LCD TV Reviews

Unit-to-unit sample variations, the viewing environment, and the source might render these recommendations less than optimum. They are provided only as a potentially useful starting place.

The settings here that are most likely to translate reliably from one sample to another are those involving specific features with only a few setting options, such as Color Gamut, Gamma, and Noise Reduction. The ones most likely to be subject to sample variations are video controls offering a wide range of settings. This will be particularly true for color temperature, white balance, and color management adjustments (where available).

We strongly recommend that you find the optimum basic video settings for your sample by using one of the many display setup DVDs that are available, such as Digital Video Essentials (DVD) or DVE HD Basics (Blu-ray). A full calibration, particularly of the gray scale and color gamut, is best left to a trained and properly equipped technician such as those certified by the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) or THX.

	2D	3D
Picture Mode	Cinema 1	Cinema 1
Scene Select	Cinema	Cinema /td>
Backlight	2	Max (fixed)
Picture	90	90
Brightness:	51	50
Color	55	44
Hue	0	0
Color Temperature	Warm 2	Warm 2
Sharpness	10 (see text)	10 (see text)
Noise Reduction	Off	Off
MPEG Noise Reduction	Off	Off
Dot Noise Reduction	Off	Off
Smooth Gradation	Off	N/A
Reality Creation	Manual	Manual
Video Area Detection	Off	Off
Resolution	10	10
Noise Filtering	0	0
Motion Flow	Off	Off
CineMotion	Auto 1	Auto 1
ADVANCED SETTINGS
Black Corrector	Off	Off
Advanced Contrast Enhancer	Off	Low
Gamma	0 or +1	0
LED Dynamic Control	Standard	Standard
Auto Light Limiter	Off	N/A
Clear White	Off	Off
Live Color	Off	Off
White Balance
Red Gain	0	–8
Green Gain	0	–10
Blue Gain	–1	0
Red Bias	–1	–2
Green Bias	–1	0
Blue Bias	+1	–1
Detail Enhancer	Off	Off
Edge Enhancer	Off	Off
Skin Naturalizer	---	---
i/p Conversion Preference	---	---
Screen Display Area	Full Pixel	Full Pixel
3D Settings	All Default
Ambient Sensor	Off	Off
Pro Picture
HDMI Dynamic Range	Auto	Auto
Color Matrix	Auto	Auto
SBM	On	On

Addendum
During our final review fact-check with Sony and after we no longer had access to our test sample of the XBR-84X900, Sony suggested different global Sharpness and Reality Creation control settings that they say would have yielded a crisper image with 480i content and better addressed the softness with 480i/p programming that we observed in our review. Unfortunately, we were not able to experiment with these settings, but they are shown below. Sony did acknowledge that the jaggies we detected on both HD and SD video—an interlacing artifact—were endemic to the set.

Cinema 1 Picture Mode for HD 1080i Content

Sharpness: 50

Reality Creation: Manual

Resolution: 5

Cinema 1 Picture Mode for SD 480i Content

Sharpness: 50

Reality Creation: Manual

Resolution: Min