Sony has been overtaken by Samsung IMHO.....

[virus21]

I have an old Samsung 32 led smart tv and "upgraded" to a 46 Sony with blu ray player. While the picture quality is decent with the Sony, I find the Sony has problems with files.

My Samsung played almost every file I had in my external USB hard drive, while the Sony will only play a couple.

So I tried it in the blu ray player, and hey presto, it recognises the files, but with me being Chinese, I have named a lot of files in Chinese, which wasn't a problem on the Samsung.

Sony in my view used to be one of the leaders in consumer electronics when I was a schoolboy, but now a long way off the competition.

[Catmambo · Accepted solution]

Hi

http://awards.t3.com/categories/tv-of-the-year

Just 3 days ago Sony were awarded best TV of the year as well as gaming gadget of the year for Vita.

You should also checkout the next edition of What Hi-Fi magazine as well which comes out next week I think.

Simply, the awards show that Sony are still one of the best brands in consumer electronics..

Thanks

[Bravia55HX]

Hi,

not sure that warranted a correct answer as the question was no so much a problem with the quality of Sony products but more to do with its inability to play certain files!,

i firmly believe one of the key reasons for this is Sony's stance on copyright material to which a lot of these unplayable files contain "rips" of music and video.

[Catmambo]

How? All TV's & blu-ray players for the last few years have supported mp3 & divx/xvid. Many of the Blu-ray products also play .mkv and on TV the limitation is just down to present chipset being used and amount of power needed to decode them, so in the interim, until native support arrives, as you know we have actively been developing Homestream which can stream them.

Really is no conspiracy theory here..

When you look at consumer data on key features they look for when buying a TV, file format support is actually a long way down the list for the mass market, thus resource is allocated accordingly. Consumers are more interested in things like how thin the TV is, how good the picture quality is and maybe most importantly the price. 3 things that certainly this years products have excelled at when benchmarking against the competition.

Hope that explains a bit better.

[virus21]

I just feel I have gone backwards rather than forwards!!!! Sony even use Samsung screens.

My friends d6530 tv plays all files he's thrown at it. Picture quality, rather good, can't say if it is or not better than Sony's equivalent.

Build quality, solid.

Aesthetics, I would say better than Sony.

Features, well that's a no brainier, Samsung wins hands down.

Message was edited by: virus21

Nothing to do with chipsets, copyright infringement etc.... It's Sony's way of making you buy another product for the features. Why on earth would they enable mkv on their blu ray players if they were so strung up on copyright infringement?

[iagibso49]

I totally agree. A lot of these awards are not given to products which have been thoroughly reviewed. Sony fails to deliver on both the spirit and detail of its products. Look on the Sony 3D channel and you'll see adverts for the coming of age of integrated Internet TV in their products (Adverts they couldn't show on TV for fear of ASA intervention?). Yet there is no ITV Player and no 4OD. Having sold a lot of sets at high prices Sony slip quietly into the background, hoping the advent of YouView will persuade people to pay out even more money and silence peoples concerns of their neglect of their product range.

The quality of their 3D is shocking and certainly not in keeping with a premium brand.

And I'm sorry, I'm not going to buy a new TV every 3 years. How quickly my KDL40HX803 was abandoned by Sony months after buying it, not even offering HD options in iPlayer.

And my next TV will not be a Sony. It will be a Samsung.

[virus21]

You know, my friend's Samsung d6530 was priced around the same price as the hx803.

The Samsung beats it in every way. Picture quality, aesthetics and features.

Do you Sony guys know what the mid to high end samsung  tvs are capable of??

Built in 5ghz wifi, support for wide assortment of files, 3x hdmi ports, 3x USB ports, multi lingual support ( not just European, only tried Chinese), built in 3d etc...etc...etc

Makes me wanna bin my Sony for a 7000

No hd in iplayer??? Why not? It's a hd screen is it not and just need to tweak software??

[Catmambo]

Hi

Wasn't going to get drawn into a 'which is better, tea of coffee' disucssion, but thought it helpful to clarify a couple of areas.

Sony even use Samsung screens. - I guess you must have been refering the S-LCD plant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-LCD Which was a joint venture between Samusng and Sony, so it would be equally true to Samsung use Sony screens in that case. As you can see from the article, this has now changed in any event.

In any event, there are hundereds of components that go into a TV, the glass being just one. Sony make the CMOS for the new iPhone, yet no-one claims thats a Sony phone as its just one element - http://www.slashgear.com/iphone-5-8mp-camera-tipped-after-sony-ceo-slip-02144044/ All industries sell compontents to their competitors - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_engine This is not a unique characteristic of the CE industry.

D6530 & HX803 - These are two different generational TV's, D Series being a 2011 TV, HX being 2010.

If you compare the C6530 http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/tv-audio-video/television/led-tv/UE32C6530UKXXU-features from the same generation as the HX803, this TV has no 3D option at all, same version of iPlayer as the HX indeed fewer applications than the HX - in any event this is the MHEG version of iPlayer in which the BBC decided not to offer an HD option, thus limited by the broadcaster not Sony.

Thanks