Test Report: Sony Bravia XBR-55HX929 3D LCD HDTV Page 2

Setup

The HX929 has a number of “Scene” presets with settings configured for specific applications (Cinema, Game, etc.). But accessing these through the TV’s somewhat busy menu structure can be time-consuming. A better choice is to click the Options button on the remote, which calls up a list of menu shortcuts, including ones that take you straight to the Scene and Picture Settings submenus.

I carried out picture tweaks in Custom mode, which provides a white balance menu with high and low adjustments and a gamma slider, but no color management menu. Other key options in Custom include LED Dynamic Control, which turns local dimming on/off (I set this to Standard), and Motionflow, which sets the level of motion interpolation (used to maintain picture resolution in fast-motion scenes and eliminate judder from film-based sources).

After making some minor tweaks to the set’s slightly warm white balance, I was ready to go. The set’s color points were very accurate out of the box, so its lack of a color management menu didn’t prove to be a problem. And its Gamma closely tracked the 2.2 target throughout the entire brightness range with the Custom mode’s default setting enabled. After experimenting with the Motionflow feature, I found that the Standard mode (which effectively increased resolution on motion test patterns, although not as much as with the Clear and Clear Plus modes) introduced only a subtle “video look” to pictures; most viewers probably wouldn’t notice the effect. Even so, I opted to leave it off for 2D viewing.

Things went a bit differently during 3D setup. After making picture adjustments, once again in Custom mode (there’s a separate memory for 3D adjustments), I noted a high degree of flicker, especially on images with bright backgrounds. The only way to get rid of it was to switch on Standard or Smooth in Motionflow, so I ran with the Standard setting. There are a few 3D-specific settings that you can choose, including 3D depth and glasses brightness, although I found the set’s 3D picture to be acceptable without mucking with those.

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