Sony KD-48A9 UHD on BBC iPlayer stopped working

[08081979]

A recent update seems to have stopped the bbc iPlayer from playing UHD programmes. They worked fine before the update late November. Anyone else had similar issues and found a fix ?

[Piscie]

Hi royabrown2,

The TV can be connected to the internet and you can download additional apps from Google Play store.

The catch-up services are supported as well ( which I realize is a privilege for me )

Also, all these apps are supported but they require an aerial connected first not from Play Store.

Hope that helps!

-Piscie

[royabrown2]

Hi @Piscie 

The requirement to have an aerial connected first, introduced with YouView when the Sony Android TVS first came out in 2015 and Sony relied on YouView for the itv Hub and All4 players, was dropped for the 2020 sets onward, and also, I believe, dropped retrospectively to some 2019 and 2018 sets.

Instead, it was enough just to give your postcode, which was a way of determining which TV Region you were in, information which could only be gathered previously by you tuning your set and YouView sniffing the channels to determine the region.

A slight fly in the ointment was that the postcode method didn’t work initially for itv, but this has now been rectified.

For the 2021 sets, Sony have screwed up royally by not ensuring that they have the required players licensed (or some other bizarre glitch to the same effect) and can only promise that they hope to have them working later this year.

But I am not at all clear if this problem affects all Sony 2021 sets, or just the Android ones, or some other subset of 2021 Sony TVs.

My Sony Android TV was one of the first, and I still have access to it, though it was only briefly our primary TV, a job it fell down at; but it is becoming less and less relevant to where these Android sets are today, and how to answer questions about them 😢

[HannahEd01]

Hey guys, I've contacted Sony and they confirmed that the issue has been resolved for the W800 Series model as of June 25th, 2021.

[williamosman]

Since around 19th October 2021, iplayer isn’t offering me UHD.  A couple of weeks ago it was working perfectly fine and now all I can get is HD??  I have tried a factory reset and have downloaded firmware to usb but i am running latest.  

Any ideas?

[BertSlater]

I thought it was just me.  My KD55XH9505 plays HD only.  My KD49XD8088 works fine. 

I'm waiting for Sony support to respond.

[BertSlater]

I've had a response from Sony Support who suggested that I contact the BBC.  The BBC contact us page relevant to iPlayer acknowledges that there are problems with some Sony Connected TVs and UHD on iPLayer.  Just wish Sony would.

[Ry2222]

Do you get your TV signal from Bilsdale transmitter?  If so, I wonder if it's anything to do with their new temp transmitter having different settings to the one destroyed by fire?  Even if you use wifi for iPlayer, I think some settings have changed slightly since the switchover.

[Ry2222]

I chose Sony for the excellence of picture & natural colours when buying 2 of their TVs in 2014, but all the problems with apps on them (or rather, not on them - from the start no ITV hub, or All4, or the C5 one) mean I will not buy a Sony TV again.

Totally unacceptable that their support for the one major app they did have (iPlayer) was discontinued after only 6 years.  So if that was deliberately built in obsolescence, it's backfired pretty spectacularly!

[HannahEd01]

Hey williamosman, what is the firmware your TV is running?

[williamosman]

Thanks for all replies, miraculously tonight it is now working! I have done nothing and have not updated the TV so must be at iPlayer end?  I’m so sorry but I can’t explain it.