Sony KDF-50WE655 50" Grand WEGA LCD Projection TV with Integrated HDTV Tuner

Rating:
Summary: no tv out jacks?
Review: Am I the only one that hooks up the cable box into the VCR/DVD into the tv?

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Summary: incredible
Review: buy sony products. Help the dollar go down and tv prices go up, help Japan!

Rating:
Summary: Buyer Beware
Review: I bought this TV from Circuit City. It lasted for 30 minutes before the bulb burnt-out. Service person couldn't fix for 2 weeks. Circuit City was terrible - wouldn't even refund the delivery charge and I had to lug the TV and stand back to their store. I'll never buy at Circuit City and I'll never buy another Sony product. Buyer beware!

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Summary: NICE TV BUT.....BUT........BUT....NO VIDEO OUTPUTS !
Review: I bought this tv from sears and as noted by another person in this column, the bulb went out in 15 minutes and i also had to take it back to sears to get another one. My biggest concern is that i bought this 2600 dollar tv assuming that since it came from SONY, it must be of the latest technology. well, it is except that it does not have VIDEO OUTPUT. How stupid sony can be that it made such an amazing tv but did not give any video outputs. review product description and you will notice it has all kind of inputs but NO OUTPUT. this is the stupidest blunder sony ever made. If i had known this, i would not have bought this tv. now since my satellite receiver does not have multiple outputs and my vcr just like any other vcr's does not have s-video inputs,it is truly a puzzle to figure out what i do to be able to record some tv programs or satellite tv cable programs to my vcr. dont buy this tv if you want to record anything as it might get really complicated since this tv has no video outputs.

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Summary: Looked great in the store, but.....
Review: I must admit I am only an amature when it comes to this stuff, but both myself and my son noticed that even though the picture colour and image quality were great, turn the lights out and the whole thing gets washed with internal ambient light. Try as we might, we could not get the black pitch to a suitable level. We are considering trading it in for something else. When an HD source was used, it was awesome. So, even though the set has everything we could possibly want, that one thing just annoyed me to no end.

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Summary: What does an LCD HD monitor look like without HD signals...
Review: I'd like to start this review with a disclaimer. I am very happy with the TV. It works exactly the way it's supposed to. Problem is, nobody who sells the thing tells you how it's SUPPOSED to work.

When you are looking at these things in the store, notice that there is always a DVD playing, or they have the set turned to Discovery HD Theater. There is a reason for this. An LCD HD monitor that is showing a regular (I think analog) or even a digital signal will not show well. The picture quality is lower than that of a regular CRT TV in these cases due to the extreme pixelation of the image.

However, if you position the TV correctly in your viewing space, some of this will be aleviated. For a 50 inch TV, you should sit back between 10-15 feet from the screen. From that far, you really won't see the pixels, so it won't bother you. (You can definitely tell the difference between HD and non-HD from this disctance still). This viewing disctance is what the manufacturers tell you to do. Do not buy this TV and sit 8 feet away and expect to be happy with it.

I say all this not to harp on Sony. THEIR PRODUCT WORKS JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE'S LCD!!! You should know this because currenlty only 10-15 channels are broadcast in HD depending on your vendor and region. Therefore - if you have 150 channels, 90% will not be in HD, so the majority of your viewing will be pixelated.

OK - all that said - it's a great TV. All the pro's have already been discussed - so I won't go there.

Rating:
Summary: Ours broke in 6 days
Review: My wife and mother-in-law purchased our TV on the net. It stopped working after only 6 days. Sony sent a local repair shop to try to fix the set and he was unable to find out what was the problem. We asked the repairman how we should deal with the situation and the first thing he said was he wouldn't have bought a Sony in the first place, the repairman would have bought a Mitsubishi. We have contacted Sony and the internet retailer several time and we have not been able to have the problem resolved. Luckily our charge card company reversed the payment. The TV had good picture and sound until it broke but the customer service from Sony is the worst. Be careful buying large high ticket items off the Net that will be hard or impossible to return. The cross country freight for this TV is $250.00

Rating:
Summary: Incredible picture
Review: This is the best 50" I've seen at any price. A previous reviewer complained that the bulb blew after 30 min. Well, This happens sometimes. I've had light bulbs blow that fast. All he had to do was go to Circuit City and get another. He then could have installed it himself, an easy chore. To return a TV because the buld went is simply foolish.

Update:

I wrote the above based on what I saw in the store. I now have had this TV for one week and Still think it's great. This tv converts standard signals to HDTV like resolution which works very well. The standard signals are the best I've ever seen, very HDTV like. Some people complain that LCD TV's don't produce deep blacks well. This may bother some but I don't notice it at all. The TV, while not flat, is only 17" thick and weighs only 83 lbs. It has built in hand holds so 2 people han easily pick it up and carry it around. It has more inputs than I'll ever need (8 components). Thre are optical and coaxial digital outs for surround sound. I couldn't be more satisfied. For $2700 at Circuit City I consider this a bargain.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent picture in every way except black level and 480p
Review: This TV is capable of astounding IMAX-like pictures when viewing a good HDTV signal. Has very good 480i/NTSC up-conversion but only so-so at 480p. That's because the advanced video processing menu option is only available for 480i and NTSC, not 480p (progressive). As a consequence the TV does a really amazing job at up-converting ordinary analog tv signals and 480i DVD output. But 480p component/DVI DVD is NOT as good as 480i component DVD, at least with my Denon 1910. The sony's 480i up-converter even has an edge over the Denon's 720p and 1080i internal DVI up-converters. Too bad you can't get 480i over DVI.

As others have noted, black level is mediocre. The screen puts out a glow during dark scenes that can't be adjusted away. You don't really notice it in a brightly lit room. But in a dark room it is very much apparent. Before buying, judge for yourself by playing Harry Potter 3 or other dark movie in a dark room. Turning on the DVD player's black level boost can help separate dark scenes from the background glow without compromising normally lit scenes.

After about a month, I got use to the glow and don't really notice it except during extended, very dark scenes.