LG Intros Game-Changing CalMAN 3D LUT AutoCal on 2018 OLED TV

In a game-changing move, LG Electronics has partnered with Portrait Displays – developer of the industry-leading CalMAN calibration software – to offer 3D LUT auto-calibration functionality on the South Korean company’s 2018 lineup of OLED and Super UHD TVs unveiled at CES this week in Las Vegas.

LG 3D LUT

Auto-calibration is not new in the world of consumer TVs. Notably, Panasonic started providing it on their now-defunct plasmas, and Samsung joined the fray last year… both in conjunction with SpectraCal (who has since been acquired by Portrait Displays). But by directly accessing the underlying 3D LUT (look-up table), LG has truly taken it to the next level.

Let us explain why this is so revolutionary. If you’ve been a reader on this site for some amount of time, you’ll know that we are strong advocates of display calibration to finetune the colours so that they come as close as possible to what the directors and colourists are seeing on their reference broadcast monitors. As far as the complexity of calibration controls on domestic televisions is concerned, it started off with two-point white balance (on top of the usual contrast, brightness, colour, tint and sharpness settings), then ten-point or twenty-point, and topped off by advanced colour management system (CMS) that lets professional calibrators adjust the hue, saturation and luminance of the three primary colours of red, green and blue, as well as the three secondary colours of cyan, magenta and yellow. With each progressive step, the display gets closer to reproducing the exact same colours on professional broadcast monitors.

This collaboration between LG Electronics and Portrait Displays bypasses all these steps by allowing the software to talk directly to the underlying tables and make a mind-boggling number of adjustments via a feedback loop. For the uninitiated, 3D LUT or look-up table is the gold standard for video accuracy within the film and broadcast industry: post-production houses deploy 3D LUT either through an external 3D LUT box or internally on compatible broadcast monitors to achieve reference-level colours on their grading monitors.

And LG’s 2018 high-end OLEDs (such as the Wallpaper W8, “Picture-on-Glass” E8, as well as “Blade-Slim” C8 and B8) and LED LCDs are the first consumer TVs to feature an internal 3D LUT that can be calibrated through Portrait Displays’ flagship CalMAN software, allowing them to match the video fidelity previously only available to professional reference monitors. Once calibrated, these TVs will let owners see luminance and colours exactly as intended by the director, enabling faithful experience of the creative vision.

Delving into the specifics of the LGE-Portrait auto-calibration process, connection can be established between the LG TV and the CalMAN software via Ethernet or Wifi. Eleven memory banks can be calibrated: five for SDR (Cinema, Expert 1, Expert 2, Game and Technicolor); three for HDR (HDR Cinema, HDR Game and HDR Technicolor); and three for Dolby Vision (DV Cinema Home, DV Cinema and DV Game). The SDR calibration uses 1D LUT and 33x33x33 3D LUT calibration (giving 30,000+ adjustment points); HDR uses 1D LUT for greyscale and 3×3 matrix for gamut calibration; while Dolby Vision calibration uses 1D LUT and the config file procedure as per 2017 sets.

The auto-calibration solution under development by Portrait Displays for LG Electronics is scheduled to be ready at the same time the latter’s 2018 OLED and Super UHD TVs ship. Both parties are demonstrating a pre-release version at CES in Las Vegas, and we will be there to be briefed.

9 comments

  1. Does it mean Vincent will lose the job? I’m just joking.

  2. Ping
    That’s exactly what I was thinking myself. This is good news for the consumer, but surely Vincent must not be welcoming such tech that will make his excellent work redundant. He still has his YouTube stuff to fall back on though.

  3. This integrated calibration feature is long overdue especially for high end TV’s which should be sold properly calibrated and ready to use considering the price. it will be interesting how technical reviewers will greet this innovation especially in it’s first generation there will no doubt be some prejudice but generally I think the ability for amateurs to set up their OLED’s and premium TV’s will be a winner which one must anticipate will be quickly matched by other manufacturers.

  4. It would be cool to someone just make an HowTo !!!

    What does this requires to make a calibration? One has to buy any extra hardware/software, such a color reading, software, etc??

  5. Don’t the Panasonic OLEDs (EZ and the new FZ range) already support 3D LUT?

  6. I’m also wondering about the same thing as MK. How does this stack up to Panasonic? How does Calman and others control the Panny 3D lut and 1D lut?

    I think you need to profile the Panasonic, have software to do calculations, and then upload the LUT to the Panasonic. But I hope Vicent can elaborate on the differences.

  7. I was thinking of getting the 2017 model soon but reading this makes me consider 2018. However, I am confused. On one point it is called auto-calibration but then it goes on to say “Eleven memory banks can be calibrated” via wifi or ethernet. That implies that someone still needs to go in and perform calibration. Which is it?

  8. Calibration what for ?
    Production tolerances, deterioration or cultural/regional/personal taste ?

  9. Sorry but it is still Calman software and those were never a bright star on the sky for lut creation process. Nearly all pros who are not paid make it public that the function autocal ist working as espected. Even Vincent state that you can archive manually better results. I mean in the new line up a simple 2pt is almost every thing what is needed. If you take 42pt your are not much slower by hand than Autocal which needs approximately 400 to 600 reads for it.

    For the best results you need an eecolor lut Box and LightSpace CMS. Because the only lut creation and upload function from CM will give you a 107% gamut and a lut with alot of banding in it.

    Brgds
    Marc