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Sony Bravia KDL-32M3000 comments: 2 weeks later

In the beginning of this month, I purchased a 32" Sony Bravia. In the two weeks that I've had the television, I've run into a couple of things that I would like the television to offer. In no particular order, they are listed below.

Better volume detection

Maybe it's because the speakers are better on this tv than my old one, but there's definitely an issue with commercial versus programming volumes. Commercials are way louder than they need to be, compared to the show that I really want to watch. Since I'm watching more digital channels (via an antenna), this may be an issue with those channels. Nonetheless, it would be great to have the ability to set a volume level, and let the tv dynamically control the level outputted. I want to hear the same level of noise, no matter what I'm watching. Otherwise, I have to keep changing the volume during/after commercials.

Better picture-in-picture

From what I can tell, you can only have picture-in-picture if you're hooked into a PC. Why not let me put something else down there? Let me play a video game, have the sound off on that, and then listen to a tv show or dvd?

Better input switching

I bought some really nice component av cables for my Playstation 2, so I no longer have to use the standard av cables. However, I'm using av cables for my DVD player (or at least, I was until I decided to use the PS2 for my DVDs, finally; but that's another story). If I want to switch from TV to DVD to Playstation, I've got to move through a number of inactive components. Why not let me hide components that I'm not using, like I can do for channels? I can name my components, so it doesn't seem like this would be too difficult ...

Better guide functionality

The Bravia has a pretty good Guide, which allows you to move through all available channels to determine what's on where. However, unlike what you'd think, it's basically no different than switching the channel with display on. Why not let me stay what channel I'm on, and just get the information about what else is on, so I can keep watching what I am? (Added November 18, 2007.)

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Categories: article, review

Comments

11/18/2007 6:17:00 AM #

Dan Conderman

Commercial Volume has gotten way out of control lately.  The worst offender I think it the Fox Digital HD channel.  If We set the commercial at a normal volume you can not here the program when it comes back on.  One time (about 15 years ago) I saw Channel 3 respond to compaints about this.  They said that they don't increase the volume on there end and they run the audio as they get it on the tape.  So this means that it would be the ad production that causes this.  All I know is that because it is getting so out of control we are increasingly muting commercials, or DVR'ing the show.  I can't stand a loud TV set, so both those options allows me to skip the commercial audio.

Not being able to remove inputs from your selection sucks!  I am glad that the Samsung I have is able to custom name inputs and it automatically skips inputs that are not hooked up to any device.

As far as PnP goes, I don't have it.  I never even checked because I thought every new TV for the last 10 years had it.  I was shocked when I discovered that I didn't have PnP.

--dan

Dan Conderman United States

11/18/2007 8:24:13 AM #

strivinglife

I think you're dead-on regarding Fox. I'm watching NBC 15 news at the moment, and the commercials aren't bad at all. However, when I'm watching Fox late-night, that's definitely when I'm noticing issues.

strivinglife United States

11/20/2007 11:23:10 AM #

Artemio

The reason commercials are so high in volume is the compressed dynamic range. The volume from the show and the commercial are the same in absolute terms, but the audio for the commercials had their dynamic range compressed so that all the sounds are at the same volume. This is a problem also present in music and CD mastering.

For further reading:
www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynamics.htm

Artemio Mexico

11/24/2007 8:44:23 AM #

strivinglife

Well, I can't say I understood it all, but thanks for posting that link Artemio; rather informative.

If you have any other links that explain this further, I'd love to check 'em out.

strivinglife United States

12/24/2007 10:34:29 AM #

James Skemp

Regarding skipping inputs: I just needed to go to the input and add it as a favorite. Now I can skip to the inputs I use the most. It's not as easy as it would be if I could filter them out of the available inputs, but ... still not that bad.

James Skemp United States

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