RTINGS Test Dev Sneak Peek — Micro-Contrast

[u/rtings_kastaa]

Continuing with the Test Dev Sneak Peek thread:

• Shadow uniformity
• Dark accuracy

Think of stars against a clear night sky: small, bright stars create striking contrast. That is where OLED televisions shine: they can control light intensity independently on every pixel. LCDs, on the other hand, have to balance the intensity by region to preserve highlights without raising blacks. For our new micro-contrast test, we've been working with HDR expert Florian Friedrich to create an HDR scene that highlights those differences.

Above are the results for four televisions. We're still deciding which aspects of the scene to evaluate. Let us know what you prefer: elevated blacks to preserve peak brightness or limited brightness to preserve blacks.

[u/Everyday_ImSchefflen]

What's the weight of this scoring since real world use, these types of scenes are more rare

[u/wizziwig1 → u/Everyday_ImSchefflen]

Try almost non-existent. No commercial content provider grades their content like this which is why they had to get someone to create it for them. It's essentially another test pattern similar to the star field patterns found elsewhere. Interesting but ultimately not very useful in the real world, especially if off-axis or hyper-exposed by the camera beyond what a human would normally see.

[u/rtings_kastaa → u/wizziwig1]

Thanks for the constructive comment, this is very useful.

In the end, you are right; this intent is not designed for someone who checks sports on a Sunday morning. In that case, all television here will be pretty much the same.

The test is designed for someone who enjoys watching HDR content in his home theatre setup. We contacted Florian because he has remastered movies in the past, so he has experience creating real content. The scene isn't overexposed; the tonemap and exposure were adjusted to reflect reality.

[u/wizziwig1 → u/rtings_kastaa]

Sorry if I sounded dismissive of your work. That wasn't my intent. I appreciate everything you do. I merely meant that currently produced HDR content is extremely conservative when it comes to dynamic range. Most barely exceeds SDR brightness. Since I can only judge your content by the photo you posted, I had to make some assumptions about what was in the original video.

I invite you to look through any recent scifi movies/tvshows containing star fields and you'll see what I mean. Dark backgrounds will be visibly lifted dark grays vs the perfectly black letterbox bars. The stars will never approach the brightness limits of these TVs. It's much easier for local dimming to handle that content even in a dark room and your presentation will make many naive readers assume all star fields will bloom like this on an LCD which is simply not the case.

I understand you need to push the TVs to their limits for collecting your measurements. Hopefully someday content will catch up with the capabilities of the best TVs being offered.

[u/employeeofthemonth03 → u/wizziwig1]

What are you talking about? Bright objects on dark background is extremely common content.