Sony XBR-65Z9D LCD Ultra HDTV.
AT THE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS Show in January 2016, Sony demonstrated a prototype of a future LCD TV design incorporating what the company called Backlight Master Drive. We found it dazzling, as did most of the show-goers with whom we spoke. Nevertheless, we all looked at it as a “show car”—something that might appear in a store near you in a couple of years, if ever.
Sony has cried wolf before: Do a Web search for “Crystal LED, CES 2012.” But while that remains a dream (at least for consumers), Backlight Master Drive is here today. (Just this past July, on soundandvision.com, we reported about its launch.) The technology is featured in Sony’s XBR Z9D series of LCD Ultra HDTVs, available in three sizes: 75-inch-diagonal at $10,000, 100-inch at $60,000 (yikes), and for the…ah...more budget conscious, the 65-incher at a more attainable $5,500—the subject of this report.
Design and Features
The sleek XBR-65Z9D is actually a bit fatter than the XBR-65X930D we reviewed in our September 2016 issue, though not in an obtrusive way. Its back panel is well finished and can be fitted with removable covers (included) to conceal the cable mess that’s common to a TV installation.
As with most other premier LCD sets, this TV employs LED back lighting with full-array (not edge-lit) local dimming, for superior blacks and shadow detail. In most local-dimming sets, the LEDs are controlled by zones.
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