Perhaps my expectations of the unit are off base. The unit has great picture quality, but I have had a few problems with the unit.

Since the TV is 16x9, I thought that letter boxed DVD's would be displayed at or
near full screen. This has not been the case for me. The black bars above and
below the picture take up a good deal of the screen space. It seems silly that letter boxed DVD's do not take up the full screen! I could understand some black
above and below due to all the different aspect ratio's but what I see is excessive... unless we're expected to use Pan & Scan to fill up the screen and I do not consider Pan & Scan to be an option.

The manual on page 33 (I think) states that you can use the arrow keys for DVD
menu operations. I programmed the remote for my DVD player but the joystick
does not behave as the manual states. Pressing in on the activates "play" moving up "pauses", moving down "stops", and left and right control the scan forward or scan backwards. I called Sony about this and they did not offer any real explanation for it.

The head phones are indeed a nice feature. I like how you can even have your back to the TV and the head phones still work great! What a nice touch.

The menu's let you change the label's of the Video inputs from a list of choices. This is a another nice touch and I liked how it also let's you skip over any unused input that you might have. Does anyone know if you can skip over the RF input?

Even with it's great picture quality, I'm left disappointed that you can not watch letter boxed DVD's at or near full screen since this TV is 16x9. If I do not have something set right please let me know!!

Josh
Sorry to burst your bubble but this tv is a 4x3 screen. Sony makes a 34" HD 16x9 tv but that costs about $8000, a little more than you spent for your xbr. You are right it is an excellent tv and sony fixed some of the bug problems. I look at the tv 5 days a week and the flat sonys do have a disticnt visual flair. BUt not between the three models. I have just a couple of questions for you to ask sony customer service if you can get a hold of them. What justifies the difference in price between the xbr and the fv15. It no longer has the twin view pip. The second set of speakers in the rear of the tv are a waste. Anyone who spends $2000+ for a tv is not impressed by simulated surround sound. Last but not least the 3d/y/c comb filter. To take visual advantge of this tv, one would use satellite and dvd- cable on this set is a waste. Both sources would be hooked up with component and s-video thus by passing the filter. Even if you stay with cable the difference between 3-line and 3d/y/c is negligible. The is no point is spending the xtra money for the xbr. Unless you like bragging that you have spend the most money possible for a 4x3 ntsc tv. X-tra B-ucks R-emoved!!! 5 star performance three star pricing
4 star overall

Okay this is a follow up on my Wega TV. I have to reduce my rating to only3 stars. After I had this set for exactly one month, I was watching a DVD
movie and for a moment, the introductory screen went totally white and then I
noticed something on the TV. In the lower left hand corner, there was a small
brownish discoloration about the size of a halfdollar or so. It starts at the
very corner and works outwards and disappers for a couple of centimeters. I
didn't notice this until my screen was totally white, while there is a picture
or color on the screen in that lower left corner, it looks normal but once in
a while I get a picture that is white in that area and you can notice the discoloration. It looks like the screen is dirty from the inside in that area.
You wouldn't notice this until you actually watched your tv for about a month and pay really close attention to it. I called sony on it, they told me to get
with a sony authorized repair center. So I called one in my city, and they told
me to bring the set in, they will not pick it up because I live upstairs and there isn't much space on my stairs. So I guess I am stuck with this problem until I get enough people/energy and a truck to take this tv to the center, you guys already know how heavy it is. I always liked the Sony brand name but after
this, I mean spending over 2000 on a tv and still having these minor problems that are so aggrevating. This made me think twice on getting a 40" LCD TV for like 3,000. If any of you are having the same problem, please email me and let me know. Thanks.

As the other reviewers have noted, this is a spectacular television, with stunning images at its best. I am, however, having my set replaced by SONY due to a problem with black-banding on the screen. I'll describe this problem so others can look out for it, then note some other positives.
The problem on my set is that the left 20% of the screen is blacker than the rest, which can be seen when the set is well warmed up and no video is onscreen, or in SOME darker scenes in DVDs. I had a sony certified tech out, and was able to demonstrate the problem to his satisfaction (hence the new set, although that took some yelling at sony). I can only suggest that you watch carefully in 'moonlight' type scenes to see if any part of the screen looks consistently darker than others. It was only noticing this same somewhat strange occurance in many different movies, and then noticing how clear it was when there was no video source, that proved to me something was wrong. When there is a bright image, or even most dark ones, the set looks great. This is hard to describe, but I'm trying to be accurate without overdramatizing it so you can check for yourself. The other lesson I've learned is to verbally make clear to the dealer that ANY serious problems evident out of the box will call for replacement not repair. I only got the replacement because sony does not yet have replacement tubes for this set. I for one do not want major components of a brand new purchase - I just want a new one. Luckily I'm getting one in this case.

Other than that problem, which I belive is some wierd thing with this particular tube (I'm glad to see everyone else happy and apparently not affected) I love this TV. I was able to make fantastic improvements in the picture using Video Essentials, and absolutely love the four different tv settings it can remember (so you can have 4 different sets of contrast, brightness, color, and sharpness) which I find helpful because daytime viewing requires different than night (glare and the fact the DSS channels which tend to have lots of chromakey overlays look better at different sharpness than you would want to use for movies). I also like the cordless headphones.

I'm driving this with a Sony 7700DVD with Monster 1000M component video cables, and a SONY 555ES reciever with S-video for all other video sources. I've also taken the Video Essentials recommendation to put a 15-watt light behind the TV, and find that makes a dramatic improvement in watching in a dark room.

Excepting my tube problem which I'm assuming will be fixed, I cannot imagine much more from a TV, especially for what I think is a great price value. I'm giving it 4 stars only because of the quality control that sent me a bad tube. Otherwise, this is a 5 star in my book.

This is a follow up to my original review. I received a replacement to the tv but found worse geometry problems. The light and dark bars are still there, but not as noticeable as the last tv. I called Sony and logged a case on this problem. They are getting a tech assigned to it.
If you have these problems I suggest calling Sony at the following number -

1-800-222-7669 - Go to the TV section and a support rep will log your call

The only way Sony will fix these problems is if enough people complain. And I disagree with Tom's review below - there are a lot of problems you cannot notice unless you run a calibration disc on the tv. I found several problems by using the Video Essentials DVD.

This TV is still 3 stars until they can get these problems fixed. Don't buy one until you run the VE DVD on the TV in the store. If you do buy one, get the extended service agreement where you can get the TV replaced if any problem occurs. I have that contract and it is my ace in the hole.

You can email me at keith@clearcommerce.com if you want any more information.

its a flat SCREEN

ITS A SONY, worst reliability rate out of all brands

well to be honest with you, i'm not a big sony fan but the tv looks great but the money is just not justified when you could buy the best T.V. on the Market a Pan Superflat or a Proscan!! and the reliability is just terrible!!

Similar Products Used:

Panasonic Super Flat

picture,picture,picture

none,once its paid for

My jaw dropped when i first saw the picture of the xbr wegas. I held of for a year from when i first saw them. But every time I saw one I knew it was the television that I wanted. No complaints after you watch anamorphic dvds the picture is so good it is hard to watch broadcast cable, but thats a plus hey.Bought from tweeter got the five year warranty, oh and my wife likes it!

Picture is perfect when channeled to good frequency. (Or DVDs). I love it!

Absolutely HEAVY!!! Don't believe the box which showed 3 people. It needs atleast 4 to carry this monster. Headphones will deform your head because it is too tight, or maybe my head is too big for it. You see some picture distortion when bad frequency channeled to a bad frequency. Sound system was not that great, but I bought this because of its 3d comb filter anyway.

It's hurting when I think of the price, but picture quality makes my aching better.

Great Picture

Non-uniform background brightness

I wanted to add my voice to the others who have noticed the dark and light colored vertical brightness bands on the screen. These vertical bands are most easily seen by switching to the DVD input with the DVD unit turned off in order to get a blank screen. With the room dark, increase the brightness and a wide light vertical band about nine inches wide will appear on the right side of the screen. The next most visible anomaly is the dark vertical bar on the far left side of the screen. These bands can be reduced by bringing the brightness level down to about one third the maximum setting. Unfortunately some scenes appear too dark at this setting. Isn't it just intolerable that you would have to deal with an issue like this considering the high price of this set! Now, I would like to rant about the other side of this issue which is the lack of information available about this and my limited ability to communicate this problem to Sony. I bought this set at Sound Track and they swore they had never heard of this problem and that none of there sets on the floor had this problem. Well, they know now that all there sets do this after two frustrating weeks of my persistant contact with them. I contacted Sony by phone and Email and they also say they have never heard of this so I should contact a service place to look at the set. I did this and they also had never heard of it before, but are now aware. Not suprisingly Sony has not responded to the service repair place either. So I guess those of you on this forum and I are the only ones on the planet currently aware of this most unacceptable flaw in the XBR250.
If anyone has any advice I am very interested and you are welcome to Email me. The real problem is that in all other ways I really like the XBR250 and would like to keep it. Maybe if we make enough noise about this Sony will notice.

Similar Products Used:

Pan Super Flat

flat screen, styling, compression capability.

picture flaws

I have been looking at this TV for aout six months before I decided to buy it. Right before I bought I read all the reviews from this site. Sure enough when I put a dvd in I noticed a pinkish band on the right 20% of the sreen. Being I paid almost 2000 for this TV this is not acceptable tolerance. This is the only problem I noticed Have any of you had any luck getting this fixed, If so please let me know. Also Im using the monstor componant cables...Will switching to the other brand make that much ofa differance?