I recently wrote about problems I’m having with my Sony system since the latest software update, and I’ve been inundated with emails and messages from fellow sufferers ever since.
The offending software is 114.602.080.1, which was released to various Sony TV models towards the end of June.
The issues reported range from audio dropout (which is what I’m experiencing) and lip-sync issues to Dolby Vision content refusing to play, and it appears to be related to the way the TVs handle HDMI sources and passthrough.
Needless to say, affected owners are pretty frustrated, but I do have some good news – at least for some of them.
Sony has just released a new update, 114.602.170.1, and, according to some owners, including reader David Simmonds, who alerted me to the release of the new software, the Dolby Vision issue, which caused some users to see a black screen instead of their content, has seemingly been fixed.
[Edit to add: I've since been informed that a secondary Dolby Vision issue, which involves scan lines being visible in content, has not been resolved]
I wasn’t experiencing this problem, so I only have the reports of others to go on regarding the fix.
However, having now installed and done some testing of the new software, I can confirm that it unfortunately doesn’t fix the audio dropout issues for me, and David has confirmed it’s the same for him.
In fairness, this latest software update specifically mentions that it “resolves an issue where a black screen could be observed when starting playback of specific content from external HDMI devices”, but makes no mention of fixing any audio issues – it seems it was always intended to fix one problem but not the other.
I have contacted Sony with these findings and a request for information on a fix for the audio issues, and will report back with any information I get.
MORE:
Here are all of the best TVs you can buy right now
