HDTV Xbox 360 Gaming

Sony HDTV Bravia 40″ LCD (KDL-V40XBR1) Mini-Review

I’ve had the Sony Bravia 40″ LCD for a few months now, and wanted to share my impressions of it, specifically while using the Xbox 360. While the newer XBR2 and XBR3 are just starting to ship, now might be the perfect time to get a good deal on the original XBR1. According to nextag you can see the price dropping throughout the last few months, and is now in the sub $2k range:

I won’t go through all the specs, but here are the highlights:

The good:
- 720p resolution means pixel perfect matching with todays Xbox 360 games. There is a 1080p upgrade coming soon to the Xbox360, but we believe that it will be focused more on HD-DVD usage than on games.
- The TV’s UI is easy, and keeps all the proper presets for my games. I had to bump up the brightness a bit compared to normal TV watching as some games appeared a bit dark with the default settings.
- No ghosting at all. This was a concern with any LCD, and this one is spec’d at 8ms and so far so good. With my gamefly rental subscription, I’ve played over 20 games so far, and nearly every demo on Live — and have yet to come across a problem.
- Games look realistic and sharp. For those coming from PC games this is a welcome feature. The Plasma setups I’ve seen with Xbox360 seem softer and less sharp.
- Non Xbox360, but still cool: 1366 x 768 resolution means that my photos — when viewed via USB port or via Xbox 360 Windows Media Connect — look great and in proportion. Makes for great slideshows on the big screen.

The bad:
- only one HDMI port. The newer XBR series fixed this with 3 ports, but something to consider

The ugly:
- only wish it was 50″ :)

Summary: A great TV for movies, watching A-Rod choke in pressure situations ( sorry couldn’t resist ! ), and most importantly Xbox 360 games.

I give this TV a rating of 9/10. It would have been a 10 with more than 1 HDMI port.

Add comment September 30th, 2006

90% of Xbox 360 owners have or are buying an HDTV

Peter Moore — Microsoft’s head of Interactive Entertainment — made some very bold statements at CES this year. Along with the HD-DVD announcement, Moore made the claim that 90% of Xbox 360 owners either have an HDTV or are planning on buying one within 6 months. His exact quote was:

“In fact, Xbox 360 is the killer app for HDTV adoption. It’s driving HDTV monitor sales. A recent study concluded that 9 out of 10 Xbox 360 owners have either purchased or intend to purchase an HDTV in the next six months. And 90 percent of them say that it was Xbox 360 that is the primary reason for making that purchase, 90 percent of them say it’s about Xbox 360.”

GamesDaily Biz and Ars Technia made mention of it as well. While all of us here have embraced the next gen console, and feel that getting an HDTV is a must, we do wonder if that 90% is accurate.

Technorati Tags: xbox 360, hdtv, hd-dvd

1 comment January 9th, 2006

Welcome to HDTV Xbox 360 Gaming

Welcome to our site ! We will be revewing and covering all things HDTV & Xbox 360. As you probably know, the Xbox 360 is the first console to offer true HD output at both 720p and 1080i, as well as being optimized for 16:9 widescreen ratio.

So grab the RSS feed and check back soon, we’ll be launchind the full site in a few weeks.

And in the meantime we’ll be posting a few tips and nuggets as we settle in for the new year.

1 comment December 29th, 2005