This is Day 2 of my look at the Sony 65" W5100 LED LCD HDTV. You can find Day 1 HERE.

Yesterday I posted my first impressions of the monolithic 65" Sony KDL65W5100 LED LCD HDTV. Today I'm taking a look at the hardware that makes the W5100 what it is, and whether or not I was impressed with the features.

Technology
BRAVIA® Engine 3 At the heart of the Sony W5100 series is the BRAVIA® Engine 3. The tech copy proudly proclaims the digital prowess of Sony's flagship image processor; this third generation BRAVIA® engine will deliver "incredibly clear, vibrant images and surprising detail in both standard definition and high definition". The question is: does it work? Yes, it does - and it has to. With a screen as large as 65" you absolutely need high quality image processing in order have something that's watchable - especially with signal that may not be up to par. The W5100 does a great job of taking material like digital cable or SD video games and making them watchable and playable. With high definition material I compared the W5100 to my existing HDTVs and did notice deeper, richer tones right off the bat. After calibrating the set the difference was even more pronounced. I'll get into that a bit more when we talk about performance. The short answer, however, is that BE3 is worth owning. Motionflow 120Hz Sony's Motionflow 120Hz is designed to reduce jitter and create a smoother picture. Put succinctly: it works. The W5100 uses frame interpolation - that means that it processes a pair of frames and inserts a digitally created frame between the two that smooths action out. I took the time to watch some sports and some high action TV - I found the 120Hz mode to be a vast improvement for sports. When it came to action TV my results were mixed; 24 looked fantastic, whereas Alias looked too slick. You'll see this mode advertised in some venues as a great way to watch action movies. I heartily disagree - if you're watching Blu-ray discs that support 24p mode, please - for all that is good and right - turn 120Hz off. Doubling the frame rate on a film that has already undergone 3:2 pulldown makes it look like video tape - it's a sad and cruel thing to do to your favourite movies. Instead you should use... 24p True Cinema Ahhh... 24p feels so good to watch. Sony's implementation of 24p on the W5100 is a relief to home cinema lovers. Movies are filmed at a rate of 24 frames per second; previously displays would have to upsample those frame rates using a processed called 3:2 pulldown - it fixed the issue to a degree, but it still wasn't quite right. 24p True Cinema, on the other hand, is the real deal: you get 24 progressive frame per second that matches what you saw in the theatre. I've spent the better part of a week testing this out and I can say without hesitation that it's worth the money you pay for it. Seeing 65" of 24p cinema is breathtaking. Advanced Contrast Enhancer, Light Sensor, and Dynamic Backlight Control The W5100 is eco-friendly. Even at 23" larger than my current home theatre panel, it draws less than one third of the power. There are a host of power management features that can help you reduce your consumption to an even more efficient level; I had a bit of difficulty with the automatic sleep mode (it didn't "see" my PlayStation 3 when I was playing, so after 2 hours it would pop up with a note that the TV would power down shortly unless I interacted with it. I think this may have been an issue with my receiver). The Light Sensor is one method that the W5100 can use to be even more green: it automatically senses the level of ambient light in the room and adjusts the brightness of the display accordingly. It's a great feature. I turned it off. It may be environmentally un-friendly of me, but I found the varying levels of brightness to be a distraction. I've got the same feature on my laptop and I turn that off too - I find these fluctuations to feel a little too random and it's an irritation. The Dynamic Backlight Control, on the other hand, is not a distraction - it's a great feature that's subtle enough to work well and do what it's meant to. The Dynamic Backlight Control is designed to adjust the backlight intensity (read: how bright the image is) based on the content on-screen. It works in conjunction with another technology - the Advanced Contrast Enhancer (ACE) to produce smoother, more natural image tones in both bright and dark scenes. In brighter scenes, the backlight can be amped up to ensure that colours really pop. In darker scenes the backlight will transition to a lower level of brightness in order to emphasis contrast and detail. This allows the W5100 to get closer to a darker, more true black than previous types of LCD HDTVs without these measures built in. This was really noticeable in games like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Batman: Arkham Asylum for the PlayStation 3 - both feature dark sequences that are rich in detail; instead of washing out the brighter part of these scenes, the W5100 was able to preserve the detail and still maintain the moody, atmospheric look the game designers intended. Putting technology to work. The best part about the W5100 is that most of these technologies work automatically, right out of the box. I'm going to get into performance (both audio and video) tomorrow, and I still recommend calibrating your set (do it yourself or get it professionally done by ConnectPro), but the experience straight out of the box with the tech inside with W5100 was great. These are technologies that you'll actually use, not just bullet points on the box - and you'll see the difference. Tomorrow I'll be getting into connections you can find on the W5100 as well as audio and video performance.

This is Day 2 of my look at the Sony 65" W5100 LED LCD HDTV. You can find Day 1 HERE.