Once again, for the seventh straight year, the Sony K65XR80M2 has been crowned “King of TVs” in the 21st Value Electronics shootout by a dozen ISF-certified platinum-eyed judges.
But the news for retailers isn’t the repeat win by Sony, but the U.S. debut of Panasonic’s OLEDs, previously available only in Europe and Asia. Value Electronics, a custom AV integrator with a retail showroom in Scarsdale, NY, has run the TV Shootout for 21 years, and is one of the first dealers in the country to offer the new Panasonic OLEDs first announced at CES.
Not only was the TV shootout Panasonic’s OLED U.S. coming out party, its new TV65Z95BP narrowly — and surprisingly — won the HDR category over Samsung’s QN65S95F.
“First of all, it was great to be back in the shootout after the long absence. It speaks to Panasonic’s long-standing reputation for best-in-class picture quality and performance,” opined Panasonic’s Interactive Content & Services Group director of business development, Alex Fried, who attended the shootout. “We were thrilled to be awarded Best HDR TV. Panasonic strives to bring Hollywood to your home, and winning this award speaks to an accomplishment of that goal.”
What Happened to LG?
In addition to the OLEDs from Sony, Panasonic, and Samsung, the fourth TV contestant was the LG OLED65G5WUA, which finished last in both the SDR and HDR comparisons and in the overall competition, which is ironic since LG initiated the entire OLED category.
“This year’s TV Shootout offered a few surprises, actually,” noted judge Chris Boylan, co-founder of Big Picture Big Sound and editor at large at eCoustics.com. “The LG was a little disappointing with some processing issues that lowered its overall scores in some categories. Some of these might actually be fixable with future software updates.”
However, judges stressed that the difference between the four models was thin, detectable only by the most platinum eyed in side-by-side comparisons such as the TV Shootout.
“I would say there are maybe 2, 3 % of enthusiasts in the country that are really hardcore about picture quality,” noted attendee and former TV Shootout organizer Kevin Miller, president of ISFTV, a New York tri-state display consultant and calibrator, “and they’ll pay a premium for it and for calibrating. But the vast majority of consumers are not real hardcore enthusiasts and would be very happy with any one of those panels.”
OLEDs Only
Previous TV Shootouts included a variety of TV display technologies, including mini-LED and LCD. But for this year, event organizers decided to restrict the competition to only OLEDs.
“I think all the professionals pretty well agree that OLED is the better display technology over mini-LED or good old-fashioned backlit LCD,” Miller explained. “The idea was to get the absolute best displays up there and not mess around with multiple categories.”
In many ways, restricting this year’s competition to just OLEDs fulfills the initial and simple rationale for the creation and sponsorship of the TV Shootout in 2004 by the ebullient Robert Zohn, who founded Value Electronics with his wife, Wendy, in 1998.
“I originally started [the Shootout] on my own because I wanted to see who makes the world’s best TV and to see the differences between each of them,” explained Zohn, “I took my engineering background and created this event to compare and evaluate [the best] TVs by putting them up against each other with a reference monitor so that you know what it’s supposed to look like.”
The Competition
The OLEDs were matched up for comparison to a Sony BVM studio reference monitor, the LG and the Panasonic, both using RGB OLED panels from LG Display, on one side, and the Samsung and Sony models, both employing Samsung’s quantum dot OLED panels, on the other side.
Judges, most of whom were display and film production professionals, ranked each panel vs. the Sony BVM in varying categories by viewing both commercially available films on Blu-ray as well as color and monochrome test patterns from display test/calibration discs. The judges first ranked the sets using SDR settings, then HDR.
“The Samsung QD-OLED scored highest in bright room testing, thanks to high brightness and its unique matte screen, which eliminates room reflections,” Boylan said. “But, that Sony OLED had very few flaws and looked outstanding on virtually all of the clips and test patterns.”
Even though Sony won the overall “King of TV” ranking, all OLEDs except the LG won in multiple specific categories, exemplifying the overall closeness of the contest.
“My preference for the Sony over the Samsung, given they’re both the same panel, is primarily because the Sony video processing is better,” Miller added. “It’s a bit cleaner and handles processing and upscaling better than the Samsung.”
Panasonic’s U.S. OLEDs
Panasonic is beginning to roll out three models of its OLEDs — 55-inch (55Z95B, $2,599.99), 65-inch (65Z95B – $3,399.99), and 75-inch (77Z95B, $4,699.99) to U.S. retailers.
“The Z95B OLED will be found at Value Electronics very soon as well as online through Amazon and a number of different outlets,” Fried noted. “Negotiations with other retail partners continue, and updates will be provided at a later time.”
Non-judgmental
One category not evaluated at the Shootout was off-angle viewing. “OLED has far less of an issue with off-angle viewing, whether it’s horizontal or vertical, than LCD technology,” Miller explained.”
However, it was noticed by many that the two OLEDs using the QD Samsung displays maintained slightly wider off-angle color accuracy than the two OLEDs employing LG panels.
“Look,” Miller stressed, “they’re all really good TVs. There’s no question they’re the top televisions on the planet.”
