BBC iPlayer Sony Bravia Internet TV - Impression

[admin_exported]

The iPlayer, albeit in BETA, has arrived on my Sony 52HX903.

The layout has 4 tabs, one for HOME, which shows a selection of programmers which you can scroll through, one for Channels, which allows you to choose the channel, one for Categories and one for Search.

Speed is acceptable whilst navigating the screen, although you have to be patient with a few seconds delay whilst the icons are loaded.

You have two options of stream, standard or better quality, and once streaming starts, the picture quality of the better quality stream is very impressive.

 

[Anonymous]

What happened to BBC HD? The TV interface is poor compared with its implementation on sony bluray players, picture seems worse as well.

 

[Anonymous]

when i get round to updating the tv's firmware to use iplayer I will have a compare to my foxsat freesat iplayer as that is what I have been using.

 

[John Duncan]

Bought a 503 today and tried to use iplayer but it says I need a software update. How do I do that? The manual is unhelpful on the subject, other than ensuring auto update is on, which I've done?

 

[chebby]

JohnDuncan:Bought a 503 today and tried to use iplayer but it says I need a software update. How do I do that? The manual is unhelpful on the subject, other than ensuring auto update is on, which I've done?

http://support.sony-europe.com/tvhc/downloads/downloads.aspx?site=odw_en_GB&f=FW_Bravia4074L_UK&ch=7&m=KDL-32EX503

 

[Anonymous]

Just leave the set on standby overnight and firmwares update themselves. To update internet stuff, go to network on settings and there is an update internet features (I think it's called that) setting. Run that and it tells you to press HOME button when it's finished. iplayer is added.

My first impressions are that it looks a lot like the Wii version. I only looked on CBeebies but there seemed to be a lot of stuff missing. I prefer the Samsung internet@tv version. A lot more slick and quicker.

 

[Anonymous]

Im on a powersaver so I cant updateovernight im having to do it via usb its a pain in the rear

 

[John Duncan]

Just done it on USB and was fine...

 

[Anonymous]

I'm glad it's finally here but it's sluggish. Really poor interface. The higher quality bitrate is OK -certainly aint BBC HD quality that's for sure. I dread to think what the lower bitrate is like.

It would be nice if it did 5.1 through the optical out....

Anyway shouldnt moan. I was able to watch the first episode of Mad Men without my PC and it looked very good. Looking forward to future firmware revisions...

 

[Anonymous]

I have 2 devices:

TV - KDL-32EX703

BLURAY - BDP-S370

Both have iPlayer on but I can only find the option to adjust quality on the bluray version of iplayer. I have to set it to the lowest quality because I have a paltry broadband speed of 1.5Mb/s

Can anyone help me find the quality option for iplayer on the Bravia TV please?

 

[Anonymous]

If you go to the programme you want to view. On the left hand side of the screen there is an option for view a higher quality version. Just select that and it steams the better version. It is actually far better than the lower quality stream. Well on Mr. Maker and Shaun The Sheep it is. I can't comment on 'real' tele programmes.

 

[John Duncan]

Yeah I think it's programme dependent. Eastenders in High def looks, well, just as depressing as it does in SD...

 

[DistortedVision]

David Harwood: What do you make of the 52HX903? I've had my eye on it for a while now. If you don't mind me asking where you bought it from and how you much did you pay?

JohnDuncan: Which 503 did you get? I bought a 32EX503 last week for the kitchen. I also bought a Sony BDP-S370 Blu-ray player for it on Sunday.

Its currently in the lounge as I'm waiting for the electrician to fit a mains socket on the wall behind the TV and chase the other cables in the wall before I can wall mount it. I'm interested in what people's experiences of the default picture settings. I ran the THX Optimiser and the default contrast and brightness seemed to be fine. I can't comment on the colour as I'm waiting for the THX Optimiser Glasses to arrive. Wasn't sure about the sharpness setting. Still not 100% sure what I'm looking.

BBC iPlayer is alot faster in terms of menus and loading than on my Humax Foxsat. Both are connected using HomePlugs.

One thing I found disappointing with the BDP-S370 is that it only supports FAT32 and therefore can only play mkv files up to 4Gb. However, is seems to be a common problem - although I believe there are some devices that support NTFS.

 

[Dupes]

I have 2 devices:

TV - KDL-32EX703

BLURAY - BDP-S370

Both have iPlayer on but I can only find the option to adjust quality on the bluray version of iplayer. I have to set it to the lowest quality because I have a paltry broadband speed of 1.5Mb/s

Can anyone help me find the quality option for iplayer on the Bravia TV please?

I noticed these different version on TV and BD - but:

When I got my Bravia TV last year, the iplayer was exactly the same as the BD370 version is, which has the connection quality option in a setup option, and displays the BBC HD channels if selected HQ. Then in one of the updates at some point, the TV iplayer changed to this Beta version. The BD has not changed despiet many updates.

The Beta version on the TV is far far worse than the original/BD version, its lost the quality selection option, which means when you display channels it does not show BBC HD channels, its far slower and clunkier. :doh: |(

Does anyone know why Sony did this or when they will go back to the 'old' version which was far superior?

 

[sonycentre]

The latest version of bbc-iplayer is on all of sonys 2011 tv range,also includes bbc hd.diffrent software is used on various sony platforms.