OLED TV Reviews

For the control settings used for testing, go to soundandvision.com. The measurements here were made using CalMAN measurement software from Portrait Displays/Spectracal, together with Photo Research PR-650 and Klein K-10A color meters and a Fresco Six-G test pattern generator from Murideo/AVPro.

HD/SDR

Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio: Unmeasurable

Post-calibration in the ISF Expert (Dark Room) picture mode with peak white output set for 42 ft-L (144 nits), OLED Light at 60, Contrast at 75, and Brightness at 51, the LG's black level could not be measured. It was, effectively, totally black, making full-on/full-off contrast ratio unmeasurable with our available test tools.

Image lag in Game mode, measured using an 1080p test generator was 12.9ms, increasing to just over 90ms in ISF Expert (Dark Room) mode.

With the ISF Expert (Dark Room) picture mode selected, the pre-calibration grayscale Delta E values ranged from a low of 1.47 at 20% to a high of 4.11 at 100%. Post calibration, the values ranged from a low of 0.14 at 80% to a high of 0.9 at 20%. The BT.1886 gamma measured a low of 2.32 at 20% and a high of 2.47 at 70%.

Pre-calibration color Delta E values ranged from 1.32 for green to 3.01 for cyan. After calibration, the minimum was 0.17 for magenta and the maximum 0.87 for yellow.

(Delta E is a figure of merit that indicates how closely a display adheres to the color standard. Experts generally agree that at levels below 3-4 the result is visibly indistinguishable from perfect color tracking. Delta E values may be used to characterize the accuracy of either grayscale or color.)

UHD/HDR

Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio: Unmeasurable

In HDR Technicolor Expert picture mode with OLED Light at 100, Contrast at 100, Brightness at 50, Dynamic Contrast Off, and Peak Brightness on High, the LG's black level (as with SDR) was essentially zero, rendering the full-on/full-off contrast unmeasurable.

After manual calibration, HDR10 performance of the 65E9 was excellent. The luminance was slightly lower than the EOTF target (the PQ curve, or gamma for HDR) by about 10% at 30% of peak white, dropping 2.4% lower at 70%.

Before calibration, the grayscale Delta Es with luminance included ranged from a low of 0.5 at 20% to a high of 4.8 at 90%. Post calibration they maxed out at 1.3 at 50% with luminance and 0.8 at 50% without luminance. The maximum color Delta E with luminance was 4.1 for cyan pre-calibration, and 3.1 for red post-calibration. No other post-calibration color values were higher than 1.6).

The HDR peak white levels with various-size 100% luminance windows measured (in nits) 690 at 5%, 710 at 10%, 440 at 25%, and 140 at 100%. The set measured 72.2% of BT.2020 and 97.9% of P3, both using the 1976 standard. (No consumer source material as yet exceeds P3.)—TJN