Our 4King benders are so ace we're going full OLED, says LG Will 2015 be the year that upstart OLED TVs finally catch on with the TV buying public? LG, long time advocate of the futuristic panels, believes so. At its recent annual trade preview held at Mercedes-Benz World in Surrey, the company declared it was revving up OLED panel production and spread-betting on 4K UHD across the …
>High dynamic range. This makes recording in the dark clearer to see, although not sure how this translates on Tele?
Imagine a photograph of a white car on a sunny day. With a traditional camera, you have use an exposure appropriate to the environment, and your 'output' is a piece of paper, with white being the brightest and black being the darkest. In your printed photograph, the car would appear to be just as bright as the sun - the dynamic range is constrained by the paper.
Now, imagine if your output was formed of pixels, each of which could either be as bright as the sun or as dark as a coal mine. The white car would appear white, but your eyes would now perceive the sun - and highlights on the car - as being far brighter. This display would be far closer to how we perceive the everyday world around us than a paper print - or traditional LED TV - could be.
For this to work, the whole workflow - from camera, through editing and onto the display - must contain extra information per pixel.
Your car dashcam is probably capturing a HDR information, but its output is a conventional LED screen. Because its purpose is to capture evidence (a license plate on a sunny day, or at night) rather than to give you a realistic image, it will massage its raw sensor data into a JPG.
DSLR cameras can dump their sensor data to a RAW file, allowing the photographer a little bit of margin over exposure at the post-processing stage.
This post has been deleted by its author
"I must have slept, what is HDR?"
High Dynamic Range.
Along with the other responses, in this particular context(*) however, it means the difference in brightness level between Full Off (black), and Full On (white) of the display technology - the wider the difference, the better.
Raw screen brightness is only half the equation, how black the blacks are, also factor in. It's kinda like the LCD vs Plasma debate all over again. Plasma has a darker black, but LCD overall is better in other areas. OLED has the technogical potential of doing better.
(*) HDR in the context of photography is a "different" thing. In Real Life(TM), dynamic range is just extraordinary, in space it's as wide as the physics can make it, on earth, atmosphere tends to make it fall short a bit, but it's still Holy Crap(TM) wide. Even though the human eye can't compete - it still rates as bloody good. Present day technology however, be it Film, CMOS, CCD, Plasma, LCD, OLED, etc, are just terribly narrow in comparison.
To address this, HDR photography involves taking a range of photos of different brightness of the same scene, and picking the best of the darks, middles and brights, and manipulating the images in software to make it narrower overall.
It does NOT magically give you a higher dynamic range, it just takes Real Life, and makes it fit within today's technology, so it looks nice.
So while HDR in future technology would most certainly be a good thing, I think we're a long, long way away.
>HDR photography involves taking a range of photos of different brightness of the same scene, and picking the best of the darks, middles and brights, and manipulating the images in software to make it narrower overall.
'Exposure bracketing' (taking several photos with different shutter speeds) is one way of generating a HDR file, but some modern DSLRs are already capable of capturing a higher dynamic range than a LCD or print can convey. Regardless of how it is generated, this file can be 'squashed' down to a final image that can either look tacky, or can look more realistic than a normal photograph.
Of course the issue is that our eyes are pretty darned good, continually adjusting to the lighting environment, and our brains do a lot of 'post processing' to give us the illusion of a wide, sharp field of view. If we look to a bright sky our pupils narrow, and if we look into the shadows our pupils dilate - our eyes don't take in all the dynamic range they are capable of simultaneously, but our brains make us think that we do. Of course our eyes have limits - hence welding masks and light vision goggles.
>So while HDR in future technology would most certainly be a good thing, I think we're a long, long way away.
Some of the pieces are falling into place: provision for the extra data (depth) per pixel is a part of Rec. 2020, which defines various aspects of UHD video.
"Lost all faith..." is correct, a few other TV vendors, including Sony, will occasionally or exclusively use LG-made panels.
LG sell a wide range of televisions, some said to be very very good, some said to be mediocre. This is usually reflected in the price, where one 1080p LG set can cost twice as much as another 1080 LG set of the same size.
"Good brand - investing in new TV tech instead of trying to flog the dying horse of LED/LCD. Proper innovation."
Some people are never happy (yes, I mean you AC).
LCD sells to a different market, where you get reasonable performance, for a more reasonable price.
If you were to ban everything except 4K OLED, you would entirely obliterate the TV sales industry overnight - because no-one could afford it. The next thing the engineers would get to work on, is a super-cheap version of 4K OLED, but because YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR, it will match the performance of traditional LCD.
And I bet you would still complain.
I think you miss my point - especially as no one talked about banning anything.
OLED technology is superior for display than LED/LCD - so if more companies were to invest in it then we would all get better quality televisions.
Unfortunately some of the big names in the industry have basically bottled it because it's too difficult for them and have decided to start boosting the colour on LED/LCD to the point where it is oversaturated and exceptionally bright.
Oh and guess what - they are trying to charge you as much for one of these quantum dot / SUHD TVs as you can buy a 4K OLED for.
Don't be fooled - OLED is the future - which could be here a lot sooner with more companies involved / investing.
"Oh and guess what - they are trying to charge you as much for one of these quantum dot / SUHD TVs as you can buy a 4K OLED for."
That's because a backlight high density array of blue leds plus the quantum dots costs about the same as oled and is brighter.
Quantum dots won't colour-shift over time though. OLEDs might do (the longevity debate is still running)
This is not only about brightness but about blown out highlights. Ever taken a photo of a building in shadow and had the cloudy sky turn into a blown out white that you cannot recover in post editing? With HDR you can have your sky the same cloudy colour whilst still being able to see the details in the dark building without introducing noise by trying to lighten the dark areas.
HDR displays have a wider colour gamut and require at least 10bit (some experts say we actually need 16bit upwards to make full use of it). You guys should really watch the Value Eelectronics HDTV shootout that industry experts attend each year.
http://valueelectronics.com/
That was my immediate reaction as well. What we want for our living room is a good upgrade to the display for our home cinema system, our living room pc and occasional channel hopping when using it as a telly. For my part the TV producers can take the rest of the "added value" (smart tv, 3D and the rest of it) and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.
The 55in and 65in LG LA9700 made for an excellent 4K panel for use as a monitor, forget all the Netfix rubbish and codec, your PC can handle all of this - price of units now cheap if can find them, and then there's the EA top-end curved panel, again can be found at reasonable cost point - sad thing is, all manufacturers have abandoned full array backlit in favour of edge technology - cheaper, but not great on overall picture quality.
LG have made some excellent top-end TV's of late and increased their warranty to three years, at least here in Asia - I'll get an OLED LG TV when price point comes down, but helps as in B2B space, so my cost is usually quite low - currently on the last decent Philips to hit the market here in Asia, love the lights, but would love a good OLED as a monitor for both my computer - Mac Pro, and media centre - mac mini.
The fine detail of 4K, combined with OLED’s perfect blacks and vibrant hues make virtually anything compelling viewing
Shitty content is still shit no matter what the reproduction quality is and vice-versa (within reason). Of course, like audio-phools, many home cinema enthusiasts like buying and/or tinkering with hardware and content delivery systems as an end in itself (which is fine if that is what you like to do) in which case content is less important (unless you similarly fetishise content aquisition too)
>Of course, like audio-phools, many home cinema enthusiasts like buying and/or tinkering with hardware
Anyone can tell the difference between looking through a window and looking at a TV displaying the same scene. This should tell you that there is clearly room for improvement, especially in the area of dynamic range.
Most people couldn't tell the difference between a reasonably good stereo system and a stupidly expensive one with cables made from the fleece that Jason and the Argonauts retrieved.
Yeah, some content is shit, and Tommy Cooper isn't going to be any funnier in 4K, but some people do enjoy beautiful cinematography and natural history.
>That would certainly explain the runaway success of 3DTV
For sure, the lack of depth perception is one way we can distinguish an image from reality. However, it is most noticeable with foreground objects against distant background objects. In addition, a lot of our depth perception doesn't require two eyes because our brains still perceive the same parallax from small movement of our heads - something that 3D specs can't replicate, but a moving camera can infer.
3D TV? There's as yet no such thing. You probably mean *stereoscopic* TV, which is not quite the same thing. It hasn't caught on as much as many thought because of several drawbacks of current implementations. I have a "3D" TV set (from LG) where the passive glasses are light and cost only a few pounds each so I have enough for everyone likely to be watching the TV (including clip-ons for glasses). I enjoy the occasional stereoscopic program (especially nature documentaries), but because the depth illusion is not complete, I think it looks less realistic than a 2D image. With a 2D image you expect it to stay the same when you move your head, but with a stereoscopic image you have an expectation of the relative position of objects changing as you move - e.g. being able to look around the back of an object. If you keep your head perfectly still you can get a great illusion of it being 3D, almost like looking through a window, but move even slightly and the brain subconsciously notices that the relative positions of near and far objects do not change and the illusion is shattered, giving a disquieting feeling of falseness, which may well be what causes some people to get headaches. The stereoscopic effect is also superb over a small range of angles and distances from the TV, but when there are several people watching the same TV set in the room, most are getting a second-rate stereoscopic experience because they are not at the optimum angle / distance.
That would certainly explain the runaway success of 3DTV
That will probably be because there was very little content that actually benefitted from being in 3D. From the nauseating "enhanced 3D" that sky sports shat out to the gratuitous throwing of things at the viewer for no apparent reason in films, there was obviously a serious shortage of experienced, or good, 3D directors and content producers. This situation wasn't helped because much TV / file content is a summary of vision filmed from further away than a human would naturally be and the further things are away the less the 3D effect. While having stuff in 3D is nice, it rarely added to the experience and then there were the problems with actually viewing it in 3D...
"Anyone can tell the difference between looking through a window and looking at a TV displaying the same scene. This should tell you that there is clearly room for improvement, especially in the area of dynamic range.
Most people couldn't tell the difference between a reasonably good stereo system and a stupidly expensive one with cables made from the fleece that Jason and the Argonauts retrieved."
I think you're being a little unfair there. I could equally say,
"Anyone can tell the difference between sitting in an auditorium listening to a concert and listening to the same concert on their home stereo. This should tell you that there is clearly room for improvement, especially in the area of dynamic range.
Most people couldn't tell the difference between a reasonably good TV and a stupidly expensive one with cables made from the fleece that Jason and the Argonauts retrieved."
Why's it always audio that gets the bashing?
You do realize that they are now filming porn using 4K cameras now, don't you? How's that for content. :-P
Seriously... a 4K screen that has enough clarity that if the incoming signal / image wasn't compressed to shit, it would be like looking out a window... and sips power when compared to a plasma or even an LED tv of the same size?
What's not to love?
LG OLEDs are already priced in the same bracket as the best Sony and Samsung LCD, so LG is already there ( although Samsung gives you more inches ).
If you're expecting them to attack the "Excellent Picture Quality at a reasonable price" segment, Panasonic's roaring success with their plasma line will discourage that market strategy.
I still have a "professional class" (whatever that really means) panasonic 42" display running as a TV. I'd replace it with something that natively had HDMI if I could find a display that was genuinely as good: the plasma has fantastic viewing angles, a nice glass screen which is pretty much child slobber proof and isn't easily scratched like a plastic display and the pixel accuracy and colour / black-to-white range is superb as well. The downside is that it's not HD but with the quality of the display few people actually notice that.
Currently I'm patiently waiting on OLED tech to see what comes out at a sane price.
"Until I have broadband capable of delivering 4K content without it buffering 20x during a show forget it. I cant even get 1080p content to do that but maybe 20% of the time.... :( american internet is sad for so many.
"
Why do you insist on *streaming* video? Even with normal 1080p HD definition you are better off downloading a 20GB+ video and playing from file than you are streaming the same definition in a format that has compressed it to 4GB so it fits down the bandwidth pipe. That's why a movie played from a bluray disc looks so much better than the same movie from an HD satellite channel in the same definition. It might take half a day or more to download a bluray quality film, but that's still quicker (and cheaper) than ordering a disc through the post, and you get exactly the same quality.
We have a 4K LG LED set. It was very reasonably priced, has a lovely display, and quite passable sound.
The UI, however, is an inconsistent maze with no thought as to the things you might actually want to do with a telly. The remote looks like a pound-shop clone, the "Magic Remote" is a fag to use, and the USB keyboard integration is laughable.
LG 'smart' TVs already have an app for at least Android - I've got it installed on my phone. It works as a remote, or as a handheld touchscreen with a mouse pointer which functions as a replacement for the magic remote. It is actually pretty useful, and has come in handy when the kids have left the remote somewhere and forgotten about it. So far it hasn't crashed on me.. The TV I have also seems to work as a cast sink for apps on Android - YouTube works well and there should be others.
Back on topic, I will probably not upgrade my main TV until 4K OLED HDR becomes mid-range, unless it breaks. I like stereo 3d, and when I saw LG had a new 4K passive 3D set out I was really hopeful that the double-res would mean that we could have a full 1080P passive 3d instead of the 540p we get now but apparently it doesn't work like that.
I am overall quite happy with my LG TV, but agree about the UI. I have however learned to navigate its bad UI, but the one thing that irks me is the lag between pressing a button and the TV set responding. Switching between one HDMI input and another can take as much as 10 seconds, and I often end up hitting a button multiple times thinking that the TV did not get the input. I also do not use the "magic" remote - it's a clumsy gimmick. I occasionally get reminded of its presence when a bass sound through the subwoofer rattles the shelf it lives on, and I get a red arrow appearing on the screen (I'll remember to remove its batteries one day!).
Five foot wide desk with a bendy screen, so the panel is always the same distance - immersive working..
Then at the flick of a switch, screen goes flat for feet up movie experience (Sorry for motion calibration).
10bit pipe, and full in screen LUT calibration.
Figure a 72inch might just do the job. Nope, that would be 68dpi - way too low res at a 2-3ft viewing distance.
Bugger. Will have to wait until 8K becomes mainstream (by which time my eyesight will have drifted that much further, that I'd probably be just fine with the bargain basement 4K version after all...)
"
Other than for confirmed bachelors, what is the point in a curved screen?
"
I frequently watch a program alone, with SWMBO watching a different program in the bedroom. You may come from an era when very few homes had more than one TV set, but these days many of us have a TV set per family member - because we all have different tastes and so tend to watch different things. Watching TV is not often a social occasion, so no need for the family to be together in one room unless it really is a program everyone wants to see. It's mainly teenagers who prefer to watch TV in a group, and that will be with friends rather than other family members.
Only thing holding me back from buying OLED is the burn-in. I remember wrestling with burn-in on a plasma I had for a brief weekend. Any static visuals like from video games can get trapped on the screen during long play sessions. Also plasma made a terrible buzzing sound that was only amplified by the acoustics of my room.
OLED can definitely burn in just like plasma but the management tech and operating parameters should mitigate this - along with being sensible. I have what's probably an 8 year old plasma and there is no burn in on it.
Amusingly LCDs shouldn't get burn in, but I've come across a few outstanding models that managed this feat... piss poor power regulation I'd guess.
My 11-year old Samsung 720p LCD has recently started exhibiting this. If I listen to a BBC radio channel on freeview, the big white section is still visible a couple of days later as a greenish tint. All my newer TVs let you turn the screen off and keep the audio on, but this one doesn't. I was kind of surprised, but I guess as the pixels age they don't switch as completely?
"I've never heard of OLED burn"
Like Plasma, OLED is a phosphor based display technology - and that inherently makes it suseptible to burn.
But as the technologies progress, the phosphors get better. Early Plasmas were so bad, the burn-in procedure (excuse the pun) took 6 months of having limited choice of what and how to display content to age the phosphors enough that they become more resiliant to burn.
That is entirely unreasonable, and foisting this onto even early adopters was probably a major cause of the technology dropping off the end of the earth - even if they did get better later on.
Another post mentioned burn in LCD, it's not quite like that, but the effect is very similar. LCD pixels get "sticky" if not exercised from a particular state, and become reluctant to swing once the electronics directs it to. It does have an "easy" fix however. Applied once every few months under harsh conditions, display a video or Gif or simlar, that flashes black and white (fast and slow) and let it run for an hour or so. There's even lots of software around that does this for you. It is reported that with early LCDs, if you abuse it for some years, it is properly stuck, and can't be fixed.
But again, as with Plasma, as the technology matured, the panels are better, and are less suseptable to sticking - nowadays (and for a while actually), you're unlikely to see it even under harsh conditions, and certainly never see it under "normal use" conditions, even if you never "massage" the display.
They use phosphors. They are not LEDs in the sense that regular LEDs are, but are more like the Electroluminescent technology. The phosphors suffer more than CRT types with ageing and burn in and the blues age worse.
OLED is fine in a phone as those don't have a huge life. But a 4K display ought to last 10+ years. Will these be much good after 4?
One of the biggest hurdles of OLED degradation isn't so much the "brightness" degredation it was that the different colours degraded at different rates. I understand that they've solved this problem, I'd guess from improved tech but also improved management of the output balance during the life of the device.
I have seen quotes of as low as 1500 hour life for phone OLEDS, which put me off - I don't like having to junk stuff after a couple of years. So what is the life of these screens? Quantum dot LED illuminators are claimed to have a life several times longer than OLEDS, and potentially just the illuminator could be replaced. With OLEDs, it's the whole thing.
About 6 years ago I got a media player with a small (about 1.8") OLED screen. 2 years ago, the blue and green had darkened considerably. Currently, the screen appears to be dark unless the room lights are turned off whereby a faint red image can be seen. No doubt the tech has improved over the intervening years, but as the sole point of these is superb picture quality, even a slight degradation after a few years is unacceptable for a TV. In the 40 Euro media player (it was priced the same as the LCD version for a limited period) I didn't mind so much, and it still plays MP3s alright although the track names can only be made out in pitch darkness.
Sod the curved idea, in my house the walls are still reasonably straight.
No, what I want is a screen that's so thin you can buy it as a roll and then just put in a wall like a poster. OLED should be able to deliver screens that only need thickness for rigidity, there's no depth required for backlights. A couple of those for my workroom wall and I'm happy :).
"Seriously, projection screens are being sold as "HD ready", "HD compatible" and similar nonsense."
Projection screens are textured and these monikers indicate the fineness of the texture.
A lot of older screens are only suitable for VGA 640*480 and look like shit at 800*600 or higher res - and the HD ones look bad when low-res projectors are used because you can clearly see every pixel.
traditional LED TV
haha, Am I that old that that sounds funny to me? LED, LCD, OLED, Plasma. They are all too new to be called traditional in my book. When one of them has been around for 50 years or so, then that term will be more appropriate. Of course, I'll likely be dead and gone in 50, but hey, its the thought that counts!
It won't be that long before CRT TV sets are sought after as "retro" gear like valve radio sets, and for that reason I sometimes regret chucking out my CRT TV and computer monitor that had sat in the attic for years. I fired up the TV before dumping it, and it surprised me how small and lousy the picture was compared to my present TV. It was a top-of-the-range set when I bought it with everyone remarking how great the "huge" picture was (I forget the size - maybe 40").
CRTs were crap by modern standards. Very heavy, power hungry, needing degaussing, buzzing power supplies...the list of downsides is considerable. Valve amplifiers at least look interesting, and good ones do sound quite reasonable when playing stuff which hasn't had the dynamic range compressed.
"Valve amplifiers at least look interesting, and good ones do sound quite reasonable"
The _only_ reason valve amplifiers "sound better" than solid state ones is that their distortion profile tends towards 3rd harmonics (soft rolloff clipping) on peaks rather than 5th or more on transistorised systems (hard clipping) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_sound
The problem is that even a 30W RMS system will clip on drumbeats, etc at reasonable listening volumes on uncompressed input, despite the average power for such volumes being less than 1W. I had a 600W/side mosfet system in the 80s which most listeners mistook for a valve system due to the lack of transient distortion at normal listening levels.
(Speakers impart their own distortion to audio. Having a 0.01% THD level at rated power isn't much use when the speakers are putting 5-10% into the system, but at least you know that where colouration is coming from.)
Short answer - if you're not driving into distortion characteristics, there's no difference whatever in the "sound" of valve vs transistor setups, save for high frequency rolloff (valves have this due to the necessity for an output transformer). Audiophiles may beg to differ but most of the golden eared mob can be proven to be responding to psychological effects ("I spent more money on this so it must sound better") than actual ones, when you subject them to ABA blind testing (or even more fun, lie to them about what they're listening to and watch the answers track what they believe, vs what they're actually hearing)
The good thing about TV makers in search of new markets is that basic LED's and Plasma have dropped significantly in price. Depending on where you are, you can get 3,4 or 5... 40-50 Inch Full-HD LED / Plasmas for a grand USD-EUR.. Its still the overpriced Smart TV's that haven't come down as much in price, but who needs them spying on you...
Many people agree that OLED is definitely a better tech but the high price has limited it's success. There is a price point where the average consumer will buy and no more. When OLEDs drop to that point they will sell en mass as they provide a better viewing experience.
Content or the lack there of is also a valid point as to why there is no rush to OLEDs. That will change over time just as the cost of OLEDs will drop. Thus a win-win for consumers.
Lastly, I have recently purchased an LG plasma TV and a LED monitor. These are the first LG products that I have every owned or used. So far both are excellent even though LG was not at the top of my list when I began my research. It's usually not good to have only one major supplier in an industry so we'll see how the OLED deal works out long term.
"What tech does your TV use?"
"Oh? LED!"
(with apologies to Stephen Fry :) ).
I've had the same dream as many of you: use an HDTV as a large format monitor. This dream has seemed so close to reality, now that TVs have workable resolutions, but I have chronically encountered issues in which I don't get pixel-perfect 1:1 mappings between the 1920x1080 pixels that my graphics adapter is outputting, and the 1920x1080 pixels that my TVs claim to have.
I have seen this issue time and time again, on a variety of hardware, and would be very interested to hear of any similar stories, or proposed solutions. I've sometimes been able to fiddle with custom resolutions to get what at least APPEARS to be pixel perfect mapping (text clarity greatly improved), but then many applications balk at the irregular resolution; I can't win! I have NEVER had this issue with screens that are advertised and sold as monitors. I still do the "TV as monitor" thing on a couple of my boxes, but I have had to compromise and ratchet down the resolution to see the blurry text. I figured that I wasn't losing much by going non-native, since I've already payed that price in the form of this maddening lack of pixel perfection, anyway.
Anyone got anything? Even more to the point, will 4k TVs finally leave this "front porch "back porch" TV-specific silliness behind and eliminate this problem from the outset?
It would be helpful to know what steps you've taken so far. And are you using text or font enhancements? What's your set-up and your screen-sizes etc?
I find 40 inch to 50 inch TV's from LG and Samsung are fine, nothing special, but its easy to view text and menus etc. Note, I use basic FULL-HD LED models and HD-Plasmas, but never Smart TV's.
The default out of the box settings are not very helpful. LG and Samsung's basic LED's both require you do explicitly choose 'PC' as the HDMI input to scale the signal properly to begin with. If you forget to do this, and instead rely on Screen-Fit or Just-Scan or 16:9, text and menus can look horrible.
So as a benchmark, without any other changes, how readable is the text on your TV once you've done this?
I've been using an inexpensive (chinese I imagine) 39 inch 4k tv as monitor for the past year. Seiki: Videophiles probably hate it, but I get tons of real estate to fill up with editor, design and development ides, vmware machines + all the regular web / email / anything else. Very happy.
LG's biggest problem is with their processing. Motion on LG's is just not up to Samsung and Sony's. They lack black frame insertion or 'BFI' (Google it) which means they can look jittery especially on high action material. Their smooth motion algorithms are not quite as good as Sony's either. I read somewhere that BFI is not possible on current OLED tech. Also LG has a bad track record on calibration. Many experts find it very hard to calibrate LG OLED sets. I am hopeful Panasonic will bring their expertise in video processing and calibration to the table in order to fix these issues.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
