Can anyone with a new 4K QD-OLED do a couple black level tests?

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Sycraft

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There was a note on the TFTCentral review about the ASUS that it suffers from black crush, at least in SDR mode. This is something I notice on my Samsung S95B TV as well, which is also QD-OLED. So I'm wondering two things:

1) Is this just something inherent to the technology?

2) Is it only a problem in SDR?


To test that if you have one there are two tests I'd ask you to run and report on:

For SDR Black Level: Set HDR off in Windows, then go to http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php and have a look in SDR mode and say which is the lowest number you can clearly distinguish from the background black.

For HDR Black Level: I don't have a great way to test it. The VESA DisplayHDR Test utility is great, but for whatever reason it is gone now so you can't get it. The Windows HDR calibration will work ok. Run it and on the first test, say what is the lowest value you can set where you can see the dark box lines. It only goes down to 0.05 nits though, which is display level 16 in HDR10 so there are darker shades it should be able to display, but we can't easily test those.


Let me know what your screen is and what the results are. I'm curious to see if this is the same across all QD-OLEDs or if it varies.
 
For the Samsung S95B it is box 3 on the SDR test and somewhere around 0.05 nits HDR (in the calibrator I couldn't quite see 0.05, but in the DisplayHDR test going to level 17 did it). That's better than when I got it so later firmware updates may have helped.

For reference to a non-OLED my PG32UQX is box 1 on SDR with FALD on, box 3 with it off, and 0.026 nits or less (display level 11) for HDR, that's when I can't see it anymore but I can't tell if it continues to get darker or if that's the limit of my eyes.
 
Sycraft said:
There was a note on the TFTCentral review about the ASUS that it suffers from black crush, at least in SDR mode. This is something I notice on my Samsung S95B TV as well, which is also QD-OLED. So I'm wondering two things:

1) Is this just something inherent to the technology?

2) Is it only a problem in SDR?


To test that if you have one there are two tests I'd ask you to run and report on:

For SDR Black Level: Set HDR off in Windows, then go to http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php and have a look in SDR mode and say which is the lowest number you can clearly distinguish from the background black.

For HDR Black Level: I don't have a great way to test it. The VESA DisplayHDR Test utility is great, but for whatever reason it is gone now so you can't get it. The Windows HDR calibration will work ok. Run it and on the first test, say what is the lowest value you can set where you can see the dark box lines. It only goes down to 0.05 nits though, which is display level 16 in HDR10 so there are darker shades it should be able to display, but we can't easily test those.


Let me know what your screen is and what the results are. I'm curious to see if this is the same across all QD-OLEDs or if it varies.
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Does the Asus not have a control for the black level? Most gaming monitors do, nowadays. However, that option is often locked out in the pre-calibrated modes, which may be what TFT Central is referring to.
 
chameleoneel said:
Does the Asus not have a control for the black level? Most gaming monitors do, nowadays. However, that option is often locked out in the pre-calibrated modes, which may be what TFT Central is referring to.
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I don't know, I don't have one. I was hoping someone with one would post. However the thing about black level controls is if you just raise the black level while that'd work, it is less accurate. What we should want out of our high end displays is that they can accurately display the very faint tones near black. It was something that annoyed my about my OLED when I got it was that dark scenes seemed to suffer from some black crush.
 
Not OLED, but on my MacBook Pro 14" (which has a MiniLED screen) I can see box 5 with the default Apple XDR Display (P3-1600 nits) preset and box 1 with the Internet & Web (sRGB) preset.
 
Sycraft said:
Next time I'm going to have to pay the Sony tax. They just do software right :p
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Totally worth the extra spend, but only if you will keep the display for a decade, which is what I tend to do. Motion handling is as close to plasma that I’ve seen. HDR Brightness and upscaling performance of lower res content is almost beyond belief. I’m guessing the Samsung is 85% there, maybe more, but that last bit of extra performance makes for a REALLY impressive display.
 
Blackstone said:
Totally worth the extra spend, but only if you will keep the display for a decade, which is what I tend to do. Motion handling is as close to plasma that I’ve seen. HDR Brightness and upscaling performance of lower res content is almost beyond belief. I’m guessing the Samsung is 85% there, maybe more, but that last bit of extra performance makes for a REALLY impressive display.
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Ya I'm not replacing the S95B any time soon. It is not a bad TV, far from it, it's the best TV I've ever owned. However at some point I'll get bitten by the bug to get something better, mainly for more HDR brightness. When I do... I might pay the Sony tax. I had though about it when I got this one but it was $1000 more on a $1900 TV which was just more than seemed reasonable.

I kinda regret it though, because the better EOTF tracking and black level I get on my PG32UQX is really nice, and it sounds like the Sony has that.

But I'm not unhappy with what I have.
 
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