Sony Top Gun in US TV Shootout
July 31, 2025 
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The so-called “Sony tax”, where the company charges a premium for its top-end TVs that makes them costlier than comparable models from rivals, appears to be justified by the brand winning the “King of TVs” crown for the seventh year in a row.
Its 65-inch Bravia 8 II QD-OLED TV came out ahead of LG, Samsung and Panasonic’s flagships in the 21st Value Electronics shootout this week in Scarsdale, New York.
“However, judges stressed that the difference between the four models was thin, detectable only by the most platinum eyed in side-by-side comparisons such as the TV Shootout,” one report noted, citing the view of attendee and former TV Shootout organiser Kevin Miller, president of ISFTV, a New York tri-state display consultant and calibrator:
I would say there are maybe 2, 3% of enthusiasts in the country that are really hardcore about picture quality, and they’ll pay a premium for it and for calibrating. But the vast majority of consumers are not real hardcore enthusiasts and would be very happy with any one of those panels.
A Sony BVM studio reference monitor was used as the benchmark to compare the four OLED TVs: Panasonic Z95B OLED (TV65Z95BP), Samsung S95F QD-OLED (QN65S95F), LG G5 OLED (OLED65G5WUA) and Sony BRAVIA 8 II QD-OLED (K65XR80M2).
LG and Panasonic’s sport RGB OLED panels from LG Display while Samsung and Sony’s used Samsung’s quantum dot OLED panels.
While Sony was the overall “King of TV”, Panasonic and Samsung won in multiple specific categories — prompting Channel News to report the shootout raises “serious questions” about LG OLED TVs after its G5 model finished last.
The Sony, Samsung and LG TVs already are on sale here, Panasonic’s is due to land within the next month or two.
If you want to learn more about the Bravia 8 II’s prowess, see these links to:
- reviews from What Hi-Fi (“one of the very best TVs that money can buy”), Rtings (“excellent for mixed usage“) and Wired (“stunning image clarity for high-end buyers”)
- Sony’s product video
- HDTVTest’s YouTube review
- Rtings’ YouTube comparison of the G5, S95F and Bravia 8 II
- Sony NZ’s spec sheet for the 55- and 65-inch models
And here’s the media release Sony issued in March about its next-generation display system incorporating an independent drive RGB LED with a high-density LED backlight that can individually control three primary colours – R (red), G (green), and B (blue) [RGB]:
This panel allows each RGB colour to emit light independently, resulting in high colour purity and the ability to reproduce images with a vibrant, bright and wide colour gamut.
Additionally, the display system is equipped with Sony’s proprietary advanced backlight control technology, designed to maximise the panel’s characteristics.
This backlight control technology enables faithful reproduction of delicate hues and subtle gradations of light across every corner of the display, even on large screens.
In cinematic works such as films, the ability to convey narrative expression relies significantly on the subtleties of colour and black representation, as well as the gradation of light.
This system enhances these elements to provide image quality that faithfully reflects the creator’s intent and is suitable for both film production and home viewing as well.
Sony has supported creators’ activities for years through professional monitors used for colour grading in professional video production with BRAVIA utilised as reference monitors.
The display system has been developed by leveraging Sony’s unique experience and technical expertise in the cinema industry. This system is to begin mass production in 2025, aiming to expand its integration into consumer televisions and displays for content creation.
Key Features of the Newly Developed Display System
Sony developed the world’s first LCD television with a full-array RGB LED backlight in 2004. Since then, Sony has continuously worked to improve the precision of backlight control, gaining a deep understanding of the characteristics of LED elements.
In the development of this display system, Sony’s unique backlight control technology contributes to maximising the panel’s performance.
1. Wide Colour Gamut Performance Enabled by an Independent Drive RGB LED
Independent colour emission ensures high colour purity, covering over 99% of the DCI-P3*1 colour space and approximately 90% of the ITU-R BT.2020*2 standard.
2. Unique High Picture Quality Achieved Through Newly Developed Backlight Control Technology
- Expanded colour Volume for More Natural Image Representation
By combining an independent drive RGB LED with proprietary backlight control technology, Sony has fully optimised the panel’s wide colour gamut performance across the entire screen—delivering delicate, nuanced hues.
In addition, the system features a function that dynamically allocates optimal power to each RGB channel based on the specific scene. Unlike conventional high-brightness TVs that concentrate light on bright elements such as stars or the moon in night scenes to boost peak brightness, Sony’s approach adjusts luminance in harmony with colour gradation.
This ensures that even single-tone scenes—like a deep blue sky or vibrant red autumn foliage—are rendered with bright, vivid detail. Furthermore, the system can achieve peak brightness*3 levels of over 4000 cd/m2, a benchmark already realised in Sony’s professional monitors, resulting in the highest colour volume in the history of Sony’s display devices.
- Wide Dynamic Range and Precise Gradation Representation
The display system processes signal at a high speed and with high precision at a high bitrate of 96 bits. This not only allows the simultaneous expression of deep blacks and brilliant whites, but also enables the delicate representation of differences in brightness and darkness in scenes with many intermediate colours.
This new system can achieve what is challenging for existing OLED panels: the expression of colours with moderate brightness and saturation.
Moreover, high bit-rate signal processing helps deliver a wide viewing angle by precise gradation control, minimising colour shift and brightness variation when content is viewed at a slant on a large screen.
Colour Volume
- Accurate Colour Reproduction by a Dedicated Control Processor
By individually controlling the brightness of the densely packed RGB LEDs, it is possible to render bright areas vividly without white clipping and to delicately depict the nuances of light in dark areas without black crushing.
Additionally, the display system equipped with approximately twice the processing power and pixel correction technology compared to conventional local dimming processing, allowing the reproduction of subtle colour differences and accurate colours without colour shifts.
Sony is cooperating on joint development of control processors with MediaTek Inc., its long-term strategic partner, and a company with a proven track record in developing and supplying SoCs (Pentonic) for smart TVs.
Sony is also working on the development of the LED drive IC together with ROHM Co., Ltd., and the LED together with Sanan Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. These partners support Sony’s direction for next generation displays.
Sony will continue to expand the possibilities of visual expression through cutting-edge technology, building the future of entertainment together with creators.
*1 DCI-P3 is one of the RGB colour space standards established by Digital Cinema Initiatives, a U.S. film industry organisation, specifically for digital cinema. This specification pertains to the display system itself and does not represent the specifications of any display products incorporating this system.
*2 ITU-R BT.2020 is a video format standard defined by the ITU-R. This specification pertains to the display system itself and does not represent the specifications of any display products incorporating this system.
*3 The peak brightness values mentioned are specifications for the display system and do not represent the specifications of any display products incorporating this system.
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