Calibrating The OLED

[LogMeIn]

This is absolutely pathetic. Using an i1 display pro, I measured every color space for the 55EA9800 and colors are so far off, it's shocking for such an expensive tv.

Also, grayscale was so bad, I had to do MAJOR changes across the 20 points to get it good and it has terrible gamma, too. And on most contrast tests it had MAJOR white clipping that even lowering oled light and contrast to ZERO didn't seem to fix. I don't know if I somehow got a dud or what is wrong, but this is hopeless trying to calibrate this one.

I wish someone would be nice and tell me how to unlock the ISF modes, but doesn't look like anyone is going to. And I doubt they will magically fix this bad of color, but maybe will have enough tools to fix gamma.

Looks like I was right when I told someone my first impressions of this set, when I said the colors looked way off, kind of like fake neon crazy colors, and that's with recommended settings from two different pro sites.

Also it seems to crush blacks in brightness tests which can't seem to be fixed without raising brightness so high that it no longer has good blacks. I guess maybe the brightness and contrast issues are tied back to gamma being so terrible, too.

I have no clue what to try next. Meanwhile I got outstanding grayscale, color accuracry, and gamma in ISF Night mode of my 101fd.

[Robert Zohn]

Glad to hear you purchased an OLED.

Other than an error in the secondary color cyan we don't see any serious color decoding errors out of the box.

The 20 point CMS does not perform properly so if you are not hiring a highly skilled professional calibrator I strongly suggest leaving it untouched as the default settings are about as good as they can turn out even after adjusting them.

Our TV Shootout panel of experts/pro calibrators worked with LG's OLED design engineers to peak the performance of gray scale and gamma and with those special instructions we were able to get a reasonably flat gamma and gray scale tracking.

You LG dealer should be able to give you the password code to get into the ISF professional modes.

Just curious if OLED causes headaches like you experienced with LCD and PDP?

Enjoy!

-Robert

[LogMeIn]

Yeah, it's bothering me, as well. Although, it's mostly bothering my eyes more than my head this time. (In the past before my head issues, those started as eye issues too and for some reason changed to head issues). Basically, the kuro (I got a 101fd now, which yet again had elevated black level) does not bother me nearly as much so I as going to keep it, but the oled has so great clarity and detail, I hate to give up on it. And now I tweaked the 101fd voltages and it indeed helped black elvel, but now it hurts my head too, so I guess contrast may be part of what bothers my head, but I know it's not the only thing, so it's very confusing.

I actually managed to get a great grayscale out of the 20 point system. It took me SEVEN hours. lol I had read Chad B's review mentioning, among other things, that you have to keep bringing up menus, to change shapes on the screen where it doesn't trigger the ABL. It took me forever to fix the issues, but surprising to me the grayscale seemed to be very good when I was done. So I was happy for 2 minutes until I noticed the bad color accuracy issues and gamma issues.

I gave up because I couldn't see much of anything that could fix it. Chad had written that the color management system causes all kinds of problems in other areas, and plus my quick try of it showed it not helping. Gamma I could maybe get better for at least some areas, but all I have in expert 1 mode to mess with it is the single gamma setting.

I just wonder though if I truly got one with problem because the colors aren't just off, they're way, way off, in every single color space. Not much I can do unless I do try to get the CMS working ok somehow.

With the 101fd, I was amazed at the depth after I was done. But with this I haven't even watched it when I was done because I know it's going to be way off in color accuracy. Sigh. Maybe LG will give me some tips themselves.... I kind of doubt it, but who knows.

It's making me wish I had got the Samsung oled, though. I saw it available used for like $2400, but had JUST ordered this one. Thinking back I'd rather have the used Samsung than the new condition lg, I think. Seems like indeed some get the color accuracy to be acceptable, so maybe eventually I'll be happy with this or if mine is truly faulty lg would replace it.

[Robert Zohn]

Check out some of the charts, color is not far off in the primary and secondary colors except for cyan. I suggest resetting the CMS and checking it before any adjustments. It should be much better than you are reporting.

-Robert

[LogMeIn]

I don't have anything set in the CMS. I even measured colors in expert2 without changing anything color-related n it, and they showed as being so far off, it's crazy. And I bet if it's faulty, LG would think I'm just complaining about normal out of the box color errors. This meter got expected results on the kuro so it's not the meter, so something is up, one way or another. It showed some colors off by over 10% saturation and all but like one color were nowhere near the squares, if I remember correctly. Then in some of the other color spaces (I used bt709 and standard as possible choices originally) they didn't even get a single color accurate.

I was so frustrated, I didn't even try much with the CMS. Chad b had posted that the CMS messes things up so I figured he somehow calibrated it without touching those, in the end, but there's no way this faulty of colors can be fixed without the CMS, so I don't know what's wrong. I should show someone a report of it where a calibrator can tell me flat out if it would have to be faulty to look like this.

[LogMeIn]

Wow. I just read david's review on cnet and looked at his charts. Notice they are way, way, way off, even on his post calibration, and he talks bad about almost every single aspect of the tv except black level and still raves about it.

He says all kinds of color issues, his average grayscale error is four times that of my kuro's, the color error on average is almost 2, whereas I have my kuro down at 1.3. The gamma is all over the place. He mentions the poor motion and input lag. Not to bash LG, but this is an expensive tv and they did nothing other than get the tech for oled to have great blacks and then apparently didn't get a single other aspect to be good. And they didn't even get it to last well, as everyone has dead pixels and burn in.

I know firsthand how amazing the contrast is, but that's one good thing out of many possible ones. I am wishing I had gone ahead and bought that used Samsung one. Blah. I am holding out hope that I get the ISF modes and those improve some of this, at least.

[LogMeIn]

This has been a real disaster. I may have to just keep using the settings a review gave because the picture after calibrating is far worse than before it. It looks dull and lifeless and on the cie graph all the colors looks close to the squares and they are all showing as close to proper saturation, yet it says blue s way, way off. I don't know what it's basing it on with it touching the square and showing as about normal saturation. Gamma is way off. I don't know what's wrong, but I wasted so much time getting gray balance good just to have a lifeless picture as a result.

[LogMeIn]

I still can't find any help, the pic looks bland and much worse after calibration, and a popular calibrator seems to be saying there aren't any ISF day or night modes and I guess he's saying that chad was just calling the expert modes that.

I really feel like I wasted money and especially time getting the meter. The kuro seems washed out after calibration and the colors seem off and the oled just seems bad in every way you can think of. If I knew calman would be better than the free software I used, I'd buy that, but everyone told me the meter was so great, too, and that feels like a waste of money at this point. I kind of think I preferred both before calibration and they were NOT in torch modes, so it's not that I want something like that. I was using pure mode with about 29ftl 100% output.

[LogMeIn]

When watching good content it actually looks like more depth than it was, so the calibration helped in that regard. Color accuracy shows way off, though, and I wonder if HCFR is bad about color accuracy because on the kuro its showing as slightly oversaturated, while watching content sure seems udnersaturated to me.

[LogMeIn]

Still nobody to help me and no clue how anyone could possibly get gamma or colors right on this. Several grand spent on this and its color accuracy and gamma worse than a $200 tv and nobody to help me.

[Robert Zohn]

This display is best when calibrated by a professional and it's important to have it done by someone with much experience and skill on this particular OLED TV.

This is not a consumer calibrateable display.

-Robert

[LogMeIn]

I know it's best when professionally done, but after buying the equipment (which was recommended on here, so I am sure not going back to my first plan of paying more) it's all I can do. Plus nobody will come here and calibrate it, anyway. Everyone I have contacted has either ignored me or been rude or doesn't come to my area.

When it comes down to it, if you have decent equipment, anyone can calibrate something to be at least good. No matter who is doing the calibrating, they have the same settings to utilize as everyone else. All there is for gamma is one global gamma setting. It's not like there are a lot of settings that can be utilized. Other than white balance settings and the CMS settings, three's barely anything else there for this display. And CHad claimed that CMS useage causes many other problems, so that makes me assume he didn't use it much.

[LogMeIn]

I really think I just flat have a faulty set and if I tell LG "the colors are way off" they will think I'm some dumdum who doesn't know to change picture modes. I may have to remind them of other issues I had I the beginning. The problem is if they do agree, they will likely give me a 2014 model, which is worse in color accuracy, apparently.

I read on another site where an experienced calibrator said that my model (EA9800) had so close to perfect grayscale and color accuracy that he didn't need to use the 20 point or the CMS. That is flat out NOT the case with mine. With all the proper basic settings, such as turning off everything, using BT709, etc... AND even using the 2 point scale, my grayscale and colors are way way WAY WAY WAY off.

Every single color, IIRC, had higher than 4.0 error! Much of the grayscale was u around 3 or 4 also. I had to do major, major changes all through the grayscale 20 points to fix that, but there was no way to fix color. It's still way off on most of them.

When I change the x and y coordinates for blue, it doesn't even freakin move it on the chart. So something is extra messed up for blue.

I may try to get a sued Samsung and whether or not I do that I am going to have to try to get lg to replace this set. It may turn out that since my build date was into 2014 that maybe this is the 2014 model's panel and maybe that's why color is so bad. I don't know, but this is unusable. After this mess of calibrating I watched a little actual content and it's flat way off.