2017 TV Shootout: LG, Pana & Sony OLED vs Samsung QLED + ZD9

British independent AV retailer Crampton & Moore will be holding its annual TV showdown event in collaboration with HDTVTest on Sunday the 13th of August in Greater London. The five televisions that will be showcased in this public side-by-side comparison are:

Note: We are also trying to secure a Sony professional broadcast monitor to be used at the event for reference purposes.

Update 3 August 2017: We have decided to use the Panasonic EZ1002 in the shootout instead of the step-down EZ952 to avoid a situation where if another TV won, there would be lingering doubt whether the EZ1002 flagship would have performed better than the EZ952.

All five TVs are 65-inchers to ensure the same screen size for a fair comparison. Although all are HDR-capable, only the LG B7 will feature Dolby Vision (DV) support… we don’t expect the Sony A1 (also marketed as the Bravia A1E in the USA) and ZD9 (US model Z9D) to receive the necessary firmware update to support DV until after the shootout event.

The inclusion of ZD9 (thus making it two Sony Bravias at the event) may raise some eyebrows, though there’s a valid explanation. Despite being a 2016 model (and missing out on last year’s shootout event due to its late launch), the Bravia ZD9 is carried through as the Japanese brand’s flagship LED LCD television for 2017 alongside the A1 OLED.

To ensure fair play, all five TVs will be retail sets which will be given adequate time to run in. Prior to the public comparison event, the TVs will all be calibrated to the common standards used within the film and broadcast industry using industry-standard calibration solution CalMAN with expert help directly from the sofware’s parent company SpectraCal/ Portrait Displays, as far as permitted by the in-TV controls for both SDR (standard dynamic range) and HDR (high dynamic range). A professional 4K distribution amplifier with HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 compliance will be used to send identical video outputs to all the televisions, showing the following real-world material (subject to change within the alloted time) in addition to select test patterns:

  • Pristine SDR content (1080p Blu-ray);
  • Compressed SDR content (recorded terrestrial broadcast);
  • 4K HDR Blu-rays (dark, average-APL and bright scenes; 1000-nit & 4000-nit titles; Dolby Vision vs HDR10);
  • Fast-action sports such as football (recorded terrestrial broadcast); and
  • 1080p and 4K HDR games from PS4 Pro.

Attendees will then be asked to rank the TVs (allowing for ties) from best to worst in the following categories (subject to change within allotted time):

  • Contrast performance;
  • Colour accuracy;
  • Motion;
  • Video processing;
  • Uniformity;
  • HDR;
  • Bright-room performance; and
  • Gaming.

Acknowledging no single TV performs best for all types of usage, different awards will be handed out (based on attendees’ votes in the relevant categories) for:

  • Best Home Theatre TV (for watching movies in a darkened room);
  • Best Living Room TV (for watching mixed/ sports content in a non-light-controlled room);
  • Best Gaming TV; and
  • Best HDR TV.

And the TV which receives the highest score across all categories will be crowned the “Best TV of 2017”.

The UK 2017 TV shootout event will take place on Sunday August 13th from 10.30am to 3.30pm BST (British Summer Time) at Harefield Academy, Uxbridge, UB9 6ET, United Kingdom.

10 comments

  1. You’ve listed the 55″ version of the EZ952 at the top of the article.

  2. @Vincent-san!

    Shootout Value Electronics measurement:
    Samsung 65Q9 1697cd/m2.
    65Z9D 2091cd/m2.

    You have similar results? (65ZD9 new rev.2017?)

  3. @Scott Maxwell: Thanks for the heads up! Error now corrected. :-)

    @BETAMAX: I’ve never measured a Sony 65ZD9 above 1900 nits even with latest firmware update. One colleague who measured more than 2000 nits later retracted it because his signal generator was set to full RGB level.

    Warmest regards
    Vincent

  4. It would be interesting if You add Lg 65SJ950V to this comparison…it is DV capable, hdr, Nano cell, IPS etc. So a bit different approach to the newest lcd tv techology than Sony or Samsung. Beside there is no professional review of this model on web. I am not from lg :-)

  5. Patrik Gårdewall

    the ZD9 has to narrow colorgamut for UHD
    you should used the DX900 instead as im sure it gives more accurate colors in HDR

    for SDR sure the OLEDs will win
    no LCD today can match the microcontrast and precision in the image that the OLEDs gives.

    for HDR its more about brightness and colors to get the image to POP
    the DX900 has both of them

  6. Are the results posted anywhere?

  7. ZD9 should have won HDR category, it’s a joke.

    Because the panels were not assessed by professional but by enthusiasts, who were OLED fanatics, hence could not believe that an LCD TV ZD9 could beat an OLED with its inferior brightness, which is a fundamental aspect of HDR in terms of peak brightness.

  8. Still nothing? What’s the problem?

  9. FlatpanelsHD have published the shootout results on their site some days ago, considering the effort that must have been put into this comparison test why is there a shortage of updates on this site it is Vincent’s gig after all.
    I have to say that the time between reviews does seem to be getting longer and longer.

  10. Vincent is busy being a YouTube Star with his videos but he is neglecting the website, which is old and not much loved.

    I think during TV shoot out, the TVs should not have been pro calibrated as most owners do not calibrate their TVs