the XG85 has been a pain. I calibrate televisions as part of my daily job, and I regularly calibrate Sony, LG, Philips and Samsung TVs. Out of all of the above Sony has been the only brand stubborn enough not to include a color management system in their TVs. Most of the time this hasn't been a huge issue since most Sony TVs are approved once you calibrate the white balance.
HOWEVER, the XG85 is unique in that the colors are very much NOT approved, and there is no way to manage the colors individually, which means this television makes it impossible to calibrate it to ISF standards. It gets worse though... The XG90 televisions that were released at the same time DO include color management systems, except they're completely unnecessary in that TV since the XG90 is approved right out of the box.
For a TV this expensive to have color accuracy this bad out of the box and then not even include the options necessary to fix it is unacceptable. LG's color accuracy is worse out of the box, but using the options available in their operating system, you can get it near perfect if you have equipment and software for display calibration. With the XG85 you get subpar color accuracy, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
For those of you unfamiliar with the ISF standard, DeltaE is basically the value describing how far off a color is. A value of under 3 is approved, anything above is not approved. As you can see in this screenshot, the deltaE of red is over 4, which is not an acceptable value. A TV with a deltaE of 4 on any color will not be considered calibrated to ISF standards, no matter what.
To give some perspective; even the cheapest and smallest offerings from LG and samsung from the past two years can wipe the floor with the XG85 in terms of color accuracy simply because they have the options in their operating system to correct any faults that are there.
0online
1854747posts