Operation

What's the point of having a great TV if the operation is so poor that you can't even get a picture, or only one in poor quality? This chapter examines how easy (or not) the Sony KDL-52 V 5500 is to operate.

On-Screen Menu:
If you don't already own a recent Sony device, you'll need some time to get your bearings for the various menus - once you do, however, you'll find tons of features and functions on offer. Still, getting used to Sony's menu concept requires a certain devotion to technology.

Sony now uses a graphical menu in the style of the PlayStation 3 in almost all of its consumer-electronics products. Although - once you get the hang of it - navigation is speedy, the menu contains a myriad of hidden entries. Related functions are often spread across various pages, rather than being grouped sensibly together. This leads to confusion, and unfortunately even plagues the important basic settings.

You should never attempt to access picture settings using the remote control's "Home" button. This blue button displays the so-called "Xross Media Bar" (XMB) menu - so far, so good - but it then takes up to 20 navigation steps just to reach the picture-sharpness setting, for example. Instead, you're better off using the smaller "Options" button - during TV viewing, this button leads directly to the picture and sound menus as well as to other basic functions such as the picture-in-picture mode, the "AppliCast" applications, the eco menu, or the timer.

"Scene" Button:

Before you adjust the picture settings, there's one further menu for you to look at: The "Scene" button on the remote brings up a choice of modes that affect the general picture impression. The number of available modes varies from one source to another, but you can generally choose between four modes, from a total of eight (Vivid, Standard, Custom, Cinema, Photo, Sports, Game, Graphics).

For the best picture quality, we recommend you activate the "Cinema" preset for every input, as well as for the analog and digital tuners. You should only move on to adjusting individual picture settings once the "Cinema" mode is active.

"Options" Button:

We cannot describe all the menus and submenus and all of their functions here - there are simply too many. Your hard work and patience when playing with the menu, however, and especially with the "Options" button, will be rewarded. During photo playback via USB, for example, the "Options" button takes you directly to the all the necessary settings, such as how long to display each photo and what music to play in the background.

With photos that contain GPS location data, the TV can display a map from the Internet as a widget, showing exactly where a holiday snap was taken - it remains to be seen whether this is really necessary, but it's definitely an impressive gimmick.

The "Options" button also allows you to access a DLNA server over the network, or to choose which widgets to display. It always leads to the most important menu settings, helping you get a grip on the multitude of features and functions.

Nevertheless, there is one point that remains a riddle: It seems illogical to us that the user has to set the backlight for each source individually - there's no reason to expect a sudden difference in display brightness every time the TV switches to a different input. The user should be able to adjust this setting centrally, for all inputs at the same time.

Picture formats for HDTV-resolution video sources:

We despaired that the picture format button neglects to offer the full range of picture formats for HDTV-resolution video sources. The Sony simply assumes that such sources are always HDTV channels. The developers have overlooked that an increasing number of today's DVD players, DVD recorders, or HDMI-equipped TV receivers will up-scale standard-definition pictures to HDTV resolution. In this case, you need the "4:3" and "Letterbox" picture formats that the Sony, unfortunately, only offers for low-resolution sources.

Remote Control:

With its multitalented "Options" button, the slender remote control gets away with a relatively manageable number of buttons.

Unfortunately, however, the central navigation cross only works within the menu, and cannot, for example, be used to change channels or adjust the volume.

The remote's buttons are sensibly grouped, with the exception of the picture format button, which sits way up top, and the channel buttons, which are placed too far down. The buttons do not have a backlight.

No "back" button available:

For TV viewing, we missed the "back" button found on other Sony remotes - this button allows you to jump back to the last-viewed channel, and is a lifesaver during ad breaks. A quick tip: If you have a Sony remote control that still has the button, such as the remote for the KDL-46 Z 4500, you can still trigger the "back" function on this TV.

Channel Search, EPG and Teletext:
A very respectable performance from the TV here: The Electronic Program Guide (EPG) shows clear program information for ten channels at once, as well as offering information on movies. The GUIDE Plus+ system arranges the displayed programs according to their categories.

The Teletext doesn't use the latest standard (Level 2.5), so the typeface looks rough, and the overall impression is stale. Still, there's a split-screen display, whereby the picture and Teletext appear alongside each other.