Sony KV-32HS20 32 inch TV

Depending on your viewpoint, Sony is either a very smart company or a very greedy company. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

The problem they faced was how to keep up revenues while prices have dropped rapidly on the new high-definition/digital-television (H/DTV)-ready sets. Most companies have just faced the music and instituted substantial price cuts for their 2002 lines. Just look at the list prices on Toshiba H/DTV projection TV's for 2000 and 2001. While their prices for their largest model, a 65-inch set, once topped out around $6,000, this same set now lists for less than $4,000.

On the other hand, direct-view (standard cathode-ray tube (CRT)) H/DTV sets have more succesfully resisted the downward price pressure in the market. Apparently, it is still a complex, expensive process to manufacture the CRT for a high-def set.



H/DTV, What It Is

A quick note on terminology: an H/DTV-ready set is one which can accept the analog, high-def output (usually either 480 horizontal lines of 1080 horizontal lines) from one of the so-called set-top box digital tuners which are needed to receive the over-the-air (terrestrial) digital broadcasts in the new ATSC standard. The old analog broadcast standard, which is also at 480 lines, but in a lower-resolution format known as "interlaced," is called NTSC. H/DTV-ready sets are sometimes called "H/DTV-capable" or "H/DTV monitors."

Most H/DTV-ready sets will also accept, and display, 480-progressive (480p) output from a DVD player. Also, most will line-double a 480-interlaced (480i) standard analog broadcast image, bumping it up to 480p (unfortunately, as described below, Sony uses a less-optimal method with the 32HS20 of displaying standard broadcast material).

Sales people, and the consumers who they confuse, will sometimes call these "digital" TV's, but this is a bit of misnomer. While the sets may use digitial technology, at some point, to process the video signal, the signal enters the set in analog form only. The ATSC high-def signals are broadcast in digital form, but the set-top boxes convert these signals to an analog form, albeit usually at a higher definition (480-progressive or 1080-interlaced) than was used with NTSC analog broadcasting. Most set-top boxes, by the way, will also output a 480-interlaced signal, meaning you can receive high-def broadcasts and then display them on a standard NTSC analog TV.

There is an exception to what I just said about digital TV's. While it's still pretty rare, some TV manufacturers have begun to include digital inputs, usually with the Firewire (IEEE-1394, or iLink) connection standard. These are very convenient for use with a set-top box which has Firewire output, those these are even more rare than TV's with Firewire input.

Sony's Income-Preservation Operation

Last year, Sony had a single line of H/DTV-ready direct view TV's, the XBR400's, which included two models, the KV-32XBR400 and the KV-36XBR400. Instead of just dropping the prices on these sets for 2002, Sony cleverly split the line in two. Now they have a higher-end line, the XBR450's (with a 32-inch and a 36-inch model), which are about equally expensive as the 2001 XBR400 models, and a lower-end, less-expensive line, the HS20's (again, with sets of 32 and 36 inches).



Meet the KV-32HS20

I had a chance to evaluate the KV-32HS20. This set lists for $1,800 and I have yet to see it selling anywhere at any discount from this price. Since Sony only sells through authorized dealers, and they're fairly picky about who gets this appelation, their sets tend to not be discounted much.



Alternatives to the 32HS20

In fact, if your video monitor budget is in the $1,800 range, you might want to take a look at what your money will get you with rear-projection television (RPTV) sets. The Toshiba line offers especially good values and their entry-level 42H81 widescreen H/DTV-ready set often sells for around the same price as the 32HS20.

Then again, you might actually want a direct-view TV, either because of space issues or because you prefer the image quality of direct-view over RPTV. If you're interested in a direct-view set such as the 32HS20 because of space issues, I'd suggest you take a look at a recent RPTV such as the 42H81. Toshiba's 42-inch projection TV is only about 20 inches deep and the entire set won't take up much more room than a 32-inch direct-view TV and the stand on which the TV would likely be placed. Of course, a TV stand also gives you a great storage area for your VCR, DVD player, A/V receiver, tapes, DVD's, and all that other good stuff, but my basic point is that RPTV's are now surprisingly more lithe than they once were.

In terms of the image quality of direct-view versus rear-projection, that's a personal aesthetic decision. And it's up to you, too. The big advantage of RPTV's, the thing that makes them especially attractive for home-theater fanatics, is that they have a muted, slightly-soft film-like quality. Direct-view TV's, on the other hand, tend to have sharper, brighter, more color-accurate images.



The 32HS20 versus the 32XBR450

In terms of features, the main difference between the 32HS20 and the 32XBR450 is that the HS20 lacks 3:2 pulldown, a feature which reduces motion artifacts, and other image problems, when displaying movie-source material at the 480p image level. To see how the 32HS20 fared without the 3:2 pulldown, I used my standard DVD torture test, Chapters 2,3, and 4 of Saving Private Ryan.

I didn't see many problems with motion artifacts, though I didn't have the opportunity to do a side-by-side comparison with an XBR450. If you're concerned about this, bring in the type of DVD's you like to watch and ask your retailer to let you spend some time watching them on a 32HS20. If your retailer can't be bothered to set up this demonstration, then find another retailer.



Enhanced 16:9 Mode -- Sony's Best Feature

For DVD movie enthusiasts, the coolest feature of the 32HS20 is definitely its enhanced 16:9 mode. This mode works with anamorphic widescreen input to the TV, such as the signal from an anamorphic DVD or a 1080-interlaced (1080i) feed from an H/DTV set-top box digital broadcast tuner.

With most TV's having a 4:3 aspect ratio (ratio of width to height), such as the 32HS20, when displaying a 16:9 widescreen image it is necessary to use letterbox bands (black or gray horizontal rectangles) which compensate for the differences between the almost-square shape of 4:3 and the elongated-rectangle of 16:9. Furthermore, on most TV's these letterbox bands are actually part of the picture. Thus, typically, where you would have 1080 horizontal lines, as in a 1080 H/DTV image, only about 800 are the actual image and the rest are part of the letterbox bands.

The great innovation of the 32HS20's enhanced 16:9 mode (which, by the way, is found on most of the Sony's Wega sets and in their H/DTV-ready models) is that it generates the letterbox bands digitally, allowing the full 1080 lines of a 1080i H/DTV image to appear in the scrunched-in space between the letterbox bands. In effect, the vertical resolution of anamorphic widescreen images shoots up about 20 percent. Note that you won't benefit from this feature on non-anamorphic widescreen DVD's which are actually 4:3 DVD's where integral letterbox bands, surrounding the 16:9 image, are part of the whole picture (the scaling feature in outboard line-doublers and some DVD players, such as Panasonic's DVD-RP91, can compensate for non-anamorphic widescreen DVD's).



Deciding if 4:3 is Right for You

While we're on the subject of 4:3 and 16:9, you should include the 32HS20's 4:3 aspect ratio as an important part of your purchase decision. If you are buying an H/DTV-ready set, then you presumably intend to use it, to a large degree, for viewing widescreen material such as DVD's and H/DTV broadcasts. Then again, if you watch much standard broadcast TV you'll still be viewing a fair amount of 4:3 material.

Of course, the 32HS20 can display widescreen material but, as mentioned above, in the letterbox mode you won't get an image over the entire area of the screen as you would with a widescreen TV. If you choose a widescreen TV, on the other hand, 4:3 material will either have to be displayed with windowboxing (vertical bands to the left and right of the image) or a mode which slightly alters the dimensions of the 4:3 image, making it stretch out to fill the entire 16:9 screen.

So, it's a basic judgement call where you have to decide what's most important in catering to your present viewing habits and what you think will work best in satisfying your future viewing habits. And you have to kind of guess a little as to how quickly H/DTV broadcasting will become widespread. Actually, H/DTV broadcasting is already available in over two-thirds of the TV households in the U.S., but acceptance of the set-top boxes needed for this has been slow, partly due to the price of the tuners which is around $600 or more, a hefty sum to add to the minimal outlay of $1,000 for an H/DTV-ready set. See, it's not easy being a consumer of high-end video gear these days.



Digital Reality Creation -- Grrrrrrrr

If the 32HS20's enhanced 16:9 mode is video paradise, its so-called Digital Reality Creation mode (DRC) is one of the lowest rings of Dante's Video Inferno. Perhaps I exaggerate, but only slightly. As mentioned above, Sony takes a different approach to the line-doubling (bringing 480i to 480p) which most H/DTV makers use for the display of NTSC-standard analog broacast images.

Before I explain DRC, a brief explanation of interlaced versus progressive scanning is in order. With interlaced scanning, each 1/30th-of-a-second video frame is divided into two 1/60th-of-a-second "fields," with the first field containing the odd-numbered lines of the frame and the second containing the even-numbered lines. In a 480-interlaced, or 480i, image, each field would have 240 horizontal lines. With a progressive-scan image, a full frame is projected during each 1/60th-of-a-second. So, with the 480p output from a DVD player, for example, there would be an entire 480 horizontal lines on the screen during each 1/60th-of-a-second.

Thus, when an H/DTV-ready set line-doubles 480i NTSC standard analog input, such as a broadcast signal or the output of a standard interlaced-scan DVD player, it brings that up to the 480p level. As mentioned above, this can cause image problems, such as motion artifacts, especially with movie-source material (mainly because movies originate as a 24 frame-per-second (fps) medium while video is a 30fps medium). The 3:2 pulldown on the XBR450's is designed to reduce the image problems which crop up due to bumping up picture resolution.

In general, progressive-scan images have a more solid, higher-quality look than interlaced-scan images. Typically, interlaced-scan images are prone to flicker, which you can witness yourself when you see the edge of any solid line, such as the box around sports scores, on an NTSC-stanard analog TV. Therefore, despite the various small anomalies which are dealt with by 3:2 pulldown, a line-doubled 480i image, displayed at 480p, will look much more solid than the original image.

As mentioned above, Sony takes a different approach to processing 480i images for display on the 32HS20. Instead of line-doubling the images up to 480p, Sony's DRC process doubles the interlaced image, doubling it up to a 960i image. Unfortunately, this results in an image of lesser quality than you would get with a 480i image doubled up to 480p. Among other problems, keeping the image in interlaced form brings along to the 960 level all the typical interlaced-scan image problems which existed at the original 480i. Therefore, broadcast TV, cable TV, VCR, and interlaced-scan DVD player output will be prone to image quality problems when displayed on the 32HS20's with the TV's DRC technology.

DRC, by the way, is not new. Sony had it at least on their 2001 lines, and possibly in 2000 as well. Many people have derided the effects of DRC, but Sony continues to use it throughout their H/DTV-ready lines, with both direct-view and rear-projection sets. As 480i-input material (broadcast TV, cable TV, VHS tapes, interlaced-scan DVD) is likely to make up a large percentage of many viewers entertainment material for the forseeable future, it's hard to understand why Sony sticks with the DRC technology, except for the obvious factor which is that it would be expensive for them to redesign the sets' chassis.

It also might have something to do with saving face, as Sony has made fairly extravagant claims for DRC. The company says that it not only bumps up the horizontal resolution of the 480i-source images, but also increases the pixel count in each horizontal line, thus, effectively, quadrupling the image quality. Most observers, though, have still found the real-world results to be inferior to standard, 480i-to-480p line doubling. I'm not saying you should eliminate the TV as a candidate for purchase. But you should get your hands on a 32HS20 and try it out with whatever 480i-source material (broadcast, cable, etc.) you intend to frequently view with the set.



Audio Performance

The audio performance on the 32HS20 is a happier story. With a pair of two-way speakers, the set offers performance similar to a compact audio system. The TV actually feeds each part of each speaker (the woofer and tweeter) with a separate 7.5-watt amp. However, this is a bit of a gimmick. The audio quality, which is perfectly good, is not likely to differ from having one 15-watt amp feeding each speaker with the appropriate portions of the audio spectrum sent to each woofer and tweeter via a crossover. Naturally, the set has MTS Stereo as well as Secondary Audio Program (SAP). Audio performance is enhanced with dbx noise reduction (not likely to make a huge impact, one way or the other, with a 30-watt sound system feeding three-inch speakers). There's an SRS 3D Audio Effect which, like the Virtual Surround-Sound mode found in Panasonic DVD players, is designed to replicate a surround effect with a pair of speakers. It's difficult to discern much difference between regular stereo and the SRS 3D mode.



User Friendliness

Like most Sony TV's, the 32HS20 is fairly straightforward to setup and operate. Most settings are controlled by on-screen menus, and these are available in English, French, and Spanish, thus covering the native languages of a good bulk of North Americans. The TV comes with several modes (Vivid, Standard, Movie, Pro) wherein the various picture parameters (contrast, brightness, color, etc.) are preset. For example, in the movie mode the brightness is significantly reduced. However, you can individually reset any of the parameters in any of these modes. This is handy, as it lets you have four sets of picture parameters optimized for your various viewing situations such as TV dramas, TV news, and DVD movies.



Operational Features

As is common with Sony TV's, the 32HS20 comes with a huge list of operational features which you are not likely to use, unless you are a gadget freak. It has a dual-tuner picture-in-picture mode that lets you split the screen, showing two video sources simultanesously. The dual tuners allow these two sources to be two different (or the same, if that's your pleasure) TV broadcasts, but they can also be any source you feed into the set via the video inputs. Other features are color temperature control, freeze memo, express tuning, and speed surf, channel fix, jump channel, V-chip, channel label, two-event clock-timer, and sleep timer.



Remote

The RM-Y183 remote, like most Sony TV remotes, is big, which makes it hard to hold onto and operate with one hand, but also hard to lose. In terms of layout, the remote actually improves on past Sony models. The number of individual buttons has been just about cut in half. Many functions are accessed via a four-way rocker navigation ball which is surrounded by the frequently-accessed volume up/down and channel up/down buttons. The remote also has buttons to control other video gear, such as DVD players, VCR's, and satellite receivers and operates on two AA batteries.



Inputs/Outputs

Sony has seen fit to supply the 32HS20 with a good number of inputs and outputs. Many home-theater enthusiasts use an A/V receiver as the switching center of their system, but the number of I/O's on this TV would allow you to do much of your switching right in the set.

As an upgrade for 2002, both of the component-video inputs are wideband, meaning they will accept 480p and 1080i input as well as 480i. In past years, Sony TV's usually had only a single wideband component-video input. This meant that users with, let's say, a progressive-scan (480p) DVD player and a high-def ATSC broadcasting digital set-top box tuner (1080i), would come up one component-input short. While this situation could be worked around by using one of the higher-end A/V receivers with integral component-video switching, it guarantees the best image quality to make all connections direct between source components (VCR's, DVD players, set-top boxes) and the TV.

Here's the detailed rundown on the rear-panel I/O's: Video 1, L/R audio, composite video, and S-Video; Video 3, L/R audio, composite video, and S-Video; Video 4, L/R audio and composite video; Video 5, L/R audio, component video at 480i, 480p, or 1080i (note that the component input is actually a set of three jacks, accepting the three separate cables -- Y, Pb, Pr, -- employed to carry a single component-video signal); Video 6, L/R audio, component video at 480i, 480p, or 1080i. A monitor output set has L/R audio and composite video, in case you want to output your TV signal to a VCR, for example. A set of L/R audio output jacks can be set, via menu, for fixed or variable audio output, letting you feed the TV audio to a surround-sound A/V receiver or amplifier. To handle cable or broadcast signals, there are two RF coaxial input jacks and a single RF coaxial output jack. A Control-S jack makes it possible to connect several pieces of Sony gear, controlling their operation in unison.

On the front panel, there is the Video 2 connection, with L/R audio, composite video, and S-Video. This allows you to quicky connect another video device without having to reach around to the rear panel.



Consumer Be Aware

See my advice in my previous two reviews on premium cables, extended warranties, and choosing a retailer.



Conclusion

So there you have it. The cheaper of Sony's two H/DTV-ready 32-inch TV's (the more expensive one being the 32XBR450). If you're looking for a direct-view H/DTV-ready set, and the DRC image quality with standard broadcasts isn't a deal breaker for you, this set is definitely one to take a look at. Pricewise, it's not totally out of the league of Panasonic's 32-inch direct-view H/DTV-ready set, the CT-32HX41 (though discounts will usually make the CT-32HX41 $200 to $400 cheaper). While the Panasonic has a pretty sharp picture, in 480p and 1080i modes the Sony edges it out on picture quality. Ideally, before making a purchase, you should see the set yourself and decide if its picture quality justifies the extra expense.