Choosing your AV system is no simple task and it’s made harder by all the great TVs (opens in new tab), projectors, soundbars and amps out there from all the different manufactures. Who do you trust for the very best entertainment in picture and sound?
Sony (opens in new tab) certainly has an interesting claim that no other in this field can match. Sony is the only brand that is involved in every step in the process from the filmmaking to the viewing – the lens to the living room. Sony makes the movies and shows that you watch, and the TVs to watch them on too. Look closer, though, and Sony’s links in that end-to-end AV chain are even longer and more numerous than you might have realised.
Sony Pictures is one of the big five major Hollywood studios, owning both Columbia and TriStar Pictures, where films and TV shows are shot on Sony Professional digital video cameras that feature Sony Semiconductor image sensors at their core. The ‘rushes’, ‘dailies’ or raw footage watched on-set by the director and their cinematography team are viewed on the industry standard Sony Trimaster 4K mastering monitors which claim high colour accuracy and reliability.
Those movies and shows are eventually put together – often using sound operators with Sony headphones and with music recorded by Sony Music artists at the company recording studios – and premiered at the movie theatre using, quite possibly, a Sony digital cinema projector (DCP) which you’ll find in most UK cinemas.
Sony DCPs use the same SXRD technology projector panels that you’ll find in Sony home cinema projectors too. So, if you’re buying one of the Sony native 4K home cinema machines, you know you’re getting something of the real look of the cinema all for your very own home.
For most, though, the TV is the movie screen for the living room and Sony would point to its hand in the Hollywood industry from start to finish as to why you should choose one of its BRAVIA TVs (opens in new tab) to watch it all unfold from the comfort of your sofa. If the colours, the lighting, the sound and the music were all set according to what the filmmakers chose on Sony devices, then Sony says that’s how you’ll get the most faithful reproduction on your very own screen and speakers.
From our time reviewing Sony’s most recent OLED TVs (opens in new tab), we’ve certainly been impressed by their performance. We praised the top-end Sony XR-65A90J (opens in new tab) for its “lovely, authentic colour balance” and perhaps that should come as no great surprise given that its Sony professional monitors on which those colours are based.
TVs, such as the Sony XR-55A80J (opens in new tab), Sony XR-55A90J (opens in new tab), Sony KD-48A9, Sony KD-65XH9005 and Sony KD-49XH9505 are all What Hi-Fi? five-star choices, as indeed are the Sony VPL-VW290ES and Sony VPL-VW590ES 4K projectors and the Sony HT-ST5000 and Sony HT-A7000 soundbars.
They’re an excellent way to capture that genuine cinematic feel. Sony would argue that’s because no other manufacturer of those products is as deeply involved with Hollywood as Sony. “Because Sony,” it says, “are Hollywood.”
If you'd like to read more about Sony's involvement in filmmaking then subscribe to the company’s Twitter (opens in new tab), Facebook (opens in new tab) and Instagram (opens in new tab) feeds, as well following all of the Sony TV and sound news, reviews, advice and features here on What Hi-Fi? too.
