How can you tell when blacks are crushed?

TaySan · Jan 10, 2020

I game on an LG C9 OLED and sometimes in cutscenes the characters are pitch black dark and you can't see their faces. Playing Halo Reach right now and there is a lot of cutscenes like that. How can you tell if that's just natural blacks from the OLED or the blacks are crushed?

BAD · Jan 10, 2020

It's hard to be sure in a vacuum, but you can often compare what you are seeing to an HDR YouTube clip to see the ideal on your PC or phone.

Mirage · Jan 10, 2020

ss_lemonade · Jan 10, 2020

I guess you could use a test image like the one here?

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php#blacktest.png

Ninjician- · Jan 10, 2020

TaySan said:
I game on an LG C9 OLED and sometimes in cutscenes the characters are pitch black dark and you can't see their faces. Playing Halo Reach right now and there is a lot of cutscenes like that. How can you tell if that's just natural blacks from the OLED or the blacks are crushed?

Xbox One crushes blacks, not the OLED's fault. Always been an Xbox issue since the 360. They have a custom gamma curve to create "pop"

TaySan · Jan 10, 2020

I think I fixed the issue. I'm playing on PC and noticed Nvidia had RGD 8 bit full so I changed it to YCb 444 at low

Thought I was going because there was no way this game should be that dark lol

nsilvias · Jan 10, 2020

if you cant see something it might be too dark. horror games are a good way to check this

cakely · Jan 10, 2020

Crushed blacks mean that everything that's supposed to display on the screen as a very dark gray will instead be rendered as completely black. Dark objects will lose definition.

Huey · Jan 10, 2020

Crushed blacks means you're losing detail that the director/creator intended. Try manipulating your contrast and see if there is detail in the black spaces on screen that you're missing at your current settings. If so, then yup, crushed blacks.

A lot of people just think a very contrast-y image looks better - and stores sell this them way so they pop more - but loss of detail is the risk. Pro-tip: the properly adjusted image will always look a bit more washed out if you're used to the crushed blacks, but you just gotta accommodate to it, especially as you have an OLED with true blacks.

Jonathan Lanza · Jan 10, 2020

What a title

Swiggins · Jan 10, 2020

Jonathan Lanza said:
What a title

My thoughts exactly

Kamiyouni · Jan 10, 2020

Phrasing.

Deleted member 59955 · Jan 10, 2020

That title though

jelly · Jan 10, 2020

Generally you should be able to see detail even in dark areas. Like that Division picture, can see the rucksack in one but it's all black in the other. You should usually see finer details like that and not one note black areas.

Jessie · Jan 10, 2020

Watch Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 3 on DVD and you'll understand.

Zelus · Jan 10, 2020

Jonathan Lanza said:
What a title

Lol... I thought of replying something snarky in response to it but I value my membership here too much.

Ghos · Jan 10, 2020

Jonathan Lanza said:
What a title

Kamiyouni said:
Phrasing.

Reverse-Flash2024 said:
That title though

jelly said:

dammit yall

Cactuar · Jan 10, 2020

Jonathan Lanza said:
What a title

Indeed.

Wireframe · Jan 10, 2020

I'm happy I immediately thought of picture quality when reading the title.

Deleted member 12833 · Jan 10, 2020

Pelao · Jan 10, 2020

Reverse-Flash2024 said:
That title though

Yup, is like a pun minefield.

TaySan · Jan 10, 2020

Lol my bad guys I kinda just came up while playing Halo. Can't believe I was playing games like that and scenes were super dark you couldn't see anything. I thought that was just the OLED doing it's business.

Chaos2Frozen · Jan 10, 2020

PHRASING

ozfunghi · Jan 10, 2020

God damn.

Hybrid Rainbow · Jan 10, 2020

I don't know OP, have you looked at American society lately?

Pelao · Jan 10, 2020

TaySan said:
Lol my bad guys I kinda just came up while playing Halo. Can't believe I was playing games like that and scenes were super dark you couldn't see anything. I thought that was just the OLED doing it's business.

Were you playing MCC with HDR on?
I played through Halo 1 and 2 recently on an LG 4K LED TV and the dark levels were, well, too dark, one of the few times I've had to up the game brightness in the settings, most of the time the standard settings work perfect for me.

Jamesac68 · Jan 10, 2020

I have so many incorrect replies to this topic.

Champion · Jan 10, 2020

Cringe.

SeriousGoku · Jan 10, 2020

Deleted member 679 · Jan 10, 2020

Ninjician- said:
Xbox One crushes blacks, not the OLED's fault. Always been an Xbox issue since the 360. They have a custom gamma curve to create "pop"

God, this takes me back...

TaySan · Jan 10, 2020

Pelao said:
Were you playing MCC with HDR on?
I played through Halo 1 and 2 recently on an LG 4K LED TV and the dark levels were, well, too dark, one of the few times I've had to up the game brightness in the settings, most of the time the standard settings work perfect for me.

This game has HDR on Windows 10? I couldn't tell when I first launched it things were really buggy.

Deleted member 1594 · Jan 10, 2020

In this thread: people that know perfectly well what OP is talking about and deciding to ignore the topic in order to make jokes about the title instead.

Pelao · Jan 10, 2020

TaySan said:
This game has HDR on Windows 10? I couldn't tell when I first launched it things were really buggy.

Ignore my comment, I thought you were playing on Xbox.

DMA99 · Jan 10, 2020

Ninjician- said:
Xbox One crushes blacks, not the OLED's fault. Always been an Xbox issue since the 360. They have a custom gamma curve to create "pop"

Is this still a thing? I recall the Xbox 360 crushing blacks back in the day, but had no idea it's still an issue on the Xbox One. So dumb...

Gaf Zombie · Jan 10, 2020

Never heard that term before but I do know now what OP is referring to. I hate it.

Megatron · Jan 10, 2020

Every time we elect a republican president.

Japanmanx3 · Jan 10, 2020

vs.

Loke13 · Jan 11, 2020

Jim2point0 said:
In this thread: people that know perfectly well what OP is talking about and deciding to ignore the topic in order to make jokes about the title instead.

Ok? It's just a bit of tongue in cheek fun. No one is being malicious here.

Rbk_3 · Jan 11, 2020

Bring up a test pattern. You should be able to make out all the squares. 1 should be pretty much right black

Black level - Lagom LCD test

www.lagom.nl

Lukemia SL · Jan 11, 2020

Jonathan Lanza said:
What a title

Reverse-Flash2024 said:
That title though

Kamiyouni said:
Phrasing.

I always refer to them as black levels, so How can you tell when your black levels are crushed? I think it sounds better.

sapien85 · Jan 11, 2020

Megatron said:
Every time we elect a republican president.

I was gonna come in with something like this.

TAJ · Jan 11, 2020

Rbk_3 said:
Bring up a test pattern. You should be able to make out all the squares. 1 should be pretty much right black

Black level - Lagom LCD test

www.lagom.nl

I can actually get the same results by eye now as with a test pattern every single time, at least in a dark room. I just watch the darkest parts and note when they stop getting darker as I go down. It's easiest with a movie that has some black bars, but I don't need them.
Proper black levels on your TV won't solve crush in the source, though.

super-famicom · Jan 11, 2020

Lukemia SL said:
I always refer to them as black levels, so How can you tell when your black levels are crushed? I think it sounds better.

Yeah, I use the term black levels too.

Deleted member 49166 · Jan 11, 2020

Look in your manual. If it reads OLED your black levels are crushed. If it reads LED you don't have black levels, you just have grey levels 🥴🤣

Crayon · Jan 11, 2020

Oooooh i see it now.

Smash-It Stan · Jan 11, 2020

jelly said:
Generally you should be able to see detail even in dark areas. Like that Division picture, can see the rucksack in one but it's all black in the other. You should usually see finer details like that and not one note black areas.

wow, that was easy. Now I need like 4 other pictures for all the HDR settings games have. I never know what to look for and people just say "whatever looks best to you" isnt helpful

AbsoluteZero0K · Jan 11, 2020

OP knew what they were doing by saying "blacks" instead of "black levels (on TV)."

pswii60 · Jan 11, 2020

It's always really obvious to me. Can't stand it, I love good shadow detail. Glad to see you've fixed it via the NCP. What's great about the C9 is that you get incredible black levels combined with perfect shadow detail, just amazing really.

AbsoluteZero0K said:
OP knew what they were doing by saying "blacks" instead of "black levels (on TV)."

Bold accusation. You sound very sure.

Antsa · Jan 11, 2020

Orbis · Jan 11, 2020

AbsoluteZero0K said:
OP knew what they were doing by saying "blacks" instead of "black levels (on TV)."

'Crushed blacks' is the term generally used to describe this particular issue, which is in relation to black levels.

How can you tell when blacks are crushed?

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