Are 2024 TVs Too Bright? | Why Brighter is Still Better

You see it in the headlines you see it  in the reviews the brightness wars waged   among TV brands has never been more  intense but what is this obsession   with brightness on TVs how bright does  a TV even need to be how much should you   even care about brightness ratings when  shopping for a new TV let's get into it welcome back everyone I'm Caleb Denison and  whether you're a bona fide TV enthusiast or   you've just started your journey into researching  a new TV to buy I think it's important that we   have this conversation about TV brightness I've  known for a long time that this video needed to be   made and I'm excited that we're finally getting to  it and there's no better time really take a look   at what just went down at CES on the grandiose  side of the scale we had TCL announcing a 110 in   TV with peak brightness poke looking up to the  5,000 nit level and not to be outdone Hisense   announced a 10,000 nit 115in TV meanwhile both  Samsung and LG touted their new OLED panels that   promise to be just a smidge brighter than last  year but that was enough to get folks really   excited in the video super nerd World some of  us are very excited about a new 4,000 nit Sony   mastering monitor that video pros could soon be  using so what is with all this brightness talk   how and why are brightness wars a thing what is a  nit and should you care how has this become such a nit-uation come on you had to see that coming  right well for those of you who didn't get that   objectively terrible joke a nit is a unit of  brightness and it's used to express how bright   a display can get nit is shorthand for the much  more scientific measurement of Candelas per meter   squared now you may have heard about lumen as  a measurement of brightness and wondered why we   don't apply those to TVs especially when you see  projectors with brightness capabilities expressed   in lumens well the reason is that lumens are  applied to things like lamps or light bulbs and   their ability to shine light in all directions  nits by contrast he's hot folks nits are used   when the light is highly directional this is  why projector lamps are measured in lumens but   the brightness coming off a projector screen is  measured in nits just like a TV laptop computer   monitor or phone anyway how many nits a display  can put out has for better or worse become a yard   stick for quality in some ways that's kind of  fun but in other ways it's a problem I'm going   to explain why soon and we're going to get into  whether you should even give a nit about all   this anyone yeah no okay uh where was I we'll get  into all of that and by the time we're done here   here you're going to be a TV brightness expert  but before we get into the nits and bolts let's   talk about how we got to this point and spoiler  alert it's me hi I'm the problem it's me well   at least a little nit man where are all these  crickets coming from okay first off we've got   to acknowledge that brightness is just exciting  right we know this humans love bright shiny things   it's just built into us I'm sure there's a deep  scientific explanation for that but for now all   we have to do is acknowledge this well-known truth  when it comes to TVs and other displays brightness   plays a role in visibility yeah but in terms of  what makes a picture look attractive to us it's   the brightness against darkness or contrast that  really lights up our excitement this is because   contrast is the element of image quality that has  by far the highest degree of impact on us you know   who knew this perhaps better than anyone anel  freak Adams an American photographer who made a   career out of producing stunning black and white  photos just take a look at some of his work and   it becomes clear that color while quite enjoyable  is not required for beautiful imagery these black   and white images are gorgeous because of you  got It contrast so understanding that contrast   has such a high impact on picture quality and that  brightness plays a huge role in achieving stunning   contrast you can understand why TV Brands and TV  fans would get excited at the prospect of TVs that   have the capability of achieving higher and higher  levels of brightness and that's where folks like   me TV reviewers and tech journalists come in we  have a sort of chicken or the egg situation going   on here I don't know if TV brands started it or if  TV reviewers and Tech journalists started it but   at some point how many nits a TV could put out  became the most exciting spec to talk about to   the point that nit became a fixture in headline  around new TVs I know I've been responsible for   trumping up nit ratings in articles and videos  for years now and in fact the NIT has become so   inextricably linked with enthusiasm for TVs that  I nicknamed nicknamed lost opportunity I nicknamed   my fans nit nerds and then set about creating a  line of merch around that brand check out our nit   nerd merch by clicking the merch store link below  shout out my fellow nit nerds but guys where does   it end how bright is bright enough do we really  need all this brightness and at what point is the   brightness of a TV going to morph from an asset  to a liability well to answer those questions   we first need to talk about the different ways  brightness is used in TVs now nit nerds sit tight   or skip to the next section because I need to take  a quick moment to explain the difference between   average Picture level and specular highlights  average Picture level or APL as we say in the   industry refers to the average brightness of an  image on a display from the content creation side   of things we can point to TV shows like Game  of Thrones House of the Dragon and The Witcher   as shows that have a lot of lowl scenes in other  words they just look dim to a lot of folks some   may say and they have they are at times unwatch  dark on the opposite side of the spectrum we have   high APL content such as Burn Notice and Death  in Paradise sun drenched shows that are bright   vivid and colorful by Nature now a properly set  up TV will make these shows look as the creators   intended them to but lots of us just like bright  images so we may crank up the brightness to get   a higher APL out of our TV on the other hand some  of us need our TVs to have a lower APL because we   watch in a dedicated dark media room or maybe at  night in our bedrooms where a TV set to put out   a high APL would simply be uncomfortable to watch  you don't want to be squinting the whole time time   you're watching shows movies or games right most  TVs today can be dimmed so that they have a low   enough APL to be comfortable but for those of us  who need our TV to be really bright maybe because   the TV is often watched during the day in a sun  soaked room how bright a TV can get in terms of   APL is very important I mean I think we've all  gone outside on a sunny day and had difficulty   seeing our phone or laptop screens if they weren't  set to be bright enough right same deal with your   TV inside or outside come to think of it you need  your TV to be bright enough to be visible let   alone have any contrast in bright environments  that's why outdoor TVs especially Market their   High brightness as a big attribute my point is  that some folks want a TV to have a high peak   brightness capability not because they want the  whole screen to sear their eyeballs though there   are some out there who do want that and always  use the Vivid picture preset on their TVs to get   it no it's because they want to see that super  contrast nasty image that can only come from   having very high brightness objects in an image  we call the small high brightness areas specular   highlights and examples of this might be the sun  gleaming off the Chrome of a car or the stadium   lights gleaming off a football helmet could also  be a super bright candle in an otherwise dark   room further still some folks want a TV that can  have a high average Picture level and still have   enough power and reserves to put out high impact  specular highlights so if we wrap that all up we   have basically four scenarios that illustrate how  brightness can be used in a TV one may be a small   bright object in an otherwise dark background  or a small bright object in a well lit scene or   it could be a large bright object on a well-lit  background that last one large bright object on   a well-lit background can be especially hard for  a TV to pull off well but when it's done right it   can be downright dazzling especially when you can  get that HDR highlight impression in a room with   the lights on now I explain all of that in support  of two important points about TV brightness one a   TV's high peak brightness ability or high nit  rating isn't just about whether a TV can light   up your whole neighborhood on a dark night or  sear your retinas like the sun itself it's about   being able to replicate the kind of Sparkle and  contrast we often see in real life and then two   when we worry about whether a TV is going to be  too bright what we're really worried about is how   the TV will use its brightness power which leads  us into the next critical point of this discussion   Stan Lee once wrote for a Spider-Man comic with  great power comes great responsibility and yeah   perhaps I've overused this trope when talking  about TV brightness but it really does apply when   we see TV's brands claims about how bright their  TVs can get it's fair to get excited but we should   also mix in a fair amount of skepticism because  the real question is will a TV use its power   for good or for evil some scientists probably  spent no small amount of time determining that   in the right situations 10,000 nits was a magic  number for HDR highlights in demanding situations   situations for the home I mean we're not talking  about commercial signage here until just a few   months ago a TV achieving up to 10,000 nits peak  output was a pipe dream I honestly didn't think   we'd see a TV that could punch that hard for a few  more years I was as shocked as anyone that Hisense   said it was going to deliver a 2024 TV that could  deliver that and frankly I remain skeptical until   I've actually seen it myself in this room it's  important to understand that such a brightness   claim is tied to a measurement standard that  involves taking measurements from a very small   spot on a screen here's what a 10% white window  looks like on a 65 in TV this is what a 5% window   looks like this is how big a 3% window is and  finally here is a 1% window when TCL says its TV   will do 5,000 nits I believe that claim is based  on a testing methodology that sees the TV doing   nothing else other than displaying a white window  at either 3% or even 1% same for Hisense and their   claim of 10,000 nits I'm willing to bet that's a  1% window where all the TV's power is going into   this one thing light up the whole TV with an image  of the beach Sun sparkling off the water and those   specular highlights are unlikely to get up to  5,000 or 10,000 nits on those TVs I just mentioned   but that's true of any TV's brightness rating that  peak brightness claim is based on ideal conditions   with virtually no other strain of responsibility  on the TV however when we talk about High high   peak brightness capability we also know that with  that higher rating a TV can also achieve a super   high average picture level relative to TVs that  are rated with a lower peak brightness number so   we can assume that these new flagship TVs from  tccl hense and others will be able to have both   punchy HDR highlights and generally super bright  screens if we want them to be question is will   they do the job well and the job I'm refering  refering to here is something called tone mapping   tone mapping which I'm about to explain for you  has to be thought of differently now than it used   to be until now the content that we get would  often contain brightness information that was   beyond a TV's capability for example the movie  Batman versus Superman it was mastered to 4,000   nits meaning this disc right here has information  on it that spans from pure black all the way up   to 4,000 nits of peak brightness that 4,000 nit  information is pretty scanted it probably comes   up just a few times in the movie like here the  thing is up until now there weren't any TVs that   could do 4,000 nits so then what does the TV do  when it gets instructions that it can't execute   it does the tone mapping job tone mapping is  the process in which a TV's processor has to   take the brightness information it's getting  from a piece of content whether that's a show   on net or a 4K Blu-ray disc and make it work on  a TV even though it can't get that bright I think   the best illustration I can offer uses a ruler or  a tape measure let's say a brightness range of 0   to 4,000 nits can be represented by 4 feet worth  of this tape measure that's the signal coming from   the Batman versus Superman disc right and each  of these little lines the inches or centimeters   whatever those are increments of brightness so  we'll say each inch up the tape measure is just   a bit brighter than the one before it now let's  say we have a TV that has a peak brightness of   2500 nits well under 4,000 that would look like  this on our tape measure the challenge here is to   take that 4,000 nits worth of tape measure not  just the total length but the space in between   each of these little increments and scale it down  so that it fits within this shorter space we have   to figure out how to fit 4,000 nits of range into  a 2500 nit space and not only are we going to have   to drop the ceiling so to speak but we're going  to want to keep all these increments in here so   we'll have to make the distance between those  increments even shorter we'll have to make the   inches closer together I hope that makes sense  because that's what a TV's tone mapping does or   at least one of the things it does it also has  to do this job in reverse the truth is most of   the content we get is mastered to 1,000 nits and  there are lots of TVs that can get well brighter   than that so the art here is in taking the 1,000  nit signal and expanding it up to say 2,500 nits   so we now raise the ceiling and we make the space  in between the increments the distance between   the inch marks greater so that we can have equal  size steps from the bottom to the top now just   take that idea and scale it up way up if most of  the content we can get is at 1,000 nits then a   TV with 5,000 nits is going to have to do a lot  of stretching and scaling tone mapping a TV with   10,000 nits it's just doing a bigger version  of that same job but that job of tone mapping   is definitely a little harder now we've already  seen that how good a TV is at this tone mapping   job can vary wildly some TVs are exceptionally  good at it while other TVs have left a lot to be   desired and while companies like Sony and LG have  historically done a really impressive job of tone   mapping it was only recently that Hisense and TCL  stepped up their tone mapping game and this was   when the stakes were quite a bit lower so again  the question shouldn't be about whether a TV is   made to be too bright the question is whether  that TV can use its power judiciously so that   we get a good experience out of that brightness  not one that makes us need to squint or put on   shades so for all of you out there who may have  thought I feel like my TV is too bright as it is   why in the world would I want a brighter TV I'll  just get blasted out of the room well to you I   would say your TV needs adjustment or it needs  to do a better job of tone mapping because when   a TV is doing its thing well it will keep the APL  at a comfortable level while delivering sparkling   HDR highlights so you get a gorgeous high contrast  yet comfortable viewing experience time time will   tell whether 2024 TVs will do right by us with  all this brightness power and we won't have to   wait too long to find out my reviews of these  TVs will be starting in just a few short weeks   so if you're excited to see how all this shakes  out be sure to subscribe so you don't miss those   reviews cuz I'm going to make TV brightness and  tone mapping one of the cornerstones of every   review I do this year I think it's the least I can  do after shouting out about nits through this big   old megaphone that I've got thanks as always for  watching everyone did you find this video helpful   illuminating even come on for sure you saw that  one coming hey do me a favor and drop a comment   for me down below on what you think smash this  video with a like if you dug it subscribe to see   more I'll see you on the next one and until then  here's two other videos I think you might like

Channel: Digital Trends

Views: 78,155

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Id: xZROCGLI15o

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 14 2024