Sony Bravia 9 II : Multiple issues. Is this normal?
I recently bought a Sony Bravia 9 II, and this is my first experience with a Sony/Google TV. I've had the TV for only 4 days, but honestly, I've spent more time looking for workarounds for issues than actually enjoying the TV.
With my previous TV, I was using an Apple TV 4K as my main streaming device because it was faster than Tizen, and I never had any problems with that setup. My Samsung TV + Apple TV setup worked flawlessly for about 5 years.
With the Sony, I'm already running into some strange issues.
The first one seems to be related to Dolby Vision / HDR format switching. My Apple TV 4K is set to 4K SDR, with Match Dynamic Range and Match Frame Rate both enabled. The idea is that the Apple TV should output SDR for the UI and automatically switch to the native format of the content when necessary.
However, when I play Dolby Vision content through the Apple TV, the TV doesn't switch to Dolby Vision and instead stays in another picture format.
What's strange is that if I go into the TV's picture/cinema settings and then come back to the Apple TV input, it suddenly starts displaying the content in the correct format. This makes me think it could be some kind of software or HDMI handshake issue rather than a hardware problem.
Because of this, I've temporarily decided to use only the Sony's built-in apps.
And honestly, I feel like the native Sony/Google TV apps actually produce better picture quality than the Apple TV 4K on this TV. The difference is especially noticeable with live TV. I watch 4K football matches, and the rendered image doesn't look as good to me as it did on my previous Samsung TV. I'm not sure whether this is related to the Apple TV, Sony's processing, or some other setting, but the difference is noticeable.
Then yesterday I encountered another issue, this time with eARC / external audio.
I opened the Apple TV app on the Sony and got a message saying "Outputting audio to audio system." The TV then started repeatedly switching between the TV speakers and the external audio system.
I tried Netflix and several other apps and had the same issue, although interestingly HBO Max was working normally.
I searched online and found people suggesting removing and re-adding the external devices, restarting everything, etc. I tried all of that, but nothing changed.
Eventually, I did a factory reset of the TV. After the reset, both problems disappeared.
Unfortunately, after about an hour, the first problem (the Dolby Vision/format switching issue) came back. Now I'm waiting to see whether the audio/eARC problem comes back as well.
My setup is:
- Sony Bravia 9 II
- Apple TV 4K → HDMI input
- Apple TV set to 4K SDR
- Match Dynamic Range: ON
- Match Frame Rate: ON
- External audio system → HDMI 3 (eARC)
- Both HDMI ports are set to Enhanced format
Has anyone else experienced similar issues with the Bravia 9 II?
Do these symptoms sound like software/firmware issues or HDMI/eARC handshake issues, or could there actually be a hardware problem with the TV?
And for long-term Sony Bravia / Google TV users: is the platform generally this buggy, or does it sound like I've just had an unusually bad experience with this particular TV?