Have received a few emails from interested readers (including 2 from existing owners) asking if our KDL40W2000 suffered from clouding.
Short answer… yes.
For those who don’t know what “clouding” is, it is a type of mura (Japanese term for blemish) defect which plagues the current generation of Sony Bravia LCD TVs. It manifests as blotches/ patches of uneven backlight (usually lighter in colouration) occurring at random on the LCD panel, and is most obvious during black scenes (most people notice it when they’re switching AV input).
Currently there are a few potential solutions to this problem, but none has been definitive. Sony themselves advise Bravia LCD TV owners who are experiencing “clouding” to lower their backlight as this makes the problem less noticeable. The firmware fix that was released in the USA to XBR3 owners served only to achieve exactly this therefore masking the problem rather than solving it.
As it’s estimated that at least 50% of the W series Bravia LCD TV suffer from clouding, we’ll still perform our tests on our current set to see if the mura defect actually affects its picture quality. Stay tuned.
