OLED uniformity thread

[Marakk]

Hey! Since an influx of OLED purchases are coming, a separate thread for sharing unifmority images and experinces of returning the ones with horrible ones makes sense. To ensure that we're all taking images with similar settings, please use these before taking the images:

LG OLED:

ISF dark room
OLED light/backlight 35
Brightness 50
Contrast 85
Gamma 2.4/BT. 1886

Sony OLED: Cinema pro or Netflix calibrated mode

Please take images in a pitch black room. If possible, use manual camera on your phone app with EV at 0. Most relevant images would of 5% grey and 100% white to showcase banding in the former and tinting in the latter.

Link to Break-In Slides
http://www.hometheatershack.com/break_in_images.zip
*Make the slides linked above are filling the entire screen by changing the settings on your TV.

5% Banding Test YouTube

Here are some more test scenes from avsforum users which will highlight these issues in content in case someone gets a bad panel and want to file a return via retailer or LG. Do not that uniform can change in the first 100-200 hours of usage. So give your TV some time if you want before going in for the return.


mrtickleuk
The OA - Netflix - S02 - E02 - starting at 1:06:16, camera drifts up the stairs. video_analysis
Marco Polo - Netflix - 14-16 minutes (S1E3)The Walking Dead S08E08 Flaken2000
Here is some content examples I've personally used. Arrival First, where she is walking into school through the corridors up the steps (from 4:00). Camera panning over grass field (from 18:48). Next when they first go up into the capsule and travel up (from 26:20). Another is right at the end of the film where the camera pans down from the ceiling to the scene looking out through the window to the sea (from 1:45:25). Interstellar At the beginning of the movie, right after the flight scene, main character wakes up (1:48). Very dark scene.The Martian At the beginning of the movie, horizontal camera pan showing Mars red mountains (1:26) Prometheus Scenes in the caves on the alien world (34:11)Passengers Pool scene. Panning shot of spaceship (41:35)

 

[Marakk]

Here are a couple of images of my 55 C9 with 9th September 2019 manufacturing. White tinting is good, but the grey is kinda meh. Might be problematic if it doesn't improve.

 

[kunalanand50]

Here are a couple of images of my 55 C9 with 9th September 2019 manufacturing. White tinting is good, but the grey is kinda meh. Might be problematic if it doesn't improve.

How to check this?

 

[Marakk]

How to check this?

Use this YouTube video for 5% grey:

100% white:

There's another link in the first post along with slides for USB. Play these in pitch black room with the settings mentioned above. Take photos on manual mode with EV at 0 if possible on your phone. Upload. Done!

 

[pingpong]

Here are a couple of images of my 55 C9 with 9th September 2019 manufacturing. White tinting is good, but the grey is kinda meh. Might be problematic if it doesn't improve.

Is this type of defective common in OLED?

 

[Marakk]

Is this type of defective common in OLED?

Yup! It's a lottery though. Some have it worse than others.

 

[pingpong]

Yup! It's a lottery though. Some have it worse than others.

I am planning to buy 4K TV. I am really confused a lot.
Why should we spend more for OLED which has uniformity issue as well as there is already a brun in issue?

 

[Marakk]

I am planning to buy 4K TV. I am really confused a lot.
Why should we spend more for OLED which has uniformity issue as well as there is already a brun in issue?

Your choice, buddy. It looks way worse in photos than it does in person. Plus, LCD TVs have dirty screen effect. There's no perfect tech as of yet. OLED offers the best PQ, even with its shortcomings.

 

[pingpong]

Your choice, buddy. It looks way worse in photos than it does in person. Plus, LCD TVs have dirty screen effect. There's no perfect tech as of yet. OLED offers the best PQ, even with its shortcomings.

I thought that OLED has only one major issue, that is burn in. I knew IPS has uniformity issue. But this is the first time I heard that OLED too has it.
But now I understood that all types of panel have some or same kind of shortcomings including OLED. Among them OLED offers the best PQ. Right?
If you don't mind me asking here, can you guide me what issues (apart from uniformity) should I check before buying (or during installation) an OLED TV?

 

[gauravkhanna1]

Here are a couple of images of my 55 C9 with 9th September 2019 manufacturing. White tinting is good, but the grey is kinda meh. Might be problematic if it doesn't improve.

In your white screen photo I see a slight blue tint on right, is it so and whether it is normal? my white screen also has a little blue tint to right and very little on left side.

 

[Marakk]

In your white screen photo I see a slight blue tint on right, is it so and whether it is normal? my white screen also has a little blue tint to right and very little on left side.

Add photos. Take them straight on. Some tinting can also be because of camera angle and image compression. I do have some slight tinting, but since it merges in gradually, not really noticeable in watching in real life. My grey uniformity is not so good, and it hasn't improved in 70 hours of viewing.

 

[L33TWiZaRd]

I personally feel that if you do not see any issues with the panel during your normal viewing of content then one should refrain from doing these tests as it will only cause you needless agony. And unlike US or UK we don't really have an option to send the TV back to the retailer after several weeks of use and our only recourse is to deal with LG to replace the TV or panel in this case. And the LG customer service is a hit or miss in these cases and you may not get your desired resolution unless the uniformity issues are major and can be seen while watching even regular content.

And even after of all this, you could be stuck with a replacement panel which may be worse than what you had. So ignorance in this case is the smart choice for your typical average consumer (like many on this forum)

Having said all of that, I have over 600 hours in and using my preferred picture settings in SDR mode.... I do not seem to have any uniformity issues that I can notice. I used the Darko OLED test pattern video played of the inbuilt YouTube app.

@Marakk I might do this over the weekend if I get up to it and will share my results or might skip it altogether and go with my own suggestion

 

[L33TWiZaRd]

Your choice, buddy. It looks way worse in photos than it does in person. Plus, LCD TVs have dirty screen effect. There's no perfect tech as of yet. OLED offers the best PQ, even with its shortcomings.

LCDs have a lot more going for them than just dirty screen effect. You also have the bleeding issue which is more distracting when watching content with black bars on top and bottom. Again something an average consumer will notice right away as compared to DSE.

All in all, if you can afford it... OLED is the way to go for now even with issues like panel lotteries and risk of screen burn-in (which can be mitigated easily).

 

[Marakk]

LCDs have a lot more going for them than just dirty screen effect. You also have the bleeding issue which is more distracting when watching content with black bars on top and bottom. Again something an average consumer will notice right away as compared to DSE.

All in all, if you can afford it... OLED is the way to go for now even with issues like panel lotteries and risk of screen burn-in (which can be mitigated easily).

Exactly! Now this banding, at least in mine, will show up in maybe 1% of the scenes where there's a uniform dark background. Some shortcomings of LCD panels are visible in almost all the content. Both my Dell IPS monitor and Iffalcon TV have bleeding. OLED is a lot better than these. Although, I still haven't played specific content where my banding will be visible. I'll check that after another week. I'll give the panel enough on time to improve. Whether to raise a complaint or not will depend on that.

 

[L33TWiZaRd]

Exactly! Now this banding, at least in mine, will show up in maybe 1% of the scenes where there's a uniform dark background. Some shortcomings of LCD panels are visible in almost all the content. Both my Dell IPS monitor and Iffalcon TV have bleeding. OLED is a lot better than these. Although, I still haven't played specific content where my banding will be visible. I'll check that after another week. I'll give the panel enough on time to improve. Whether to raise a complaint or not will depend on that.

I noticed some slight banding as well from time to time but nothing to make me sit up and take notice like the other LEDs i have used in the past.

I think if you have a panel which works well during your day to day issue, I would just stick with it and not go through the hassle of returns and wasting hours with support to have them fix something which an average technician may not be able to see.

Truth be told, I can't go back to watching content on a non OLED display anymore. I have two more TVs at home (Mi 43" 1080p and Iffalcon 55" K31 UHD) and they look horrible now. My C9 has ruined me for life and I think that's a major con if you are thinking of getting an OLED, you will definitely turn into a snob when it comes to displays ... LOL

 

[Marakk]

I noticed some slight banding as well from time to time but nothing to make me sit up and take notice like the other LEDs i have used in the past.

I think if you have a panel which works well during your day to day issue, I would just stick with it and not go through the hassle of returns and wasting hours with support to have them fix something which an average technician may not be able to see.

Truth be told, I can't go back to watching content on a non OLED display anymore. I have two more TVs at home (Mi 43" 1080p and Iffalcon 55" K31 UHD) and they look horrible now. My C9 has ruined me for life and I think that's a major con if you are thinking of getting an OLED, you will definitely turn into a snob when it comes to displays ... LOL

Haha! True. It makes the iffalcon one look like trash hotel TVs. However, in my panel there's one prominent line right in the center. I'm waiting to see if that improves or not. That might be an issue. Let's see. I won't be hasty

 

[L33TWiZaRd]

Haha! True. It makes the iffalcon one look like trash hotel TVs. However, in my panel there's one prominent line right in the center. I'm waiting to see if that improves or not. That might be an issue. Let's see. I won't be hasty

Can you take a picture highlighting this issue. Am assuming you are talking about the new C9. If it is prominent then I would simply go ahead and raise a service request or talk to your retailer to get a replacement ASAP.

 

[Marakk]

???
What is there to wait? Nowadays even new cars dont have to be run-in!

Check the Rtings burn-in test. All the six TVs increased in brightness till 1,000 hours, and then there were variation in fluctuations in each. Since it's organic compounds, there's more change as they are used. In many cases, banding has improved drastically. So I'll wait for 100 more hours. Returning with EMI is weird.

If I go for a return, I'll do it before 30 days of purchase. Will try retailer first and then LG.

 

[Marakk]

Can you take a picture highlighting this issue. Am assuming you are talking about the new C9. If it is prominent then I would simply go ahead and raise a service request or talk to your retailer to get a replacement ASAP.

Well, it's prominent only in scenes with even dark greys. Till now the shows that I'm watching don't bring this up; however, something like Arrival or Blade Runner 2049 will.

 

[filmguy]

have a 55 c8 here and i deliberately kept away from checking slides etc when i bought the tv as i knew that if i saw something it'd play on my mind. worked well for a while. only saw some slight banding during quick camera pans (like in cricket matches).

then few months back i watched "haunting of hill house" on NF which is a known torture test and i saw a few more visible bands so i looked at the 5% slides. the slides actually looked a LOT worse then what i saw in normal viewing. it was almost frightening (cant attach photos because my camera doesnt really show a true picture) in slides but nowhere as bad in normal viewing but it then started to play on my mind (as i was worried it would, lol) and i would start looking for it to show up.

finally after about 1500 hours of usage when things didnt clear up as i hoped they would i did the manual pixel refresh. this reduced a lot of the banding but created a new issue. where earlier the banding would show up on dark/er, greyish scenes there was now a thin vertical streak which showed up even on brighter scenes. so while the greyish scenes looked clearer the brighter scenes now showed this streak/thin band (again only on camera pans).

i decided to wait for the 2000 hour mark after which the tv would automatically run a pixel refresh as i read doing many of the 1 hour refreshes wasnt a good idea. now i'm around the 2050 mark and while even that streak has reduced it's still there (though i guess most wouldnt see it till it was pointed out to them).

i've just booked a complaint with lg to see what they have to say as my 1 year warranty is expiring next month. i was actually hoping for it to get cleared up on its own and thats why i kept postponing things as i'm not sure how good/bad a replacement panel will be. right now its just a thin streak visible barely 5-10% of the time (vague approximation) where in the panel lottery i may get something worse off.