I want to think Samsung has better capability when it comes to the numbers of file formats you can play (Maybe Sony has caught up). I have had stories of folks who could not play some formats on their Sony. Anyone ever experienced this?.
I know Samsung will play just about anything you throw at it from .ogg, .flac, .flv, .mpg, .mp4, .mkv and so on. Only issue might be the windows proprietary formats.
I have had a 40" LED 1080P Samsung
http://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs/UN40C5000QFXZA for 2 years now. I didn't even bother to buy an external player. I just hook up my external drive via USB and viola!!. It reads FAT, NTFS and even Linux file systems (EXT2, EXT3).
The picture and sound quality is great.
I just might try a Sony next time am shopping for a unit. Just to have a feel.