HDTVTEST (Vincent Teoh) Discussion Thread

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by Derb

Id agree if the Samsung QN90B (Which is brighter) exhibited similar bloom.

But that's down to Samsung's philosophy and approach to local dimming, which is the opposite of Sony's. It's like Vincent demonstrated in his video on the X95K posted above. I mean, that's a TCL, but Samsung do the exact same thing of dimming smaller highlights and crushing shadow detail to give you the deepest possible blacks and minimizing blooming. Sony prioritize accuracy, so you get the intended brightness (within the capabilities of any given Sony TV, of course) at the expense of more blooming.

Either approach has its supporters and detractors. Personally, if I have to choose, I prefer Sony's way of doing things.

[teddyballgame]

^^ Yup, Samsung believes hiding blooming is the most important task even if parts of the image will deviate substantially from the reference. Sony is not as hung up on blooming they are focused on being as accurate as possible within the limitations of the tech. E.g. If letterbox bars bloom a bit so that detail just above or below isn't crushed then so be it.

Samsung is still trying to make their LCDs appear to have similar levels of contrast as OLED but by doing so they fudge the image imo.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by MechaGodzilla

But that's down to Samsung's philosophy and approach to local dimming, which is the opposite of Sony's. It's like Vincent demonstrated in his video on the X95K posted above. I mean, that's a TCL, but Samsung do the exact same thing of dimming smaller highlights and crushing shadow detail to give you the deepest possible blacks and minimizing blooming. Sony prioritize accuracy, so you get the intended brightness (within the capabilities of any given Sony TV, of course) at the expense of more blooming.

Either approach has its supporters and detractors. Personally, if I have to choose, I prefer Sony's way of doing things.

It's just a shame they can't do per-zone control to mitigate the blooming further, the ZD9 still amazes me every single day with how well it controls it. Not that it doesn't have any blooming, that's nonsense, of coursh it does (and just watch it crap itself with a fade in or out on a starfield or similar type image) but it still seems leagues betterer than the X95K with things like subtitles.

[DAT_JB]

I would also say if blooming and contrast are the most critical things for you then you should buy a OLED as that's probably the two things where the OLED has the biggest advantage over an LED/LCD.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by DAT_JB

I would also say if blooming and contrast are the most critical things for you then you should buy a OLED as that's probably the two things where the OLED has the biggest advantage over an LED/LCD.

I’d honestly rather have the Zed’s blooming than the near-black gunk of OLED (for which some brands the solution is to crush near black tones, not unlike what those LCD sets do to control blooming!) plus silliness like ASBL. I’m not sure I could put up with the X95K’s blooming however, it really does seem as if the Zed is some kind of unicorn and I hope it never dies.

If/when it does then yes, I will begrudgingly buy an OLED and will prolly be very happy with it in the long term…once I’ve tested it to death and found exactly what its weaknesses are so I know that whatever artefacts I’m seeing are due to the display rather than the source.

[d3nt0n]

Calibration fixes most of the black crush issues. And the issue with ASBL is overblown, I've never even noticed it kick in unless I pause a video for a few minutes.

[lgans316]

As per some of the owners and ex-owners of ZD9, 75/85 inch models exhibit less blooming but Sony have to step up their game with zones (light control at zone level) and stop resting on past laurels.

Even the budget Hisense U8H appears to be over delivering for a third of Sony's asking price.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by d3nt0n

Calibration fixes most of the black crush issues. And the issue with ASBL is overblown, I've never even noticed it kick in unless I pause a video for a few minutes.

Overblown to you, a chronic issue for others when watching Dune or The Batman or Unforgiven or any other constantly low-APL movie that LG’s algorithm is too dumb to recognise. You may not have an LG, Sonys and Pannys seem much betterer, or those that do may have turned off ASBL in the service menu, so it’s not ultra widespread but I’ll never go near an LG OLED.

As for dat near-black nastiness, that also varies from one manufacturer to another, even from one model to another by the same brand, and not all permit the same level of ultra-fine near-black calibration as, say, a Pannysonic would do.

It’s a bit of a crapshoot, but then so is TV buying in general.

Originally Posted by lgans316

As per some of the owners and ex-owners of ZD9, 75/85 inch models exhibit less blooming but Sony have to step up their game with zones (light control at zone level) and stop resting on past laurels.

Even the budget Hisense U8H appears to be over delivering for a third of Sony's asking price.

I doubt that Sony will go full Zed ever again.

[DAT_JB]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I’d honestly rather have the Zed’s blooming than the near-black gunk of OLED (for which some brands the solution is to crush near black tones, not unlike what those LCD sets do to control blooming!) plus silliness like ASBL. I’m not sure I could put up with the X95K’s blooming however, it really does seem as if the Zed is some kind of unicorn and I hope it never dies.

If/when it does then yes, I will begrudgingly buy an OLED and will prolly be very happy with it in the long term…once I’ve tested it to death and found exactly what its weaknesses are so I know that whatever artefacts I’m seeing are due to the display rather than the source.

The ZD9 definitely stands out among the LDC's in regards to blooming and not only that but I can only share my experience with the XE90 I had before my B9 and the blooming, especially of subs, made me turn those off almost completely and in the end to get a OLED. ASBL is a major problem though easily fixable if you simply turn it off with a service remote e.g.

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I doubt that Sony will go full Zed ever again.

Only time will tell.

I had the ZH8 for a brief period. It had excellent HDR in very high APL scenes but the rest was a dud against the ZD9.

I did demo a 75Z9J in a Sony Centre. It was definitely a step up over the ZH8 but lacked contrast and blooming control in comparison the ZD9.

I do respect Sony's craftmanship but they are out of touch and losing to their competitors by overpricing and under delivering on the LCD front.

Overall I think Sony doesn't care although they have the resources to deliver a knock out LCD TV.

[Geoff D]

Yeah, they’re only persisting with LCD (as are most other manufacturers) because they can keep churning out supermarket specials, I don’t know why they’re bothering with high end LCD if they’re not going to push it to the limit, particularly because they’re charging massive prices as it is.

Or perhaps they think that the consumer attitude has cleanly bifurcated into brightness junkies and “perfect black” worshippers, so Sony are pushing brightness brightness brightness on their LCDs at the expense of everything else and the OLEDs are there for dem black levels. I mean, some head honcho at Sony said as much a few years back IIRC.

But even with just a few tweaks Sony’s LCDs could get their mojo black, like getting rid of that x-wide angle rubbish. Treat it more like a mastering monitor, not a family friendly set, and I think part of that mindset is what drove the ZD9’s development. Funny thing is, mine was starting to creak a bit with what looked like a discoloured strip appearing but since I moved the room around the discolouration has gone, in fact the uniformity is now the best I’ve ever seen it. There’s life in the old girl yet

[Member-425016]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yeah, they’re only persisting with LCD (as are most other manufacturers) because they can keep churning out supermarket specials, I don’t know why they’re bothering with high end LCD if they’re not going to push it to the limit, particularly because they’re charging massive prices as it is.

Or perhaps they think that the consumer attitude has cleanly bifurcated into brightness junkies and “perfect black” worshippers, so Sony are pushing brightness brightness brightness on their LCDs at the expense of everything else and the OLEDs are there for dem black levels. I mean, some head honcho at Sony said as much a few years back IIRC.

But even with just a few tweaks Sony’s LCDs could get their mojo black, like getting rid of that x-wide angle rubbish. Treat it more like a mastering monitor, not a family friendly set, and I think part of that mindset is what drove the ZD9’s development. Funny thing is, mine was starting to creak a bit with what looked like a discoloured strip appearing but since I moved the room around the discolouration has gone, in fact the uniformity is now the best I’ve ever seen it. There’s life in the old girl yet :rofl:

I've been having this issue as well. I notice it more as time goes on. I'm extremely worried. I have my 55" 930D as backup, but that is nowhere near the quality of my Z model.
I'm not looking for an excuse to upgrade. I Want to keep it.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Filmfan73

I've been having this issue as well. I notice it more as time goes on. I'm extremely worried. I have my 55" 930D as backup, but that is nowhere near the quality of my Z model.
I'm not looking for an excuse to upgrade. I Want to keep it.

Get a micro fibre cloth and gently rub the affected area. Also do this to the TV. It might sound like an old wives’ tale but it genuinely works, whenever I’ve had to move the TV it always produced a ‘cloud’ from the flexing of the panel but giving it a gentle rub always sorted it. And having to move it from one side of the room to the other seemed to flex it enough that it sorted the discoloured strip.

[teddyballgame]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Overblown to you, a chronic issue for others when watching Dune or The Batman or Unforgiven or any other constantly low-APL movie that LG’s algorithm is too dumb to recognise. You may not have an LG, Sonys and Pannys seem much betterer, or those that do may have turned off ASBL in the service menu, so it’s not ultra widespread but I’ll never go near an LG OLED.

As for dat near-black nastiness, that also varies from one manufacturer to another, even from one model to another by the same brand, and not all permit the same level of ultra-fine near-black calibration as, say, a Pannysonic would do.

It’s a bit of a crapshoot, but then so is TV buying in general.


I doubt that Sony will go full Zed ever again.

Yep, OLED makes a fantastic first impression but over time you will notice they aren't perfect. A good calibration helps mitigate the issue but you really have to do a lot of diagnosing to figure out that particular panels near black "danger zone" I tend to think the solution is to actually raise the luminance floor to where you can actually get reliable proper gradient steps at low dynamic range. Sony did this to an extent and it has helped, but I think Panasonic does it to an even greater degree. Panasonic seemingly goes the hardest on their panels and I think it's partly an effort to avoid all those flakey current levels at the low end and thus eliminating most artefacting. By doing so everything else has to shift up accordingly and so you get higher APL etc. Not that I would mind that, it beats having to see any flashing artefacts even if the cost is a small loss to what is already very strong contrast.

Here's a chart I found interesting because it shows Panasonic who is known for accuracy pushing wrgb oled harder than one might expect considering they know full well about the white subpixel dilusion effect. I think they're picking their poison very keenly. I don't know if these measurements are taken from actual content or a simple test pattern. The new S&M discs are said to have much improved patterns (more akin to real content) for this test and I can't wait to see. I heard it's going to be 3 discs . It's interesting reviewers rarely try to quantify performance on the low end.

Originally Posted by lgans316

I do respect Sony's craftmanship but they are out of touch and losing to their competitors by overpricing and under delivering on the LCD front.

Overall I think Sony doesn't care although they have the resources to deliver a knock out LCD TV.

I do think there's something special about a high end LCD when done properly by a company like Sony. Initially I was wondering why Robert (from VE) chose to include the X95K in what we all knew would primarily a dark room shootout, but the more I think about it I'm glad he did. It's good to have that tech represented so that Sony knows we still care about it and would like to see it reach its potential again. Frankly it looked amazing on the Mad Max FR test scene and held its own in a lot of aspects.

[Geoff D]

I recall Vincent Teoh pointing that out to a colourist who was hosting a promo session for Panny OLED a few years ago, how it lost colour in higher luminance areas vs the Sony BVMX300 that they had in the grading suite. That’s pretty much a feature of WRGB OLED anyway, I think it’s Lightillusion who’ve been brave enough to say that WRGB is essentially broken for HDR accuracy because of how badly the white sub pixel scatters the colour.

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Overblown to you, a chronic issue for others when watching Dune or The Batman or Unforgiven or any other constantly low-APL movie that LG’s algorithm is too dumb to recognise. You may not have an LG, Sonys and Pannys seem much betterer, or those that do may have turned off ASBL in the service menu, so it’s not ultra widespread but I’ll never go near an LG OLED.

And not just movies, but I've seen what it can do in games and that's a big turn off for me. Luckily, some brands are better than others, and it especially seems that QD-OLED is a big step forward in this regard as well. I like what I've seen of the A95K.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yeah, they’re only persisting with LCD (as are most other manufacturers) because they can keep churning out supermarket specials, I don’t know why they’re bothering with high end LCD if they’re not going to push it to the limit, particularly because they’re charging massive prices as it is.

Or perhaps they think that the consumer attitude has cleanly bifurcated into brightness junkies and “perfect black” worshippers, so Sony are pushing brightness brightness brightness on their LCDs at the expense of everything else and the OLEDs are there for dem black levels. I mean, some head honcho at Sony said as much a few years back IIRC.

That was Gavin McCarron! Back in early 2020, during CES. AVF mentioned that lots of people were disappointed about the blooming on Sony's X9 series TVs, and asked if that's something Sony were going to address. The answer boiled down to, exact quote: "If blacks bars is a really kind of big concern, OLED TVs will give you those very, very dark black bars, and again won't compromise on shadow detail as well."

And yeah, I genuinely think that's part of it. The Z9D (or ZD9 for us Europeans) came in during those years after plasma had died and WRGB OLED just made its debut. There was incentive for them to chase that great all-around performance in an LCD TV.

The very next year, 2017, they introduced the A1 OLED as their new top 4K model, and OLED has increasingly taken over the premium market since. Now that they've got this display tech that has inherently perfect blacks and "infinite" contrast, why try to match that as close as possible with their LCDs?

But even with just a few tweaks Sony’s LCDs could get their mojo black, like getting rid of that x-wide angle rubbish. Treat it more like a mastering monitor, not a family friendly set, and I think part of that mindset is what drove the ZD9’s development. Funny thing is, mine was starting to creak a bit with what looked like a discoloured strip appearing but since I moved the room around the discolouration has gone, in fact the uniformity is now the best I’ve ever seen it. There’s life in the old girl yet

Heh, a thought I've had. We now have IPS panels with native contrast ratios equal to Sony's X-Wide Angle-equipped VA panels, so if they insist on making wide viewing angles a feature, they might as well go for IPS and skip X-Wide altogether. The end result should be about the same, right?

I'm glad to hear the Z is still going strong! The longer it lasts, the better. Not just in terms of getting your money's worth, but also in the sense of OLED being more refined every year, so with each year that passes your options will be better when the time comes to buy a new TV.

Personally speaking, I'm hoping to see both QD-OLED panels and heatsinks trickle down to lower-end models. We're already seeing the latter; Panasonic introduced the heatsink solution and now both Sony and LG have jumped aboard. And Panasonic themselves are now putting the heatsink on the 1500 and 1000 series OLEDs in addition to the top 2000 series.

[Geoff D]

I was thinking the same re: IPS, with a top-quality per-zone backlight then it should give excellent contrast and still have that verdammt wide viewing angle.

[I DO BLU]

YouTube

[Jay Mammoth]

Man, I wish the Panasonics were available here. Have to say my C1 is amazing and I know my G2 will be even better.

[Robert Zohn]

LG's G2 is a very nice upgrade from the formidable C1.

With Sony's new flagship A95K Master Series QD OLED at the very top of every professional reviewers choice even when compared to Panasonic's LZ2000 I don't think we're missing anything in the premium TV category.