After my boyfriend had purchased a Sony DVD player, he decided he was not happy watching it through our 28’Philips TV set. It doesn’t do the DVD justice, he would say. We wondered around a few electrical stores, drooling over technology’s new offerings. He decided on a digital wide screen, but it was deciding which one. To be honest, I didn’t like the idea, they looked like the screen had been stretched and they looked like fish tanks. We came to a compromise. I agreed to a wide screen as long as the screen size wasn’t smaller than our Philips. So which one?
Sony is a well known name, and as he had the DVD player made by them, he decided on a Sony TV too. We made our choice. A Sony Wega, model KV-28D280. It is a grey/silver colour and sits on a glass front cabinet of the same colour. It is an Integrated Digital TV, allowing us to connect to Ondigital without an exterior digital box. The salesman told us that we only had to ring Ondigital and they would connect us straight away. It also has a Dolby Pro Logic Surround System, which you can set up to please your taste. It has 1 centre speaker and 2 side speakers, to give you that surround sound, you know the kind I mean, it makes it sound like bullets ricochet around your walls. It looks heavy too, and it is, weighing approx 44.0kg.
It wasn’t cheap either, but what the heck, I wasn’t paying for it, and it was what he really wanted. It was a cash payment so no extra charges were added. Anyway, after paying, I tried to blag a free digital aerial. ’’We can do you one for half price’’ said the salesman. Tight-fisted gits, I thought. We accepted his ’generous’ offer and they wheeled the TV out to the van. Yes! They had it in stock.
When we arrived home, we faced a problem, it would not fit through the lounge door in it’s box. Having struggled to get it through the front door, I was left outside, my boyfriend was by the lounge door, and my son was in the hallway. We had to strip the box away from the TV with our hands and a pair of scissors. Finally it was in position, the stand had been set up and the TV placed on top of it. It looked lush. Setting it all up is very easy, the booklet that comes with it gives you step by step instructions with clear pictures. It shows you where to insert each speaker, the aerial and other pieces of equipment, including a camcorder and external audio equipment. When you switch it on for the first time, a sequence of menu screens appear, enabling you to choose a language for the menu screens and to tune and arrange channels. Following the menus is easy, and you can always revert back to the booklet if you run into problems.
The picture itself is of excellent quality, I had not seen a TV picture this clear before. Choosing a surround sound mode was difficult, they all sounded great, and you can change this at any time to suit whatever you are watching. Other features include:
Subtitles
Programme Preset
Picture Rotation
Sleep Timer
Screen Mode
Another excellent feature is the parental lock, enabling you to prevent undesirable broadcasts appearing, ideal for when you want to go out and have to leave the kids with a sitter.
Going back to the Integrated Ondigital, the salesman said it was so easy to get it connected. That was not true. We made the call to Ondigital the very next day, to be told that they would have to send us a Smartcard, which would take 2 weeks. 2 weeks went by and no Smartcard, so another phone call was made. By this time we decided that Sky would supply the best service for our needs, so we had that installed instead. The Ondigital Smartcard arrived 6 weeks later, and because our TV came with a free years subscription, my boyfriend rang them to have it connected. He could not believe his ears when they told him that an engineer from Sony would have to come out to upgrade the TV.
At the end of the day, this TV is excellent, but in hindsight we would never have brought it with Integrated Digital. Think carefully before buying an Integrated Digital TV. Which service are you planning to connect with? The answer to that may help you in your decision.