Sony 2024 TV Exclusive | What To Expect and What Not To Expect

For the second year in a row Sony will not be  showing new TVs at CES should we be worried   absolutely not and I'm not just going to tell  you why I'm going to show you how Sony's 2024   TVs are going to be lit [Music] literally welcome  back everyone I'm Caleb Dennison and I've been   waiting to show you this video for a little over  6 weeks doesn't sound like a long time but for me   it's felt like an eternity I think this is pretty  exciting stuff anyway I hope you enjoy it and I   think you will because today I get to share with  you that after years of keeping its LED and mini   LED backlight technology and how it works a very  closely guarded secret Sony has finally brought it   out of the darkness and into the light I'm sorry  I really am I just I can't help myself sometimes   anyway the story goes that in November Zeke and  I traveled to Tokyo to take part in a very small   press trip hosted by Sony, along with such notable characters as Vincent Teoh, John Archer, Rasmus Larsen of FlatPanels HD fame, Kate Kozuch, and Jake Kroll. There was a little sightseeing, a lot of food but most of our time not spent on a bus or  this 10 minutes we spent on the bullet train was   spent at Sony's headquarters where we got to go  behind the scenes and learn a ton about what Sony   is up to and how Sony does what it does now some  of what we learned on that trip is still Hush Hush   so it'll have to wait for a future video but Sony  recently told me that we could take the wraps off   what we learned about Sony's backlight technology  and what it means for 2024 Sony TVs so I'm going   to do a little showand tell around that in just  a bit but before I do let me talk a little bit   about why why Sony isn't showing up at CES with  new TVs some of what I'm about to share comes   from personal observation and well let's just  say it stems from my experience in the industry   first let me unequivocally dispel the myths  that have circulated about Sony being in some   kind of trouble or otherwise struggling I'm here  to tell you Sony is doing just fine look I don't   want to get too inside baseball with you here but  back in 2015 while Sony was still clawing back   from the devastating effects of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and the resulting tsunami among some   other challenges then Sony electronics president  Mike fulo told me that Sony was going to lean   hard into premium this was kind of big news at the  time because Sony once a household name in TV had   obviously taken a hit from new competition coming  out of South Korea notably Samsung and LG at that   point it became clear that Sony was going to stop  stop chasing market share dominance and instead   was going to turn its attention to capturing and  holding a dominant chunk of the premium TV space   and it has TV enthusiasts know this Sony's TVs  routinely win lots of editor's Choice Awards and   shootouts this all premium approach is a big part  of why the so-called Sony tax exists actually you   know I made a whole video about this so I'll just  link to that if you're interested right up there   the point is Sony is holding its own in the US  TV space and Sony electronics ain't hurting at   all I mean even if it was hurting in the TV space  Sony's camera division could probably make up for   it so no despite the rumors that you may have read  online Sony is not not showing up to CES the way   it used to because it's on the struggle bus or  something actually the reason Sony has changed   its approach to CES is well for us consumers it's  a little bit boring honestly see Sony is a huge   corporation and they're doing a lot of interesting  work in in mobility their whole CES 2023 press   conference was titled moving people forward and  this car that they're making in partnership with   Honda was the central fixture speaking of I  saw the SUV version of that car in Tokyo and   it was freaking awesome and then there's Sony  Pictures Sony Imaging they're forging all these   partnerships Sony has a lot of divisions and a lot  of coals in the fire anyway what I'm told is that   Sony sees CES as an opportunity to talk some Big  pictures or corporate stuff while it's got this   bright spotlight on the global stage that is CES  it gets one of the world's loudest microphones   for about an hour and they're going to use that  strategically like I said for me and I assume   for you this is kind of boring I would rather see  fancy new TVs and get excited for what's coming   later in the year but here's the other thing CES  is a loud noisy place and I don't just mean it's   physically loud though it definitely is now when  I say noisy I mean the massive volume of news and   videos and tech media coverage coming out of CES  is just insane and overwhelming it's hard to keep   track of all the news coming out of that show  it's fun to watch and talk about I mean that's   why we go but there's so much information coming  out of there that for any company it's kind of a   crapshoot whether what you say is going to get  noticed by the people that you want to notice   why not then have your own special press event  for TVs or cameras or what whatever have that a   couple of months later when there's very little  tech news going on and you can basically own   headlines for days I mean that's just smarter  and taking that idea of skipping the rush hour   traffic a step further why not release your TVs  a little later in the year when you're likely to   make a bigger Splash and own media coverage during  that time again it's pretty smart it's a little   annoying for some of us sure but from a business  perspective pretty smart so long as you don't lose   sales by coming out with product later in the  year and so far it seems like that hasn't been   a problem I don't know we'll have to see how 2024  works out but how do you feel about that so that's   what's up with Sony's business now what kind of  business have they been up to with their LED TV   backlighting well if you followed my TV reviews  over the years you have heard me say repeatedly   that what Sony has always told anyone who asks for  specs and details on their backlight systems is   it's not the number of zones or the number of  LED these you use it's how you use them and I   would ask Sony okay I'll accept that but tell me  how you use them that's different and of course   they wouldn't say but as frustrating as it may be  to hear that side stepping sort of non-disclosure   answer for the most part Sony has done a pretty  great job of achieving high performance results   with seemingly less dense backlight systems with  fewer dimming zones there have been a couple of   exceptions like I wasn't a huge fan of the X90K  for instance but for the most part Sony has done   a lot more with a lot less than its competitors I  don't think Sony is going to start disclosing how   many manyi LEDs and how many dimming zones are at  work in their TVs but now for the first time ever   Sony is showing us how its backlight tech works  no more well it's a little eye of N and a little   toe of frog and then bam that's our secret sauce  for this demo that I'm showing you right now Sony   literally peeled back the layers so we could see  for ourselves and that's what you're seeing here   this is not a simulation where what you see on  the right side of this prototype screen is a   representation of what the backlight is doing what  you're seeing is the actual backlight in action   Sony dissected and peeled back screen layers so  we could watch what it does and so that we could   see how it was improved over the already great  X95L TV what you're seeing here is a result of   Sony taken the whole idea of a backlight system  back to the drawing board Sony told me that it's   developed a new integrated circuit driver that is  so tiny it can be housed within smaller clusters   of mini LED backlights think of it this way Sony's  cognitive XR processor the one we all Rave about   right its job is to take a video signal break it  up into a bunch of different parts and then send   instructions on what to do to the LED section of  the panel and the LCD section of the panel for   the backlight system those instructions are just  a bunch of data in order for the instructions to   be carried out that data has to be analyzed and  turned into an analog electrical signal which then   gets routed to the appropriate LEDs or mini LEDs  the execution of the processor's instructions is   carried out by a driver IC or integrated circuit  well actually many many many driver IC's now what   Sony is saying is that it's made a driver IC so  small that it can instantly increase the number   of zones in its TVs without giving up on super  fine control and it's in that fine control that   we discover the next big difference that's always  been in play on Sony's TVs what makes Sony's new   backlight system work so precisely is the number  of dimming levels that it can assign to its   backlights some TVs just turned the backlights  on or off that's it technically that's still   local dimming but it doesn't fit the commonly  understood sense of the word dimming right like   at home if your lights are dimable that means  that they aren't just on or off you can set them   at different brightness levels between off and on  like 10% or 20% or 60% and so on Sony exerts more   levels of gradation of brightness in its LED  backlights than most most of its competitors   and this new driver tech it's developed allows it  to continue doing that but at a much larger scale   so if the challenge before was Sony didn't want  to give up this granular dimming control just for   the sake of having more zones well now they can do  that they can keep that dimming control and have   more zones and that's what makes it possible  for you to kind of see what's happening in   the picture here even though what we're seeing  is basically black and white grayscale and   it's not at the pixel level not quite pixel level  but man it looks really close if we could kind of   bundle up Sony's magic with backlight control  that would be it right there you have lots of   different levels of gradation of the dimming and  now it's going to be deployed across way more   zones than it ever has been before Oh and bonus  it consumes less power which means it'll skate   by EU regulations more easily while still capable  of Achi achieving awesome brightness and blooming   halo effect I just don't think it's going to be  part of the conversation that much longer that   doesn't mean that many LED TVs are just going to  start steamrolling OLED there are still inherent   issues with LCD screens but man it's going to get  Mighty close and it's still going to be cheaper to   produce than OLED speaking of peak brightness and  nits Sony isn't talking about what we can expect   its new flagship mini LED TV of putting out but I  will point to the fact that Sony just developed a   4,000 nit professional mastering monitor a tool  that Hollywood just hasn't had before and Sony's   all about being able to replicate as closely as  it can in its consumer TVs what its professional   mastering monitors can do so I mean we'll see now  to be clear I'm kind of taking Sony at its word   here as far as the how and the why behind its  backlights sometimes technical explanation are   really just marketing words to make things sound  good on paper what really matters is what things   look like in the real world but based on what I  saw from this prototype and how much better it was   than the X95L I think this is legit look I feel  pretty confident that at least some of Sony's 2024   mini LED TVs are going to be extremely impressive  everything we've loved about Sony TV performance   just better than before and not a moment too soon  because I know what Samsung TCL and Hisense are   coming out with this coming year fortunately I  do think Sony is going to be able to hang with   the real world content but man you guys I'm a  little worried about the specs Wars because Hisense and TCL they are going to post up some specs  numbers that will blow your mind and for those who   judge TVs based on the specs that are printed on  a piece of paper well it seems like Sony is going   to have to lean on its reputation pretty hard  fortunately that rep is pretty strong right now   so could work out as usual the proof is in the  pudding we'll have to see how it plays out but   I for one am pretty thrilled that Sony has started  pulling back the veil and I was honored to be part   of the small crew of folks who got to see it so  that's what we can expect from Sony's mini LED   TVs and I think that we can expect the standard  LED backlit TVs will improve in lock step with the   mini LEDs they always have so then what about OLED  well Sony didn't say anything about OLED tv tech   specifically uh on this trip not about the OLED  panel part but I will just prepare you now for   the idea that Sony may not have a successor to the  A95L in 2024 I just don't think that Sony would   be able to do anything meaningfully different in  a new 2024 model so the A95L May stick around   into 2025 I don't know we see I do think there  will be new OLED TVs and I think the mid-tier   OLED TVs are going to get some pretty fancy  new features actually many of Sony's TVs will   but that info well you're probably going to have  to wait until May of 2024 to find out more for   now that's what I've got for you on Sony TVs I do  hope you enjoyed it thanks as always for watching   everyone what do you think let me know down in  the comments please don't forget to like and   subscribe I'll see you on the next one and until  then here's two other videos I think you might like

Channel: Digital Trends

Views: 215,182

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Id: 9xJLLrQFCdw

Length: 14min 35sec (875 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 04 2024