Sony launches HEVC add-on for 4K BRAVIA TVs

Sony Corporation’s 4K Media Player adds 4K live streaming support to existing BRAVIA™ 4K Ultra HD TVs

From August this year, every BRAVIA™ 4K Ultra HD TV owner will be able to enjoy video content streamed with the increasingly popular HEVC (H.265) standard.

Available for purchase direct from Sony online at €399, a compact new 4K Media Player, the FMP-X5, plugs into an HDMI port on these existing 4K BRAVIA models (introduced in 2012/2013):

KDL-84X9005
KD-65X9005A / 55X9005A

Equipped with the new decoder, all 4K BRAVIA televisions can now play content encoded with the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) video codec. HEVC is becoming increasingly popular among the video streaming industry and being used in services such as Netflix. HEVC/H.265 has a better coding efficiency than that of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, it makes HEVC ideal for online streaming of 4K video, requiring less bandwidth to deliver stunning-quality 4K images.

HEVC support is already featured as standard with all 2014 BRAVIA 4K TV models, including KD-X9500B/X9000B/X8500B, that do not require this decoder to play HEVC content.