# Sony XBR-65X900A (The 4K set)



## Sevenfeet (Feb 2, 2009)

While in Best Buy the other day I sat down for a few minutes to audition the new Sony 65" 4K set, currently being sold for the approachable price of $7000. A few thoughts...

It's been said that 4K is only useful for really big sets (70" and larger). I'm not convinced of that. Detail is detail. And this set has lots of detail. Alas, you only get a short loop of footage to work with from the demo device, but it's still impressive nonetheless. In the first clip, It's easy to see the iris patterns in the model's eyes...and the little wisps of hair on her cheek (the model is a 10 year old girl). For the soccer field clip, the mottled complexion of the groundskeeper's face made me think that newscasters are going to be re-examining HD makeup all over again...you can really see people's pores. The detail is so real that you can easily see the 10 year girl's stage makeup for the shoot. It's not badly done, but you notice it's there now.

The video clip is way over-saturated for color, but I expect this in a demo. HD sets were a lot like this in the early days of 720p and 1080p demo reels a decade ago. But it's nice to get real deep color (>8 bits per channel) versus what most of us have been looking at on HD for years now, especially on broadcast TV.

There weren't any low light clips shown, so it's hard to judge the set on blacks.

The side mounted speakers are a waste for most people who already invest in a capable home theater system. I suppose that the speakers could keep someone from needing to buy a soundbar, but really, if you're dropping $7K on a set like this, you probably have a real multi-channel sound system.

The only real problem with this set is the cost (although cheaper than I would have originally thought) and the fact that it's still a H.264 device with HDMI 1.4. 4K TV won't be a fully formed product until HDMI 2.0 and H.265 compression gets delivered late this year or certainly by CES in January 2014.

But if you have to have this set now...it sure is tempting.


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## tripplej (Oct 23, 2011)

The only way I would purchase a 4K or Ultra HD TV is when the HDMI 2.0 and H.265 compression is available. Till then I don't think it would be good to be an early adaptor.


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

I think most companies are planning a firmware update to make them 2.0 compatable. This is a must check before buying though. It would be foolish to buy one that could not be updated to the 2.0 format.


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## Sevenfeet (Feb 2, 2009)

I would find it hard to believe that a mere firmware upgrade can transform HDMI 1.4 into 2.0. First, the amount of bandwidth supported will rise, which cannot be handled by the current silicon. Not to mention a host of other problems.

There is some debate going on to whether Samsung's upgradable hardware technology for its TVs coming out this year (and apparently will be featured on their upcoming 4K sets this summer) will be able to upgrade HDMI as well. Technically it could be possible, but the devil is in the details.

Meanwhile, H.265 is newly minted but I don't think anyone has an inexpensive chip level decoder solution available yet, which is required for any consumer electronics. There might be some desire for compatibility with Google's VP9 decoder, but H.265 (which is a superset of H.264) must be there since it will undoubtedly be the transport vehicle for most 4K content online.


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