Many problems Sony 46W4500

[Anonymous]

It is true. Although its not major on mine, to me I can see it a mile off. Every credit scene on a movie its a pain to watch.

I noticed mine on Saturday night, but when i turned the TV on this morning it had gone. The clouding seem to appear once the TV has been on a while.

I will be contacting my retailer in the morning to see about a swap.

Is it worth while swapping for another W4500 to see if it is any better?

Another option is to look at the Z4500, but have they had the same issues?

Sony need to get something said and sorted about this issue and quick. They are pi**ing off a lot of good customers.

 

[Anonymous]

For sum reason it seems to have gone less now, i dunno what to do.. im gonna look again 2moro. I dont notice it on credit screens, only notice it on the channels that dont have an input connected yet.

 

[Anonymous]

Checked mine again this morning

The clouding is not there. I'm sure mine appears/gets worse as the TV warms up and has been on while. But then after that it doesn't dissappear.

Could there be any reason behind this? ( I mean as in how an LCD panel operates)

 

[Anonymous]

Yup,

same here. Looks like it may be heat related. Points towards a design flaw and suggests that a replacement may suffer the same effects.

Well, I dont know who I'm more annoyed with. Sony for making a flawed product or What Hi-Fi for plugging a god awfull product. I'm sure most if not all the folk here bought the W4500 off the WHF review and a good number are now a grand out of pocket with a set they're really not happy with.

How come other reviewers haved spotted the problem and completely ripped into Sony and the W4500 for it and yet your review doesn't even mention it? I reckon all the big banners in the Sony Centres with "What Hi-Fi product of the year" splattered all over it may well be why. Well, last time I part with cash over a WHF review I'm afraid.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Firstly, we're not 'plugging' anything - we reviewed sets that looked (and still look, as anyone who saw them on display at our Show last week could have told you) absolutely superb: as many people on this thread with Sony sets have agreed with. I can assure you - with all the evidence you want - that there's no link between advertising and editorial on WHF.

Secondly, as soon as this issue was brought to our attention we've been pushing Sony for an answer, as there are obviously a bad batch of sets out there - including ones sent to some other reviewers - and Sony must account for this.

I will get onto them AGAIN to push for an answer....

 

[Anonymous]

A shout of agreement

I would not for one second believe that WHF would give a bad review.

It is the luck of the draw that a few of us have had the misfortune to get a bad set. The blame solely lies with Sony and no one else.

I personally will try another set. if the problem still persists then I may look at the Z series (Sony note, you have one customer that is trying to stay loyal) if that fails (and it would be a pain to spend more money for a Z series TV) i will have to look else where.

A very disappointed customer will have walked away to another brand.

 

[michael.seigal]

I bought the 40w4500 on thursday and have had no issues with clouding or anything of the sort. I am finding some of the colours seem slightly washed out on darker scenes but I dont think I have nailed the settings yet. I am very happy and with blue ray some of the pictures are astounding!

Michael

 

[Anonymous]

michael.seigal:
I bought the 40w4500 on thursday and have had no issues with clouding or anything of the sort. I am finding some of the colours seem slightly washed out on darker scenes but I dont think I have nailed the settings yet. I am very happy and with blue ray some of the pictures are astounding!

Michael

Press the digital button on the remote so the black screen comes up, if you dont notice anything u r lucky, bump up the backlight settings etc and still if its a clean uniform colour then u r very lucky indeed.

I wouldnt blame the WHF team, they did their job and reviewed what was infront of them. However, i do blame Sony for taking this long to reply properly to a magazine that just rated their tv as the years best. They are quick to put up WHF banners next to their tv's but so slow to respond to a problem? Looks like Sony is losing its bottle.

 

[Anonymous]

Ginder: Press the digital button on the remote so the black screen comes up, if you dont notice anything u r lucky, bump up the backlight settings etc and still if its a clean uniform colour then u r very lucky indeed. I wouldnt blame the WHF team, they did their job and reviewed what was infront of them. However, i do blame Sony for taking this long to reply properly to a magazine that just rated their tv as the years best. They are quick to put up WHF banners next to their tv's but so slow to respond to a problem? Looks like Sony is losing its bottle.I agree!

 

[Anonymous]

Hi i'm new to the site, so hello to everyone.

I purchased a 46w4500 last week from my local sony store and have problems with minor clouding and mainly backlight bleeding in the top right of the screen, whilst this is only visible in dark scenes in a dark room it is never the less not good enough for a brand such as sony and a lcd with such a price tag. I have contacted the store and there are willing to exchange it but they don't get anymore stock until the 20th so ive got to wait until then to swap, i'm just hoping there new stock is without these issues.

P.S. My lcd was made in spain 10/2008, will post a pic tommorrow.

 

[Anonymous]

Villain2100:

Hi i'm new to the site, so hello to everyone.

I purchased a 46w4500 last week from my local sony store and have problems with minor clouding and mainly backlight bleeding in the top right of the screen, whilst this is only visible in dark scenes in a dark room it is never the less not good enough for a brand such as sony and a lcd with such a price tag. I have contacted the store and there are willing to exchange it but they don't get anymore stock until the 20th so ive got to wait until then to swap, i'm just hoping there new stock is without these issues.

P.S. My lcd was made in spain 10/2008, will post a pic tommorrow.

Dont hold your breath. My replacement has exactly the same bleeding as the original. Original August 08, replacement October, 08. Only appears after set had warmed up and been on for a bit.

Apologies to WHF, the red mist took over. Just mightily pee'd off for flushing a grand down the pan

 

[Anonymous]

Hurry up Sony and sort this out. May I add, my 40W4500 is the best LCD made............Probably!

 

[Clare Newsome]

EHonda:
Apologies to WHF, the red mist took over. Just mightily pee'd off for flushing a grand down the pan

No need to apologise - this is an incredibly frustrating issue and I can't blame people for being angry.

Just to update you that i've issued another widespread request to Sony staff for comment, which I will (continue to) escalate if we get no joy.

I'm also sweating on my Dad's 40W4500 - ordered last week from Amazon - being OK when it arrives later this week. I'll let you know how that goes, including serial numbers etc...

 

[Anonymous]

Clare Newsome:EHonda:
Apologies to WHF, the red mist took over. Just mightily pee'd off for flushing a grand down the pan

No need to apologise - this is an incredibly frustrating issue and I can't blame people for being angry.

Just to update you that i've issued another widespread request to Sony staff for comment, which I will (continue to) escalate if we get no joy.

I'm also sweating on my Dad's 40W4500 - ordered last week from Amazon - being OK when it arrives later this week. I'll let you know how that goes, including serial numbers etc...

Im sweating on whether to buy one on not, please sony sort it out. If only i had david beckhams money and then i could buy 10 pick the best one and give the rest away, if only.

 

[Anonymous]

Im not sure this a bad batch! there have been similar problems with sony lcds going back years, When i bought my 40w2000 a few years back it had uneven backlights and i was pretty much told tough titty by sony and my retailer. but in fairness is is only noticable if you activley look for it, anyway point is i frequent another av based forum and at the time of buying my tv, there were lots of people suffering from very bad clouding on the 40w2000 and posting pickies just like this thread.

 

[Anonymous]

The possible issue that some owners have talked about, the clouding getting worse once the tv has been on an hour or so is a bit worrying i hope it's not true. Hopefully theres some of you out there who can have this tv on for several hours without this occurring.?

 

[Anonymous]

I have stayed away from Sony for years now due to their extremely poor customer service and had only just started to 'trust' them again.

I had been pondering over a 46W4500 or a 46PZ81b, but reading of all these problems on this thread I think I can safely say the decision has been made for me! That also goes for which blu-ray player I was going to buy

Well Done Sony for their wonderful customer service.

(It'll probably be another 20 years before I trust them again!)

 

[Clare Newsome]

techno:The possible issue that some owners have talked about, the clouding getting worse once the tv has been on an hour or so is a bit worrying i hope it's not true. Hopefully theres some of you out there who can have this tv on for several hours without this occurring.?

We ran both 40W4500 and 46W4500 sets all day, every day, at last weekend's Show (Friday-Sunday inclusive) with no sign of clouding.

That suggests to me that a set is either faulty or not - the degree of a faulty set's clouding may vary, but if it shows any signs, send it back!

 

[Anonymous]

Same here, I also plumped for the Panasonic after having been all set to go for the Sony. The thought of returning a faulty set and dealing with poor customer service teams if I got a dodgy set was one risk I didn't want to take. Hope all those affected get satisfactory outcomes.

 

[Anonymous]

One of the main reasons for purchasing my Panasonic plasma was the problems with big LCDs shown to me by a store manage of one of the large retailers. A 40 inch LCD we looked at had something like 5/6 failed pixels and once you notice them you can't take your eyes of the little green lights.

 

[Anonymous]

All of this shows that you can only put so much score on Reviews. One thing a review of a new product will never be able to do is say how reliable the product will be. The reviewers have only 1 unit to look at. They have no idea if there are batch problems, and reliability issues. That will come out later as the public buy the product in numbers.

The list of cars that have been given great reviews by the experts when they first come out is endless, yet when the public has owned them for a few years the true picture emerges. Sony are no worse than any other manufacturer. They are all reluctant to acknowledge a fault when a new product hit's the shops. Anyone who thinks Sony will be forthcoming with this issue is not living in the real world. And judging by how badly most Tv's are set up in most shops I would not be surprised if many of these faulty sets are sold to other people who are completely ignorant about the problems.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Very Annoyed:
All of this shows that you can only put so much score on Reviews. One thing a review of a new product will never be able to do is say how reliable the product will be. The reviewers have only 1 unit to look at. They have no idea if there are batch problems, and reliability issues. That will come out later as the public buy the product in numbers.

The list of cars that have been given great reviews by the experts when they first come out is endless, yet when the public has owned them for a few years the true picture emerges. Sony are no worse than any other manufacturer. They are all reluctant to acknowledge a fault when a new product hit's the shops. Anyone who thinks Sony will be forthcoming with this issue is not living in the real world. And judging by how badly most Tv's are set up in most shops I would not be surprised if many of these faulty sets are sold to other people who are completely ignorant about the problems.

Well, we've had a range of W4500 models in - not just the one of each - and haven't had faults with any of them. We've also seen perfectly functioning models in shops, too (OK, take the point about poor set-up - they certainly had that - but no clouding) - we do a lot of 'mystery shopping' as well as reviewing before we choose our Awards.

Also, Sony - after much pressure from ourselves - finally admitted there was a problem with its AV receivers (not working with Sky HD) and issued fixes/delayed distribution of an entire product line, at great cost.

So, consumer and consumer-magazine pressure CAN make a difference. We'll keep on it - I suspect part of the delay (as was the case with the receiver issue) is them working out the logistics of how they're going to deal with this issue. (Product recall? Audit of all models in stock? etc etc). Would be nice if they told us that, though....

 

[Anonymous]

Just taking some photo's of my screen every sort of 15 mins and it seems to be about 30mins in to the TV being on that the clouding appears.

Not sure if this is my hope playing tricks on me, but not sure if its getting slightly better.

Won't hold my breath just yet. Take some more photo and see.

 

[Anonymous]

Do remember that any product over £100 purchased in the UK is automatically warranted for 5 or 6 years this includes over the internet. I was informed about this by trading standards and have just had my Panasonic DVD recorder repaired by Panasonic even though it was 20 months old.

You must keep you original invoice and if you can purchase it on a credit card because the credit card company is also liable.

Don't be put off by retailers, manufacturers or credit card companies.

Good luck all.

 

[Anonymous]

Hopefully Sony will get intouch with the WHF team by the end of the week this threads been running for over a week now. I will be contacting Sony Centre about this but not just yet as i cant see the clouding on normal viewing, just on the screen if you press the digital button (i dnt even knw what thats for lol). Il give it a week or so cos im enjoying my gaming sessions on it just abit too much yet lol.

The only thing connected to it at the moment is my xbox 360 and my bluray player.

Xbox 360 looks great although a bit jaggy, probably because i sit too close (2 metres max) but if not can anyone help?

Connected my Bluray player BDP S350 and as i dnt have any bluray discs yet i decided to pop in my dvd of Rambo (the recent one) and to be honest i wasnt happy at all, looked kinda pixelated and the dark scenes when they are on the boat looked terrible. Have i set it up right? Is it even upscaling? If this is the extent of upscaling id rather watch my dvds on my CRT.

I also have the Xbox 360 HD DVD add on, watched abit of Transformers on the yesterday which i picked up for 3 quid!! Now that looked great, but some scenes looked too real and not film like, as though i was looking through a window! But still i was very very impressed.

I so wish this TV was perfect becuase when it looks good it can look tremendous for gaming and hd movies.

I dont even mind the dvds lookin abit off and pixelated! I just wish that the feint cloud wasnt there on that bloody black screen! I dont want it to get worse!