3D Performance

This Sony is the second 3D TV I’ve tested with the capability to convert 2D images for 3D display. (The first was Samsung’s UN46C8000.) While this feature seems unnecessary to me, I nonetheless checked it out and was underwhelmed by what I saw: Even with the high Simulated 3D Effect setting selected, high-def sports and primetime shows like Law & Order looked pretty much the same as they did in regular 2D. Even a Discovery HD Channel doc called Bugs! A Rainforest Adventure, which popped out in a satisfyingly three-dimensional manner when I tested the Samsung TV, looked comparatively flat on the Sony.

Watching Blu-ray 3D titles on the 52LX900 was a completely different story. Monster House doesn’t make the most dramatic use of the 3D format, but there are definitely a few scenes where its 3D effect is unmistakable. For instance, in one overhead shot, the mix of smoke billowing from the house’s chimney in the foreground, tree branches in

the middle ground, and the deceased owner being lifted off his lawn and loaded onto a stretcher in the distance created a vivid, realistic sense of three-dimensional space.

A few other 3D titles I checked out on the Sony — including Monsters vs. Aliens, AIX Records’ Goldberg Variations: Acoustica (featureing the AIX All Star Band), and some demo discs — all showed intermittent crosstalk (onscreen overlap of left/right images).

The effect of this wasn’t ruinous, but it did crop up regularly to varying degrees on those discs once I started looking for it. (Interestingly, I saw almost no incidences of crosstalk on both Monster House and another Blu-ray 3D title, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.) Changing the 3D Depth Adjustment settings helped reduce the problem to some extent. In most cases, however, I was simply pushing “ghosts” from one point on the screen to another.