Sony Bravia KDL-52EX700

Motion Performance

Motion Smoothness (8.25)

The Sony KDL-52EX700 produced an excellent smoothness of motion in our lab tests. To get the best results, we opted to turn on the MotionFlow feature. Typically, features like these that mess with the appearance of moving objects tend to make the image look worse. But if we left the MotionFlow in the lowest setting (Standard), there was a definite improvement in the maintenance of fine detail. There are some instances, though, in which you don’t like the smoothing effects of MotionFlow. For instance, some of us found it distracting when watching a movie or dramatic television. If that’s the case, it’s very easy to turn on and off at will. (More on how we test Motion.)

Motion Artifacting (7.75)

There’s always some level of artifacting when objects are in motion, because sometimes pixels simply can’t refresh fast enough, or the processor can’t keep up. Manufacturers are betting (correctly) that there’s a certain level of blur or artifacting that you just won’t notice, so there’s no need to put a Cray supercomputer in the TV to produce pixel-perfect renderings. In the case of the Sony KDL-52EX700, we noticed some judders along areas of high contrast, most noticeably when the object is a straight line. There was also some minor false coloration, but nothing that will distract you too much. Overall, theTV did a fine job. More on how we test motion performance.

3:2 Pulldown & 24fps (6.50)

The Sony KDL-52EX700 could display 3:2 pulldown without any real troubles. In order to avoid some of the juddery motion that can occur with native 24fps footage, it’s worth experimenting with the TV’s CineMotion feature, designed specifically for this task. More on how we test 3:2 pulldown and 24fps.

Resolution Scaling (7.32)

The Sony KDL-52EX700 performed decently in the resolution scaling test. This TV has a native resolution of 1920 × 1080, but a lot of the video is likely going to be of a lower resolution.It’s the TV’s job to upscale this so it fits on the screen. More on how we test resolution scaling.

480p

Content in the 480p format looks very good, though it loses quite of lot of the screen’s edge due to overscan.

720p

Content in the 720p format still lost 2% of the screen edge because of overscan, and we saw some Moire patterns appear in high-frequency patterns.

1080i

Content in the 1080i format, which is quite a common resolution for high definition cable TV, also lost 2% due to overscan. The instances of Moire patterns were worse than with the 720p content. Overall, the TV’s 1080i performance was a little disappointing.

Other Models in the KDL-xxEX700 Series
For more information on other models in this series, check our Series Comparison Page.
Sony Bravia KDL-32EX700 32 in.	Sony Bravia KDL-40EX700 40 in.	Sony Bravia KDL-46EX700 46 in.	Sony Bravia KDL-60EX700 60 in.