files, for example) tend to have a green halo around everything white, and adjusting color can't work this out.

High def TV: Incredible for the most part. Very fast motion (a scene of ripples on a river, a panning satellite view of a city, etc.) turns to a bunch of black and white blocks/squares, but it has to be pretty fast before this happens. I've seen this about three times in a week now.

DVDs: Very nice, and better than in a standard DVD player if played on a Blu-Ray player.

BR discs: Stunning at their best, great in most scenes. Dimly lit scenes (inside the Black Pearl, etc.) tend to be yellowish.

For me, the lack of HD content on DirecTV and Comcast is a bit of a problem--I want lots of HD to justify the price of this set. DirecTV still promises 150+ HD channels by the end of the year...

The bottom line on this set is that it is amazing for HD content, and DVDs/BR discs. For standard definition, I'd still prefer an old tube TV or tube HDTV. So if the flood of HD content comes soon, I'll be a happy camper. If you mainly watch standard def or don't have access to a bunch of HD sources, this set is a decent option if you don't sit too close, so the pixels can blend a bit.

Without any doubt, it has the best overall performance of the LCDs I've looked at so far, hands down.

I paid $2600 for the set at Circuit City, and $499 for the Panasonic BR player. I upgraded my DirecTV receiver to the HD-DVR model, currently $200 on the DirecTV website, for $200 at Circuit City as well.

Hope this helps you out.

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Summary: Hi,

I've had this tv for about 3 weeks now. I love it. As I said the color, sound sharpness and black levels are great. I've looked in

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Summary: Hi,

I've had this tv for about 3 weeks now. I love it. As I said the color, sound sharpness and black levels are great. I've looked in the stores and this is the best set I've come up with. Old dvd's work great also. However I have some bad news but a I invented a work around

Upon reading up on the blogs It says that there is a de interlacing problem in vivid mode. It's really not that terrible but I notice it. You can see it in a basket basket ball game or a movie in 1080I mode comming from a cable box.

To confirm this I went to my Blue Ray DVD player and programed the player to think the tv was only 480p so the tv would have to up convert (instead of the player) That worked out pretty good.

I then programed the player to think the tv was 1080I again so I can use the TV's convertor instead of the blue ray players converter. This is when I saw the problem. It was distored. (from interlace to progressive) After spending 2200 I was a little upset. I called sony and I also spoke to a tech on line of course they denied the issue.

Per the blogs I saw the test only failed in vivid mode So I put the mode onto custom and adjusted the controlls to look like vivid and There is no distortion anymore and I'm happy.

I hope sony admits this problem and comes out with a fix.

Again I've seen scores from other set's other tv's have problems with black levels, non accurate colors and other things so I guess it's the nature of the beast.

The fact I found a work around made me feel a lot better and now I can enjoy tv (with expected limitations) as much as my 1080p blue ray

Again in the store to me this still looked like the best set

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Summary: This is Sony's top of the Bravia line as an XBR set. It is an upgrade to the previous 2/3 series.

The main advantages is the advanced color

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Summary: This is Sony's top of the Bravia line as an XBR set. It is an upgrade to the previous 2/3 series.

The main advantages is the advanced color palette and Motionflow, Sony's name for its 120Hz refresh rate to give movies and animation better tracking movement. It's got loads of inputs (3 HDMI, 2 component, 3 composite).

The styling of this set is even better than the XBR2, its predecessor. That set sported a grey bezel, while this one is striking black.

Main disadvantage is that for all the included bells-and-whistles as Sony's top of the line, there is no PIP (Picture-in-Picture) two-tuner system that lets you watch two programs at once (think sports!).

Other drawback is its price. For nearly $2800, the competition offers a set for $400 or more less than the KDL-40XBR4.

All in all, a great TV, especially an improvement over the last series if you can not let the price be an obstacle.

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Summary: Just hook my up 40xbr to standard comcast basic cable haven't upgrade to highdef package but what ive seen on standard cable looks really clean except for a few ...

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Summary: Just hook my up 40xbr to standard comcast basic cable haven't upgrade to highdef package but what ive seen on standard cable looks really clean except for a few channels I'm sure the high def will be amazing...I played hbo's rome on old dvd player it looked great ...as I said before all the highdef upgrades will be awesom I'm sure...I found the tv easy to setup.. remote control was easy to use having an older sony crt the remote was simualar ...one thing that I did notice and the service manual talks about you can hear a small fan running in the tv for cooling purposes only noticeable when the volume is low on the tv....also for those people wondering what size to get this was an issue for me ..I sit 6 1/2
to 7 feet away...I thought the tv looked huge when i first set it up...now I 'm getting use to it the 46" would have been to big.... I was also was looking at the samsung lnt 71 series tv.the picture looked great but they placed there speakers in back of the tv ...the quality and sytle bar none is sony..I'm glad I purchased the 40xbr4....there are deals out there haggle with your sales man

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Summary: We chose the XBR4 after reviewing it against other 40 inch LCD televisions and after The Perfect Vision magazine named it the Best LCD television on the market for 2007....

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Summary: We chose the XBR4 after reviewing it against other 40 inch LCD televisions and after The Perfect Vision magazine named it the Best LCD television on the market for 2007.

It's expensive, but we purchased our set for just over $2K and the difference of a few hundred dollars for something we hope to enjoy for several years simply did not factor into the equation and it should not for you.

The 1080P colors are simply amazing. We're not easily impressed with new technology (ok, I still love my iPhone), but this set continues to impress us with its incredibly razor sharp images. Sound is ok but that's not really a negative considering the set is only 3 inches deep. We are waiting for the stand to be delivered so we can select a home theater system to add to it.

I'd like to add that we purchased our set at Anderson's TV in Dublin CA and if you are in the SF area considering this set give them a call. Sales staff was knowledgeable and we just didn't want to purchase this from a 'big box retailer...'

After about a week we still find ourselves surfing through the HD channels just to see the difference between standard and 1080P.

All in all, a great set and for us... the perfect choice.

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Summary: We already owned a KDL-46XBR4 and I wanted another XBR for myself,just a bit smaller.So I bought the 40 inch.I LOVE it !
I could'nt find anything
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Summary: We already owned a KDL-46XBR4 and I wanted another XBR for myself,just a bit smaller.So I bought the 40 inch.I LOVE it !
I could'nt find anything wrong with this tv.I pretty much was able to calibrate it myself and the picture looks sharpand detailed in high definition and in the standard definition digital channel's.Great color and contrast.Thev Stereo sound will knock your sock's off ! This is one classy tv.I'm shocked that the customer's reviewing it here did'nt give it a higher rating.

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Summary: I've read all the complaints on here, as far as the whirring noise, you gotta be really anal to let this bother you. Can you hear it? yes. everytime ...

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Summary: I've read all the complaints on here, as far as the whirring noise, you gotta be really anal to let this bother you. Can you hear it? yes. everytime the volume goes quiet inbetween shows or during scenes, you can here it; however, if you are moving from a low end TV, ot in my case a 19 inch 12 year old bedroom tv to this, you should look to the positives and realize that after you get used to the noise, you will stop realizing its there. I used a tilting bracket for wall install, when you do, do NOT mount the brackets flush against the TV, this will make the tv 4-5 inches lower on the mount. You may have to raise the mounting brackets you attach to the tv itself 4-5 inches above the top of the set to get it to sit correcetly. Other than that, as soon as you turn the set on, you will be impressed. trust me. My girlfriend liked the whirring noise, she was like, "the tv has fans??? Why doesn't the other one have any?" "Because our old one sucks, honey."
As far as the bxr4 and 5 are concerned. Do NOT, repeat NOT buy the xbr5 over the 4. There are no advantages. Furthermore, after you connect everything and put this thing on a wall, you will not want to re-wire anything, trust me on that. The 5 has another hdmi input i think, are youreally going to have all these things hooked up at the same time from a point of necessity? I saved 300 buying the 4 and you should too.

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Summary: Love this TV Sony pulled out all the stops, the motion enhancer is an awesome feature depending on its use. Good news is this feature is fairly easy to turn ...

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Summary: Love this TV Sony pulled out all the stops, the motion enhancer is an awesome feature depending on its use. Good news is this feature is fairly easy to turn off. Remote is a little large for my taste.

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Summary: I bought my first Sony in 1972 and have been happy with others over the years. Yes, they're a little pricey, but the value is there! I was replacing ...

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Summary: I bought my first Sony in 1972 and have been happy with others over the years. Yes, they're a little pricey, but the value is there! I was replacing my 40XBR1 and this model was about 4" wider -- T G it fit in my
home entertainment unit !!

I am having it professionally calibrated and can hardly wait to see what that will do to an already incredible picture ...

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Summary: It's an awesome set, depending upon your signal that you get from your cable provider. Granted, if you don't have the settings correct, you may not get the ...

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Summary: It's an awesome set, depending upon your signal that you get from your cable provider. Granted, if you don't have the settings correct, you may not get the full potential of the TV. Turn on the Montion Enhancement to High, and the Cinemotion to Auto, and your set.

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