Right.
LG C8 review.
Let's do this.
Hello everyone, Vincent Teoh from HDTVTest here...
I'm a TV reviewer and professional calibrator, and this... is the 77-inch LG C8 OLED TV.
It features the South Korean manufacturer's new Alpha 9 processor that's meant to bring
improvements in noise reduction, decontouring, sharpness enhancement and colour mapping.
If we go into the service menu, you can see that the Chip Type on the C8 is O18, which
is different from last year's M16P chip.
Now looking at these labels, 2017 is M16, 2018 Alpha 9 is O18, so maybe the step-down
Alpha 7 processor found on the B8 and Super UHD TVs will be codenamed N17...
M, N, O...
16, 17, 18.
Of course, I may be totally wrong, but I just love speculating about these kind of things.
I digress.
Also new for 2018's LG OLEDs are the introduction of 1) 3D LUT auto-calibration in conjunction
with Portrait Displays, the developer of the industry-leading CalMAN calibration software that we use.
2) black frame insertion or BFI for the first time ever in the history of LG OLED TVs; 3)
the ability to play back high frame rate or HFR videos at 120 frames per second through
the internal apps and USB but not over HDMI... due to the lack of HFR content we think this
is more a novelty than a useful feature at the time I filmed this video in May 2018;
4) dynamic tone-mapping in HDR Game Mode; 5) Logo Luminance Adjustment to dim static
logos and reduce the risk of permanent screenburn, and finally, if you care about the usability
side of things, LG's 2018 ThinQ AI Smart TV platform with Google Assistant and Alexa integration.
With almost every OLED TV capable of boasting an extremely thin panel due to OLED's self-emissive
display characteristics, the design from one OLED to another is usually differentiated
by the stand.
On the LG C8, this takes the form of a stand that curves forwards, partly to redirect the
sound from the downfiring speakers.
The stand is fairly wide, measuring about 104cm in width on this 77C8, and
if you wish to place a soundbar in front of the TV, the clearance from the bottom of the
screen to the base of the stand is around 6cm.
Our review unit had a very, very slight tilt backwards, which I'm not entirely sure if it's intentional
or not... maybe I just need to screw harder.
The connections are located on the left rear of the television.
There are four HDMI ports, all compatible with the HDMI 2.0b and HDCP 2.2 standards.
There's a slight buzz from the power supply unit of our review sample at certain brightness levels...
the buzz is fairly soft and only audible if you mute the TV in a quiet room.
Before I move on and talk about picture quality, I would like to thank UK electrical retailer Crampton
and Moore for sponsoring this video.
If you're thinking about buying a new TV, even if it's not this LG C8 OLED television, please support
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I work very closely with the team at the annual HDTVTest TV Shootout,
and from time to time they also loan me TVs to review, TVs that maybe some manufacturers
are not willing to send to me for testing.
I find the staff's knowledge of the products they sell to be excellent... they'll give
you unbiased, independent advice for your purchase.
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The LG OLED77C8 uses a WRGB OLED panel from LG Display... from this macro shot here, the
subpixel structure is similar to last year's... maybe the new subpixel structure we captured
on the 55-inch C8 hasn't actually filtered through to the 77-inch version.
OLED is capable of absolute blacks, since every single one of its 8.3 million pixels
can be turned on and off independently of each other.
And this true black level of zero candela per square metre will inject so much pop,
depth and dynamic range to all types of content, making even SDR material look HDR-like.
And just like 2017 models, the ABL or Automatic Brightness Limiter circuitry on the LG C8
is less aggressive than OLEDs from other brands, meaning that high-APL scenes will generally
look brighter on LG than let's say Sony or Loewe OLEDs.
Uniformity on our review sample was as good as we've seen from a consumer OLED TV, which
is particularly impressive given the 77-inch screen size.
In a pitch-black room, we saw no vignetting or reverse vignetting on full-field slides
just above black, although there's still some thin vertical streaks .... but no thick vertical
or horizontal bands... on certain slides.
Bright uniformity was very good too... we saw no colour tinting as we cycled through
40% to 100% video stimulus.
Using the traditional manual calibration method... namely 2-point and 20-point white balance
controls...
I achieved excellent SDR colour accuracy on our 77-inch C8 review sample, with none of
the measured colour patches in this challenging Colour Checker SG chart exceeding the humanly
perceptible threshold of delta error 3, which means memory colours such as skin tones and
foliage will look extremely realistic.
Now of course, the LG C8 features 3D LUT or look-up table auto-calibration functionality, but after intensive testing,
I won't be using it when calibrating professionally for home customers.
The main reason is because once a picture mode has been auto-calibrated using the 3D
LUT, the colour gamut, gamma and white balance controls are all locked across all source inputs,
and currently there's no way to back them up.
When I professionally calibrate a TV for a customer, I always copy down the calibrated settings
at the end of the session, and send them to the TV owner afterwards, so that he or she can punch in the
calibrated settings without having to call me out for another calibration in
case the TV needs to be factory reset.
This is simply not possible using the 3D LUT autocal on the LG 2018 OLEDs.
Also, based on the numerous tests I ran, for the 3D LUT results to surpass the accuracy
of my manual calibration, at least 1000 points need to be measured, which would take hours
just for one picture mode, so if I'm calibrating in this manner for a customer for day, night,
game, HDR and Dolby Vision modes, I'll probably have to camp in your house all week.
Now I know some of you don't mind me staying over... but I will feel really bad myself, eating
all your food, drinking all your beer, sleeping with [CENSORED]...
Another issue with the 3D LUT autocal is that it worsens gradation however slight, as you
can see from this Spears and Munsil 2D ramp pattern.
Now don't get me wrong, I fully applaud LG and Portrait Display's collaboration to try
and bring studio-grade colour accuracy to the home via 3D LUT calibration, but this
is cutting-edge stuff, so some kinks are to be expected...
I am providing feedback to both LG and Portrait Displays to iron out these kinks so things will improve in the future.
At this moment though, if someone asks me to calibrate a C8, E8 or W8, I'll be doing it manually...
I'm 100% confident that through my equipment, experience and expertise, stunning colour
accuracy can still be achieved this way.
After LG improved the motion performance on the 2017 OLEDs following a firmware update,
I'm not really seeing any significant difference in the native 24p handling and frame interpolation
of the C8 versus the B7 or C7.
The key differentiator here is clearly the addition of black frame insertion on the 2018 models.
Now, just like what we witnessed on 2017's Panasonic and Sony OLEDs, black frame insertion
on the LG C8 is not the be-all and end-all we had hoped for.
Yes, engaging BFI via the [Motion Pro] control improved motion resolution, but only up to
the OLED ceiling of 650 lines according to this horizontally scrolling test pattern.
In bright scenes, some flicker is visible, which may put off even hardcore BFI fans like
myself.
For 24 frames per second content, the BFI operates at 60Hz so some telecinic judder
would be introduced, but to be fair, I don't really see the point of using BFI for low
frame rate material such as 24p movies, since there's inherent blur in the content anyway.
Also, the way LG has implemented BFI in the [TruMotion] User submenu means that some frame
interpolation is still being applied even with both [De-Judder] and [De-Blur] set to
0, as you can see from the interpolation artefacts... however subtle they may be... around Del Potro's
face.
I'm pulling my hair out here... the whole point of BFI is to avoid using interpolation
in the first place!
Now, in [Game Mode], frame interpolation is disabled by default, so BFI can be used to
boost the motion clarity of 60fps games, and it looks beautiful.
Upscaling on the LG C8 is slightly sharper than the 2017 B7 based on this SMPTE RP-133
test pattern, but it could be because of the different overscan crop used by LG for 576i
video signal.
In any case, the difference is certainly not night and day.
What's more interesting is the new decontouring filter within the Alpha 9 processor that's
designed to reduce in-source posterisation, similar to the [Smooth Gradation] feature
on Sony televisions.
It does work... enabling the decontouring filter results in smoother gradation in the
sky of The Martian.
Unfortunately though, LG put the decontouring filter under the [MPEG Noise Reduction] control
which also performs spatial noise reduction, so while engaging [MPEG Noise Reduction] did
smooth out posterisation in the sky, it also reduced some fine detail on Matt Damon's face.
As a purist, I will on principle NOT use it, but if you're not as anal as me, [MPEG Noise
Reduction] can come in useful for bit-starved content with lots of posterisation or macroblocking.
After calibrating to D65 white point, peak brightness measured 700 nits on a 10% window,
and DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage was 98%... both parameters are in keeping with a WRGB
OLED panel not using the new subpixel structure.
Full-field peak brightness was only 117 nits rather than the 150 nits we usually get...
maybe it's because of the much larger 77-inch screen size.
The [Dynamic Tone Mapping] function works similarly to [Dynamic Contrast] "Low" on 2017
LG OLEDs... you should see most intervention in 4000-nit content, either retaining specular
highlight detail... note that there's a slight lag here as the dynamic tone-mapping kicks
in... or brightening overall APL or Average Picture Level as necessary depending on analysis
of the incoming video histogram.
If there's any improvement from 2017 models, I would say that the near-black PQ EOTF tracking
is tighter on the C8... producing inkier just above blacks without crushing shadow detail,
for example in this shot from Sicario.
Turning our attention to Dolby Vision, Netflix through the inbuilt app didn't exhibit any
sign of elevated black level in previously problematic scenes, including the opening
credits of Mute, and the end credits of Mindhunter, suggesting LG is using the latest Dolby Vision
library.
With external HDMI source however, the results depend on the interaction between the source
Dolby Vision library and the display, so for example using the Apple TV 4K box, we saw
some black level elevation and fluctuation in opening credits of Mute.
Bottom line is, if you're watching Netflix Dolby Vision, try and watch it through the
internal TV app rather than from an external source.
Just like last year, input lag measured 21ms in 4K HDR and 1080p SDR [Game Mode], and engaging
black frame insertion didn't increase the input lag.
One big improvement over 2017 models is the availability of Dynamic Tone-Mapping in HDR
Game Mode.
Here's Assasin's Creed: Origins which is mastered to 4000 nits or higher in 4K HDR on the Xbox
One X, and engaging Dynamic Tone-Mapping clearly boosted the overall brightness and made the
shadow detail clearer.
In my opinion, this is the single biggest reason to buy the LG C8 over the B7 or C7, and
unfortunately I've been informed by LG that it's not possible to add dynamic tone-mapping
to HDR Game Mode on 2017 OLED TVs due to hardware limitation.
New for 2018, LG has added a [Logo Luminance Adjustment] function on the company's OLED
TVs including the C8.
The theory is that by reducing the brightness of static logos, the risk of permanent screenburn
can be minimised, but from our testing, it seems to work based on detection of high-contrast
edges of non-moving objects, and even the "Low" setting can dim the luminance of other
non-logo elements on screen if they don't move.
Again, as a video enthusiast, I'd rather preserve the integrity of the image especially after
calibration than rely on an algorithm-based dimming which isn't even guaranteed to be
effective. To be honest, the risk of burn-in on modern OLED TVs is extremely low anyway
as long as you vary the content you watch.
So I'll choose not to use any protection... sometimes in life you just have to take some risk.
If you think that this review so far has a negative undertone, well you're wrong, because
nothing could be further from the truth.
Yes, I have pointed out several issues that could be improved, but I'm hyper-critical, and
that's who I am, that's what I do.
At the end of the day, the LG C8 is still going to deliver some of the best picture
quality on the market this year, with its key strengths being excellent colour accuracy
after calibration, less aggressive ABL than OLEDs from other brands, multi-format HDR
support, and low input lag for gaming.
And I know this 77-inch C8 is still relatively expensive, but at £8000, it's the most affordable
77-inch OLED on the market at launch, and I expect the price to come down even more
around Black Friday or Boxing Day, so the LG OLED77C8 gets our "Highly Recommended:
Best in Class" award.
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Thank you for watching, and....
I'll see you in the next video.