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Sony Bravia KDL-40EX724 40in LED 3D TV
Dynamic 2D, diabolical 3D
In the Clear
Motion resolution is also good. This screen features Motionflow XR200, the 100Hz (plus flickering backlight) iteration of Sony’s fast framerate technology. Switch Motionflow off and the moving resolution of this panel is about 650 lines. There are four Motionflow modes offered (Clear, Clear Plus, Standard and Smooth) which sport a variable cocktail of de-judder and blur processing.
Double vision
The most effective is mode Clear, which pulls motion resolution back up to 1080 lines without introducing any unpleasant motion artefacts. The resulting clarity is great for sports coverage. I’m not such a fan of it for films though, as it tends to make movies look less filmic and more like a video sitcom.
However while 2D generally delights, this set’s 3D performance is unfeasibly rotten. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say it’s unwatchable. Not only is there copious crosstalk double-imaging, the set displays parallax problems I’ve never seen on other brands. Objects which should sit deep within the image, inexplicably ping forward and sit on the screen plane.
The opening reel of Avatar has Jake Sully awakening from a cryo chamber; we see him emerge into a bay which recedes dramatically into the distance. Only on this TV, part of that receding bay actually jumps forward. Monster Vs Aliens suffers not only from double imaging, but messy colour shifts. It quickly becomes obvious that there are weird solarisation effects around objects, and images have judder.