Superb picture quality (Sony KV-28FX20)

Member Name: Retron

Product:	Sony KV-28FX20
Date:	30/07/01 (360 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great picture from RGB sources, Flat screen - less distortion, Easy setup

Disadvantages: Only 2 SCART sockets, Just one RGB SCART socket

I brought this Sony TV a year and a half ago, and I'd say it's the best TV I've seen. The styling is typically Sony, and the TV feels well built (and heavy - over 50Kg). It comes with its own stand, with a glass door, for your VCR and/or DVD player. Connecting these won't be a problem, although anything else might, due to the TV only having two SCART sockets. Only one of these is RGB, meaning you'll have to make sure your VCR / digital TV box etc can pass RGB to get the best picture quality. S-Video connectors are available on the front, and a button on the TV itself (duplicated on the remote) is used to switch between the various inputs and picture encoding methods.

Analogue set-up is great - just select a menu option and sit back while the TV finds the channels and names them for you. There's a good selection of options in the menus for setting up the TV itself, including a separate volume control for the headphones, and, obscurely, a setting for rotating the picture of the TV to compensate for the Earth's magnetic field! As this is a Sony TV, it supports Sony's SmartLink for connecting to Sony VCRs, which makes recording programmes slightly easier.

To really appreciate this TV you really need a digital source. Analogue TV doesn't transmit in 'proper' widescreen, meaning that you won't be able to fill the screen unless you stretch the picture (which is what all the TV shops seem to do). Connecting a digital source via RGB (the set seems to auto-detect RGB well, and doesn't shift the picture to the left as some cheaper sets do) will result in some of the best TV pictures you're likely to see. Colours are slightly muted (although this is how they *should* be - you can change the colour settings while in RGB mode, which is unusual) and everything is pin sharp - you'll be able to see the jagged lines on computer generated graphics. Of course, with a digital set-up, you can make the most of t
he tube, as most new programmes on the terrestrial channels (BBC, ITV, C4 etc) are in widescreen - again, the picture on these is gorgeous. DVDs apparently look superb as well, but I don't have a DVD player to test that with. For older material broadcast in 4:3, there's a variety of 'zoom' options to play with. You can zoom in just a little, losing the top and bottom of the picture (14:9 - the BBC news on analogue is in this format), 'Smart', which takes a 14:9 picture but expands it meaning you don't get to see any black bars, and 'zoom' which zooms in to such an extent that you can see the individual scanlines. The best option technically is plain 4:3 - watching the programme with black bars to the left and right. The TV is pretty fast at autodetecting when an aspect ratio change has occurred (eg ITN news into an ad break), and will change aspect ratio for you automatically, albeit with a few clunks of relays inside the TV. Analogue teletext is fast in this set, incidentally, and includes fasttext as you'd expect.

The flat screen (totally flat on the outside, but not totally flat in the corners inside) does reduce glare quite a bit, resulting in a good quality, clean picture. This TV is a normal 50Hz one, meaning it does flicker a fair bit. 100Hz sets will fix this, but there are reports on USENET from some people saying that you get digital artefacts on such TVs when viewing a digital source. Similarly, others on the newsgroups have said Sony's surround sound sets (FS20 as opposed to FX20) have quite poor surround sound and that you're better off buying the FX20 and connecting it do a decent amplifier.

Overall, this TV is superb, providing you provide it with a good quality RGB input. You don't have to worry about any integrated digital decoders, which at the moment is great as it's easy to get a separate box - this means it's much easier to record simultaneously form digital and analog
ue. Also, I've seen the price drop below 700 pounds now - my local Tesco has discounted the set to 670 pounds, and I'm sure other places will be even cheaper. No doubt this set is due for replacement in Sony's line-up, but for a good quality TV it's worth the money.

Summary: