Blur Busters Forums

So I bought an LG CX recently and it's pretty good, there's only really one annoyance with it, and that's the over-aggressive ABL, at least with BFI mode.

So without BFI mode, the ABL seems fine, and a full field white image looks good to me, but with BFI it looks grey, even at BFI-medium.
Is there a way to make the ABL less aggressive? I've got a service remote so I can access the service menu, but it's pretty confusing what all the options do so I don't really have a clue what to do there.

deama wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 19:26

Is there a way to make the ABL less aggressive?

No.

ABL is a non-optional function of OLED. It's there to prevent both huge energy consumption and the OLED from overheating/driving individual pixels too hard and effectively being burned out prematurely.

There is a 30" $30,000+ studio mastering OLED monitor that can reach 4000 nits without ABL (correction, only 1000 nits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESzWY0hW85Y, and only for a short amount of time; I was originally conflating it with another mastering monitor), for instance, but it has to have a massive cooling system attached to the back (making the unit very thick and heavy) to achieve this, and it consumes far more energy than consumer standards (Energy Star) would allow.

The only thing you can disable on the CX is ASBL, which controls auto dimming protection if the TV detects static and/or dim content for an extended period of time. This likely won't affect the issue you want it to however (BFI operation).

deama wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 19:26

So without BFI mode, the ABL seems fine, and a full field white image looks good to me, but with BFI it looks grey, even at BFI-medium.

By my measurements, full field white BFI on "High" with 100% OLED Light is around ~60 nits @60Hz, and around ~116 nits @120Hz. This is actually higher than most plasma televisions (native "BFI" tech) could get, which typically only reached ~40 nits full field, and they also had more aggressive ABL than OLED as well.

Anyway, most of the dimness in BFI isn't caused directly by ABL, but by the black frames inserted.

jorimt wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 21:17

deama wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 19:26

Is there a way to make the ABL less aggressive?

No.

ABL is a non-optional function of OLED. It's there to prevent both huge energy consumption and the OLED from overheating/driving individual pixels too hard and effectively being burned out prematurely.

There is a 30" $30,000+ studio mastering OLED monitor that can reach 4000 nits without ABL, for instance, but it has to have a massive cooling system attached to the back (making the unit very thick and heavy) to achieve this, and it consumes far more energy than consumer standards (Energy Star) would allow.

The only thing you can disable on the CX is ASBL, which controls auto dimming protection if the TV detects static and/or dim content for an extended period of time. This likely won't affect the issue you want it to however (BFI operation).

deama wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 19:26

So without BFI mode, the ABL seems fine, and a full field white image looks good to me, but with BFI it looks grey, even at BFI-medium.

By my measurements, full field white BFI on "High" with 100% OLED Light is around ~60 nits @60Hz, and around ~116 nits @120Hz. This is actually higher than most plasma televisions (native "BFI" tech) could get, which typically only reached ~40 nits full field, and they also had more aggressive ABL than OLED as well.

Anyway, most of the dimness in BFI isn't caused directly by ABL, but by the black frames inserted.

Didn't you do a measurement before and said it was at around 46 nits full field white?
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7161&start=30

I'm not trying to run it at 3000, I'd just like the ABL to be less aggressive, I don't really care if it takes another 10W more, and I'm curious about the protective aspect of it as I'm not going to be able to leave the tv at 100% white all the time, just sometimes there's an explosion in a scene and it dimms it and then brightens it up when it's gone, it's kinda like a fly flying around your head.
Usually manufacturer's tend to be over-aggressive in some aspects in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator, at least in my experience.

But also, how come the ABL seems more aggressive with BFI on? Shouldn't it be less aggressive because the pixels are switched on/off? Reducing energy and increasing lifespan?

deama wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 21:30

Didn't you do a measurement before and said it was at around 46 nits full field white?
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7161&start=30

Ha, indeed, I did it again; mixed up the 10% and full field readings. Should have rechecked my own post (was a while back now, and my "tests" were highly casual).

My plasma full field nit levels point still applies though; BFI behavior + self-emissive display typically = very low full field brightness. Nothing new.

deama wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 21:30

I'm not trying to run it at 3000, I'd just like the ABL to be less aggressive, I don't really care if it takes another 10W more, and I'm curious about the protective aspect of it as I'm not going to be able to leave the tv at 100% white all the time, just sometimes there's an explosion in a scene and it dimms it and then brightens it up when it's gone, it's kinda like a fly flying around your head.
Usually manufacturer's tend to be over-aggressive in some aspects in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator, at least in my experience.

There's nothing on the user-side or in the service menu that can reduce this in the 100% brightness + BFI scenario.

ABL can only be defeated if OLED Light is set below the ~150 nits level on this set (I calibrate mine to 100 nits non-BFI for SDR, thus it never triggers), but this would obviously make BFI much, much dimmer.

deama wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 21:30

But also, how come the ABL seems more aggressive with BFI on? Shouldn't it be less aggressive because the pixels are switched on/off? Reducing energy and increasing lifespan?

You'd have to ask the LG engineers on that one.

But my guess is when the OLED Light is set to 100% with BFI enabled, the ABL algorithim still considers that over the ~150 nit level (actual brightness, sans BFI), and engages it regardless.

You can try hounding LG on BFI implementation, but fair warning, they don't have a good history where open communication is concerned, or any precedence for updating BFI on previous (or current) displays for improved gaming purposes.

jorimt wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 23:54

You'd have to ask the LG engineers on that one.

But my guess is when the OLED Light is set to 100% with BFI enabled, the ABL algorithim still considers that over the ~150 nit level (actual brightness, sans BFI), and engages it regardless.

You can try hounding LG on BFI implementation, but fair warning, they don't have a good history where open communication is concerned, or any precedence for updating BFI on previous (or current) displays for improved gaming purposes.

I was considering on calling them up, but yeah, I doubt it'd do anything, was hoping there'd be some sort of firmware hack or something someone made.

While we're talking about this, does disabling ABSL (I think it's called TPC in the service menu?) disable the logo luminance feature? Or only just the part where it gets dimmer if the whole display is displaying a somewhat static image?

Also, I've enabled the HDR module so HDR is forced on SDR content, and I quite like it, is there a way to increase it's strength though? E.g. it brightens dark areas in games, but I would like it to brighten the dark areas even more.
I've noticed that dynamic contrast sort of does it, but the issue with it is that even though it makes dark areas look nicer and makes the light pop out more in dark areas, it seems to kinda screw up when it gets bright, especially for fairly bright colourful content.

deama wrote: ↑

29 Aug 2020, 09:14

While we're talking about this, does disabling ABSL (I think it's called TPC in the service menu?) disable the logo luminance feature? Or only just the part where it gets dimmer if the whole display is displaying a somewhat static image?

Yes, all dimming behavior (other than ABL). Go to "12. OLED" in the service menu and disable "TCP Enable," and if you're on the latest firmware, you should see "GSR Enable." Disable that as well.

deama wrote: ↑

29 Aug 2020, 09:14

Also, I've enabled the HDR module so HDR is forced on SDR content, and I quite like it, is there a way to increase it's strength though?

There is an official picture preset called "HDR Effect" that does the same thing for SDR content. That SM menu option simply enables that behavior across all SDR picture preset (HDR peak brightness of the set). I assume you're using it because you want it for game mode.

But no, I believe the only SM option available for that is "Module HDR."

jorimt wrote: ↑

29 Aug 2020, 10:56

Yes, all dimming behavior (other than ABL). Go to "12. OLED" in the service menu and disable "TCP Enable," and if you're on the latest firmware, you should see "GSR Enable." Disable that as well.

What does GSR do?
Because I would like to keep the logo dimming feature on cause I actually like it when it dims huds and UIs, but I'd like to disable the whole screen dimming when it detects the whole screen is on a static image, or almost static.

Also, if you go to the system 1 in the service remote menu, there's something called dimming, I tried disabling it and the service menu lit up, but I can't really tell much of a difference when viewing content?

deama wrote: ↑

29 Aug 2020, 12:16

What does GSR do?

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/lg-ole ... t-60048600

If you only want to disable full screen dimming I'd leave GSR enabled then. Not 100% sure if TCP disables part or all of the Logo Dimming function though.

deama wrote: ↑

29 Aug 2020, 12:16

Also, if you go to the system 1 in the service remote menu, there's something called dimming, I tried disabling it and the service menu lit up, but I can't really tell much of a difference when viewing content?

I don't know, but I personally wouldn't mess with any SM values not already known. If you do, I suggest you take a picture of the SM before adjusting so you can manually revert where necessary.