Gaming on 77" Oled

[Konsolkongen]

I don't. I fully understand the difference between peak and average brightness and the type of content where you would see both. I just don't share the confidence that the higher potential brightness of micro-led will result in a superior image to Oled. It's never that simple.

If the tech is capable of higher average brightness without sacrificing black levels, it is not apparent on Sony's prototype. If it were, you would expect to see higher contrast (than Oled), especially on specially made HDR content, but, it was nowhere near. Ultimately contrast is what matters. Not brightness or even black levels in isolation of each other.

I was really just commenting on your claim that your OLED is already bright enough and that no higher is needed. I can see how I wasn't clear about that in my initial post.

Right now I don't really care about OLED vs Micro LED, because the tech is years away from being affordable anyway. Sure you can pick apart Sony's prototype (key word), and claim that OLED is superior. But you have to remember that OLED at this stage probably had a lot of shortcomings as well. Some of the first curved OLEDs we had in stock where I worked looked nowhere near as good as the current ones, I remember the blue colors especially being off on these sets. Right now Micro LED developers are focusing 100% on getting the LEDs smaller, picture optimisation comes later.

I believe that Micro LED has a good chance of surpassing OLED, provided that it's even possible to shrink the LEDs to the same size. Again, I love my OLED it's by far the best TV tech to date IMO, but that doesn't mean that there isn't room for improvement.

LG had to introduce white subpixels in their panels to even reach a brightness high enough for impactful HDR. And this can be a real problem for accurate color representation. Imagine a super bright, 1000 nits or higher, green neon sign in HDR. To even attempt to reach those levels of brightness (it won't) the TV has to mix in the white subpixel with the green for it to be anywhere bright enough, and this contaminates the color.

Luckily this is limited to rare occasions because most HDR highlights are white anyway, but I would still like to see this improved upon eventually

In terms of the brightness used for movie mastering, most of the current mastering reference monitors I have seen are Oled. I am fairly certain that the reference monitors they use are more than capable of displaying optimal brightness.... An editor could not use a monitor for reference if it wasn't capable of displaying all the detail they wished to show in the final product.

No OLED can do HDR at 4000 nits. HDR Tone mapping is used to map the HDR meta data to fit the display. These methods vary from manufacturer to manufacturer with Panasonic's being especially good IMO.
Unfortunately there is no objectively correct standard for tone mapping, which is why some manufacturers choose to clip detail above a certain point to preserve image brightness, and others choose to dim the image to preserve detail. The LG 2017 OLED sets had very dim HDR for this very reason, where Sony's OLED the same year had really bright HDR in comparison, but discarded all the details above 1000 nits (IIRC).
Both companies have (in my opinion) improved upon this by doing more advanced tone mapping since, more alike what Panasonic is doing where they track the EOTF curve nicely before rolling off just before it reaches the displays max brightness. Something like this image:



I would imagine the Sony BVM OLEDs are doing something similar.

EDIT:
I'm surprised to find that the Sony BVM-X300 actually can display a full 1000 nits, but it does clip everything above it:
https://youtu.be/ESzWY0hW85Y?t=478

Very impressive nonetheless

For years reputable reviewers have been trying to come up with a meaningful quality measure. The closest they have come, in terms of specs to compare image quality are "motion resolution". It ultimately comes down to how much detail you can see in regular moving content. It doesn't tell you everything but that and dynamic contrast are at least useful for narrowing down a search.

Manufacturers don't state motion resolution specs on the Best Buy shelf label for a reason. Their cheaper poor quality tv's (that most people buy) don't score well. It pisses all over their marketing story which is that you should upgrade to their latest 4k or 8k high brightness tv's for a superior and more detail image.

The motion resolutions of all sample and hold displays are the same, with only the pixel response as a difference (OLEDs excel here compared to LCD). To increase motion resolution on sample and hold displays you have two options:

Engage frame interpolation, which to my eyes looks terrible and more than often give that "soap opera effect". Furthermore this adds a ton of lag and is disabled in game modes.

Or enable black frame insertion which also increases the motion resolution by a lot, but can cause eye strain over long sessions. It also tends to drastically dim the screen.

[Guspaz]

The 2019 models are up a bit higher, the C9 does 725 nits peak brightness (as benchmarked). It can sustain that up until around 10% of the display, by 25% it drops to 457, at 50% it's 221, and for 100% it's 154 nits.

OLEDs are still the only display technology that consumers can buy that can deliver real non-blooming HDR, regardless of their limited peak brightness: no other currently available consumer technology can offer contrast ratios high enough for real HDR without huge side effects like blooming caused by giant local dimming zones. Dual-layer LCDs might get there, but aren't on the market yet.

[Classicgamer]

I don't disagree with most of that (apart from the motion resolution point). I am certainly not claiming that micro-led doesn't have the potential to match or surpass Oled (or that oled is perfect). The point is that none of us know as it's all theoretical currently with mled. We just have the "this tech has all the benefits with none of the flaws" pitch from Sony and Samsung. We should all be savvy enough at this point to know that they have to make bold claims and that no display tech is ever perfect (or even as good as they claim).

I'm a believe it when I see it kinda guy. The truth is that their estimates of the max potential brightness of the tech etc are currently just a guess. They (and we) don't even know what the max potential brightness is for existing tech. We just go on what has been made already and assume a level of incremental improvement with each new model.

I can see a bunch of potential for micro-led. I just don't think the display war will be won on brightness. It's like asking me to buy a car with thicker windows when I saw no issue with Window thickness in other cars. If HDR ever becomes more than a gimmick, all three technologies will be made sufficiently bright to meet required standards. The real potential with mled IMO is in it's modular design and larger screen sizes.

Modular means easy to transport. It's upgradable. If I move to a larger home, I can purchase additional panels instead of needing a whole new TV. If I get dead pixels, I can replace that one section. Panels can be on rails (like a word puzzle) to change the aspect ratio for different content. I can see it being an alternative to rollable Oleds and completely replacing the home theater projector market.

[Konsolkongen]

I will be surprised if the modularity of current Micro LED displays stick around for consumer products. There is very little chance you will ever be able to align these panels exactly, meaning that you will get noticeable seams. Furthermore these panels would have to be expertly calibrated when added, or their colors will not match, making the whole screen look horrible. And the native resolution of panels would be all over the place.

My guess is that the modularity of current prototypes is just a cost saving measure as these panels are crazy expensive to manufacture, even more so in a larger size.

[Classicgamer]

All current led displays are sold in modular panels so people can make any size, resolution or shape they need. You can usually see borders when you are super close but not once you stand back a little. I wondered myself if there might be any visible gaps between panels on the Samsung prototype but, apparently, nobody reported it being an issue. It will probably be fine with proper installation (and design).

My prediction is that smaller sizes (if they ever make any) will come as one piece but larger sizes will remain modular. Regardless if you are a home or a business, moving and installing 140" tv's is daunting and cumbersome. Four easy to lift 35" sections sounds more manageable and being able to build larger tv's without sacrificing pixel density is a huge sales point.

With the way the tech works, it literally makes no difference if all the panels are attached to a single backing sheet or not in terms of color calibration. All the LEDs are driven by the same controller. It's not like building a video wall with multiple lcd tvs, or edge blending a couple of projectors. If you use 12 lcd monitors, you'd have 12 independent controllers. You never calibrate display sections individually if there is only one controller.

[orange808]

If all your panels are brand spanking new, that's true. Unfortunately, that's not real life.

Same thing with edge blending projection. It's easy when they're brand new, but it gets more difficult with aging units.

You sure as hell do calibrate them "individually" (to maintain a uniform look for the combined image), because they don't stay the same.

[Konsolkongen]

All current led displays are sold in modular panels so people can make any size, resolution or shape they need. You can usually see borders when you are super close but not once you stand back a little. I wondered myself if there might be any visible gaps between panels on the Samsung prototype but, apparently, nobody reported it being an issue. It will probably be fine with proper installation (and design).

Samsung had a Micro LED demo not too long ago where they had fenced off the display so that the press couldn’t get close to the screen for this very reason. HDTVtest reported in one of his videos that there indeed where visible seams if you stood close enough.

[Classicgamer]

If all your panels are brand spanking new, that's true. Unfortunately, that's not real life.

Same thing with edge blending projection. It's easy when they're brand new, but it gets more difficult with aging units.

You sure as hell do calibrate them "individually" (to maintain a uniform look for the combined image), because they don't stay the same.

All light sources have a point at which they become degraded. If your panels had gotten to the point where they were no longer capable of reaching the required brightness, you would probably want to replace all of them. So in that sense you are right. You wouldn't put a set of 30,000 hour panels with 0 hour ones. But it takes a long time before it's really an issue.

When it happens on a CRT, Oled or Plasma, from overuse of specific pixels, you get burn in. You'd have about as long IMO with an led panel before it was a problem. Or, if you believe Samsung and Sony, it will never be an issue as they don't degrade...

Incidentally, projectors always need calibrating for edge blending, even when new and it's the same for lcd panels in a video wall if color consistency matters for the application. The reason is that you have multiple controllers with variances in voltage and settings. In a 12 screen wall, you would have 12 different OSDs with panel specific controls. With micro led panels, they all join together to form one screen with a single controller and a single set of controls. There is no panel specific controls. It's not necessary any more than it would be necessary to add controls for each line of pixels on an oled.

[Classicgamer]

All current led displays are sold in modular panels so people can make any size, resolution or shape they need. You can usually see borders when you are super close but not once you stand back a little. I wondered myself if there might be any visible gaps between panels on the Samsung prototype but, apparently, nobody reported it being an issue. It will probably be fine with proper installation (and design).

Samsung had a Micro LED demo not too long ago where they had fenced off the display so that the press couldn’t get close to the screen for this very reason. HDTVtest reported in one of his videos that there indeed where visible seams if you stood close enough.

That's not surprising and it's not necessarily an issue as long as they are not visible when it's turned on at a normal viewing distance. It doesn't matter if you can see lines at 3 feet from a 140" wall as long as you can't see them at 10 feet. We used 480i CRT TVs for years with visible pixels and even large visible gaps between lines if you stood close. We didn't mind as long as it looked good from the couch.

[Guspaz]

I don't think anybody has been claiming that LEDs won't suffer from burn-in or degredation at all. They do lose brightness over time. It's just that the lifespan of a traditional LED is normally far longer than an OLED, something like 3-4x the time to half brightness. The problem is that this is highly variable depending on environmental factors, and most importantly, how hard you're driving them. You can shorten their lifespan to just a few seconds if you get the current high enough to shorten their lifespan, but not so high that they burn out immediately

I'm sure that there's a current level that you can use to drive a micro LED that will cause them to last far longer than comparably sized OLED elements... but will that current level produce sufficient brightness?

[Classicgamer]

I don't think anybody has been claiming that LEDs won't suffer from burn-in or degredation at all. They do lose brightness over time. It's just that the lifespan of a traditional LED is normally far longer than an OLED, something like 3-4x the time to half brightness. The problem is that this is highly variable depending on environmental factors, and most importantly, how hard you're driving them. You can shorten their lifespan to just a few seconds if you get the current high enough to shorten their lifespan, but not so high that they burn out immediately

I'm sure that there's a current level that you can use to drive a micro LED that will cause them to last far longer than comparably sized OLED elements... but will that current level produce sufficient brightness?

That's exactly what Sony and Samsung have been claiming and what publications have been spreading about mled. According to them it will have all the inky blacks of Oled with higher brightness and no burn-in. A real unicorn.

I agree with you that all light sources, including led, degrade over time and therefore could burn-in. And also that how hard you drive it determines lifespan. If they try and market it as "like Oled but with eye-scorching brightness", they could easily eat up any benefits around longevity.

I think it will be a mute point in the end though. We've been using displays with burn-in potential since the dawn of TV and I have seen it in a home environment precisely zero times. After a few more years of Oled use, it won't be an important factor anymore.

I am more curious to see how they intend to deliver 1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast with materially higher brightness (than Oled) and wide viewing angles. Current TV tech has always been capable of significantly higher brightness but only at the expense of contrast. The more light emitted, the harder it is to stop leakage (between pixels) and prevent rising black levels. So far, Sony showed us higher brightness but seemingly at the expense of contrast.

100,000:1 contrast is fantastic if you are selling against DCI theater projectors but short if they want to charge a premium over Oled for the 40"-80" home TV market.

[Classicgamer]

This is the sort of fine pitch LED displays I am used to from my digital signage days. These 1.25mm pitch panels are clearly not mled TVs but are used in a similar way:

http://www.starcolorled.com/product/XTV ... eries.html

Note the inter-locking mechanism design to join multiple units. Sony and Samsung won't need to reinvent the wheel for installation / mounting designs.

What caught my attention was the 3000:1 contrast ratio. In makes me think that either high contrast in not inherent to this display tech, or there is a greater difference to how mled works than I thought. I.e. It's not just an led pitch with smaller bulbs.

Also, even though I have definitely seen larger (individual) led pitch modules, these guys chose to make tiny 20cm x 17cm units. I'm not sure if this is for greater flexibility or if it is just a work-around for an inherent manufacturing challenge with fine pitch led panels.

BTW, my CRT arcade monitors have between 0.8" and 0.9" pitches. So these fine pitch led panels are a good bit finer than what we all used to watch at home. It rekindles my interest is trying to source modules to make a large 320 x 240 retro gaming display. Time to hit eBay... I can see it now. A 120" 4:3 320 x 240 video wall in the basement at my new house...

[Guspaz]

People often think that things like OLED should have an infinite contrast ratio, because when they're off, they're emitting no light, right? Except they reflect ambiant light, it's not like they're coated in vantablack. Traditional LED matrix displays like the ones you linked to seem to often use regular clear plastic domed diodes, which are going to reflect light in all directions, which is going to hurt the contrast ratio if you're not in a pitch-black room.

There are also cases where for whatever reason, the "lowest power state" isn't completely off. If memory serves, the contrast ratio of initial plasma displays was terrible because they had to keep some sort of baseline voltage going that compromised the black levels.

[Classicgamer]

People often think that things like OLED should have an infinite contrast ratio, because when they're off, they're emitting no light, right? Except they reflect ambiant light, it's not like they're coated in vantablack. Traditional LED matrix displays like the ones you linked to seem to often use regular clear plastic domed diodes, which are going to reflect light in all directions, which is going to hurt the contrast ratio if you're not in a pitch-black room.

There are also cases where for whatever reason, the "lowest power state" isn't completely off. If memory serves, the contrast ratio of initial plasma displays was terrible because they had to keep some sort of baseline voltage going that compromised the black levels.

Contrast ratios are measured in a completely dark room or it would be impossible to compare displays.

The thing that harms black levels in test lab conditions, aside from pixels not being turned full off, is light leakage from neighboring pixels. There is no such thing as zero reflectivity substrates and any light from the screen will light the room to some extent, at which point it acts like a source of ambient light. For this reason, the best displays with the darkest blacks etc have traditionally not been the brightest.

Obviously, if they found a way to increase brightness without hurting black levels then you would increase the contrast past what Oled is capable of currently. I'm just not clear on what would differ with mled to make this possible.

So far, the only write-up we have seen on mled performance by a 3rd party suggests that greater brightness comes at the expense of contrast which would make it irrelevant to image quality. The logic that because mled can turn pixels full off like Oled but with higher brightness = equals higher contrast is flawed.

Now, just because I can't think of a way to increase brightness without hurting contrast or viewing angles, doesn't mean Samsung and Sony haven't found a way. They just haven't done it yet, apparently.

[Guspaz]

Any bleed is still going to be small compared to the massive bloom you get from full-array local dimming on single-layer LCD panels with HDR support.

[Fudoh]

Any bleed is still going to be small compared to the massive bloom you get from full-array local dimming on single-layer LCD panels with HDR support.

speaking of FALD bloom: I'm quite keen on seeing the new Asus 32" ProArt display live. Mini LED with 1152 seperate LEDs. First impressions seem to be quite good.

[vol.2]

speaking of FALD bloom: I'm quite keen on seeing the new Asus 32" ProArt display live. Mini LED with 1152 seperate LEDs. First impressions seem to be quite good.

Looks really beautiful. It's IPS with mini-led backlighting, correct?

[Fudoh]

yes, it is.

I'm just having a hard time figuring out the difference between the UCX and the UCG models. The UGX is the one shipping right now (4K 60Hz IPS + 1152 Mini LED, hardware calibration) at 3000 EUR. The UCG is the one that was just announced (4K 120Hz IPS + 1152 Mini LED) and "only" 2000 EUR price tag, but I'm wondering what they took away compared to the UGX model. Really hard to find any info on that...

[Guspaz]

I think that at 1152 dimming zones, it will still suffer from similar issues. That's still 7,200 pixels per dimming zone, or roughly 85x85 pixels per zone.

[Xyga]

I'm just having a hard time figuring out the difference between the UCX and the UCG models.

In french but there's a comparison chart in that article: http://phototrend.fr/2019/09/ifa-2019-m ... us-proart/

[Fudoh]

not too much information there. Just confirming the higher brightness and 120Hz, but as said: the chart makes the UCG look more expensive, but instead it's 1000 EUR cheaper, so something must be missing.

[vol.2]

not too much information there. Just confirming the higher brightness and 120Hz, but as said: the chart makes the UCG look more expensive, but instead it's 1000 EUR cheaper, so something must be missing.

According to this, the brightness of the UCX is 600 cd/㎡ (Typical)/1200 cd/㎡ (Peak) and it does not list mini-led backlight (although the overview does say mini led?)

https://www.asus.com/us/Monitors/ProArt ... fications/

If you look at this, the UCG brightness is 1600 cd/㎡ (Peak) and says micro-led backlighting.

https://www.asus.com/us/Monitors/ProArt ... fications/

So yeah, it looks like the UCX should be cheaper? Somebody probably has their wires crossed in the marketing department.

[Fudoh]

the UCX is definitely 1152-zone mini LED. Previews are available and it's the top of the line ProArt display. And yes, I know that the UCG is brighter, hence my questions what's missing on the UCG compared to the UCX that makes it a third cheaper in price.

I first though that maybe the UCG wouldn't offer hardware calibration, but the IFA reviews from the past weeks confirm that it does indeed has that option (as well as Dolby Vision support, switchable color spaces and everything....).

Browsing all the news sniplets about it, some pages suggest the 2000 EUR price tag, while others seem to place it above the UCX after all. I have no idea. Bit of a shame though, because the UCX is just out in the wild and it becomes a tough sell with the UCG lurking around the corner.

[Xyga]

Pricing's still not clear for everyone, that's all there is to see about it IMHO, no way the UCG is cheaper than than the UCX.
It's either that or nothing makes sense anymore.

I've been a procurement & product manager for years and always witnessed the competition and partners mess up P/N, SKU, EAN/UPC, specs and pricing, especially right after an exhibition (a mix of too much info to process, and lack of it, +fatigue, wageslaves in charge of updating, etc)

[Fudoh]

Anyway - whichever way it turns out - I feel urge to get one of these (and ideally an Extron DSC 4K right along with it).

[Classicgamer]

Any bleed is still going to be small compared to the massive bloom you get from full-array local dimming on single-layer LCD panels with HDR support.

That should be true but it clearly doesn't have to be if you look at the contrast ratios of current led displays.

But yeah, in general, it's a safe assumption that Mled will pee all over led backlight LCDs in terms of contrast. As it can turn each pixel full on / full off individually, it has Oled-like potential. It will be interesting to see if and how they take advantage of additional brightness without harming black levels.

[Classicgamer]

Anyway - whichever way it turns out - I feel urge to get one of these (and ideally an Extron DSC 4K right along with it).

How many monitors do you own at this point? Is there any wall space left? Do we need to start thinking about an intervention?

You are one of the few people I have come across online who buys as many monitors as me.

[Fudoh]

How many monitors do you own at this point?

not enough. Maybe 30 or 35, but hardly anything really setup and running. I need to expand on space (and hope to do by early next year), where I can set up at least the most important ones to actually use them once in a while.

I mean, think of it: I'm not actually thinking about buying the Asus to enjoy content on it, but instead I want to buy it to enjoy the display itself and content just presents the means to do so. Weird concept, isn't it? I think that's actually true for almost all my displays, except my main TV or my main PC monitors.

[Classicgamer]

How many monitors do you own at this point?

not enough. Maybe 30 or 35, but hardly anything really setup and running. I need to expand on space (and hope to do by early next year), where I can set up at least the most important ones to actually use them once in a while.

I mean, think of it: I'm not actually thinking about buying the Asus to enjoy content on it, but instead I want to buy it to enjoy the display itself and content just presents the means to do so. Weird concept, isn't it? I think that's actually true for almost all my displays, except my main TV or my main PC monitors.

It might be weird to some people but I get it. I own far more monitors than I could ever use and yet I still check Craigslist and ebay in case a good one comes up. I find it hard to part with displays even if I never use them, especially if they are hard to find. And, a high quality image makes me happy every time I see it (which my wife finds very weird).

It kinda feels like I am still searching for that perfect monitor as every one I currently own is a compromise in some way. Even the best of them.

Still, I'd be getting divorced if I kept 35 monitors.

[fernan1234]

my main TV or my main PC monitors.

Would really like to know what those are given that you have seen and evaluated so much video equipment.