A chance to talk to FlatpanelsHD's reviewers.
#11368
Firstly, great and comprehensive review.
One point though, how can an image receive 97% and/or reference if vertical banding rears its ugly head? Previous LG sets, quite rightly, got a slating by owners for the 'prison bar effect'. And I wouldn't consider it only a 3% part of imperfection/reference status. Yes, this is all arbitrary in fairness but it does seem a pretty significant 'fault'. No?
User avatar
By Torben Rasmussen
#11369
The images you see are generic and taken using long exposures. 3 IRE is pretty dark regardless of the brightness setting. I didn't perceive it as a problem when watching moving content.

I don't want to get into nitty gritty discussions wether we should adjust the high bar to something slightly different. The result would simply be that all scores would drop and the overall hierachi of the reviewed TV's would be the same. Right now the bar is 105 maximum points for picture quality and the Sony gets 102, which is 2 points more than the E6 for the improved motion handling. The bar is not set to reflect the perfect picture ever - it is set to reflect what we consider the best possible right now. So when we see something new that raises the bar so will we and as a consequence older reviews will automatically update with a lower score.
By adammajorcsik
#11370
First of all, the forum link at bottom directing to the X93E thread :D

Awesome review, glad to hear just 1 crash with Android TV. Also good that you mentioned that 4K lag is probably around 30ms which is probably true if the upscaler+leo bodnar combo is reliable.

"4 HDMI connections (of which 2 supports 4K HDR) "
I don't think that's true. True that only 2 of them full bandwidth so 4k@60HZ@4:4:4 only possible with 2 and 3 ports but you need this for 4K PC gaming and for the new consoles not necessary for 4K Blu-ray because that's just 4:2:0 and 24Hz so 4K HDR should work with Blu-ray on any port
By desinho
#11399
Thanks for the review 8-) . What about the near black 'issues' /detail? It is listed as a negative for the E6 but not for the A1 yet according to the above the A1 only get's extra points for the better motion handling? Side by side comparisons have showed the A1 can show more shadow detail than the 2016 LG models without sacrificing black level
And how much would the score improve if you had these calibration results: https://tweakers.net/reviews/5329/9/son ... ratie.html

And I noticed you are using HDMI 1 and 4 where it is wellknown HDMI 2 and 3 are the ones with full 18Gbps bandwidth.
Disregard the remote comment, I was of the understanding it didn't have individual buttons :P
Last edited by desinho on 21 Apr 2017, 14:38, edited 1 time in total.
By Fjodor2000
#11401
Great review. Thanks a lot!

Some questions for FlatpanelsHD:

1. "A detail worth highlighting, something that applies to all OLED screens, is that response time (i.e. the time it takes to shift from one color to another) is so low that the blurriness we have gotten used to on LCD, which to a certain degree helps give us the illusion of smooth motion, is absent on OLED."
Q: Is there any solution to that? Would e.g. BFI (Black Frame Insertion) solve it completely, or will OLED always be worse than e.g. LCD in this regard?

2. I found this review of the A1E on Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher ... auty-meet/
It says:
a) "Using the Standard HDR mode I measured around 700 nits of light output from the 55A1E on a 10% white window. This, strangely, is around 100 nits less than you get from LG’s latest OLED TVs."
b) "The 55A1E’s processing quality ensures, too, that it suffers less - hardly at all, in fact - with the slightly plasticky skin tones and monotone dark background colors noted in my review of the still-excellent LG OLED65E7."
c) "Finally, the 55A1E’s Super Bit Mapping system enables it to brilliantly outgun LG’s OLEDs (and, actually, the vast majority of all other HDR TVs) by almost completely avoiding color banding/striping problems in subtly toned areas of HDR footage - especially bright skies."
Q: I just wonder if you can confirm, deny, or at least comment on a-c?

3. What aspects of Sony OLED do you think would be most important to improve in the next generation with regards to image quality? E.g. max brightness, BFI, motion resolution, or something else?

Many thanks in advance!
User avatar
By Torben Rasmussen
#11402
True about the HDMI and 4:4:4. I used all of the ports during the review just for the record. And HDR on the PS4 Pro was run on port 2.

I know the pic of the remote is of the XE93 model. They look the same. Both equally bad. I have looked at so many Sony TVs lately that I just didn't want to shoot any more pics of the same remote.

Regarding the pro/con box... come on. It's all mentioned in the review. I can't list every single thing in there. If people only read the box in the end so be it. Again I don't want to nitpick and the comparison of near black is mentioned in the review, so I really don't want to repeat every single thing in the conclusion.

Better calibration results wouldn't change the score and the one you link to shows exactly the same as our measurements - look at the deltaC for colors. We don't publish the results obtained using 10 point correction, and you can correct things even more than what I show in the review. In all fairness we really haven't commented on colour dE until we started using Calman, as we omitted them from the earlier reviews to ease the reading. The majority of our readers care fairly little about these numbers so we try to tune the reviews to fit a less tech-savvy audience. But now that the graphs are there we kinda have to address them ;) You can get all nerdy about these things if you want to, but then we will loose a bunch of readers.
User avatar
By Torben Rasmussen
#11403
Fjodor2000 wrote: Q: Is there any solution to that? Would e.g. BFI (Black Frame Insertion) solve it completely, or will OLED always be worse than e.g. LCD in this regard?
A1 have an option for BFI and it doesn't solve it, so no that doesn't cut it.
Fjodor2000 wrote: Q: I just wonder if you can confirm, deny, or at least comment on a-c?
I think I pretty much cover all of that in the review. I haven't seen the E7, so I won't speculate about how it performs.
Fjodor2000 wrote:3. What aspects of Sony OLED do you think would be most important to improve in the next generation with regards to image quality? E.g. max brightness, BFI, motion resolution, or something else?
Higher brightness is going to come regardless. The near black vertical shadows will most likely also be improved as LG moves to the "tick" year in 2018.
By Widohmakr
#11404
Torben Rasmussen wrote:True about the HDMI and 4:4:4. I used all of the ports during the review just for the record. And HDR on the PS4 Pro was run on port 2.

I know the pic of the remote is of the XE93 model. They look the same. Both equally bad. I have looked at so many Sony TVs lately that I just didn't want to shoot any more pics of the same remote.

Regarding the pro/con box... come on. It's all mentioned in the review. I can't list every single thing in there. If people only read the box in the end so be it. Again I don't want to nitpick and the comparison of near black is mentioned in the review, so I really don't want to repeat every single thing in the conclusion.

Better calibration results wouldn't change the score. We don't publish the results obtained using 10 point correction, and you can correct things even more than what I show in the review. In all fairness we really haven't commented on colour dE until we started using Calman, as we omitted them from the earlier reviews to ease the reading. The majority of our readers care fairly little about these numbers so we try to tune the reviews to fit a less tech-savvy audience. But now that the graphs are there we kinda have to address them ;) You can get all nerdy about these things if you want to, but then we will loose a bunch of readers.
Hi Torben thank you for the fantastic review. I just bought the 55" version of this set and tried your calibration settings. They are fantastic. I have a question for you. I have a North American set and it seems some of our settings are named differently than the European models. Under the "Motion" settings section you refer to a "Film Mode" setting and have it set to off. We don't have that setting, instead we have something called "Cinemotion". I assume this is the same setting. Could you please confirm.

Also did you set colour gamma adjustment points to 2 and make any adjustments to RGB Offset points. Finally I have one recommendation with your settings. If the TV is in a room with a fair amount of ambient light during the day or otherwise, changing the Extended Dynamic Range to "High" really brings out the highlights. Otherwise the set is too dim. In a dark room with no ambient light your settings are almost perfect.
User avatar
By Torben Rasmussen
#11405
I don't have the set anymore so I can't check what the settings are called. Sorry. It is the two last settings inside the Motion menu when the "Personal" profile is selected.

The 2 point settings are in the review. As mentioned in there I wouldn't suggest that you copy them as panel to panel differences are too high.
User avatar
By Rasmus Larsen
#11493
Fjodor2000 wrote:
adammajorcsik wrote:First of all, the forum link at bottom directing to the X93E thread :D
@FlatpanelsHD: Can you please fix that? Clarification: It's the "Questions & debate in the forums" link at the bottom of the A1E review (i.e. http://www.flatpanelshd.com/review.php? ... 1492757435 ) that incorrectly links to the X93E discussion instead of the A1E discussion.
Fixed. My mistake. Sorry about that.
By toong90
#11510
I have a feeling that this is going to be one hard TV to beat . I hope this A1E have the DV capability from the VUDU/Netflix apps when it's released. I may stage my A1E in another part of the house and ensure all of the HDR apps/features are in place to cover what the G6 is doing now before swapping it.

It's mind-blowing to me how its been reported already that the 2017 OLED panels are showing a bump in performance from the 2016 models.
User avatar
By Rasmus Larsen
#11511
Yes, that is one thing to still consider. Sony has not yet commented on the specifics of Dolby Vision. We are chasing more information on the matter.
By jedimaster
#11517
Rasmus,

You had previously mentioned that you did not test this TV wall mounted.
However, I am looking for a TV to wall mount in my bedroom and have the following questions which I was wondering if you can speak to since you have it in your possession and have comprehensively tested it.
Does the TV come with a wall mounting kit and instructions from Sony or is that a separate purchase?
If so, would the screen be "floating" in front of the wall with a 4"-5" space between it and the wall due to the thickness of the kickstand unit /bass speaker?
Will the bass speaker sound muffled because it is now sandwiched between the rear of the screen and the wall?
I would think that a lot of potential customers would want to wall mount this TV.
Thanks