another review of the z series : hdtvtest.co.uk

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/sony-kdl40z...20081124136.htm

Conclusion

The deep blacks, accurate colours and low input lag on Sony’s latest high-end (W series and above) LCD HDTVs need no further praise, so we’re left to comment on the Sony KDL40Z4500’s 200Hz Motionflow implementation.

The good news? There are surprisingly few kinks for what effectively is the first incarnation of 200Hz MCFI technology. Now the not-so-good news: any resultant improvement in motion clarity isn’t really leaps and bounds ahead of what 100Hz LCD televisions currently offer when it comes to real-life viewing.

So while the Sony KDL40Z4500 holds the current record for the highest motion resolution we have measured on an LCD TV so far, pound-for-pound we think that the Sony KDL40W4500 (equipped with 100Hz Motionflow) represents better value-for-money.

Okay, okay, you're right, you're always right! Can we get along with this? Somebody obviously been fishing for a response from the start, could not leave the thread alone.

Person A says Motionflow "doesnt do much for shitty TV and screws with some movie". Another person, Person B, have the Z, been using Motionflow with his materials since his purchase and *gasp* likes it.

I chose to end that "discussion" with you here. Pretty much obvious from my non-response to your posts previously until the "hook" was forced into the proverbial fish's mouth. If that is still not clear, I dont want to talk to you. Any clearer than that, I'd have to spell it out one by one. Or do the most civil thing to do and put you on the ignore list, until your lackeys comes here and quote your every post and forces me to read your bile-ridden posts whether I like it or not.

Jeeez!

Sony probably needed to use a slightly different LCD panel for a problem-free implementation of its 200Hz Motionflow system, and various characteristics of the screen certainly gave this away. Even out-of-the-box, we immediately noticed less clouding and backlight bleed on the Sony KDL40Z4500 HDTV than on the W4000 or W4500 series. The Sony KDL40Z4500’s edge in screen uniformity was also maintained off-axis, though it must be pointed out that its contrast and colour washed out slightly earlier than the W4000 and W4500 when viewed from an angle.

Screen uniformity - No clouding and backlight bleed if calibrated

You dont like artificial image manipulation, I do. Let's end it at that.

Yes, you are always right. Can we move along now?

This could more accurate describe this whole mess more than it is implied. Characters including as well. No prize for who is who.

It's important to stress before we go any further that the 46Z4500's Motionflow 200Hz system doesn't just repeat the same image three times. Instead it calculates ‘missing' image data between neighbouring frames of the original source, predicting movement in all directions, so that motion can be portrayed with less blurring and judder.
As if this wasn't enough, the 46Z4500 also employs a further new image enhancement technology called Image Blur Reduction, which boosts the sharpness of the final picture by improving the original image frames BEFORE they're processed by Motionflow 200Hz.

Before I get down to the key business of finding out what if anything 200Hz brings to the 46Z4500's picture party, I really feel the need to start the testing part of this review by saying that, thankfully, the 46Z4500 does not suffer with the really distracting backlight pooling problems I witnessed with recent Sony W4500 models. There's a tiny bit of light spillage to the top left, but this is hardly ever noticeable under normal viewing conditions. Phew.

And so to 200Hz., and the discovery that it's good, but not the absolute picture quality tour de force we might have been praying for. In other words, while it does make motion in pictures look smoother and - usually - clearer than you'd get from even a 100Hz LCD TV, the leap forward isn't anything like as profound as the leap from 50Hz to 100Hz.

That sounded a little harsher than I intended it to. Obviously any improvement in picture quality, no matter how minor, deserves credit. I just think it's important to cut away a little of the hype surrounding the 200Hz feature; to say that the difference it makes is marginal rather than revolutionary.

In fact, I'd argue that Philips' HD Natural Motion system, which has been around for the best part of a year now, actually makes motion look even smoother and clearer than Sony's 200Hz engine.

Having said that, Sony's new motion processing does score points of its own over the Philips engine for the way it generates practically no nasty side effects whatsoever. With the Philips HD Natural Motion TVs you're forever tweaking various settings with different types of source material, in order to ensure you're not left looking at too many nasty image processing artifacts. But with the 46Z4500 you can enjoy the 200Hz benefits glitch-free with pretty much anything, so long as you don't often set the Motionflow system higher than its Standard level.

Just occasionally something particularly tricky, such as a facial close-up moving across the screen, can seem to smear a little bit, either because of problems with the speed of the Sony's processing or because the processing can't quite figure out the best thing to put in the three extra frames it's calculating. But these instances are rare, and easy to live with in the context of all the good the 200Hz engine is doing.

And anyway, the 200Hz system is far from the end of the 46Z4500's talents. Its colours, for instance, are superb, portraying with exceptional vibrancy the riot of colour on show during the Captain Jack hanging sequence towards the end of the first Pirates of the Caribbean film.

Using the Wide colour mode actually makes these shots look almost scarily aggressive and eye-catching. But it seemed to me that the tonal accuracy suffered a little in this mode, so I personally preferred the Standard setting.

Now I've started down a negative path, I might as well add that occasionally I spotted the auto contrast feature reacting to a brightness change in the source a little slower than I'd have ideally liked. Also, with Motionflow set to high, fast moving objects can tend to appear with a slight trail behind them. And similar smearing was also sometimes visible with HD sources during particularly tricky, motion and detail-heavy footage, such as the scenes in the hallucinogenic fog towards the end of Batman Begins.

Dragging my thoughts away from the mostly impressive but certainly not perfect picture situation to focus on the 46Z4500's audio, I have to say I was a wee bit underwhelmed. There's good definition in the soundstage, and it spreads far and wide around your room without losing cohesion. But it also lacks the raw power and dynamic range to really open up to meet the challenge of a raucous action film sequence - especially if you're using anything other than the Dynamic audio preset.

TS, don't make it as fap mat while watch +18 movies.....

I rather go for Pioneer KURO 42" compare to sony X/Z series.