Unkept Promisses !

Unkept Promises In January 2016, around and at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Sony promised a faster main processor for the 2016 models (see video) together with the at that time latest Android 6 Marshmallow (see video). They also announced (via FlatpanelsHD, Feb. 2016) that the upcoming HDR capable models are supposed to feature YouTube HDR playback: YouTube will also start streaming in HDR quality later this year, using a new VP9-Profile 2 codec that brings HDR support to Google’s VP9 video format. Sony’s Motoi Kawamura, Head of TV Product Planning for Sony Europe, confirmed to FlatpanelsHD that the 2016 models will support VP9-Profile 2 and be capable of streaming YouTube in HDR. We saw a demo at CES and it looked very good. Something seems to have terribly gone wrong though. As it turned out, Sony put the old BRAVIA 2015 platform on the whole spring 2016 line-up (XD85/SD85/XD93/XD94) without publicly communicating it. Those models therefore also lack the ability to decode VP9-profile 2 (VP9.2) video which hasn’t immediately become obvious due to a lack of respective content. With the advent of YouTube HDR, it will be interesting to see how Sony explains to XD93/XD94 customers that their brand-new premium TV, which actually has the display technology to properly reproduce HDR, won’t be able to play it back. But the crucial part is yet to come as the cheap summer line-up (XD70/XD75, XD80/XD83), which has only been released 3-4 months later, finally received the new BRAVIA ATV2 platform. So after 3-4 months on the market, the expensive March 2016 models have already been rendered out of date. That is pretty bad mismanagement and misinformation on Sony’s behalf. Basing different models with the same nomenclature from the same year (being released in close proximity to one another) on platforms from different generations is a big no-no. Especially if the cheap entry-level models get the faster and more capable hardware platform than the expensive high-end models. VP9.2 is not just important for YouTube HDR. H.265/HEVC won’t win that decisively against VP9(.2) as H.264/AVC did against VP8 with respect to the future 4K/HDR video format. Limited hardware support and patent issues have pretty much been ironed out. So it might very well be the other way around this time. You just can’t sell a premium HDR TV in 2016 without VP9.2 support. Some people might argue that AV1 (VP10) will become the 4K/HDR format of choice, rendering all current TVs from any brand incompatible. Samsung already released a new firmware for ALL their HDR capable 2016 models, enabling YouTube HDR via VP9-profile 2 decoding. The BRAVIA 2015 platform also failed to receive the promised Marshmallow update throughout the whole year of 2016, having been delayed countless times. It wasn’t until February 22nd 2017 that Marshmallow finally started rolling out, just to be pulled again one week later. Keep in mind that nVIDIA already rolled out Nougat(!) in January for their SHIELD TV. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EPzlq_ipIPMCDoMqMgDl0IuKmTsMoZHeKKwE_zxbFUk/pub