Android 6 (Marshmallow) on 2015/2016 TV's?

[djmickey83]

Hello.

During CES I heard a news that Sony will bring Android 6 (Marshmallow) to the 2015 TV lineup.

Link with Video

General News about Marshmallow on Android TV's

These news are from January.

Had anyone heard something new about this?

[Sanjo1975]

My tv is a

KD55X8509C and i have had 1 automacic update late last year. I then I did a usb update in Feb then again with the latest update. I have never did a factory reset yet my tv has had no problems with any of the updates and netflix has always worked fine with a sharper picture and faster menues. After  reading through this forum topic I guess I have been very jammy. Its strange how people with the same tv's have both good and bad results but hope you all get sorted before to long.

[Marcd51]

Yep count me in with that as well only difference is that I did a factory reset on each of the firmware updates.

Great to see some more positives on this thread forum for a change!

I also find it weird and strange that with the exactly same firmware and same models people seem to have completely different results it either works really well or if it does not work.. It's screws up badly just don't get it and same Chip sets same hardware for EU models.

Well I'm happy I brought my KD-43X8307C September last year from good old John Lewis London Oxford Street and have a 5 year warranty.

Sent from my Sony Xperia™ Z5 Smartphone

[MiCal1967]

The truth, according to Sony, is that same TV is "different" because of the Region that it was firstly, after buy, setup. YouView for example is a MESS for every TV that is not activated inside UK. Works in background CANNOT be disabled and causes many problems on other EU transmitions.

About Factory reset. Performed 3 of them trying to solve my two different program Information in one banner issue and which is a BASIC TV function. This is not an App. All three resets had different results on TV Settings and Apps. Maybe Google account is responsible too, but this is silly. A factory reset should give same results every time performed.

There should also be an option to roll back Firmware. They know that hundreds of people face issues after upgrading their OS and they do not GIVE THE OPTION TO ROLL BACK firmware.

Now about issues each user sees. Could all these people lie? No they don't. Just have a look inside a family. Wife browses only channels, info and GUIDE. Children use only Apps and Games. Husband uses all or none. Each one can see different things accordingly to what is used.

I am happy with my KD-55X8508C but because of Sony programming inability I will never buy a Sony again.

[newbix]

I had a 3rd call from sony support. 75X9405

He was walking me through  what he wanted to test, but all I got was a black screen.

I reset the TV(6 time) he wanted to try again but the same thing.

I got either a Black screen or\and "Unfortunatley, Directsettings has stopped" the TV would slow to a crawl.

So I askes him for someone with a bit of power to call me up as I want a refund.  Lets see what happens.

EDIT= He told me what buttons to press to find options he wanted to test. But they wasn't there!

I did ask if he could check to see if he had the right options for teh TV. He came back and sid "yes"

Over a year and still sony can't fix things. Time to recall the troubled TVs

[Marcd51]

Okay folks ..a little something else from me today instead of the ussal moans and groans on this thread .

This will be for those of you that have a Sony Andriod TV 2015 2016 and 2017 range ..and it works does not matter which andriod version you have .

my TV is the KD-43X8307C 2015 and works perfectly and has the new firmware 3.85 and rock solid now very stable .

Some of you may or may not know of this trick ..which will blow you away .

This is for those of use that are a bit more advanced users like my self and I found this out via youtube the other day under your own risk but to be honest with you their is no risk with this tweek anyhow .

I will also post pictures as well.

If you go and enable devlopers mode under about need to click 7 times to enable it ..it will tell you .

Under the Genral tab you will see'' HDMI optimisation'' either Best Resolution or best framerate.

As default the tv serlects Best resolution so that means it will upscale everything to 4K or near 4K..but 

4K 30fps ...to my understanding .

I did some home work and found a few posts via the Nivida Sheild website today and found some of this info out to back this quote up with .Just google it .

Here is the wow part and Iv done this today if you change the setting to best framerate it sets it to 1080p 60fps !!.

If you want to sacrifice some resoluton for picture quality change it . This effects evrything on the picture and becomes ultra smooth as the TV optimises the Pannel to double the frame rate to 60fps !!

Iv tryed Netflix amazon BBC iplayer and normal HD freeview at works on everything .

If you dont like it change it back to best resolution .

Your TV basicly becomes a premium full HD picture and it does noitce far more realalistic picture and I think the colours are better . Going to see and observe over the next few days .Remember the TV is still using Sony X1 CPU so depite it being less resolution and higher resolution does not always mean best quality picture folks depends on the hardware in your TV and sony uses some of the very best out their .

If you want to check out the youtube channel and see for your self he's called ''Quantum Apotheosis''

[Garymjh]

Interesting. Thanks for that. It sounds like it may produce that weird
"soap opera effect" where everything looks unnatural but I'll try it later.

[Marcd51]

Hi.. True and good point I was worried about that same thing .. But this seems different somehow and not over exaggerated.

Iv got mine set to cinema pro and motionflow set as true cinema.

Like you try it over a few days see how you feel and get on .. Be great to here more comments on this.

Sent from my Sony Xperia™ Z5 Smartphone

[Shodney]

It's placebo.

The reason why it feels more responsive now is because changing that setting forces a reboot. We all know that doing a hard reset clears out the rubbish, but after a few days it slows down back to it's usual crawl because of all the memory leaks.

This setting has been there since 5.0, when android didn't even support displaying the ui in 4k. I'm not sure what it even does - toggle between the settings when sitting close to the TV and you can see that the resolution is the same.

What *used* to make a difference is changing the animation settings to off - it didn't make it any faster in actuality, but it *felt* faster because it got rid of the janky animations (it just jumps from one thing to the next without the transition effect). Unfortunately, since the last update, whatever changes are made in there no longer stick, so when you exit the menu it just reverts back to default 1x (i.e. a mess).

These TVs will never run properly unless somebody figures out how to install a custom ROM. That much is obvious.

[Garymjh]

---

@Shodney wrote:

It's placebo.

The reason why it feels more responsive now is because changing that setting forces a reboot. We all know that doing a hard reset clears out the rubbish, but after a few days it slows down back to it's usual crawl because of all the memory leaks.

This setting has been there since 5.0, when android didn't even support displaying the ui in 4k. I'm not sure what it even does - toggle between the settings when sitting close to the TV and you can see that the resolution is the same.

---

I don't think it if placebo. It may not make any difference watching a 1080p file close to the tv in terms of clarity but it definitely makes the motion naturally smoother and more pleasing. And as the motion is dealt with so well it *appears* to be clearer. You can notice the effect on football and sports the most. And it's a smoothness tthat none of the motionflow settings look as good or natural as. The now tv box streams also looks clearer and more polished. 

Of course the Sony Netflix YouTube and Amazon apps aren't affected and stream at 4k as they're not affected by hdmi. 

As that's the only time I ever watch 4k I think I'll stick with the best frame rate option. 

I can't prove it's not placebo and there seems to be virtually no comments or discussion on it anywhere online so I can't get a second opinion either way. 

[Tarpii]

 KDL-W43-755C here. Updated last night via USB from Lollipop, which took about an hour, then add on another hour to get my settings / apps back. Followed by a full factory reset. Gave everything a cursory check and watched a Blu-ray through the PS3. Youview is disabled, might try it again at a later date. Mainly using Digital TV but connected via satellite too.

Initial thoughts:

• Digital TV guide is biggest improvement as the flicker is gone and feels smoother.
• Home menu still takes longer to load than I would like at around 3-4 seconds, I have most recommendations disabled, hopefully a little bit of caching will speed this up.
• Picture looks great as ever, can't say it's improved via firmware but it's still the best part of the telly.

That's it for now, will no doubt find more information over the coming weeks, so far I'm happy.