f o c u s

TELEVISIONS

SONY KF-WS60 GRAND WEGA

TV on a

GRAND scale

f anyone thought that the race for big, flat and widescreen televisions was dominated by Plasma and latterly LCD monitors, youd better think again. That old stalwart - rear projection TV - is fighting back, albeit aided by some of the same technology its fighting against. A case in point is the Sony KF-WS60 60-inch LCD rear projection TV, part of the Grand Wega range, reviewed on this page. Without going into too much detail (if readers need want to know more about the technology used in the Sony Grand Wega models, they should have a look at the Spotlight featured in the April issue), the KF-WS60 TV uses the latest in 3 LCD, screen and processing technologies to deliver markedly better image quality than ever before from a rear projection set. Or so the company claims. To verify their claim I visited the Sony showroom in Midrand where the KF-WS60 was set up in a demo room. For the review,Andrew Joubert had set the TV up with a HDTV signal generator sending high definition video to the TV via component cables. Also connected to the TV was a DSTV decoder. The DSTV decoder sent its composite video signal into a Sony A/V receiver where the signal was up converted to S-Video, and the S-Video signal was then connected to the TV. As soon as I was left to my own devices, I connected a Sony DVD/HD recorder to another of the TVs inputs using a S-Video cable I had brought along. I did this to ascertain the differences between video quality with the HDTV generator and more conventional S-Video signals. Before moving on with the review its worth mentioning the depth, or rather lack thereof of the TV. At only 518 mm deep, the TV meets a Sony design goal, which is to take up about as much space as an equivalently sized plasma monitor mounted on a table top stand. My review started with me flipping through some DSTV channels. Here resolution was acceptable for a big screen, although some colours did look a little washed out and images werent as sharp or as stable as I would have liked. There was however a good reason for the less than perfect image quality.The satellite signal quality was poor and it was simply a matter of poor image quality in equals poor image quality out. The moral here is that if youre going to use a big screen TV, it is going to be worth your while to get a satellite specialist in to ensure that your incoming signal is as good as possible. From DSTV input I switched to the HDTV input. A U D I O

p e a k s

VERDICT Sony KF-WS60 is a superb big screen TV. It delivers superb image quality and for its screen size, doesnt take up too much real estate. PRICE ................................................R59 999 SUPPLIED BY Sony SA 011-690-3555

Here I was immediately struck by the brightness and colour definition of the TV. Colours were vivid and skin tones in particular looked natural. Of course had I wanted to, I could have altered the colour balance, temperature, contrast, brightness or individual colour to suit either ambient light conditions or my personal taste. Another impressive TV performance aspect was the depth and grey level detail it could deliver. Shadow detail was impressive, and clouds for example looked natural with lines between the various grey levels not evident at all. As impressed as I was with the HDTV input

video quality, I still had to see what image quality would look like with lower definition signal, so I switched to the S-Video input. Here video quality came pretty close to that of the HDTV generator. I had to in fact look quite hard to find any differences, and those I did find were relatively minor. Grey levels werent quite as good, and movement artefacts were slightly more noticeable.When I moved my seat a little further away from the TV not even these differences were noticeable. To close out the review, I looked at some images stored on a Memory Stick.These the TV displayed effortlessly and with as much detail and resolution as any one could expect from a TV. Slightly negative TV performance aspects included a little drop off in light output as I moved away from its central viewing axis (But this was minimal and far better than most other projection TVs), and when sitting close to the TV I could detect a little graininess to images, probably caused by the TVs screen. Apart from these, the TV performed superbly. Overall, and in my opinion, the Sony KF-WS60 could be considered a worthy competitor to similarly priced Plasma TVs, and with an easy to access and replace lamp, it may even edge ahead in the longevity stakes.
Joel Kopping

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