TVs and 'Black Level'

almoststew1990 · 24 Jul 2015 at 20:02

It seems to me that both my parents and my cheapish TVs have really dodgey brightness settings, even though one is LG and one is Samsung. I can change the Black Level from low to high and outside of that change the gamma from low, medium high.

The thing is, with low Black Level, the picture is incredibly dark, outside of really bright scenes, but with high Black Level, the blacks just sort of become... Grey. On both TVs

Is this common with cheap TVs? And is there a good way to tweak the settings or find a middle ground between low and high Black Levels?

Mine is an LG 32LS575T - ZD.

spoffle · 24 Jul 2015 at 20:03

That sounds like a dynamic backlight thing going on there, where the backlight is dimmed in dark areas, and increased in bright areas. Which would account for what you're seeing.

almoststew1990 · 24 Jul 2015 at 20:11

I have dynamic everything turned off though

kona786 · 24 Jul 2015 at 20:15

Black level is an attempt to artificially boost contrast at the expense of crushed blacks. I'd avoid turning it on.

Make sure the brighness isn't set too high, this would cause grey blacks. Other than that with a cheap LCD, that's as good as it gets 'blacks' wise.

almoststew1990 · 24 Jul 2015 at 20:28

Its annoying because my old Samsung LCD LE26Bsomething was cheap but was fantastic with colours and Blacks

I'll leave the black level on high then (I.e. the least black)

kona786 · 24 Jul 2015 at 21:57

I may have got HDMI black level mixed up with black tone. I was referring to the latter.

What is your source, I.e Blu-ray PLAYER, PS4 or is it just in general?

Chris1712 · 24 Jul 2015 at 22:22

You can't say for sure until you calibrate it to a test pattern. Make sure you're getting full range through (0-255) all components in chain, set brightness as low as possible until >16 is visible then do the same for contrast with a white pattern (<235). Then set the backlight as low as comfortable.