HARDWARE
The first task was hauling all 236-plus pounds of glass, lead, and consumer-electronic window dressing into the house. The picture tube of the Sony Trinitron FD Wega XBR weighs more than other sets, because its flat screen is under high pressure and needs reinforcement. A guy named Manny and his burly pal brought my test TV up the steps and into the living room. After that, it didn't move.
But once I plugged in the cheapest video entry in the high end, I didn't mind the weight. The flat screen eliminates glare and distortion, and this Wega contains enough vertical lines and electronics to make regular TV look sharper and (with a separate set-top box) to handle HDTV formats. It's brighter than rear projection, showing a tighter moving image than flat plasma screens that cost five times as much. It's a solid choice for home theater.
Sony loaned me the 36-inch version, and my first test was DVD. The TV has three plugs for component video, which matched the output on my player. With component video, which feeds more color information to the set and eliminates noise, I got an astounding picture. The set also has S-video and composite input, with a slight downgrade in image, and several presets for the quality of the image: Standard, Movie, Pro, and Vivid. Running the set off regular cable and a TiVo box looked good, especially in the Movie mode, which smooths out the picture.
The big test was HDTV. While most people bring HDTV signals into their homes through a satellite dish, I tried it the hard way: an antenna on the roof. My home town has a half dozen broadcasters of digital TV signals, but picking them up means wrangling a giant DTV antenna and adjusting it several times to catch the directional signals. Using an RCA HD receiver, I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 480p format, and the Tonight Show in 1080i, the true HDTV format. In the highbrow letterbox format, I saw more of Jay Leno's set in each shot, and could examine the liver spots on his guest, Rodney Dangerfield. The saving grace is that these broadcasts look perfect and they're free.
Besides the weight of the beast, the Wega's only drawback is sound. Sony claims to have installed higher-quality speakers in this model, but they don't have the boom of similar Sonys I've tested. Most home-theater buffs have a surround-sound setup anyway, and I hardly had a need for the onboard speakers after I integrated the set into my living room. If you've been looking for an affordable piece of the big picture, you can't get a better one for the price.
FD Trinitron Wega KV-36XBR400: $2,700. Sony: (800) 222 7669, www.sel.sony.com. HDTV60 antenna:$649. Terk:+1 (631) 543 1900, www.terk.com. DTC100 HDTV converter:$649. RCA: www.rca.com.
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