Sony Bravia 32" V Series

Earlier in the day, 2 million Bravia pixels entered the Tech2.0 lab, and we’re pretty thrilled because we’re the first with a review as usual. Actually the number of pixels would be 10,49,088, as it’s a 32-inch LCD TV from Sony’s mid-level V Series. As you probably know by now, Sony recently released new models in its V, W and S series, and the model we got for review today is the KLV-32V400A.

Form Factor and Aesthetics
Sony has changed some things from the previous models. Now the bezel is a tad thinner on the sides, with all the action happening at the bottom panel. The edges of the other three sides are simply curved back, while the bottom panel has a horizontal groove carved out, and quite a deep one at that. This groove holds a transparent glass/plastic plate centrally, which houses four indicators towards the right end. These are small LEDs that glow in response to the remote, while the main buttons are positioned top side, accessible in the top view. These are classic Bravia-style push buttons for on/off, navigation etc.

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While Sony’s competition is hiding more and baring a clean surfaced frame, Sony has done quite the opposite here, with a full-fledged horizontal speaker panel with silver grille, positioned right at the bottom, below the groove. The finish is glossy black, and frustratingly attracts loads of fingerprints. The back is pretty clean and bare, with the connection window on the bottom right. The power cord comes attached in this model, so that’s a small headache solved.

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Specifications and Features
The new part of these TVs is in the features, and we now get new MPEG Noise Reduction, Advanced Contrast Engine, and the new Bravia Engine 2. These are proprietary tools that in my opinion don’t affect the picture much, except the Bravia engine itself, which is the architecture of image processing inside. The performance section should be able to elaborate more on these.

The connections are plentiful, but not ground-breaking: 3 HDMIs, PC (VGA) in, headphone out, component and composite ins, and last and also the least, a digital media port. Why can’t Sony keep things simple and include a USB port? Not that it matters; these ports don’t merit much attention, as viewing jpegs is not the reason why I will pay for a slick-looking LCD TV.

The software menu is not as intensive as the Samsung’s; it has basic brightness, contrast (which is called ‘picture’!), backlight, and color. Various modes can be turned on/off, while the factory presets are three in number: ‘Cinema’ warms the colors up (a bit too much), ‘Standard’ keeps things quite balanced, and ‘Vivid’ makes everything bleed. The TV comes with 24p, which detects Blu-ray discs and plays 24fps content “as it was meant to be in the theater”.

As for the rated specs, the contrast is 1800:1 (native) and 15000:1 (dynamic), while the screen’s native resolution is 1366 x 768 pixels. Brightness and response time are not mentioned, but we’ll check those out in the next section.

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PerformanceContrast/Brightness

Before anything else, I’ll mention what we used to test the unit: first up the PS3, then we hooked up our multimedia PC. As far as material goes, we had the Ratatouille BD, Pan’s Labyrinth, DisplayMate software, and most importantly the HQV HD benchmark disc.

Speaking of brightness and contrast, my main test was a pattern with 64 shades of gray, plus vertical bars (including one pair with a negative black rating). Most LCDs have quite a compressed intensity range at the extremes, though this was a significant improvement over previous models. The TV passed the tests, with clear gradation in different shades of grey.

As for contrast, the control on the TV is called Picture, which I found funny. This makes fine adjustments in the image, though even at the highest rating there was no blooming, and that’s very impressive. Along with the backlight setting at exactly half of its full range, I hit a sexy sweet spot with contrast at 68, and brightness more or less flat.

Color
One of the games was Pain, on the PS3, and that has pretty much every color in the color space; that too close to each other in full saturation. This Bravia really exposed all of them to perfection. What I did not like was the neutrality in the color, as in a little warmth for movies was not there, even in Cinema preset. But this can be tweaked with the hue adjustment, and the color ‘warm’ preset, so it’s not an issue. Overall the colors are beautifully vibrant.

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Detail and Motion
In this section our focus shifted from macro to micro; while attention shifted from body to edge. Firstly test patterns yielded above-average results, though extremely fine detail did have some ‘shady pixels’. It’s not like there is any real issue of ghosting or haloing, only that the sharpness level is best kept low, or else small elements may well tend to look hallucinogenic.

The jaggie test is one that trips up all TVs, and this Bravia too stuttered a bit. But it’s too rigid a test to cut many marks. Noise was hardly present in this TV: open, bare images looked nice. Cloudy patches, a common problem wih previous Bravia’s, was also reduced. One point I must make is that in PC mode, with absolutely default settings, some parts of text look slightly bolder than others. This is a problem of varying intensity in the LCD panel. The effect is negligible in movies and games.

Price and Verdict
The KLV-32V400A costs Rs 50,900, which is not very much more than the older models. This is the official price, so you might get it cheaper in the gray market. But that of course is a matter of choice. I think this Bravia is awesome, with contrast and color levels that beat the competition hands down. Detail and motion are right up there with the best, so I guess the price is justified. Check it out.