As we have now come to anticipate, the image high quality of flat-panel TVs improves with every era, whereas their efficiency variations diminish. This was clearly demonstrated on the 2019 Value Electronics TV Shootout, held June 12 throughout CE Week, a mid-year gathering of consumer-electronics firms and professionals held on the Javits Center in New York City.
The annual occasion was began in 2004 by Robert Zohn, proprietor of Scarsdale, New York-based retailer Value Electronics, and this 12 months’s shootout was an actual squeaker. Four flagship TVs have been judged by eight video professionals in 4 classes, every with the identical 4 efficiency attributes, and most of the scores have been nearer than I’ve ever seen.
The total winner was the Sony XBR-65A9G OLED TV. The LG 65C9P OLED, nevertheless, got here inside 5 p.c of the A9G’s scores in lots of attributes throughout the 4 classes.
The TV Shootout was carried out throughout the 2019 CE Week occasion in New York City.
The contenders
The contenders for the 2019 Value Electronics King of TVs included 4 65-inch 4K, HDR-capable fashions: the LG 65C9P OLED ($3,499.99), Samsung QN65Q90R LED-backlit LCD ($3,499.99), Sony XBR-65A9G OLED ($3,799.99), and Sony XBR-65Z9F LED-backlit LCD ($2,999.99). Both OLED TVs use a WRGB panel equipped by LG Display, however every firm applies its personal electronics and processing algorithms. The Samsung Q90R makes use of quantum dots in its backlight, whereas the Sony Z9F employs a standard LED backlight. In addition, the Samsung has greater than thrice the variety of local-dimming zones because the Sony.
If you’ve been following the Value Electronics TV shootout recently, you may recall that the Sony Z9F was a contender final 12 months. So why embody it once more this 12 months? Sony’s final flagship LED-backlit LCD TV for 2019 is the Z9G, an 8K show accessible in display sizes of 85 and 98 inches, so it might be unfair to incorporate with 65-inch 4K shows. The Z9F is Sony’s flagship 4K LED-backlit LCD TV. It’s accessible in a 65-inch measurement, and it’ll stay in Sony’s lineup all through 2019.
Also within the lineup was a Sony BVM-X300 skilled monitor, which is utilized in many color-grading and mastering services. In reality, most of the films and TV reveals you already know and love have been mastered on an X300. It’s a 30-inch RGB OLED monitor with a peak mild output of 1,000 nits and a price ticket of $42,000. It was not in rivalry with the opposite units, after all; it was used as a reference. One major purpose of the shootout was to find out which shopper TV got here closest to matching the picture on the X300—in different phrases, which TV most carefully reproduced the picture supposed by content material creators.
Mark JessamyThe occasion organizers included (L-R): Matt Murray, Brent McCall of Metra Home Theater, Kevin Miller, Robert Zohn, Scott Wilkinson, Joel Silver, and John Reformato.
Calibration
After 200 hours of break-in, all 4 contenders and the X300 have been totally calibrated by Kevin Miller, one of many prime ISF-certified calibrators within the enterprise, and John Reformato, Value Electronics’ in-house, ISF-certified calibrator. Their instruments included the Jeti Spectraval 1511 and Colorimetry Research CR-250 spectroradiometers to profile Klein Ok10 colorimeters together with the most recent model of SpectraCal’s CalMan software program.
They began by calibrating the X300, making use of the so-called Judd modification. For those that are unfamiliar with this modification, it happened when video professionals seen that RGB OLED screens had a greenish solid when calibrated to the usual D65 white level (CIE coordinates x=0.313, y=0.327) because the grayscale goal. The greenish solid is a perceptual impact that happens as a result of the spectral energy distribution of RGB OLED shows differs from that of different varieties of shows. Using analysis carried out by physicist Deane Judd within the 1950s and intensive perceptual testing, it was decided {that a} white level with coordinates x=0.307, y=0.318 yields essentially the most neutral-looking white on RGB OLED shows.
Next, Kevin and John displayed a 25-percent white window at 100-percent luminance on all 5 screens and adjusted the grayscale-gain management on every shopper TV in order that the colour of white visually matched the X300 as carefully as potential. This was completed totally by eye—and each calibrators have extremely educated eyes.
Mark JessamyAt the again of the room, Sony product-technology supervisor Rob Brennan demonstrated the Sony XBR-85Z9G 8K TV throughout breaks within the shootout. This mild cannon was after all turned off throughout the judging.
Once the TVs all visually matched the X300, they measured the coordinates of the ensuing white level of every TV, which weren’t essentially the identical for all of them. Finally, they carried out a full grayscale calibration on every TV utilizing its measured white level because the goal. Fortunately, CalMan lets calibrators create a customized colour area with any white-point coordinates.
They calibrated the Samsung Q90R with its 20-point guide controls. The LG and Sony units provide computerized calibration with CalMan, which Kevin and John used on the A9G, C9P, and Z9F. They didn’t use autocal on the Samsung as a result of it’s not but carried out in CalMan for the 2019 Samsung TVs.
Kevin seen that the Samsung HDR EOTF (PQ/SMPTE 2084) (EOTF is an acronym for Electro-Optical Transfer Function, which is the method by which a show converts a video sign into mild) didn’t observe completely, so he lowered the set’s distinction management a bit, which introduced the EOTF consistent with the goal. That decreased its peak luminance a bit, but it surely additionally improved the brilliant element. Also, the Samsung’ s picture matched the X300’s superbly in HDR.
Mark JessamyThe judges paid shut consideration to varied efficiency attributes throughout the shootout.
Test system
The distribution system used throughout calibration and the shootout itself was supplied and operated by Matt Murray from AVPro. Source units included AVPro’s new Murideo Seven test-pattern generator (this was its first public look) in addition to a previous-generation Murideo Six-G sample generator. Another supply of check patterns was the brand new Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark check disc (which is about to be launched on the market to the general public), performed from an Oppo UDP-203 UHD Blu-ray participant.
Real-world content material was supplied by a Kaleidescape Strato S server, which performs titles downloaded from its retailer which might be at the very least pretty much as good as—and, in lots of circumstances, higher than—the identical content material on UHD Blu-ray. This server doesn’t help Dolby Vision, nevertheless, solely HDR10.
Finally, two Panasonic DP-UB9000 UHD Blu-ray gamers have been used to play clips from Aquaman in Dolby Vision on the Sony and LG TVs, and HDR10 on the Samsung and X300, which don’t help Dolby Vision. I’ll talk about this in additional element shortly.
All the sources have been related to the inputs on an AVPro Edge AUHD 16×16 HDMI switcher. Outputs from the switcher have been related to the calibrated inputs of the TVs and X300. The cables have been all 10-meter Metra Home Theater Velox passive (copper) HDMI cables, which may convey a most of 24Gbps—greater than sufficient for HDMI 2.0 at 18Gbps.
Content
The content material we watched throughout the shootout included check patterns from the Murideo sample turbines and the UHD Benchmark check disc. Among them was a 4×4 ANSI checkerboard, SMPTE colour bars, varied motion-resolution patterns, zone plates, and others.
For real-world content material, we used clips from quite a lot of films in UHD/HDR and HD/SDR. They included Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant for dynamic vary; Aquaman, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Planet Earth for colour saturation and accuracy; Baby Driver and Mission: Impossible—Fallout for video processing and movement decision; The Art of Flight (HD/SDR solely) for colour and dynamic vary with the lights on; and Our Planet and Lucifer (UHD/HDR solely) from Netflix for streaming.
Mark JessamyThe judges acquired up shut and private with every of the TVs.
Before the formal judging acquired underway, we needed to check out the distinction between Dolby Vision and HDR10. We cued up a clip from Aquaman in Dolby Vision from one of many Panasonic gamers to point out on the LG C9P and the Sony A9G and Z9F, and the identical clip in HDR10 from the opposite Panasonic participant to point out on the Samsung Q90R and Sony X300, neither of which help Dolby Vision.
Interestingly, the 2 HDR codecs regarded very related, with a lot much less distinction than we anticipated between them—particularly since they use totally different show applied sciences. This makes some sense on the Samsung, as a result of it synthesizes its personal dynamic metadata, however the X300 doesn’t, and it regarded surprisingly just like Dolby Vision as nicely. Clearly, the HDR10 model was nicely mastered on that disc.
Here come the judges
There have been eight official judges at this 12 months’s TV Shootout, all of whom are professionals within the video {industry}. They included two TV reviewers: Channa De Silva, an unbiased reviewer at 4KHomeTheaterReview.com; and Greg Tarr, managing editor at HDGuru.com. From the content-production facet, we had David Mackenzie, founder and video compressionist at Fidelity in Motion; David Medina, supervisor of media operations at HBO; and Giles Sherwood, publish manufacturing supervisor and colour scientist at Criterion. The remaining judges included Michael Reuben, retired Blu-ray reviewer at Blu-ray.com; Bill Schindler, a long-time video-industry marketing consultant; and Brandon Yates, a video engineer and co-owner of Yates & Parks Consulting.
Joel Silver, founder and president of the Imaging Science Foundation, was instrumental in organizing your complete occasion. Throughout his intensive profession, Joel has tirelessly advocated for the significance of video calibration to breed the creative imaginative and prescient of content material creators as carefully as potential. He has been deeply concerned within the TV Shootout for a few years to guarantee that it adheres to that ultimate.
Mark JessamyThe official judges have been (L-R): Brandon Yates, David Medina, David Mackenzie, Robert Zohn (organizer of the occasion however not a choose), Bill Schindler, Greg Tarr, Michael Reuben, and Giles Sherwood. The eighth choose, Channa De Silva, just isn’t on this photograph.
TV-judging classes
The judges have been tasked with evaluating every contender in 4 major classes: SDR Day (lights on), SDR Reference (lights off), HDR Reference (lights off), and Streaming (lights on and off) utilizing every set’s inner Netflix app. The Streaming class is new this 12 months; it was added as a result of Robert Zohn and the opposite employees members acknowledge that the picture high quality of streaming has improved over the previous couple of years. In reality, Kevin Miller, Joel Silver, and different staffers admitted they now watch streamed content material of their dwelling theaters, which they hadn’t even a 12 months in the past.
Within every class, every set was evaluated for 4 perceptual attributes: dynamic vary, colour saturation, colour accuracy, and movement decision. These attributes have been outlined by Joel Silver to incorporate a number of particular parts. For instance, the dynamic-range attribute included peak brightness, high quality of black, and perceived distinction ratio, whereas colour accuracy included colour monitoring, decoding, and processing in addition to EOTF, which determines how correct colours are in any respect brightness ranges. The motion-resolution attribute included 2K-to-4K upscaling, movement processing with “enhancements” disabled, and noise discount.
Results of the TV judging
After 5 hours of analysis, the judges’ ballots have been tabulated, and the outcomes are in: The common scores for every attribute inside every class, together with the winner of every class, are proven within the tables under:
Value ElectronicsIn these averaged scores from all of the judges for every efficiency attribute, these in daring are the highest rating and others that fall inside 5 p.c of that prime rating.
As you may see, the Sony XBR-65A9G gained the SDR Day, SDR Reference, and HDR Reference classes, and it tied the LG 65C9P within the Streaming class. But in lots of circumstances, the distinction in scores between the highest two units—the OLED TVs—was inside 5 p.c. As Joel Silver remarked, “I’m glad I’m not a judge!”
The two LED-backlit LCD TVs have been actually no slouches—the Sony Z9F acquired the very best rating for dynamic vary within the SDR Day class. It had considerably increased blacks than the Samsung Q90R. Also, the Z9F exhibited far more haloing with a small shiny object on a darkish background, which isn’t shocking, because it has many fewer local-dimming zones than the Q90R. The Samsung, then again, tended to crush low-level element.
In the tip, the Sony XBR-65A9G wears the crown as King of TVs for 2019, in accordance with this panel of judges. But if you happen to’re looking for a premium TV, you may’t go incorrect with both he A9G or the LG C9P.
The complete 2019 Value Electronics TV Shootout was captured on video; test it out on YouTube here.