LG CX first look

[Bahn Yuki]

https://youtu.be/yaxTkMEj3Jg

Sent from my LM-Q710.FG using Tapatalk

[CMcK]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the BFI system on this years LG OLEDs. It’s making me seriously consider replacing my LG E6. I know it’s hard to make a direct comparison via a YouTube video but from what I could see there doesn’t seem to be any perceptible difference between your OLED and CRT with regards to lag caused by video processing. Very impressive.
I am hoping a pro calibrator could properly combine the clear BFI settings with accurate colour reproduction and adequate brightness for SDR gaming and regular cable TV / Freeview and Blu-ray viewing.

How effective the BFI system could be with HDR content given the reduction in brightness well I’m not getting my hopes up. Have you tried any modern consoles with HDR output or any UHDs on the CX?

[Fudoh]

thanks for the impressions. I'll get the 48" one as a desktop monitor for testing processors and stuff.

With the 120 BFI you should get slight double images. Won't be noticeable a fighter, but if you choose something with smooth 60fps scrolling and sprite movement, you might notice it.

Also, can you try the scanline persistence test I like to run on my Sony OLED monitors? If you play a game with scanlines and lateral movement to the scanline direction (e.g. a vertically scrolling shooter with horizontal scanlines), the scanlines will seem to disappear from the background due to eye/screen persistence. On OLEDs it's already better than on any LCD, but using rolling scan on the Sony OLED PVM/BVM displays you get solid scanlines even during lateral movement, which can even outperform a CRT. Give this a try switching BFI on and off

[Fudoh]

technically motion blur isn't a problem on OLEDs. It's not the blur that reduces your motion resolution, it's the sample and hold persistence of the image and what eyes make of it. You can get full 1080p motion resolution on a LCD with BFI or scanning backlight, but you'll still have to deal with the blur (because of the freakin' pixel response time). On an OLED the pixel response time is basically zero, so it's - technically speaking - not the exact same issue that's causing your resolution loss during movement.

If you were to take photos with low enough shutter speeds, you'd get extremely sharp images (contrary to what your eyes perceive).

[CMcK]

Fudoh, I gather the BFI technique on the 2020 LG OLEDs is a rolling portion of the screen is blanked out rather than just inserting a black frame on each alternate frame. Is this rolling BFI similar to Sony pro monitors?

[Fudoh]

Fudoh, I gather the BFI technique on the 2020 LG OLEDs is a rolling portion

maybe. This would explain how they manage to offer low/med/high settings for the BFI. On the PVM it's a fixed bar, but it's a 60Hz implementation there (also on the BVMs), not a 120Hz one, since 120Hz BFI requires either framedoubling or frame interpolation.

[CMcK]

I wonder if using frame interpolation for the 120Hz rolling BFI could add artifacts along the lines associated with typical TV motion interpolation systems? Surely straightforward frame doubling would be best?

[bobrocks95]

Is altered BFI the main difference over the 9 series this year?

[fernan1234]

I really don't think this is rolling a portion of black screen at all. I did hear there were plans by some manufacturer, maybe LG, to use 1/2 or 1/4 black frames, but I'm not sure if that's what's being implemented here. I imagine that the adjustable settings for the Motion Pro/BFI are probably changing the black frame refresh rate only. Maybe medium is the equivalent of 60Hz BFI, and only high is @ 120Hz.

It's unfortunate that due to the power and heat limitations of these OLED panels they're not able to automatically boost brightness to compensate for the BFI. That's what the old Sony pro monitors do, such that using the rolling black bar looks identical in brightness to having it off, but those panels are different beasts than LG's commercial WOLEDs.

[Konsolkongen]

Interesting video. I wonder though if the Auto setting won't cause brightness fluctuations, if it varies on a scene by scene basis?

Do you own an OSSC, and could you test out the 3x, 4x and 5x modes just to confirm that they still work on these TVs as well?

[Guspaz]

As compared to the C9, the CX adds:

• AMD FreeSync (the C9 supports HDMI 2.1 VRR and G-Sync but not HDMI 2.0 FreeSync)
• 4K120 support over HDMI 2.0 using 4:2:0 (the C9 requires HDMI 2.1 for 4K120)
• 120Hz BFI
• New video processor with twice the performance
• 48" model
• Dolby Vision IQ
• Bluetooth rear speakers (but only on upmixed 2.0 content for some reason)
• A bunch of little minor tweaks to algorithms and features that you probably wouldn't notice

It's not terribly different from the C9.

[BONKERS]

thanks for the impressions. I'll get the 48" one as a desktop monitor for testing processors and stuff.

With the 120 BFI you should get slight double images. Won't be noticeable a fighter, but if you choose something with smooth 60fps scrolling and sprite movement, you might notice it.

Also, can you try the scanline persistence test I like to run on my Sony OLED monitors? If you play a game with scanlines and lateral movement to the scanline direction (e.g. a vertically scrolling shooter with horizontal scanlines), the scanlines will seem to disappear from the background due to eye/screen persistence. On OLEDs it's already better than on any LCD, but using rolling scan on the Sony OLED PVM/BVM displays you get solid scanlines even during lateral movement, which can even outperform a CRT. Give this a try switching BFI on and off

I had always wondered about why scanlines seem to disappear with vertical movement. Even on a CRT in some circumstances.

[kamiboy]

I was in a B&O store to take a look at their Harmony TV’s that are basically just a fancy speaker/stand for LG OLED’s and was told that they now come with the GX series as default, and that the G series actually has some technical advantages over the C series.

This is news to me since I was under the impression that from C series and up LG OLEDs differ only in aesthetics and sound capability.

He showed me an email quoting perfect colour and perfect viewing angle as additional features of the G series. I have not been able to confirm this from any other source. It is false information, right?

[fernan1234]

He showed me an email quoting perfect colour and perfect viewing angle as additional features of the G series. I have not been able to confirm this from any other source. It is false information, right?

Has to be. That's some nasty upselling tactic. Or LG has one of the best kept dirty little secrets in the display industry.

[Guspaz]

Last generation, every single model, from the cheapest to the most expensive, used exactly the same identical panel. While I don't know that's true for certain of the X series, I really doubt that's changed.

Besides, there's no viewing angle restriction on these OLED panels to begin with.

[fernan1234]

Besides, there's no viewing angle restriction on these OLED panels to begin with.

They do have color drift when seen off angle, but yeah all of them should be the same regardless of model.

[kamiboy]

I’m not even sure whether the panels have changed at all since 2017/16 on LG OLEDs. Most of the improvements have been on the processing front.

Speaking of which, I have a very niche concern. I watch a lot of youtube on my 2018 OLED and one thing that annoys me is the sound quality when I play videos at 1.25/1.5x speeds. Seems the youtube app on LG TV’s does a poor job with pitch correcting audio when playing at faster speeds.

I verified that this had not changed in 2019 models, so I have little hope of it being improved in 2020 models, but can any owners confirm?

[Konsolkongen]

The panels did change in 2018 to use a slightly larger red subpixel for even less chance of burn in.

[H6rdc0re]

Well apparently the LG 2020 4K OLED models don't support full HDMI 2.1 48Gb/s bandwidth but are limited to about 40Gb/s. It doesn't support 4K 120fps RGB/YCbCr444 12bit but rather 4K 120fps RGB/YCbCr444 10bit instead. Seems like small difference but the 2019 4K OLED all do support 4K 120fps RGB/YCbCr444 12bit.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher ... l-hdmi-21/

[Guspaz]

That's a bit odd, but as the article points out, not something that matters in practice. There isn't likely to be any content that could actually take advantage of 4K 120FPS HDR during the lifespan of the displays, and even if the next-gen consoles do manage to pull it off (from an in-game rendering standpoint, not a theoretical interface limit standpoint), you're probably not going to notice the difference between 12bpc and 10bpc.

[Konsolkongen]

The panels are 10bit, so I don't see this mattering at all really

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFJmjKJGx5o

[Fudoh]

I initially thought that LG's 2020 OLED models finally moved to a native internal 240Hz refresh (as a reminder: all higher end LCD TV panels have been running at 240Hz for the past ten years).

Instead the panels are still running at 120Hz.

On the C9 BFI created a 100% black frame for every source frame (from a 60Hz source). This caused the visible 60Hz flicker along with a heavy drop in overall brightness. The 2020 CX models allow us to set the percentage of "black" inserted by the BFI. On the MAX setting the CX does what the C9 did: insert a 100% black frame after each source frame. With MIN or MED settings the source frames are doubled to 120Hz and only parts of the doubled frames are blacked out. Likely around 30% with the MIN setting and 60% with the MED setting. The blacked out area is likely cycled, so the illusion of a rolling scan is created.

MIN/MED Motion Pro setting: source frame A / partially blacked out source frame A / source frame B / ...

Interestingly not a single review out there was able to put the new BFI function into perspective. After watching almost every single review available, I'm still not 100% sure what happens, when you combine a 120Hz source with the motion pro setting. Since the panel can't go above 120Hz, BFI isn't applied to duplicate frames, but to genuine ones. I guess that the MAX setting here also only partially blacks out every other frame, otherwise the motion would essentially be cut into half with every second frame source simply being dropped.

[fernan1234]

Apparently whatever exactly the MIN and MID settings are doing, they hardly do anything to clear up the motion above the panel's baseline. So most people may find those useless anyway.

Also it seems like the CX doesn't fix the problem that all prior models have had, where turning on BFI/Motion Pro at all, regardless of level setting, still engages interpolation in some way, even if the other two sliders (de-blur and de-judder) are at 0 (see: https://youtu.be/NrRUTqfB_Ts?t=289).

[Fudoh]

Also it seems like the CX doesn't fix the problem that all prior models have had, where turning on BFI/Motion Pro at all, regardless of level setting, still engages interpolation in some way, even if the other two sliders (de-blur and de-judder) are at 0

that's right, but if you still need interpolation to increase the motion resolution, that's not really an issue. And in game mode it's disabled completely after all.

[fernan1234]

Same reviewer also just posted a C9 vs. CX comparison, which reveals the CX is a downgrade in some aspects (some of which may be resolved eventually with a firmware update).

[Konsolkongen]

Yeah there are some weird bugs apparantly. But hopefully they will be able to fix those soon enough. The omission of DTS HD decoding on eARC seems like the biggest loss to me, and I don't actually think I've ever used that As I understand it regular DTS should still be supported, right?

[bobrocks95]

Yeah there are some weird bugs apparantly. But hopefully they will be able to fix those soon enough. The omission of DTS HD decoding on eARC seems like the biggest loss to me, and I don't actually think I've ever used that As I understand it regular DTS should still be supported, right?

Don't know how it stands with the CX, but much worse is that on the 9 series 5+ channel LPCM from game consoles/PCs can't be passed via eARC. A fix is "in the works" and has been for I think around 8 months+ now.

[Konsolkongen]

That’s really unfortunate. My Yamaha AVR is HDMI 2.0 only so I was hoping I could connect next gen consoles to a 2.1 TV and have 7.1 audio passed through LPCM eARC

Hopefully the CX doesn’t have this problem.

[BazookaBen]

https://youtu.be/yaxTkMEj3Jg

I noticed you weren't using the "user" mode. From the other videos I've watched you have to go into user mode to enable BFI by itself, otherwise motion interpolation will also be enabled.

I really don't think this is rolling a portion of black screen at all. I did hear there were plans by some manufacturer, maybe LG, to use 1/2 or 1/4 black frames, but I'm not sure if that's what's being implemented here.

https://youtu.be/FT5VK5YPTkc?t=289

Looks like a rolling black bar, like the Sony pro monitors do.

[fernan1234]

https://youtu.be/FT5VK5YPTkc?t=289

Looks like a rolling black bar, like the Sony pro monitors do.

I saw that, but the C9 also looks like that (except as if it were rolling a thicker "bar"). I wonder if it just looks that way as an artifact of the capture setup. I won't believe it's a legit rolling scan until the manufacturer calls it that (and they should if it is, it would be a bragging point to do something that pro monitors do).