Sony Is Ceding Control of TV Hardware Business To China's TCL (sony.co.jp)
- Reference: 0180619674
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/1356253/sony-is-ceding-control-of-tv-hardware-business-to-chinas-tcl
- Source link: https://www.sony.co.jp/en/news-release/202601/26-0120E/
The new company would retain the Sony and Bravia branding for televisions and home audio equipment but use TCL's display technology. Japanese TV manufacturers have steadily lost ground to Chinese and Korean rivals over the years. Toshiba, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric and Pioneer exited the business entirely. Panasonic and Sharp de-emphasized televisions in their growth strategies. Sony's Bravia line survived by positioning itself at the premium tier where consumers pay more for high-end picture and sound quality.
[1] https://www.sony.co.jp/en/news-release/202601/26-0120E/
A significant retreat? (Score:2)
"...a significant retreat for the Japanese giant whose Bravia line has long occupied the premium end of the television market. "
Is this how it is described when American companies farm out their businesses? Are we to just assume that Japan is supposed to be a servant economy? Sony IS the premium end of the television market, why assume this changes that? Japanese companies are everything American companies are, and they might benefit from lower costs of manufacturing too. Also, TCL makes a good TV set.
When upgrades, aren’t. (Score:2)
> The new company would retain the Sony and Bravia branding for televisions and home audio equipment but use TCL's display technology..Sony's Bravia line survived by positioning itself at the premium tier where consumers pay more for high-end picture and sound quality.
So Sony only outlasted the other half dozen brands that already exited the market by selling a premium product.
And now they expect to take that Porsche, engine swap with Kia, and still call it a Porsche.
Good luck with that, “Sony”.
Re: (Score:2)
>> The new company would retain the Sony and Bravia branding for televisions and home audio equipment but use TCL's display technology..Sony's Bravia line survived by positioning itself at the premium tier where consumers pay more for high-end picture and sound quality.
> So Sony only outlasted the other half dozen brands that already exited the market by selling a premium product.
> And now they expect to take that Porsche, engine swap with Kia, and still call it a Porsche.
> Good luck with that, “Sony”.
I'd rather they'd just exited the business entirely rather than just let some Chinese shop slap their name on products. "Sony" on gear use to mean something.
Re: (Score:2)
> So Sony only outlasted the other half dozen brands that already exited the market by selling a premium product.
You read that wrong. They positioned their products in that market, but they weren't that good. People willing to just buy a brand kept buying them, on the basis that they said Sony on them and if they cost more they must be better. It turned out that they weren't better, and people without brand devotion noticed. Now they will wring the last few pennies out of their brand which can be achieved by marketing (read: without technical improvement, which costs money) by simply letting someone else use it in exc
Sorny! (Score:2)
I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look, there's Magnetbox and Sorny!
Re: (Score:2)
But what if I like to watch my TV and I mean really watch it, my last few sets experienced significant fall apart.
Sony is a has been (Score:2)
They aren't what they used to be. Old Sony would have come out with something super competitive in the flat screen market like the Trinitron they had back in the CRT days.. If you had the money to spend back in the day a Trinitron was THE TV to have sitting in your livingroom. Sony today just seems to be Playstation, headphones and image sensors. Any other product they have branded Sony is usually cheap junk made in China. Old Sony would be what DJI is today.
It Doesn't Matter Anymore (Score:2)
It literally doesn't matter what brand you buy anymore. They're all made from the same 3 factories.
Sony had superior image processing tech (Score:2)
So, as long as said Superior image processing tech lands into the Cheaper TCL TV i am OK with this.
Having superior image processing does not significantly impact the BOM, is just significantly superior algorithms running on a slighly more powerfull SoC.
Superior upscalers for 480i and Vintage Video Game content, superior uspcalers for 480p and 720p content.
As for interpolation, in 30FPS TVs film is already interpolated from 24FPS to 30FPS. May as well interpolate to 60FPS (normal cheapo pannel frequency) and
Has it, though? (Score:2)
> a significant retreat for the Japanese giant whose Bravia line has long occupied the premium end of the television market
I read a lot of reviews before buying my last couple of TVs, one of which is an LG and the other of which is a HiSense. And what review after review said was that the Sony was massively overpriced given the not that great quality, that the image quality of every Sony set I was looking at fell down in quite a number of categories, and that you would actually get better quality with a cheaper brand.
Is there actually any evidence that Sony has produced a genuinely premium product in the last decade in any cate
Re: Has it, though? (Score:3)
Hisense has been a better value than Sony for years.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Cheap crap always looks like a better value. At least at first.
Re: (Score:2)
My HiSense set looks great and has been trucking along without problems for years now. It replaced a SHARP set which wasn't worth repairing given the cost of a new set with four times the pixels.
Re: Has it, though? (Score:4, Informative)
The "cheap" brands have improved enormously. That's part of the problem for people like Sony, the bottom tier has almost come up to the top to the point where most people in the real world cannot tell the difference.
Re: (Score:2)
Sony TVs are cheap crap now. A premium product should not be ad supported, and all new Sony TVs have full screen ads on the home screen.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
> I read a lot of reviews ...
Did you check to see what your eyes said?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
> Did you check to see what your eyes said?
My eyes said I couldn't see the TVs from here, so I needed to depend on reviews, like everyone else. There is nowhere I could go within 500 miles to see some of the TVs I cross-shopped. Perhaps someday I will have your magical mutant eyesight that allows me to personally visually compare televisions which are located multiple hours' travel away from me by automobile, but until then, I will continue to read reviews. I hope that one day I can do all of the things you think you can do, but until then, I will c
Re: Has it, though? (Score:2)
I live in a remote county where the only electronics stores are Costco, Walmart, and Target. They do not have all of the products on the market for me to look at. I did go to Costco and look at what they had there. (The other two can fuck off.)
Re: (Score:2)
From what I've read Sony TVs have good image quality, but you really need to buy them on sale for them to be competitive value. Like a lot of "premium" brands, they go on sale a lot.
Re: (Score:2)
> Is there actually any evidence that Sony has produced a genuinely premium product in the last decade in any category?
I recall their A95K 4K OLED getting glowing reviews in 2022 (and at $3500 for the 65", it better have). I couldn't justify the cost of upgrading my perfectly functional Sony TV, but if I had needed a replacement the A95K would have been my pick.
Re: (Score:1)
Sony sources its display panels from Samsung and LG rather than producing its own. To justify the premium price, I’d need evidence of substantial value added through Sony’s processing, panel binning, or other enhancements, and confirmation that any improvements are truly visible in realworld use.
Re: (Score:2)
I was recently looking into Sony TVs and they all seem to be basic 60Hz panels but massively overpriced compared to the same class of Hisense or TCL, so they've definitely dropped the ball. This news isn't surprising.
Re: (Score:1)
I just got a Sony TV. Because I expect more longevity from it. I have had a Samsung and it died on me.
Also, I totally do not want a smart TV in my house that was made in China. I really think this is a generally very bad idea.
Reviews (Score:2)
Which reviews are those? All the reputable sites (Rtings, AVSciencce) report that, while expensive, the high-end Sony sets generally have the best picture under most conditions. LG is up there with them, then Samsung.
I bought a TCL Android TV set for the basement on Wirecutter's recommendation, and it's a piece of junk. Sometimes it takes half a minute to turn on. There's always a two or three second lag from pushing a button on the remote to something happening. Streaming applications can take minutes t