Sony A80K media player

[Truenorth179]

Hi Community.

I'm having a problem getting media player subtitles to display on this new oled tv. Is there anyone here that knows anything about this TV?

[usually_quiet]

I have been thinking of getting either a Sony X80K or X85K for myself. I looked at the A80K manual to find out what the video player supports for playback via USB. The A80K's manual has the same requirements regarding subtitles.

The manual said nothing about support for muxed subtitles as are often used in MKV and MP4 files. The manual did say the media player supports two types of external subtitles, SubStation Alpha (.ASS or .SSA) and SubRip (.SRT). With other TV media players, external subtitles need to be in a file with the same name as the video they belong to and in the same folder as that video.

[Truenorth179]

Hi Usually. I review video entertainment and I often get video files for review long before the material is available in north america. A video file could have the video track in MP4, MKV or any of several other formats. The audio could be stereo, 5.1, 7.1 or others and sometimes multiple tracks (languages) are embedded in the file. The subtitles could be in as many as thirty tracks (each one for a different language) or could be external files (typically SRT) and there could be many of these.

Initially I inspect the files with MediaInfo and play them with VLC on a Windows desktop to see if these elements are there and useable. But at the end of the day I want to see the product on a big screen. I bought a Sony A80K for this purpose. So I'm expecting to use this machine to see what the end customer is going to see. I'm starting out with the default Media Player.

So far I can't see how to choose what subtitle track I want displayed. If you wanna watch some HBO series and you want the spanish subtitles (and they are there), I can't see any way to select them. The A80K media player seems to be not suitable for purpose and if you are expecting a robust and sophisticated media player you will be disappointed. Take the thing back and try something else.

I think that the VLC media player might be available for the A80K but I'm not very sure of that, haven't looked yet. Sony is pretty sure that the Media Player is not an important part of this product and it shows.

Someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong.

[pandy]

Sony is pretty sure that the Media Player is not an important part of this product and it shows.

Sony is content owner and as such it is not interested in promoting illegal content i.e. don't expect too much from multimedia products branded by Sony and similar vendors. They discourage as much as possible any way to support non-legal content.
Go for some cheap multimedia player from China - it will support way more formats than Sony.

[usually_quiet]

Hi Usually. I review video entertainment and I often get video files for review long before the material is available in north america. A video file could have the video track in MP4, MKV or any of several other formats. The audio could be stereo, 5.1, 7.1 or others and sometimes multiple tracks (languages) are embedded in the file. The subtitles could be in as many as thirty tracks (each one for a different language) or could be external files (typically SRT) and there could be many of these.

Initially I inspect the files with MediaInfo and play them with VLC on a Windows desktop to see if these elements are there and useable. But at the end of the day I want to see the product on a big screen. I bought a Sony A80K for this purpose. So I'm expecting to use this machine to see what the end customer is going to see. I'm starting out with the default Media Player.

So far I can't see how to choose what subtitle track I want displayed. If you wanna watch some HBO series and you want the spanish subtitles (and they are there), I can't see any way to select them. The A80K media player seems to be not suitable for purpose and if you are expecting a robust and sophisticated media player you will be disappointed. Take the thing back and try something else.

I think that the VLC media player might be available for the A80K but I'm not very sure of that, haven't looked yet. Sony is pretty sure that the Media Player is not an important part of this product and it shows.

Someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Yes, you should be able to use the TV to access the Google Play Store, download the Android Version of VLC from there at no cost, and install it. However, I don't know if VLC can see files on a USB stick or USB drive connected to your TV. It will only cost a little of your time to find out.

Although none of my current TVs have Google TV as their OS, I have the 4K version of the Chromecast With Google TV device and I installed VLC on that. I use SMB to access files for TV shows that I have recorded and stored in shared folders on my home theater PC. I can play US closed captions using VLC if the file has them. I don't know if VLC can use internal subtitles muxed into video files or external subs stored in the same folder with a video file when they are located on a remote PC. The need to do that doesn't apply to my situation.

[Truenorth179]

Thanks Usually. I installed VLC for android as you suggested and it seems to work well. It recognizes USB sticks just fine and will play files exactly as I wanted. I use VLC on every windows machine I own so I'm familiar with it.

A long while ago I ripped my small bluray movie collection to files and I was careful to get the subtitle files included as a track in the MKV files. I was pretty disappointed that Sony packaged a sub-functional media player that won't display the subtitles. I've turned subtitles on everywhere I can find a toggle but perhaps I'm missing something.

The files that I review are authorized by the owner as far as I know. Sometimes they come a confusing route so I can't be completely sure but I do my work and delete the files.

My observations so far is that Sony is a marketing machine and not a TV. The 'apps' for Disney, Prime and others can't be removed. Just like many things on an android smartphone.

[usually_quiet]

Thanks Usually. I installed VLC for android as you suggested and it seems to work well. It recognizes USB sticks just fine and will play files exactly as I wanted. I use VLC on every windows machine I own so I'm familiar with it.

A long while ago I ripped my small bluray movie collection to files and I was careful to get the subtitle files included as a track in the MKV files. I was pretty disappointed that Sony packaged a sub-functional media player that won't display the subtitles. I've turned subtitles on everywhere I can find a toggle but perhaps I'm missing something.

The files that I review are authorized by the owner as far as I know. Sometimes they come a confusing route so I can't be completely sure but I do my work and delete the files.

My observations so far is that Sony is a marketing machine and not a TV. The 'apps' for Disney, Prime and others can't be removed. Just like many things on an android smartphone.

I took a second look at the A80K manual. Only .MP4 and MKV files support subtitles, and even then only external SRT, ASS, and SSA subs. You will definitely need something else to use PGS subtitles with MKV, M2TS, and MTS files.

Advertising is hard to escape on smart TVs or stand-alone media player boxes that are authorized to run apps for commercial streaming services. The services need you to rent or buy stuff to stay in business, and the advertising is probably required to obtain authorization for the streaming service and their apps.

Your TV supports HDR10, HLG, and Dolby Vision. I think that VLC for Android supports HDR10 pass-through as well as tone-mapping to simulate HDR10. VLC is also supposed to support tone mapping for HLG. I'm not sure which third-party Android media players support Dolby Vision passthrough. I don't yet have a display that supports Dolby Vision. The only other Android media player I've tried is KODI. It is well-known and well-liked among HTPC enthusiasts but it turned out to be much more than I needed to watch recorded TV shows.

[Truenorth179]

This Sony A80K replaces a 2015 Sony. I upgraded because the old TV would only do 1080i and required a low video frequency or it would barf. I funny thing is that it would display an MKV subtitle track if it was encoded UTF-8. The A80K wont do even that, so Sony has downgraded the media player. Disappointing.

..

[usually_quiet]

This Sony A80K replaces a 2015 Sony. I upgraded because the old TV would only do 1080i and required a low video frequency or it would barf. I funny thing is that it would display an MKV subtitle track if it was encoded UTF-8. The A80K wont do even that, so Sony has downgraded the media player. Disappointing.

..

Current smart TVs are geared toward streaming services. In light of that, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that the TV's media player is rather basic. Perhaps at this point, Sony expects people to use its default media player app for personal videos and not for much else. PGS subs are associated with DVD and Blu-ray rips and Sony definitely wouldn't want to offer any built-in support for playing those.