Sony removes Youtube app from 50 BRAVIA smart TV models

Owners of Sony BRAVIA smart TVs from 2012 will no longer be able to view Youtube content on the TVs after the 30th of September this year. Sony reports that due to changes in the requirements for Youtube apps made by Google the TV will start to show freezing or black screens. Also video playback will be halted.

bravia-App-icon-change_01

ADVERTISEMENT

Sony explains on its website what the culprit is, "The symptoms being experienced are not a failure of the TV, but are as a result of specification changes made by YouTube that exceed the capability of the TV’s hardware. As a result, Sony have decided to remove the YouTube icon for the 2012 Bravia TVs on 30th September 2016."

With the removal of the icon, the Youtube app will also no longer work.  It's unclear what changes Google is going to make to Youtube that is causing the app to exceed the capability of the TV's hardware. More than 50 Sony BRAVIA TV models are affected by the change, a list can be found here. The Youtube app on other models will continue to work.

Smart TV owners are at the mercy of TV manufacturers and app developers, earlier Skype stopped supporting Skype for TV which resulted the app being removed from e.g smart TVs from Samsung.

ADVERTISEMENT

No posts to display