Sony 32W4000 Freeview/SD Picture

[admin_exported]

I am finding reviews of the 32W4000 different in terms of the SD performance - especially it seems with the built-in freeview tuner. The What Hi-Fi review from memory made no particular mention of a bad picture - but other reviews have suggested that the picture is bad and worse even than a lot of other LCD TV's on the market.

One particular review site said the picture was definitely below par with freeview on the 32W4000 but on the same site they had a review of the 40W4000 where it mentioned the SD performance to be smooth and free from artifacts. Surely these TV's share the same freeview tuner? And if anything the 40W4000 would fair worse with freeview due to the increased size?

Very confused with all of these conflicting reviews.

HD performance is very important - but I would suggest that the majority of people still have most of their TV viewing in SD at present.

Anyone got any experience of the 32W4000 through Sky+ with a SD picture?

 

[Anonymous]

I've had my 32W4000 for about a week and the digital freeview picture is pretty good (dependent on the channels more than the tv). I also hooked up my Sky+ box to test the picture and it's not great. It's okay but nothing special, I think an upgrade to the Sky+HD box would help just purely on the HDMI connection being so much better and I think the box does a better job of upscaling the normal sd channels but I could be wrong. Currently I'm only using it for watching films and playing games on my PS3 and I've been very pleased with the picture and sound. My crt is definitely better at the sd stuff but for hd it obviously can't compare. Unfortunately, until Sky and the rest start improving the compression rates etc then these types of tv's will always show up the imperfections that crts hide.

HTH

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Livers

So are you saying that the freeview picture is better than the Sky+ picture?

I was kind of hoping it would be the other way around I thought if the picture from the built in freeview wasn't great at least it would probably look better hooked up to sky

 

[professorhat]

Interesting to know what Scart cable you are using, Livers? If it's a cheap freebie one, it's worth upgrading. I did the same with my external Freeview PVR - I used to think the internal Freeview tuner had a better picture but, since upgrading the Scart cable, the PVR now has a noticeably better picture.

 

[Anonymous]

It all depends on the channel you're watching, some of the music channels for example on Sky look pretty ropey on my crt and look even worse on the bravia, whereas Sky One/news etc look much better. I only ran Sky through the bravia for a short while so it wasn't the most comprehensive of tests but my first impressions weren't that great. It was okay, not bad but nothing special. It also depends on how far you are from the screen. Overall though I'm happy with the TV, I waited so long to get it and now I have I'm enjoying the HD benefits it brings. From all the TV's I've looked at, I don't think any of them are as good as a crt (IMO) so I think you just have to compromise if you want both HD and SD compatibility. As someone mentioned in another thread, until all the tv companies start broadcasting at higher bitrates, this will always be an issue. Once more and more HD channels are available I don't think you'll mind so much. Personally, the moment Sky drop their £10 monthly fee for Sky+HD, then I'll get it but for the moment I'm happy to get my HD content through blu-ray and PS3 games.

 

[Anonymous]

My scart cable cost me around £20-£30 a good few years ago so it should be decent, it's definitely not a cheap one. As I said, a friend of mine has a 32V2000 hooked up to Sky+HD and the picture is very good even on the sd channels which makes me think the HDMI connection could make a significant difference.

 

[professorhat]

Ah, fair enough - always worth checking!

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your input guys. Still don't know why these things are not mentioned in the reviews - and why some reviews say Freeview is good and some say Freeview is bad on this set. I have Sky+ and won't be upgrading to Sky+ HD until they drop the £10 a month charge. Looks like I am going to be disappointed with this set until that point. SD performance to my mind is still very important in an overall review as I am sure that most content for most people on a day to day basis will be SD. Some reviewers don't seem to get that.

 

[Anonymous]

I guess we're still a long way off having TV's that cover both SD and HD effectively. I don't think you'll be too disappointed though, it's mostly good and at £699 with a 5 year guarantee from JL, it's a pretty good deal.

 

[Anonymous]

hi livers

have only seen it running HD and look amazing to say the least , having seen last months review hoped it was impressive on all counts .
could i ask if its poor on all sky channels or impressive on some !

 

[Anonymous]

R1ch,
I looked at this set as well as a Panasonic TX32LZD85 at our local JL. Fed from the same aerial the Sony could not even tune some of the channels the Pana was displaying. The store guy turned out to be from Sony and decided to swap the leads to prove that it wasn't the TV - he failed. He then tried the 40W4000 which also couldn't tune them.
I watch mostly SD Freeview and in an area with poor(ish) signal so I went for the 'LZD85 - and I haven't been disappointed. When I bought it I paid £649 from JL with 5 year warranty => Bargain

As mentioned on other posts here though - you're the one who will be watching it so choose with your own experience and just use the reviews to decide what sets to check out!
Good luck, P

 

[Anonymous]

r1ch:Thanks for your input guys. Still don't know why these things are not mentioned in the reviews - and why some reviews say Freeview is good and some say Freeview is bad on this set. I have Sky+ and won't be upgrading to Sky+ HD until they drop the £10 a month charge. Looks like I am going to be disappointed with this set until that point. SD performance to my mind is still very important in an overall review as I am sure that most content for most people on a day to day basis will be SD. Some reviewers don't seem to get that.

Couldn't agree more. When shopping to purchase my LCD recently, the salesmen in John Lewis were honest enough to say that the freeview/SD picture on the Sony W range was poor and demonstrated across a number of different makes to show which were strongest in this area. Sony was the weakest and for that reason I opted for the best all rounder(in my opinion). Don't get me wrong, the HD picture on the Sony was tremendous, but as on overall, total package was disappointing. The reviews in most magazines don't seem to be honest enough to point this out. Freeview/SD is still important to many people who aren't willing to pay bucket loads per month to SKY for thier current HD packages.

 

[Anonymous]

i would suggest not buying one just yet because the newer 4500 is getting released shortly.

 

[Anonymous]

what set did you go for halle??

 

[Anonymous]

I went for the Samsung LEA40 656. It's been fantastic and is everything I was looking for in a TV.

 

[Anonymous]

In a popular gadget magazine they slated the sd performance of the 32w4000, but in the same magazine they say the 40w4000 is pretty good with sd! Surely they should be pretty much the same? Anything in this or just rubbish testing?

 

[Clare Newsome]

We've found both sets to be fine with SD/Freeview performance - that's using the same feed to both sets.

 

[Anonymous]

I pleased with the SD picture on my 32W4000 but all depends on the source of course. Channel 4, Film 4 etc are all very good and at times very pleasing indeed but then switching to a channel like ITV2 and it all looks a tad poor. You can't really blame the TV for that though. My only gripe with it would be motion blur, it's not bad but every now and again I find it struggles to keep up with fast moving images. I think I'm looking for it most of the time which is why I see it, my wife has never mentioned it yet when we were looking at TV's in a shop she noticed it on another brand straight away. Overall, I'm glad I went with it but if I was looking to buy one today then I'd be inclined to wait for the next version and see if it includes the 100hz as the new W4500 series has (no 32" update at the moment). Unless the price is right of course, I paid £699 with a 5 year guarantee from JL which is a decent deal and I'm guessing you can get it much cheaper than that now.

 

[Anonymous]

From what I have seen the 32W4000 looks pretty bad close up on SD (seen using a Sky+ box) - but it's amazing how much of that disappears at normal viewing distances - to an extent that it looks pretty good sometimes - maybe thats just because I have never owned an LCD tv. Just seemed strange that this particular magazine gave a good review for SD performance on the 40W4000 and at the same time said how bad the 32W4000 was at SD. If anything I would have expected it to be the other way around due to the greater screen size.

 

[Geoff_W]

Livers: I paid £699 with a 5 year guarantee from JL which is a decent deal and I'm guessing you can get it much cheaper than that now.

That's interesting, my local JL (Nottingham) has it at £799 which is exactly the same price as the Sony Store across the road!

 

[kev g]

Check out totaldigital.biz - its currently £666 with a 5 year guarentee if purchased in store

 

[Geoff_W]

Thanks for that info. ATM their 5 year warranty offer appears to end tomorrow and I'm going on holiday abroad later today, so will miss this one. I'll look again when I'm back - hopefully, they may continue it next month. Depends how badly they need sales!