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The best OLED TVs are about to get a whole lot better. A new panel technology known as eLEAP will officially go into production later this year, according to FlatpanelsHD. Although it won't be going into any big-name TVs at first, the new screen technology promises to deliver brightness in excess of 3,000 nits and improved durability, which means that it could make screens last longer, helping to cut down on e-waste. eLeap was developed by Japan Display (JDI), which is a firm that was created by the merger of the display businesses of Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi. And while we first started reporting on it in 2022, it's only just starting to ramp up production with plans to expand this to the mainstream market in late 2024. Although no consumer brands have yet announced plans to use the new tech, the panels are likely to appear in laptops first, with one of the first panels being a 14-inch OLED for portable computers. That'll deliver peak brightness of 1,600 nits, but even brighter panels are imminent. What is eLeap OLED? eLeap – it's an extremely tenuous acronym for "environment positive lithography with maskless deposition, extreme long life, low power and high luminance" – uses light to transfer patterns in the manufacturing of integrated circuits, a process that can deliver increased brightness and increased durability too, which is great news for cutting down on e-waste. This is the first OLED technology to use such a process, and according to Japan Display the production process is currently six months ahead. In the eight months before launch, JDI says it's already achieving production yields of 60%. The higher the yield the more efficient the production and the lower the cost. According to JDI, it will supply eLeap panels "for use in a wide array of end-use applications, including smartwatches and wearables, smartphones, notebook PCs, and automotive displays". TVs are currently conspicuous by their absence, however. That's because the manufacturing capacity isn't there yet to produce larger panels: JDI's plant for that is not expected to be online until 2027. You might also like We could soon see an end to OLED burn-in – here’s whySony dropped OLED for its flagship 2024 TV – here's whyNew OLED TVs are brighter than ever – here’s what that means for LCD's future View the full article

Sony made a special occasion of its 2024 TV launch, holding it at the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Los Angeles. At the event, attendees, myself included, were treated to demos of Foley effects and soundtrack mixing, plus other striking examples of behind-the-scenes movie magic that happens at the studio. Sony’s message was that the technology that goes into movie and TV creation via its studio and professional camera and display divisions trickles down into consumer products, and it was made loud and clear at the event. The Sony Bravia 9 is the flagship model of the new Bravia series TVs, taking that crown from the Sony A95L OLED TV, which will continue in the lineup for 2024. Interestingly, the Bravia 9 is a mini-LED TV. That marks a change in direction for Sony, a brand that in the past had regularly positioned OLED as the most premium technology in its TV lineup. Sony’s re-positioning of mini-LED at the top of the TV food chain results from two tech developments at the company. The first is the creation of the BVM-HX3110, a professional mastering monitor capable of 4,000 nits peak brightness. The BVM-HX3110 was introduced in late 2023, and replaces the BVM-HX310, a standard model for movie post-production that tops out at 1,000 nits peak brightness. The backlight LED driver panel used in Sony's Bravia 9 TVs. Those tiny black stripes are the mini-LED modules. (Image credit: Future) The second development is XR Backlight Master Drive with High Peak Luminance, a new TV backlight technology used exclusively in the Sony Bravia 9 mini-LED TV. According to Sony, its next-gen backlight tech is responsible for a 50% brightness boost in the Bravia 9 over the company’s previous flagship mini-LED model, the Sony X95L, along with a 325% increase in local dimming zones – something it accomplishes through a new, highly miniaturized 22-bit LED driver. Along with increasing the number of LED modules that can be positioned in a backlight, the new driver’s higher resolution (other TV makers use 10- or 12-bit drivers, according to Sony) in combination with advanced dimming control algorithms lets it display images with a greater level of refinement than previously available in the best TVs. And that’s where Sony’s demo of the new Bravia 9 TV I attended comes in. Brightness refined There were two components to Sony’s demonstration of the Bravia 9’s XR Backlight Master Drive with High Peak Luminance tech. The first was a comparison of the new Sony BVM-HX3110 monitor with the older BVM-HX310 using movie scenes mastered at 4,000 nits peak brightness. While most movies are mastered at 1,000 nits peak brightness, according to Sony that has mainly been a technology limitation – one now removed by the BVM-HX3110. When viewing the 4,000 nits footage on both monitors side by side, a clear increase in highlight detail on the new BVM-HX3110 made images look notably more dynamic. Sony's Bravia 9 mini-LED TV in a bright room setting. (Image credit: Future) The second component was a stacked pair of Sony Bravia 9 TVs set alongside a stacked pair of Samsung QN90C TVs, that company’s flagship 2023 mini-LED model in the US. The TVs arrayed at the top had their LCD panels removed so we could see the “raw” mini-LED backlight (see pic at top). Viewing a series of video clips, the Sony’s backlight had notably higher “resolution” owing to the XR Backlight Master Drive’s more granular local dimming performance. It also had a punchier level of brightness that could be seen in images displayed on the normal, non-butchered versions of both TVs located below. That brightness made highlights pop more dramatically and colors look brighter and richer. Equally impressive in the demo was the virtual absence of backlight blooming effects in the transitions between bright and dark parts of images on the Bravia 9. Backlight blooming is a common visual artifact with LED-based TVs, even ones that use mini-LED tech, and it’s a key reason why OLED TVs, which have panels with self-emissive pixels that generate their own light, have retained a picture quality advantage over LED TVs. Mini-LED mastered Another picture quality comparison conducted by Sony at the event put the Bravia 9 alongside the Sony X95L and Samsung S95C, that company’s 2023 flagship QD-OLED model. The comparison also used Sony’s BVM-HX3110 displaying the same images as a reference point, and of the three TVs, the Bravia 9 most closely tracked the picture on the professional mastering monitor. While Sony hasn’t revealed peak brightness specs for the Bravia 9 TV, its ability to accurately reproduce highlight and shadow details in movies mastered at 4,000 nits makes it a statement piece for HDR. As Sony’s new mastering monitor makes its way into more production facilities and movie directors and cinematographers start pushing the limits of what the format is capable of, any TV that can handle that will have an advantage. Sony’s shift to mini-LED for its flagship TV signals its confidence in the tech, and with developments such as XR Backlight Master Drive, its ability to compete effectively with OLED. The 2024 crop of OLED TVs is turning out to be the brightest yet, with the new Samsung S95D measuring just under 1,800 nits peak brightness in our tests. But the new Samsung QN90D mini-LED model is even brighter, topping out at around 2,000 nits. There’s only so much more that OLED makers can do to increase brightness beyond current levels, and the display tech may have hit its peak in the latest generation of TVs. And while we’ve yet to measure the Bravia 9, mini-LED is capable of higher brightness than OLED tech, and that’s something Sony clearly had in mind when planning its new flagship. In the future, we can expect to see movies with even wider dynamic range, and mini-LED with its high peak brightness capability will be well-positioned to handle it. You might also like Why Sony’s X95L TV reveals a brand boldly determined to swim against the tideI tested Sony's pricey X95L mini-LED 4K TV and sometimes it pays to spend moreNew OLED TVs are brighter than ever – here’s what that means for LCD's future View the full article

In 2024, Samsung is introducing its first OLED TVs smaller than 55-inches, as part of the Samsung S90D model range. These 42-inch (US only) and 48-inch (US & UK) TVs won't use the bright QD-OLED panel type that earned the Samsung S90C our TV of the Year Award for 2023, but instead will use the same kind of OLED panel you'll find in LG's OLEDs. And as with all Samsung TVs, these models will lack Dolby Vision HDR, which is a real concern for us, because Dolby Vision's biggest advantage is making HDR look great on less bright screens. After spending some time with the 48-inch Samsung S90D, I needn't have worried. Not only do its images feel bright and rich, the screen seems to be able to handle challenging HDR scenes well, and even offers impressive sound. Given the other impressive specs on offer as well, it looks like it could be an extremely strong challenger to the best 48-inch TVs. I was able to test the 48-inch S90D armed with my own own choice of movies, plus the Spears & Munsill test disc that we can't live without when testing TVs. Throwing on Alien, I could immediately see that the TV has a lot of talent with nuance in dark scenes. As Kane descends into the threatening bowels of the alien spaceship, the parts that should be truly inky black hit that mark (as you'd expect from an OLED), but you can see subtle, very dark texture in the areas near the light patches. And speaking of the light patches, the 48-inch S90D certainly felt bright enough to deliver high-quality HDR. Typically, 42- and 48-inch OLEDs are always less bright than 55-inch and larger OLEDs, due the tight fit of the pixels – but we've already heard that the smaller models in this year's LG C4 OLED TV will be brighter than previous years, and given that the Samsung uses the same screen, I'm guessing this is similarly bright. It's rich in color with big, bold tones – but the colors also feel controlled and realistic. Vibrant and punchy, but comfortably on the right side of natural – skin tones in Oppenheimer looked true-to-life, and the level of detail did justice to that 70mm original film. (Image credit: Future) No Dolby Vision, no problem? I really worried about the lack of Dolby Vision on this TV, but I threw some especially challenging HDR video at it to try to show its flaws, and it borderline made a fool of me. First, some background on why Dolby Vision is important, and what I was worrying about in the first place. When films are mastered for release, the look is perfected for a particular brightness. This can be as high as 10,000 nits, though 1,000 nits is the most common for home video release. What this means is that if you have a video mastered for 1,000 nits playing on a screen capable of 1,000 nits of brightness, you'll see the video's HDR as was intended. (Image credit: Future) So what happens if you play a video mastered for 1,000 nits on TV with a maximum brightness of around 700 nits (which is probably roughly what we're talking for this Samsung)? The full HDR range has to be compressed into a smaller HDR range, and this process is called 'tone mapping'. Tone mapping can be done smartly, or dumbly. The dumb version would be to just take everything above a certain HDR level and squish it all down to the maximum of what the TV can handle. This results in lots of lost nuance in highlights – so, for example, what should be a fluffy, layered cloud becomes just a big smear of uniform white. The smart approach is adjust down the brightness of tones across the whole range, but it's easy to get this wrong and end up with lost detail in dark tones, or to still lose convincing highlights. The most advanced processing in the best TVs can actually adjust tone mapping on different parts of the screen at the same time, to avoid these problems. A huge advantage of Dolby Vision, HDR10+ (which the Samsung S90D supports, but is less commonly used) and HDR formats is that they include tone mapping data, to ensure results closer to the original intention. That's why we've always considered it so important to have Dolby Vision on the best OLED TVs – because most models still struggle to hit 1,000 nits of brightness, so they'll need to perform tone mapping with more HDR content. (Image credit: Future) Which is a lot of build-up for me to say: from my experience so far, the tone mapping on the S90D appears to be so good, Dolby Vision is unnecessary. I tested it with the same video being shown in 10,000-nit HDR10 (which requires aggressive tone mapping), 1,000-nit HDR10 (which requires more gentle tone mapping), and 10,000-nit HDR10+ (where the tone mapping is handled by the HDR format for best results). The difference between all three was minimal. Not quite zero – the 10,000-nit HDR10 video did has slightly more washed out white tones in difficult circumstances (like the clouds example above, or snowy scenes) – but close enough to quell my concerns about this aspect of the TVs. Obviously, we'll reserve final judgment until we can get this model in for an in-depth review, and ideally we'll compare it directly with the Dolby Vision-supporting LG C4 at the same size, since they use the same underlying screen tech. But for me, the lack of Dolby Vision doesn't seem to be an issue at all. It all sounds good I was also impressed with the sound of the TV. It doesn't have a fancy array of speakers around the edge, in the way that the larger S90D models, or the Samsung S95D and Samsung QN90D, do – but I found it to be capable of impressive height, solid chest-out depth, and a surprising dynamic range with the 'Amplify' mode turned on, while still feeling fairly natural. It didn't have a ton of width, but that's forgivable. It certainly felt like you could get away without a soundbar from my first listen. (Image credit: Future) Other useful info to know about the Samsung S90D includes that it has a 144Hz screen, with support for 4K 120Hz or 144Hz gaming on all four HDMI ports, as well as variable refresh rate and auto low latency mode. It has Samsung's Game Bar menu to make it easy to customizing the settings, too – it will likely be a strong contender for our list of the best gaming TVs. Samsung's new processor is included, and it supports a wireless connection to certain Samsung Dolby Atmos soundbars, and includes Samsung Q-Symphony support to combine its speakers with the soundbar's, if you do choose to add one. We don't have prices yet – it appears that this size is launching a little after the larger models in the range. But I'm looking forward to spending more time with it. 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