dyson@inuxh.UUCP (John Dyson) (02/19/85)
I am currently a proud owner of a Sony 20XBR and a 19 inch Proton component TV system. I find that the Proton is indeed much sharper than the 20XBR. In fact the Proton is much too much sharper. When supplied with character generator type inputs like home computers or cable TV system information pages the Proton seems to have a peaked high frequency response (guess) that causes the edges of the characters to have video overshoot. The Sony however has very sharply defined characters with comparatively little such overshoot. After comparing the actual detail resolved by the Sony and the beautiful, relatively noise free color saturation provided by the Sony, I am almost ready to junk my Proton. To me, an overly sharp picture is not a good picture. By the way, has anybody actually looked at the color accuracy of a Proton? I do not like orangish reds and muted greens. The Proton also seems to have problems with the leading edge of flesh tones. Under some conditions of transitions from certain colors to flesh tones there is a leading greenish cast. I have seen this on at least 2 Proton 19 inch monitors and 1 Proton 19 inch TV. It does not appear to be a convergence problem, but an artifact of the NTSC decoder. I am not really going to junk my Proton, it is much much better than most of the other TVs on the market. I'll be willing to sell it if I can get enough out of it to buy another Sony 20XBR. Note that these views are my opinions and not those of AT+T CP. John Dyson
pearse@hound.UUCP (S.PEARSE) (02/20/85)
The new Sony XBR's sound great, and I definitely want to buy the top 25" receiver/monitor within this year. The question is, should I wait for Sony's coup-de-grace, the double-bandwidth high-definition stuff? Is it true they will come out this December? What about the performance of these TV's when receiving old NTSC signals vs. the double-bandwidth VCR's signals that are required to enjoy the high-definition stuff? Anyone have the inside scoop? -- Steve Pearse ihnp4!hound!pearse
upstill@ucbvax.ARPA (Steve Upstill) (02/21/85)
re "Sony's new double-bandwidth receiver". This refers to High Definition TV, or HDTV, Sony's proposed 1000+ line standard. HDTV is a whole new ball game, involving getting it accepted as a standard and getting stations to use a whole batch of new equipment, and as such is still several years down the road. The thing coming out in December is Super-Beta, which is much more modest: a Beta HiFi tape deck, backward compatible, with about 20% more bandwidth than normal Beta, which really only has about 60% the bandwidth of normal TV. I see no reason to wait for HDTV. Steve Upstill