VIDEO GAMER X'S REVIEW: SONY TRINITRON WEGA TV 36"

Probably the most significant peice of equipment besides an actual console gaming system a gamer needs to start having fun is a TV. Just about everybody in America has one, but of course there are just so many different types, brands, sizes, and quality of TV's out there. Some of us don't have those deep pockets to afford those totally flat wall mount plasma TV's, but there are tons of nice affordable models out there to choose from that will suit average TV and movie watching needs. You can find a very adequate TV for about $200. Color TV's haven't changed too much over the last 30 years, and basically work on the same principle, they display video images onto a screen of some type either a cathode ray tube type or a plastic surface as in a rear projection model. As a hardcore gamer, I felt it was important that I have the best equipment possible without breaking the bank. After looking very critically at televisions I do believe I found the best there is, especially for gaming, and that proved to be the 36" Sony Trinitron Wega TV (Model #KV-36FV16).

Now first off let me explain something here, the price range of television I was looking for was above the 1000 dollar range so there were various sets that I had to choose from including some of those "Big Screen" models, and HDTV 16:9 ratio TVs (the largest of these tend to be expensive). I was looking for the ultimate TV, predominantly for use with gaming. Big Screens are really cool and well, huge, but there's a problem, especially for gamers with these kinds of TV's and I don't think manufacturers have fixed it in many models on the market today. If you read the manuals for many video games you will notice a warning about "Rear Projection Televisions." Sure enough, if you press pause on a game and leave it like that on the screen, and come back about 10 hours later, you can cause "burn in" on your Big Screen, where if you turn it off, the patterns from the paused game always appear on the screen. This is a real crappy way to ruin a $2000 TV. Once this happens it requires pretty expensive repair to replace the screen. If you are looking for a Super Gaming TV, then don't go with rear projection. Furthermore, I do have to make a comment about Rear Projections, and is it just me or is the picture quality on those significantly reduced over a Tube Screen TV, or a TFT type screen? When I was shopping for a new TV I looked long and hard at those, and when I walked so many degrees of an angle to the left or right the picture started to vanish, on some, at about 8 feet, or 10 feet away, the screen was very dark and hard to see. If you back up they got brighter and the image improved but when you are too close it goes dark and eventually almost unviewable on some models I looked at in my local Electronics Store. I observed models from Hitachi, to Toshiba, to RCA, to Sony, and others, and Rear Projection was just not the way to go. It just so happened though that I found exactly what I was looking for, the ultimate gaming TV right around the corner.

I had found the Sony Trinitron Wega TV, a 36" that I just had to have. The first thing that caught my eye was the TV's svelte appearance amongst its peers. While just about every other TV I saw was that typical Black look, this one was silver, kind of like a car. Before I examined it's functions and capabilities critically, its overall appearance was very stylish. The screen was totally flat like a projection type Big Screen, but it was still a tube style TV. I looked at it, and realized that the problems of those other TV's was just not there. This TV had no viewing angle problems, nor any darkness, in fact the image was the best I had ever seen on a TV! It was sharper, and clearer than all the same size Tube Screen TV's sitting next to it, and anywhere in the TV Department. It was awesome! The placement of the stereo TV speakers was to the left and right of the screen along a horizontal grate. It looked very futuristic amongst the other ho hum, same old deal TV's, and this is what caught my attention first. I do have to say though, that the TV is massive, I mean just huge in size and weight. Don't even try to lift this thing by yourself or you will break your back. Once you put it somewhere it isn't movin' for a long time.

The 36" Sony Trinitron Wega, has a total 4 video inputs in the back and two S-Video Inputs as well. One of these is a composite video input for the best possible image processing of the video signal. Having multiple inputs is probably one of the more important features that a gamer will be looking for when searching for a TV. With all the systems coming out, you can never have enough video inputs. Currently on this TV I have connected the Dreamcast, the N64, the Old Playstation, the Playstation 2, a WebTV Classic, and IR Receiver for a Sony Handicam. I've accomplished this by putting the PS2 into the composite video input (maximum picture quality and sharpness for DVD's and games), running one of the normal 3 way video inputs into a multi-out video splitter for the other game systems. The WebTV occupies one of the other regular video inputs, and the IR Receiver is plugged into the front Video Inputs. The TV has scalable and movable Picture in Picture. You have a wide variety of options including adjustment of image ambiance like Movie, Sports, Vivid, and Standard. It has channel memory capability where you can save your favorite channels to a list that can be easily called up and you can preview what's on that channel without leaving the one you are on currently. There's the typical stuff like Brightness, Tint, Color, Sharpness control etc. I has various audio controls as well where you can equalize sound for more Bass or Treble. After checking all this stuff out, I decided upon getting this television. I am going to say this, this TV is not cheap. It's an average of about $300 to $500 more than TV's just like it in it's 36" class. I got it on sale for about $1500. That's a lot of money! O_O Now, heh... you may think I sound like some rich dude who can just lay down 1500 bucks for a TV, but I wish that were the case. I put it on monthly installment payments. It will probably take me two years to have it paid off, but I'll have the only TV I'll ever need for a long time to come. This is the ultimate TV for the gamer.

About a day or two later some guys from the electronics store delivered my TV. The box was massive. I mean, it was a cube about 6 feet by 6 feet. Two guys struggled to move it. The TV had to be taken out of the box outside of the house because it just wouldn't fit in the doorway. The actual TV is smaller than the width of a doorway though so they got it inside. It was rested on the top of a TV cube that had once supported the old faithful family 25" RCA from 1983. That thing just couldn't be killed. The old RCA was rained on when the roof colapsed in that room, various dogs we had chewed the base, it had been left on months on end without ever getting turned off, and it never once needed to be repaired. The buttons on the face didn't work anymore, but you could still change the channels with the remote. The old TV was what I played my first games on the NES and Super Nes on. I observed a brief moment of silence and reverance to this war hero of a TV, and then it got shoved aside for modern technology. (Geez, that old TV was like a family pet, believe it or not old faithful still lives on, it was given to someone and they use it today) The guys hooked up the PIP, and the cable box and left.

I sat there looking at this thing sitting in the living room and just sort of gazed in awe at it. It was just so...big. Damn, it's big. The screen is totally flat, and it's like having a window for a TV. The picture quality was the best I had ever seen on a TV, wonderful crisp images on movies, and TV programming. Our old RCA was really good in this regard, but the Sony Trinitron was...well...better. I dubbed this TV the "Titantron" because it was just so huge. I quickly disconnected my systems from my brand X TV in my room and hooked up the Dreamcast, the Playstation, and the N64, and the IR for my Camcorder to it. (Didn't have PS2 yet at this time) Playing games like Soul Calibur and Crazy Taxi on it was a dream. It was like being right there in a decent arcade. I blasted the speakers, and you would be surprised even without surround sound how powerful they are. I can't put this up all the way or it will annoy the neighbors it's that loud. This TV kicks some serious sound. What a TV. This was THE ultimate gaming experience.

I've got to hand it to Sony, but they really know what gear is great. This is an example of a job well done. To be honest, I don't think there's a TV that's possibly better for video games than this one. The only possible downfall is the price, which should probably come down in the next year or so. I did hear that Sony was going to make a 40" version of one of these, but really, this one is huge enough. Playing games on this has been a dream over the last 5 months I've had it.