OLED FAQs
What is an OLED TV?
“OLED TVs operate on fundamentally different technology to QLED or LCD TVs,” says AO’s television expert Kevin Walmsley. “Rather than requiring a backlight, organic light-emitting diodes produce their own light when activated – this is known as ‘emissive’ display technology.
“Because of this, OLEDs have better contrast, truer black levels and perfectly uniform screens that maintain a high-quality image at all angles.”
Is OLED better than 4K?
They refer to two different things. OLED is a type of display, whereas 4K is a measure of its resolution. Formed by over eight million pixels, 4K is the highest resolution available. (8K content exists, but is vanishingly rare.)
All OLED screens are 4K, but so are lots of non-OLED screens. The difference comes in the dynamic range and other measures of picture quality.
“OLEDs create sensational colour contrast, sharp edges, true blacks and smooth motions that better support fast moving scenes,” says Katrina Mills at John Lewis. “OLED TVs are also lighter and thinner than other 4K TVs, use less energy and offer better viewing angles.
“There are some disadvantages of OLEDs, however. In brighter rooms with direct sunlight, some darker scenes on OLED TVs can seem dim, due to the lack of the backlight. That said, this is becoming less of an issue as brands are constantly improving the brightness of OLED panels.”
What is MLA?
Developed by LG Display (who provide screens to Philips and Panasonic), a micro lens array boosts the brightness and colour richness of an OLED screen by focusing the light through tiny lenses – over 5,000 of them per OLED pixel. That’s a mind-boggling 40 billion per screen.
LG developed an algorithm to go with it, called META Booster, so these screens are sometimes called META-OLED. The first generation of MLA screens came out in 2022. We are now seeing a brighter, more precise second generation.
What is QD-OLED?
Quantum dots, pioneered by Samsung, are semiconducting nanocrystals that turn the light that hits them into very pure, strong primary colours. They were first used to improve the brightness and colour of LED screens. They are the ‘Q’ in QLED TVs.
Since 2022, quantum dots have started to be used on the very best OLED screens as well. Like META-OLED (see above), QD-OLED screens are brighter and better than standard OLED screens.
What is Dolby Vision?
Film and television that has been mastered in Dolby Vision has a higher dynamic range, giving brighter whites, darker blacks and more detail in between. Colours will be truer and contrasts will be clearer. Unlike older HDR formats, Dolby Vision optimises the picture frame-by-frame and the latest version, Dolby Vision IQ, can optimise for the ambient light in the room.
Most OLED TVs are compatible with Dolby Vision, but Samsung use their own version called HDR10+.
What is Dolby Atmos?
This is a surround-sound format, used to create the impression that sounds are coming from above, beneath or beside you. A TV or soundbar that supports Dolby Atmos will include upward-firing speakers that bounce sound off the ceiling and walls. Even better is a separates system, with speakers mounted in the ceiling and behind you.
What is screen refresh rate?
Analogue film is recorded and projected at 24 frames per second (24Hz), which is fast enough for our brains not to register any flicker. But when television was invented, a faster screen-refresh rate of 60Hz was adopted, since it was easier to transmit over long distances.
It’s thought that the human brain can’t detect any improvements past 60Hz, so why are most OLED screens now capable of 100 or 120Hz? Because it gives the processor more opportunities to insert frames to smooth out motion and reduce judder (which you sometimes notice when a film shot in 24Hz plays on a 60Hz television).
High refresh rates are also valued by serious gamers because they make games look smoother and help them react more quickly. For this reason, some TVs are even capable of 144Hz.
What is VRR?
Variable refresh rate matches the output of the graphics processor in your console to the refresh rate of your screen. When these are mismatched, you can get stuttering or ‘torn’ visuals (see the video below). There are two main standards. FreeSync was developed by graphics chip-maker AMD and G-Sync was developed by NVidia, but they do largely the same thing.