If the latest Sony LCD Full Led TVs do support variable refresh rate (VRR), this support comes at the cost of disabling local dimming (the management of the different backlight zones). This means that the contrast, and especially the impact of HDR content, is reduced since the television cannot increase the brightness on only one part of the image. This problem due to a limitation of the management of the backlighting system by the Sony XR Cognitive processor is now history.
The new firmware 6.5929 finally fixes this defect on the X90J, X95J and Z9J televisions of 2021 as well as on the new X90K, X95K and Z9K models of this year. Owners of these televisions can finally benefit from VRR – which eliminates image tearing and jerks – and very good HDR rendering. Owners of Sony Oled televisions are not affected, as are those who benefit from a lower-end television equipped with a Direct-Led or Edge-Led backlighting system.
Sony’s electronics division will therefore have taken some time to properly integrate the VRR. Promised on 2020 televisions, VRR support only finally arrived at the end of 2021 on the XH9005 series (which is not affected by this update) and it took until the summer of 2022 to have a full VRR support with HDR rendering worthy of the name. We invite all owners of the models concerned to carry out this upgrade which should bring a visible gain in the games.