New Sony OLED to have much brighter panels, 120hz, and VRR

[Taiyaki]

Not sure if everyone saw the data on the upcoming Sony A90J series but it looks very promising. New panels from LG that they call evo panels, that are more energy efficient, allowing for a much brighter image. LG themselves claim 20% increase throughout, but some pictures taken at some Chinese event shows them testing the tv and reaching as high as 1300 nits on a 10% window (perhaps on vivid mode?). The technical explanation that I've read doesn't make sense to me as I'm not an engineer, but they say it's because LG changed some material from hydrogen to deuterium base, and added a green emitting layer.

Despite the higher brightness levels they claim it will be even more resistant to burn in thanks to being more energy efficient, but also as they will use a new heatsink like Panasonic did on their recent OLED flagship. Will come with 2x hdmi 2.1 48gbs for use with 4k120hz consoles and pc's. Variable Refresh Rate is promised at some point through an update too. Lastly it even comes Calman ready so that amateur calibrators can use those more affordable calibrating tools like the X-Rite I think (something I was thinking of getting into actually).

I've always been really cautious over OLED because of the fears of burn in but I think this has got to be one of the better years for the technology and makes it very tempting to jump in.

[Josh128]

Im sure it wont be cheap.

[Taiyaki]

Probably same prices as usual if I had to guess. We'll have to see when prices come out next week.

[orange808]

I'm curious about their new video processing. Will it be good or a huge gimmick?

Here's a promo picture for an HDR "enhancement" on their high end beamer:

Spoiler

Maybe that is better. I don't know. I see crushed blacks. Not an improvement to me.

The picture is a promo and it wasn't shared as criticism. I'm supposed to be impressed. I'm not. I hope their new processing on their OLED isn't a ton of silly filters that make things worse.

Looks like it needed a slight gamma adjustment, but you can't crush the blacks in the process. With all the fire in the scene, the blacks might naturally glow a bit, anyhow.

[fernan1234]

20% brightness doesn't sound like that much, but I guess you gotta take whatever you can get.

The XR processing does sound full of gimmicks, it's kinda crazy. Who knows though, it may do some neat stuff, though sounds like it's only really UHD HDR stuff that stands to benefit from it. I'm actually more interested in how it upscales and displays HD SDR stuff, since that's virtually all the content I'd care to put on a flat panel.

I'd appreciate some SDR to HDR conversion gimmick, may be fun to play around with. And of course simple 4x pixel scaling for 1080p, like their pro monitors do.

If I had the room for it, both in living room and wallet, I'd actually really like to get the 83'' just for the size experience. It's listed here but with none of the details, guess that means it's coming later than the smaller ones:

https://www.sony.com/electronics/televi ... ifications

edit: also would really love 1:1 pixel mapping options, but I feel like consumer sets will never give us that for whatever reason.

[Taiyaki]

Yeah I'm very skeptical about the new processor. I always turn off all processing. That being said I've seen comments from some calibrators saying that for the first time they're actually interesting in doing tests with this new processor running to see what it does, so we'll see when such run downs get uploaded. The promise of using AI fed info on how the human eye perceives images is rather interesting I have to admit.

I'd love the 83 inches too but I have neither the room nor the funds for it.

They never seem to care for features that aid retro games on modern tv's, so I guess 1:1 pixel mapping settings aren't likely.

[bobrocks95]

Sony has had bad input lag on all their sets for the past few years. Very hard to imagine that LG won't continue to be the ideal choice for gamers when you also consider its OSSC compatibility (and 4K 120Hz and VRR support since 2 models ago).

Also, I'm always confused when people talk about brightness. HDR content on my LG B9 OLED has nearly made my eyes water before. I keep my computer monitor at 40% of its max brightness because any higher is just asking for eye strain. How bright do most people actually want things?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

What your thoughts on the Sony 48" oled tv, the XBR-48A9S?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Guspaz]

If you're looking for a small OLED, LG Display (who supplies panels to both Sony and LG's TV division) announced a 42" panel for release this year.

[Taiyaki]

So the TV is out now and apparently it's a complete killer.

Tinting, near black 5%, banding, uniformity, all perfect, first time I've ever heard of such a thing on oled. ABL apparently no longer triggers, which effectively eliminates all the most displeasing aspects of OLED.

Color volume and depth is said to be noticeably improved, and the brightness has a big boost in middle zones. Calibrated mode it reaches 800 nits at 10% in test patterns, with a bit of extra headroom for specular highlights (users report those might be reaching into the 900 nits zone in real content).

From what some calibrators are saying Sony may have set these brightness levels based on some focus group testing of what was most pleasing for night time viewing. Everyone with the tv seems to say it's the best HDR in a dark room they've ever experienced. Also TV reportedly runs cool thanks to the heatsink, and it uses 20% less power.

With the cooler more energy efficient panel, burn in might also have become a thing of the past. people who pushed the panel in vivid (where it can unlock itself past 1300 nits) say that image retention corrects itself within a few seconds, and faster than any previous OLED could). Oh yeah, and motion handling is apparently further improved too. Adding to that the fact Sony finally does TV led Dolby Vision and now has 2.1 hdmi at 48gbs, the whole thing just sounds so stellar it's almost unreal.

[fernan1234]

Anyone else find it very upsetting that the remotes still have these gigantic Youtube, Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video buttons?

I guess this is what TV has become. I'm too old school for this stuff. Everything about the panel sounds great though. I guess hooking it up to an appropriate HDMI switch and controlling audio externally would be enough to never needing to see that remote abomination.

[Josh128]

So the TV is out now and apparently it's a complete killer.

Tinting, near black 5%, banding, uniformity, all perfect, first time I've ever heard of such a thing on oled. ABL apparently no longer triggers, which effectively eliminates all the most displeasing aspects of OLED.

Color volume and depth is said to be noticeably improved, and the brightness has a big boost in middle zones. Calibrated mode it reaches 800 nits at 10% in test patterns, with a bit of extra headroom for specular highlights (users report those might be reaching into the 900 nits zone in real content).

From what some calibrators are saying Sony may have set these brightness levels based on some focus group testing of what was most pleasing for night time viewing. Everyone with the tv seems to say it's the best HDR in a dark room they've ever experienced. Also TV reportedly runs cool thanks to the heatsink, and it uses 20% less power.

With the cooler more energy efficient panel, burn in might also have become a thing of the past. people who pushed the panel in vivid (where it can unlock itself past 1300 nits) say that image retention corrects itself within a few seconds, and faster than any previous OLED could). Oh yeah, and motion handling is apparently further improved too. Adding to that the fact Sony finally does TV led Dolby Vision and now has 2.1 hdmi at 48gbs, the whole thing just sounds so stellar it's almost unreal.

Sounds nice, do you have any links to reviews and/or sales? **EDIT

[Update: Sony has just unveiled pricing information on the Sony A80J OLED in the UK and Europe. The 55-inch A80J will cost £1999/€2299; the 65-inch A80J costs £2699/€3149 and the 77-inch A80J comes in at £4199/€4949.]

Burn in could be improved, but it'll never be a thing of the past. CRT, plasma, OLED, they all do it eventually if a high contrast image is left on screen. Until some phosphor material is found that doesnt fade or discolor at all over time in the presence of bright light, it'll always be something to be wary of. That said, it can vary greatly from display to display. The final model (2013-2014) Sammy plasmas have impeccable burn in resistance, I have 4 in my home and none of them have any appreciable burn in to speak of, but if you examine the most abused ones close enough, you can detect a little bit on certain colors/scenes. Both my kids (the abusers) have been trained to not leave any still images or HUDs on the screen when possible, but they are kids, they will do what they will do.

Regardless, I hope they are indeed improved in that aspect. I loathe LCD of any kind and I hope to replace my plasmas with OLED when the time comes.

[Taiyaki]

Sounds nice, do you have any links to reviews and/or sales? **EDIT

Burn in could be improved, but it'll never be a thing of the past. CRT, plasma, OLED, they all do it eventually if a high contrast image is left on screen. Until some phosphor material is found that doesnt fade or discolor at all over time in the presence of bright light, it'll always be something to be wary of. That said, it can vary greatly from display to display. The final model (2013-2014) Sammy plasmas have impeccable burn in resistance, I have 4 in my home and none of them have any appreciable burn in to speak of, but if you examine the most abused ones close enough, you can detect a little bit on certain colors/scenes. Both my kids (the abusers) have been trained to not leave any still images or HUDs on the screen when possible, but they are kids, they will do what they will do.

Regardless, I hope they are indeed improved in that aspect. I loathe LCD of any kind and I hope to replace my plasmas with OLED when the time comes.

You're right, with emmissive displays you never get it 100% risk free of burn in, but I think we can say that for CRT's they did pretty much beat it by the end. Sure in arcade centers you would still see it, but that's not normal use by any means (not to mention the exact same game running all the time). Plasma did great at the end, but image retention was not fully gone even in 2013. I still have one Plasma left, VT50 from 2013, and it was still prone to image retention (although improved from the 2010 VT25 model). Whenever it gets some retention it wouldn't go away for many hours, if not days. Burn in was less of an issue, but I do have some ever so slight burn in on various corners. You wouldn't see it unless you went up close or ran some proper color test patterns though. OLED in the last couple years apparently already beats Plasma in that department (and far exceeds it in the image retention department), but with the inclusion of heat sinks and lower energy consumption thanks to this new oled panel, it seems burn in is looking to be significantly reduced from even last years models.

No official online review yet, but some professional calibrators, as well as regular users, who got their hands on them have already done run downs with their impressions, some of which are on various av message boards, a thread for this tv on the blu ray. com forums in the oled section, and some on Youtube too. I think official reviews on sites like Rtings should be coming shortly.

[Taiyaki]

Anyone else find it very upsetting that the remotes still have these gigantic Youtube, Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video buttons?

I guess this is what TV has become. I'm too old school for this stuff. Everything about the panel sounds great though. I guess hooking it up to an appropriate HDMI switch and controlling audio externally would be enough to never needing to see that remote abomination.

Yes I wish they didn't have those buttons either, but they've had them on these for some years now unfortunately. I guess the Disney+ one is new though.

[spmbx]

Apart from EXT and volume those buttons are the only thing on the remote that do get used here so i'm very happy with them.

[bigbadboaz]

Sounds great but if LG is sliding this same upgraded panel into the usual sweetspots of their own OLED line that might remain the place to look.

[orange808]

Sounds great but if LG is sliding this same upgraded panel into the usual sweetspots of their own OLED line that might remain the place to look.

To be perfectly honest, LG's video processing has not been impressive. I never found any setting to make film content look good--without using an external machine to do the processing and feed the LG a preprocessed 120Hz signal. From what I've read, I am not the only that has been disappointed.

Unless LG has significantly upgraded their video processing, I'll probably be replacing my LG with a Sony in the near future. Of course, your milage may vary. I'm just pointing out that the panel isn't the reason I want to replace my LG; it's the video processing. I'm glad Sony is finally embracing gaming features.

[Taiyaki]

Sounds great but if LG is sliding this same upgraded panel into the usual sweetspots of their own OLED line that might remain the place to look.

Some of their models will feature the new panel but none of them will have a heatsink this year.

[bobrocks95]

What are input lag measurements on Sony OLEDs though? I remember 40+ ms in game mode being the norm for Sony sets lately. EDIT: A8G was vastly improved, nice to see.

Is there VRR support?

[Visker]

i saw in the owners thread on AVS 16ms in game mode

[nissling]

To be perfectly honest, LG's video processing has not been impressive. I never found any setting to make film content look good--without using an external machine to do the processing and feed the LG a preprocessed 120Hz signal.

Why would you want to feed the TV with a 120Hz signal for 24p sources? The LGs fully support 5:5 pulldown.

I will however say that LG OLEDs have never satisfied me overall. Uniformity issues were extremely apparent for many years and while it seems to have been improved in the *9 and *X models, I now get fixed pattern noise when viewing HDR content. Also calibration controls are very clumsy and always require major compromises. Dithering is uneven and sub-par most of the time. Panasonic have managed to achieve much better results with the same panels.

[fernan1234]

In terms of picture quality the LGs have always been subpar. Their success is due to adequate lag for gaming compared to the others, and lower prices than other WOLED TVs.

This year only the higher end G1 model will have the new brighter panel.

This Sony on the other hand seems to be in videophile territory. I've heard some say that only the Panasonic has better picture quality, though combined with Sony's likely better motion handling the former would be the overall best package.

[orange808]

To be perfectly honest, LG's video processing has not been impressive. I never found any setting to make film content look good--without using an external machine to do the processing and feed the LG a preprocessed 120Hz signal.

Why would you want to feed the TV with a 120Hz signal for 24p sources? The LGs fully support 5:5 pulldown.

Because, that gets me access to gentle interpolation to smooth out motion. A media PC can process video much better than my LG. It works, but it's not always convenient.

To my eye, Sony's Motion Flow does a good job smoothing motion without making everything look like a cheap home video (soap opera effect). Playing Blu-ray on a PC is a pain in the ass. I'd rather just hook up the player and let the display take care of the processing.

I already explained LG's video processing makes me unhappy. I saw one of last year's Sony OLED models and it looked great with movies, but it didn't have the gaming features I want.

As long as Sony lets me turn off some of their "AI" stuff (and I think they will), it should be fine.

[Taiyaki]

What are input lag measurements on Sony OLEDs though? I remember 40+ ms in game mode being the norm for Sony sets lately. EDIT: A8G was vastly improved, nice to see.

Is there VRR support?

Apparently on this new one it's 8ms in 120hz and 16 in 60hz.

VRR support is promised by Sony for this model but will come via an update in some months.

[BuckoA51]

Because, that gets me access to gentle interpolation to smooth out motion. A media PC can process video much better than my LG. It works, but it's not always convenient.

I've never seen a media PC that can maintain a proper cadence lock between audio and video correctly, like a reasonable blu-ray player can. There's always the odd bit of judder now and then. Is that different now with HDMI graphics cards?

Personally I just watch in 24p on the LG, I did used to like motionflow on my old Sony though.