Sony KDL-40V2000 |
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The Good
Unrivalled picture quality in normal and HD viewing.
The Bad
A little orange creeps into reds sometimes.
Design
As with all Sony LCD TVs the design is understated, but the quality of finish makes it an extremely stylish piece of kit.
Just one HDMI jack means that if you're going to add two or more HDMI-based sources such as sky and xbox360 a switching box will be required.
Features
Screen size & shape: 32in 16:9 Tuner: Digital Sound system: Nicam Resolution: 1366x768 HD Ready: Yes Contrast Ratio: 1600:1 Brightness: 500cd/m2 Weight: 23kg OTHER FEATURES: XD Engine processing,, 7-day EPG support, XD noise reduction SOCKETS: HDMI input, component video input, PC input, S-video, 3 scarts (2RGB), composite video input, stereo audio input, digital audio output, PCMCIA slot
The Bravia KDL-40V2000 comes equiped with a digital tuner, but we should add that it also offers full support for the Freeview seven-day electronic programme guide, including letting you set timer events simply by selecting programmes from the listings, and letting you filter the listings by programme type.
As you'd expect, the 40V2000 also hits the specification targets required by the industry's HD Ready standard, adding to its HDMI and component connections an HD-friendly native resolution of 1,366x768 pixels and compatibility with the 1080i and 720p formats. It can't take the more advanced 1080p resolution - but then neither can the vast majority of its rivals right now.
And so to the first of Sony's innovations, starting with the rather grandly named Bravia Engine. This replaces the WEGA Engine picture-processing system used in some previous Sony LCDs, and differs from its predecessor in that it's designed 100 per cent for LCD TVs, ditching the compromises that allowed WEGA Engine to function with CRT and plasma TVs as well as LCD.
Among the reams of stuff Bravia Engine brings to the party are increased sharpness and detailing, richer but more natural colours and multi-faceted video noise-reduction routines.
Next on the 40V2000's tech list is Super Vertical Pattern Alignment (SPVA). The main objective of SPVA is to tackle LCD's customary viewing-angle problems, whereby contrast levels and colours tend to reduce dramatically when viewing an LCD TV from the side. SPVA works by incorporating into each individual pixel a trio of smaller subsections that are used to refract the light over a wider angle as it emerges from the screen.
Performance
So, do Sony's new technology tricks make a difference? Indeed they do. Colours, in particular, show huge signs of improvement over Sony's previous LCD efforts, finally managing to match its customary vibrancy with natural tones.
Also much easier on the eye are the Bravia KDL-40V2000's black levels. Previous Sony LCD offerings have tended to look washed out and flat where dark parts of a picture are concerned, but here dark areas not only deliver a genuine sense of black but also have enough subtle shadow detailing to add real depth to the image as a whole.
Yet more key improvement can be seen when things get moving, as the smeary look to motion seen on previous Sony LCDs gives way to a much cleaner, sharper impression. There's still room for improvement -- but not much
Connected to this is how fantastically sharp and crisp the 40V2000's pictures look with high-definition sources. In fact, if there's a sharper, more detailed HD TV around, we haven't seen it. The Bravia Engine also earns its stripes by making standard-definition sources look clean and sharp too - even pretty ropey stuff from the built-in digital tuner.
Particularly impressive in all this multi-source sharpness is the fact that it's achieved with precious little sign of any accompanying processing noise, leaving the picture clean and direct.
Only two small negatives warrant a mention. First, even though colours are much improved over previous Sony efforts, a trace of orange can still occasionally slip into rich reds. And second, sharply contrasting edges can sometimes appear with a glowing 'echo' around them. But neither of these issues is hard to live with in the context of all the positives.