Remember the gold standard ($50K or so) CRT reference studio monitors for the broadcast industry? They’ve just been matched by a commercial class OLED TV, according to Dr. Ray Soneira and the recent DisplayMate shoot-out.
Yep you read it correctly, the third generation of consumer grade OLED TV (65E6) from LG, “…has the highest absolute color accuracy, the highest absolute luminance accuracy, and the highest contrast ratio with perfect black levels of any TV that we have ever tested, …it qualifies as a reference studio monitor, …based on our detailed lab tests and measurements” he said in the 2016 LG OLED TV Display Shoot-Out article published today.
Simply stated, “In terms of picture quality the LG OLED TV is visually indistinguishable from perfect. Even in terms of the exacting and precise lab measurements it is close to ideal, and it breaks many TV display performance records,” he said. It’s “…the best performing TV that we have ever tested or watched.”
The chart shows that LG’s 65-inch OLED cinema wide and HDR picture modes are an accurate match to the DCI-P3 standard color gamut used in 4K content production. Go online to see that the cinema normal picture mode is an accurate match to the sRGB / Rec.709 standard color gamut that is used to produce all current 2K full HDTV content Source: DisplayMate Labs
Make no mistake, this is a scientifically valid approach to display quality that measures, then applies in depth analysis specific to display performance and picture quality, then compares the OLED to LCD TV performance in a number of key display performance areas. Read the full article from DisplayMate here.
Almost every display lab test and measurement shows some improvement compared to the 2015 LG OLED TV, the DisplayMate labs evaluation said of this very thin (0.2″ deep) bezel-less and light weight LG OLED TV. Here’s the short list of where the LG 65″ TV matched or broke TV display performance records:
- The highest absolute color accuracy (1.6 to 1.8 JNCD) – visually indistinguishable from perfect
- The highest absolute luminance accuracy (±3%) – visually indistinguishable from perfect
- Very accurate image contrast and intensity scale (with gamma 2.23) – visually indistinguishable from perfect
- Perfect black levels and highest (infinite) contrast ratios – visually indistinguishable from perfect
- Very accurate DCI-P3 and sRGB / Rec.709 color gamuts for the cinema and HDR picture modes
- The highest peak brightness for an OLED TV (221 to 472 cd/m² for SDR) and (630 to 730 cd/m² for HDR)
- The lowest screen reflectance (1.1%)
- The highest contrast rating in high ambient light (196 to 407:1 for SDR)
- The smallest brightness variation with viewing angle up through 45 degrees (24%)
- Very fast response time and no visible motion blur
So be advised, after Dr. Ray sharpened his pencil, recalibrated his equipment and had a go at the latest and greatest OLED TVs versus LCD’s (and CRT) top brands in a display shoot-out you don’t want to miss. The verdict; a commercial class living room TV has crossed over to reference studio monitor quality in this third generation (65E6) OLED TV from LG, putting it not only at the top of the (2K, 4K and HDR) display spec mountain but a whole new mountain peak of performance, and incidentally, at the top of my Christmas wish list, (girls are you listening?) – Steven Sechrist
Analyst Comment
As we pointed out in our IFA report, Panasonic was brave enough to show its next generation OLED TV concept alongside a Sony broadcast reference OLED monitor, and it looked very good. Panasonic has found that its 2017 video processing improves the rendering of low level grey scale images to show more detail. (BR)
