Sony’s slimmed down the number of televisions it’ll launch into the Australian market in 2012, with a focus on picture quality and smart TV — but not “games and gimmicks”. According to Sony, it’s all about the content.
3DTV has earned its bad rap, and for good reason. Fast-moving sequences get blurry, the contrast gets soggy depending on the room’s brightness, and good luck if you try to watch low-resolution videos. But Sony’s new Bravia HX 850 series aims to eliminate all these issues in one fell swoop.
For a long time now Sony has made some of the best cameras out there. Love the iPhone 4S camera? Yeah, because it’s got a Sony Exmor sensor in it. Sony’s two new Xperias are also pushing the visuals mighty hard.
After eight-straight years of losses, Sony’s splitting its Bravia TV business into three and cutting back. The surviving TV arms will be Sony-made LCDs, outsourced displays and next-gen TVs.
Bought a Bravia TV between July 1, 2007, and December 31, 2008? You might want to check whether it’s still safe to use; Sony’s issued a safety recall on models sold in Australia in that time period due to fire risk.
Sony’s video on demand service was turned on in Australia Tuesday morning, letting users of connected Bravia TVs, Sony home theatre systems and Blu-ray players stream movies for $5. And to bizarrely prove the point that devices like its new Blu-ray 3D player with Wi-Fi will let even old TVs connect to the internet, Sony went retro.
For most of 2010, Sony led the way in Australia for integrated IPTV in its television sets. But IPTV is only a small fraction of the potential for integrated entertainment on a flat panel television. Gaming is destined to be the next big boom for television screens, and it’s time for Sony to leverage its assets by sticking a Playstation 3 console into a premium Bravia TV.
Sony’s TV lineup runs deep – as usual. Twenty-seven new sets! But the star is the XBR-HX929, a 3D-capable LCD with local dimming backlights and many internet streaming services. It can even name tunes in movies using gracenote.
