Sony promises a lot for its upcoming Bravia TVs: The high-end devices from the new XR series include organic displays with higher peak brightness and LCDs with many small light-emitting diodes in the finely dimmable Direct-LED backlight. Sony is joining LG and Samsung, who also presented high-contrast displays with mini LEDs at the CES.

Sony wants the screens apart from with them Improved hardware also helps with artificial and cognitive intelligence: The new XR processor is intended to bring a human perspective into the representation by bringing those parts of the image that people would focus on in reality into focus on the digital screen.

In order to present the picture as the viewer would perceive it in reality, the image is divided into small zones and the focus point is determined using databases.

(Image: Sony)

Similar processes are already being used for the optimization of moving images, Sony now wants to add factors of human perception to them. For this purpose, the image is divided into many small zones in which contrast, colors and brightness are optimized depending on the focus point. In the worse case this leads to a stronger separation of foreground and background, in the better case to a high-contrast representation with more depth – tests will show the result. Sony does not reveal how many segments the image is divided into for analysis.

Mini LEDs for more contrasts The zones for image analysis have nothing to do with the zones in which the backlight of the LCD TVs can be dimmed. Unfortunately, Sony is also silent about this number. Since mini LEDs are used in the XR models, there will certainly be more than the usual Sony ones 16 zones. LG had promised zones for its new high-end TVs 2160, whether Sony wanted to use more or less dimming zones the manufacturer does not disclose.

With mini-LEDs in the finely segmented backlight, the brightness of which can be specifically changed, very bright spots can be achieved next to very dark ones in the picture.

(Picture: Sony)

There will be three LCD TV series with mini LEDs for full array local dimming (FALD): Z9J, X 95 J and X 90 J. All use the so-called XR contrast boost to improve the peak brightness for HDR playback: The 8K top model Z9J has the highest level 15, it is written with 75 and 85 inches Diagonal be available. The X 95 J with 10 he boost for the FALD backlight comes in 65, 75 and 85 inches , the X 90 J with 5 boost is in 50, 55, 65 and 75 Customs offered. The exact information on contrast, luminance and other technical features will not be announced by Sony until later.

Sony wants the display in a bright environment also improve with a new anti-reflective coating. In addition, the viewing angles of the XR-LCD TVs are said to have been improved, so colors and contrasts remain more constant when viewed from the side.

Higher Peak brightness for OLED TVs OLED TVs have no problems with large viewing angles anyway. With his new OLED models A 85 J and A 80 J Sony has also improved the luminance. For higher peak brightness, all four subpixels should now light up on particularly bright details – explosions, candle flickering in dark vaults, etc., i.e. RGB and white. The manufacturer has laminated an additional aluminum foil to the display back so that the organic layer does not heat up due to the higher current load. It should dissipate the heat better and thus also prevent the possible burn-in of contents.

The colors also benefit from the higher basic brightness, people perceive them as stronger. The contrast of the OLEDs is impressively high thanks to their rich black value. The supposed contrast boost in OLED TVs is therefore actually a luminance boost, while in LCD TVs it is mainly achieved via the reduced black levels of local dimming.

Sony’s model names are not very catchy: The overview only shows the brand new models with an XR processor .

(Image: Sony)

In addition to the devices from the XR series, this year Sony is offering LCD TVs with the 2020 known X1 processor; these are the models from the series X 85 J and X 81 J. There are also LCD TVs with the Android operating system, but only full HD resolution from the W series 800. All other Sony TVs show 4K resolution with 3840 × 2160 pixels or 8K with 7680 × 4320 Pixels in the Z9J.

XR sound and picture In terms of sound, Sony OLED TVs differ from LCDs: With the former, the sound comes directly from the screen surface. Acoustic Surface Audio is what Sony calls the process that LG intends to use for its OLED TVs in the future. At Sony you can already find the acoustic screen surfaces in the previous year’s models. They use small actuators that cause the screen surface to vibrate and thus project the sound directly to the viewer.

The LCD TVs from the XR series should now have additional built-in speakers using 3D surround 5.1. Produce 2-channel sound. In addition to various speakers, the 8K TV Z9J uses small actuators on the display frame.

The XR TVs support Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. They master the Netflix calibrated mode and deliver remastered images with immersive DTS sound with IMAX Enhanced. They are also prepared for automatic calibration with Calman and, according to Sony, provide image settings in the user image preset such as the Filmmaker mode offered by many other TV manufacturers.

The signal inputs should support HDMI 2.1, i.e. 4K / 120 Hz or 8K / 60 Hz including VRR and ALLM as well as eARC. Sony could not say whether this is the case right from the start or whether it will be submitted later via update. It was said that the HDMI specification was being finalized. The same applies to the current Sony TVs.

Design and equipment The design of the Sony has revised the devices slightly, the feet of the massive but slim TVs are now attached to the side. If there is not enough space in the living room, you can move your feet further inwards. If the soundbar is to be placed under the screen, Sony supplies higher feet on stilts.

The so-called Bravia Core, an app from the Google Store for Android TVs, is new. It is available only for the 2021 he TVs and offers depending on the model, different lots of free movies from Sony Picture Universe. For these, Sony promises the best picture quality thanks to higher bit rates. Films from the IMAX library are also offered, with further platforms to be added later. You can read more about this in “Bravia Core”: Own video streaming service for Sony TVs with up to 80 MBit / s

Sony has also added a new 4U tab to its Android TVs. The series and programs preferred by the respective viewer are displayed in the bar and suggestions for suitable content are shown. (uk)