Sony Bravia Vs Pioneer Kuro

[thudabot]

wow 5 sec is still a lot, my lg is only 2 - 3 sec

[Owen]

Again, my only concern is that it is not full HD, but from all to posts this should not be an issue for me at 3-4m

Lack of 1080 is absolutely a NON ISSUE on a 50” at 3 meters plus.

[ben1680]

If you adjust the Pio sharpness for the inbuilt tuner then does that affect sharpness for other inputs (e.g. hdmi)?

Also my Sony V series takes about 4-5 secs to change channels.

As far as I know, Kuro remember settings on each input, so tuner setting will not effect HDMI. HDMI3 will not effect HDMI4, etc...

[ben1680]

I too was tossing up between a 52XBR and a 508XDA. In fact I was 2 days from buying the Sony.

What changed my mind?

My son purchased a Samsung F81 40" LCD.

As soon as he turned it on it had bad clouding issues which have improved with use

the blacks aren't black, they are a dirty grey!

The 100hz motion flow works well, in some instances too good, as movement does not look natural

It may be my eays but there does not seem to be any depth to the picture, which could explain the cartoon like appearance.

Another one being enlightened, and spot the main weakness of LCD I have Kuro in my living room, and have Dell LCD in my bedroom, and the difference is between night and day. Waiting for OLED tech to replace this LCD...

Sorry, not intended to set a LCD VS Plasma flame war here, both have its own strength and weaknesses. But for me, Plasma contrast, color accuracy, screen uniformity, and no motion blur win over less screen reflectivity and possible higher resolution of LCD. YMMV...

[ben1680]

Lack of 1080 is absolutely a NON ISSUE on a 50” at 3 meters plus.

True.

Play some excellent BluRay transfer, such as BBC Planet Earth. Ask couple of your friend (probably some of them that you know having a sharp eye) to guess the resolution on your 50" Kuro at that distance. Don't tell them the model number, tell them it is probably the most sophisticated plasma available at the moment (this balance their first perception that it might be only 720P, and will make them think it might be 1080p).

Ask them to make educated guess, why they pick 1080p or 720p/768, for example. Bet they won't be able to tell the difference

This way, you make a good deed as well by educationg the community, the truth about TV resolution

[RoninWC]

yeah cheers to you all for the input, i think i agree with you all about the 1080p, i can get a good price on the Kuro so I think the original choice I made still stands with the Kuro and PS3

i now think the reflecting/glaring issue will not be relevant.

brisvegas1 - good to know about the resolution loss with motion esp during sport and gaming.

gaming is a non issue now also as they are all 720p anyway

What do you guys think about pairing the Kuro with the LX60 receiver, i had this question posted in the HT systems thread link I had above

thudabot,

I have the 508XDA paired with the VSX-LX60 and I am very, very happy with the way both are performing. The HDMI control works very sweetly and the two components seems to just work together as though they were built with each other in mind... Oh yeah, that's right, they were. All the Pioneer LX gear was built specifically to match the Kuro panels and the Pio engineers have done an awsome job.

And most importantly, I do like the way the LX60 handles and sounds with music as much as movies, TV, etc.

I also would like to add that my Kuro sits about 3 metres away from a floor to ceiling window and sliding door to the balcony and the light from that doesn't reflect much at all, barely noticable.

Go the 508XDA Kuro, you'll not regret it.

Cheers!

[thudabot]

ronin thats awesome, the pioneer gear certainly look the goods in terms of quality and aesthetics, LX60 has to be one of the sexiest receivers on the market.

I can't wait to get this gear it will be in late January as I'm waiting for the cabinet

[mconnag]

Lack of 1080 is absolutely a NON ISSUE on a 50” at 3 meters plus.

What about the 42" Kuro model - I'd be sitting about 3-4 metres away. Compared to the 46" Bravia, is there a difference between the 720p and 1080p?

[Owen]

What about the 42" Kuro model - I'd be sitting about 3-4 metres away. Compared to the 46" Bravia, is there a difference between the 720p and 1080p?

ROFL not a chance, that’s an even more ridicules scenario then the 50” from 3 meters plus.

42” is WAY too small to need 1080 at 3 meters plus, and the 46” is not much better.

60” should be considered the minimum for effective 1080 viewing at 3 meters, and even that is pushing it. At 4 meters a 60” is way too small.

For your viewing distance you need the biggest display you can afford. A 50” would be preferable to anything smaller, and it does not need to be 1080.

How about the 508XDA Kuro.

[Fallen Angel]

I have to say that I can most certainly see the difference in my D series Sony and my W series Sony but I have never put it to resolution at the distance i watch from the difference i belive is largely that the W series has a different bravia engine and better contrast ratios ( the x and xbr are a step up yet again). Allot of the 1080p models have improved in these area's and in turn are producing better quality images from the tv's.. NOT soley because of resolution though but a combination of advancements which have overall improved PQ in LCD's , so the argument can most certainly be made that 1080p made tv's are better when looking at high Def or True High Def LCD sets however it's not because the tv is 1080p ... it's because of all the other advancements they have added to the TV

Imo though it puts them on Par with allot of plasmas out there , not ahead of them though.

As for Motion Blur , I one by one turned it off on each input , i fiddled around with it for a while with my different choices in veiwing and the most i could take was standard , once it got to high it seemed very artificial in parts to me

Edited December 27, 2007 by Fallen Angel

[aussiebalboa]

Can i get some professional opinions on the Kuro or 52" xbr - I am in an apartment - so i will be sitting directly infront of the tv and no more than 3-4 metres away from the screen. is the 780 vs 1080 going to be noticeable.. i watch alot of dvds/movies/foxtel and if im spending the extra $3000 (once i sell my old lg plasmas for 1 g) i want the quality to be amazing & much better than my current one - beside the extra 8 inchs of screen size"..

dan

[Fallen Angel]

Can i get some professional opinions on the Kuro or 52" xbr - I am in an apartment - so i will be sitting directly infront of the tv and no more than 3-4 metres away from the screen. is the 780 vs 1080 going to be noticeable.. i watch alot of dvds/movies/foxtel and if im spending the extra $3000 (once i sell my old lg plasmas for 1 g) i want the quality to be amazing & much better than my current one - beside the extra 8 inchs of screen size"..

dan

Dan your question has been covered thousands of times on teh forum and also in this thread

From owen :

60†should be considered the minimum for effective 1080 viewing at 3 meters, and even that is pushing it. At 4 meters a 60†is way too small.

For your viewing distance you need the biggest display you can afford. A 50†would be preferable to anything smaller, and it does not need to be 1080.

How about the 508XDA Kuro.

Don't waste your cash on just resolution choices IT"S NOT THE IMPORTANT FACTOR when lookign at overall PQ and enjoyment

Edited December 27, 2007 by Fallen Angel

[Owen]

Exactly, buy the TV you find to have the most appealing picture. Forget about screen resolution, at 3 meters plus for a 50”- 52” it just does not matter.

Have a good long look at the 508XDA Pioneer Kuro. It’s 768 and has it all over the 52” 1080 Sony for picture quality IMHO.

[momaw]

True.

Play some excellent BluRay transfer, such as BBC Planet Earth. Ask couple of your friend (probably some of them that you know having a sharp eye) to guess the resolution on your 50" Kuro at that distance. Don't tell them the model number, tell them it is probably the most sophisticated plasma available at the moment (this balance their first perception that it might be only 720P, and will make them think it might be 1080p).

Ask them to make educated guess, why they pick 1080p or 720p/768, for example. Bet they won't be able to tell the difference

This way, you make a good deed as well by educationg the community, the truth about TV resolution

Don't suppose it matters that Planet Earth was only filmed at 720p or does that mess with your example?

[chronik]

Hey ppls,

This might be slightly off topic. But for some reason I can't post a new topic, dont have permissions and couldnt find any options for paid subscriptions (sorry I am a noob).

Sure this has been done to death. I am also looking at these 2 displays. The Sony 52in X/XBR and the Pioneer 50in LX508 (different to the one mentioned above obviously). The cost and PS3 is no influence on my decisions. I have been umming and arring about TV's for 3yrs but never bought due to other reasons. Anyway. The main reason for deciding my purchase is which will best suit my needs.

I am planning to use this display as my primary TV in the family room and will be connected to a Linux media centre (mythtv) or general daily TV usage off the built in tuner. Occasionally games and movies at night from standard DVD's then blue ray one day. From what I saw shopping today at Myer, JB, Hardly Normal and Big Overpriced People (sorry, bad experiences at both - long story). The Pioneers seem to have the edge in terms of colour in clarity. Both looked amazing with Blue ray demos but I still think the pioneer had the edge in terms of PQ blacks and colours (in my opinion). I also noticed that when watching an american sitcom show (cant recall name - large family man with hat) on channel nine. The Sony was not good at all in terms of PQ and the pioneer was far better. The Sony seemed to look quite fake and 'blocky'. The pioneer wasnt great either (obviously due to the age of the show being played). But the Sony noticably worse. The Sony did not seem to cope as well with resolutions outside of its native. I made this comparison at 2 stores with different channels/show (eg. 2nd store was channel 10 HD) and came to this conclusion. Viewing distances were the same in both instances. Obviously there can be many influences, but I can only go by what I see.

Anyhow. If it came down to PQ I would go the Pioneer, both have similar feature sets and price I was quoted (minus the PS3 of course). My main concern is the usage. Are Plasmas good for media centre applications, gaming Console and 'still' pictures in terms of burn in? Are they over the excessive power consumption and burn in issues that plagued them in the past? This is pretty much the only thing stopping me from getting the Pioneer, I have no doubt the Sony LCD can handle this usage/environnment.

Thoughts anyone?

[aussiebalboa]

chronik. 2 more posts and you can start your own topic..need 5 to get going.

1. i agree on thepioneer over sony. my bro just bought one. if you are doing mostly gaming= spny is the go...lcd is awesome. but for tv and dvd - go plasma.

Hey ppls,

This might be slightly off topic. But for some reason I can't post a new topic, dont have permissions and couldnt find any options for paid subscriptions (sorry I am a noob).

Sure this has been done to death. I am also looking at these 2 displays. The Sony 52in X/XBR and the Pioneer 50in LX508 (different to the one mentioned above obviously). The cost and PS3 is no influence on my decisions. I have been umming and arring about TV's for 3yrs but never bought due to other reasons. Anyway. The main reason for deciding my purchase is which will best suit my needs.

I am planning to use this display as my primary TV in the family room and will be connected to a Linux media centre (mythtv) or general daily TV usage off the built in tuner. Occasionally games and movies at night from standard DVD's then blue ray one day. From what I saw shopping today at Myer, JB, Hardly Normal and Big Overpriced People (sorry, bad experiences at both - long story). The Pioneers seem to have the edge in terms of colour in clarity. Both looked amazing with Blue ray demos but I still think the pioneer had the edge in terms of PQ blacks and colours (in my opinion). I also noticed that when watching an american sitcom show (cant recall name - large family man with hat) on channel nine. The Sony was not good at all in terms of PQ and the pioneer was far better. The Sony seemed to look quite fake and 'blocky'. The pioneer wasnt great either (obviously due to the age of the show being played). But the Sony noticably worse. The Sony did not seem to cope as well with resolutions outside of its native. I made this comparison at 2 stores with different channels/show (eg. 2nd store was channel 10 HD) and came to this conclusion. Viewing distances were the same in both instances. Obviously there can be many influences, but I can only go by what I see.

Anyhow. If it came down to PQ I would go the Pioneer, both have similar feature sets and price I was quoted (minus the PS3 of course). My main concern is the usage. Are Plasmas good for media centre applications, gaming Console and 'still' pictures in terms of burn in? Are they over the excessive power consumption and burn in issues that plagued them in the past? This is pretty much the only thing stopping me from getting the Pioneer, I have no doubt the Sony LCD can handle this usage/environnment.

Thoughts anyone?

[Fallen Angel]

Hey ppls,

This might be slightly off topic. But for some reason I can't post a new topic, dont have permissions and couldnt find any options for paid subscriptions (sorry I am a noob).

Sure this has been done to death. I am also looking at these 2 displays. The Sony 52in X/XBR and the Pioneer 50in LX508 (different to the one mentioned above obviously). The cost and PS3 is no influence on my decisions. I have been umming and arring about TV's for 3yrs but never bought due to other reasons. Anyway. The main reason for deciding my purchase is which will best suit my needs.

I am planning to use this display as my primary TV in the family room and will be connected to a Linux media centre (mythtv) or general daily TV usage off the built in tuner. Occasionally games and movies at night from standard DVD's then blue ray one day. From what I saw shopping today at Myer, JB, Hardly Normal and Big Overpriced People (sorry, bad experiences at both - long story). The Pioneers seem to have the edge in terms of colour in clarity. Both looked amazing with Blue ray demos but I still think the pioneer had the edge in terms of PQ blacks and colours (in my opinion). I also noticed that when watching an american sitcom show (cant recall name - large family man with hat) on channel nine. The Sony was not good at all in terms of PQ and the pioneer was far better. The Sony seemed to look quite fake and 'blocky'. The pioneer wasnt great either (obviously due to the age of the show being played). But the Sony noticably worse. The Sony did not seem to cope as well with resolutions outside of its native. I made this comparison at 2 stores with different channels/show (eg. 2nd store was channel 10 HD) and came to this conclusion. Viewing distances were the same in both instances. Obviously there can be many influences, but I can only go by what I see.

Anyhow. If it came down to PQ I would go the Pioneer, both have similar feature sets and price I was quoted (minus the PS3 of course). My main concern is the usage. Are Plasmas good for media centre applications, gaming Console and 'still' pictures in terms of burn in? Are they over the excessive power consumption and burn in issues that plagued them in the past? This is pretty much the only thing stopping me from getting the Pioneer, I have no doubt the Sony LCD can handle this usage/environnment.

Thoughts anyone?

One thing i would say about your choice is that the difference in 720p and 1080p does become allot clearer when your talking text, and small icons ect so if it's going to have a primary use as a pc aswell as a media center then at that size you will want to mabey consider a 1080 over the 720, Not that 720 will be bad , it's just that standard pc text and icons definatly come out much sharper and clearer in 1080p , if however your not goign to use the pc for things like webbrowsing , emails , word processing ( basicly things involving standardly small text) if your purely talking a media center gui like Media Portal , Center Stage , VMC ect the difference is not so big because the standard size of the text used looks very clear on both

u

[Stalker1503561887]

Hey all,

I, like many others it seems, am currently deciding between these two TV's. =D

I was set on the 508xda until Sony started giving away PS3's (which I also have on my wishlist) so I was swung back to the 46XBR (I like the finish of this model).

Anyway, without going into too much more detail I'm looking for a TV that can be viewed comfortably from about 3m away (up to 150 degrees) with living room lighting (E.g halogens), some background reflection present (I.e. windows are behind the viewer) used for viewing 80% FTA TV, 10% Gaming and 10 Movies - mostly std def DVD's. I am also a huge AFL fan, so will not tolerate motion blur.

Bearing this in mind, and taking into account all the info on this site, I am almost certain I should still go the Pioneer. Can anyone confirm. My biggest concern with the sony is that FTA TV would look atrocious.

Any comments welcome.

Ps. I won't be buying until early next year so current pricing is not so much the issue. (Waiting for Kuro under $4k)

Cheers, Brad.

[Owen]

Actually text on a 768 desktop displayed on a 768 screen is just as clear as text on a 1080 desktop displayed on a 1080 screen, its only if you display 1080 on a 768 screen or 768 on a 1080 screen that text becomes less sharp due to loss of 1:1 mapping, which is important for that sort of thing (but not for video).

The big problem with running 1080 on a smallish screen is that small text is too small to read comfortably at a reasonable distance so 768 is often more usable.

PC’s operate just fine with 1024x768 displays and since 1368x768 provides more real estate it is not a problem.

I have my secondary TV, an 86cm is running 1368x768 form a PC and it works just fine for surfing the net and other PC tasks when viewed from 2 meters or less.

I run 1080 on my main display no problem, but a 70” viewed from 3 meters is a very different proposition to a smaller screen at that distance.

Personally I am not a lover of super sharp text on a PC. Apple Mac’s have used a “softer” look for years. Vista has gone the same way and looks better for it IMHO.

[thudabot]

Hey all,

I, like many others it seems, am currently deciding between these two TV's. =D

I was set on the 508xda until Sony started giving away PS3's (which I also have on my wishlist) so I was swung back to the 46XBR (I like the finish of this model).

Anyway, without going into too much more detail I'm looking for a TV that can be viewed comfortably from about 3m away (up to 150 degrees) with living room lighting (E.g halogens), some background reflection present (I.e. windows are behind the viewer) used for viewing 80% FTA TV, 10% Gaming and 10 Movies - mostly std def DVD's. I am also a huge AFL fan, so will not tolerate motion blur.

Bearing this in mind, and taking into account all the info on this site, I am almost certain I should still go the Pioneer. Can anyone confirm. My biggest concern with the sony is that FTA TV would look atrocious.

Any comments welcome.

Ps. I won't be buying until early next year so current pricing is not so much the issue. (Waiting for Kuro under $4k)

Cheers, Brad.

the Kuro is the only way to go in my extensive resesarch and viewing especially for AFL, the sony won't look atrocious but now I find them very artificial with the colours. with that amount of FT, gaming and DVD watching i can't see any other choice that would beat the Kuro. no point getting the sony just because of the free PS3, the Kuro's are dropping in price now anyway. so much so that i'm contemplating the LX508 if i can get a good price.

[Stalker1503561887]

the Kuro is the only way to go in my extensive resesarch and viewing especially for AFL, the sony won't look atrocious but now I find them very artificial with the colours. with that amount of FT, gaming and DVD watching i can't see any other choice that would beat the Kuro. no point getting the sony just because of the free PS3, the Kuro's are dropping in price now anyway. so much so that i'm contemplating the LX508 if i can get a good price.

Great. Thanks for the confirmation. =D Hopefully will get on board a group buy or something in the near future for one of these. Cheers.