KD-48A9 Sparkles

[QuinnDexter]

Hi.

I recently got a KD-48A9 Oled TV. Native apps all render HDR content perfectly. However, on HDR content from a Panasonic UB820 player, all HDMI ports except #2 has a vertical line of sparkles on the left side of the screen.  

Playing a Dolby Vision disk or HDR10 title yields the vertical sparkling.  It only stops if you turn off HDR on the player. Again, if I connect to HDMI port 2 this doesn't happen.

I've gone through the usual support procedures of clearing memory, rebooting, resetting etc but it still happens.  

I did think that this might be a cable issue, but after buying a premium one the issue is still there.

All HDMI ports are set to enhanced mode. 

[Joe_Dohn]

Does this happen with other sources/external devices as well or just the player? (I did notice that HDMI port 2 works fine, but worth testing if possible)

[QuinnDexter]

It doesn't happen with other sources (non 4K/HDR). I've tested it now with each port and it seems to be sparkly on port #1,#3 and #4. Port #2 is ok.

Strangely though, only some discs exhibit it.  Total recall is the worst (Dolby Vision), Jaws has some but not as bad as Total recall.  Blade runner is bad (HDR10).  Playing the Blu ray version on each HDMI port doesn't render any sparkles.

[Joe_Dohn]

Have you tried using another external device that supports 4K HDR instead of the player? (PC/laptop for example)

[QuinnDexter]

I don't have any other devices which can output that.  I've tested the native apps on the player, netflix  etc.  And played a HDR 4k stream to the tv over the suspect ports and there are no sparkles.  I only get them when playing a UHD disk.

[Mchaggis69]

I have a long standing support ticket open for my AF8 TV.

'Sparkles' across the whole screen when playing DolbyVision content from an external source (NVidia Shield) but only on HDMI3.

HDMI2 does not show the sparkles.

Whats worse is its not consistent - it only occurs infrequently.

Last sony support message was yesterday asking me to keep holding for a solution.

[williamfsmith]

I have the same player which works flawlessly with my KD65XG9505.

I purchased it because it has a second HDMI out for sound which I needed for my non 4k Yamaha DSPZ7 AV Receiver

Unfortunately I think you will get Sony blaming Panasonic and vice versa.

Incidentally, I purchased a 4k Panasonic Bluray player because my previous two Sony non 4k Bluray players died literally just out of warranty due to laser issues.

No more Sony Bluray players for me and TBH after 45 years of buying Sony TV's I will look elsewhere for the next one.

"Android" TV seems very loosely applied by Sony when a Logitech USB wireless mouse causes issues and doesn't work properly with inbuilt apps.

[Joe_Dohn]

@QuinnDexter

That's really strange, so it's not all 4K HDR content, it's only when playing discs, and it doesn't happen on all of the discs, just some, and on top of all that, it manages to somehow work properly on HDMI 2.

Have you tried resetting both the player and the TV to factory settings? If you already have, I honestly can't think of a cause for the issue, too many variables.

- JD

[QuinnDexter]

After speaking with Sony, I did the usual text book repair procedures of doing a factory reset..etc.  However the sparkles are still there. But the sparkles are now present when playing standard BluRays.  The link below is a video of it happening whilst on pause when playing the BluRay "The FOG".

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cLK8x2CwisBpm5UgjBrXBBMDt3JFnlIN/view?usp=sharing

It doesn't happen though with DVDs.

So....to further test, I dug out my old Panasonic bluray player and connected it using the same HDMI cable to the same problem port (#3).  No sparkles.   Swap the player back to the UB820, same disc, and there are sparkles.  So could this be a player issue and actually not a TV issue?  The TV is only a week old, so within the range for a replacement from John Lewis.  But I don't want to replace the TV if it's not the issue.  I'm thinking the best option here is to get a replacement player.

Arrrgggg.

[QuinnDexter]

I've tested with a bog standard bluray player on all ports and no sparkles.  It's only this player that has the issue so I've decided to return the player as the potential culprit.  Otherwise there is no way of figuring this out.