Sony KDL 65" W "950 B Series"

[Hoagtech]

I would like to start a review here and slowly put down information I gather on my TV set: the Sony KDL-65W950B.

I have been blown away by its reaction time so far. And the picture is phenomenal really.

I bought it because when I bought my 55" Panasonic LED TV, I noticed there was something wrong with my COD MW2 scores and I had no problems getting kills on my 32" Emerson 720p LCD TV at the time.

So the internet brought up Input Lag as a measure of time between the button pressing on your controller to the reaction of the screen changing and I felt ripped off and have been saving up my change since to buy a better TV with less lag.

I bought the Leo bodnar Input Lag Tester and it turned out I was right My crappy Panasonic really was shitty and I was getting 126 ms of input lag with every image processing mode I could find turned "Off".

I tested my brothers "Sharp Aquos" and it scored an average of 136 ms of input lag. Needless to say we were both pissed. And we both crave a big screen.

After some of the advice of others we sought to buy the biggest screen we could with the lowest amount of input lag.

I would like to test this thing from all angles so if there is a console your fond of or a mode you want to see let me know and I'll test it.

For now here is the Leo Bodnar and Xbone home screen:

[amdiggywhut]

I'm happy for you in finding a TV that suits your needs. I have heard nothing but great things about the line of Sony's you're speaking of.

I got a great deal on an 80 inch Sharp Aquos that I'd planned to mostly watch basketball and movies and play RPGs on. I find that I don't "feel" the lag when it's in Game Mode, though I'm sure it's there, obviously. I play lots of Resogun on it and it's a great experience.

[Ed Oscuro]

Are you just testing the top bar? Most sites now take the average of the three bars. For this model, Rtings shows 17.8ms - using the middle bar apparently, and they're also testing a different panel in the 55" size. That might point towards that size being slightly faster than the 65", or maybe roughly the same. As expected, the numbers are pretty close and the TV's OS probably is the most influence on input lag.

Interestingly, Rtings suggested gamers get the W800B instead, based on motion blur, and a matte finish. Its input lag rating, however, is 23ms. But it's great to get "real world" reviews that reflect what people actually do - moving from one older model to a much newer one, rather than just getting bogged down in the slight differences between mostly contemporary sets.

[Hoagtech]

I'm happy for you in finding a TV that suits your needs. I have heard nothing but great things about the line of Sony's you're speaking of.

I got a great deal on an 80 inch Sharp Aquos that I'd planned to mostly watch basketball and movies and play RPGs on. I find that I don't "feel" the lag when it's in Game Mode, though I'm sure it's there, obviously. I play lots of Resogun on it and it's a great experience.

Well not all Sharp Aquos are affected. My brother had a 55" 2014 model and it had a game mode, but it scored really bad unfortunately.

If you want to find out , Google your model number with "input lag" in the search. I would recommend the "input lag database" on display lag.com or rtings.com. You can find your model on the tag on back of your set.

[Hoagtech]

Are you just testing the top bar? Most sites now take the average of the three bars. For this model, Rtings shows 17.8ms - using the middle bar apparently, and they're also testing a different panel in the 55" size. That might point towards that size being slightly faster than the 65", or maybe roughly the same. As expected, the numbers are pretty close and the TV's OS probably is the most influence on input lag.

Interestingly, Rtings suggested gamers get the W800B instead, based on motion blur, and a matte finish. Its input lag rating, however, is 23ms. But it's great to get "real world" reviews that reflect what people actually do - moving from one older model to a much newer one, rather than just getting bogged down in the slight differences between mostly contemporary sets.

I've noticed the lack of deep blacks but I haven't trained my eye to notice motion blur problems yet and it has less motion blur than my CRT so that's a plus. I tried scrolling scenes like sonic 2 on genesis and it handled it like a champ. (No smearing or jutter)

I read that review on rtings as well. I tested all three spots. Middle: 17.8ms and the bottom 21.4 ms

[Ed Oscuro]

Interesting, so the middle bar shows basically identical readings. Sony's OS and other hardware besides the panel seem basically responsible for the latency setting. There's a comment to the review alleging that the 65" is an MVA panel instead of IPS - can you shed any light on this? (Some reference pixel arrangements here might be helpful in identifying the panel type.) Having basically identical performance (going by the middle bar) doesn't make it sound like the panel types are very different, though.

[Hoagtech]

Interesting, so the middle bar shows basically identical readings. Sony's OS and other hardware besides the panel seem basically responsible for the latency setting. There's a comment to the review alleging that the 65" is an MVA panel instead of IPS - can you shed any light on this? (Some reference pixel arrangements here might be helpful in identifying the panel type.) Having basically identical performance (going by the middle bar) doesn't make it sound like the panel types are very different, though.

I called Sony and they told me IPS. I will look for the lattice crosshatch on my pixels though.

I just picked up Yarn Yoshi, ill do a pixel test on his nose.

[Hoagtech]

It is hard to capture on my camera but upclose I have sideways wide "V" shapes which would lead me to believe it is in fact an IPS panel.

It came with a Yarn Yoshi.


Yoshi pic on Sony:



Upclose Nose:



Yeah I need to grab my magnifier for my iphone for this, but my eyes don't lie, Its an IPS

[Ed Oscuro]

Okay, I'm convinced. Thanks for doing the work!

[Hoagtech]

Okay, I'm convinced. Thanks for doing the work!

Your welcome. While I'm on the subject of tvs, how do I calibrate color like they do in rtings?

Is it a greyscale calibration? I would love to calibrate my own set but I don't know where to start

[Ed Oscuro]

I've read about calibration, but not bothered with it beyond using website test pages (for my monitor) and the Avia Video Essentials disc.

There's a few different methods of calibration - the cheapest one seems to be using semi-transparent colored filters, and a disc will explain how to use those in more detail.

The more complete and reliable method is probably always going to be using a device, something like the Datacolor series for TV, I'd guess. I don't know a thing about these other than that they exist, and that they also use a sensor like the Leo Bodnar. Of course, it won't be able to do anything for uniformity problems.

Personally, I think that it makes sense to just eyeball it. Do what you can to set up contrast and brightness correctly, and try to get the color to agree with ambient (natural and artificial) lighting as well. A device calibration is something I've always wanted to do for screens, but I can't yet justify the expense of buying a device to do it.

[gamedoctor]

Wow, that Yoshi pic looks nice (the game, although the Amiibo is pleasant too). I've been researching a lot of old 1080p TVs for games and just got a W850A, which is very similar from what I read. I hope it looks that good! Haven't even had time to set it up yet.