CES 2016: Sony Unveils Surprising New 4K HDR TV Range
Sony has released full details of its 4K TV range for 2016 – and it’s fair to say it isn’t quite what I expected.
The biggest surprise is that there’s only going to be a single TV set in Sony’s entire 2016 4K range that uses direct LED lighting, where the lights sit directly behind the screen. That model is the 75-inch flagship, the 75X940D.
Why is Sony’s decision to focus on edge LED lighting so surprising? Because common sense and past experience both suggest that direct LED lighting works better for high dynamic range (HDR) playback – and HDR is set to become a very big deal in 2016.
Sony is adamant, though, that it has found a method for making edge LED work for high-end HDR – a method it calls a Slim Backlight Drive.
Found only on the new X930D series, the Slim Backlight Drive essentially brings the X-Tended Dynamic Range Pro local dimming and boosting technology previously only available on Sony’s direct LED TVs to edge LED – and Sony claims it works effectively enough to deliver brightness peaks three times as high as those you could get from a ‘conventional’ (non-HDR) LCD TV.
Sony won’t go into much technical detail on how the Slim Backlight Drive works, other than to say that it’s based on a grid lighting approach that allows edge LED lighting to illuminate relatively small sectors within the image independently of each other, rather than just being able to control entire top to bottom or left to right strips of the image as has been the case previously.
I guess Sony has preferred to use an advanced edge LED dimming engine in the X930Ds over going direct LED because it wants to keep the design of its flagship ‘normal sized’ LCD TV range ultra slim, in keeping with current trends. The 55-inch and 65-inch X930D sets are only 11mm deep, and both feature the same up-venting cooling system as 2015’s X90C TVs to enable them to be mounted almost flush to a wall without them overheating.
It remains to be seen, though, if the Slim Backlight Drive can really control light well enough to persuade us that edge-lit TVs really can do HDR well.
It is promising to note, at least, that the X930Ds use contrast-rich VA panel technology rather than the less contrasty IPS panel technology found in last year’s X90 models.
The X850D 4K TVs that sit below the X930Ds on Sony’s 4K ladder, incidentally, only appear to use full frame dimming despite also all being compatible with HDR content. All Sony’s 4K HDR TVs for 2016 will feature the brand’s wide colour gamut Triluminos technology, though.
All this talk of HDR brings us to unexpected surprise two: no compatibility with the Ultra HD Premium specification announced by the UHD Association at this year’s CES. Samsung, LG and Panasonic have all obtained Ultra HD Premium badges for their premium 4K HDR TVs, yet Sony has decided to stick to its own internal way of doing things – namely putting its own 4K HDR logo on its HDR-capable TVs, but not backing this home-grown logo up with any discussion of what exact specifications it describes.
Only time – and sales – will tell if Sony not pursuing Ultra HD Premium status with its top-end TVs is a mistake, but my gut feeling is that it might be.
The final surprise of Sony’s new 4K TV range is that the brand has completely ditched the big built-in speaker systems it’s poured so much love into over the past couple of TV generations. Even the flagship 75X940D now features a slim bezel devoid of the large forward-facing, ultra-powerful speakers that used to stretch so far beyond the screen on Sony’s high-end TVs. It’s all part of Sony’s new Slice of Living design concept, which emphasizes slimness and compatibility with room decor.
Sony only had two TV models on show on its CES stand: numerous samples of the X930D, and a single eye-catching sample of a ‘Backlight Master Drive’ concept TV capable of outputting picture highlights up to 4000 nits (!).
Look out for my initial thoughts on these real and concept screens in the next day or two. In the meantime, here are the key features of each of Sony’s 4K models.
75X940D
75-inch screen
Direct LED lighting
4K HDR
X-Tended Dynamic Range Pro local dimming/brightness system
Triluminos
1200Hz Motion processing system
65X930D (65in) and 55X930D (55in)
Ultra slim design
Edge LED lighting
4K HDR
X-tended Dynamic Range Pro with Slim Backlight Drive
Triluminos
1000Hz Motion processing system
85X850D (85in), 75X850D (75in), 65X850D (65in), and 55X850D (55in)
Slim design
Edge LED lighting
4K HDR
Triluminos
800Hz motion processing system
