On today’s episode of You Asked: Is there a way to force Dolby Vision onto the PlayStation 5? Do you need an internet connection to use newer Sony TVs? When will Samsung’s Tizen update finally happen? And what is the best dark-room TV?
Does my TV need the internet?
Jay Luis Martinez writes: I am thinking of the Bravia 9 but I heard (read in the comment section below a YouTube video) that you cannot use new Sony TVs (since 2023 or 2024) in offline mode. Is this true?
I can’t speak to Sony TVs distributed in the EU, but in the U.S. you can use a Sony TV without an internet connection. And, frankly, I’d be shocked if that wasn’t also the case in Europe — the EU has stricter consumer protection laws than the U.S.
It would be extremely unwise for any TV brand — especially one as large as Sony — to make its TVs unusable without an internet connection. In fact, in the U.S., I don’t think you could call it a TV if the tuner required an internet connection for basic use. Also, here in the U.S., that limitation would need to be explicitly and obviously disclosed on the product packaging.
Folks say all kinds of stuff in forums and comment sections. Sometimes it can be helpful, other times it is just flat-out false. So, I’m glad you asked to get accurate information.
PS5 Pro games in Dolby Vision mode?
Luigi writes: Remember how you used to be able to force upscaling to 4K if you routed a PS4 or PS5 through an Xbox One X or S’s (not Series X or S) pass-through before getting to the TV? Is it possible to do tricks like that and get your PS5 or PS5 Pro to be tricked into doing Dolby Vision or upscale from lower resolutions? Playing Xbox Series X games on my 2023 LG C3 in Dolby Vision makes such a beautiful difference. I wish there was a way to play games from the PS5 Pro in Dolby Vision mode. I always switch to my Series X for Disney, Netflix, or any movie experience. I just wish there was a way to play Sony’s first-party games in Dolby Vision. Is there any pass-through or other solutions to achieve this?
The short answer is no, you cannot pull a trick using any consumer device — that I’m aware of — to force the TV into Dolby Vision. And even if something like that did exist, I’m not sure it would make things better.
The signal needs to have a Dolby Vision flag and metadata for the Dolby Vision chip in your TV to work off — that’s best coming from the source and for material that was made to use Dolby Vision. The Apple TV 4K can force everything into Dolby Vision if you want it to, but I suggest disabling that feature.
(I actually don’t remember the trick where you could run a signal through an Xbox and it would come out the other end upscaled, but it’s hard to imagine that being useful, especially today.)
If your TV is 4K — or more accurate, Ultra HD — then it is upscaling everything to 4K. A 4K TV in a 16:9 aspect ratio has 8,249,400 pixels and it has to fill all of them all the time, without exception. This includes letterbox or pillarbox bars — they’re in the signal and each pixel is accounted for.
Unless your TV’s upscaler is rather poor, and your source’s upscaler is super good, there is rarely a good reason to upscale your signal before it gets to the TV — the TV usually does a better job.
Where’s the Samsung update?
Roderick Strong writes: I remember hearing at the beginning of the year that Samsung TVs from the last 5 years will be getting a UI update that is going to use the new Tizen update. Since I currently have the 82-inch Q90R from 2019, my TV would be included in the upgrade. Have you heard any news on this, and if so, what can you share about this?
The update started to roll out about a week and a half ago for some Samsung TVs, but it seems to have halted — at least for some owners. John Higgins, our A/V senior editor, says his TV prompted him for the update at one point, in line with some press information about the update launching. However, that prompt has since disappeared.
I have not seen any published rollout schedule from Samsung, which doesn’t surprise me. And while I’m hopeful it won’t be too much longer, I have to think there may have been some deployment hiccups. For now, hold tight — it should be coming along soon.
Best TV for a super-dark room
Tom Rice writes that he is looking to get a new TV for a totally dark room. He wants to know if it matters how bright the TV can get if it will never fight with any other light source. He’s looking at 83-inch versions of the LG B4 and C4, as well as the 77-inch version of the G4 and admits to being tempted by the 100-inch Hisense U8.
When you’re viewing in a completely dark room, the need for high average picture level — or just overall brightness — goes down a bit, while your need for excellent backlight control goes up.
When you are in a blacked-out room, the irises in your eyes open wide to allow as much light in as possible. This is going to make you more sensitive to light levels both at the low and high ends of the spectrum.
On the low end, you are going to be more sensitive to blooming or halo — the effect of the backlight in an LCD-based TV bleeding through areas of the screen where it shouldn’t. This is why I prefer OLED TVs for dark rooms: blacks are black because there is no backlight bleedthrough.
However, if you want an LCD-based TV, I suggest a high-end mini-LED TV to cut down on those backlight effects. The Hisense U8 has very good backlight control, but it’s not going to be perfect like OLED.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have heightened sensitivity to bright light. This means that when watching SDR content, the brightness doesn’t need to be turned up very high. For HDR content, the specular highlights don’t have to be as intensely bright to get a lot of HDR pop to the picture.
So, yes, you can get along just fine with a TV that doesn’t hit 1,000 nits for HDR. The LG B4 will hit just shy of 700 nits for HDR highlights, and that will probably be plenty dazzling.
However, while the brightness of the LG B4 may be sufficient, one other consideration is processing.
See, when we spend more for a TV, we aren’t just getting better backlight control and higher brightness. We’re also — often enough, anyway — getting superior picture processing, which determines a bunch of other picture-quality factors like clarity, sharpness, detail, color accuracy, and more.
The LG C4, Bravia 8, and Samsung S90D are great TVs for dark rooms because they have great processing to go along with all their other performance attributes. And the C4 is the only one that gets up above the 80-inch level. The LG B4 would likely be a huge upgrade, but if it were my money, I’d be getting the C4.
However, when looking at a 100-inch TV, we have to have that talk about picture size versus picture quality. With a set budget, you will have to give up some picture quality as you move up in size, provided the price is staying the same. And that, my friends, is a very personal choice.
If you were to just say “tell me what TV to get,” I’d say get the LG C4.
