OLED Banding issues; LG says nothing wrong

[GBMidge7]

Hey all. I was looking for some opinions on my OLED. It's a 2023 C2 and I am noticing banding across the screen. It is most obvious in darker scenes, grey screens like menu screens, etc. It is more difficult to see in bright scenes or scenes with a lot going on.

I contacted LG support and after some ridiculously stupid troubleshooting they authorized a local technician (LG certified or whatever) to come out and check it out.

That was in and of itself ridiculous. The technician was completely flippant about my issue, telling me that using Youtube video test screens isn't valid, etc. He even told me that if it's only obvious in grey screens and stuff what's the big deal, since how often are you watching just grey screens. I was pretty annoyed. THey tried to do the live video conference with LG from my house but they couldn't get it working. So he told me to send him the photos i took of the issues annotated with what source they came from, andthey would send those to LG.

So I did that. But I went ne step further. Since I was told youtube test screens and streaming in general wasn't valid, I only took photos of apps or images NATIVE to the TV. So anything you see is generated by the TV itself.

Well unsurprisingly, they sent my images and annotations and LG denied anything is wrong with my tv.

Here are the images. Am I crazy? Making more of this than it is? or should I be expecting something to be done about this.

In most of the images you can see obvious banding. In the image with the white background and the grey mushrooms you can see how the left side is giving off a pinkish hue when it should be white.

Let me know your thoughts and if you all agree something IS wrong, does anyone have any advice on how to escalate this issue to a more likely scenario of getting it taken care of?

[AKORIS]

have you tested any 4k blu ray discs???

Streaming quality is irrelevant since it's well known that it's capabilities are inferior....

[GBMidge7]

No I haven't. What I was trying to say is I used images natively found on the TV. So the blue images are from an LG screen saver video downloaded directly to the TV, add is the flower image. The YouTube and youTube tv screens are the splash screens directly from the apps themselves, not streamed content. The Xbox menu is simply one of the menus in the Xbox displayed at 4K... no streaming.

The point being is that no matter the source the banding is present and looks exactly the same, including native 4K, non streamed content.

[oddbox83]

Oh, don't bother with LG customer service direct. Your TV practically has to be dead for them to admit anything isn't within manufacturing tolerances.

Deal with the retailer you brought it from. That looks like a bad panel.

[cminer72]

Banding is one of the drawbacks or OLED. LED has dirty screen effect issues. Neither is perfect tech. Unless you plan to use the TV to only look at static images, trying watching some content and decided if it interferes with your enjoyment. Banding is present on almost all OLED and gets worse as the screen size increases. The next one could be worse. You will never get a perfect one. How many times are you willing to go through the hassle of swapping it out? Personally, I don't it is that bad. I've seen much worse.

[oddbox83]

Originally Posted by cminer72

Banding is one of the drawbacks or OLED.... Personally, I don't it is that bad. I've seen much worse.

Most OLEDs will have light banding, sure. This is really noticeable even on phone pics though. Usually I would say you'd have to squint to see banding on pics. So IMHO, it's bad banding on this screen.

This may well be edging into being visible on content. I wonder if B&W films with horizontal panning shots may be the ideal testing ground to see if it's visible?

[Eschenpod]

Here's a grey screen test on my 65" Samsung S95B QD-OLED. Screen uniformity is excellent.

[InUCTiEn]

Originally Posted by GBMidge7

No I haven't. What I was trying to say is I used images natively found on the TV. So the blue images are from an LG screen saver video downloaded directly to the TV, add is the flower image. The YouTube and youTube tv screens are the splash screens directly from the apps themselves, not streamed content. The Xbox menu is simply one of the menus in the Xbox displayed at 4K... no streaming.

The point being is that no matter the source the banding is present and looks exactly the same, including native 4K, non streamed content.

While you're probably dealing with something with your TV, I will say I think I've noticed that there is banding/artifacts in the YouTube app's ui.

[jamessmilleree]

Hi,

Based on the images you've shared, the banding issue is quite evident, especially in darker scenes and the white background with grey mushrooms. Your concerns are valid, and it's understandable that you want a resolution to the problem.

[wortman]

Yeah, it's an unpleasant story. The stripes are clearly visible, but I'm not entirely sure whether it's a defect or not. We had a similar issue at our workplace, specifically with the quality of video during video conferences. We reached out to https://www.2orange.nl/videoconference-oplossingen/, as they offer videoconferencing solution for various situations. They quickly and effectively resolved our issue by providing necessary equipment and installing the required software.

[oddbox83]

Originally Posted by wortman

Yeah, it's an unpleasant story. The stripes are clearly visible, but I'm not entirely sure whether it's a defect or not.

LG say no.

We say yes.

[cminer72]

You can exchange over and over and keep getting banding. It's normal for OLED. Flawed tech.

[Deadend45]

Its easily solved. Stop watching youtube and watch 10-bit content instead.