Oreo 6.6510 Firmware ruined the Android UI brightness

[S0unnd]

Previously i was on the 6.5830, and the TV is KD-55XF9005B. With that OS update the brightness in the Android apps was homogeneous (at Max brightness)

With 6.6510, at 100% brightness the Android UI is significantly dimmer, but when you watch a video, like youtube or twitch, the video footage is bright and flawless.

For example: The top image is a screenshot from my app. The text (android ui element) and the underlaying video at those points should be 100% white, same is true with the buttons or chat text. Those are 100% white.

They were equally bright on 6.5830, but since 6.6510 something changed.

The image below is a an underexposed photo, but you can clearly see that, the video element is significantly brighter then the android UI element. Before you complain about the photo quality, i can take 50 photos, but there won't be a single one where those two white points will be the same.

How can i fix this? Because something is clearly broken here. The same color shoud look the same wherever is on the TV screen, but it's clearly not.

And no, nothing wrong with my eyes, because many others are experiencing the same thing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/bravia/comments/brtqcg/66510_firmare_xd9005_brightness_tv_menu/

https://www.reddit.com/r/bravia/comments/brjxay/finally_eu_update_66510/eog0o8k/

UPDATE:

In my testing the Brightness sort of affects the overall image brightness: so both Android Overlay and Video playback is affected. BUT, Contrast DOESN'T affects the android UI no matter what is the setting. Min contrast looks the same as Max contrast on the Android UI, but i will affect the video playback as expected.

With this UI brightness (at Max) you can barely see the Android UI in a bright room. This is unacceptable!

[Pascale_F]

Hi S0unnd,

I'll see if I can find out anything for you. Maybe someone else in the community can help in the meantime.

Thanks,

Pascale

[S0unnd]

To futher prove my point, i put together a simple application.

The setup:

On the Left, you have Android UI elements, on the Right there is a video player, that plays back a MP4, which is #FF0000 red. So the Left and the Right side should've the same Hue.

Running the app on my Oneplus 6T:

Do you see any difference ? I don't.

Screenshot:

Now let's see the same app on my KD-55XF9005B with 6.6510:

Since my camera can't represent the Right side (the mp4) correctly, it's bright red, instead of "orange".

This is the dead obvious proof that since 6.6510 Sony willfully reduced the the brightness of the Android Overlay. This move is unaccaptable, this TV is unable to represent the same color accurately anymore.

I'm eagrly waiting for an official statement on this, and when this get fixed. Or you don't have to answer, just paypal me €200 so i can buy an Nvidia Shield TV.

[LightFoot]

Hi @S0unnd   Just checking that you know that this is a customer to customer community. You are not communicating with Sony but just your fellow customers. If you want to send your concerns to Sony then you need to contact Sony Support for your Country or Region.

[Kuschelmonschter]

That's really a bad thing to do. It also affects software decoded video which does not go through the video processing pipeline.

[S0unnd]

@LightFootThanks for the clarification!

Since then, i've contacted Sony Support and they told me that

"In the following weeks or even days we will push out a new update".

[Kuschelmonschter]

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@S0unnd  schrieb:

"In the following weeks or even days we will push out a new update".

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They are for sure talking about 6.6510. They did not realize you were already talking about that one.

That's how it always works over at Sony. As soon as support gets informed about a new firmware release, they hardly read your mails anymore. They just copy/paste FW update notice.

[S0unnd]

@Kuschelmonschter  Could be, although i specified the problematic OS verison.

[Kuschelmonschter]

I created a bug ticket for the issue, see here.

Hope you don't mind me using your valuable info.

[S0unnd]

@Kuschelmonschter  I find this incredibly annoying that you have no way to directly contact Sony Dev team with SW issues. I went through my local Sony Support, ended up them recommeding a factory reset (which obv. not gonna do, because it wont solve the issue) and if that is not helping, contact repair shops, who can't do ***** about a SW issue. Probably i have to get a Shield...

Lesson learned: if everything works well with your current version, do not update.