Gadgetory

hi I'm David Katz my from cnet i'm here at sony's new york event concurrent with Aoife and i'm standing with phil molyneux who's the president and CEO of sony electronics how you doing today though I'm doing very well thank you wonderful so Phil you guys introduced a bunch of new products today can you give me a quick rundown of the most exciting product that you really introduced today so we'll start with the 4k TVs we've introduced two new 4k Ultra high-definition TVs from Sony the hx850 a a 55 inch version a 65 inch version and a 55 inch version we're starting that pricing at 3,500 US dollars so we're really excited about that and for those of you that don't know about 4k ultra high-definition it's four times the resolution of Full HD now you guys are really aggressive with the 4k price cuts it looks like you're the first to reach that thirty five hundred dollar price point among the mainstream TV manufacturers out there can give me an idea of why you're being so aggressive with those price points while you're pushing for K so quickly to such relatively low prices and we want more consumers to enjoy the experience of Sony 4k Ultra High Definition we have unique technology in there in terms of how we upscale any input in addition to that we've just announced today are four que native feature film download service along with TV episodes etc I mean it is great the Sony is the kind of the only guys doing the 4k content thing with this video distribution service the TV hovers is relatively expensive how do you sell 4k to a consumer Hussein himself you know what I'm really happy with my 1080p TV it's about you know a thousand dollars or $1,500 for the same size how do you convince the average consumer that 4k is worth to step up especially when there's very little content despite your new service yep so very little content may be on the native 4k content side but we've got 70 movie titled feature films etc will have a hundred feature films and TV episodes by the end of the year so that's a native site on the other side the upscaling capability of our TVs and the color reproduction it's just quite unbelievable now with 4k it does require are you know a relatively close seeding distance to really see the benefits at least that's what I understand I I mean the TVs are really large again you can really see this benefit for 4k how do you address that issue the fact that again 1080p looks really good on most people's TVs and to see the difference in the benefit of 4k don't you have to sit relatively close or experience content that is you know again a lot better than you would on a normal 1080p TV so let me put it a different way just so that we can frame this correctly and if we went back ten years ago you may have had for instance a 24 inch TV in your room and you sat maybe about six to eight feet away and then you decided to upgrade and then you brought a let's say there's a 40 inch flat panel and you put that on the war but you didn't move your Sethi you stay is stayed where it is because you wanted to enjoy that more immersive experience right so now you can buy a 4k Ultra High Definition in 65 inch of 55 inch and put it on the wall and not new no need to move your your city or your sofa HSA in America because now your field of view is full of that picture and if you go to the theater today to see a movie in the theater have a look the screen now is your complete field of vision and even the back seat you've filled your vision so that's the best experience that you can get that's an interesting take because you're talking about recreating the theater experience in the home I've heard something called the Laffer distance which refers the fact that most people still even with today's HD TVs sit around nine feet away from their television at that distance is that something you can appreciate with 4k or do you actually at Sony have some some information where you've actually seen that distance and decrease at in the home because I think that'd be interesting um we have we have a measured people in their home to that extent we know that you know if you fill your field of vision when you're watching 4k content on the sony TV that's the best experience you can get however regardless whether you've moved your your sofa back another two foot you've still got eight million pixels on that screen as opposed to two million pixels I have another question about your video distribution service the little device that comes with it it's it's a little video player load player people can actually download these movies and watch them and pay you know specific prices for each movie my question is does that work with devices other than sony products right now no it's Sony only at this stage is there a reason for that fell well you know they're there are many reasons but one of the key reasons is you know the drm related issues and the importance of making sure that content is safe is that something in the future that you'd want to do at Sony is to maybe expand this to work with other manufacturers I know you're talking about expanding 4k letting everybody watch it if you're the owner and the only people distributing this video service wouldn't it be the kind of thing that you would want to distribute and make you know that device applicable to a lot of other TVs out there the same is with HD content you know we have Sony Pictures is part of our company of course they want to expand distribution and of course we should expand distribution in due course but the industry needs to tackle a few other points first of all but we'll get there we'll get that that's good to hear talking about the industry one of the surprises for me today at least was the the announcement of the curved led-based e via the one behind us right here can you tell me a little bit about that product and aesthetically why Sony went with a curved LCD LED as opposed to the curved OLED that we've seen some other manufacturers we think this is perhaps not mainstream consumer but if you want this theatrical type effect and this curved it kind of wraps around you and takes you deeper into the picture we thought this is a good style starting point OLED technology we've been shipping OLED technology in terms of screens on the professional side of our business for two years so we know how to do it yeah but it takes time to get it to a point where it's commercially viable to bring it to consumers I mean you one of the most exciting products at this year's CES was the 4k OLED product that you showed which I understand is a joint development are we going to be seeing that product next year yeah in due course you'll be seeing it yeah we're working on that I love it well thank you very much Phil my pleasure thanks very much