OLED vs QLED – What TV is better?

 

Supported by LG, Philips, Panasonic and Sony sell the OLED system TVs.
OLED stands for “organic light emitting diode.”
It is a fundamentally different technology from LCD, the major type of TV today.
OLED is “emissive,” meaning the pixels emit their own light.

 

Samsung is branding its best TVs with a new acronym: “QLED”
QLED (according to Samsung) stands for “quantum dot LED TV.”
It is a variation of the common LED LCD, adding a quantum dot film to the LCD “sandwich.”
QLED, like LCD, is, in its current form, “transmissive” and relies on an LED backlight.

 

OLED is the only technology capable of absolute blacks and extremely bright whites on a per-pixel basis. LCD definitely can’t do that, and even the vaunted, beloved, dearly departed plasma couldn’t do absolute blacks.

QLED, as an improvement over OLED, significantly improves the picture quality. QLED can produce an even wider range of colors than OLED, which says something about this new tech. QLED is also known to produce up to 40% higher luminance efficiency than OLED technology. Further, many tests conclude that QLED is far more efficient in terms of power consumption than its predecessor, OLED.

 

When analyzing TVs color, it may be beneficial to consider at least 3 elements:
“Color Depth”, “Color Gamut”, and “Dynamic Range”.

 

Color Depth (or “Bit-Depth”, e.g. 8-bit, 10-bit, 12-bit) determines how many distinct color variations (tones/shades) can be viewed on a given display.

 

Color Gamut (e.g. WCG) determines which specific colors can be displayed from a given “Color Space” (Rec.709, Rec.2020, DCI-P3) (i.e. the color range).

 

Dynamic Range (SDR, HDR) determines the luminosity range of a specific color – from its darkest shade (or tone) to its brightest.

 

The overall brightness range of a color will be determined by a display’s “contrast ratio”, that is, the ratio of luminance between the darkest black that can be produced and the brightest white.

 

Color Volume is the “Color Gamut” + the “Dynamic/Luminosity Range”.
A TV’s Color Volume will not only determine which specific colors can be displayed (the color range) but also that color’s luminosity range, which will have an affect on its “brightness”, and “colorfulness” (intensity and saturation).

 

The better the colour volume in a TV, the closer to life the colours appear.

 

QLED TV can express nearly all of the colours in the DCI-P3 colour space, and of those colours, express 100% of the colour volume, thereby producing an incredible range of colours.

 

With OLED TV, when the image is too bright, the percentage of the colours in the colour volume produced by the TV drops significantly. The colours get washed out and can only express around 70% colour volume, making the picture quality drop too.

 

Note. OLED TV uses organic material, so it may lose colour expression as it ages.

 

Resources for more reading and comparison below

www.avsforum.com/forum/166-lcd-flat-panel-displays/2812161-what-color-volume.html

 

www.newtechnologytv.com/qled-vs-oled/

 

news.samsung.com/za/qled-tv-vs-oled-tv

 

www.cnet.com/news/qled-vs-oled-samsungs-tv-tech-and-lgs-tv-tech-are-not-the-same/

 

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