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[Stafford]

LG OLED 65C9
Xbox Series X (also Switch, Xbox One X)

Apps like YouTube, Netflix, Disney +.

Ever since GTA 5 on Xbox One (X) this has been an issue. I thought it was games only first, but then I started to see it in YouTube videos as well, but some Netflix shows/movies too. To make sure it wasn't my TV causing it I have streamed these games to my tablet and phone via the Xbox app. Same story.

I also watched these videos on YouTube and Netflix on my phone and tablet, same story. For movies and shows it's not the end of the world for me, but it's horrible in some games. GTA 5, Witcher 3, AC Valhalla, Unto the End and so on. A few examples of it, but before I do that...can anything be done about this? Why isn't this issue more widespread criticized? Surely it can be better?

Look at the sky in the GTA 5 video, look at the background of AC Valhalla, look at the snow in Unto the End.

I also watched IGN's first minutes of Unto the End just to be 100% sure, and I see it there too.

 

[RoboFu]

OLED has colorbanding issues. much more so than other displays.

Also Some tvs have built in features to smooth over color banding issues witthe display.

Some video codecs have colorbanding issues in their compression.

 

[Kuranghi]

LG TV's aren't very good at native gradient handling. They finally added an option around 2018 I believe but it was combined with a noise reduction settings so there were unwanted side effects to enabling it even if it did kinda fix it (Still not as good as Sony native handling though, let alone Smooth Gradation). I believe they separated the settings after that but it didn't work as good on its own since the tied-in noise reduction was smoothing the whole image out (Which is bad for overall IQ) and as a by-product the gradients were getting smoothed out.

Sony has had the best native handling of gradients for a long time but they've also had an option called "Smooth Gradation" in their TV's since 2016 and it can aggressively smooth gradients that are as bad as in your videos. Even when set to medium/high most people won't notice any change to the rest of the image, with low it will smooth gradients and not affect the image in a way a human eye can see, even on complex stuff like transparency effects in games. I used it for Jedi Fallen Order as that had some banding in the red lights passing through smoke effects when HDR was on and it handled it beautifully.

 

[MetalRain]

Yeah, all you can do is avoid dark scenes and wide areas with gradient where this is more apparent. Maybe we'll get there with 12-bit material and panels?

 

[M1chl]

Hmm so I am not retarded then, I was expecting OLED to handle this shit well, but sadly it don't.

 

[Kuranghi]

LG OLED 65C9
Xbox Series X (also Switch, Xbox One X)

Apps like YouTube, Netflix, Disney +.

Ever since GTA 5 on Xbox One (X) this has been an issue. I thought it was games only first, but then I started to see it in YouTube videos as well, but some Netflix shows/movies too. To make sure it wasn't my TV causing it I have streamed these games to my tablet and phone via the Xbox app. Same story.

I also watched these videos on YouTube and Netflix on my phone and tablet, same story. For movies and shows it's not the end of the world for me, but it's horrible in some games. GTA 5, Witcher 3, AC Valhalla, Unto the End and so on. A few examples of it, but before I do that...can anything be done about this? Why isn't this issue more widespread criticized? Surely it can be better?

Look at the sky in the GTA 5 video, look at the background of AC Valhalla, look at the snow in Unto the End.

I also watched IGN's first minutes of Unto the End just to be 100% sure, and I see it there too.

You examples could also be caused by the gamma/white point (Called "brightness" on LG OLEDs I believe) being set too high and you are seeing detail in the shadows you aren't supposed to, are you setting things like that really high on your TV/in-game to make the HDR brighter because its too dark/dull when set lower?

The 3rd example could just a be a vignette, so I don't think thats anything to do with you settings/TV.

 

[Kuranghi]

Yeah, all you can do is avoid dark scenes and wide areas with gradient where this is more apparent. Maybe we'll get there with 12-bit material and panels?

I don't think theres any need for 12-bit panels to solve this problem, it just requires dithering and transferring between spaces/pipelines properly.

I've played loads of games where they do it properly, just something goes wrong in the pipeline sometimes with games.

 

[Kuranghi]

OLED has colorbanding issues. much more so than other displays.

Also Some tvs have built in features to smooth over color banding issues witthe display.

Some video codecs have colorbanding issues in their compression.

Or just LG OLEDs, due to subpar processing. Sony and Panasonic don't have the issue nearly as bad (Especially Sony) and LG Display manufactures all the TV sized OLED panels in the world. Hopefully they will get better gradient handling in the coming years since they've improved so many other things since the 2017 OLEDs.

 

[Stafford]

You examples could also be caused by the gamma/white point (Called "brightness" on LG OLEDs I believe) being set too high and you are seeing detail in the shadows you aren't supposed to, are you setting things like that really high on your TV/in-game to make the HDR brighter because its too dark/dull when set lower?

The 3rd example could just a be a vignette, so I don't think thats anything to do with you settings/TV.

I'm using the TV settings Vincent Teoh from HDTVTest recommended for C9 and CX. I also have brightness set to 49, gamma is 2.2.

 

[Kuranghi]

I'm using the TV settings Vincent Teoh from HDTVTest recommended for C9 and CX. I also have brightness set to 49, gamma is 2.2.

Sounds good to me, its most likely just how the TV/brand handles it then. I'd say buy a Sony next time but I'm sure you bought the LG for the gaming features which Sony don't have this year.

 

[Kuranghi]

So these are mostly the devs fault, in-TV image processing can fix it to an extent but some of the examples like the 3rd one can't be fixed without altering the rest of the image in a bad way. The dev/s maybe did it for stylistic purposes.

 

[Stafford]

LG TV's aren't very good at native gradient handling. They finally added an option around 2018 I believe but it was combined with a noise reduction settings so there were unwanted side effects to enabling it even if it did kinda fix it (Still not as good as Sony native handling though, let alone Smooth Gradation). I believe they separated the settings after that but it didn't work as good on its own since the tied-in noise reduction was smoothing the whole image out (Which is bad for overall IQ) and as a by-product the gradients were getting smoothed out.

Sony has had the best native handling of gradients for a long time but they've also had an option called "Smooth Gradation" in their TV's since 2016 and it can aggressively smooth gradients that are as bad as in your videos. Even when set to medium/high most people won't notice any change to the rest of the image, with low it will smooth gradients and not affect the image in a way a human eye can see, even on complex stuff like transparency effects in games. I used it for Jedi Fallen Order as that had some banding in the red lights passing through smoke effects when HDR was on and it handled it beautifully.

I remember the smooth gradation option when I had the Sony 930e. I was watching Game of Thrones a year or two ago, on the Hulu app and I saw banding. I enabled smooth gradation and on low it already helped a great deal.

Shit I wish LG OLED had this too. But wait, I could swear I saw this option, just not in game mode?

 

[Kuranghi]

When Vincent Teoh goes on about Sony OLEDs/TVs having better image processing this is a part of what he means. Its why he would still tell you to buy a Sony OLED over an LG if you said you were doing an even split of gaming and movies on the TV. If its for pure games he'll say LG OLED because of the gaming features + HDMI 2.1, which he believes will trump the image processing not being as good as Sony for most people.

I'm sad you don't have the 930E anymore, I'd say its by far still the best edge-lit HDR LCD TV you can buy.

 

[a multicultural team of v]

Usually this is a great way to tell if a cutscene is FMV or not. If there is suddenly colorbanding all over the place they are showing you a video with a shitty codec.

 

[Stafford]

When Vincent Teoh goes on about Sony OLEDs/TVs having better image processing this is a part of what he means. Its why he would still tell you to buy a Sony OLED over an LG if you said you were doing an even split of gaming and movies on the TV. If its for pure games he'll say LG OLED because of the gaming features + HDMI 2.1, which he believes will trump the image processing not being as good as Sony for most people.

I'm sad you don't have the 930E anymore, I'd say its by far still the best edge-lit HDR LCD TV you can buy.

The TV was nice, but in terms of black levels, screen uniformity, blooming....i just can't rock with it. Plus the picture quality of the C9 is something else, I mean how crisp games look. I saw the difference immediately.

Anyway, I was right. The C9 does have smooth gradation but it's greyed out and I can't figure out why. I really want to give that a try.

 

[Kuranghi]

The TV was nice, but in terms of black levels, screen uniformity, blooming....i just can't rock with it. Plus the picture quality of the C9 is something else, I mean how crisp games look. I saw the difference immediately.

Anyway, I was right. The C9 does have smooth gradation but it's greyed out and I can't figure out why. I really want to give that a try.

Aye, LCD can't compare to OLED on those terms at all, but I still think the image processing is better in the 930e than anything LG had out then or has put out since. The gradient handling being one example.

Next time you upgrade check out Sony OLEDs, that way you can have best of all worlds - Image processing + OLED dimming/contrast + motion processing - and they should have HDMI 2.1 in all top-end sets in 2021.

 

[BluRayHiDef]

You're more like to experience color-banding in non-HDR content (e.g. GTA V) and compressed HDR content, such as HDR content that is streamed. So, if you want to see minimal banding, try out 4K-UHD Blu-ray discs.

 

[Stafford]

Aye, LCD can't compare to OLED on those terms at all, but I still think the image processing is better in the 930e than anything LG had out then or has put out since. The gradient handling being one example.

Next time you upgrade check out Sony OLEDs, that way you can have best of all worlds - Image processing + OLED dimming/contrast + motion processing - and they should have HDMI 2.1 in all top-end sets in 2021.

And in terms of picture clarity, crispness, is that the same? Because I went from Sony 930e to Samsung Q9FN and then to C9 and I immediately noticed the crispness.

I found out why smooth gradation was greyed out. It's because ALLM was on and they disables it.

It doesn't matter anyway, I tried GTA V and I tested smooth gradation and didn't make any difference.

 

[GustavoLT]

I thought HDMI 2.1 would fix that!

my KS8000 has some distracting banding in some games, most of it when using HDR since it turns down chroma subsampling!

although some game has it and others not!!! no banding at all in SpiderMan MM and Remaster on PS5! but had a lot of banding at night time in RDR2 on One X!

 

[Kuranghi]

And in terms of picture clarity, crispness, is that the same? Because I went from Sony 930e to Samsung Q9FN and then to C9 and I immediately noticed the crispness.

I found out why smooth gradation was greyed out. It's because ALLM was on and they disables it.

It doesn't matter anyway, I tried GTA V and I tested smooth gradation and didn't make any difference.

Yeah definitely, the crispness increase you see is largely caused by going from LCD to OLED (Well, LCD>LCD>OLED since Q9FN is just an LCD with quantum dots).

If you have the OLED tech + Sony image/motion processing that will look best overall imo (and Vincent Teoh's). The reason most people buy LG OLEDs is the lower price vs. Sony OLEDs and/or it having HDMI 2.1/VRR/lower input lag features. I can see how 2.1 + VRR would be important to someone buying next-gen consoles or gaming on super high end PCs (that can push 4K120 in modern games) so it makes sense.

 

[Kuranghi]

I thought HDMI 2.1 would fix that!

my KS8000 has some distracting banding in some games, most of it when using HDR since it turns down chroma subsampling!

although some game has it and others not!!! no banding at all in SpiderMan MM and Remaster on PS5! but had a lot of banding at night time in RDR2 on One X!

Thats probably why you see film grain as an option more and more in games these days, its an easy fix for banding. RE4 used it to conceal terrible gradients back in the day but that was more a limitation caused by the tech of the time rather than bad artistry, which is mostly what we are seeing now. They definitely could fix banding in every instance these days but as I said above, the pipeline just causes problems sometimes and they can't really go back and fix it without overhauling tons of stuff. Thats how I understand it anyway based on conversations I've had with devs.

 

[Stafford]

Thats probably why you see film grain as an option more and more in games these days, its an easy fix for banding. RE4 used it to conceal terrible gradients back in the day but that was more a limitation caused by the tech of the time rather than bad artistry, which is mostly what we are seeing now. They definitely could fix banding in every instance these days but as I said above, the pipeline just causes problems sometimes and they can't really go back and fix it without overhauling tons of stuff. Thats how I understand it anyway based on conversations I've had with devs.

But man, I dislike film grain.

But you have a point there. I believe Cyberpunk has this option too. I don't have the game yet though.

But now that I've seen it so many times I see it on my phone and tablet as well.

 

[nemiroff]

Been bugging me for years, but not many people even understood what I was talking about.. It's fucking 2020 already, it should not be an issue by this point!

Worst was when I sold my Vive, and later bought a Oculus CV1 that had bad colorbanding issues. That no reviewers noticed nor cared to mention this pissed me off.