Thomas J. Norton

Sort By: Post Date | Title | Publish Date
CEDIA 2013
Sony Introduces 4K Projectors
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 26, 2013  |  0 comments
The VPL-VW600ES SXRD projector is Sony’s latest 4k home theater projector. It offers a full 4096 x 2160 resolution, a claimed peak brightness of 1700 ANSI lumens, and a stated 200,000:1 contrast ratio (with Sony’s dynamic Advanced Iris 3). Its HDMI 2.0 inputs will accept 4K sources at up to 60 frames per second.
Continue Reading >
Audio Video News
Sony is First in Line
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 16, 2005  |  0 comments

Spring is traditionally the season when major consumer electronics manufacturers hold their annual line shows, showing new products that will be introduced during the year. With a late winter snowstorm raging in the northeast, Sony held their 2005 get-together in warm, sunny Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 8.

Continue Reading >
TV ReviewsLCD TV Reviews
Sony KDL-55HX850 3D LCD HDTV
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 28, 2012  |  4 comments

2D Performance
3D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
Price: $2,600 At A Glance: Deep, uniform blacks • Superb out-of-the-box color and crisp detail • Head-tilt 3D crosstalk

The most popular, current approach to designing an LCD HDTV with LED lighting is to position the LEDs around the periphery of the screen and rely on diffusors to spread the light out uniformly. Sometimes (but not always) the brightness of the LEDs is also altered dynamically to help the LCD pixels create deep blacks, where needed.

Continue Reading >
TV ReviewsLCD TV Reviews
Sony KDL-55W900A 3D LCD HDTV
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jun 07, 2013  |  0 comments

2D Performance
3D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
Price: $3,300 At A Glance: Rich black level and good shadow detail • New color technology • Bright, punchy 3D

The new KDL-55W900A is Sony’s newest, top-of-the-line, non-XBR set. All of the XBRs, going forward, will be Ultra HD (4K) sets, but the KDL-55W900A, as all of the KDL designs, is firmly in the standard HD, 1920 x 1080 camp. It’s an edge-lit design with local dimming, but its marquee feature has nothing to do with contrast and black levels. Color is the plot here, and Triluminos, a term Sony has used in the past (see sidebar), promises a wider color gamut.

Continue Reading >
LCD TV ReviewsTV Reviews
Sony KDL-65W850A 3D HDTV
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 07, 2014  |  1 comments

2D Performance
3D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $3,300

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Excellent color and resolution
Good blacks and shadow detail
Satisfyingly bright 3D
Minus
Typical LCD off-axis limitations
Minor 3D flicker and ghosting

THE VERDICT
It may lack the headline-grabbing, 4K bling-zing of Sony’s XBR Ultra HD designs, but this 65-inch KDL series HDTV sits at the top of the company’s bread-and-butter line and offers more than enough features and performance to satisfy a wide range of buyers.

With all the ink spilled these days about the trendy but expensive Ultra HDTVs, a plain vanilla HDTV, with its resolution of 1920 x 1080, may seem a little ho-hum. But Ultra HD (4K, or more correctly, 3840 x 2160) is still consumer 4K content-starved with its specs not yet fully complete, and the jury is still out as to whether or not it will offer significant benefits in typical home screen sizes. Its price of admission also remains high. As a result, top-of-the-line, non-Ultra HDTVs, such as Sony’s new KDL-65W850A, remain serious players in the high-end video market.

Continue Reading >
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 1920x1080 SXRD RPTV
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 29, 2007  |  0 comments

Several years ago a major television manufacturer attempted to market an 80-inch rear projection TV. I first saw it, if I recall correctly, at our annual Home Entertainment show, then still known as the <I>Stereophile</I> show. Yes, this is a shameless plug&mdash; <A HREF="http://www.homeentertainment-expo.com/">HE 2007</A> is coming up in New York City on May 11-13!

Continue Reading >
Sony KP-57XBR10W rear-projection television
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 29, 2001  |  0 comments

The slow march toward that new digital broadcast standard has brought us a small but rapidly swelling flow of new DTV widescreen televisions&mdash;far better sets than anything the average consumer has ever seen before. These TVs are still very much high-end products, but despite their cost, sales are increasing at a steady rate.

Continue Reading >
CEDIA 2017
Sony Projects True 4K and Teams With Kaleidescape
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 06, 2017  |  0 comments
s CEDIA drew close to its September 7, 2017 opening, Sony announced three new full 4K/UHD projectors with a native resolution of 4096 x 2160. This is the resolution of Sony’s 4K SXRD imaging chips. Pro 4K projectors have a 4K resolution of 4096 x 2160, whereas consumer 4K uses 3840 x 2160. There are several ways of handling the difference between these two resolutions when displaying consumer 4K sources. The ideal approach, which involves no added processing to generate potential artifacts, is to simply leave a blank sliver of about 125 pixels at each side of the screen.

All three of the new projectors can accommodate high dynamic range in either the HDR10 or HLG formats...

Continue Reading >
Projector Reviews
Sony QUALIA 004 SXRD video projector
Thomas J. Norton  |  May 30, 2004  |  0 comments

When Sony announced the development of a new home video projector last spring, the buzz began. Would it be the fabled Grating Light Valve technology, which the company is known to be working on? Would it be LCD, DLP, or LCoS? Would it be something completely new?

Continue Reading >
A/V Veteran
Sony Quiets the Noise
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 06, 2017  |  0 comments
Sony brought along part of an airplane interior to the show. Well, not really, but they used this mock up to demonstrate the effectiveness of their MDR-1000X noise canceling headphones...
Continue Reading >

Pages

X