What They Say
TV image quality Maven, Vincent Teoh, on his HDTV Test channel has identified an issue with Samsung’s S95B QD-OLED TV. He found that images of HDR video were a little brighter than a reference broadcast monitor. Despite this, his testing with Calman technology showed that the tracking with the PQ EOTF was very accurate with a 10% window. However, when he tried the same test at 9% or other levels than 5%, 10% or 20%, he found inaccuracy, while at those levels it was accurate.
He also found colours boosted in SD content that made it look as though the QD-OLED showed more ‘pop’, but this was a result of inaccuracies in the response. In game mode, the accuracy was even worse. As a result, most of the reviews online are reacting to the inaccuracies of the tracking than the base quality of the panel.
Teoh did say that he loves the great uniformity and high colour volume of the Samsung. However, accuracy matters and his tentative conclusion (although he has more tests to do) is that you are likely to get more accurate pictures from LG, Panasonic or Sony OLED TVs.
What We Think
Someone once said to me “Don’t ascribe to malice what can be explained by inefficiency or incompetence’. If you take that line, then Samsung Electronics may have only got around to setting the accuracy for a number of fixed levels of screen size windows. If you are more cynical, you might think that Samsung’s TV business is deliberately optimising the accuracy at the levels it knows reviewers will test. In general, I would give the benefit of the doubt to Samsung, but Samsung has form on this and has got into some trouble (although it seemed to fade away unlike the problems for the car companies with rigged testing) in the past over rigging power consumption results to match particular tests. It also has a lot of resources and experienced engineers.
Of course, on the one hand this may have been great diligence by Teoh, but it may have been informed by other TV or panel suppliers! (BR)
