Sony introduces high-end ZD9 TV series with HDR

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Gillietalls

Ha Ha! Just a respect thing. You two would be Mr. Penton-Man and Mr. Robert respectively...

My personal claim to fame is that I received my doctorate before Mrs. Penton-Man did, but you’ve encouraged me with your flattery. Allow me a few moments while I type up a detailed addendum to one of the previous posts on the last page to show my appreciation.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

....subjective response to the imagery is of paramount importance...

For example, I offer a historical retrospective, which few are aware of to this day….and certainly no AV journalists or tweet hounds vying to amass as many *likes* or *followers* as they can.

Back in early spring of 2012, Dolby submitted the PQ curve for an EOTF based upon human perception for use with UHDTV to the respective ITU working party (the same group responsible for producing the recently released milestone ITU-R BT.2100). Anyway, during the discussions in that particular spring meeting, committee members expressed much skepticism about the value or need for having a TV capable of higher brightness and deeper black levels. The working party did not accept this objective based proposal (containing measurements, numbers, graphs) partly because there was not an appreciation that increased dynamic range would have value in a new TV system and partly because it was too new (visionary/revolutionary).

Soooo, 6 months later, Dolby provided another input document to the working party, this time which contained and described the subjective test results for viewer preference for white and black light levels. There were 34 study participants (among other things, who were classified into 3 age groups in order to approximate age-related effects of the human visual system <- a detail which I don't think has been mentioned in any of the online SMPTE presentations available to the public).

This later proposal was accepted and voilà….years later, we are where we are today.

[Trojanlaw777]

[QUOTE=Robert Zohn;12592619]True ^^ at retail as well. Since we wall mounted our 1st Z9D we're had a rush of new visitors to see this beauty in person.

So I see that you have it directly accross from the OLED. Understanding that you are still waiting for actual measurements, can you provide just your general impressions on how the image looks different on the two displays? I am assuming it great on both but I am also assuming the Sony is brighter. How does the color depth, image depth, sharpness, shadow detail compare. Do you see any major differences, even with the brightness capabilities. Just looking for a quick non-technical impression. Thx

[mutelight]

Well the 75" arrived yesterday and I have been putting it through its paces. It is official, I am an owner!!!

I simply cannot believe how bright it gets and its overall color rendition. Having owned numerous plasmas and LCDs (no OLED) I can safely say it has the most stunning image quality I have ever seen. Raw light output aside, I have never seen colors this accurate, especially right out of the box. Since this is my first HDR set I have checked out a bunch of 4K Blu-rays but even the 4K streams of SDR content from Netflix looks fantastic.

Sorry for the cell phone shots in advance and also what looks like some blooming in the second shot is not visible to the eye and is likely a result of my phone's camera taking two exposures and how it pieced it back together.



Here are two more shots, this time without HDR to get rid of the double exposure smearing, then a close up of the white text on a dark background. I am unsure how many individual LEDs they use but it is sufficient for what appears to be great control. Keep in mind the second shot is very close to the TV and even then the phone camera represents things differently from what you see in person but it should give a decent representation.

[DJR662]

Outstanding!

Congratz and enjoy!

[Geoff D]

Holy shit, that shot of The Martian looks amazing.

[DJR662]

I just got the 75X940D this June, ain't no way in Hell I can justify to the misses buying the Z9D. If I had known a new Sony flagship TV was coming this year, I would have waited.

[goldenarm84]

TV looks amazing, blows my Sony X850d out of the water.

[JustThatPenguin]

Wow those screenshots look great!! Youre making me 2nd guess my recent lg e6 oled purchase. Just Google and read up on this TV. On paper at least, it looks promising.

[ray0414]

Originally Posted by JustThatPenguin

Wow those screenshots look great!! Youre making me 2nd guess my recent lg e6 oled purchase. Just Google and read up on this TV. On paper at least, it looks promising.

There are pluses and minuses to each tv. Depends which you prefer.

[JustThatPenguin]

Originally Posted by ray0414

There are pluses and minuses to each tv. Depends which you prefer.

Well the main reason I got an oled is because most of my movie viewing is at night. So I didn't really care for oled not being as bright. Thus suposibly reducing hdr capabilities. My tv gets delivered on Tuesday. So we'll see.

[mutelight]

So just for giggles I decided to take a video with my camera phone of the TV running the Mad Max 4K Blu-ray and as you can see, the camera has lens flares even on the OSD! Then with the lighting flashes it completely flares out my camera.

Obviously this is a goofy test since the camera can't handle it but thought I would share anyway to give you an idea of how powerfully bright it can get.

Sony Z9D Mad Max - YouTube

[DJR662]

Originally Posted by mutelight

So just for giggles I decided to take a video with my camera phone of the TV running the Mad Max 4K Blu-ray and as you can see, the camera has lens flares even on the OSD! Then with the lighting flashes it completely flares out my camera.

Obviously this is a goofy test since the camera can't handle it but thought I would share anyway to give you an idea of how powerfully bright it can get.

Sony Z9D Mad Max - YouTube

Whoa! The lightning is really flashing, even judging from this video. Does appear to be much, much brighter than on my 75X940D.

[Penton-Man]

Geez, this thread is dead and is slowly drifting down into the catacombs of the forum. Give me a moment to think of at least an accessory bump up.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Stacey Spears

...Seattle...in Seattle....Seattle,

Real world (possibly life changing) recommendation. For those members whose parents or grandparents suffer from diabetes which is causing eye problems, or for that matter, people with any retinal problem (e.g. detachment), although her profile at the moment is not yet published on the official website (http://ophthalmology.washington.edu/ ) as she starts clinic visits in a couple weeks….

I highly recommend Lisa O. who is moving up north to join the staff at UW in Seattle from USC, where among other things, she was a primary investigator on the clinical trials for what the public knows as 'the bionic eye'….http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/lo...262645641.html , or more properly named, the Argus II retinal prosthetic device.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

True ^^ at retail as well. Since we wall mounted our 1st Z9D we're had a rush of new visitors to see this beauty in person.

Here's two quick cell phone pics.

Back on the entertainment topic, Robert, forget about the Z9D and handling HDR content for a moment, how does the Zed do with compressed cable TV or satellite source with regards to upscaling and motion as compared to the flagship OLEDs from LG? This is an important consideration for those folks who watch content other than Ultra HD Blu-ray movies.

Is it possible for you to run a popular television drama and soccer or pre season football games side by side simultaneously on those two types of displays in your retail store without ruffling any feathers and spill the beans to readers?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

...and spill the beans to readers?

so that fact. rather than speculation, rules.

[Robert Zohn]

We'll be doing that and more shortly. I need a little more time to prepare, breaking them in and calibrating the TVs, then testing so we can properly evaluate the displays. I want to know all of the facts to know all of the definitive and accurate answers.

Up-converting FHD to the panels native 2160p resolution is one of the important comparisons to evaluate.

With CEDIA in less than 2-weeks and the 75" Z9D just arriving this week my comments will likely be available by the end of the month.

At this time I can take the leap and say that concerning the overall picture quality, OLED still looks best in low ambient light and the Z9D is likely best for high ambient light. Also if you want a 75" display, Sony's Z9D price point makes it the best price/performance choice. Both have very good processing, but we'll hold off for now on saying which is better with FHD processing to UHD.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

We'll be doing that and more shortly....but we'll hold off for now on saying which is better with FHD processing to UHD.

Looking forward to that parameter being evaluated (without bias) as I think you are in the unique position to watch the content simultaneously almost side-by-side whereas others might have to rely upon their memories.

[Stacey Spears]

My 65" Z9D arrived today, thank you Robert.

We did some initial measurements today. A lot of it was going through and turning settings on and off. Looked at some sample clips. We will be measuring a lot more tomorrow. I will post some graphs this weekend.

If you go into vivid mode and set everything to 11, it will do ~1887 nits in a 10% (area) window. Using the non-vivid (a proper) mode, its ~1700 nits at D65 in a 10% window. Full screen we were getting around 700 nits. The D65 is important because claims are rarely made at D65 as it is dimmer.

I think we measured ~92-94% (I forget, so many displays today) of P3, but I don't recall if that is u'v' or xy. e.g. It is 64% of 2020 xy and 73% u'v'. The Panasonic is 65% of 2020 xy and 74% u'v'. You can see why companies want to measure % of P3 and not 2020.

My banding clip looks great! They have a gradient smoothing feature that even makes the 8-bit smooth. I plan to stick with that feature off though.

Need to figure out which picture controls need to be enabled/disabled (e.g marketing gimmicks) and which need to be left on. (e.g backlight) And then what setting / level to use on a control. (e.g. backlight)

It does okay on the starfield. Here is a relative scale. LG OLED is the best and Samsung JS 9500 is on the other end of the scale. The Z9D is somewhere in between.

We played one of the Sony HDR demo clips of the Vegas strip. When a casino sign, such as the Vegas or Paris sign, was in the corner with black filling up the rest of the frame, the black was black. If you asked how much more black could it be, I would probably answer, none more black.

Its bright! It has a mode that lets you adjust the level of brightness. It is called something like x-tended range. It has high, medium, low and off. The ~1700 nits was in the high mode. I think this might be the control you adjust if you find it too bright in a dark room.

Unlike one of the UHDA Premium logo'd displays, this one can output 1700 nits as long as you can tolerate it vs. dropping a thousandth nits after 5-10 seconds.