Sell my Sony KD-34XBR960 to buy a Sony BVM-D24E1WU?PostPost

[Ikaruga11]

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[nissling]

They are two completely different types of CRTs, and it all boils down to your preference and what you're planning to do with it. If we're talking objectively, the BVM-D24 is one of a kind and puts every WEGA to shame completely though they were never made to be compared to each other. The XBR960 is a great CRT in its own right so don't give me wrong.

Long story short: If you want a very sharp, dream like image with strong scanlines when using a 240p source the D24 is practically a no-brainer. If you're already satisfied with your WEGA however there's a chance you will miss its characteristic image, plus the extra ten inches. Either way, if you're not happy with the D24 it will be easy for you to sell it.

[Ikaruga11]

If you want a very sharp, dream like image with strong scanlines when using a 240p source the D24 is practically a no-brainer.

This is what I want. I actually prefer a 20" - 24" for 240p, 480i and 480p content due to the higher DPI. Does 480p, 720p and 1080i have scanlines on the D24?

My XBR960 was professionally ISF/THX calibrated back in March, and the screen is in mint condition with the anti-glare film removed. Looking for $650

[FinalBaton]

I have not seen the XBR960, but based on my reading here's what I gathered :



1- For 240p it's no contest. The BVMs are among the world's sharpest CRTs and they will display 15kHz signals natively. (the XBR has to scale it, so : lag + it doesn't look too hot. and the tube itself is considerably less sharp.)

2- For 480p, it's pretty much the same. The BVM will be a lot better (although the XBR does display 480p unscaled this time. but it has to do some digital treatment to display it on the center of the screen, with black bars all around to fill the rest of the screen, and this introduces a bit of lag, even more so with widescreen signals according to Bazookaben).

3- For 1080i gaming, the XBR960 is supposedly quite nice, although again the BVM will be sharper with that too. But The size of the XBR sure is nice. For watching 1080i cable and blu-rays, and playing modern consoles in 1080i widescreen with a massive screen size + getting that CRT glow, with a rather sharp image, the XBR looks like it's quite a bit of fun.



If what interests you is point number 3, than the XBR looks to be a very nice screen

[nissling]

Does 480p, 720p and 1080i have scanlines on the D24?

Technically, the scanlines are basically the scanned lines with the information. The black lines in between are the lack of scanlines.

Either way I understand your question, and the answer you're looking for is no.

[mvsfan]

why would you want the D24 though? your 4:3 Image is going to be around the same size as a 20" bvm.
If i was looking for a bvm id definately look for the D32.

either way though both monitors are 1000 lines and very sharp.

[Ikaruga11]

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[tacoguy64]

I play my Wii U and PS4 on a 24" AH-IPS 1080p monitor, which looks fantastic. The thought of playing older low-res games on a bigger screen is unsettling.

Not sure why you would think that. Upscalers like the XRGB mini do a great job at playing games on large tv. And big rgb crt are really good for low res games. I've seen pictures of the 32 inch BVM and it looks amazing even on cell phone quality pictures.

[copy]

I have not seen the XBR960, but based on my reading here's what I gathered :


1- For 240p it's no contest. The BVMs are among the world's sharpest CRTs and they will display 15kHz signals natively. (the XBR has to scale it, so : lag + it doesn't look too hot. and the tube itself is considerably less sharp.)

2- For 480p, it's pretty much the same. The BVM will be a lot better (although the XBR does display 480p unscaled this time. but it has to do some digital treatment to display it on the center of the screen, with black bars all around to fill the rest of the screen, and this introduces a bit of lag, even more so with widescreen signals according to Bazookaben).

3- For 1080i gaming, the XBR960 is supposedly quite nice, although again the BVM will be sharper with that too. But The size of the XBR sure is nice. For watching 1080i cable and blu-rays, and playing modern consoles in 1080i widescreen with a massive screen size + getting that CRT glow, with a rather sharp image, the XBR looks like it's quite a bit of fun.

If what interests you is point number 3, than the XBR looks to be a very nice screen

I do own an XBR960, and honestly I've never observed any lag on any of the various input signal types. 240p does not look scaled to me, only line-doubled, and I think it looks absolutely fantastic.

I agree that 480p looks unscaled, but again I've not noticed any lag whether it's in 4:3 mode or widescreen. (In fact, the only 480p issue I've noticed is that the set seems to sometimes introduce a slight screen door effect on these signals that is not present on any other type of signal. It's very strange.)

I have to say generally that I've seen a lot of people criticizing the 960 lately here and elsewhere, but I think people are mostly repeating hearsay and greatly exaggerating the amount of processing/scaling this set performs (and if it indeed does do all these things, then people are greatly underrating how well it does them). I have had almost nothing but good experiences gaming on this awesome TV.

(I would be remiss not to mention a big problem I had recently, though. I lost any picture at all through the HDMI input. After some searching I determined that my set had succumbed to a common issue: the HMDI input stops being able to decrpyt HDCP-encoded signals. Luckily I found a cheap and easy workaround, but it's obviously a pretty major flaw.)

[Ikaruga11]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301948383224?ss ... 1555.l2649

Listed it. If you know anyone who would be interested in a 960 or even think you know anyone who is interested, please let them know.

[BazookaBen]

I have to say generally that I've seen a lot of people criticizing the 960 lately here and elsewhere, but I think people are mostly repeating hearsay and greatly exaggerating the amount of processing/scaling this set performs (and if it indeed does do all these things, then people are greatly underrating how well it does them). I have had almost nothing but good experiences gaming on this awesome TV.

The input lag isn't as bad as most LCD TV's but it's still there. A couple tests for you to try:

Download Wipeout HD for PS3. It's a great game, so don't worry about wasting your $12. Use a component cable to hook up to your TV.

Try playing it in 4:3 480p, then 16:9 480p. You should notice that the ships are a little harder to handle in 16:9.

And another test, try playing it in 1080i, then 720p. The lag at 720p will be even more obvious.

[BazookaBen]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301948383224?ss ... 1555.l2649

Listed it. If you know anyone who would be interested in a 960 or even think you know anyone who is interested, please let them know.

So you just had it calibrated a month ago and now you're getting rid of it? Does your IPS LCD look better or something?

[FinalBaton]

I have to say generally that I've seen a lot of people criticizing the 960 lately here and elsewhere, but I think people are mostly repeating hearsay and greatly exaggerating the amount of processing/scaling this set performs (and if it indeed does do all these things, then people are greatly underrating how well it does them). I have had almost nothing but good experiences gaming on this awesome TV.

Remember that you're on a forum where lagless gaming is priority number 1 for a lot of people. Most people with LCDs here have a Sony with 7 to 9ms of input lag, and are trying to shave off miliseconds the best they can.

So when a TV has a bit of lag, then of course we will mention it, even if it's relatively low. I mean we just got to. It's a very important spec for a gaming display.
As Ben said above, the lag is pretty low, but it's still there and we need to mention it.

If someone ask opinions on the XBR960's handling of retro consoles, I'm not gonna talk about it and NOT mention the lag.

[FinalBaton]

The input lag isn't as bad as most LCD TV's but it's still there. A couple tests for you to try:

Download Wipeout HD for PS3. It's a great game, so don't worry about wasting your $12. Use a component cable to hook up to your TV.

Try playing it in 4:3 480p, then 16:9 480p. You should notice that the ships are a little harder to handle in 16:9.

And another test, try playing it in 1080i, then 720p. The lag at 720p will be even more obvious.

Was there also a bit of lag on 240p/480i? I don't remember.
The image fills the screen's height, so obviously there's some scaling going on

[Ikaruga11]

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[BazookaBen]

Was there also a bit of lag on 240p/480i? I don't remember.
The image fills the screen's height, so obviously there's some scaling going on

I never really messed with 15hz games on my Hi-scan Trinitron, but I assume it's worse than 480p, since the TV has to convert them to 480p or 960i (depending on DRC mode) then do what the window-boxing + zoom it normally does with 480p stuff.

So you just had it calibrated a month ago and now you're getting rid of it?

Yes. While it does an absolutely outstanding job with 480p and 1080i content, it doesn't handle 240p or 480i content nowhere near as well as a BVM. I want a BVM so I can play games in whatever native resolution is fed to it.

The BVM will definitely be more versatile but it might need to be calibrated too if it's seen a lot of hours.

Anyway, I think $650 is a fair price considering the work you've done to the 960, I'm just not sure you'll find a buyer in Ohio.

[Ikaruga11]

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[BazookaBen]

You know what, I bet the OSSC would give you pretty good results for 240p games on your 960. Worth a shot, though I don't know when Marq's will be taking orders again.

[Ikaruga11]

You know what, I bet the OSSC would give you pretty good results for 240p games on your 960. Worth a shot, though I don't know when Marq's will be taking orders again.

What is the OSSC?

[BazookaBen]

What is the OSSC?

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52158

I don't know if all the info is in the first post or not, but he just recently started shipping out the first orders. If you line doubled your 240p games, I'm pretty sure it would sync on your 960 and be treated as 480p. Lag would be near imperceptible assuming you leave the 960 in 4:3 mode

[FinalBaton]

You know what, I bet the OSSC would give you pretty good results for 240p games on your 960. Worth a shot, though I don't know when Marq's will be taking orders again.

That would be interesting to see, yes

[Ikaruga11]

What is the OSSC?

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52158

I don't know if all the info is in the first post or not, but he just recently started shipping out the first orders. If you line doubled your 240p games, I'm pretty sure it would sync on your 960 and be treated as 480p. Lag would be near imperceptible assuming you leave the 960 in 4:3 mode

How would I get that thing to work with my 960?

[BazookaBen]

How would I get that thing to work with my 960?

2 ways:

1) Through HDMI, after you replace your HDMI port with a working one. Sony used the same HDMI port on lots of sets back in the day, including their DLP sets, so finding one on ebay isn't too difficult. I found a replacement for my buddy for $20 and it took a couple hours to put in.

2) With an HD Fury adapter to your component input. The HD Fury 2, 3, and 4 will convert any hdmi signal to component. As of very recently, they had to stop selling them for some stupid DMCA lawsuit, but you can still find them on ebay for a decent price.

They actually still have the HD Fury Nano GX for sale somehow, and that would work, but you'd also need to add a RGB>Component transcoder to the chain because the Nano GX only converts HDMI to RGBHV

EDIT: Apparently they still have the HD Fury 4 (aka 3D Fury) for sale on their site but it is not cheap. Finding a used HD Fury 2 would be the easiest/cheapest solution.

[Ed Oscuro]

I wrote a big post just now on the technical aspects of size comparisons between sets and "sharpness," and since it's being asked here I'll summarize:

Give a lot of thought to how close you will want to sit (or stand) to the screen, and how big you want the image to appear.

A smaller set may appear "sharper," and indeed it will be if it shows a pixel in a smaller area, according to one way of measuring sharpness. But you probably will be more interested in facing the television or monitor from a certain distance, and naturally you will have to get closer to the D24 to find the same angle of view and the same apparent size of view (and to prevent eyestrain). However this does work both ways - if you have good vision the D24 may be a better choice, if the XBR's details are looking blurry in content you use often due to having been magnified more than you'd like.

Of course there's another option: Fixed-pixel sets will do 1080p pretty nicely and may eliminate sharpness concerns, and the OSSC seems to work very nicely to their advantages. I'm not sure if the OSSC on a 1080p set would be sharper than running natively on a BVM - assuming the same size - but the OSSC output does look very nice.

Personally I do not think there is a good one-size-fits-all set for all content, though the D32 does look nice on paper for higher-resolution progressive content.

[KevinDDR]

No matter what the situation is, it's a very obvious "Yes you should sell your XBR960 for the D24" since XBR960s are a dime a dozen (seriously, I have seen literally 100+ on Craigslist in Seattle in the last couple of years) and D24s are not. If you aren't satisfied, you'll be able to get another 960. Trust me.

[Sid]

No matter what the situation is, it's a very obvious "Yes you should sell your XBR960 for the D24" since XBR960s are a dime a dozen (seriously, I have seen literally 100+ on Craigslist in Seattle in the last couple of years) and D24s are not. If you aren't satisfied, you'll be able to get another 960. Trust me.

That you are correct will likely mean that GeneraLight is essentially selling the pro calibration. The prices for the XBRs seem very high compared to the Australian (KV-HR36M31) equivalent (I see them for free with some sort of regularity), but the bumped up buy it now price of US$1000 on this one is really up there.

The variations are interesting. Perhaps the lack of hdmi for the Aus version makes all the difference price-wise, but I've also read about people reporting better image through component input vs hdmi for the US model. I get the best image running hdmi->HD Fury->RGBHV input, but the US version appears to not have RGBHV.

1080i is really nice, 480p is good, but as others have alluded to - 240p is woeful. GeneraLight - get a BVM while you still can.