Julie: Hi. I'm Julie, and I'm here in the Crutchfield studio with Sony's 40" XBR9 TV. There are a lot of cool things about this TV that I've found out about and I'm going to be talking about.

So I'm going to be talking about the 40", 46", and 52" models. There is a 32" XBR9, but I'm not going to get into it because it has really different features from these line.

So, these XBR9 TVs are a replacement for the XBR6 line. They have a lot of the same features, but there are several things that have been added that make them really special. I'm gonna get into those in just a second, but first of all I had to tell you about two things that hit me the moment we took this out of the box. One is it's got this really slender frame. That's nice if you have a place to put an LCD TV where every half-inch counts and you need to be able to not spend any of that space on excess frame. But I also like it 'cause I think it makes it really streamlined and it keeps the focus where it should be, on the picture itself.

And that's the other thing that jumped out at me. The picture is impressive. Sony XBR TVs are designated XBR when they have stupendous picture quality and the XBR9s absolutely do. Some of that is because it's a 1080p screen, and some of it of course, is because it can handle HD stuff. It's got plenty of HDMI inputs and things like that to run signals into. But I think one of the things that made this special is that it's got the new video processing technology for 2009 that Sony has created. It's called BRAVIA Engine 3 and it really does seem to make a difference when it comes to detail and clarity and motion. So, very impressive there.

Now, there are four things that really make these LCD TVs different from some of the other LCD TVs out there. One of those is that instead of the 120Hz refresh rate that was available on the XBR6s, you get 240Hz refresh rate. 120Hz refresh rate, incidentally, looks great, works great. I was very impressed at the way it took fast action sports or adventure movies, things like that, anything where there's a lot going on onscreen, and it removed the sort of blur and stutter and lag that you sometimes saw with those kind of sequences on lesser 60Hz televisions. But 240Hz goes even farther to make that motion all the more fluid and seamless, and that means that these 240Hz TVs are going to be really big with sports fans, action movie fans, and video gamers. So, nice touch there.

You also get an improved backlight over the fluorescent backlight found on a lot of LCD TVs. So instead of just the regular color range these fluorescent backlights are considered wide color gamut backlights, and that means that images are going to pop with vibrant colors. And I definitely saw this, even looking at our local news station. When we turned this on and hooked this up, the flowers in the news studio were just blooming right off the screen with brilliant color. It was great.

You also have some really cool internet features built in. There are these neat widgets from Yahoo that just let you see weather or stock quotes, information like that very easily, without having to get up and go into the other room to check the computer. But one of the things that I think people are really going to be excited about is the way that this television handles internet video. So, say you have it connected to your network, and your brother has just e-mailed you about some great video that he saw on YouTube. Well, instead of having to go turn on your computer, and then grab your family and huddle around that comparatively little screen to check out the video on YouTube, you just pick up your remote, navigate to the TV's YouTube channel, search for the video that you're looking for, and watch it right here on your big screen, on your best screen. That's a really, really nice addition, and I think it's the way internet video should be watched, you know, on the best screen you have available.

And, last but not least, the XBR9 line all meet the Energy Star® 3.0 standard for energy efficiency. Now with Energy Star 3.0 TVs have to be energy efficient both when they're on stand-by so, you know, when they're not playing, when they're just waiting to be turned on, but also when they're actually playing, when stuff's going on on-screen. Being energy efficient when you're essentially turned off is not that difficult. Being energy efficient when you're on and still having a great picture has been much harder for TVs. Sony has figured out how to do it so the XBR9s not only meet the Energy Star 3.0 standard, they actually exceed it. And that's good news for anybody who wants their consumer electronics to be, you know, a little more on the green side and wouldn't mind having their energy bill be a little lower too.

Now there is a lot more that you can learn about the XBR9 televisions and you can find out about it at crutchfield.com/SonyXBR9. But if you have questions about these TVs or anything else, you can also call us at 1-800-555-9408.