Sony KP-51WS500 51 in. TV

I've been wanting a widescreen television for years. The black bars on my DVDs have really aggravated me. Finally I splurged and bought this glorious Sony television after 'previewing' the same model at a friend's house. I am not disappointed at all. This television is amazing. Read on....this is going to be a long review. Lots to cover.

The Purchase and Getting it into the House
I picked this TV up at BestBuy. Paid $2199.99 plus $299.99 for 4-year service plan, which was $100 cheaper than Circuit City. The box fits across the width of a Ford F-150 without a problem. You may have to get creative with securing it if you have a long distance to travel, but I had about a mile and a half to go so it wasn't an issue for me.

FYI the 'straps' that hold the box shut look like metal (like they should be) but I found out they were plastic, and quite flimsy plastic at that. Be careful tying anything to them or trying to move the box by grabbing them. Not a good idea. Also be aware that the bottom of the box is what you need to hold on to to move it. There are 'handles' cut in the sides of the box for you to pick it up, but I don't recommend it. If one of those plastic straps fails, your $2200 investment will make a very loud and expensive sound when it impacts the ground. Be aware.
Getting it into the house was no problem, its really not that heavy. It's more big and awkward. I was able to move it in with two people. Piece of cake.

The Unwrapping
Once you get this thing into its new home, of course its time to unpack it! It comes with the usual styrofoam corner protectors and the foam sheeting which protects the beauty from scratches during shipment/moving. Take all of that off and you'll expose the sheer prestige of this TV. What a wonderful sight it is! Lift it out of its bottom box carefully and set it on the ground. You'll notice that it is on casters! You can wheel it around! EASY! Don't forget the remote (with batteries) and the instruction package. They are taped into one of the bottom foam corner protectors.

Turn me on!
As is customary with electronics, I immediately turn on whatever I bought to make sure it functions out of the box. I made the mistake of not doing this (with my home theater system) and after cutting all the speaker wires and hooking the entire thing up, I turn it on and got nothing (well, I got another 1-1/2 hour round-trip drive to the place where I bought it). I decided to plug the TV in and hook the old Xbox up to it to make sure I had a picture and sound. No problems.

Make it work
Now for setting this thing up to work with all of my stuff. Since this TV has seven (yes seven, 7, one two three four five six SEVEN) inputs, I don't think you have enough stuff to hook to it! I sure don't. Here's the list of what I need to hook to it: Digital Cable, Xbox, PS2 (roommate's), DVD player, digital camera. I connected the DVD to one of the component video inputs (Video 7), the Xbox is up to one of the S-Video inputs (until I get the component add-on), the digital cable is hooked to the other S-Video input. PS is hooked to normal A/V RCA's and the digital camera is hooked to Video 2, which is the small front-panel inputs (which also include a S-Video jack).

The Quality
Sadly, Cox Communications (the local cable provider) doesn't give me any HDTV channels, not even a preview like TimeWarner does. Bummer. Rumor has it that they will be offering an HDTV tuner for 'rent' in the coming months, so we shall see. Until the tuner comes out, I have to deal with cable pictures which can be a little grainy and are distorted, thanks to the widescreen. It took some time to get used to the distortion, but Sony says if you watch in 'Normal' mode, the light grey bars on either side of the picture could burn-in and that's not covered in warranty. Bad idea to try it. So, until HDTV, everyone on TV just put on 30 lbs. DVD's look flawless. If you have movies that say they are in 1.85:1 aspect ratio widescreen format, you won't have black bars. If the aspect is 2.35:1, 2.40:1 or 2.65:1, then you'll have black bars, but it still looks fine and is better than before! More on this in a bit. The S-Video from the Xbox looks amazing, the detail that comes out in games like Halo is just mindboggling. Oh, and BTW since this is a widescreen TV, you get a wider picture with your video games. They aren't stretched. That means in games like NASCAR Thunder 2003, you see guys passing you on the sides before you would on a normal TV. Quite an experience.

The Options...the most important thing!
This TV has options galore. Hit the Menu button and a plethora of information comes into light for you to change.

Video
Video Mode: Vivid, Standard, Pro, Movie - The manual says 'Vivid' can lead to screen burn-in since it jacks the brightness up all the way. I use standard and mess with the settings myself.

The standard Television adjustments:
Picture
Brightness
Color
Hue
Sharp

Color Temperature: Warm, Neutral, Cool - Warm turns things redder, cool turns them blue-er. I keep in on neutral.

DRC (Digital Reality Creation): Interlaced, Progressive, CineMotion. These are supposed to be better for certain types of viewing. I don't see a bit of difference in any of them. Another Sony gimmick I am sure.

Audio
Regular controls here:
Treble
Bass
Balance

Steady Sound On/Off (for those shows with quiet dialog and extra loud commercial music). Levels the sound out.

Effect: TruSurround, Simulated, Off - TruSurround simulates surround sound I guess. Simulated takes Mono sound and puts it in stereo. I keep it on TruSurround, but haven't noticed much of a difference. The sound from this TV is exceptional to begin with.

MTS: Stereo or Mono

Speaker: On or Off, if you have/don't have external speakers.

Audio Out: Fixed or Variable, for use with a separate receiver if you have one.

Channel
Favorite Channel: Auto/On/Off
Cable: On/Off
Channel Fix: On/Off - Use if you only use your TV to display channels rather than surf...I.E. you use Channel 4 and your cable box through a VCR or something.
AutoProgram - Programs cable for you
Channel Skip/Add: Lets you control which channels you can see (if you have kids and the scrambled porno channel 57 comes in just a little too clear...)
Channel Label: Lets you give channels a label so you know you're watching ABC (even though there's a little ABC logo on the bottom right.)

Wide
Now the important part. This is where you control how much of your screen is filled with picture. This is also where you decide if you want to risk picture tube burn-in for the sake of an undistorted picture.

Wide Mode: Wide Zoom, Normal (bad setting), Full, Zoom
Normal shows grey bars on the side of your non-distorted picture. Wide Zoom shows a full picture, but zooms in vertically (to get rid of some of the black bars if you watch something in aspect ratio 2.35:1) Full is the normal widescreen mode. Cable pictures will fill the screen. People will look fatter. Watching the Super Bowl, Jerry Rice looked like a Linebacker rather than a Receiver. Just takes some getting used to. Zoom zooms vertically and horizontally, basically a full zoom. I don't use this option, doesn't do much for me.

4:3 Default: What the picture does if its in 4:3 (old TV) format. It will automatically stretch, zoom, wide zoom or do nothing. I leave it on Wide Zoom.

Vertical Center: You can adjust the centering of the TV +/- some number. I moved it up +3 and haven't touched it since.

Timer
You can set the timer for when it goes off. Nothing new here.

Setup
Parental Controls: Honestly I haven't investigated this much. Apparently you can set a password on the TV, set which channels you can view for your kids, and also set what ratings they can watch. Not sure how it does this but its an option. Those of you who are interested go to your local Best Buy or Circuit City and play with one of these TV's to learn more.

CaptionVision: See closed captioning or station broadcast information. I leave this off.
Video Label: Lets you label which video inputs are which. This is very handy so you dont have to write down "OK Video 7 is DVD, Video 2 is Xbox, etc."
Language: I speak English, so English it is.

Those are the options. Some are great, useful, some are gimmicky. I'm glad I didn't buy this TV because of the cool sounding "TruSurround" or "Digital Reality Creation". Nothing special if you ask me.

The 'Universal' Remote
This is by far the worst thing about the TV. This remote isn't universal at all! If you buy a 'replacement' universal remote at the store you get a book with thousands of codes in it for virtually every brand of device made. You'd think Sony would include a lot of numbers in their codebook. NOPE. I have an Aiwa receiver and surround sound system, not a single code for Aiwa. That's one extra remote. Next, for Motorola Digital Cable box...no code either! One more remote I have to use. This is really starting to SUCK. Sharp VCR? Nope. Three remotes. DVD - Panasonic. OK there's a code for that one. One out of four? Not good. The Digital Cable one is the biggest pain in the a**. I just find myself watching cable through the TV rather than the cable box. Oh well.

Conclusion
This is by far the coolest piece of electronics I've ever had. This TV is truly amazing in its picture quality. I CANNOT WAIT for Cox Cable to offer HDTV broadcasts. That's when the fun will really start. Too bad I'll have to wait another year to watch the Super Bowl in HD. Playing video games and watching DVD's on this using Component video is a dream come true. The detail is amazing and this is the reason I spent so much on this TV. If you are looking for the same quality that I am, you will not be disappointed!