OLED uniformity thread

Good luck, buddy! Let's see how LG India responds to this. Definitely fight them if you're seeing it in content. Also, can you please attach some photos of the banding so we start collecting more data within the thread as to what's the average banding we're getting in sets in India?
 
Hit 100 hours. Panel refresh done. No change. Can more people please share? That'll help us know what's the average panel and whether it's worth playing the lottery right now.
 

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Hit 100 hours. Panel refresh done. No change. Can more people please share? That'll help us know what's the average panel and whether it's worth playing the lottery right now.
One doubt. You told that OLED offers the best PQ, even with its shortcomings. Then why are thinking of getting replacement?
 
One doubt. You told that OLED offers the best PQ, even with its shortcomings. Then why are thinking of getting replacement?

Because why not get a better panel if you have a below average one? I'll do it only if I know what sort of panels others are getting in India. It's possible that the next one might be even worse. In 99% of the content, the dark grey uniformity isn't an issue for most users. Depends on how deeply they look into it.
 
Because why not get a better panel if you have a below average one? I'll do it only if I know what sort of panels others are getting in India. It's possible that the next one might be even worse. In 99% of the content, the dark grey uniformity isn't an issue for most users. Depends on how deeply they look into it.
One question so you have to wait for 100-200 hrs to get the panel settled then if you replace it again you have to wait n watch for 200hrs for new panel?Also whats the point in testing before 200hrs if anyways its gonna change. i mean even if you have perfectly good panel to start with will it change after usage and become less uniform because of self emitting pixels.
 
One question so you have to wait for 100-200 hrs to get the panel settled then if you replace it again you have to wait n watch for 200hrs for new panel?Also whats the point in testing before 200hrs if anyways its gonna change. i mean even if you have perfectly good panel to start with will it change after usage and become less uniform because of self emitting pixels.

Sometimes it does, sometimes there's no major change in uniformity. On the latest Reddit megeapost, a couple of C9 owner have mentioned that their uniformity improved a lot after pixel refresh; mine hasn't. A good panel becoming horribly worse doesn't really happen according to my research. Some changes have occured for the worse for some after manual pixel refresh, which clear away with usage.

This is why this is called panel lottery. Can't be helped. Happens on phones too, including the most expensive ones. It's a shortcoming of the OLED manufacturing process itself.
 
One question so you have to wait for 100-200 hrs to get the panel settled then if you replace it again you have to wait n watch for 200hrs for new panel?Also whats the point in testing before 200hrs if anyways its gonna change. i mean even if you have perfectly good panel to start with will it change after usage and become less uniform because of self emitting pixels.
Yes, Possibilities are there. So, I think we can't choose panel by playing some testing sample while buying. It may become worse or may not after sometime.
 
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Yes, Possibilities are there. So, I think we can't choose panel by playing some testing sample while buying. It may become worse or may not after sometime.

It doesn't become worse in most cases. It's highly unusual for it to become worse, and if it does, get it replaced by LG. In many cases, it has only improved. Possibilities are there for everything. How much possibility though? In most cases, doesn't happen. Instead of debating hypothetical scenarios, it would be more helpful if OLED owners can just post the pictures of their sets.
 
Should consumers worry about these things? In fact should consumers be even aware of these things? This raises a serious question mark on LG. They should test their panels for 100 or 200 hours before shipping. Why should there be a panel lottery? They can always raise their prices by some percentage points to eliminate lottery angle. Anyways Oled is a premium technology right now and LG shouldn't treat their customers as guinea pigs.
All this is assuming there is even a panel lottery.

You just have to search OLED and banding, and you'll literally get 1000+ posts from various forums for TVs and phones. Banding was even worse earlier. Some of 2014-2015 sets were pure horrendous. Again, this is not about only LG; Samsung OLED phones panels suffer from this too, including the ones in iPhone. The point is whether the consumer notices it or not. Most don't. I do. TV enthusiasts who know about it do tests. Will I go back to LCD? Heck no! The idea to have a thread is just to have better info for owners in India regarding what sort of panels we're getting and how LG responds to replacement requests.

If only the best ones were to be released, the cost will shoot up multiple times. Like I said, as of yet, I haven't noticed it content viewing, but there are some shows that can be problematic as they have some dark scenes which will showcase deficiencies of the panel.
 
I don't agree about costs angle. These companies sell their products at a very huge margins. Evidence is that as the model gets older in its life cycle, they reduce prices steeply.

I have argued multiple times about prices being inflated in India, but this a different issue. If you'll check OLED banding threads, you'll see that a lot of the panels have uniformity issues. Only 1 out 3/4 seems to have good uniformity; not perfect, just good. So if they could sell only 1 out of every 4 panels made, it would escalate the costs 2-3 times as panel is the most expensive part in every TV.
 
Read somewhere that Panasonic GZ series have the best panel uniformity.
On a slightly different note UK and and some European Panasonic GZs have an issue that's related to sound ,reportedly
since July. People complain of random sound crackling. For some it is so serious(affects all output devices-internal/external )that they had to return the unit. The company even suspended supply temporarily in September until a firmware release on the Gz2000 which seems to have fixed at least a European user's set but doesn't seem to have resolved UK sets. Many continue to hold on in the hope that the next available update later this month would fix the problem.
 
On a slightly different note Panasonic GZs have an issue that's related to sound and this has been reported since July. People complain of sound crackling. For some it is so serious(affects all output devices-internal/external )that they had to return the unit. The company even suspended supply temporarily in September until a firmware release on the Gz2000 which seems to have fixed at least a European user's set but doesn't seem to have resolved UK sets. Many continue to hold on in the hope that the next available update later this month would fix the problem.

Yup! No perfect TV unfortunately. After stutter-gate, Panasonic is now going through crackle-gate. C9 and E9 are also having hiss-gate right now in some sets. On dark scenes, some power supplies emit a hissing noise. Just gotta draw a line as to when the issues become a deal breaker
 
Panel lottery is also a by-product of manufacturing efficiency of companies. With progression of time and new technical implementations it will become more streamlined/cheaper to manufacture a better standard OLED panel but at that time of course some new technology would have surfaced.

It is seen in CPUs and RAM modules nowadays wherein some “golden” sample chips/modules can boost way higher than advertised. Difference is these companies advertise a core boost clock and try to hit that on majority of chips. AMD got in hot water recently for failing to do this on their Ryzen 3rd gen chips and ultimately had to issue a statement.

In case of TVs, there is no such “quantifiable advertised feature” so companies get away with it. If LG were to advertise 800 nit brightness/burn-in free display/tinting free display/perfect uniformity in some terms then consumers could force their hand otherwise in countries like India we have no recourse.
 
Lot of valid comments and arguments made in here so far.

All those threads that you guys are referring to on AVS forums and other international AV forums are from users who have great consumer protection in their respective countries. We in India unfortunately don't have any of it. Our return windows are non existent. Most warranty policies are a farce and there are numerous horrors stories to be found everywhere.

Moving on the whole OLED panel lotteries. All OLED TV panels are manufactured by LG Displays which acts as OEM to LGE, Sony, Panasonic, Phillips and several other Chinese companies. As per user account, Panasonic top-end and Sony top-end seem to get a confirmed A+ grade panel whereas LGE doesn't, not even for the E series so forget about B and C series.

I can understand why someone would want a perfect panel because they have paid a king's ransom for it. But even then I will stick to my guns and maintain that if you can't see it then don't go looking for it. All that awaits you is misery.
 
Lot of valid comments and arguments made in here so far.

All those threads that you guys are referring to on AVS forums and other international AV forums are from users who have great consumer protection in their respective countries. We in India unfortunately don't have any of it. Our return windows are non existent. Most warranty policies are a farce and there are numerous horrors stories to be found everywhere.

Moving on the whole OLED panel lotteries. All OLED TV panels are manufactured by LG Displays which acts as OEM to LGE, Sony, Panasonic, Phillips and several other Chinese companies. As per user account, Panasonic top-end and Sony top-end seem to get a confirmed A+ grade panel whereas LGE doesn't, not even for the E series so forget about B and C series.

I can understand why someone would want a perfect panel because they have paid a king's ransom for it. But even then I will stick to my guns and maintain that if you can't see it then don't go looking for it. All that awaits you is misery.

Sony and Panasonic are very much in the panel lottery. There are really shitty panels that Sony and Panasonic users have gotten too, which really blows holes in this grading theory for me. I contradict this only because such unconfirmed theories can lead to someone throwing excess money on these brands without any guarantee that they'll get a better panel, only exception being GZ2000, but even with that you can get a panel with bad tinting, as some users have gotten.

Also, I bet I can get my panel replaced by LG India for uniformity issues, even if it'll be a hassle at first. I can be really persusasive. l and annoying, and this is a valid fault for which they have replaced many sets abroad. Infact, there's a thread on Reddit where a guy is replacing his IPS LG set because of bad DSE, and they have offered him to pay the difference and upgrade to an OLED. However, it's worth it only if my panel is below average. Since no one is posting pics of their sets, I have no clue as to the average uniformity of panels from the batches that coming to India.
 
Sony and Panasonic are very much in the panel lottery. There are really shitty panels that Sony and Panasonic users have gotten too, which really blows holes in this grading theory for me. I contradict this only because such unconfirmed theories can lead to someone throwing excess money on these brands without any guarantee that they'll get a better panel, only exception being GZ2000, but even with that you can get a panel with bad tinting, as some users have gotten.

Also, I bet I can get my panel replaced by LG India for uniformity issues, even if it'll be a hassle at first. I can be really persusasive. l and annoying, and this is a valid fault for which they have replaced many sets abroad. Infact, there's a thread on Reddit where a guy is replacing his IPS LG set because of bad DSE, and they have offered him to pay the difference and upgrade to an OLED. However, it's worth it only if my panel is below average. Since no one is posting pics of their sets, I have no clue as to the average uniformity of panels from the batches that coming to India.

As I mentioned, the A grade panel theory is based on your user account alone and not something confirmed by Sony or Panasonic.

Should you not be trying a return to seller first instead of panel replacement from LG themselves.

I am travelling for work this week so I may not have time to grab pictures of my screen but from what I gather the panel sold here is similar to the EU ones so using Indian OLED owners as reference to compare your own may not be necessary.

Just pull the trigger if you are not happy and ask for a replacement from the seller himself (Vijay Sales in your case).

I also realsied that I got mine on 11th August 2019. (Early adopter for a change, lol)
 
As I mentioned, the A grade panel theory is based on your user account alone and not something confirmed by Sony or Panasonic.

Should you not be trying a return to seller first instead of panel replacement from LG themselves.

I am travelling for work this week so I may not have time to grab pictures of my screen but from what I gather the panel sold here is similar to the EU ones so using Indian OLED owners as reference to compare your own may not be necessary.

Just pull the trigger if you are not happy and ask for a replacement from the seller himself (Vijay Sales in your case).

I also realsied that I got mine on 11th August 2019. (Early adopter for a change, lol)

The panel is exactly the same as the one sold everywhere, but since this problem is because of the manufacturing process, and maybe the assembly (not sure), batches matter. If the batches that arrived in India all have similar uniformity as mine or worse, there's no point in returning. I'm a supporter of this technology; so after destroying sales of Metz, I don't really want to send another panel to OLED hell. I'm actually grateful to LG for not just pushing this tech, but constantly improving it and bringing it to India at prices that, even though still overpriced, are more VFM now than crappy FALD sets.
 
I'm actually grateful to LG for not just pushing this tech, but constantly improving it and bringing it to India at prices that, even though still overpriced, are more VFM now than crappy FALD sets.
Amen to that brother!

Let me see if I can help you out with a pictures of mine. Check PM.
 
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