Expert Advice: 800-769-5668

52" 1080p LCD HDTV

The BRAVIA XBR series represents the very best Sony has to offer in high definition viewing. With 1080p, these televisions incorporate all of Sony's latest technologies, like HDMI v1.3, x.v.Color, Deep Color, Motionflow 120Hz, and the new BRAVIA Engine Pro.

XBR4: Creating A New Reality

Over the years XBR has stood for the best consumer TVs Sony has to offer and this year's line-up is no exception. XBR televisions incorporate all of Sony's latest technologies. Features like Motionflow 120Hz High Frame Rate Technology enable smoother motion when viewing movies or fast-action sports. BRAVIA Engine PRO with Digital Reality Creation upconverts all interlaced and progressive video signals including HD signals directly to 1080p for amazing detail and sharpness. You'll be especially glad to know that the XBR4 has a new graphical user interface that is winning rave reviews and awards. The Xross Media Bar is Sony's Emmy Award winning on-screen navigation that provides quick and easy access to various set-up functions and features. What else? BRAVIA Theatre Sync, another brand new Sony brainchild, reduces the hassle and time consuming job of powering up, changing the signal routing, and adjusting other functions to the simple push of one button. All you need to do is to connect BRAVIA Theatre Sync capable products to each other via one HDMI cable. The rest is easy. "The rest" is perfect video recreation and 2-channel surround sound to die for.

120Hz: The Sweetheart Of The Industry

Don't let yourself be distracted by the doodads offered in place of real progress. I shouldn't be saying this — I am in advertising after all — but the odds are you don't need a 108-inch flat panel TV on your 120-inch living room wall. What you do need, whether you realize it or not, is an HDTV with 120Hz image processing for quicker frame rate conversion and blazing fast pixel response times. Unconvinced? Here's the facts: Film is shot at 24 frames per second. And just about every movie disc you can buy is encoded at that speed. DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray - all 24 frames per second. Trouble is, television programming runs at 30 frames per second and most TVs conform to that standard. See the problem? Fitting that 24-frame content onto a 30-frame screen isn't a seamless process. You can't divide 24 by 30 evenly — so video engineers fill in the gaps. Known as 3:2 pulldown, this conversion process spreads out 24 frames into 30 by placing one frame on the screen three times and the next one after that two times, and repeating this pattern again and again and again? which sometimes causes the stutter and other visual artifacts that can ruin the illusion of losing yourself in a great movie. To further complicate things, some video content is recorded at 60 fps, such as certain modern special effects and computer animations (think Matrix), which tricks the 3:2 pulldown process and trips up transmission of the intended on-screen image.

24, 30, 60? Are you beginning to see the beauty of 120Hz? Grade school math tells you that 120 is a multiple of 24 and 30 and 60. 120Hz image processing shows 120 frames per second, allowing these TVs to reproduce unconverted, evenly extrapolated 24 fps movie, 30 fps television, and 60 fps special effects programming, without the stutter and other clutter of 3:2 pulldown. To return to the top, a bigger TV is not necessarily a better TV. Without 120Hz image processing, some things will certainly be bigger, but they'll still be just as blurry -- especially on-screen text. Imagine missing the get-away car's license plate number when watching a murder mystery or not catching the content of those top-secret government documents in a super suspenseful spy flick. Maybe it's as simple as not being able to read the jersey of the player who made the interception during the big game. No matter what the instance, your TV's instant of indecision just cost you the crucial bit of information and lost you to the rewind once again. Don't bother with bigger. Go with better, faster, clearer. Go with 120Hz.

Guess what? Conveniently enough, the Sony XBR4 offers 120Hz. They call their version Motionflow ™, which matters not at all. What matters is that it doubles the amount of frames from 60fps to 120fps and does it the right way by using real-time calculation of every single frame of video to create entire new frames of information. The results are spectacular.

Bravo! For The BRAVIA Engine

The KDL-40XBR4 features the BRAVIA Engine PRO full digital video processor, which came about as a result of Sony's expertise and long heritage in bringing cutting-edge picture quality to consumer televisions. It contains intelligent picture enhancement technology that reduces unwanted digital artifacts and delivers superb clarity and detail along with vivid colors. Sony's own Digital Reality Creation Multi-function v2.50 (DRC-MFv1) processor replaces the original SD signal with its HD equivalent. The result of BRAVIA Engine EX processing? Picture quality has texture and detail, deep and vibrant colors, along with excellent depth and contrast. Add to this the crisp details, outstanding contrast, eye popping colors, and dramatically reduced digital artifacts that DRC-MF circuitry is known for. And the best part of all is that this technology is user adjustable according to the video source. All of this helps define the reason why people want Sony TVs to begin with — unparalleled picture quality.

Xross Media Bar On-Screen Menu System

You really have to see this on-screen navigation system to believe how simple it is. Yeah, yeah, I know... that's what every manufacturer says about every new interface. Really though, this system is so basic a monkey could master it. There's even hope for your brother-in-law. Xross Media Bar (XMB) even won Sony an Emmy Award. And really, those people know their TV. They also know that an on-screen navigation that provides access to all the most important set up functions and features is a noteworthy thing in an industry where "simple" means "you can do it even if all you have is a Master's degree in electrical engineering!" Scroll horizontally across the icons until you find the type of media you are looking for. After selecting the media type, a list of its content appears as vertical thumbnails. That's it. Two steps.

May The S-Force Be With You

S-Force Front Surround is a virtual surround sound experience made possible using just two front speakers in the new XBR4 LCD TVs from Sony. To accomplish this, Sony spent several years studying how the human ears hear what they hear. By understanding exactly how we recognize the origin, directionality, volume, and timing differences in right and left ear sound, Sony was able to create complex audio processing that delivers dynamic virtual surround sound without the need to bounce sound off walls and back to the listener... and without the need to surrender half an acre of real estate in your living room to traditional surround sound speakers.

Get Connected, Not Frustrated

Designed for maximum versatility, the KDL-40XBR4 LCD TV is equipped with a comprehensive range of input interfaces. The HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) is the first industry-supported, uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface -- and it's all that, and more, packed into one cord. Did you hear me? ONE CORD. HDMI technology supports High Definition video, together with multi-channel digital audio to provide matchless image and sound reproduction. The KDL-40XBR4 includes 3 HDMI inputs. The PC input (D-15 pin) offers easy connection to your PC, allowing you to use your new high resolution BRAVIA as a computer monitor. Using your HDMI cable will make the hair-pulling, face-clawing frustration of setting up electronic equipment a thing of the past.

Introducing BRAVIA Theatre Sync Technology. Theatre Sync reduces the hassle and time consuming job of powering up, changing the signal routing, and adjusting other functions to the simple push of one button. All you need to do is to connect Theatre Sync capable products to each other via one HDMI cable. The rest is easy. For instance, the One Push Play function requires you to touch the play button on the remote. Theatre Sync takes over from there. Really.

DMeX -- The Future Of Television

DMex compatibility allows the connection and operation of a whole new category of products that is being developed by Sony (and sold separately). The first of these products to hit the market is the DMX-NV1 BRAVIA Internet Video Link module. BRAVIA Internet Video Link, or BIVL, as it is affectionately called, can stream available Internet video from select content providers directly to your TV with a broadband connection
without the need for a PC.

Customer Service

Information

About Vann's