Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio: Unmeasurable (LED Dynamic Control on Standard)

The 2D measurements below were taken in the Custom Picture Mode, through an HDMI input.

With the Backlight set to 4, the Picture (Contrast) control at 70, the Brightness at 53, the Gamma on 0, and the LED Dynamic Control on Standard, the peak white level was slightly below 36 foot-lamberts. The black level was unmeasurable with our Minolta LS-100 light meter—resulting in the unmeasurable full-on/full-off contrast ratio above. With the LED Dynamic Control on Low, the full-on/full-off contrast ratio measured 11,977:1 (peak white 35.93 ft-L, black 0.003 ft-L). With the LED Dynamic Control off, the corresponding results were 1,797:1, 35.94 ft-L, and 0.020 ft-L. After about 10 seconds, the latter dropped dramatically to roughly the same reading obtained in the Low setting, but the 0.02-ft-L figure is representative of the set’s performance with real program material and the LED Dynamic Control on off (local dim- ming off). I found no reason to set the LED Dynamic Control to anything but its Standard setting.

Delta E is a figure of merit indicat- ing how close the color comes to the D65 HD color standard. Values below 3 are generally considered visually indistinguishable from ideal. Pre- calibration, the set’s gray-scale Delta E averaged 4.02, with a peak of 6.56 at 100 percent brightness. The pre- calibration color point Delta E aver- aged 3.03, with blue the major offender at 5.72. Post-calibration, the average gray-scale Delta E dropped to 0.35, with a maximum of 0.47 at 20 percent brightness. Post calibration, the color Delta E averaged 1.81, with blue again the outlier at 3.71. (Though the set has no color management system, the slight color gamut improvement post calibration was due simply to careful adjustment of the Color control, which improved the luminance values enough to slightly drop the average color Delta E.)

Post calibration, the gamma averaged 2.24 in the 0 setting, with no value lower than 2.19 or higher than 2.3. But some sources worked better at the –1 settings.

As noted in the review, the color was not calibrated separately for 3D because of the 3D glasses tilt issue. But I did measure a 3D peak white level of about 24 ft-L (with both the Picture and Backlight controls at Maximum).—TJN