Sony KV-32HS420 32-Inch FD Trinitron WEGA HD-Ready CRT TV Review

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(More customer reviews)I have spent the last two years looking at HDTV capable TVs. The technology is changing and the prices are dropping so much that you could literally spend thousands of dollars today and several months later you might see a better TV with a newer technology for a much lower price than what you just paid. Beyond the fact that the newest equipment is becoming yesterday's technology every few months, you also have to practically be a digital video display scientist to understand all these latest technologies. If you don't believe me then go ahead and try asking some questions at your favorite electronics and TV store and you will understand what I mean. What is an HDMI interface ? How is it different from a DVI interface ? What is 3:2 reverse pull down ? Can I watch SDTV (standard definition or NTSC standard) on a wide-screen HDTV ? Your mind will spin and you will become more confused as the questions go on and on as you realize that buying a TV has become a full time job in itself. To complicate things even worse is that the television stations, cable TV providers, and satellite TV companies keep delaying or changing their minds about how they want to offer HDTV. Do you want to pay extra for HD digital cable or satellite or are you happy with the limited but free over the air HD broadcasts ? Do you need a DVR ( digital video recorder) for HD ? Does your DVR support MPEG4 compression ? Get ready to spend $500-$1000 on the latest HDTV DVR receiver for your cable or satellite company only to have it become obsolete in a year or two. I do not want to write a technical essay on the details of what all this stuff means because after two years of studying it myself I am just beginning understand all this HDTV video mumbo jumbo.
The fact is that I became tired of waiting for HDTV broadcasts to take over, for the prices to drop, and for the confusion to end. I wanted a TV to replace my eighteen year old 27" Sony Trinitron which still works but its picture image quality is beginning to show its age.There are problems with most of the big screen HDTV technologies out there. Plasma TVs don't last, LCDs have poor contrast and ghosting, DLPs have the rainbow effect, LCoS (or JVC's D-ILA) is good but its very new and still too expensive. I want a high quality wide screen HDTV but I could not justify investing $3000 or more on becoming a beta tester for the latest technology while all these companies attempt to bring an HDTV to the market at an acceptable price.
This Sony KV-32HS420 32" HD-Ready TV was the answer to my two year HDTV shopping dillema. You can buy one of these impressive TV's for under $1000 or even as low as the $800 plus range if you look hard and work your salesman for a deal. The image quality is great for standard definition, great for high definition, it will display HDTV wide-screen signals with an approximate size of 28" diagonal image width (with the more acceptably annoying black bars above and below the picture image), it has a variety of inputs including one standard only, three S-Video with standard, two component video, and the latest digital HDMI output. It even has audio video outputs for your amplifier. On the video side it has 3D Digital comb filtering, Sony's Digital Reality Creation processors, progressive scan and 3:2 reverse pull-down technologies. What all this means is that you are able to view your SDTV where 90% of the programming is in normal 4:3 aspect ratio but with Sony's state of the art digital image enhancement processing, HDTV (with an add on HDTV digital receiver) and DVDs in 16:9 wide-screen mode, with most of the inputs and outputs you need to hook up your favorite DVD player, VCR, video games, cable and satellite box, etc. The picture quality is excellent and depends on your source. I recommend you use at least an s-video or component video cable to transfer the SDTV (NTSC) signal to the TV. As you would for any newer HDTV you buy expect to spend at least $150 for higher quality cables (monster cable is a good brand) although they are worth it.
There are some negatives to this TV. It's a big, heavy, bulky, older tube technology that we are all familiar with. It takes two strong men to move the entire 165 lbs. but its balanced well and lifting it was actually much easier than I expected. On the positive note this state of the art tube technology with all the latest Sony enhancements make your image near or sometimes even better than the $3000 plasma, LCD, DLP, and other newer technology TVs at less than one third of the price. If you can put up with the negatives this is the best 32" SDTV 4:3 aspect ratio picture with HDTV capability for under $1000 that you have ever seen.
PROS: Excellent picture quality for both standard definition TV (SDTV or NTSC), DVD, and for high definition broadcasts (HDTV with a needed HDTV receiver). A variety of inputs and outputs including the newest and most flexible HD digital input called HDMI. Great for playing Sony PS2, XBox, and GameCube video games in higher definition modes. A great value for the money compared to other HDTV solutions. Save your extra money for when the very large big flat screen HDTVs drop in price, really improve in quality, and the widescreen HDTV channels are the norm.
CONS: Heavy, bulky, difficult to move, a big strong TV stand is needed, uses more power while in use than more expensive flat screen HDTVs. Smaller viewable picture than most larger wide-screen HDTVs. Displays wide-screen with the familiar black bars in a slightly smaller size than a 30" wide-screen HDTV. You must purchase a separate over the air HDTV receiver or get an extra HDTV compatible box from your cable or satellite company to view HDTV broadcasts. Compared to the excellent picture image quality the sound of the dual ten watt stereo speakers is of a very moderate quality.
RECOMMENDATIONS: Besides its size an weight issues there are a number of other lesser annoyances that you run into with while setting up this TV such as a limited preferences menu compared to Sony's XBR series of TVs and a curved front top surface prevents you from being able to place a center channel speaker or cable box on top of the TV. If you are used to a smaller screen size and you currently have a bad NTSC signal or poor image quality you will see more distortion from a bad image source and it will be enhanced on this or any other larger screen television. I have a standard definition Dish Satellite w/DVR box with a Monster Cable 3 brand of S-Video cable and the image quality is excellent. You will also want to spend a few hours reading the manual and adjusting your brightness, sharpness, color levels, digital reality creation settings, etc. Test out using the different DRC Progressive, DRC Cinemotion, and Clear Edge modes to your liking. If you are using a satellite or digital cable TV service in standard definition use very high quality video S-Video or for DVDs or HDTV sources use component video interconnects between the receiver and this TV. I recommend the Monster Video 3, Z-300, Professional M series or an equivalent very high quality brand. This Sony TV shows the smallest details from your source signal including any signal interference distortion or artifacts that you never noticed before on your TV of a lesser image quality. For example if you happen to see a trail of square block image artifacts around any object that moves it may actually be an effect from the original digital video signal decompression process in your source signal. Properly setting the DRC modes such as Clear Edge and Progressive modes and using high quality cable interconnects can minimize this undesired effect. Give yourself a few days to adjust to the larger image of this TV and for the tube electronics to warm up and adjust to your particular signal source. You will find that the stereo sound quality is not great but not terrible and ultimately you may want a better external sound system to go along with that clear and sharp Sony Trinitron picture. If you have already committed to going with HDTV wide-screen programming and you don't mind spending $1500 or more then I recommend Sony's wide screen HDTV XBR series and for the larger flat screen HDTV technologies take a look at the reasonably priced JVC D-ILA, Mitsubishi DLP, or the more expensive Sharp Aquos LCD.
The Bottom Line: Compared to the best of the expensive big wide screen HDTVs or the Sony XBR series of tube HDTVs I would give it Four Stars. But with all things considered I give it Five Stars since for under $1000 no other current television can come close to the combined SDTV and HDTV picture quality and the viewing flexibility in the normal 4:3 or widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio of this " Best of All Worlds " Sony 32" HDTV Ready television.

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Deftly balancing size, features, quality, style, and price, Sony's high-definition-ready KV-32HS420 32-inch FD (flat display) Trinitron WEGA television is a technical marvel. The set offers analog and digital high-definition inputs, great audio features, and a suite of picture-enhancing technologies. Whether you're watching VHS tapes, DVDs, or high-definition (480p, 720p, 1080i) broadcasts, your programs will look breathtakingly good.The set's standard 4:3 aspect ratio, Hi-Scan 1080i display, and picture-improvement circuitry let you view a mix of source signals at high resolutions, up to 1080i. DRC--Digital Reality Creation MultiFunction circuitry--upconverts standard interlaced (480i) video sources to 960i or progressive-scan 480p, while inputs as high-quality as 720p (720 lines, progressively scanned) are upsampled to full 1080i. Because DRC processes video signals in real time, it creates an image with 4 times the density of the original signal.Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p and 720p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional DVD picture, giving you higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts. The set's auto 16:9 enhanced mode detects anamorphically encoded widescreen program sources and offers full picture resolution on the video program, wasting none of its usable lines of resolution on the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.The KV-32HS420's high-voltage regulator maintains consistent image size, despite variations in brightness during scene changes and channel changes, while magnetic quadra-pole technology reduces "beam spot" distortion and improves corner-to-corner focus and picture sharpness.ClearEdge VM wideband velocity modulation improves the definition at picture edges, creating sharper images by slowing the CRT (cathode-ray tube) beam's horizontal scanning during demanding work--say, when rendering transitions from light to dark parts of an image--and speeding it up when scanning easily rendered sections, like broad dark areas. The set's 3D digital comb filter compares each horizontal scanning line with the lines above and below it, as well as with the corresponding lines on previous and subsequent video frames. This results in higher horizontal resolution, higher vertical resolution, and reduced video noise.The KV-32HS420 also employs CineMotion Reverse 3-2 PullDown technology (often called 3:2 pulldown), a handy feature for watching progressive-scan movies in their native 24-frame format. Digital video mastering introduces a common distortion when adjusting 24 frames-per-second movies to 30 fps video; 3:2 pulldown digitally corrects this distortion, removing the redundant information to display a film-frame-accurate picture.Finally, Dynamic Focus circuitry automatically adjusts the picture during each scanning line for consistent corner-to-corner sharpness.Two high-definition component-video inputs grant optimum connection with a DTV decoder and progressive-scan DVD player, while standard composite- and S-video inputs accommodate all DVD players. The set's HDMI interface provides a digital connection with your DTV receiver. HDMI supports standard-definition (SD), enhanced definition (ED), or high-definition (HD) video, plus multi-channel digital audio--all using a single cable.Choose between rear AV inputs and a set of front AV inputs for extra convenience. A rear AV output offers a switchable fixed- and variable-level analog audio output for hookup with a surround receiver or integrated amplifier.The set features stereo speakers (with 10 watts per channel) and BBE sound enhancement. You can label the set's video inputs and channels for easy selection. If you don't have Dolby Pro Logic processing or a surround speaker system, the TV's SRS TruSurround will simulate surround sound through any 2 speakers.Other video technologies include auto white balance, Dynamic Picture Processor circuitry, Trinitone color temperature control, and vertical aperture compensation. An optional accessory for the set is the Sony audio/video cabinet SU-32HX1.What's in the Box TV, remote control (RM-Y197), 2 AA batteries, a user's manual, warranty information.

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