Sony BRAVIA 4K Displays Receive Industry Certifications, Crystal LED Virtual Production System Wins Two Awards and Joins GPA Partner Program

Sony has kept busy over the past month with a trio of new announcements.

Sony Electronics Obtains Certifications from Crestron and Cisco for BRAVIA 4K Professional Displays
Sony has improved its interoperability and integrations with third-party alliance partners, receiving certification from Crestron and Cisco for its BRAVIA 4K professional displays. As the credible display partner of choice, Sony offers robust compatibility, seamless integration and enhanced user experience for customers worldwide.

“Sony has always been a valued technology partner of Crestron by adopting our popular Crestron Connected third-party device control technology, and they have once again raised the bar by becoming certified with the 2nd generation Crestron Connected control platform. from Crestron, which now includes integration with Crestron’s XiO cloud-based remote management solution,” says Bob Bavolacco, director of technology partnerships at Crestron.

Crestron is the market leader in automated and integrated control systems that create a seamless workflow between AV equipment, environmental accessories and computer technologies. Crestron has developed a global certification program, Crestron Connected, which is turnkey at the engineering level, allowing certified manufacturing partners to connect, communicate and monitor natively from a central location. With the previous certification for Crestron Connected, Sony has now integrated its latest IoT-based AV management platform, XiO Cloud, allowing businesses to access its work technology in one place. As a certified partner, Crestron’s XiO Cloud platform enables customers to deploy, monitor and manage Sony displays from a centralized location, reducing installation time and increasing uptime.

“We are thrilled to have Sony join our ecosystem of Webex Certified Partners, providing customers with ultimate ease of use and quality to enable meeting spaces for video meetings and virtual collaboration,” said Finn Helge Lunde, Product Director at Cisco Webex.

Sony’s BRAVIA 4K professional displays, including the recently launched FW-100BZ40J and FW-32BZ30J, are Webex certified and integrated into the Webex Room Kit series, the market-leading devices for video conferencing and virtual team collaboration. Meeting the standards of Webex certifications, including secure optimized image quality and automation, ensures seamless integration between Sony’s BRAVIA 4K Professional Displays and the Webex Room Kit series.

“We are delighted to receive these prestigious certifications from Cisco Webex and Crestron, two of the biggest players in the enterprise AV market offering credible solutions for unified communications and control. By partnering with such respected brands, we can help our customers prepare their workplaces for years to come,” comments Damien Weissenburger, Head of Professional Screens and Solutions Europe.

“As we continue to focus on creating value for our customers, alignment with industry leaders, including Cisco Webex and Crestron, is critical. Building a diverse ecosystem of partners elevates Sony’s capabilities and creates a more robust, user-friendly experience that enables collaboration and integration,” says Rich Ventura, Vice President B2B, Sony Electronics Professional Imaging Products & Solutions Division, North America.

Society of Information Display awards 2022 Display Industry Award and Display Application of the Year to Sony’s Crystal LED Virtual Production System
The Society for Information Display (SID), the world’s largest electronic display company, awarded Sony Corporation, Sony PCL Inc. and Sony Innovation Studios Inc. the “Display Application of the Year” award for their “Crystal LED Virtual Production System Solution.” This award is given in recognition of the innovative and outstanding application of the screen, and its great impact on the market in 2021.

The award-winning “Crystal LED Virtual Production System Solution” is a new content creation solution that enhances freedom of expression for creators. This is made possible by the “in-camera VFX” method, which combines Sony’s “Crystal LED B-series” large LED display and their “VENICE” digital cinema camera, together with a camera tracking system and a real-time engine.

A virtual background such as 3DCG (three-dimensional computer graphics) is displayed on the B-series Crystal LED display, which supports features such as high resolution, high brightness and wide color gamut. This enables video production that combines CG and live action in real time without post-processing such as compositing. The combination of Crystal LED and VENICE provides high quality color reproduction and dimming expression, resulting in less editing work and high quality content. Additionally, “Atom View” point cloud software – award-winning, patented technology from Sony Innovation Studios – scans existing locations and objects and converts them into 3DCG models. This makes it possible to create photorealistic virtual backgrounds, as if the subjects were really there.

In Japan, Sony PCL began virtual production technology demonstration experiments in 2020 and is now actively providing the solution. Sony PCL has already achieved results in various content production ventures such as commercials, movies and music videos. Sony PCL will continue to provide cutting-edge production technology and creative work, including virtual production at “Kiyosumi Shirakawa BASE”, a new studio that was established in February this year.

“The SID Display Industry Awards recognize the best display products or applications introduced to the market during the previous calendar year,” notes Wei Chen, Chairman of SID Display Industry Awards Committee. “We are proud to award Sony Corporation, Sony PCL Inc. and Sony Innovation Studios Inc. the 2022 Display Application of the Year award for its Crystal LED virtual production system solution. We salute the company’s continued commitment to innovation and its contribution to shaping the future of performance and display solutions.

Sony strengthens its global position and its local communication by joining the GPA partner program
Sony has joined the GPA Partner Program as a strategic global display supplier, strengthening its global position and offering to its enterprise customers. GPA is a global organization of audio, video and unified communications business units, committed to sharing best practices to ensure the same excellent customer experience across the globe.

GPA, being a credible global organization with business units in each key territory, helps Sony strengthen its supply chain and provides central and local points of contact for its global customers, to ensure seamless communication and deployment for the end customer. The GPA partnership enables Sony to fill the gaps and ensure a strong and prolific offering of its professional displays and solutions to new and existing customers.

Sony’s product vision has always been about quality; quality of image reproduction, quality of product durability and reliability in the field, and quality of local supply chain and support. This 12-month partnership demonstrates its commitment to delivering this quality globally, locally, to every customer.

“We are delighted to announce that we have joined GPA as a display supplier, joining one of the world’s largest AV organizations and bringing our spectacular products and solutions to customers around the world, including our new professional BRAVIA 4K 100″ and 32” displays,” comments Damien Weissenburger, Head of Professional Screens and Solutions Europe. “For a long time, our customers have requested central points of contact with local sourcing and support that understand the local nuances of doing business in their market, to facilitate communication and seamless deployment for the end user. By joining the GPA Network, we can collaborate with talented professionals in the AV industry and ensure the ultimate customer experience is delivered every time. We look forward to engaging with each local GPA business unit to build a strong relationship and solidify mutual growth plans.

GPA has a proven track record working with Sony Electronics in America, which worked with AVI Systems (GPA Regional Business Unit in America) on a ‘tech in a box’ meeting room, offered through a financial model. Meeting room technology packages are available for a monthly fee, allowing key technology to be tested without significant expense, minimizing risk, and facilitating upgrades with evolving technologies. Sony, together with GPA, can provide these innovative business models for customers to seamlessly deploy technology to make businesses more streamlined and competitive in 2022 and beyond.

“As business needs increase globally, at Sony we are taking steps to continue our transformation. Being able to provide solutions to our customers regionally and internationally is critical and we view GPA as an important partner in delivering Pro AV technology to our customers,” says Rich Ventura, Vice President B2B, Sony Electronics Professional Imaging Products & Solutions Division, North America. “Their mastery of standardization, knowledge of best practices, and ability to leverage the strengths of their member organizations reinforce our best solutions. Together, we are implementing a streamlined process that emphasizes quality, expertise, speed and scalability and supports our shared commitment to delivering a superior end-to-end experience for our customers.

“We’ve done some exciting things with Sony regionally over the past year, not only from a technology solution design perspective, but also in concepts like business model innovation,” says Byron Tarry, CEO of GPA. “I am very pleased to see the global strategic relationship now formalized into a comprehensive partnership agreement and plan and look forward to the successes we all know to come under the huge market opportunity.”