A big surprise of the past year has been seeing how well the latest crop of LCD flat-panel TVs has held up against the plasma competition. But for me, the real turning point came in 2006, when I reviewed Sony's KDL-40XBR2 — the first LCD set I'd seen that could render blacks with near plasma-like depth. Sony's LCDs have now entered the XBR5 zone, with the new 52-inch KDL-52XBR5 leading the pack. At $4,800, this set is unquestionably pricey. But as you'd expect, there's a lot going on under the hood to prop up that price tag.

Chief among its feature list is the hottest new LCD buzzword: 120-Hz scanning. This works to reduce "motion lag" by doubling the screen's refresh rate from the standard 60 Hz up to 120 Hz. It requires that additional video frames be created to fill the temporal gap, and Sony's user-selectable Motionflow processing manages that by interpolating new frames from those existing in the original signal.

Another feature debuting this year in Sony TVs is XMB (Xross-media Bar) menu navigation. Similar in design to the menu system on Sony's innovative PlayStation 3 console, XMB allows you to easily scan through the TV's unusually deep menus.

As with last year's XBR LCDs, the 52XBR5's expansive screen is flanked by black built-in speakers and surrounded by aluminum-edged acrylic trim. Its glossy black bezel distinguishes the XBR5 line, and while it can reflect a fair amount of light during daytime viewing, the look is undeniably spiffy.

Among the set's generous input selections are a side-panel HDMI input and two additional HDMI (version 1.3) inputs around back. A USB port labeled DMex accepts Sony's Digital Media Extender, a $300 external box that can access online video from Sony's content partners (including Yahoo!, AOL, and Sports Illustrated) through a broadband connection.

The 52XBR5's remote control has a clean, well-organized layout and a backlit keypad. I liked that the buttons I use most were right next to the central menu-navigation joystick. Pressing the Input button calls up an onscreen list of sources, and the set's aspect-ratio options are selected by pressing Wide. They include Normal (4:3), Full (16:9), Zoom, and Wide Zoom, with the entire suite accessible when viewing both standard- and high-def programs.

Setup
The 52XBR5 packs in so many picture adjustments that space constraints allow me to only breeze through the high points. A Display Area adjustment selects between Normal mode and a no-overscan Full Pixel mode that lets you view high-def Blu-ray and HD DVD discs at maximum resolution with no edge-cropping. The TV provides several adjustable picture presets, as well as a Custom picture memory that can be independently modified for each input. Other adjustments include variable backlighting, four color-temperature presets, Standard and MPEG noise reduction, variable Gamma, and Standard, Wide, and x.v.Color (xvYCC) settings for Color Space. And the TV's Advanced picture menu features adjustments for custom-tweaking the color temperature.

The Short Form

Price $4,800 (list) / sonystyle.com / 877-865-7669

Snapshot

Sony's newest LCD isn't cheap, but it delivers solid pictures and a lot more.

Plus

•Crisp HDTV picture •Rich, natural-looking color •Deep-looking shadows •Solid images with negligible motion-lag

Minus

•Below-average standard-def upconversion •Occasional uniformity issues with dark images •Pricey

Key Features

•1080p resolution •120-Hz display •xvYCC display option •Accepts Digital Media Extender module •Inputs: 3 HDMI; 2 component video; 3 composite video; S-video; VGA; RS-232; DMex module jack; RF antenna/cable •553/4 x 351/8 x 151/8 in; 108 lb (w/stand)

Test Bench

In the Custom/Warm 2 presets, the Sony's grayscale tracked within +251 K of the 6,500-K standard from 30 to 100 IRE — average performance. Adjustments didn't significantly alter this but helped compensate for an overall green deficiency. Color-decoder tests revealed a severe —20% green error on HDMI inputs, and —10% red on component video. Red, green, and blue color points showed fair to moderate oversaturation with Standard Color Space selected, slightly higher in Wide mode. Overscan measured 0% for HD signals in Full Pixel mode, though picture centering was off slightly for the HDMI inputs. The set fully resolved 1080i/p and 720p test patterns via HDMI and component video. Screen uniformity was excellent at up to 30º off-center. Upconversion of standard def proved problematic; the Sony failed tests from the Silicon Optix HQV DVD, "jaggy" artifacts showed up on several DVD movies, and motion shots looked noticeably soft. Full Test Bench

But I'm not done yet. Among the Sony's more unusual options is a Color Matrix menu that lets you optimize each input for high-def or standard-def signals — an option that can prove useful, for example, with DVD players that upconvert standard DVDs to a high-def signal.

Finally, there's the Motion Enhancer, with Standard, High, and Off settings. When off, the TV simply repeats each video frame in a 60-Hz HDTV signal to fill out its 120-Hz refresh rate. When switched on, the Motionflow processing detects whether a source is film- (24 fps) or video-based and interpolates the required new frames instead of just repeating existing ones.

Performance
After making only basic adjustments in the TV's Custom mode with Warm 2 color temperature and Standard Color Space selected, I was very impressed with this Sony's picture. Reproduction of the deepest shadows wasn't dramatically better than what I'd seen on the company's earlier LCDs, but was still very good. Watching a Blu-ray Disc of Paul Verhoeven's recent World War II movie Black Book, I could make out the rough texture of brick buildings in the background as Dutch resistance fighters scrambled in the dark for an airdrop of supplies. And a subsequent scene in a gloomy warehouse where they unloaded the goods revealed deep shadows and a similarly impressive amount of detail in the actors' dark clothing. A minor issue with black-field uniformity was sometimes visible on very dim scenes like this one, but it was largely absent in most other movies I checked out.

True to form for a Sony, color reproduction proved excellent. In a scene where Ellis (Carice van Houten) opportunistically joins the Gestapo commander Müntze (Sebastian Koch) in his berth on a train, her red scarf and bright red lipstick — as well as the green upholstery of the seats — had a rich, robust look, while the skin tones of both actors appeared natural and balanced. And as the pair flipped through Müntze's stamp collection, the set's 1080p picture revealed fine details like printed text on the pages, and the denominations and postmarks on the stamps.

It was difficult to gauge the effect of the Sony's high refresh rate because the TV runs at 120 Hz at all times, with or without Motionflow activated. But I noticed no negative effects stemming from any 120-Hz processing. Images in fast-action sports programs appeared consistently solid and clear, with none of the smearing. I've witnessed on some other LCDs. With the Motionflow's Standard setting enabled, movie scenes gained a slight edge in picture stability, although the improvement was subtle at best. The TV's upconversion of standard-def movies left something to be desired, however: Object edges took on a jagged look in motion shots, which also tended to appear soft.

Bottom Line
With the KDL-52XBR5, Sony has delivered its best-performing, most feature-laden LCD TV yet. Movie fans will enjoy this set's deep shadows, natural color, and crisp detail, while sports fans are sure to appreciate its solid, lag-free picture and wide (for an LCD, that is) viewing angle. The key downside here is its price, which exceeds that of similar high-performance LCDs and even the best 50-inch plasmas — TVs that have the edge over LCDs on black depth and shadow detail. Still, if you've got the scratch and are looking to get one of the best big-screen LCDs that money can buy, this one should do quite nicely.

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