Yesterday, we held a side-by-side comparison event of the top TVs available to buy in the UK market today together with British retailer Crampton & Moore and Leeds Trinity University. Video enthusiasts who attended the event were asked to vote for the best 4K Ultra HD TV and also the best TV (including 1080p sets) overall in terms of picture quality. The results are now in, and Japanese manufacturer Panasonic was the big winner, scooping both gongs with its Viera AX802 4K LED series and ZT plasma respectively.
With due consideration given to separate the pairs of Samsungs and Panasonics (to avoid one remote control action affecting two TVs), while making sure each curved display was positioned beside at least one flat panel for comparison purposes, the televisions were arranged in the following order from left to right:
- Samsung UE65HU8500 curved ultra high-definition (UHD) TV
- Panasonic TX-65AX802B 4K television
- Sony KD-65X9005B 4K Ultra HD TV
- Samsung UE65HU7500 UHD television
- LG 55EA980V curved OLED TV
- Panasonic TX-P60ZT65B plasma display panel (PDP)
All the TVs were calibrated to D65 greyscale, 2.4 gamma and Rec.709 colour space standard. Peak white was set at 45fL (154 cd/m2) instead of our usual target of 35fL (120 cd/m2) which we felt would be too dim since there’s competing ambient light from five other screens for every display. To achieve this amount of light output on the Panasonic ZT65/ZT60, we had to use [Panel Luminance] “High” with a method that preserves gamma tracking and WTW (whiter-than-white) detail up to 240. We don’t think the results would have been altered had we calibrated the TVs to a peak brightness of 120 cd/m2.
The four 4K UHD TVs feature edge-lit LED backlighting with pseudo-local dimming technology. For each of these models, we engaged its respective pseudo-local dimming system to achieve deeper blacks, though at a level which introduced the least backlight fluctuation, gamma skewing and crushing of shadow detail. That meant [LED Dynamic Control] “Low” on the Sony X9005B, [Adaptive Backlight Control] “Mid” on the Panasonic AX802/AX800, and [Smart LED] “Low” on the Samsungs.
Source equipments included an OPPO BDP-103 Blu-ray player, a late-2013 top-of-the-line Macbook Pro with 4K video out; and a Panasonic DMR-BWT735 Freeview HD recorder set to output interlaced video signal to simulate British television broadcast. All sources were connected to the TVs using QED cables routed through Lindy HDMI splitters.
4K
Attendees (allowed to move around to overcome the viewing angle limitations of the LED LCDs) were shown a selection of native 4K clips from the Macbook Pro on the Ultra HD TVs. When Blender’s Foundation excellent open-source 4K movie Tears of Steel was played, a corresponding full HD version was shown on the 1080p sets, namely the LG EA980V OLED and Panasonic ZT65 plasma TV. On the whole, any minor advantage in resolution on the 4K models was trumped by the superior contrast performance of the OLED and plasma televisions.
HD & SD
To test 1080p content, a short snippet from the superbly-mastered Blu-ray of Skyfall was playbacked through the OPPO BD player on all the TVs. For standard-definition handling, attendees were shown a recorded clip of – don’t laugh – Hollyoaks on E4 from the Panasonic BWT735. All four Ultra HD televisions upscaled these material with aplomb: putting aside differences in colour and contrast, they did not look appreciably worse (though not better either) than the 1080p HDTVs even on 65-inch screens.
Contrast Performance
Unsurprisingly, the LG OLED and Panasonic plasma left the 4K LED TVs in the dust in this category. Between these two world-class displays, the LG 55EA980V curved OLED produced true 0 cd/m2 blacks, making even the Panasonic ZT look grey during the first Batman-Bane fight scene in The Dark Knight Rises. A number of participants thought that shadow detail on the LG appeared less distinct, but it’s probably due to Panasonic plasma’s propensity to brighten near-black gamma.
Among the Ultra HD LED LCD displays, the Panasonic TX65AX802B’s pseudo-local dimming system delivered the deepest blacks without causing visible blooming, luminance fluctuation or crushed shadow detail. The Samsung HU7500, and to a lesser extent the HU8500, struggled with the sequence in Kill Bill Vol 2 where Uma Thurman was buried alive, switching their LEDs on and off like a disco light.
To evaluate the other end of the contrast ratio spectrum, attendees sampled Chapter 2 in the outstanding Blu-ray of snowboarding documentary The Art of Flight. This was where the LED LCDs shone: the blanket of white snow in this high-APL scene looked noticeably dimmer on the LG OLED TV and Panasonic PDP due to the effects of ABL (Automatic Brightness Limiter), with the former even taking on a warmer tint.
Colour
All six TVs rendered colours beautifully – the flying fish sequence in Life of Pi was used as reference – with not much difference between each other. The LG EA980 and Panasonic ZT understandably looked more vibrant and punchy because of their deeper blacks which provided a purer canvas for the colours to flourish, although the blues on the OLED television did not appear as rich. The benefits of Panasonic’s “Super Chroma Drive” technology could be seen here, helping the Viera AX802/ AX800 paint more saturated colours in darker areas on screen than other LCD-based displays at the event.
Backlight/ Screen Uniformity
Among the LED LCD TVs, the Samsung 65HU7500 evinced the most even backlight and the best screen uniformity, a trend we’ve noticed on midrange and high-end Samsung flat-panel televisions (Series 6 and up) since last year. The Panasonic TX-65AX802B, Sony KD65X9005B and Samsung 65HU8500 all showed some vertical bands on a low-tone full-field grey screen.
The LG 55EA980V OLED TV exhibited multiple faint streaks around the centre of its screen as well as general dirty screen effect (DSE), but they were mostly imperceptible beyond test patterns. The Panasonic ZT plasma had blemishless screen uniformity.
Motion
As expected, the Panasonic Viera PDP ruled this category with its inherently high motion clarity afforded by impulse driving method. Black frame insertion (BFI) on the pair of Samsung UHD LED TVs proved to be more useful than that on the Sony Bravia X9B which – with [Motionflow] set to “Impulse” – failed to reach 100 cd/m2 peak brightness even with [Backlight] and [Contrast] cranked up to “Max“.
Among the motion-compensated frame interpolation (MCFI) systems, Panasonic’s [Intelligent Frame Creation]/ [24p Smooth Film] “Min” and Sony’s [Motionflow] “Clear” (which also has a small dose of BFI) created the least artefacts and almost zero soap opera effect (SOE) when examined using a combination of test patterns, recorded football broadcast and Blu-ray films. Mesmerised by the LG OLED’s awesome dynamic range, a few attendees commented that football was highly enjoyable on the TV despite featuring the lowest motion resolution even with [TruMotion] engaged.
Results
Out of more than 30 attendees, only 17 stayed until the end to participate in the voting (the organisers and ourselves were excluded from the process). In the “Best 4K Ultra HD TV” category, it was a landslide win for the Panasonic TX-65AX802B which secured a whooping 65% of the votes (11 out of 17) despite not supporting Netflix 4K. The “Best TV” category was much closer, but it’s the other Panasonic, the Viera ZT plasma, which took the prize home, edging out the LG curved OLED by 10 votes to 7.
None of the 4K LED LCDs received any vote for “Best TV”, suggesting that they still have some way to go before approaching the picture quality of the as-good-as-dead plasma and the not-yet-fully-fledged OLED TVs. That the Viera AX802/ AX800 managed to score a comfortable win over Samsung’s and Sony’s offerings just goes to demonstrate how good Panasonic is at making top-notch TVs: you can take TV (plasma) out of a company, but you can’t take the company out of TV.
I thoroughly enjoyed the event! Thanks to Vincent and Crampton and Moore for organising it!
Here are my thoughts (not too dissimilar from the article):
1) 4K vs 1080p
We started with comparing Netflix 4K (House of cards) on the Samsungs and the Sony. Panasonic did not support Netflix 4K.
Pictures were quite sharp, but not eye popping as you would expect with 4K. On comparison with House of cards season 1 on blu-ray (the opening credits are the same in season 1 & 2) on the LG and Panasonic ZT, the pictures were very similar. I couldn’t appreciate the difference 4K brings. According to Vincent, this was mainly due to 4K compression that Netflix employs. We also compared a less compressed 4K clip on 4K TVs with the same clip in 1080p on 1080p TVs. 4K was a bit sharper, more noticeable when you walk closer. Where 4K really shone was with a demo clip of food. Absolutely stunning!! The images just popped out.
All 4K TVs upscaled 1080p content and SD content quite brilliantly, and the pictures were compared to those on 1080p TVs.
Overall, I do not think there’s much to differentiate between 4K and 1080p TVs. Lack of 4K content make 1080p TVs an attractive bargain at the moment. The advantages of 4K are definitely there, when there’s enough content and provided it’s not compressed too much.
2) Blacks
Plasma and OLED had a clear advantage over LED. All 4K TVs struggled with displaying true blacks. The black bars on top and bottom looked dark grey on LED. OLED was the best, with proper black. It made even the plasma look average! Amongst the LED TVs, Panasonic displayed the deepest black, followed by Samsungs. Sony disappointed the most. What Sony does though, is when there’s a pure black screen, it switches the LED off. So pitch black looks blacker on the Sony compared to others, as long as there’s no other picture to display.
They played a clip from TDKR, where Bane breaks Batman’s back. LG was the best, followed by Panasonic ZT, Panasonic 4K, Samsungs and Sony in that order. The Panasonic ZT, curiously, showed up dithering when looked closely. This wasn’t consistent.
They then played a clip from Kill Bill vol. 2 where Uma Thurman is buried. There were occasional flickers of light when she used to switch the torch on. LG was proper black, and it managed to show the detail when the light was switched on, but I thought it was too dark. Panasonic ZT displayed detail the best, followed by Panasonic 4K and Sony. Samsung’s algorithm got confused and was simply flicking the screen between black and grey, and was unable to show any picture at all. Vincent said this was amongst the most difficult pictures to show on TV in general and is quite rare.
Vincent did mention that Panasonic has always brightened the shadow detail by gamma tracking and deviated from reference compared to Kuro.
According to him, the Panasonics have not reached the black levels of the Kuro. In fact, the last batch of Pioneer KRP plasmas had a 10th generation Kuro panel which was blacker than even the 9th generation Kuro! My Kuro probably has the 10th generation panel, as I ordered the very last batch.
One thing to add: the differences between the TVs in blacks were very apparent in perfectly dark environment. When they switched the lights on (even when dim), the differences rapidly diminished and in bright light, it was very difficult to spot (except on OLED). Also, in presence of more colours on the screen (including black and white chequered pattern), the difference between blacks gets significantly smaller.
3) Whites
This is where LEDs had a clear advantage over plasma as well as OLED. Samsung flat was the whitest, followed by Samsung curved, Panasonic 4K, Sony, Panasonic plasma and LG in that order. Plasmas made after 2009 energy regulations had Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL) built in, which cannot be switched off. That’s why Panasonic ZT suffered. LG was quite interesting. Theoretically, it should be able to display perfect whites as it’s the most energy efficient, but Vincent thinks LG has employed ABL to prevent the OLED from burning in.
They then played a clip showing snow. The results were similar to the white test pattern. LG showed a reddish tinge to snow, especially on bottom right. It was quite distracting.
If you view the TVs on their own without comparing, you won’t mind the whites of plasma. Also, in presence of more colours on the screen (including black and white chequered pattern), the difference between whites gets significantly smaller.
4) Colour
As a rule, if you have a perfectly black canvas, colours will show better. LG was the best here, but it struggled a bit with blues, with a purplish tinge. This is because LG employs a WRGB panel as opposed to true RGB panel of Samsung. Panasonic ZT was glorious in displaying colour, followed by the Samsungs, the Panasonic and the Sony in that order.
They played a clip from Life of Pi. Overall, the OLED and plasma was better than LED, but the difference wasn’t much. All the TVs were beautiful to look at.
5) Motion
They played a test pattern from AVS HD which was scrolling from right to left of the screen.
The 4 vertical lines in each group get closer as they go down. The longer they remain distinctly separate, better is the motion. Initially, all motion processing in the LED and OLED was switched off. Plasma did not need any motion processing.
Panasonic ZT showed all the 4 distinct lines all the way down to 1080. This was followed by the Samsungs, which went down till 600, then the Panasonic 4K at 500, the Sony at 350 and LG at 300. I was quite shocked with how poorly the LG performed.
With motion processing switched on to standard, the Samsungs went down all the way to 1080, Panasonic 4K to 1000, Sony to 900 and LG to around 700.
In motion interpolation detection pattern (where a black and white chequered box was moving around the screen on a blue and white (smaller) chequered background), the Samsung was the best, even better than the Panasonic ZT.
4K LED and OLED employ sample and hold motion processing, which the Panasonic employs impulse. Sample and hold is prone to flicker.
To compensate for this, Sony and Samsung employ black frame insertion. When activated, Samsung was better. Sony is meant to be superior here, but it dims the image which cannot be compensated enough. Black frame insertion introduces flicker which apparently has got better since last year.
They played a football clip. Panasonic was clearly the best with motion and panning shots. LG looked very attractive with beautiful images, which made motion problems more difficult to spot. LEDs suffered from some judder, but I thought they were eminently watchable.
6) Screen uniformity
They showed a grey screen. Panasonic ZT was perfectly uniform. Samsung flat was amazingly uniform too, followed by curved. Vincent says Samsung moved the power from the back of the panel away about 2 years ago, which has paid rich dividends. Samsung TVs from series 7 upwards have the most uniform panels amongst all LED TVs. Due to the curve, the corners did not look uniform in the Samsung 4K curved. Panasonic and Sony displayed quite significant clouding, with Sony being worse. LG was actually the worst, with bad DSE.
7) 3D
The manufacturers aren’t interested in 3D much. In fact, on 2014 models, there’s no dedicated 3D button on the remotes of Samsung, Sony and LG. We did not use 3D glasses, but saw some patterns (vertical and horizontal scanning). Samsung and Sony showed the pattern perfectly well, followed by Panasonic 4K. Interestingly, Panasonic ZT cannot do full HD 3D which was very apparent on the patterns. This is because they preferred gradation to resolution for better picture quality at the expense of resolution. Samsung plasma (F8500) preferred resolution to gradation.
They then showed a clip from Wall-E. Sony and Panasonic 4K displayed it the best. Samsungs showed judder playing 24p 3D clip, because they do it at 60p (which is what they use in South Korea). They aren’t interested in correcting this for other countries. You can eliminate judder by motion interpolation. This gives the picture a “soap opera” effect. The pictures looked very real with no judder. I actually preferred it, but I was in the minority in the group today. Vincent prefers judder to soap opera effect.
8 ) Gaming
Vincent measured input lags on some TVs in front of us. Sony has the best input lag amongst LEDs (around 30-35ms in game mode), followed by the Panasonic 4K and then the Samsung. LG was average. Panasonic plasma, on paper showed an input lag of 44.5ms but that was because of impulse processing, and the device is designed to read from sample and hold processing. Vincent thinks the real input lag is likely to be closer to 20-24ms. Also, there’s no dedicated game mode on Panasonic, so you can fiddle with other processing to get far better pictures than the LEDs.
9) Viewing angles
All LEDs suffered from drop in picture quality when you beyond 60-70 degrees on either side, while plasma and OLED were perfect even in extreme angles.
So, in conclusion (my opinion):
1) Panasonic ZT plasma is the best buy overall.
2) LG OLED showed the best pictures by a significant margin, but the technology isn’t mature yet.
3) Amongst 4K TVs, I thought Samsung flat was the best, due to screen uniformity, accurate rendition of whites and better motion control. It was better than the curved due to screen uniformity. Also, the reflection on the curved Samsung is far more distracting that the flat TVs.
4) Panasonic 4K had the deepest blacks amongst the 4K TVs, but I didn’t like the clouding. However, Panasonic 4K won when we voted our choices.
5) Sony was surprisingly poor overall. It had the best sounding speakers though.
6) No TV is perfect. Choose according to which features are important to you.
Great information!
i think i will keep my Super Tweaked Kuro for a few more years then ;)
Whats the experts opinions regarding the best TV on this event ?
thanks
@big_boss: Thanks for your detailed writeup. You must have a great memory, because I didn’t see you taking notes. :-)
@Nando: I agree with the voters’ choices.
Warmest regards
Vincent
@Vincent: Thank you for holding the event. Do you think that this could become a yearly thing?
A bit sad that so many couldn’t stay until the end.
After reading on the negatives of the OLED, I am bit surprised that still 7 ppl voted for it, so not that bad, I guess.
@big_boss: Thanks for your impressisons that I already have read in the forum. I am not registered there, so I thoght that I might just ask you here:
How noticable was the DSE on the LG OLED? Do you agree that it was basically a non issue in normal content?
@Vincent,big_boss: There has also been talk about image retention in the form of movie bars and the backplate mentioned in two known forums. Did you ever see any of those? What’s your take on that?
Thanks Vincent! :)
It only goes on to show how well you conducted the event, for me to remember all that!
Hi Yappa,
To answer your queries:
1) DSE on the LG was only noticeable on a grey screen. It wasn’t apparent at all when watching programmes.
2) I did not see any IR, but I don’t know how long the TVs were used prior to the test.
Eh, 4k tvs being forced to comply to the old thinking of 1080p color space is a joke. Hey, let’s handicap the field based on some arbitrary rule. Of course I don’t care what they voted, as it seems very biased from the start. Sad if anyone has to justify their purchase based on these 17 voters, but to each I guess…. Just sick of reading in so called pro reviews that 4k resolution is all but a myth unless your a foot away….
@Von’s hiber:
Manufacturers are unable to produce a TV (especially LED LCD) that can do much more than the HDTV Rec.709 gamut. Current LED LCD tech often can’t even fully meet that.
No TVs were handicapped, and the rule is not arbitrary, it’s an internationally recognized and implemented standard.
Of course we would love to see Ultra HD TVs meet the Ultra HD Rec.2020 gamut, but the current technology doesn’t allow it.
@Yappa: Re. an annual event, it depends if the retailer/anyone else thinks it’s worth it, because they have to spend money to supply the TVs and hire a venue. From my point of view, I’m up for doing it.
Re only 17 people stayed till the end, it was a Saturday, and the weather was unusually good for Britain. My demos are also quite technical, and I may not be as interesting and witty a speaker as I thought I was. :-)
It was really close, the LG OLED could have won with a 2-vote swing. As I’ve written before, the true 0 cd/m2 blacks and unrivalled dynamic range are just so addictive, and more than compensate for its weaknesses.
I didn’t notice any significant IR. The faint streaking around the centre might have well been the backplate shadow… I no longer have access to the TV unfortunately.
Warmest regards
Vincent
Crampton & Moore would be happy to hold an annual event providing we have enogh interest and of course Vincents expertise!! I felt that the day went really well and looking at the feedback results everybody seemed to have enjoyed the day and found it useful. These events take a huge amount of time to arrange but I for one thought it was worth it. :-)
Hi, have to disagree slightly with what big_boss has posted as I was there too at the event.
Yes the Panasonic AX802 was voted the best 4K LCD and I agree with that. However what I don’t agree with is that the Sony 4K set was poor. In fact, I think it performed pretty well against the other TV’s. The Panasonic AX802 might have the edge when it comes to picture quality, however the sound on the set will be nothing in comparison to the X9005B. Secondly with regards to clouding, I saw no clouding whatsoever on the Sony set and backlight uniformity was spot on. In fact, I saw a bit of backlight bleed/clouding on the Panasonic AX802. The worst performing sets in my opinion were the Samsungs. This is just my opinion !
@Vincent Teoh: great event Vincent, really useful notes taken after that.
I must say it was hard to choose 4K set, as all of them had some flaws and basically I would never go for any of them, the event show how the big gap is between OLED and plasma. Samsung HU7500 had the quite best screen uniform but event during football that was quite distracting, PQ was definitely good, but overall Panasonic AX802 had the edge because of deeper blacks and better colors.
OLED was amazing but TDKR shown how shadow details are lost or maybe not lost but less visible for human eye and ZT was basically the best in that area.
One more question for @Vincent. As you reviewed Samsung OLED you could compare it to LG and plasma, what is your thought about it? Does it have a ABL implemented and how is screen uniformity and shadow details ? Is that the best TV for you?
@retrouk: Thanks for taking the time to attend the event, and for your kind words. As I stated at the event, everyone will have differing opinions, and the best judge is your own eyes. I absolutely respect your (and big_boss’s) opinion. :-)
@Pawel: Thanks for your kind words. The Samsung OLED I reviewed was top-notch. Assuming price is not a factor, I think I’ll take it over the LG and the Panasonic ZT, considering the unrivalled active 3D experience and also quite good sound (though not to the level of the Sony X9/X9B). Shadow detail was obscured originally, but I used a 20-point gamma measurement to partially correct it, as described in my review:
http://hdtvtest.co.uk/news/ke55s9c-201310273395.htm
Warmest regards
Vincent
retrouk’s review illustrates my conclusion no: 6 perfectly! :)
So, in the areas where the Panasonic 4K was better than Samsungs, how much better was it? If I was to buy a HU7500, would the differences with the Panasonic 4K be worth the price difference?
Well, Panasonic 4K’s blacks were significantly better than Samsung, while Samsung’s screen uniformity was significantly better than the Panasonic.
hi all :)
I’ve seen each UHDTV in person this year, Samsung hu8500/hu7500, Panasonic Ax800 and Sony x9005b
I was very impressed by sony x9005b , I tried it with some of my movie from usb player, I was incredibly impressed by how the bluray of “ender ‘s game” was upscaled to uhd, it looked really like native uhd movie, the thing that surprised me at the most with the sony was the black level and the very large viewing angle for a lcd
I also wanted to test the panasonic but it was version 50″, i will wait for the 65″
but the thing that I was disappointed with it was the very narrowed viewing angle, it was enough to move a few inches to the side to see change the color saturation, too bad for me
so I would like to ask questions to the participants of the test
What differences did you find in the viewing angle between sony and panasonic ?
and how much worse it’s the sony black level compared to the panasonic ax800 in a darkened room?
all reviews on sony talking about the Sony X- tended Dynamic Range , which shows bright colors even on dark images, how much this is different from the performance of the “studio master drive” from panasonic ?
thx
@Pawel
What you saw on the LG OLED was probably true Gamma 2.4 shadow detail, where the ZT60 can’t do that. If you setup 10IRE for Gamma 2.4, 5IRE will jump to 2.2 an 4, 3, 2 and 1 down to 0IRE will be even brighter – plus, especially in the panel drive mode “High”, the temporal resolution due to the dithering of plasma is not high enough, to show the low IREs in Full HD.
What I try to say is, that the “dark” shadow detail is not a fault of the LG OLED, you could always set the Gamma lower… besides, iof you watch a movie at home, there aren’t a number of other TVs around, that light up the room additionally.
I am sure this is not what the manufacturers who are pushing 4K LCD’s want to hear so fair play to Crampton & Moore & hdtvtest.co.uk for letting the customer speak and publish their findings. It has always been my belief that 4K won’t fully be utilised until it is paired with something better than LCD’s and now that plasma has gone that leaves 4K OLED.
4K LCD and streaming is less impressive than a quality 1080P Plasma/OLED playing a blu-ray …
OLED is obviously intended to replace Plasma while cheaper versions of 4K will eventually replace LED’s with mass production in China. The somewhat overlooked aspect of aspiring to own the ultimate TV is the increased expense of producing content by broadcasters, it could be while yet before consumers will be compelled to change en masse from LCD/LED to 4K until HD broadcasting is standardised for all TV content, this could be a make or break moment for free to air commercial TV especially with companies like Netflix breathing down their necks.
Is the panasonic 4K worth the extra (up to) £400 more than the HU7500?
was this same company that did the tvs for gaming comparison or was it richer sounds i remember seeing news about on here but didnt see the results thanks .
Howcome I can’t find anything on the “Panasonic Viera ZT plasma” when I Google it? Is it known as something else?
Now that the samsung 7500 and panasonic ax802 are around the same price would you say the panasonic ax802 is the best to buy when it comes to picture quality?