XD85 Bravia (2015) unable to stream 65Mbit 4K video from LAN

[ssbarnea]

 I spend and endless number of hours trying to investigate why I am unable to play a ~65mbit bitrate 4K HDR video (x265) from LAN.

This is the average bitrate of a 4K HDR blueray video (one with Dolby Atmos), and the TV was sold to me as being able to play 4K HDR.

So far I realised

- Ethernet port is only 100Mbits instead of standard Gbit

- Even if 100Mbit ethernet translates to ~90Mbit, somehow the TV fails to reach even 65Mbits

- WiFi doesn't seem to work anymore after upgrading to Android 6.0.1, TV fails to join the WPA2 network (no issue with any other device). 

- (Not confirmed yet) but I read that even if the WiFi is supposed to support AC it seems that the WiFi card is connected using USB2 which means that it will not be able to reach the needed speed, even if the wireless signal is perfect. I happen to leave in an area with very few interferences.

- LAN NAS is able to deliver ans sustain ~300Mbit, so clearly this is not what slows it down.

- Even my internet broadband is works reliable at 75Mbps which means that the TV LAN speed is even lower than VDSL+ speeds.

- Based on current tests I have the impression that the TV streaming speed is limited to around 55-60 Mbps, about 10% under the standard 65Mbps used by 4K HDR streams.

So far I am starting to believe that I was misold and I am considering finding a legal way to return the product as it doesnt seem fit for its purpose. 

Is it possible to sort this issue? How?

PS. Don't even think about asking me to re-encode or transcode.

[Jecht_Sin]

There are a couple of things to say, first. I assume that you are streaming via DLNA:

1. It also depends on the app. The (stock) Sony's Video Player is usually the most efficient. But you can try Kodi as well, it usually does a good job (with a more complete UI). Forget about using the Plex client for high bitrate videos.
2. Monitoring the network from my Mac (the DLNA server) I see that with 65Mbps videos there are peaks of 11-12MB/s (thus nearly 100Mbps). And there the videos may stutter.
3. WiFi in 5GHz ac can be (much) faster than the the Etherrnet. It depends on how close it is to your WiFi router. Just few meters, anyway. after 5-6m with my router the bandwidth starts oscillating a bit too much (and it reaches 180Mbps top in my case. Which would be good if it didn't go down even to 30Mbps). But if the TV is near the router I'd really consider fixing the WiFI issue you have connecting.

So, yeah. I'd say that the network capabilities of the TV can be just there to stream 65Mbps videos. But I am afraid you don't have a case because the TV does play UHD HDR movies when you connect an UHD HDR Blu Ray player via HDMI. As well as it plays UHD HDR videos from Netflix and others, since their bitrate is about 15.4Mbps.  I don't believe Sony (or any other manufacturer) has ever claimed we can stream BR movies at 4K via LAN. Also all TVs I have checked came with a 100Mbps ethernet port, so even giving it back wouldn't fix your problem.

PS: about the WiFi issue you should make sure that WiFI Direct is off. With WiFI Direct ON I could never connect to WiFi with Android 6.0.1.

[ssbarnea]

WiFi Direct is OFF, and I manged to enable WiFi but the results are identical with LAN testing (again using only the default/offical Video app as being considered the most reliable).

My WiFi router is a Unifi AC PRO (UBNT) which is one of the best in available routers and is like 3 meters away from TV, no wall in-between.

Whie testing with LAN I got almost identical graph on my Synology NAS, which makes me think that there is a hardware or software limitation in the TV itself. Synology reports disk load under 5%.

Based on the number of glitches I am inclined to believe that the TV is close to the bitrate but still below. I am wondering if tunning the MTR could get the extra boost needed to sort the problem. Stil it seems to be impossible to find any information regarding Sony MTR values for both wifi and LAN cards.

I am wondering if there is an app that I can install on the TV to really benchmark the network speed. The WiFi Analyzer is reported as incompatible with Bravia by Google Play Store.

Sadly Sony app does not report any information regarding the size of the buffers, because at this bitrate they are supposed to be bit bigger. To me it does not seem like an impossible to overcome hardware limitation, it looks more like a poor or lack of testing.

[Jecht_Sin]

The problem here is that you're getting only an average of about 6.5MB/s (50-55Mbps). This is what I get with a 62Mbps video (at least so it says in the title and also that's what I get dividing the size in bits by the time lenght) using the stock Video app on a Ethernet connection (slower but more reliable):

I know, it isn't really the best graph, but thats what I've got. It stayed above 11MB/s at the beginnig for few seconds, while reading ahead I suppose. The video plays perfectly smooth (it's an LG demo supposed to be at 59fps). So, technically the TV is able to play high quality UHD HDR videos in streaming.

Since we can't discard any option I'd suggest to configure your PC as a DLNA server and test with a couple of videos. Just to discard the possibility that anything is wrong with your NAS. Also be aware that during my many network tests, sometime I have got the apps slowing down (and the videos stuttering) because of the network activity. But it depended on the day, this OS is quite random. Today it's in a good shape.

Oh, it also helps rebooting the TV and testing. If the TV has been up few days chances that anything goes nuts are high..

Talking about which, you may want to enable the Developer Options in the TV and test via "adb shell" with "top"what's going on. You never know if some process is eating away the CPU or bandwidth. But it requires some mild Linux/Unix skills

[seufer]

Hello, 

I have the same TV XD85 Bravia (2015) and i have the same problem trying to stream Netflix 4K videos :

- My TV is connected by cable to a 200Mbps optical fiber connection

- I have a Netflix Premium account

- On ww.fast.com I get 25Mbps with the TV - 200Mbps with my PS4 - 80Mbps with a iPad on Wi-Fi.

I have called the Sony Service Center in France, and they tell me that SONY will perform an upgrade soon.

I am not very optimistic about this future upgrade.

Here, I am watching Narcos in 4K UHD on Netflix at 5.5 Mbps and at the same time, I get 74Mbps on a Ipad

Here a test 2 minutes after on the TV with Opera browser

[Kuschelmonschter]

Did you reboot your TV via long power button press or power cycling? Bandwidth may dramatically decrease with system uptime and apps running in the background..

Sony support is useless. You always get the follwong 3 answers:

1. factory reset TV (which usually does not fix anything)
2. next firmware will fix it (which usually is not the case)
3. it is the standard behavior and well within specification

[seufer]

I have already make those tests with no results.

Maybe i should try the wifi 5ghz connection, maybe it is a better interface than the ethernet câble ?

As you said service support is useless : they dont have a optical fiber connection to test Netflix in 4K

It is a shame because there is Netflix button on the remote and the TV is sell as "recommanded by Netflix"

But it seems to be only a marketing thing !!

PS : and they said me on the phone " You know, 90% of people are happy when the TV works" !!!

Hahaha make me laugh 😒

[seufer]

I am now connected in Wi-Fi 5Ghz and I can download up to 80Mbps.

So, on my TV the Ethernet interface is crap, only 25Mbps max.

Maybe your is too !

And I am a better technician than Sony French support service. 😁😁😁

[Kuschelmonschter]

I get full speed over LAN.

[seufer]

How much Mbps did you get with a cable connection ?

Thx