SmartHouse Team

Sony’s X-Series Bravia screens represent the pinnacle of its flatscreen LCD aspirations. Does this 46-inch debut live up to the hype?

It took some time, but Sony is finally enjoying the kind of commercial success with its LCD screens that it once had with its Trinitron CRT TVs – thanks to the successful roll-out of its Bravia LCD brand. Now the company is gunning for critical acclaim in the shape of its eagerly-awaited high-end range, the X-series.
The first of these, the flagship KDL-46X2000, complete with state-of-the-art picture-processing technology and ‘Full HD’ 1920×1080 resolution, hit Australian stores in October.

Design
The 46X2000’s design oozes high-tech opulence. The grille-effect silver screen frame is eye-catching, and its impact is heightened by the transparent glass outer frame that has almost become a Sony high-end flat TV trademark.

Connectivity is excellent – it sports one HDMI input able to take 1080p HD signals as well as 1080i/720p. Also a boon is two HD-ready component video inputs. Elsewhere, there’s a D-Sub PC jack, three Scarts (all RGB capable), a CAM slot and even an optical digital audio output for system hook-up.

Features
The set does not incorporate the brand’s latest DRC-MFv2.5 picture enhancing technology, which is able to deliver a 1080p picture from any video source, but does employ a version of the Bravia Engine EX suite of picture tweaks specifically for the extra resolution of the X series. Also onboard the 46X2000 are two key new technologies sported by Sony’s lower-specification S and V Bravia series: Super Vertical Pattern Alignment (SPVA) refracts the angle of the backlight so that the picture retains its integrity over a viewing angle, while a ‘Wide Colour Gamut’ fluorescent backlight enhances the colour range.

The 46X2000’s intuitive onscreen menus are rammed with other, user-accessible features including MPEG block noise reduction; backlight adjustment; horizontal and vertical image shift; a film mode for improving motion-handling with film sources; and an almost infinitely flexible sliding scale adjuster for the potency of the Digital Reality Creation processing.

Performance
With 1080i high-definition from a JVC D-VHS D-Theater deck (which for my money gives more consistent results than the first HD DVD and Blu-ray decks), plus 1080p from a Marantz DV9600 upscaling DVD deck, the Sony’s picture proved jaw-droppingly good.

The 1080 mode typically offers four picture benefits: extra sharpness, less noise, smooth, unjagged contours, and slightly subtler colour toning. And the 46X2000 delivers all these advantages with aplomb.

Its sharpness is particularly remarkable as it became possible to make out the features of faces in the crowd from hundreds of yards away during one scene in a war movie we tested with. The edges of the soldiers’ black hats looked immaculate too, suffering no bright haloes or stepping.

A well-worn D-Theatre tape of Alien, meanwhile, shows the worth of the Wide Colour Gamut technology; the film enjoys an expansive but

natural colour palette, especially where fleshtones are concerned.

This movie also reveals that Sony has made great strides minimising those traditional problems with LCD black levels, as the 46X2000 delivers the darkest corners of deep space with outstanding depth and plenty of that subtle grayscale delineation that gives shadowy areas tangible depth. This makes it an unusually good friend of gloomy Xbox 360 HD games like Prey or Condemned.

Brighter, more colour-rich Xbox HD fare like Kameo, meanwhile, shows off the 46X2000’s outstanding brightness and vibrancy, as well as suffering seemingly zero colour noise.

The only negative thing we can see in the 46X2000’s HD pictures is slight and occasional signs of motion smearing. But, in every other way, the 46X2000 is not only a powerfully persuasive argument for high-resolution LCD, it’s arguably comparable to Pioneer’s stunning 1920×1080 PDP-5000EX plasma display, reviewed on the pages before this.

The 46X2000 is not, however, as successful as the Pioneer at handling standard-definition sources. During the switch down to these, it’s noticeable that the set’s colour tone loses some naturalism, motion smearing increases and noise becomes more pronounced than it does on some of the better 768-line panels out there.

We spotted a couple of small operational niggles during our tests too. First, for some reason, our sample often defaulted to 4:3 mode when switching to an HD source. Second, during Xbox 360 gaming the component-fed signal kept triggering the TV to flash up the ‘1080i resolution’ information bar on the screen. But we would rate neither of these as really serious glitches.

The 46X2000’s audio, sourced from an integrated S-Master digital amplifier, is undeniably accomplished. There’s a vast amount of power on tap, which is put to superb use in combining convincing bass rumbles with clear and natural speech tones and a stunning wealth of harshness-free treble. The TV’s soundstage is engagingly wide too, perfectly matching the scale of its 46-inch pictures.

Conclusion
This X-series debut is a great harbinger of things to come for Sony’s TV division. It’s a pity that the 46X2000’s merely solid standard-definition performance doesn’t stop its performance from feeling like a game of two halves. But then I suspect that its HD talents will be what really matters to its likely target market, and in that respect it’s nothing short of imperious. So X really does mark the spot.

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Sony Bravia KDL-46X2000 |$6999| | www.sony.com.au 
For: Lush design; great pictures; great connectivity
Against: Slight motion smearing; not confident with SD sources
Verdict: A sign of great things to come from Sony

If you are dreaming of a more stylish full HD projector, look no further than the top of the line Dream Bee projector from French maker Dream Vision.

French high-end home cinema specialist Dream Vision has added a new luxury projector to its range. Based around the guts of the JVC DLA-HD1, the three-chip Dream Bee boasts all of the same strengths as the JVC award-winner.

With a native 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, 15,000:1 contrast ratio, 1000ANSI lumens brightness, Gennum VXP video processor and two HDMI inputs, the new projector also features a sleek and stylish new design.

Available in a choice of five finishes (Midnight black, Coconut white, Blue sky, Hibiscus red and Sunflower yellow), the Dream Bee is available in Australia through Synergy Audio-visual.

RRP: $12,995

See: www.synergyaudio.com.au   and www.dreamvision.net

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The Helios HVD2085 is a 1080p up-scaling DVD player with some interesting and unusual features. High-Definition TV owners should be impressed.

Everyone seems to be talking about up-scaling DVD players, thanks to the increasing proliferation of high-definition (HD) displays and the absence as yet of next-generation (true from the source) HD DVD players down under.

Many Asian manufacturers now offer DVD players capable of converting standard-definition DVD into a 720p or 1080i feed. Depending on the quality of your display (and its own internal scaling ICs), an up-scaling DVD player can certainly deliver an improvement – especially via HDMI/DVI, which cuts out any unnecessary conversion between analogue and digital. Although this up-scaling process can’t add detail that’s not there, the results tend to be more, well, ‘filmic’. Up-scaling DVD players can be seen as a ‘stop-gap’ until the widespread arrival of proper high-definition HD DVD and Blu-ray formats.

The Chinese consumer-electronics industry hasn’t let such developments pass by unnoticed. Consider the Helios HVD2085 from NeoDigits. NeoDigits is a Hong Kong-based company, soon set to distribute locally.

Apart from the video up-conversion it performs, one of the choicest things about this player is its ‘UOP-off’ feature, called ‘smart-play’, which circumvents annoying trailers and gets straight to the main movie (great for rented DVDs and Disney collections!). Should you want to, these special features are accessible via the menu.

The Helios is a decently built deck, apart from the flimsy disc tray which feels like it could snap off unless great care is taken when loading up. It takes a minimalist approach to design, with a bare minimum of front panel controls being on display.

Connectivity is good. There are component and HDMI outputs, plus VGA (great for owners of projectors without digital inputs), composite and S-video. There’s no RGB Scart – a peculiarly European phenomenon – but this is no great loss. Why, after all, would you waste the potential of an up-scaling DVD player by using a standard-definition connection?

The Helios includes a 5.1 phono audio array, but it’s for Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks only – the player isn’t compatible with either DVD-A or Super Audio CD. Its onboard decoder may appeal to those still using ‘upgradable’ Pro-Logic amps with 5.1 inputs, but we suspect the vast majority of SmartHouse readers will own more recent kit with integrated digital decoding.

Helpfully, the Helios is multiregion, as far as DVD playback is concerned. This machine even manages to steal a high-def’ lead over Blu-ray and HD DVD by supporting an obscure yet impressive Chinese format called HVD, which stores 720p MPEG-2 on dual-layer DVD-ROMs. HVD software is sold on Neodigits’ Website and a disc or two will certainly become your DVD references at least until HD DVD and Blu-ray arrive. We checked out The Traveling Birds on a native 768p LCD and were floored by the stunning detail the player rendered from the disc.

Setting up the Helios is easy. Simple menus configure screen type, the internal 5.1 decoder and language options. We were impressed with a series of (back-lit) remote control buttons that select output formats and resolutions. As a result, it’s easy to make quick comparisons between the various modes to find the one that looks the best. In addition to 576i/p and 480i/p and 720p/1080i (50/60Hz) options are presets for VGA, SVGA, XGA and SXGA. A widescreen-XGA (1366 x 768) option for our LCD test screen would have been nice and we suspect many other owners of today’s widespread 768p LCDs would similarly appreciate being able to ‘pixel-match’ the player to the display. Although a 1080p option is available, few displays are as yet capable of accepting such signals. Still, it’s nice to have it up the sleeve.

The Helios has some curious foibles. For example, it displays subtitles by default. You can turn off subtitles from the language set-up menus, but sometimes this isn’t enough. When spinning Star Wars Episode III the subtitles refused to budge – neither the DVD’s own language options, menu option nor the handset’s subtitle button had any effect. Playback also ‘froze’ an hour or so into this movie. The only remedy was to reset the machine. Home-brewed DVDs aren’t handled too well, either. Playback ‘glitches’ and intermittent loss of lip-sync were noticed with several of our home-brewed (read compressed to single layer) DVDs. A pity, because pictures were generally fine with most dual layer films – especially via HDMI and even via the basic-quality supplied cable.

We also fed the Helios into a Hitachi PJ-TX100 LCD projector and configured it to operate in its 720p mode (the Hitachi is a 1280 x 720 design). The resulting picture was good, with a lack of obvious scaling or de-interlacing artefacts. Opting for 576p also gave results that were more than acceptable. Switching to the component (or, for that matter, S-video) output demonstrated a slight but noticeable drop in resolution compared to the HDMI feed, complex visual textures losing some of their impact.

Sound? From the digital output, performance is fine. Better-than-expected, in fact. The analogue outputs gave a worse account of themselves; although steering is good, there’s a ‘muddiness’ and lack of fine detail – especially during busy scenes.

The Helios HVD2085 is an unusual player that’s worth seeking out if your display is HD ready, your collection multiregion and you’re annoyed by trailers. It has a couple of glitches, especially with self-recorded DVDs, and there’s also a lack of support for MPEG-4. Still, it will push standard def’ video all the way up to 1080p and provides ‘at-a-glance’ presets to help determine how much video polish to apply.

NeoDigits today launched a free worldwide shipping promotion on the HVD2085.

Helios HVD2085 | $268 | | www.neodigits.com

For:  Excellent video quality for high-def’ screens – drives standard-fare DVD all the way to 1080p and is (Chinese HD DVD) HVD compatible. Skips trailers and is region code free.

Against:  Can’t add detail that isn’t there (not a true HD DVD player). Stalls on some home-baked DVDs and insists on subtitling some dual-layer commercial disks.

Verdict:  All ’round, an excellent offering for the price. High-def’ display owners holding out for next-gen DVD should be happy with the results in the meantime.

You don’t need to be a barista (or go out) for the perfect cuppa with the Bosch Benvenuto B60 espresso machine. All the hard work is done for you.

Bosch’s Benvenuto B60 freestanding coffee machine ($2299) uses an aroma whirl brewing system which is claimed to surround each coffee granule with water in a pressurised chamber, extracting maximum flavour. Capacity wise, there is a 1.8 litre fresh water tank, a grinder with a 250 gram storage container and a separate compartment for pre-ground coffee. Fresh coffee is also guaranteed by the single portion cleaning function, which cleans the pipes on the machine after every brewing cycle.

The machine’s functions are indicated via an electronic LED display and include a simultaneous frothing and hot water function. Included is a cup rack with pre-heat function and a programmable on/off timer.

The device provides for one- or two-cup pouring options.

See www.boschappliances.com.au

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Bosch’s Benvenuto B60 does all the hard work for you.