Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/04/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I know exactly what you mean, Nathan. I've been bitten by the same thing with Sony products many times. Years ago, when Sony was one of the first to put a FireWire port on a laptop, I bought one to edit video on a yearlong trip. It was a disaster and I never did get it to work. I stood in the middle of a triangle consisting of Sony, Adobe and Microsoft, all pointing fingers at each other. Then a few years ago, we built a theater here in our home. Once again, I was drawn in by Sony's promise of seamless integration. So we ended up with a Sony AV receiver, projector and BD player based on the promise that the Sony AVR would control them all with its highly touted "universal remote" feature. It never worked properly and I eventually solved it with a Logitech Harmony. Since then, the AV receiver needs periodic rebooting and the BD player just refuses to play certain discs. In the end, going all Sony brought no benefit. Sony hardware is actually very good, but their software just sucks. The problem with Sony and now Samsung is twofold. First, they apparently believe that their products are the center of the universe. Many of the integration features are predicated on components from the same manufacturer, and even then things don't work properly. Instead of designing with a more heterogenous environment in mind, they persist with this notion that the customer will buy everything from them. Second, they are wrapped up in this fantasy that they can be just like Apple. But they can never be Apple because software is a secondary consideration to hardware. They even outsource a lot of the software work. Until Sony and Samsung realize that hardware is a commodity and that the real value lies in the software, they will never be able to deliver a decent experience. I know some of you may comment on the proprietary nature of the Apple ecosystem, and those comments have some merit. But at least when you do a deal with the devil in Cupertino, you end up with a collection of equipment running on software written by an A team rather than some random contractor with no direct iterative access to the hardware engineering teams. You get a system that is designed to work together and actually tested by someone. Don't even get me started on this "smart" TV trend, in which the display has now been positioned as the central point for switching audio and video signals. And now, because your display needs firmware updates, you can be interrupted by messages saying that your display cannot connect to the Internet, that some Samsung services are offline, or whatever. I wish they would quit wasting their time on this stuff and focus the money on better picture quality, like maybe a smoothing mode that doesn't make feature films look like reruns of General Hospital from 1979. -Jim Sent from my iPhone > On Apr 13, 2014, at 4:44, Nathan Wajsman <photo at frozenlight.eu> wrote: > > I have never owned a Sony camera, and now I know for sure that I never > will. > > We just bought a 65-inch Sony Bravia TV, one of the latest models, not > cheap to put it mildly. Great picture, but we have struggling for 2 days > with the simple task (or should be simple) to connect a garden variety > laptop to the TV using its wifi interface so that the TV in effect acts as > a computer monitor, but without the clutter of HDMI cables and all that. > The menus and instructions for Sony products were apparently originally > written in Klingon, then translated into Japanese and then to English. And > it appears that unless your computer is a Sony Vaio, you have to perform > various unnatural acts. Everything Sony seems to be proprietary. > > I think the TV is going back to the store (fortunately, we bought > locally), to be replace by a Samsung or LG. > > Cheers, > Nathan > > Nathan Wajsman > Alicante, Spain > http://www.frozenlight.eu > http://www.greatpix.eu > PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws > Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/ > > YNWA > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information