After 5 months of complaining, a replaced yoke, and a modification kit Sony has replaced my 36" Wega television. My first 36" had major geometry problems. Its had a horizontal bow of greater than 5/8" across top and bottom of the picture. In addition, it had a very bad vertical distortion. My original tv was manufactured in Oct.'98 so it was one of the first ones built. After plugging in the new one (built last month) many of the problems were still there but on a much smaller scale. The distortions are really not noticable when watching a movie. I am planning on having the local area tech try to straighten up the vertical skew which occurs towards the bottom of the picture. All in all i'm a much happier camper. For those of you having problems with the tv keep calling Sony and bugging them...they may be slow but eventually they should replace your set with a new one. Hope this helps.

I purchased the Sony KV-36XBR200 in April 99. Sound and picture quality are great. However there is one little thing I find annoying sometimes, a slight geometric distortion viewed with horizontal lines in the bottom left ( about 4 inches of the bottom ). The right side is always slightly higher than the left side. It's not correctable with the tilt control (not enough, you still can see it if you follow the horizontal lines ). This is the only problem I have experienced so far. Sound and picture quality are great.

The set was made in feb 99 and I purchased the set in march 99. I have had no problems with it and consider it excellent. The only complaints that I have are the apparent lack of the VUSN variable in the service menu that would allow (somewhat) easy transition to 16x9 for anamorphic DVDs and that I cannot seem to get much effect out of the 'truesurround' audio feature. Overall, though, it's great.

The TV is great. Just one annoying problem, I have a Toshiba 3109. The credits are distorted on the far left and right.

I'm in the market for a new set and checked out the Vega's at my local A/V store I have developed a relationship with. I looked at the KV-36FV1 and the KV-32XBR200. I actually preferred the picture of the FV1 to the XBR200. If you put a "stock ticker" on the screen, the ticker was wavy on the XBR and just fine on the FV1. The sales guy pointed out the distortion to me and indicated that several customers had experienced the same thing with their sets. It did seem to speed up at the edges a bit on the FV1, but that is certainly nothing that would cause me any grief. I guess the differences between the 36" set and the 32" set really don't mean much, it must be the picture tube. Maybe the "fine aperature" grill on the XBRs are the culprit for all the distortion everyone is seeing. I've heard of rough handling causing Invar Shadow Masks to pull away from the picture tube.
Me? I'm going for the KV-32FV1 because the 36FV1 is about 4" too big for my TV shelf which I specifically had built to hold 35" to 36" TVs. The picture is just too good not give the set a try. The Toshibas and Superflat Panasonics were nice, but the real NTSC color temperature setting and the sharpness of the Sony are just so much better. You're ruined once you see the beautiful flat screen in action.

I share all the pain from everybody who bought this product and has suffered wit picture distortion, returning heavy tv sets and pissing salesmen off from different stores, etc. On Christmas of 1998 I diceded to buy me a new TV. Little did I know that a nightmare was gonna begin.
Read on.
First, I tried a SONY 32" V26 (V series are slightly better than the S series) Very happy with the colors, contrast, detail, etc. BUT, the yellow color was always greenish, no matter how I adjusted the tint. Worse, the geometry was WAY off. I immediately noticed that watching widescreen movies(the black bars were crooked and vertical lines were NOT vertical and... You get the point) Also, the convergence was sevearelly off(you could see slght blue or red lines around objects) Since I was happy with this set, I called a SONY technician. He came to my place and tried to fix the geometry, which he did but not completely. He told me that SONY considers "a little geometry distortion" to be acceptable. He knew the guys who design and build the sets and they think that the consumer will not notice or care about those problems. Not me, my friend. BTW, there is no way to correct the convergence on a direct view set. Frustrated, I sold the TV.
Next, I tried a 27" SONY V40 , expecting that with a smaller set, the distortion wouldnt be that severe. WRONG! Same geometry and convergence distortion. Returned the set, to the astonishing surprise of the poor salesman who politely waited on me. "How could you not like this set?" I showed him the problem on a unit on display and he had no choice but to agree with me.
By now I am smarter on buying tvs. Tried HITACHI, SAMSUNG and PANASONIC next. Bought and reurned every single one of them. All 27". All heavy and bulky. I cant even go back to BRANDSMART next to where I live for fearing that my life would be in danger.
It was in March of 1999 that I decided to try the set that is considered the best 27' on the market, the PANASONIC SUPERFLAT G14. Upon pluguing the tv I immediatelly noticed that the bottom horizontal lines were fine, but the top ones were crooked. I wanted to kick the tube and curse all these manufactures. Instead, I called the IMAGING SCIENCE FOUNDATION, which is a company founded by Joel Kane and Joe Silver dedicated on adjusting(or "calibrating" as they say) tvs, big screen tvs and projectors. They usually charge 175$ for in-home service and have codes that access hidden menus inside your tv(some tvs do not have hidden, or service, menus, thus making calibration impossible). All you have to do is call a ISF trained techician in your area. Anihow, I spoke with Mr.Silver himself and he told me that ALL direc-view tvs, regardeless of size, WILL have geometry distortion("they are not computer monitors") but only SONYS and TOSHIBAS provide geometry adjustements from their service menus. OK, I would ditch the PANASONIC and buy SONY again if he could fix the geometry and the convergence. Sorry, Mr. Silver said, there is no way to correct convergence on a tube tv(PANASONICS have better convergence than SONYS) Mr. Silver also said that even professional studio tvs display a little geometry distortion(he was talking about tubes that cost several thousands of dollars) He could, however, improve the geometry, but not enough to justify his fee. Very honest.I thanked him and hung up. I also have to say that the specific PANASONIC SUPERFLAT had too much sharpness enhancement on the picture. Even with the sharpeness control on zero, the picture was so sharp that it looked like a video-game picture, NOT film. Weird. Obviously, PANASONIC wanted the picture of this set to "jump" from the shelf in comparison wit he other ones. Which it did. I bought it. And returned it.
It is may now. I still dont have a decent tv for my bedroom. After all the hassle I went through, I decided to buy a little 20" PANASONIC tv and save my money for a big screen tv in the future. Acording to ISF, they are much easier to calibrate than tubes.
What this has to do with the WEGAS?
EVERYTHING!
With my income tax return I was plannin on buying this set, because it is suppose to be the best analog tv in the market right now. IT IS NOT. For the price of those things, you can buy a decent big screen tv. What is the problem with the WEGAS? Everything said on previous posts below me is true. Now that I know a lot about shopping for tvs, I spend nearly half an hour analising this set on a showroom before buying it(and returning this monster) Yes, there is geometry distortion(I noticed that on horizontal and vertical lines), convergence does not look perfect and the sharpness boost problem that I noticed on the PANASONIC SUPERFLAT is present on this se as well. The picture looks artifiacilly overenhanced. GIMME A BREAK! Cant these people make a good television? Tvs have been aroubd since the 50s. This is almost the 21st century. Shouldnt we consumers deserve better? Arent we worth it? Hello manufactures of tubes, could you guys respect our money a little bit? We work as hard as you people, but we are the ones who have to rent a truck and return these mechanical elephants.
I dont know if a ISF technician will be able to correct these problems on the WEGAS. Buy at your own risk. BTW, the colors and clarity of this set were very good. Much better yellows and reds than the V series. For the price, however, SONY has the respnsability to do better. 1 star, because I am a hard working consumer and deserve more. Thank you.

I just replaced an old Phillips 27" set with this Sony. I have had the set for one week. I have a yahama dvd-s700 connected with component cables . The picture clarity is superb. I have not had any problems like others in this group. I will give 3 more moths before checking back.

Have the 36FV1. Great TV! Replaced my 52" Proscan under Circuit City's Extended Warranty program (wish I knew about this site before I bought that piece of junk). Word of advice...buy TV from one of the big guys (Circuit City, Best Buy, etc..), have them match Price Club/Costco's $1699 price and purchase 5 year extended warranty so that you are covered when it does crap out! Just in time for affordable HDTV!

I too have spent the last couple of months enduring a parade of 36" W(V)EGA sets and service technicians at my house. I purchased the set at Sears because it was on sale and their service techs are normally pretty good. Within 5 minutes of firing up the TV I knew I had a problem. There was no such thing as a straight vertical line on the unit with everything flairing toward the corners. Also, the set developed an opaque green blob in the lower right corner. Overall, the picture was clear but the crookedness and blob had to go.
I called Sears and a service tech arrived a couple of days later to tell me that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the set. It was the earth's gravitational field. Having a 36" Mitsu TV in the living room 30 feet away with a crystal clear picture that cost 1/2 the price of the Sony I promptly asked the gentleman to leave. Yes, I know that in some instances, large sets can be affected by gravity, but my problem was the quality of the set, not the geology of the earth's crust under my family room.

I contacted the store after the "Technician's" departure and they arranged to replace the TV with a new unit. I received it two weeks ago and it arrived with its own set of problems. This one displays horizontal lines curving toward the corners and has a picture that becomes increasingly fuzzy as you reach the edges. The picture becomes increasingly fuzzy as you get closer to the left and right of the screen and stars in sci-fi movies become wide bars at the edges. Text is completely unreadable within six inches of edge on either side. I called for service again and the same gentleman arrived as before. This time, he told me my DSS receiver was bad.

Consequently, I've called Sears and told them I've had enough of the WEGA. I may very well consider another Trinitron or some type of small RPTV but this set has got to go. There may very well be some of these sets that are good (the store demos blew me away) but my experience has not been a good one. I could have spent $500 at Wal-Mart and purchased a set with a clearer picture and the Sears service techs know nothing about these sets.

The WEGA's may become better with time, but I cannot recommend one right now. I am greatly disappointed.

Shopping for the new VEGA KV-35XBR200 was a major undertaking. It involved a HUGE amount of study (
reading) and PR work both at the store(s) and heavy
phone communications. IMHO I was totally prepared,
I did lots of homework. I knew the VEGA had sent out
a bad batch,and I knew who had them! No problem with
this television. In fact,it is by far the best T.V.
I have ever owned. Very important always pay the
extra for extended warranty. My extended warranty is
for 6 years. After the sale I got just what I wanted,
if for any reason,whatever it may be,if I'am not
happy with any function on the VEGA I simply pick
up my telephone and service will be arranged. I love
this television,I'am happy I took the required 6 mos
of effort before I took the plunge. (I do not buy on
whim,impulse or sales talk). Finally my post and
rating will be a 5 only because this type of effort
is applied to all types of shopping,not just another
pretty picture in a showroom. TIP:next time you shop
and you are looking at the SONY KV-36XBR200 (I started my post as 35XBR OOps! typo) ask the salesman
what type of feed the television is receiving. I
checked out one store and I verified with the sales-
person that the VEGA was getting feed from a
amplified ant! Went to another store and a VEGA's
feed was from a sat dish! I was not impressed with
this picture. Happy,Happy :-)