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I even took a selfie 🤣

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Thanks to everyone involved from Philips, Bowers and Wilkins and Dolby in organising tonight's session. This was quite simply the best AV event that I have ever been to - a really unique experience.

This evening was split into multiple different sessions - covering Philips' picture quality, Bowers and Wilkins' sound quality, Dolby cinema's picture and sound quality and getting to see a professional grading display. (The evening was also a chance to meet AV Forums' very own Phil Hinton.)

Part 1 - Danny Tack Demoing Philips Picture Processing

Danny is Philips’ picture processing guru and he has a strong view on how the right picture processing can improve upon a calibrated image.

To demonstrate this, he had two Philips TVs set up next to one another. One was showing a calibrated image in Movie mode, while the other was using Philips P5 Gen 3 picture processing, using Vivid mode.

Multiple clips were shown - all in SDR. It is fair to say that the additional processing had some significant advantages as well as some aspects that were more divisive. Firstly, the processing was great in eliminating what otherwise would be terrible judder. (Some of the scenes were deliberately shot with fast vertical and horizontal panning, to highlight just how bad judder can be.) The processing was also good at reducing image noise – for example in a plain blue sky.

Vivid mode also added quite a lot of additional sharpening without adding much in the way of negative artefacts. I have to admit that I like a slightly sharpened image – though not everyone feels that way.

The other main changes that the processing made were to increase saturation and contrast.

Basically SDR content is graded to a low level of brightness (around 100 nits) and a limited colour gamut, rec709. These standards matched the capabilities of displays in the past. Modern displays though are capable of so much more than this - a typical OLED can reach around 700 nits and can produce a much broader range of colours than rec709 includes. So the Philips processing is aiming to enhance the SDR image by making it more like an HDR image. The brightness range that was 0 to 100 nits is essentially expanded to something closer to 0 to 700 nits. Additionally, the colour space is expanded to something closer to the full gamut the TV can support - by what generally appeared to be increasing the saturation.

The result is an image that has more contrast and stronger colours. Personally I liked the effect on the contrast but found the effect on the colours too much - everything looked oversaturated.

For me and I think many other attendees, the colours looked much better when they were turned down a bit - so that there was a bit more vibrance than the plainer looking calibrated image but without making everything too garish and unrealistic.

There is definitely a reasonable argument for picture enhancements being applied to SDR images. (Which lets face it is still the majority of viewing for most people.)

If our displays are capable of so much more than the SDR standard, is it really a good idea to stick only to a fully calibrated SDR image? If I edit a photo I virtually always enhance it by increasing the contrast and sharpness – so why not do the same for video images?

If Danny or someone else from Philips is reading this then I suggest that you could get a more positive response from AV purists if you rename Vivid to something like "Cinema Plus" or "Cinema Enhanced". The term Vivid mode has such a bad reputation. Or alternatively leave Vivid mode as it is and add a new "Cinema Plus" or "Cinema Enhanced" mode that is basically Vivid with the saturation turned down a bit.

Part 1b - Introducing an LCD into the mix.
Then Danny switched to including a third screen - an 8k Samsung Q950R. The clips were shown again and basically showed that Philips Vivid mode is hands down better than Samsung's Dynamic mode - which tended to crush blacks and blow out bright highlights. Personally, I am not sure how important this is, as I would simply never use Dynamic mode on a Samsung TV as it is so garish.

It was worth noting that the Samsung struggled to smooth out some of the fastest panning shots and ended up appearing to drop frames. Now this could be because the Philips P5 processor is better than the one in the Samsung, or it could be that the Samsung struggles because being 8k, it has 4 times as many pixels to process.

Some additional scenes were shown to highlight the advantage of a self-emissive OLED against a backlit LCD. These scenes were deliberately chosen to be torture tests for an LCD, even one with Full Array Local Dimming (FALD).

First off was the OLED forte of fireworks shots. These shots basically have a screen that is 95 black with some very bright highlights. The bright highlights on the LCD were nowhere near as bright as those on the OLED. This is pretty much expected as FALD sets dim their backlights when the average picture brightness across the whole screen is so low and the highlight areas are so small.

There was additionally a movie sample with some very dim scenes. When the average brightness in the scene was really low the LCD would end up dimming its backlights and lose almost all detail whereas the OLED would maintain the dimly lit details. (Samsung does appear to be a bit too zealous in its backlight dimming in such scenes.)

However, to me as I knew these scenes were deliberately chosen to make an OLED look good/an LCD look bad, I was impressed at how well the LCD did. In dark scenes that were just dark rather than really, really dark, the LCD held its own against the OLED and maintained similar detail. I also noticed that that the LCD’s higher peak brightness meant that it had whiter whites – especially when a large part of the scene was bright. This may have been because the OLEDs brightness limiter was kicking in. A typical OLED can get up to 700 nits when displaying a small white square on a black screen. However, as that white square gets bigger the peak brightness drops. If the white square fills the whole screen then the brightness will drop to something like 150 nits. LCDs tend to be able to maintain brightness much better large full field bright areas.

The Samsung also scored well in two other areas. Firstly, for an LCD it had very good viewing angles. Secondly, Samsung have the best anti reflective screen of any TV. Whereas the OLEDs really reflected the lights in the room, the Samsung was great at suppressing reflections.

Part 2 – Bowers & Wilkins Demo

Andy Kerr from Bowers and Wilkins gave a demo of the sound system on the OLED+984. (You may remember Andy as a very interesting guest on an AV Forums pod cast a few weeks ago.)

In summary, it was the best sound that I have ever heard from any TV. There was great clarity, what seemed like good stereo separation and good levels of power.

Now this is a high-end TV sound system with a high end price tag. This system is ideal for a well heeled buyer who wants great sound in a simple and elegant package.

The 984 has a list price of £4.5k which is around £1.5k to £2k more than a standard 65” OLED with no special sound system. Personally, I struggle, with the concept of spending so much extra on a TV for improved sound. This is simply because for me my sound system gets replaced far less frequently than my TV. I would hate to have to throw away that extra investment a few years down the line when I upgraded my TV.

However, I really liked what Bowers and Wilkins had achieved and I hope that they can take what they have learned from the 984 sound system and release something similar as a separate sound bar.


Part 3 - Dolby Cinema Demonstration

To me this was the most exciting part of the evening - a chance to experience one of the best cinema screens in the world. There are only four Dolby screening rooms in the wold and this is the only one outside of the US. According to someone I spoke to from Dolby, the experience at this one may be the best of all because of the relatively small size of the auditorium compared to the screen.

We watched the new Star Wars trailer, a clip from a Star is Born and a scene commissioned by Philips for IFA.

And just 'Wow'!

I have never seen a cinema image as good as this. Completely black blacks and bright saturated colours with fantastic detail. The sound was spine tinglingly good with a perfect balance of power, location and clarity. This is what cinema should be!

Please, if someone from Dolby is reading this, then just name your price for watching the next Star Wars movie at this cinema (e.g. a kidney) and I will be there.

I do think that Dolby should do more to publicise the advantage of Dolby cinema to the general public. Perhaps they should have more events like this where members of the public are brought in to see demo material at the Dolby screening room in Soho and then released to evangelise about it on-line. I know that I am now a Dolby cinema convert.


Part 4 - Dolby Grading Room and Comparing a Pro Monitor with a Philips OLED

We then got to see the Dolby grading room, where they add the Dolby Vision dynamic meta data to the master of a movie. This was where they have graded the Harry Potter movies among others.

We also got to see a professional calibrated 4,000 nit display (an LCD) and compare it to a Philips OLED. This professional display would cost £10s of thousands compared to about £2k for the Philips OLED.

Philips employ two different Dolby Vision modes. Dolby Vision “Dark” and Dolby Vision “Light”. The Dark version follows exactly what Dolby specify and should match as close as it can what you would see on the professional display. The Light mode is there to address some concerns that HDR encoded content can sometimes appear to be a bit too dark, especially in a room with the lights on.

We saw the same Philips made IFA clip as we saw in the cinema. This was deliberately shot to highlight the advantages of Dolby Vision HDR. So this material has strong contrasts – scenes with details in dark areas as well as areas with very high brightness - and some strong colours – a dancer in a vivid red dress. This material is mastered to 4,000 nits.

First, we watched the demo in Dark mode. The Philips acquitted itself very well against the professional monitor. You could see the advantage of the extra nits (4,000 vs about 7,00) in the highlights but unless you had a professional monitor sitting next to it you would not have any complaints with the quality of the Philips picture. To me it really showed that while there is an advantage to having extra nits (in this case 6 times as many) the difference is not that dramatic. There is no reason to hold off of buying an OLED because it can “only” display 700 nits – that 700 nits is enough.

We then watched the same scene in Philips Dolby Vision Light mode. This clearly showed more detail in dark areas compared to the professional monitor - but it appeared to do this by boosting the brightness of the low to mid tones. This showed extra detail but at the expense of a loss of overall contrast. I personally preferred the Dark mode.

We then watched a concert scene with very challenging lighting. Generally, the scene was dark but with very bright coloured flashes. This was again shown in the Light mode. However, in this case the Philips matched the professional display very well. There was no noticeable brightening of mid-tones that reduced contrast this time. Perhaps this was because


The Finale

There was a brief wrap up and the evening ended with one of the 27 AV Forum members having their name selected to win a Philips 65” OLED. All I remember was that the winner was not me. This was my 4th time watching some other AV Forums member win a TV - and I have to say that the experience just gets better every time.

Overall this was a fantastic evening and thanks again to everyone involved in setting this up.
 
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Thanks to everyone involved from Philips, Bowers and Wilkins and Dolby in organising tonight's session. This was quite simply the best AV event that I have ever been to - a really unique experience.

This evening was split into multiple different sessions - covering Philips' picture quality, Bowers and Wilkins' sound quality, Dolby cinema's picture and sound quality and getting to see a professional grading display. (The evening was also a chance to meet AV Forums' very own Phil Hinton.)

Part 1 - Danny Tack Demoing Philips Picture Processing

Danny is Philips’ picture processing guru and he has a strong view on how the right picture processing can improve upon a calibrated image.

To demonstrate this, he had two Philips TVs set up next to one another. One was showing a calibrated image in Movie mode, while the other was using Philips P5 Gen 3 picture processing, using Vivid mode.

Multiple clips were shown - all in SDR. It is fair to say that the additional processing had some significant advantages as well as some aspects that were more divisive. Firstly, the processing was great in eliminating what otherwise would be terrible judder. (Some of the scenes were deliberately shot with fast vertical and horizontal panning, to highlight just how bad judder can be.) The processing was also good at reducing image noise – for example in a plain blue sky.

Vivid mode also added quite a lot of additional sharpening without adding much in the way of negative artefacts. I have to admit that I like a slightly sharpened image – though not everyone feels that way.

The other main changes that the processing made were to increase saturation and contrast.

Basically SDR content is graded to a low level of brightness (around 100 nits) and a limited colour gamut, rec709. These standards matched the capabilities of displays in the past. Modern displays though are capable of so much more than this - a typical OLED can reach around 700 nits and can produce a much broader range of colours than rec709 includes. So the Philips processing is aiming to enhance the SDR image by making it more like an HDR image. The brightness range that was 0 to 100 nits is essentially expanded to something closer to 0 to 700 nits. Additionally, the colour space is expanded to something closer to the full gamut the TV can support - by what generally appeared to be increasing the saturation.

The result is an image that has more contrast and stronger colours. Personally I liked the effect on the contrast but found the effect on the colours too much - everything looked oversaturated.

For me and I think many other attendees, the colours looked much better when they were turned down a bit - so that there was a bit more vibrance than the plainer looking calibrated image but without making everything too garish and unrealistic.

There is definitely a reasonable argument for picture enhancements being applied to SDR images. (Which lets face it is still the majority of viewing for most people.)

If our displays are capable of so much more than the SDR standard, is it really a good idea to stick only to a fully calibrated SDR image? If I edit a photo I virtually always enhance it by increasing the contrast and sharpness – so why not do the same for video images?

If Danny or someone else from Philips is reading this then I suggest that you could get a more positive response from AV purists if you rename Vivid to something like "Cinema Plus" or "Cinema Enhanced". The term Vivid mode has such a bad reputation. Or alternatively leave Vivid mode as it is and add a new "Cinema Plus" or "Cinema Enhanced" mode that is basically Vivid with the saturation turned down a bit.

Part 1b - Introducing an LCD into the mix.
Then Danny switched to including a third screen - an 8k Samsung Q950R. The clips were shown again and basically showed that Philips Vivid mode is hands down better than Samsung's Dynamic mode - which tended to crush blacks and blow out bright highlights. Personally, I am not sure how important this is, as I would simply never use Dynamic mode on a Samsung TV as it is so garish.

It was worth noting that the Samsung struggled to smooth out some of the fastest panning shots and ended up appearing to drop frames. Now this could be because the Philips P5 processor is better than the one in the Samsung, or it could be that the Samsung struggles because being 8k, it has 4 times as many pixels to process.

Some additional scenes were shown to highlight the advantage of a self-emissive OLED against a backlit LCD. These scenes were deliberately chosen to be torture tests for an LCD, even one with Full Array Local Dimming (FALD).

First off was the OLED forte of fireworks shots. These shots basically have a screen that is 95 black with some very bright highlights. The bright highlights on the LCD were nowhere near as bright as those on the OLED. This is pretty much expected as FALD sets dim their backlights when the average picture brightness across the whole screen is so low and the highlight areas are so small.

There was additionally a movie sample with some very dim scenes. When the average brightness in the scene was really low the LCD would end up dimming its backlights and lose almost all detail whereas the OLED would maintain the dimly lit details. (Samsung does appear to be a bit too zealous in its backlight dimming in such scenes.)

However, to me as I knew these scenes were deliberately chosen to make an OLED look good/an LCD look bad, I was impressed at how well the LCD did. In dark scenes that were just dark rather than really, really dark, the LCD held its own against the OLED and maintained similar detail. I also noticed that that the LCD’s higher peak brightness meant that it had whiter whites – especially when a large part of the scene was bright. This may have been because the OLEDs brightness limiter was kicking in. A typical OLED can get up to 700 nits when displaying a small white square on a black screen. However, as that white square gets bigger the peak brightness drops. If the white square fills the whole screen then the brightness will drop to something like 150 nits. LCDs tend to be able to maintain brightness much better large full field bright areas.

The Samsung also scored well in two other areas. Firstly, for an LCD it had very good viewing angles. Secondly, Samsung have the best anti reflective screen of any TV. Whereas the OLEDs really reflected the lights in the room, the Samsung was great at suppressing reflections.

Part 2 – Bowers & Wilkins Demo

Andy Kerr from Bowers and Wilkins gave a demo of the sound system on the OLED+984. (You may remember Andy as a very interesting guest on an AV Forums pod cast a few weeks ago.)

In summary, it was the best sound that I have ever heard from any TV. There was great clarity, what seemed like good stereo separation and good levels of power.

Now this is a high-end TV sound system with a high end price tag. This system is ideal for a well heeled buyer who wants great sound in a simple and elegant package.

The 984 has a list price of £4.5k which is around £1.5k to £2k more than a standard 65” OLED with no special sound system. Personally, I struggle, with the concept of spending so much extra on a TV for improved sound. This is simply because for me my sound system gets replaced far less frequently than my TV. I would hate to have to throw away that extra investment a few years down the line when I upgraded my TV.

However, I really liked what Bowers and Wilkins had achieved and I hope that they can take what they have learned from the 984 sound system and release something similar as a separate sound bar.


Part 3 - Dolby Cinema Demonstration

To me this was the most exciting part of the evening - a chance to experience one of the best cinema screens in the world. There are only four Dolby screening rooms in the wold and this is the only one outside of the US. According to someone I spoke to from Dolby, the experience at this one may be the best of all because of the relatively small size of the auditorium compared to the screen.

We watched the new Star Wars trailer, a clip from a Star is Born and a scene commissioned by Philips for IFA.

And just 'Wow'!

I have never seen a cinema image as good as this. Completely black blacks and bright saturated colours with fantastic detail. The sound was spine tinglingly good with a perfect balance of power, location and clarity. This is what cinema should be!

Please, if someone from Dolby is reading this, then just name your price for watching the next Star Wars movie at this cinema (e.g. a kidney) and I will be there.

I do think that Dolby should do more to publicise the advantage of Dolby cinema to the general public. Perhaps they should have more events like this where members of the public are brought in to see demo material at the Dolby screening room in Soho and then released to evangelise about it on-line. I know that I am now a Dolby cinema convert.


Part 4 - Dolby Grading Room and Comparing a Pro Monitor with a Philips OLED

We then got to see the Dolby grading room, where they add the Dolby Vision dynamic meta data to the master of a movie. This was where they have graded the Harry Potter movies among others.

We also got to see a professional calibrated 4,000 nit display (an LCD) and compare it to a Philips OLED. This professional display would cost £10s of thousands compared to about £2k for the Philips OLED.

Philips employ two different Dolby Vision modes. Dolby Vision “Dark” and Dolby Vision “Light”. The Dark version follows exactly what Dolby specify and should match as close as it can what you would see on the professional display. The Light mode is there to address some concerns that HDR encoded content can sometimes appear to be a bit too dark, especially in a room with the lights on.

We saw the same Philips made IFA clip as we saw in the cinema. This was deliberately shot to highlight the advantages of Dolby Vision HDR. So this material has strong contrasts – scenes with details in dark areas as well as areas with very high brightness - and some strong colours – a dancer in a vivid red dress. This material is mastered to 4,000 nits.

First, we watched the demo in Dark mode. The Philips acquitted itself very well against the professional monitor. You could see the advantage of the extra nits (4,000 vs about 7,00) in the highlights but unless you had a professional monitor sitting next to it you would not have any complaints with the quality of the Philips picture. To me it really showed that while there is an advantage to having extra nits (in this case 6 times as many) the difference is not that dramatic. There is no reason to hold off of buying an OLED because it can “only” display 700 nits – that 700 nits is enough.

We then watched the same scene in Philips Dolby Vision Light mode. This clearly showed more detail in dark areas compared to the professional monitor - but it appeared to do this by boosting the brightness of the low to mid tones. This showed extra detail but at the expense of a loss of overall contrast. I personally preferred the Dark mode.

We then watched a concert scene with very challenging lighting. Generally, the scene was dark but with very bright coloured flashes. This was again shown in the Light mode. However, in this case the Philips matched the professional display very well. There was no noticeable brightening of mid-tones that reduced contrast this time. Perhaps this was because


The Finale

There was a brief wrap up and the evening ended with one of the 27 AV Forum members having their name selected to win a Philips 65” OLED. All I remember was that the winner was not me. This was my 4th time watching some other AV Forums member win a TV - and I have to say that the experience just gets better every time.

Overall this was a fantastic evening and thanks again to everyone involved in setting this up.
I don’t know how you do to remember all this but the forum members are lucky you were there...I will reflect more on yesterday superb event.
 
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I was going to write the best post AVForums has ever seen but it would have still been totally inadequate compared to GadgetObsessed's one!

So I'm just going to do a paragraph on each section... Yeah, lazy, sorry...

Firstly, it's amazing how good consumer technology now is. We are very fortunate to be living in this time. The Philips TV offered, I'd say, at least 90% of the performance of the Dolby Pulsar monitor for 5% of the cost. Really, the only place the deliberately challenging Philips video showed any difference between the two screens was that on the Dolby monitor you could still see all the vegetation outside the brightly lit window. It's worth pointing out though that the absolutely phenomenal projector in the Dolby Cinema had the same limitation.

The actual demo of the Philips TV was a very good sales pitch and I will seriously consider buying one. I think, perhaps, focussing on Vivid mode during a demo aimed at AV enthusiasts was maybe just a little off the mark. I think Philips proved their point with Vivid mode during the previous demos. It certainly is by far the best such out of the box mode, but personally I would have been more interested in seeing three properly calibrated displays for this part of the demo. One thing is for sure though, my opinion of LED/LCD TVs has not improved. They had the latest Samsung 8K display there. Now perhaps it wasn't properly set up, but it had the full monty of usual problems... aggressive backlight dimming, haloing around bright objects and it even had dirty screen effect with a pretty uneven backlight. The huge dynamic contrast range of the OLED screen vasty made up for the - on paper at least - limited maximum light output. I was surprised though just how bright the OLED screens were.

The Bowers and Wilkins speaker was certainly impressive. I think Andy was, perhaps, pushing it a bit hard. A consequence no doubt of the huge space the TV was in. I think we were reaching the limits of its capabilities, but on the slightly quieter passages, it was very very good. Easily the best integrated TV sound I've ever heard.

Now, on to the highlight of the evening for me. The Dolby Screening Room. Oh. My. God. That is the best sound, and the best projected image I have -ever- seen, and think I will probably ever see again. Inky, inky blacks. I mean, almost OLED black with a vast colour gamut and dazzling specular highlights from the Christie projector. The sound was astonishingly good and they had no less than 36 speakers in a 67 seat cinema. It made my home cinema feel utterly, utterly inadequate.

Finally, a thank you to all the hosts and of course Philips and AVForums. Everyone was friendly and gracious, and it was a great place to hold this event.

Steve
 
Don't forget the reference monitor was LCD. I think LCD tech still has some ways to be improved, especially with the dual layer tech coming out. Also I think the Samsung isn't the best ever example of LCD tech either, it's just the best of what you can buy new now.

Something I've not read so far in these demos is if they showed how a full screen bright image compared between the OLED and LCD - especially on something like Aquaman.

Thanks for the write ups guys, one day I'll get around to going to one.
 
Wished i was there, no doubt its a Phillips event to prove many points. Firstly reference grading monitor will have outstanding colour accuracy, before you start talking about contrast and black levels. Secondly if you see Vincent video of the x310 it clearly shows the averages of professional monitor. He stated he's never see such pop and depth from a television, and he's tested them all over the year's. As for the samsung q950 we know samsung has gone backwards in many regards. My friend has q950, currently enjoying at the moment and funny enough he's booked in for calibration by Julian Scott next month.
 
Thanks to everyone involved from Philips, Bowers and Wilkins and Dolby in organising tonight's session. This was quite simply the best AV event that I have ever been to - a really unique experience.

This evening was split into multiple different sessions - covering Philips' picture quality, Bowers and Wilkins' sound quality, Dolby cinema's picture and sound quality and getting to see a professional grading display. (The evening was also a chance to meet AV Forums' very own Phil Hinton.)

Part 1 - Danny Tack Demoing Philips Picture Processing

Danny is Philips’ picture processing guru and he has a strong view on how the right picture processing can improve upon a calibrated image.

To demonstrate this, he had two Philips TVs set up next to one another. One was showing a calibrated image in Movie mode, while the other was using Philips P5 Gen 3 picture processing, using Vivid mode.

Multiple clips were shown - all in SDR. It is fair to say that the additional processing had some significant advantages as well as some aspects that were more divisive. Firstly, the processing was great in eliminating what otherwise would be terrible judder. (Some of the scenes were deliberately shot with fast vertical and horizontal panning, to highlight just how bad judder can be.) The processing was also good at reducing image noise – for example in a plain blue sky.

Vivid mode also added quite a lot of additional sharpening without adding much in the way of negative artefacts. I have to admit that I like a slightly sharpened image – though not everyone feels that way.

The other main changes that the processing made were to increase saturation and contrast.

Basically SDR content is graded to a low level of brightness (around 100 nits) and a limited colour gamut, rec709. These standards matched the capabilities of displays in the past. Modern displays though are capable of so much more than this - a typical OLED can reach around 700 nits and can produce a much broader range of colours than rec709 includes. So the Philips processing is aiming to enhance the SDR image by making it more like an HDR image. The brightness range that was 0 to 100 nits is essentially expanded to something closer to 0 to 700 nits. Additionally, the colour space is expanded to something closer to the full gamut the TV can support - by what generally appeared to be increasing the saturation.

The result is an image that has more contrast and stronger colours. Personally I liked the effect on the contrast but found the effect on the colours too much - everything looked oversaturated.

For me and I think many other attendees, the colours looked much better when they were turned down a bit - so that there was a bit more vibrance than the plainer looking calibrated image but without making everything too garish and unrealistic.

There is definitely a reasonable argument for picture enhancements being applied to SDR images. (Which lets face it is still the majority of viewing for most people.)

If our displays are capable of so much more than the SDR standard, is it really a good idea to stick only to a fully calibrated SDR image? If I edit a photo I virtually always enhance it by increasing the contrast and sharpness – so why not do the same for video images?

If Danny or someone else from Philips is reading this then I suggest that you could get a more positive response from AV purists if you rename Vivid to something like "Cinema Plus" or "Cinema Enhanced". The term Vivid mode has such a bad reputation. Or alternatively leave Vivid mode as it is and add a new "Cinema Plus" or "Cinema Enhanced" mode that is basically Vivid with the saturation turned down a bit.

Part 1b - Introducing an LCD into the mix.
Then Danny switched to including a third screen - an 8k Samsung Q950R. The clips were shown again and basically showed that Philips Vivid mode is hands down better than Samsung's Dynamic mode - which tended to crush blacks and blow out bright highlights. Personally, I am not sure how important this is, as I would simply never use Dynamic mode on a Samsung TV as it is so garish.

It was worth noting that the Samsung struggled to smooth out some of the fastest panning shots and ended up appearing to drop frames. Now this could be because the Philips P5 processor is better than the one in the Samsung, or it could be that the Samsung struggles because being 8k, it has 4 times as many pixels to process.

Some additional scenes were shown to highlight the advantage of a self-emissive OLED against a backlit LCD. These scenes were deliberately chosen to be torture tests for an LCD, even one with Full Array Local Dimming (FALD).

First off was the OLED forte of fireworks shots. These shots basically have a screen that is 95 black with some very bright highlights. The bright highlights on the LCD were nowhere near as bright as those on the OLED. This is pretty much expected as FALD sets dim their backlights when the average picture brightness across the whole screen is so low and the highlight areas are so small.

There was additionally a movie sample with some very dim scenes. When the average brightness in the scene was really low the LCD would end up dimming its backlights and lose almost all detail whereas the OLED would maintain the dimly lit details. (Samsung does appear to be a bit too zealous in its backlight dimming in such scenes.)

However, to me as I knew these scenes were deliberately chosen to make an OLED look good/an LCD look bad, I was impressed at how well the LCD did. In dark scenes that were just dark rather than really, really dark, the LCD held its own against the OLED and maintained similar detail. I also noticed that that the LCD’s higher peak brightness meant that it had whiter whites – especially when a large part of the scene was bright. This may have been because the OLEDs brightness limiter was kicking in. A typical OLED can get up to 700 nits when displaying a small white square on a black screen. However, as that white square gets bigger the peak brightness drops. If the white square fills the whole screen then the brightness will drop to something like 150 nits. LCDs tend to be able to maintain brightness much better large full field bright areas.

The Samsung also scored well in two other areas. Firstly, for an LCD it had very good viewing angles. Secondly, Samsung have the best anti reflective screen of any TV. Whereas the OLEDs really reflected the lights in the room, the Samsung was great at suppressing reflections.

Part 2 – Bowers & Wilkins Demo

Andy Kerr from Bowers and Wilkins gave a demo of the sound system on the OLED+984. (You may remember Andy as a very interesting guest on an AV Forums pod cast a few weeks ago.)

In summary, it was the best sound that I have ever heard from any TV. There was great clarity, what seemed like good stereo separation and good levels of power.

Now this is a high-end TV sound system with a high end price tag. This system is ideal for a well heeled buyer who wants great sound in a simple and elegant package.

The 984 has a list price of £4.5k which is around £1.5k to £2k more than a standard 65” OLED with no special sound system. Personally, I struggle, with the concept of spending so much extra on a TV for improved sound. This is simply because for me my sound system gets replaced far less frequently than my TV. I would hate to have to throw away that extra investment a few years down the line when I upgraded my TV.

However, I really liked what Bowers and Wilkins had achieved and I hope that they can take what they have learned from the 984 sound system and release something similar as a separate sound bar.


Part 3 - Dolby Cinema Demonstration

To me this was the most exciting part of the evening - a chance to experience one of the best cinema screens in the world. There are only four Dolby screening rooms in the wold and this is the only one outside of the US. According to someone I spoke to from Dolby, the experience at this one may be the best of all because of the relatively small size of the auditorium compared to the screen.

We watched the new Star Wars trailer, a clip from a Star is Born and a scene commissioned by Philips for IFA.

And just 'Wow'!

I have never seen a cinema image as good as this. Completely black blacks and bright saturated colours with fantastic detail. The sound was spine tinglingly good with a perfect balance of power, location and clarity. This is what cinema should be!

Please, if someone from Dolby is reading this, then just name your price for watching the next Star Wars movie at this cinema (e.g. a kidney) and I will be there.

I do think that Dolby should do more to publicise the advantage of Dolby cinema to the general public. Perhaps they should have more events like this where members of the public are brought in to see demo material at the Dolby screening room in Soho and then released to evangelise about it on-line. I know that I am now a Dolby cinema convert.


Part 4 - Dolby Grading Room and Comparing a Pro Monitor with a Philips OLED

We then got to see the Dolby grading room, where they add the Dolby Vision dynamic meta data to the master of a movie. This was where they have graded the Harry Potter movies among others.

We also got to see a professional calibrated 4,000 nit display (an LCD) and compare it to a Philips OLED. This professional display would cost £10s of thousands compared to about £2k for the Philips OLED.

Philips employ two different Dolby Vision modes. Dolby Vision “Dark” and Dolby Vision “Light”. The Dark version follows exactly what Dolby specify and should match as close as it can what you would see on the professional display. The Light mode is there to address some concerns that HDR encoded content can sometimes appear to be a bit too dark, especially in a room with the lights on.

We saw the same Philips made IFA clip as we saw in the cinema. This was deliberately shot to highlight the advantages of Dolby Vision HDR. So this material has strong contrasts – scenes with details in dark areas as well as areas with very high brightness - and some strong colours – a dancer in a vivid red dress. This material is mastered to 4,000 nits.

First, we watched the demo in Dark mode. The Philips acquitted itself very well against the professional monitor. You could see the advantage of the extra nits (4,000 vs about 7,00) in the highlights but unless you had a professional monitor sitting next to it you would not have any complaints with the quality of the Philips picture. To me it really showed that while there is an advantage to having extra nits (in this case 6 times as many) the difference is not that dramatic. There is no reason to hold off of buying an OLED because it can “only” display 700 nits – that 700 nits is enough.

We then watched the same scene in Philips Dolby Vision Light mode. This clearly showed more detail in dark areas compared to the professional monitor - but it appeared to do this by boosting the brightness of the low to mid tones. This showed extra detail but at the expense of a loss of overall contrast. I personally preferred the Dark mode.

We then watched a concert scene with very challenging lighting. Generally, the scene was dark but with very bright coloured flashes. This was again shown in the Light mode. However, in this case the Philips matched the professional display very well. There was no noticeable brightening of mid-tones that reduced contrast this time. Perhaps this was because


The Finale

There was a brief wrap up and the evening ended with one of the 27 AV Forum members having their name selected to win a Philips 65” OLED. All I remember was that the winner was not me. This was my 4th time watching some other AV Forums member win a TV - and I have to say that the experience just gets better every time.

Overall this was a fantastic evening and thanks again to everyone involved in setting this up.

Since our friend here gave us the most accurate transcript of the event, i will focus on sharing my half-sober thoughts. I will try to keep it short and follow same structure:

Part 1 - Philips Picture Processing & LCD demo
_ That P5 second generation is simply incredible in how it cleans the picture. Philips really refined the process. Extremely useful to handle poor to average sources especially streamed. SD or HD
_ Color were too saturated but Danny kindly demonstrated that we can have a superb natural picture with superb colours, just don't call it VIVID PLEASE (try Master, P5 enhanced,..)
_ The philips motion is simply the best i have seen period. I agree with Vincent and many others.
_ the samsung LCD was struggling in dark scenes but it was probably not in the right mode full stop. We also didn't see in bright scenes...I think the comparison of Oled vs Led was done to death.
Personally, the pixel control of Oled wins until something better comes (mini or micro led,dual lcd,...) or oled itself takes another leap (never say never).

Part 2 – Bowers & Wilkins Demo
- Superb sound coming from the speakers and ideal for people like me as we don't want a full surround system. Really nice separation and a joy to listen to music only at home...
_ they need to look at adding satellites & mini sub...and doing separate soundbars (in planning).
_ little brother oled with smaller soundbar was there but could not hear it. Could be sweet spot as per phil review in here. Check it out.

Part 3 - Dolby Cinema Demonstration
_ What can i say....i still didn't recover from that. the lady gaga scene was the most cinematic and audio experience i ever had...i just felt i was there (i wish...).
_ Star wars demo picture wasn't right; Sound was awesome but picture wasn't as sharp. I wonder if same resolution as lady gaga extract.
_ i am a DV convert but they have to set a cinema in a more convenient (and cheap) place than Leicester square...lucky members in the North as i believe the locations have better acoustic.
_ Dolby should set up more demos for general public. This will guarantee a buzz. Something the marketeer/PR have to think about. i have no kidney left but i can sell something else...perhaos they should partner with disney in the star wars attraction :)

Part 4 - Dolby Grading Room and Comparing a Pro Monitor with a Philips OLED
- WOW WOW WOW...you have to see this if you are in this forum, i don't care if you have to drive 6H and sleep in your car...it was something to see how it works and that Pulsar in action.
_ Lets be clear, that Pulsar LCD gave me the most astonishing picture i have ever seen. It was like a mirror in another world. It was just perfect and the 4000 nits in the tank gave a depth to the colours i can hardly explain. The light pouring from the window was unreal...
- a forum friend mentioned 90 percent close. For me it was 75 and this is already incredible considering the differences full stop. Oled clawed back with pixel control and it was even closer in dark scenes...
- whatever close it was (really nice to see), i have seen the future and what i want to see...a bit what many reviewers described when they have seen the 4000 and 10000 nits screens (John archer); Window to the outside world literally.

Part 5 - Final thoughts
- This event is a must Do for any enthusiast. I hope it can become a regular feature as really worth it.
- The Philips TVs improved. They are now a viable alternative to pana (i have one) and LG especially with sound, ambilight and motion/top processing. i can also add sony in the mix.
- I agree with Phil that LG C9 is best overall package in 2019. seems weird when philips and pana took 3 awards each but LG still gives the complete and future proof package without many compromises. Price needs to be right too.
- What Pana and Philips needs to do to take that crown back ( Very easy for both if LG doesn't step it up next year). Pana to change OS (get samsung one) and HDMI 2.1. Philips to add HDMI 2.1 and focus more on accuracy out of the box (even with their P5 enhanced or master mode).
- the big take away for me is again how lucky we are to have oled and such a picture. It is no pulsar but boy we have never been so close...

To be clear, anyone having a pana, lg, philips oled will be very very happy.
Sony has some ground to cover and their premiums plus half backed DV is not justified anymore. they can do it as just a matter of listening and adapting...remains a great brand, just lost some of us.

Merci again to Philips, Dolby, B&W plus Avforum for giving us this unique opportunity.
 
Well well, I never post but thought it only appropriate after last night’s event at Dolby. I was like Stevelup, going to post my thoughts in detail but after the most detailed post from Gadgetobsessed I have no need, he has summed it up perfectly.

For me the jaw dropping moment was in the Dolby cinema. I thought afterwards what I could compare it to and the thing I thought of was when I was a teenager (a long long time ago) I heard a CD for the first time and it so sticks in my memory of how good it was compared to vinyl at the time.

Last night in the cinema room was like that. It’s simply, in my opinion, the best cinema experience I have had, it was like, ’wow that’s how good it can be’

The Philips TV was very impressive, Danny Tack is very good. the detail that was there, crispness of colours was outstanding. The only slight negative was I would have like to have seen the TV in a number of different modes, but that’s being overly picky.

Overall, a fantastic event and it’s to the credit of Phil to give AV Forum members a view into a world which the general public don’t see. Thanks also goes to Dolby for hosting an amazing event and Philips and Bowers and Wilkins showing excellent products.

Long may the events continue.
 
Great write up fellas. Sad that I submitted my entry too late. Next year maybe but enjoy your TVs thinking it is a Pulsar lol.
 
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According to someone I spoke to from Dolby, the experience at this one may be the best of all because of the relatively small size of the auditorium compared to the screen.
Well if that's the case mine should be the best, right? :D

 
Thank you @Phil Hinton for the video...and everything else.

Couple of days after the events, head still spinning.

i reflected even more and after seeing the video, i would like philips (Danny) to consider the below:

1. Accurate mode/Master: this has to be renamed from current (forgot). the content he showed us was very dim to make the point. when i put a simple BBC HD news or a good HD documentary, the accurate and "natural" mode is superb on my pana.

2. Philips or P5 Enhanced mode: as discussed; Philips processing power is incredible and motion second to none. There should be a mode with just right pop for colours. It is extremely useful in many many situations. perfectly adapted to our still poor streaming quality or some programmes.

3. vivid mode: we spoke about that enough. I believe this need to remain but not mentioned anymore as a pillar of philips strategy. Danny talk to focus on point 2 which people will understand/buy in a lot more. It is like trying to rename "Brexit", waste of energy and enough said.

4. HDR and Dolby: i believe it was mentioned but it was superb when philips applied their processing (Dolby bright) to the Dolby Dark mode. Picture improved drastically but colours weren't distorted. There is something there to reflect on for point 2.

These are just some reflection points for Philips to ponder on. They have been listening and thats more than all the others put together. If philips address these simple points and add hdmi 2.1 next year, then it will be a top contender for top tv hands down. Very easy to implement but it requires rethinking the "language" and approach just a bit so everyone is onboard.
 
1. Accurate mode/Master: this has to be renamed from current (forgot). the content he showed us was very dim to make the point. when i put a simple BBC HD news or a good HD documentary, the accurate and "natural" mode is superb on my pana.
The key point here is how bright the calibrated set was. Calibration of SDR normally sets the peak white to at least 100 nits. 100 nits is OK for watching in a very dark room but for anyone that does not watch in a very dark room you would want it calibrated to be significantly brighter than that - depending upon how bright the room was. We were not watching in a very dark room.

@Phil Hinton - do you know what peak white level the calibrated display was set to e.g. 100 nits?

4. HDR and Dolby: i believe it was mentioned but it was superb when philips applied their processing (Dolby bright) to the Dolby Dark mode. Picture improved drastically but colours weren't distorted. There is something there to reflect on for point 2.
Personally I did not like the Dolby Bright Mode when we watched the mini-movie that Philips had commissioned. That movie was intended to have a great deal of contrast with dim backgrounds and bright highlights. On the Pulsar monitor and the Philips in Dark mode - the dark backgrounds were difficult to see - but that was as the director intended.

When the Philips was switched to Bright mode the dark backgrounds became much more visible. However, to me it looked like Philips were just raising the EOTF above reference - i.e. raising the mid-tones. The dim backgrounds were more visible but overall the scene had less contrast and seemed overbrightened in comparison to the Pulsar display. This may help though if you are watching Dolby Vision content where it just seems to dark.

Interestingly when we watched the concert scene with lots of blacks and bright light flashes the Philips bright mode didn't just seem to be overbrightening the mid tones. In that case the Philips compared very well with the Pulsar.

Overall I think that we AVForum members do need to be more cautious when attending these manufacturer led demos. They are not intended to be unbiased. If the manufacturers display does not look good in the demo compared to the competition, then something has gone seriously wrong with the selection of source material and/or set ups of the sets.

For example, if Samsung had run the QLED vs OLED comparison then (a) the Samsung wouldn't have been set to the terrible Dynamic mode and (b) we probably would have watched scenes with high average brightness levels where the OLEDs ABL limiter would have kicked in and made the OLED look dim in comparison.

Just to be clear, Philips make great TVs and have very good image processing. I am not trying to be negative towards Philips at all. I am just saying, be cautious in making assumptions about quality based upon these kind of demos.
 
The key point here is how bright the calibrated set was. Calibration of SDR normally sets the peak white to at least 100 nits. 100 nits is OK for watching in a very dark room but for anyone that does not watch in a very dark room you would want it calibrated to be significantly brighter than that - depending upon how bright the room was. We were not watching in a very dark room.

@Phil Hinton - do you know what peak white level the calibrated display was set to e.g. 100 nits?


Personally I did not like the Dolby Bright Mode when we watched the mini-movie that Philips had commissioned. That movie was intended to have a great deal of contrast with dim backgrounds and bright highlights. On the Pulsar monitor and the Philips in Dark mode - the dark backgrounds were difficult to see - but that was as the director intended.

When the Philips was switched to Bright mode the dark backgrounds became much more visible. However, to me it looked like Philips were just raising the EOTF above reference - i.e. raising the mid-tones. The dim backgrounds were more visible but overall the scene had less contrast and seemed overbrightened in comparison to the Pulsar display. This may help though if you are watching Dolby Vision content where it just seems to dark.

Interestingly when we watched the concert scene with lots of blacks and bright light flashes the Philips bright mode didn't just seem to be overbrightening the mid tones. In that case the Philips compared very well with the Pulsar.

Overall I think that we AVForum members do need to be more cautious when attending these manufacturer led demos. They are not intended to be unbiased. If the manufacturers display does not look good in the demo compared to the competition, then something has gone seriously wrong with the selection of source material and/or set ups of the sets.

For example, if Samsung had run the QLED vs OLED comparison then (a) the Samsung wouldn't have been set to the terrible Dynamic mode and (b) we probably would have watched scenes with high average brightness levels where the OLEDs ABL limiter would have kicked in and made the OLED look dim in comparison.

Just to be clear, Philips make great TVs and have very good image processing. I am not trying to be negative towards Philips at all. I am just saying, be cautious in making assumptions about quality based upon these kind of demos.
Can’t agree more with you my friend. That’s why I didn’t waste time commenting on how bad Samsung looked because it was simply not in the right settings nor right content.
Your point about DV bright is valid. What I watched for was the color deterioration and it didn’t happen.
Philips showed us good things indeed but they will need to work on some key aspects I tried to resume in the last post.

Now, when I watch my tv in the right mode. I imagine I am not too far from watching a pulsar too :)
 

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