(Okay, in fairness, it kind of is.) [XBR10@Giz]

The bottom line is that Wilson and Louis, at the Sony event, describe these new LCD TVs as the best-looking TVs they've ever seen, inside and out.

The nicer XBR5 and XBR4 sets also have 120Hz tech, which Sony calls Motionflow, and 24 frame support at full high def.

The devil is in the details, and here's that for all three TV lines.

The XBR5 line is distinguished from the W series by its 120Hz support, which interpolates the original 60 frames with 60 tweened frames. The new TVs also all do 24 frame support, which all film content is recorded and mastered in, so hopefully its played back on these TVs without pulldown and jutter*. The TV does upscaling and deinterlacing by means of the "BRAVIA Engine Pro circuitry with Digital Reality Creation-MultiFunction v2.5". It comes in 52-, 46-, and 40-inch flavors.

The XBR4 line is basically identical to the XBR5. Except every equivalent size is $300 cheaper as an XBR4, and they have detachable color plates. (The XBR5 comes only in piano black.) Strange, but Sony did the same thing with the XBR3 and XBR2. Weird, I know.

Then there's the W line. There's the W line looks identical to the XBR5 line, but it lacks the 120Hz system. It also uses a lesser video processor, but Sony doesn't specify the difference: "Sony's BRAVIA Engine EX full digital video processing system with Digital Reality Creation-Multifunction v1.0 (DRC-MF v1.0)." Like the other two lines, it comes in 52-, 46- and 40-inch sizes.

Is there a caveat? Yes. Sonys have been known to have blotchy backlighting on some sets. I don't know if these have those problems, but its worth waiting for a full review before buying.

(*I think. The press info isn't clear if it will actually divide the 120Hz by 24 or if it does a 60 frame conversion first before jumping to 120Hz.)

XBR5 and XBR4 Pricing and Availability:

The KDL-52XBR4, KDL-46XBR4 and KDL40-XBR4 models will be available in August for about $4,800, $3,800 and $3,000, respectively. Also shipping in August, the KDL-46XBR5 and KDL-40XBR5 will be about $4,100 and $3,300. The KDL-52XBR5 model will come out in September for about $5,100. Sony's KDL-46W3000 and KDL-40W300 models will debut in July for about $3,500 and $2,700, respectively, while the KDL-52W3000 will be available in August for about $4,300.

W Series Pricing:

W3000 Series
KDL-52W3000 - $5100
KDL-46W3000 - $3500
KDL-40W3000 - $2700

– Brian Lam

This is the same monitor that Sony used on the press day.

And it looks exceedingly good in all its 1080p glory (I've included high res shots of the screens.) But not all is perfect with this series of TVs.

First, an introduction. The 40-inch Bravia KDL-40XBR3 LCD has a couple of interesting things going for it, 1080p res aside. It uses a cold cathode fluorescent backlight that has allows for a bright picture with an exceptional color range. It uses a set of visual processors for upscaling lower def pictures, as well as edge sharpening, noise reduction, etc. I've gone and spared you the code words for these techs.

My experience with the XBR3 LCD includes about a month with the ps3, wii, Dish Network satellite TV (including HD channels), and HD-DVD and Blu-ray movies via forementioned console. Along the lines of real world benchmarking, I was pleased with the black levels, which I found to be near the top of the class (I've heard, via a CNet review of the XBR2, that the Sharp's are better) and brightness was all I could ask for. I did notice limited background noise in solid colors on some HD films, which I did not enjoy. It's possible that turning off most video processing could fix this, since HD sources like this are so clean that the TV should just leave it alone.

I also hated the menu system, and the source switching proceedure was painfully awkward. (click, wait for the source titles to come on a second later, repeat til you find your video.)

Interesting fact: The $4300 TV itself is for all performance purposes identical to its $300 cheaper relative, the XBR2. But the XBR3 has a black (instead of silver) finish, a longer warranty, and a different remote. The silver looks shit to me, and is only a deal breaker because the extra bezels cost the $300 you thought you were saving.

The glass edges are bad ass. And this thing has 3 HDMI inputs, including one on the side. Like all Sony sets this year, there isn't Picture-In-Picture. Nor does this set have cable card. Note, I don't give a shit about cable card. Reminds me of combination TV/VCRs.

The problems with the XBR aren't with this set, but are worth noting. The XBR3 in the larger 46-inch size is supposedly having inconsistent backlighting problems; those who have beef see clouds when the screen is set to black. According to the fans of the XBR2/3 series at AVS Forums, you're safer with the 40-inch flavor, which is theoretically easier to make.

After a day of testing there are some particular strange things going on. People on the AVS forum are reporting that 1080p is not working with component or VGA cables on the Sony XBR2/XBR3 line of HDTVs, which are touted as some of the better 1080p HDTVs out. Also, before I get flamed, the XBR series can support 1080p over said cable, according to the manual.

We presume Microsoft just dropped the ball and fucked something up, but it is nice to think it was done purposely to spite Sony and the PS3. Read the full complaint after the jump.

Something fishy is going on with the 360's dashboard update from yesterday. Sony's XBR2/XBR3 line of televisions are pretty universally regarded as top of the line when it comes to 1080p displays, but despite that, the 360 will not display 1080p resolution, either with component cables or VGA. Via component, after selecting 1080p, the screen just turns to a distorted/static picture for a few seconds before reverting to 1080i. With VGA, the picture is severely cut off on both sides of the screen, and a prompt on the TV displays "Invalid Signal—Check Your PC Output." Several owners of the TV claim that it will NOT accept 1080p over component, so that should take care of that factor. However, there is no conceivable reason these two pieces of equipment shouldn't work together via VGA. Any other VGA device I've tested works fine on the set, and other competing sets (Samsung, Sharp) display the 360 in 1080p without any issu! es.

I don't want to throw the blame out before more is known, but I will say the Sony has been out for several months now, and the dashboard update is about 12 hours old at this writing, so it seems like the ball is in Microsoft's court. The XBR2/3 series is extremely popular so I don't buy that Microsoft "didn't test it" with one of those sets. If MS did intentionally sabotage it, this is easily on par with any scummy activity in the video game industry this year. If they didn't intentionally sabotage it but knew of the issue beforehand and didn't say anything, it's not much better.

I'm anticipating some finger pointing here, but I don't care who did what. I want my damn $4000 TV and my damn $400 video game console to work together like they should. This kind of news doesn't exactly help anticipation for the 360's HD-DVD player, and these kinds of scumbag tactics don't help either side. If it's confusing to the hardcore, imagine what it's like to clueless consumers.

-Nick

AVS Forums Thread [Via Kotaku]

Back to the present day, the flagship of Sony s direct-view line of CRTs is the 34-inch 16x9 KD-34XBR970 (pictured above), a full-blown HDTV with lots of enhancement circuitry built in, such as Sony s CineMotion inverse 3:2 pulldown to make those films you like to watch look better, and Sony's proprietary image enhancers such as Dynamic Picture Processor and Clear Edge. Keeping the colors true is Trinitone color temperature technology. And there's one more important detail: When you're talking tubes, the price is always right, especially compared to LCD and Plasma—this one s available for preorder at Sony Style for $1200.

Note that even though LCD and plasma displays continue to improve, lots of golden-eyed video engineers will tell you that the good old cathode ray tube still gives you the best video quality.
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Specs and pricing on Sony CRT TVs [Amazon]