Sony KDL-40VL130 HDTV: input lag / upscaling /deinterlacing review
This 46" HDTV dates back to 2007, with 2 component inputs + 2 HDMI, along with other inputs less useful for retro gamers. It's not a smart TV but it sure is cheap on the used market.
Image quality
Native resolution is 1080p. It's bright, sharp, and colorful. It has no black crush. You can set 480p to be stretched to wide screen or maintain aspect ratio. Either way there's some cropping. Sadly the 480p upscaling is just a little bit blocky/aliased, though that's probably unavoidable.
Input lag (HDMI/480p), measured with a OSSC + 240fps highspeed camera
This TV has a B2W transition of about 5ms. So the input lag varies depending on whether you wait for the TV to reach a steady state (25ms) or measure the first moment that the screen responds to input (21ms).
How I measured: I used an OSSC outputting at 480p. The OSSC lights a LED the moment it starts transmitting the pixels of a white probe over a previously black background. Using a moderately fast high speed camera (Samsung S7, 240fps) you can measure the delay between the LED lighting and the probe appearing on the screen. Since the B2W transition takes some time, the probe gets brighter over 1 or sometimes 2 additional frames.
Side note: the OSSC measures lag in a somewhat unusual way: relative to the moment the probe pixels are sent over HDMI, rather than the start of the frame. To be consistent with other lag testers, I only tested in the upper-left where there is no distinction between methods. Waiting until the full frame is painted adds an additional 16ms of lag.
Deinterlacing using OSSC
The OSSC uses bob deinterlacing for zero added lag (aka linedoubling). This looks a little better when you add temporally alternating light-dark scanlines which masks the inherent "bob" blockiness of doubling each scanline. The result looks good, but with darker scanlines lacing artifacts start to appear.
Built-in TV deinterlacing: lag and appearance
The OSSC can instead send the interlaced signal to the tv and let it deinterlace. This looks very good, better than bob. The cost is some lag - an extra 17ms, for 42ms of total lag. That's just 1 extra frame and is a very good result. Still more blocky/blurry than a CRT though.
Without the OSSC
The TV comes with 2 component inputs. I didn't test them but I assume they are similar to letting the OSSC transcode from yPrPb to HDMI.
Without the remote
This has decently usable controls without the remote.
Other similar models
I would expect that the 46LV130 would perform about the same as the 40VL130 , based on the model numbers, and a quick skim of the specs (both are native 1080p displays). But I only tested the 40VL130. A forum post said this was a costco only model number, and is the same as the 40V3000, but I don't think this is true: the input back panel looks different. Based on the back panel it might be a KDL-40V2500 though. It appears to have retailed for between $2000 and $2500.
Image quality
Native resolution is 1080p. It's bright, sharp, and colorful. It has no black crush. You can set 480p to be stretched to wide screen or maintain aspect ratio. Either way there's some cropping. Sadly the 480p upscaling is just a little bit blocky/aliased, though that's probably unavoidable.
Input lag (HDMI/480p), measured with a OSSC + 240fps highspeed camera
This TV has a B2W transition of about 5ms. So the input lag varies depending on whether you wait for the TV to reach a steady state (25ms) or measure the first moment that the screen responds to input (21ms).
How I measured: I used an OSSC outputting at 480p. The OSSC lights a LED the moment it starts transmitting the pixels of a white probe over a previously black background. Using a moderately fast high speed camera (Samsung S7, 240fps) you can measure the delay between the LED lighting and the probe appearing on the screen. Since the B2W transition takes some time, the probe gets brighter over 1 or sometimes 2 additional frames.
Side note: the OSSC measures lag in a somewhat unusual way: relative to the moment the probe pixels are sent over HDMI, rather than the start of the frame. To be consistent with other lag testers, I only tested in the upper-left where there is no distinction between methods. Waiting until the full frame is painted adds an additional 16ms of lag.
Deinterlacing using OSSC
The OSSC uses bob deinterlacing for zero added lag (aka linedoubling). This looks a little better when you add temporally alternating light-dark scanlines which masks the inherent "bob" blockiness of doubling each scanline. The result looks good, but with darker scanlines lacing artifacts start to appear.
Built-in TV deinterlacing: lag and appearance
The OSSC can instead send the interlaced signal to the tv and let it deinterlace. This looks very good, better than bob. The cost is some lag - an extra 17ms, for 42ms of total lag. That's just 1 extra frame and is a very good result. Still more blocky/blurry than a CRT though.
Without the OSSC
The TV comes with 2 component inputs. I didn't test them but I assume they are similar to letting the OSSC transcode from yPrPb to HDMI.
Without the remote
This has decently usable controls without the remote.
Other similar models
I would expect that the 46LV130 would perform about the same as the 40VL130 , based on the model numbers, and a quick skim of the specs (both are native 1080p displays). But I only tested the 40VL130. A forum post said this was a costco only model number, and is the same as the 40V3000, but I don't think this is true: the input back panel looks different. Based on the back panel it might be a KDL-40V2500 though. It appears to have retailed for between $2000 and $2500.