[UPDATE: LG announced on January 8 that it was going to fix these issues with a firmware update in the first half of 2019. Full details of this announcement can be found here. The original story continues unchanged below.]
While 2018 has mostly been another very successful one for OLED TVs, the technology is unfortunately ending the year with news that owners of OLED TVs across the globe are being afflicted by a strange new picture-spoiling bug.
A growing number of owners of (predominantly, though reports suggest not exclusively, 2018 LG) OLED TVs are reporting that they’re finding their TV pictures suffering with sudden flashing artefacts and exaggerated blocking noise over dark scenes.
For instance, in Netflix’s The Last Kingdom, at 21 minutes 30 seconds into episode 8 of season three, the picture clearly seems to flash on TVs affected by the problem as the dark scene delivers what should be a very slight shift in brightness. Some shots in Chapter 7 of Exodus: Gods And Kings on 4K Blu-ray, meanwhile, look distractingly blocky and suffer on affected TVs, with oddly elevated blacks.
In Vikings Season 5, Part 2, Episode 12 on Amazon Prime, on affected TVs the picture almost disappears at times behind a curtain of artificially bright blocking noise - and the occasional blocking ‘flash’ - between 35:27 and 36:33. The opening credits of Interstellar and the dark opening scene where Murph wakes her father look also suffer with flashing, blocking noise. Particularly on the Amazon Prime stream, but also on the 4K Blu-ray.
These are just some of the places where OLED owners have reported seeing the blocking and flashing problems on their TVs. And once the issues have started to appear on afflicted TVs, it seems that there’s no way of solving the problems via picture settings.
The problems have become so widespread since they first started appearing (as far back as May, seemingly) that members of the OLED AV community have even developed test patterns that expose the issue. You can find a good example here. Just download it on your computer and copy the file to a USB stick for playback on your TV.
On an OLED TV affected by the macro blocking/flashing problem, the squares in this test signal will flash momentarily when they change color. On an OLED TV that’s working as it’s supposed to, the color changes will happen smoothly, with no flashing.
Some users are finding that the flashing and blocking issues are present on freshly bought OLED TVs, while for others the problem seems to suddenly appear at some point (potentially many months) after purchase. Without warning, and without seemingly being associated with any particular firmware update or other specific triggering factor.
One user who has contacted me about the issue (which is now being widely reported on various tech forums) had the issue right from the start with an LG OLED55E8, which he returned. But then he had the problem suddenly appear on his replacement C8 model a month or so after buying it.
In fact, I’ve experienced the issue myself. I’ve had an LG B8 for a couple of months now, and when I first reviewed it seemed to perform just fine. Having recently fired it up again to investigate the blocking and flashing problem, though, the issue has definitely appeared. And it’s severe enough to make some dark scenes really quite tough to watch.
It’s important to stress that by no means all OLED TVs have the problem. In fact, I tested a Loewe Bild 3.65 OLED TV just last week that definitely did not exhibit the issue. But the number of afflicted sets does seem to be considerable - and is apparently growing.
It’s not unique for OLED TVs to suffer with picture issues. I’ve reported on numerous problems over the past couple of years. Crucially, though, these problems have generally been caused by unintended consequences of firmware updates, and have typically been fixed/greatly improved by subsequent firmware updates.
What’s making the OLED fanbase nervous about this one, though, is that it doesn’t seem to be related to any particular firmware update, and can occur at seemingly random points in an OLED TV’s life. Which raises the possibility of it being some sort of hardware failure rather than something that might easily be fixed by firmware.
My personal thinking at the time of writing is that it’s an issue LG will be able to find a solution for. But it will be nice to hear confirmation of that sooner rather than later.
I have been in discussion with LG over this issue for a few weeks now, but have held off covering it in the hope that LG would be able to come up with a solution/explanation I could share. However, issues with spotting the problem on the seemingly unaffected sets LG has in its own labs; needing to focus on preparing its new TVs for 2019; and, now, the Christmas break have all caused delays in LG getting on top of this issue.
I’ve published this story now, though, partly to reassure OLED owners that the issue is not just being ignored, but also because there has actually been some real progress.
First, LG has started the process of sending engineers to the homes of one or two OLED TV owners affected by the flashing/blocking issues so that they can see the issue for themselves. Second, a very reliable LG contact has finally been able to see at least the flashing issue for himself on an OLED model, and so has been able to raise the issue directly at high levels within LG’s picture engineering department.
That department is, of course, pretty much out of action until the new year now. But the point is that there’s now clear momentum at LG towards getting to the bottom of what’s going on and hopefully sorting out a solution.
Look out for further updates on my Forbes feed in the coming days and weeks.
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