Gadgetman: Sony 52″ W4500 LCD TV – Update

Sony 52 inch W4500 review – Part 2

Following on from my first post, here are some more details about the set.

Cross-bar menu system

The menu system on the TV is quite cool, and if you have used a PS/3 or PSP then it will be very familiar as it based on the same idea, Sony call is ‘Cross-bar’ and it works quite well.  Pressing the large blue ‘Home’ button on the remote brings up this, but apart from adjusting the settings when I was setting up the the only reason I use it is to change inputs.  But once I finish connecting the TV to the home LAN I will use the Network settings so will report on that latter.

Inputs

There are two HDMI inputs on the back of the set and one on the side.  Personally I would have preferred three inputs on the back but that’s just me being picky.  I have HDMI 1 connected to MySky HDi and HDMI 3 connected to my PS/3 (HDMI 2 is the port on the side, just to confuse people I guess!).  Along with the HDMI there are component, composite and s-video connections, aerial plus two of special interest, the Ethernet port and the DM port.  I plan to use the HDMI and s-video ports (s-video for older equipment such as my SVHS video machine), but none of the others unless I review something.

Since the set is DLNA certified it is able to stream content from a DLNA compliant server using the Ethernet port, in this case my Windows Home Server machine.  But just because it is DLNA compliant doesn’t mean it will stream all types of content; the set is limited to just music and audio, no video at all!  Oh well, at least I have my PS/3 to do that.  Luckily I cabled up an Ethernet cable under my floor to the TV.  Results of this testing will come latter.

The DM (it stands for Digital Media) port is an expansion port allow connectivity of other devices such as an iPod or Bluetooth device, but you do need special adapters for each device, so this is something I won’t be using.

Each port can be renamed from the standard HDMI1, HDMI2, HDMI3, VIDEO1 etc but only from a predefined list such as Satellite, Game, DB/DVD etc, which is a bit naff since I want it to say Sky, PS3 etc.