Sony KDF-60WF655 Rear Projection TV...
Well I finally did it. I broke down and bought into HDTV. I finally settled on the Sony 60WF655 since it was a few hundred dollars cheaper than the 60XS955. With price matching and open a credit card Sears had the best price (tax+shipping included). At least two Benjamin lower than the next respectable online shop. Mind you, many of the low price shops are a sham. They will advertise the low low price, but they will get you on shipping, or not including items w/o you paying a fee above the list price.
Twin View Tuner...
So so implementation. It can not display dual high def pictures side by side. It can only do one HD on the left and on SD on the right. Additionally only the left side can display anything from the component inputs. This really limits the usefulness of this feature.
Cable Card...
The cable card is a PCCARD that fits in a slot in the back of the TV and decodes the cable channels. It doesn't do Satellite, you are still reliant on an external receiver for that. The internal TV tuner is nice, but you don't get any program information if you had a box. I would definitely avoid this and get an external HD box. Also you might get the Motorola that everyone is talking about on the AVSForum, the one with the firewire port.
Ergonomics...
I would have to say that in the past, the ergonomics were much better. I own a Wega direct view tube TV and everything is well placed. My main gripe is that switching between menus takes time, you have to go through at least four/five remote clicks to get to closed captioning. It seems that with COMCAST, not all channels seem work with close captioning. (The reason I know this is on my DirecTV TIVO, the same channels on show captions, also it is only two clicks to get captions on or off).
My second gripe is that the favorite channels screen requires that the content be resized to the side. This takes a few seconds, a delay that is annoying. Sony should have just done an overlay.
View Angle...
Well side to side viewing is awesome, no real complaints here. The vertical viewing does exhibit some brightness shifts, nothing terrible but not as impressive as the side to side angle.
Size...
The size is nice. It feels much smaller than my 32“ Wega tube TV even though the screen is 60”. I guess the weight of the previous TV has left the memory of heft. I setup the TV on a Bello 52“ stand and it looks very nice. BTW, the 52“ stand is more than half the price of a 60“ stand, go figure.
Picture...
The picture is amazing, I do notice some pixel blurring during fast motion scenes but it is not serious. DVDs look great, HD content even better. I was dissapointed with the LOTRs as the picture doesn't fill the whole screen. I don't know if this is an issue on other HDTVs but it definitely wasn't what I expected. Well I am planning on getting one of these media players (AVeL Linkplayer2) that can stream DIVX/XVID and HD content from your PC. It can upconvert DVDs to HD and that should make it look better.
Overall…
I definitely recommend this TV line, especially if you are concerned with the Rainbow issues with DLP. Sony should be coming out with their 1080p line this year so picture quality can only get better. The only real negative is the Cable Card, it sounded great at first but I think we have to wait for a few more implementations before they get it right. But for TIVO and Media Center, Cable Card should open things up. =)
Alex