Announcement

**DCI forum** · 06-23-2016, 08:20 PM

By Caleb Denison — June 23, 2016

annual tv shootout winner announced at ce week

Reviewers and industry wonks opine all the time about the “best” product in a category, but what happens when you pack them all in a room and force them to hash it out? We just found out. A jury composed of professional TV reviewers, certified calibrators, and video enthusiasts convened over the past two days in New York City to crown a “King of TV” for 2016.

When the ballots were counted, LG’s Signature G6 OLED TV won in a landslide. This marks the third year in a row that LG’s OLED took the title. Competing with the 65-inch LG G6 (OLED65G6P) were the 75-inch Sony X940D (XBR75X940D), 78-inch Samsung KS9800 (UN78KS9800), and the 65-inch Vizio Reference Series (RS65-B2).

Serving as keynote speaker and master of ceremonies was Joel Silver, President and Founder of the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF). He spoke in depth about emerging High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Wide Color Gamut (WCG) as well as measurement techniques and standards. Lie Neikirk of Reviewed.com and Caleb Denison (yours truly) from Digital Trends both appeared as guest speakers, and chose not to cast votes.

Over the course of multiple four-hour sessions, roughly 80 total participants pored over test patterns, movie clips and measurements, rated the televisions on a scale of 1 to 10 for black quality, perceived contrast, color accuracy, moving resolution, off-axis performance, screen uniformity, HDR/WCG, and overall day and night performance. While each display had its own strengths and weaknesses, once numbers were added up, the G6 OLED came in with the highest overall score, averaging a commanding 8.9 on a 10-point scale.

Sony came in at second place with an 8.0 average, Samsung third at 7.3, and Vizio fourth at 6.9. Looking at the summed scores, we see LG was the only TV to score in the 9-point range, with a total of six 9-point scores out of nine categories.

Value Electronics 2016 Flat Panel Shootout Audience Votes

LG
OLED65G6P Samsung
UN78KS9800 Sony
XBR75X940D Vizio
RS65-B2
Black quality 9.6 7.0 7.9 6.7
Perceived contrast 9.1 7.6 8.3 6.9
Color accuracy 9.0 7.5 8.4 7.2
Moving resolution (sharpness) 8.0 7.2 7.8 6.9
Off-axis performance 9.4 6.2 7.4 6.7
Screen uniformity 8.3 7.1 7.6 7.0
HDR/WCG 9.3 7.7 8.2 7.0
Overall day (high ambient light) 8.3 8.1 8.7 7.1
Overall night (low ambient light) 9.4 7.6 8.2 6.8
Overall score 8.9 7.3 8 6.9
To provide perspective, Robert Zohn, owner of Value Electronics in Scarsdale, NY, and a presenter and organizer of the shootout, brought his own late-model Pioneer Kuro, once regarded as the gold standard in television, for comparison. When the playing field was leveled to the Kuro’s level — 1080p HD resolution and Rec. 709 color space — the Kuro held up fairly well. However, once the televisions moved to producing DCI/P3 color and High Dynamic Range within the Ultra HD standard, the revered Kuro surely showed its age.

Related: 4K Ultra HD Buying Guide

In past years, some critics have argued that 4K resolution on its own doesn’t present a meaningful upgrade over 1080P. This year, attendees debated the merits of HDR and WCG, and whether they represented a quantum leap forward in television performance. The general consensus seemed to be that picture quality improvements brought about by HDR and WCG are plainly obvious and quite significant.

Today’s top-tier TVs are the best we’ve ever seen.
As Lee Neikirk pointed out during his presentation at the event, not all HDR televisions are created equal. While all of the flagship televisions evaluated during the shootout are at the pinnacle of HDR/WCG performance, many mid-tier TVs are not powerful enough to bring about meaningful improvements, potentially damaging the public’s perception of these new display technologies. Many participants agreed that something beyond the UHD Alliance’s present “UHD Premium” certification may be needed to ensure the importance of HDR/WCG as components of Ultra HD aren’t diluted.

Sony won the only category not dominated by LG at the shootout, ranking as the best TV for daytime viewing. Other considerations such as ease of use, smart TV platform, remote control operability, and other usability aspects may factor into future competitions.

While there can be only one winner, it was clear all the participants made a very strong showing. And if there were ever any doubt, the Kuro comparison silenced it: Today’s top-tier TVs are the best we’ve ever seen.

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/annual-tv-shootout-winner-announced-at-ce-week/#ixzz4CS3RWBDV
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**DCI forum** · 06-26-2016, 07:58 AM

The 55-inch LG OLED55E6P delivers knockout UHD and HD performance

By James K. Willcox
June 03, 2016

There's a lot to like about 4K OLED TV technology. Seen as the worthy successor to plasma TVs, 4K OLED TVs offer many of the same attributes—rich, deep black levels, accurate colors, and nearly unlimited viewing angles—but with the slim profiles and high energy efficiency you get with LED LCD TVs.

LG's 4K OLED sets now top our TV Ratings in several of the larger TV size categories. (LG is the only company selling 4K OLED sets in the U.S. We've been waiting for other companies to offer their own OLED TV models, but that hasn't happened yet.)

LG is bullish on OLED, charging ahead for 2016 with eight new OLED TV models in the B6, C6, E6, and G6 series. All will be full-featured sets that support both HDR10 and Dolby Vision high dynamic range (HDR) technologies. They also support a wider range of colors than many basic sets, and include the company's webOS 3.0 smart TV platform with access to a number of streaming services.

Prices start at $4,000 for both curved- and flat-screen 55-inch sets and climb to $8,000 for the 65-inch model in the flagship G6 series. The price for the 77-inch OLED77G6P hasn't yet been announced.

4K OLED TV Tops Our Ratings
So just how good are OLED TVs? We just finished evaluating the 55-inch LG OLED55E6P, $4,000, an E6-series 4K TV that as of early June is the highest-scoring model in our TV Ratings. The television is pricey, but we think it will be one of the best TVs you can buy this year. It has outstanding HD and UHD picture quality and very good sound. And the vignetting issue we saw with last year's OLED TVs seems to be gone.

More details on the LG 4K OLED TV lineup for 2016:

OLEDB6P (flat screens) and OLEDC6P (curved screens)
These are LG's basic OLEDs for 2016. The C6 model has 3D and a curved screen, while the B6-series models have flat screens and no 3D.
Prices: $4,000 for the 55-inch models and $6,000 for 65-inch sets.

OLEDE6P
Available in 55- and 65-inch screen sizes, the E6-series sets are step-up models that are ultra-thin and sport a "picture-on-glass" design with barely any bezel around the edge of the screen. The TV comes with a Harman Kardon-designed sound-bar-style speaker system along the bottom of the screen, which in this series is flat, not curved.

Prices: As of early June, LG is running a promotion on this set, so the 55-inch model is priced at $4,000, and the 65-incher is $6,000—that's $1,000 off the usual cost.

OLEDG6P Signature Series
The G6 models represent LG's flagship 4K OLED TVs for 2016. There's a 65-inch model (OLED65G6P) that sells for $8,000, and later this year it will be joined by the 77-inch OLED77G6P. This model has a flat screen and the picture-on-glass design, but its Harman Kardon-designed sound bar speaker is a bit more powerful, and it's housed in the TV's base, which also contains all the set's connections. One interesting feature is that for wall mounting, the base rotates up behind the TV, with a second row of speakers facing out toward viewers.

**DCI forum** · 06-28-2016, 10:29 AM

Different color shift than the one Donald observed during the live stream, but similar effect observed by eye-witness HDTV Expert Pete Putman, Off-axis green hue, whereas Donald noticed a blue-grey hue across the screen.

Scoping out all of that stuff took only about an hour, so I decided to descend the stairs and check out the UHDTV Shoot-Out, put together by Robert Zohn of Value Electronics. There had been some arguments among videophiles in the past about the winners (Shoot-Outs tend to end that way, trust me), so I decided to keep a low profile and sit in the very back as a passive observer, passing on the evaluations and scoring.

Joel Silver was on hand from the Imaging Science Foundation to explain a wide range of TV topics from grayscales and CIE color plots to high dynamic range and black levels. After discussing each parameter, those in attendance were invited to walk by each of the five displays and score them on performance for that parameter. At the end of the session, the votes would be tabulated and a winner announced.

For the record, the UHDTVs on hand came from LG (OLED), Samsung (HDR LCD), Sony (HDR LCD), and Vizio (HDR LCD). Just for fun, an older Pioneer 1080p plasma TV was also positioned to the left edge of the array, next to the LG OLED.

The introduction of high dynamic range with wider color gamuts (and eventually, higher frame rates) really does change the notion of television from what we know today. Instead of a nominal peak white brightness of 100 to 200 cd/m2, we’re now looking at 800 to 1000 cd/m2. And the range of colors our displays can reproduce has expanded considerably, particularly in the green and red loci. So viewing HDR/WCG content really is a step closer to what our eyes see every day, and makes conventional SDR HDTV look a bit dated.

(Left to right) A vintage 2006-7 Pioneer 60-inch plasma, LG's OLED65G6P, Samsung's UN78KS9800, Sony's XBR-75X940D, and Vizio's RS65-B2 UHDTVs.

As the session wound on, I noticed that the grayscale images shown on the LG OLED (model OLED65G6P) had a noticeable greenish color cast that wasn’t seen on the other sets. Intrigued, I got up and walked over to stand at a zero degree offset from the TV’s centerline – and voila: The tint vanished.

Additional images with lots of white, light grays, and pastel colors were shown during the test, and I moved back and forth between the on-axis viewing spot (several rows of chairs back from the audience) and my original seat at the far left rear, which looked to be about 30 – 35 degrees off-axis. Sure enough, the greenish color tint was still there.

I pointed this out to a couple of LG representatives, neither of whom had noticed it previously. I also mentioned it to Zohn, who replied that he also noticed it before but stated “it’s still the best thing out there.” Uh, maybe not, if someone viewing at a moderate angle is seeing a greenish tint that someone else isn’t. None of my plasma TVs ever exhibited this condition.

Silver told me he doesn’t recommend using these displays for color grading or critical viewing because of an inconsistency in yellow shading. I didn’t notice that, but it was hard to miss the green shift. I alerted a few other people in the room to look for it, including my colleague Ken Werner. (You can see it quite clearly in my photos.) But if you were one of the crowd seated in the first couple of rows toward the center, you wouldn’t have seen this “fly in the ointment.”

Even so; this display won the Shoot-Out, according to a press released that landed in my inbox this morning. Quote: “LG Electronics’ SIGNATURE 4K OLED TV was crowned “2016 King of TV” in the 13th Annual Value Electronics TV Shootout™ in a competition among four contending flagship 4K Ultra HD TV models from LG and other leading brands during CE Week in New York City. The 65-inch class (64.5 inches measured diagonally) LG SIGNATURE OLED TV (model OLED65G6P) with HDR was voted the top-performing TV by both general attendees and an expert panel of professional calibrators based on eight different picture quality attributes.”

Hmmm. I’m surprised that the “expert panel of professional calibrators” didn’t pick up on the LG color shift, particularly since models of LCD TVs are routinely hammered for their intrinsic off-axis viewing limitations (elevated black levels, color shifts, and contrast flattening). So what’s causing it?

I have some theories. Several years ago, Sony introduced its first OLED monitors for professional reference monitoring. To improve color purity and make it easier to achieve clean white balance (and possible to improve brightness as well), Sony’s top-emitting OLED pixels were equipped with cavity filters – basically narrowband (notch) optical filters.

Unfortunately, these cavity filters created an unwanted low-frequency roll-off effect when images were viewed at an angle, producing a marked blue color shift on the parts of the image farthest from a viewer. This effect was most noticeable when grayscale patterns were being shown. (My understanding was that Sony re-engineered the design of these filters to improve off-center frequency response in subsequent models.)

So is that what caused the color shift in LG’s 65-inch Signature OLED UHDTV? Possibly. Using these filters could flatten out and sharpen the red, green, and blue peaks, although a color gamut chart shown by Silver seemed to contradict that theory.

It’s also possible LG is using some sort of micro lens or prism technique (or even a polarizer) in the optical path to enhance brightness, and that could be the problem. The result would be brighter images with excellent color saturation, but a narrower viewing angle. (Everything in life is a trade-off!)

Does this affect all models of LG OLEDs? I can’t say, and I don’t recall seeing anything like this at CES when visiting the LG booth and LG Display suite and taking pictures of various OLED displays at different angles. I’ve sent off an inquiry to LG Display to see if they can provide any insights. And my congratulations go to LG for winning the Shoot-Out. (Hey, that 10-year-old Pioneer plasma still looks pretty good!)

But as much as I prefer emissive (plasma, OLED) displays over transmissive (LCD), what I saw at the CE Week TV Shoot-Out gave me real pause. In my family room, viewing angles can be as wide as 40 degrees, and as you’ve just seen, the color shift would be very noticeable at that angle.

Prior to attending CE Week, I had planned to pick up an OLED UHDTV next year, after all the HDR compatibility and support issues (and hopefully display interface speed limit problems) are worked out. Now? That’s on hold until I can figure out what’s behind the shift, and if it’s a characteristic of other 2016 LG OLED TVs.

Those flies in the ointment can be quite annoying!

http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/columns/2016/06/hdtv-expert-on-ce-week-shootouts-and-flies-in-the-ointment.php

Announcement

CE Week: Value Electronics shoot-out crowns LG OLED again

CE Week: Value Electronics shoot-out crowns LG OLED again

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