KD-43XF8096 Regarding Voice and 1920 x 1080

[MoRbIdBoY]

I have a couple of questions regarding my new KD-43XF8096 if anyone can help / confirm a couple of things.

1 - Using voice to change channel
On my Samsung TV I can say, "channel whatever" using the voice remote. On this XF80, i say "channel whatever" and I get a list of youtube videos up. Are Sony really telling me I can't change channel with my voice? Feel free to discuss / vent on this thread if this is the case.

2. Android TV
This is supposed to be a 4K UHD Android TV running at a resolution of 3840 x 2160. Why is Kodi on the Android TV reporting a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080. When I play 4K videos inside Kodi, they appear to be getting resized to 1920x1080. I know this because when I select "play at original size" within the Kodi video options, I'm only seeing about a third of the video and the rest is off the screen. If it were not getting resized, it would fit 3840 x 2160 and I would see the full image with that setting.

Have I been sold a Android HD TV only capable of 1920 x 1080 on Android. If so, it will be getting returned very shortly to the supplier. Some Sony guy said this was because Kodi was not compiled as "Application (Video)" but just as "Application". I have a USB firestick on my TV down stairs capable of running Kodi in 3840 x 2160 and it doesn't care how Kodi is compiled. Are you really telling me a £600 TV can't do what a £60 firestick does?

[EdwinaU]

Hi there,

We'll check this for you and update the thread when we have more information. Meanwhile, maybe some other members will have some tips or advice to share.

Best wishes,

Ed

[batee5]

Hi MoRbIdBoY,

Welcome to our community!

The voice option on the TV is basically a voice search and not a fully functional voice control option. Voice control is available when connecting the TV to Amazon Alexa or Google assistance with the Sony LF-S50G Google Assistant Built-in Wireless Speaker.

Regarding the Kodi resolution, I'm sure that the TV is indeed 4K as Sony advertises a resolution of 3840x2160 on its website. The reason why this is happening could be really related to just Kodi and its development. Have you tried to play 4K content from other apps or external devices to confirm this?

Regards,

Batee5

[MoRbIdBoY]

I'll accept as solution for voice control, but come on. On what kind of voice control can you change volume and all kinds of other stuff - and yet not have voice control over channel changing without having to resort to buying a stupid alexa and pluggin in dangly IR blaster cables.

Frankly, it's poor. Very poor. The VERY LEAST you expect from voice control is to be able to VOICE CONTROL basic TV functionaliy. That's why they call it voice control guys.

Is it REALLY rocket science to add the command "Channel <NUMBER>" to voice?

Forcing people to buy a Google Assistant or Alexa to change channel is just nasty.

[MoRbIdBoY]

Look it's pretty simple guys. I have the TV working as a monitor on my PC running a nVidia 1080 at 3840 x 2140 resolution 60hz using a dual HDMI. I'm running Kodi on the PC and my Bluray looks pristine. Couldn't be happier with that. Great picture.

But I would preffer NOT to have my PC on just to play a Bluray (too noisy as PC is next to TV in bedroom). I would preffer to run Kodi and stream my movies from my dedicant media box downstairs.

But when I switch to Kodi Android, the picture quality (playing EXACTLY) to same movie is a different experience on Kodi android.

It shouldn't be.

I accept you might want to run the Kodi / Android UI's in 1920 x 1080 because the processor is a bit duff. (Although I think this SHOULD be an option in the Android settings and not fixed).

But to me the picture / movie looks completely different. Although the movie still looks good, it doesn't look 4K compared to the PC running 3840 x 2160 native. The edges look more blurred and it looks upscaled.

I've downloaded some 4K movie test patterns and 4K screen tests to run and I'll be doing some checking this weekend (need to load them onto the server, but I'v been quite busy).

[Kuschelmonschter · Accepted solution]

You can find my review about Sony Android TV here. You might want to check out the assistant chapters. Switching the channel basically works, but isn't really useful, at least in German language, as the TV fails to resolve most of the channel names, falling back to search in such a case. You just need to call the right command being "switch to channel". Assistant indeed isn't that smart at all . (switching the channel might not work in YouView mode though)

As you already found out, it is only the GUI that is rendered in 1080p and gets upscaled to 4K in the end as a native 4K GUI is just not feasible on the slow SoC. Video takes a different route.

Photos are unfortunately also downscaled to 1080p and in the end upscaled to 4K again as they take the GUI route (OpenGL). Only Sony's own Album app can directly render to the 4K output as they are using some private API.

[MoRbIdBoY]

I was guessing the voice channel switching might have something to do with YouView, I'd seen (somewhere) it interferes with recording as well. Bit of a shame to have to switch that off just for voice channel switching and recording. Thanks for that info and the command, I'll try turning YouView off and see which I prefer.

Not bothered about Kodi or other Android UI being stuck on 1920 x 1080 as long as Android Kodi (video) isn't stuck at that resolution. Everything I've seen so far seems to suggest it might be getting downscaled by Kodi to 1920 x 1080 unfortunately. I'll do some testing with those test patterns this weekend.

It isn't a massive thing. I can always frig the playercorefactory.xml file and blast it out the the TV's dnla. Kodi doesn't seem to like playing to this TV using it's native / intergrated dnla (play using) feature, which is strange as it plays OK to my very picky allshare version 1.0 Samsung TV. The Sony TV supports Allshare / UPNP / DNLA and Chromecast. But Allcast and BubbleUPNP seem to work fine on the Sony so I imagine that's a Kodi bug.

I'm hoping this isn't because the TV is running Kodi and won't accept DNLA requests while it's busy running that (or that's my idea up the creek), but I dont think it is as DNLA requests from other devices seem to override anything the TV is doing otherwise.

What's crazy is the Samsung TV no longer appears to support Screen Mirroring from a Samsung Tablet. This new Sony TV connects to the Galaxy Tablet straight away.

Overall I like the TV. I want to like it anywhere. I just think the android processor stinks. It badly lets it down. Why would you bother to make a 4K TV with such a sucky processor. It doesn't make any sense!!