Sony Claims Brighter TV With Z Series

Sony launches what it claims are its best and brightest TVs yet-- the flagship Z series, 4K/UHD HDR TVs featuring "Backlight Master Drive" technology for brightness and contrast levels reaching those of OLED screens.

Sony Z SeriesFirst seen in prototype form back at CES 2016, Backlight Master Drive consists of a densely packed array of individually controlled LED backlights. At the time Sony claimed the CES prototype delivered 4000 nits of peak brightness, and while the Z series TVs are not so bright the company insists they are still brighter than the rest of the competition.

Also included in the TVs is an X1 Extreme signal processor Sony says is able to upscale lower resolution standard dynamic range (SDR) content to 4K HDR, with object-based HDR Re-master technology analysing the colours and contrast of individual objects in a scene to present richer and more realistic images. Meanwhile Super Bit Mapping 4K HDR 14-bit processing delivers smoother colour gradations from 8- and 10-bit sources without the "banding" seen in other TVs, and "dual-database" video processing reduces on-screen noise.

Colour space is "very close" to the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) P3 wide-colour gamut standard, and Sony claims colour volume exceeds that of OLED and LCD rivals.

The OS of choice is a customised version of Android TV complete with enhanced Voice Search and Google Cast capability.

The Z series should hit the custom installation channel by Q3 2016 in 65-, 75- and 100-inch sizes.

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