Samsung promises update after allegedly misleading calibration software

Samsung promises to release an update that should make the brightness of HDR content more consistent. Several testers claim that the South Korean tech giant uses software to recognize commonly used benchmark techniques and adjust the image quality accordingly.

The company says in a statement to FlatpanelsHD: “To provide a more dynamic viewing experience for our customers, Samsung will be making software updates to ensure consistent clarity when viewing HDR content. The update includes more block sizes beyond what is common in this industry.” With that last sentence, the brand seems to recognize that a benchmark technique is taken into account in which only a small part of the screen, a block or window, is used to take measurements.

It is not entirely clear from Samsung’s statement whether TVs from the brand will show more realistic results in benchmarks, or whether the performance should be increased during normal use. ‘Including more block sizes’ suggests that the potentially misleading benchmark detection is actually applied in more cases. Anyway, for now only the QN95B would be provided with an update; nothing concrete is said about specific other TVs, whether or not affected.

Vincent Teoh of Hdtvtest discovered at the end of April that the Samsung S95B QD-oled TV achieved an accurate and clear display with frequently used blocks of five, ten or twenty percent of the screen. FlatpanelsHD underlines this based on Samsung QN95B’s own tests; at a block size of, for example, 9 percent, significantly different values ​​would be measured than at 10 percent. For example, when the alleged cheating software caught on, the block would produce a temporarily increased brightness of 2300 nits, compared to only 1300 nits measured during normal use. The much higher value could damage a QD OLED panel with prolonged use.