CES 2020: Sony Unveils New 4K and 8K TVs with HomeKit and AirPlay 2 Support

[BaltimoreMediaBlog]

NO! That's a highly traditional/conservative method of watching from the last century. 4K Dolby Vision / HDR is everywhere on today's platforms - iTunes, AppleTV+, Netflix, Amazon and so on. When you see cable/network TV, it's a complete dinosaur with stale thinking. They will never be the first in today's technology.

It won't be a highly traditional method for long. Over the air TV viewership numbers have been on the rise in America with the Cord Cutter movement and millennials not wanting to spend $250/month for TV when it's still free with a rather inexpensive antenna. With NEXTGEN TV, each TV station may have as many as 8-12 sub-channels at different times and the main channel will always be 1080p minimum with special programs in 4K. Each channel will live switch based on the programming source's quality. Channels like MeTV or Antenna TV or COZI are going to require the best quality versions of classic TV shows or remastered tapes or film as while supported, 480i will not look that good on a 4K or 8K TV. And a lot of local TV news sets will likely have to be rebuilt again as they won't look very good in 4K either.

As for the IP capability, yes, it will be somewhat limited, robust enough to know where you are and which TV commercials you should get for places near you. And the IP would also allow for Pay TV options, which could process a payment, then authorize your TV to watch something aired on one of the channels. Also, the feature set is not exactly complete as ATSC 3.0 is designed to be upgradeable and in the transmission equipment and the home TVs.

And finally according the press release from Sony, the X900H series, in 3 different sizes will all have an ATSC 3.0 tuner for NextGen TV. Unfortunately my TV market is not on the initial list of 60 markets. Right now, my biggest wish would be to use my Airpods with my TV, but my current TV will not.

 

[Baymowe335]

Future-proofing dude, it's a thing.
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That's like, 6 years ago. Maybe find a TARDIS first, lol.

It’s also a thing to buy it when it’s needed and makes some sense.

 

[BaltimoreMediaBlog]

As far as Sony vs. LG, I've had a LG, Sony, and a Vizio. The LG last <2 years and the repair only worked for a few months and I refused to spend a couple hundred dollars all over again. That HDTV also the 2nd newest would never do updates. But my older Sony, well the only problem is they aren't offering any updates and their Sony streaming channels are mostly all deceased. LOL Now the VIZIO is the oldest, the least quality picture, but with lots of features the others didn't have for less money, but its old and one of the 2nd generation HD TV sets, so I can't complain.

 

[Onelifenofear]

Smart features are pretty pointless on TV... they are outdated by an amazon fire stick let alone and Apple 4K Apple TV.

My 2016 Samsung has slowly lost apps and features over the past 4 years... I've now removed the Smart button from my Harmony remote. And Samsung and Sony are by far the worst doing this.

Why on earth isn't the Brain something you can updated every few year?

 

[alexandr]

Are you guys sure of this or are you going with gut feeling? TV wars has been between Samsung and LG for sometime now. How can Sony have better displays when they actually use the display of the competitor? As for product design, all tvs are just black rectangular slab

they have bezels, stands, logos) oh and remotes)))

 

[BillyBurke]

Does anybody but me still long for Picture in Picture? Cannot possibly be a technological problem? Cost and complexity of two tuners? Surely they have figured out how to do it with one tuner. Super fast tuner?

 

[dfwiddoc]

I am not interested in any TV which is not 3D.

I miss that functionality too. But despite ongoing improvements in 3D rendering and the resurgence of 3D titles in theaters (with some films such as “Gravity” being reviewed as substantially inferior in 2D projection), the industry apparently disagrees, because they have ostensibly abandoned it on their home television lines.

I have an OPPO UDP-205 and a UDP-203, both of which have been discontinued by the manufacturer since they closed their media player product line. But I refuse to sell them because their design quality is still so stunning, and fortunately OPPO released a final HDR 10+, Dolby Vision and Atmos patch before they closed shop last February (with an “HDMI In” port that supports DV passthrough!) And both have superb 3D rendering capabilities, as well as support for SACD and DVD-Audio media, and an awesome DLNA engine.

The only way I can watch the 3D Blu-Rays I own is on an old Sony TV I kept that supports none of the current technologies (no HDR, no Dolby Vision or Atmos, low refresh rate, inferior contrast ratio, etc). And even high end retailers such as Star Power and Magnolia have zero 3D televisions, and upon repeatedly scouring the web, I can’t find any in production anywhere.

I assume with the move away from physical media, the bandwidth demands of 3D via streaming, the need for glasses (for the time being anyway), the lack of 3D content available, poor sales, and the pervasive “gimmick” factor all contributed to the death of mass market 3D televisions. But my hope is that ongoing improvements in the technology, the ongoing research into “glasses-free 3D“, and the wider adoption of Giga-speed internet plans may portend hope for the future...

 

[cube]

I miss that functionality too. But despite ongoing improvements in 3D rendering and the resurgence of 3D titles in theaters (with some films such as “Gravity” being reviewed as substantially inferior in 2D projection), the industry apparently disagrees, because they have ostensibly abandoned it on their home television lines.

I have an OPPO UDP-205 and a UDP-203, both of which have been discontinued by the manufacturer since they closed their media player product line. But I refuse to sell them because their design quality is still so stunning, and fortunately OPPO released a final HDR 10+, Dolby Vision and Atmos patch before they closed shop last February (with an “HDMI In” port that supports DV passthrough!) And both have superb 3D rendering capabilities, as well as support for SACD and DVD-Audio media, and an awesome DLNA engine.

The only way I can watch the 3D Blu-Rays I own is on an old Sony TV I kept that supports none of the current technologies (no HDR, no Dolby Vision or Atmos, low refresh rate, inferior contrast ratio, etc). And even high end retailers such as Star Power and Magnolia have zero 3D televisions, and upon repeatedly scouring the web, I can’t find any in production anywhere.

I assume with the move away from physical media, the bandwidth demands of 3D via streaming, the need for glasses (for the time being anyway), the lack of 3D content available, poor sales, and the pervasive “gimmick” factor all contributed to the death of mass market 3D televisions. But my hope is that ongoing improvements in the technology, the ongoing research into “glasses-free 3D“, and the wider adoption of Giga-speed internet plans may portend hope for the future...

I don't see why I would buy an OPPO smartphone.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Are you guys sure of this or are you going with gut feeling? TV wars has been between Samsung and LG for sometime now. How can Sony have better displays when they actually use the display of the competitor? As for product design, all tvs are just black rectangular slab

As for upscaling, I don't about 4K, but my PS3 upscales DVDs so well...I kind can't tell the difference between it and Bluray! I will give you that! Not sure of other players though.

Well I'm just speaking about color accuracy. Sony seems even better at it with the LG OLED screens than LG is.

I recently bought a Sony X950G 65" LED, and I like the picture better than my Samsung Q80 65". I spent hours calibrating the Samsung, while Sony only needed minor calibrating out the box. I can't speak on Sony's OLED TVs besides seeing them in stores and friend's homes. But mostly everyone says the same about Sony OLED TVs as well.

Now when it comes to other factors, like blooming, software, HDR, local dimming, and etc, then it's a mixed bag depending on specific model.

 

[podlasek]

Luckily there are other articles talking of sony's support for ATV+

However 'show up in the Home app and respond to Siri voice commands for doing things like changing volume and turning the TV on and off. ', is pretty much useless. Hopefully this is wrong too, and the device shows up in Home similar to the Atv with a full function virtual remote, that will be much better.

 

[fathergll]

They never got out of electronics, they still make tons of dedicated chips for both audio and video. What they don't make is OLED panel but they do outsource the best damn OLED panel you will find on planet Earth and that is LG made panel same as on high end LG series but Sony engineers their own drivers for it. Sony has the best hardware upscale to 4K I have seen because they have in-house designed processing power for that purpose. 1080p up-scales to 4K beautifully.

Sony still makes high end LCD panels and their Z series 4K/8K LCD series in my opinion is better than anything OLED unless it's reference OLED monitor. It also costs arm and a leg so it's not a common sense purchase.

Correct. To be more specific there are multiple divisions of LG Corp that operate as entirely separate business entities. LG Display sources OLED panels to LG Electronics, Sony, Phillips, Panasonic...basically LG Display supplies the world with OLED panels.

According to industry insiders LG Display grades the OLED Panels at the factory and the best ones are sold to Sony, Phillips, Panasonic. The catch is LG Electronics also takes these higher graded panels but they also buy the lower graded panels which go on sale as the cheaper B and C series. The lower graded panels are fine but there is a higher chance of uniformity issues with them.

 

[zv470]

What TV you have that you can't pair your headphones with?

Sony A9G won't pair with Bose QC35 headphones.

 

[vladi]

Sony A9G won't pair with Bose QC35 headphones.

Wow. That's terrible. I do not own any Bose stuff but all of my BT headphones pair with A9F. Android 9 is your only chance I guess, it will rollout soon.

 

[zv470]

Wow. That's terrible. I do not own any Bose stuff but all of my BT headphones pair with A9F. Android 9 is your only chance I guess, it will rollout soon.

Hey, I tried again after upgrading to Android 9 it works! Thanks, I gave up hope haha.