lcd panel test video quotation

In the past decade, LCD monitors have replaced CRT screens for all but the most specialist applications. Although liquid crystal displays boast perfect

Have you ever properly checked the display quality of the LCD you habitually use? Very often people become aware of previously unnoticed problems in display quality when they run a check using test patterns and so on. This time we are going to talk about the basic points used to assess LCD display quality, and show you a simple way to test it.

Below is the translation from the Japanese of the ITmedia article "The difference in image quality is perfectly obvious! – Let"s check the LCD"s monitor" published April 22, 2010. Copyright 2011 ITmedia Inc. All Rights Reserved.

First of all, bear with us in the following simple test. Below is image data of a row of three squares. In the center of each square is a letter so faint as to be barely distinguishable, so there are three letters in all. Read from the left they make up a word. Can you see that hidden word?

That"s right. The answer is "LCD" (it is displayed if you drag the space between the brackets). We assume that probably many users could read the letters concealed in the squares.

So, the next test is much more difficult. A word is concealed in the four squares below, just as in the image above. The letters are written in colors that are very similar to those of the boxes and we expect that, in many cases, it is hard to distinguish them in your browser. We would like you to download the image and check it closely in photo retouching software or a viewer that is capable of accurate color reproduction.

This time the answer is "EIZO" (it is displayed if you drag the space between the brackets). Depending on the lighting or the user"s environment it may be hard to make out but, if you can read these four letters, the display quality, or more accurately the still image gradation expression, of your LCD is extremely high.

Let"s get down to details then. "Image quality" is the top priority of the LCD, of course. However, recently LCD prices are fiercely competitive and there are surprisingly few products that insist on high image quality and performance. It may be nice to be able to get hold of a wide-screen monitor with full HD (1920 × 1080 dot) resolution or higher fairly cheaply, but it cannot be denied that such LCDs tend not to place too much importance on display quality.

On the other hand, the increasing opportunities to enjoy things like HD videos and games, and high resolution digital photographs on the computer make LCD display quality even more important. As far as possible it"s best to use an LCD with excellent display quality in order to fully enjoy the charms of the visual content.

Even so, perhaps you think that there can"t really be that much wrong with the LCDs that so many people are using at the moment. Here we would like to show you a simple method to check LCD display quality. You can get a good idea of whether the basic display quality is good or bad just by looking at how some simple test images are displayed, just like in the introductory quiz. First of all, we would like you to get a sense of how important it is that "image data can be properly displayed" by checking the display of the LCD that you currently use, (that"s right, the one you are using to view this page!).

The test items use color / monochrome patterned images to check gradation expression, and simple images to check brightness / chromaticity variation. Downloads are available of several test images, such as gradation patterns. We would like you to display the downloaded test images in photo retouching software or a viewer that can reproduce color accurately. As we mentioned at the start of this article, you have to be careful as in many cases colors cannot be displayed accurately in web browsers. (Currently only a few browsers such as Safari and Firefox 3.x can handle color management).

Before starting your visual check of the display quality, please return to your LCD"s setting to default, and select Adobe RGB or sRGB as the image quality mode. If these modes are not available it is fine to set the color temperature to 6500K and gamma to 2.2. If you cannot adjust the color temperature and gamma, simply adjust the brightness and contrast so that they are easier to discern. Of course, if it"s an LCD environment that has been color calibrated it"s OK to leave it as it is.

The average LCD takes some time for the monitor to stabilize after it is switched on so, after start up, please wait at least 30 minutes or so before doing the test. (Most EIZO monitors are an exception to this as they are equipped with our proprietary dimming function and the monitor stabilizes in a short time after start up.)

The surface treatment of an LCD makes a difference to the background reflection. Glare panels impede the surface diffusion of backlight, which does make it easier to achieve high color purity, but also makes distinct reflections of the user or lighting much more likely (photo on the left).

If the lights are similarly trained on a non-glare panel they do not have much effect on the display, only appearing as a fuzzy brightness (photo on the right).

For your reference, we ran a test on an EIZO 24.1-inch wide-screen LCD, the FlexScan SX2462W, for this article. The FlexScan SX series comes with a number of high image quality functions and boasts top class display quality as a general-purpose LCD intended for a computer.

When checking the display quality of an LCD it is comparatively easy to understand the gradation expression capability by a visual check. Let"s display color and monochrome gradation images and check whether the entire image is smoothly reproduced. If there is a problem with the gradation expression it produces things like blocked-up shadows in dark areas and blown-out highlights in light areas, banding (vertical or horizontal stripes) in the middle gradations, and color cast, so you should check for problems like these.

Test images of color / monochrome gradations are shown below. Each test image is prepared for three resolution levels (1280 × 800 dots / 1680 × 1050 dots / 1920 × 1200 dots). When you click on an image it is displayed in that actual resolution. We would like you to download the images in the resolution which matches that of your current LCD. Gradation expression can vary according to whether the image is viewed horizontally or vertically, so it will be more effective if you rotate these images and view them vertically as well.

A gradation pattern where the colors red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow go through 16 gradients as they change to white or black. This is an easy test image so we expect that it can be seen in most environments that each color bar is divided into 16 blocks.

A gradation pattern where the colors red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow go through 64 gradients as they change to white or black. Each color bar is divided into 64 rectangular blocks. With this many gradients we expect that many LCDs will find it hard to make distinctions in the dark areas or the areas that are close to primary colors.

A smooth gradation pattern where the colors red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow go through 256 gradients as they change to white or black. At this level of difficulty you cannot distinguish between adjoining colors from a distance but, if you have an LCD with excellent gradation expression, if you look closely you should be able to see that each color is divided into thin rectangular blocks.

A gradation pattern that changes from black to white. It is divided into 5 horizontal bars: from the top, smooth, 128 gradients, 64 gradients, 32 gradients and 16 gradients. Even if all the differences can be distinguished in the 16 and 32 gradient patterns near the bottom, we expect that there will be some parts in the 64 and 128 gradient patterns where it is hard to see the boundaries between adjoining colors. With this kind of monochrome test image you should also check whether any unnecessary colors are mixed with the gray.

On an average LCD gradations of gray that are close to black tend to appear as blocked-up shadows (gradations of gray that are close to white are displayed comparatively accurately). If your LCD"s OSD menu allows you to adjust the contrast, please try gradually turning down the contrast. Turning down the contrast often makes it possible to see gradations that had been subject to blocked-up shadows or blown-out highlights.

Probably most LCDs will be able to detect some degree of banding and color cast in the middle gradations. Banding in the middle gradations is tone jump (Missing gradations) and, along with color cast, means that the RGB gamma curves are unequal. Unlike blocked-up shadows or blown-out highlights, this is an area that it is hard to improve with adjustments made by the user.

When there is a problem with the gradation expression, the original colors of the content being displayed cannot be reproduced. If you look carefully at displays like video, games or photographs you can probably see or sense things like a lack of depth in the coloration, unnatural color shifts in the middle gradations or displays blanked out with large blocked-up shadows. Of course, it is very hard to use such monitors for things where color reproduction such as photo retouching or graphics work.

When we looked at these test images on the FlexScan SX2462W, in the smooth gradation there was blocked-up shadows right next to the black but we could distinguish differences in gradations of gray until very close to the black area. When it comes to such subtle gradation distinctions the brightness of the room and the adaptability of the eye come into play, so the range that is visible will vary according to the environment and the individual. The gradation expression was excellent, with almost no blown-out highlights in light areas, middle gradation banding or color cast.

The answer is "The far right" (it is displayed if you drag the space between the brackets). If the other grays looked correct, color may not be being correctly recognized for a variety of reasons, such as the lighting environment or the LCD settings.

Now let"s assess the gradation expression with some slightly different test images. Below are color patterns with a spread of pale colors in gradations close to the dark range and the light range. They are arranged so that a distinction cannot be made between adjoining colors on an LCD with insufficient gradation expression.

We expect that you could roughly get the whole picture in the gradation patterns on the previous page, but in the patterns this time some parts that cannot be seen may have appeared in some cases. As we mentioned earlier, LCDs tend to display gradations close to black as a blocked-up shadows, and color patterns that are close to black are particularly hard to distinguish.

Since there are some parts that cannot be seen, the possibility arises subtle skin colors and tones cannot be accurately recognized when doing things like retouching photographs, though the misrecognition will vary according to the user"s eyesight. People who place importance on color reproduction should probably bear this in mind when they think about replacing their LCD or buying an extra one.

Incidentally, when we checked the FlexScan SX2462W with these tests we could distinguish everything in both the close to white and the close to black patterns. As well as no blown-out highlights or blocked-up shadows, we saw no unnatural color casts.

Every LCD has some degree of brightness and chromaticity variation, but there are many products where the variations become more obvious when the brightness is lowered. A comparison of the brightness and chromaticity variation of a number of LCDs reveals that there is a fairly large difference between products, so this is a point to bear in mind.

If you actually try this test you may be surprised to find more variation than you expected when gray or a near-white pale color is displayed. Generally speaking, the center of an LCD screen is the brightest and it gradually gets darker towards the edges. This is no problem if there is not a big difference in brightness between the central and peripheral areas, but there are some products where this difference is very striking.

Incidentally, this test is also an effective way to test the LCD for dot defects (normal lighting / unlit room). We would like you to check the black display in a darkened environment, for example by switching off all the room lights at night. Although you probably saw the whole screen as uniformly black in a light environment, very often in a dark environment you can find variations in some parts due to light leaks.

The FlexScan SX2462W got good results again when we tried it with the brightness and chromaticity variation tests. The brightness decreased slightly at the edges of the screen, particularly the lower edge, but overall the display was even and pleasing. It is installed with a "digital uniformity equalizer" that measures brightness and chromaticity throughout the screen and makes corrections so that the entire screen is uniform.

Monochrome full-screen displays on a FlexScan SX2462W. Only the screen display is shown. The bottom right is a near-white pale orange. There are not many LCDs that can display this kind of pale color as uniformly as this

However, the pitfall here is that it simply means that "the screen is visible". The thing is that the viewing angle specifications are permitted to use the term "visible" until the display contrast ratio drops to an extremely low 10:1 or 5:1 when the screen is viewed from an angle (the steeper the angle from which the LCD screen is viewed, the more the contrast generally declines). In other words, they do not take into account the display uniformity of the central and peripheral areas of the screen, or the level of chromatic change, when the screen is viewed from an angle.

The ideal viewing angles is that the brightness and chromaticity is very uniform and there is not much chromatic change, even when the screen is viewed from a slight angle. The viewing angles given in the specifications are not really very helpful, but you can judge the standard of the panel type that the LCD (liquid crystal panel) adopts. IPS liquid crystal panels have the least change in brightness or chromaticity when the screen is viewed from an angle, and they are followed by VA panels. An IPS or VA liquid crystal panel can be said to indicate the superior nature of the product itself, so this is often included in the catalog or specifications. It is probably a good idea to look through the catalogs of various products.

On the other hand, monitors installed with cost-effective TN liquid crystal panels are in fact the most numerous. However, the TN type lags far behind the IPS and VA types in terms of characteristic viewing angle changes in brightness and chromaticity. Simply viewing the screen from a slightly different angle makes the coloration change dramatically, and the screen looks completely different according to whether it is viewed vertically or horizontally. If the vertical and horizontal viewing angles in the specifications are different then it is a TN type. There are quite a few products with a 20-inch wide screen or larger where colors look different in the central and peripheral areas even when the screen is viewed straight on.

The display on an IPS panel. Even when viewed from this angle, the displayed content can of course be distinguished completely and the colors also show up really well

The display on a VA panel. Compared with the IPS panel the screen is a little whitish and the chromaticity has slipped, but it is a satisfactory viewing angle for actual use

The display on a TN panel. There is a very clear difference from the IPS and VA panels. The display throughout the entire screen lacks uniformity and there is a yellow cast

The gradation images and monochrome images from earlier in this article can be used as they are to check the viewing angles. Display an image on the whole screen, look at it straight on and check whether the brightness and colors are uniform at the top and bottom of the screen, and in the center and at both sides. Then gradually shift the angle from which you view the screen and check how the brightness and coloration change. If you do this with photographic data as well as the test images, you should be able to get a better sense of the difference in the display.

When we checked the viewing angles of the FlexScan SX2462W there was absolutely nothing to criticize since, in addition to the use of an IPS panel, it is equipped with many high image quality functions, including the afore-mentioned digital uniformity correction circuit. The brightness and chromaticity throughout the whole screen is very uniform, and the coloration hardly changed at all when the viewing angle was changed.

Naturally, this is very impressive when doing things like photo retouching, but it is also very pleasant at times like when many people are looking at videos or photographs. You can get a perfect understanding of the viewing angles by a visual check of the display so, if possible, we would like you to check this in the store. You will probably be particularly amazed by the difference between IPS / VA types and TN ones.

We explained here about easy ways to check LCD monitor quality. How were the results for your current LCD? We think that many people were probably very bothered by the blocked-up shadows and blown-out highlights when the test images to check gradation were displayed, by the middle gradation banding, and by the variations in brightness and chromaticity when the monochrome images were displayed.

As we mentioned at the beginning, recently the number of LCDs with excellent display quality is on the decline. Although we would not go so far as to say that the display quality of inexpensive products is poor. Of course a high quality LCD is indispensable if you want to enjoy using your computer, properly handle the needs of applications that require color reproducibility, and to fully enjoy all the benefits of rich content.

The EIZO FlexScan LCD series has excellent display quality in those regards, and we have no qualms about recommending them to everyone. The product line-up is diverse but each model is clearly ranked according to the purpose to which it is suited and its screen size, and they all guarantee above-standard display quality. They may cost a little more than you had budgeted for but the clear value they offer exceeds their price.

If, after trying these tests, you have doubts about the display quality of the LCD that you usually use, we would certainly urge you to consider an EIZO LCD. We would also recommend that you construct a multi-display environment by making the new LCD your main monitor and the one that you have been using your sub monitor.

Many TVs use LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) panels that are lit by LED backlights. There are two popular types of LCD panels: In-Plane Switching (IPS) and Vertical Alignment (VA), and there are two main differences between each type. A VA panel usually has a high contrast ratio and narrow viewing angles. However, an IPS panel has low contrast and wide viewing angles. These are the main differences between each, and for the most part, panel type doesn"t affect other aspects of picture quality, like peak brightness, color gamut, or color accuracy.

For the purposes of this article, we"re going to compare two LED-backlit LCD TVs: the Sony X800H, which has an IPS panel, and the Hisense H9G, which has a VA panel. Due to their different panel types, there are three noticeable differences in picture quality: viewing angles, contrast, and black uniformity, so we"re going to look at each one.

Viewing angle refers to the angle at which you can watch the TV without seeing a noticeable drop in picture quality. IPS TVs are the clear winner here, as the image remains accurate when viewing from the side - you can see the differences in the videos above. This is their main advantage over VA panels. Most VA panel TVs have a noticeable loss in image accuracy when viewing from the side. The narrow viewing angle of VA-type TVs is also problematic when the TV is used as a PC monitor from up close since the edges of the display look washed out.

VA panels are far superior to IPS panels when it comes to this, so if you tend to watch movies in the dark, you likely want to get a TV with a VA panel. Most TVs use VA panels due to this main advantage, and high-end models may have a local dimming feature that further enhances black levels. On the other hand, IPS panels normally have low contrast, so blacks look closer to gray, but you may not notice the difference in contrast in bright environments.

In the photo above, the Hisense has a much better contrast ratio; both photos are set at the same brightness, but the Hisense appears brighter because there"s a bigger contrast between its deepest black and brightest white.

Our black uniformity tests determine how well a TV displays a dark scene with a bright image in the center. Ideally, you want to see a completely black screen with the center cross being the only part that"s lit up, and this is important for people watching movies. No LED TV has perfect uniformity, and unlike viewing angles and contrast, the panel type doesn"t completely determine its black uniformity. However, most VA panels that we"ve tested have good black uniformity, while most IPS panels have sub-par black uniformity. This doesn"t mean that every VA panel TV has good uniformity, as this can change between units, and you can also improve uniformity using the local dimming feature.

LCDs function by having liquid crystals in little groups to form the pixels. These crystals react and change position when charged with electricity and, depending on their position, they allow a certain color of light to pass through.

There"s also another type of IPS panel, called Plane-to-Line Switching (PLS), which can be seen with the Sony X800H. This panel type was designed by Samsung and technically performs the same as an IPS panel. When you compare the pixels visually, IPS panels look like chevrons, VA looks like very straight rectangles, and PLS looks like round-edged capsules. You can learn more about pixels here.

The way the pixels are laid out can also affect text clarity. Many IPS panels, like the ones on the Sony X800H or the LG SK9000, use RGB sub-pixel layouts, while many VA panels have a BGR layout, like on the Hisense H9G. The sub-pixel layout doesn"t directly affect picture quality unless you"re using it as a PC monitor. Some applications may expect an RGB layout, so if you have a BGR sub-pixel layout, text may not look clear. You may need to increase the text scaling to read it properly, but this issue isn"t common with an RGB layout. You can learn more about it here.

Unlike LED TVs, OLEDs don"t use a backlight and instead have self-emitting pixels. This allows the pixels to individually turn on and off, resulting in perfect blacks. This means that they also have perfect black uniformity as there"s no blooming around bright objects like on some LED TVs. They also have wide viewing angles, sometimes even wider than some IPS panels, so OLEDs are a good choice for wide seating arrangements.

Samsung released quantum dot TVs in 2015, which they later labeled as QLED in 2017. These TVs include a quantum dot layer between the LED backlights and the LCD panel to achieve a wider color gamut. Other companies like Vizio and TCL also use this quantum dot technology on their TVs. Adding this extra quantum dot layer doesn"t change the characteristics of the panel type; the VA panel on the TCL 6 Series/S635 2020 QLED still has a high contrast ratio and narrow viewing angles. Although most QLED TVs use VA panels, you can easily use an IPS panel as well.

Manufacturers have tried different techniques to improve the viewing angles on VA panels over the years, aiming to produce a perfect LCD panel with both wide viewing angles and high contrast. While they have yet to achieve that goal, a few TVs have hit the market that try to combine the best of both panel types. The first TVs with this viewing angle technology came out in 2018, and only a few high-end models like the Samsung Q90/Q90T QLED and the Sony X950H had this technology in 2020. These TVs are a bit unique, delivering noticeably better viewing angles than their pure VA counterparts, but still worse than true IPS panels. This comes at the expense of a lower contrast ratio, as these TVs have worse native contrast than most VA panels, but they"re still better than IPS panels. Combined with their local dimming features, they still produce deep blacks.

Below you can see the viewing angle videos for the Samsung Q90T and the Sony X950H. The image remains accurate at fairly wide angles on each TV, but the Samsung does a better job overall at making sure the image is still fairly accurate when viewing from the side.

Between IPS and VA panels, neither technology is inherently superior to the other as they both serve different purposes. In general, IPS TVs have wide viewing angles suitable for when you want to watch the big game or your favorite show in a large seating arrangement. They"re also beneficial for use as a PC monitor since the edges remain accurate if you sit up close. However, VA panels are a better choice for watching content in dark rooms, as their improved contrast allows them to display deep blacks. Choosing between the two is a series of trade-offs and qualities, so choosing the best TV for your needs depends on your usage.

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Despite other advances in technology, the contrast ratio on monitors hasn"t improved much, and few monitors achieve contrast ratios above 2500:1. It"s because the majority of displays are backlit, meaning they rely on a light behind the panel to make the picture visible, and the LCD layer can"t prevent all light from escaping out of the screen. These imperfections result in some light bleeding, even when the screen is completely black, reducing contrast.

Light blooming around bright objects. Due to the relatively large size of the backlight zones on most monitors, it"s almost impossible to perfectly dim the backlight around a bright object on a black background, like in the test cross above.

Looking at these examples, the benefits of local dimming are clear. The edge-lit ASUS ROG Strix XG279Q can only light up individual columns of light, so there"s a massive section of light filling about half of the screen. This results in worse black uniformity, although the sides of the screen are very dark. The full-array Acer X27 performs much better in this regard; it"s able to dim very close to the test cross, but again, because of the relatively large size of each zone, it can only do so much. Something like a starfield would look terrible in both cases, as the stars would force the monitor to light up each zone, meaning it would look just as bad as the Direct-lit ASUS MX279HS.

Contrast: This setting affects the contrast of the monitor’s panel, not the effectiveness of local dimming. If you’re after deeper contrast, setting your contrast setting to the maximum is a good first step. Note that this can sometimes reduce the amount of detail in highlights.

OLED: OLED displays don"t have a backlight; instead, each pixel is self-emissive. This results in perfect blacks and perfect black uniformity, with no local dimming feature. Since each pixel can dim or turn off individually, there"s no blooming around bright objects and no loss of fine details. OLED monitors are growing in popularity, and there are even a few laptops with OLED panels.

Local dimming is a feature that dims the backlight of monitors to improve the depth of blacks. It’s useful for people watching dark scenes and want the black to look deeper and darker. To test local dimming performance, we play a pattern on each monitor with local dimming to see how well the feature is implemented. We then subjectively score the monitor based on whether a positive difference is made to the blacks and the picture in general or if unintended downsides are introduced.

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A highly adjustable camera, easy-to-use controls, great video and audio quality, good range, all-night battery life, and a decent price make the SpaceView the best local-video baby monitor you can buy.

The star feature of the Eufy SpaceView is its 720p camera, which can be panned from side to side and tilted up and down remotely using the monitor’s controls—so you don’t need to tiptoe into the baby’s room to make camera adjustments. The monitor’s screen is big enough to see comfortably and has easy-to-use controls for adjusting temperature and sound alerts. And it recharges using a standard micro-USB plug. The Eufy SpaceView Pro has all the same features as the Eufy SpaceView, but it adds a bigger, longer-lasting battery (which makes the unit bulkier). Overall, we prefer baby monitors that rely on a local video feed—like the ones from Eufy and Infant Optics—rather than Wi-Fi because they’re far more dependable and have fewer security concerns. But you can’t check this type of monitor when you’re away from home. If you want to be able to look in on your little one while you’re out, you’ll need a Wi-Fi–enabled monitor.

Budget video monitors come with a lot of compromises, but the VM5254 has a decent 5-inch screen, good-enough battery life, a reliable signal, and a manually adjustable camera with a built-in night-light. But it won’t show you as much of your baby’s room as our other picks will.

You can find video baby monitors that cost less than $100, but there aren’t many good ones. Although it does cut some corners, the local-video VTech VM5254 has a 5-inch screen, reasonable battery life, and a reliable signal at half the price of the Eufy SpaceView. Its camera even has a handy built-in night-light—with seven color options—that automatically adjusts its brightness sensor. However, though the VM5254’s video quality is good for the price, its camera doesn’t pan or tilt like that of the SpaceView or the DXR-8 Pro. And the VM5254 has a considerably smaller field-of-view than our other picks—you won’t be able to see as much of your baby’s room, and you’ll be more limited in where you can place the device. The monitor is also chunkier and cheaper-feeling than our more expensive picks.

If you don’t want to deal with the compromises of a cheap video monitor, or you prefer a simpler, audio-only system, this well-made audio-only baby monitor is a good value.

If you don’t need or want a video monitor, the VTech DM221 is a great audio-only baby monitor that costs half as much as our budget video-monitor pick (and less than a quarter as much as the SpaceView). The DM221 is a well-reviewed best seller in the category. And it has crisp sound and better talk-back functionality (which lets you talk to your kid or another parent in the room, instead of just listening) than the best video monitors we found. It also offers longer range and has better battery life than our video picks. This model easily beats out its audio-only competitors for various basic reasons, like being cordless, rechargeable, or less expensive.

The Samsung S95B combines OLED technology with quantum dot color to produce the brightest, most color-rich, and most room-flexible OLED TV we’ve ever tested.

The Samsung S95B is our favorite OLED TV for 2022 because its QD-OLED design, which combines quantum dots with an OLED panel, makes it the brightest, most flexible OLED TV we’ve ever tested. Most OLED TVs excel in perfect darkness and struggle as more ambient light is introduced. While the S95B looks best in total darkness, it maintains its excellence in brighter rooms and really excels with HDR content that takes advantage of its unparalleled brightness and color production. The S95B supports the HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG high dynamic range formats (but not Dolby Vision) and has Filmmaker Mode to automatically show movies as the director intended. It’s also a very gaming-friendly TV, with a 120 Hz refresh rate and four HDMI 2.1 inputs. The S95B is only available in 55- and 65-inch screen sizes, but if one of those sizes works for you, this TV is an easy recommendation for any viewing environment.

When OLED hit the market a decade ago, it revolutionized our collective idea of what a top-tier TV could look like, due primarily to its deep black levels and high contrast. Its main performance weakness compared with LCD TVs has been its lower light output: For years, we’ve seen improvements in luminance only by inches, with 2021’s best models doing their best to hit 800 nits of brightness. Meanwhile, the best LCD TVs have soared to well beyond 1,000 nits.

The S95B’s ability to overcome that hurdle is one of the primary reasons it’s our new top pick. The QD-OLED panel keeps everything that’s great about OLED and closes the brightness gap with quantum-dot LCDs, cresting to over 1,000 nits of brightness without any of the potential downsides we see from LED backlights in LCD TVs—like blooming or glow around bright objects in a dark scene.

My living room is often awash with an amount of sunlight that most OLED TVs struggle to overcome, so the S95B’s improved brightness was immediately appreciable. OLED TVs generally limit their full-screen brightness when most of the on-screen content is bright (such as during daytime sporting events)—but the S95B’s high brightness means it has more overall luminance to work with, so this limitation is much less noticeable. Especially if you’re watching HDR content with Samsung’s Intelligent Mode enabled (which is not at all color accurate, but makes for a very punchy image), the S95B tends to go at full power, raising luminance uniformly across the spectrum so that everything looks brighter—and very bright objects look brilliantly intense. At times I found myself marveling at details like the glow of a computer monitor on a character’s face, or wincing as the camera shifted to show a sunny window over someone’s shoulder. It’s not a treatment videophiles may wholly relish, but most folks will love how it looks in their living room at midday.

The S95B’s unique panel design also improves color brightness and saturation. Because it uses quantum dots, the QD-OLED panel is similar to an RGB (red/green/blue) OLED panel. Almost any other OLED TV you buy today uses an LG Displays WRGB panel, meaning there’s a white subpixel included with the usual trio of red, green, and blue subpixels. A WRGB panel is cheaper to produce and induces less wear and tear on the primary subpixels over time, but it comes at a cost to color saturation at higher brightness levels. For example, to achieve a very bright green, WRGB OLEDs (like the LG C2) use the white subpixel and the green subpixel together, combining them to make a brighter green. However, as the picture gets brighter overall, the white subpixel gets driven more, and there is an inherent reduction in color purity.

After almost a decade of seeing a WRGB panel’s handling of colors, there is a noticeable improvement with Samsung’s quantum-dot-equipped OLED. This TV can drive its red, green, and blue primaries into unpolluted luminance ranges beyond most OLED TVs from the past decade, and the end result is downright grin-inducing, though it’s occasionally a touch fanciful in the less accurate picture modes.

In direct comparisons with the runner-up LG C2, the S95B’s higher peak brightness (around 750 to 800 nits for the C2, and 950 to 1,000 nits for the S95B) makes only a small yet still an appreciable difference, but the improvement in high-brightness color saturation is quite significant. With both TVs set to the most accurate Filmmaker Mode, darker and dimmer content looks similar enough, but you can see the difference between the WRGB and RGB OLED panels when brighter, more saturated colors are on display, regardless of whether content is SDR or HDR. I noticed it while watching Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+, where the red telltales on the villains’ armor had a more vivid pop on the S95B.

Measuring the S95B confirmed most of what I was seeing while watching real-world content: The TV is bright enough for sunlit rooms. Even in the HDR Filmmaker Mode, it hits 1,000-plus nits, but the SDR Filmmaker Mode is much more subdued, topping out closer to 150 nits. In other picture modes, you’ll get a range of average brightness levels closer to 400 or 500 nits. It’s also worth noting that Samsung’s recent firmware updates have caused the S95B’s overall light output to fluctuate: It originally hit closer to 1,500 nits but has been reined in by the updates. While this dampens some of the initial excitement about the S95B’s capabilities, we think 1,000 nits (a benchmark for HDR formats) is still an achievement for OLED TVs. The decrease in brightness should also extend the panel life to a certain degree.

Whether you’re watching SDR or HDR video, the Filmmaker Mode is the most accurate picture mode for dark-room viewing. (This wasn’t true when the S95B was first introduced, but firmware updates have fixed some early accuracy issues.) Staunch videophiles may want to do a bit of calibrating, but the average viewer will be nothing but impressed. While watching Dune on Ultra HD Blu-ray in 4K/HDR, shadow details were preserved well during dark-room viewing, and the HDR Filmmaker Mode showed HDR video at the correct brightness level across most of the signal range. Occasionally, near-black details looked a little too bright, but overall the nighttime sequences on Arrakis looked invitingly balanced and subtle. There is one unusual black-level-related behavior that we’ll discuss in Flaws but not dealbreakers, but it doesn’t crop up during dark-room use.

The S95B is also great for high-brightness HDR gaming. Whether you’re playing on an Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5, the S95B’s powerful color production delivers a fantastic experience. In fact, I might argue that HDR gaming benefits more from this TV’s particular abilities than any other content format. As an example, the brilliant forests and intense sunsets of Ghost of Tsushima on the PS5 were an absolute joy on the S95B, thanks to the improved saturation in greens, yellows, red, and oranges. A high-contrast game like Stray (which features bright neon lights nestled in stretches of yawning gray and black) looked spectacular, as well. The S95B features an improved version of Samsung’s Game Bar and is equipped with four HDMI 2.1 inputs, allowing for crisp 4K 120 Hz gaming with very minimal input lag (we tested around 9.1 to 9.2 milliseconds).

Samsung’s Tizen smart TV platform has had a big change this year. In 2021, the interface primarily existed as a row of apps along the bottom of the screen, though you could set it to full-screen mode if you wanted. In 2022, it’s mostly a full-screen experience, and that has made it a little more sluggish than it used to be (more on this below). While the new design has a bit more of a learning curve to get used to, it’s easy enough to find all the usual streaming suspects (Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video) in the Media menu, but you may have to install your favorites.

The S95B has an extremely thin profile from the side (imagine a stack of three or four credit cards) and is equipped with a handsome, weighted center stand that takes up minimal tabletop space. You’ll find its four HDMI inputs (and other ports) around the right side of the TV. Assembly is easy, but the plastic pieces meant to pop into place on the rear of the panel and stand (to cover the ports/cables and provide a form of cable management) are finicky, and I ended up leaving the cable cover off more often than not because it was so hard to get it to sit flush. The stand is very stable, however, and holds the panel at ample height to easily fit a soundbar underneath. The stand’s cable management is good overall and makes for a clean-looking TV on your tabletop, something Samsung typically excels at.

The biggest picture-quality difference between the S95B and most other OLEDs is in its black-level integrity in a room that isn’t pitch black. The quantum-dot layer behind the glass is reactive to ambient light, which can cause the TV’s nominally perfect blacks to take on a slightly brightened appearance in certain room conditions. This isn’t ideal, but after using the TV for several weeks, I feel that this problem has been greatly exaggerated in other reviews. Rtings has stated that “to enjoy this TV to the fullest, you really need to be in a perfectly dark room,” but I strongly disagree. In fact, I think the S95B fares better in normally or brightly lit rooms than any OLED I’ve tested before. Still, to get the best contrast with darker films and TV shows, a completely dark room is always best.

Every OLED TV uses a process called ABL (auto brightness limiting) to stave off issues with panel damage and burn-in, and to extend the life of the panel. This is a sudden on-screen adjustment where viewers might see the whole screen get a little brighter or darker. It can be distracting; fortunately, it’s a minor problem with the S95B. I only saw it occur occasionally, and the TV’s high brightness actually made the effect less noticeable most of the time—so most folks probably won’t see it happening.

Speaking of burn-in, we’ve seen questions and concerns about the Samsung’s potential for burn-in—which is a form of permanent image retention that can afflict any display, but OLED displays in particular. We can’t make any definitive statements about the S95B’s burn-in vulnerability without longer-term use and testing, but it’s been postulated that burn-in is less of a risk for QD-OLED models. We continue to believe that burn-in is not a major concern if you’re using your OLED TV with varied types of entertainment content. But if you’re someone who plays the same video game for hours per day, weeks on end, or you plan to use the TV as a more static computer monitor, LCD might be the safer choice. The S95B does include tools to mitigate burn-in, including a pixel refresher, a cell-cleaning process, and a screensaver that turns on very quickly when content is paused—but it’s still a fact of the technology that prospective buyers and current owners should be aware of.

I noticed that my 65-inch S95B seemed prone to a small amount of panel warp. Our sample TV clearly wasn’t new and probably made the rounds through reviewers before getting to me, but there does appear to be a very slight curve through the metal of the uppermost bezel, so be careful when you’re first assembling it.

The fact that the S95B is a new panel design may give some shoppers pause. This TV had some performance issues when it first launched, but the amount of firmware updates Samsung has rolled out over the past few months proves that the company is listening attentively to buyer feedback and addressing issues. While most of these updates focused on fixing initial accuracy errors in Filmmaker Mode and adjusting the TV’s brightness numbers, we’re hoping that future updates remove some of the smart platform’s sluggishness. But overall, the S95B is an excellent performer, and we’d gladly deal with some minor flaws on a daily basis just to keep experiencing its gorgeous picture quality.

If you"ve just started out in video, on-camera monitors may seem like a luxury. Experienced videographers will tell you otherwise. As well as enlarging the display to make recording easier, lots of on-camera monitors can also improve your camera"s video output. Whether you"re shooting on a cine camera, a mirrorless, or a DSLR, an external monitor is a necessity if you want to get serious about filmmaking.

Some of the more high-end on-camera monitors not only increase the size of your display but can improve your camera"s video functionality. For example, when shooting with a Panasonic Lumix S5(opens in new tab) and an Atomos Ninja V external recorder, you can shoot 12-bit RAW instead of 10-bit 4:2:2 with its internal recording option. On-camera monitors are also great additions if your camera lacks features such as a fully articulating screen such as the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K(opens in new tab).

In this list, we run through the best external monitors and video recorders around so you can get the big-picture experience before you hit your editing suite and it’s too late to re-shoot.

Since the release of the Atomos Ninja V back in 2018, it has become pretty much the industry standard in monitor recorders. It"s a popular choice among both budding and professional videographers and filmmakers thanks to its beautifully calibrated 5-inch HDR display and its ability to support 4K 60p ProRes HQ, H.265, 4:2:2 ad DNxHR. The Ninja V will also support 6K Apple ProRes RAW and it"s the only monitor of this size to do so thanks to a deal between Apple and Atomos. Other features include pro-level monitor tools such as waveforms, false colors, HDR monitoring and LUT support.

If your camera doesn"t support 4K, the Ninja V might be a bit overkill as you won"t make the most out of the features you"re paying for. If you"re just after a monitor so that you can view your video easier, the Atomos Shinobi would be a better option and it will save you money. Alternatively, if you"re shooting some serious projects and need something even bigger, the Atomos Shogun(opens in new tab) which appears later in this list sports a massive 7-inch screen, perfect for using with the best cinema cameras.

The Blackmagic Video Assist 5-inch is the only recorder in our round-up that can capture Blackmagic"s own RAW code video introduced on its Pocket Cinema Camera Range and is an ideal option for any editors who use Davinci Resolve to grade and edit.

Announced at IBC 2019(opens in new tab), it excited video enthusiasts given its potential to tap into the RAW potential of compatible Canon and Panasonic cameras - Blackmagic is in talks with both manufacturers to ensure Video Assist works well with their products.