LG C8. Vertical bands appeared. New to OLED, is this faulty?

Waynej

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The LG C8 is my first OLED so I may not be up on the correct terminology.

I've avoided testing for such issues and just tried to enjoy the TV. I am sure this was not present before as I have used the Xbox with the TV for several days now. On the Xbox settings screen there appears to be a light vertical stripe all the way down the screen. As I say I believe it's just appeared out the blue.

From various other posts around here I believe you all refer to this as vertical banding.

Is this common and every OLED has this? Is it deemed a fault?

After searching more I saw the Marco Polo scene that is commonly recommended to test as normal content. I can see it in this and a couple more bands too.

Will this go away?

I got the TV from Richer Sounds and it's less than a week old.
 
How many hours have you used it so far? After every 4 hours cumulative use, it will run a compensation cycle the next time the set is placed in standby. After 4-6 of those, if the banding has not improved, it probably won’t and you should get the TV replaced.
 
How many hours have you used it so far? After every 4 hours cumulative use, it will run a compensation cycle the next time the set is placed in standby. After 4-6 of those, if the banding has not improved, it probably won’t and you should get the TV replaced.
I've used it everyday since Wednesday evening. Typically been watching 1 Blu-ray a night and a couple hours Netflix, I would assume more than 4 hours each day.

I am aware of compensation cycles and leave it in standby just for this reason.

If this does not go away, am I right to assume that vertical banding is classed as a fault? Surely 3 or so bands running the entire length of the screen from top to bottom would be considered a big deal on a premium TV.

Granted it's not always visible, but I do see it on the Xbox settings menu and in normal playing content with Marco Polo being an example.
 
I've used it everyday since Wednesday evening. Typically been watching 1 Blu-ray a night and a couple hours Netflix, I would assume more than 4 hours each day.

I am aware of compensation cycles and leave it in standby just for this reason.

If this does not go away, am I right to assume that vertical banding is classed as a fault? Surely 3 or so bands running the entire length of the screen from top to bottom would be considered a big deal on a premium TV.

Granted it's not always visible, but I do see it on the Xbox settings menu and in normal playing content with Marco Polo being an example.
If its been doing compensations since Wednesday and your bands are still visible ,then get a replacement asap ,its not going to get any better now .
 
I'm now on my second c8 (due to bad banding on the first which didnt go away) the new one arrived yesterday. After chexking last night It has what looks like a window inside a window. I was so hopeful that I would be able to live with it but the bottom 3 inches of the screen and about 4 inches on the rhs are much lighter than the rest and in the type of films and TV we watch (sci fi and horror) it's just not any good.

It has now run a cleaning cycle and my daughter is watching it now. I'm going to go and check it again this morning and I'm not sure what to do if it's bad. Currys were very good and replaced the first one straight away but a second? I'm not sure.
 
If its been doing compensations since Wednesday and your bands are still visible ,then get a replacement asap ,its not going to get any better now .

I'd agree with that. My last one never got better however, relating to my post above, I checked the TV this am after one evening of use and one comp cycle it is a million times better. Very slight lower band buy it was barely noticeable unless I was looking for it. I'll let it do another couple of days and see where it is at.
 
Most oleds will have some banding showing in Marco polo torture test scenes. It's just how bad yours is and how much you see it in other content and how much it bothers you.

You can go and have the set replaced but there will be a very good chance the new one will have banding present in them same scenes. Do you see it much in other content like football ,motor racing etc?

Me personally I would swap, as there is a good chance of getting a better one as well.

But I would say most oleds would show some kind of banding at some point on certain content.
 
All TV's (OLED, QLED etc) all of them have vertical banding to some degree.
Some will claim they have a band free screen but If they go onto a 5% grey screen, you would be able to see them, although they may be very faint.

It all depends on how "bad" it is.
The Macro Polo scene is one of the torture tests and all TV's will show something on it, its probably worst case scenario.

I went through 10 C7/B7 at the start of the year, they all had vertical banding that was visible on any kind of panning shot and and low light scenes, its worse when you have a darker one somewhere as it shows in everything.

I currently have a 65 C8 which like yourself I got from Richersounds during the BF sale.

I have not run the 5% test slide but from testing the panel with normal content with panning shots and low light, they are veeery faint. On the arrival panning scene which is a combination of low light and panning, I can ever so slightly make them out if I look hard enough and focus my eyes. Same with The Martion at 1min in on the panning mountain shot, If I really focus and get close I can make them out ever so slightly, but normally no I can't see anything.
On my previous B7/C7 I didn't even need to try to seem them, it was obvious.

The inbuilt Youtube app is also a decent test image as the grey it uses shows banding very well. On mine I can make them out but its ever so slight and again I have to focus my eyes on them.

Running the 5% slides is a sure way to ruin your experience as your mind will make a note on where bands are and your eyes will automatically track them.
 
All TV's (OLED, QLED etc) all of them have vertical banding to some degree.
Some will claim they have a band free screen but If they go onto a 5% grey screen, you would be able to see them, although they may be very faint.

It all depends on how "bad" it is.
The Macro Polo scene is one of the torture tests and all TV's will show something on it, its probably worst case scenario.

I went through 10 C7/B7 at the start of the year, they all had vertical banding that was visible on any kind of panning shot and and low light scenes, its worse when you have a darker one somewhere as it shows in everything.

I currently have a 65 C8 which like yourself I got from Richersounds during the BF sale.

I have not run the 5% test slide but from testing the panel with normal content with panning shots and low light, they are veeery faint. On the arrival panning scene which is a combination of low light and panning, I can ever so slightly make them out if I look hard enough and focus my eyes. Same with The Martion at 1min in on the panning mountain shot, If I really focus and get close I can make them out ever so slightly, but normally no I can't see anything.
On my previous B7/C7 I didn't even need to try to seem them, it was obvious.

The inbuilt Youtube app is also a decent test image as the grey it uses shows banding very well. On mine I can make them out but its ever so slight and again I have to focus my eyes on them.

Running the 5% slides is a sure way to ruin your experience as your mind will make a note on where bands are and your eyes will automatically track them.

If you don't notice them in the material youngeneryou watch then probably best to avoid the test screens for sure. I did just that until I noticed issues with my second screen as well and then I used the test screens to confirm. I had already said to the Mrs that if there was banding but it was ok in sci fi and horror that we watch then it would be kept but last night it looked terrible. ThsnkfThan this am after its first comp cycle it looked a million times better. It's still got all the usual oled problems but in general use all this morning it seems totally fine apart from a bar along the bottom which may yet fade more.
 
If you don't notice them in the material youngeneryou watch then probably best to avoid the test screens for sure. I did just that until I noticed issues with my second screen as well and then I used the test screens to confirm. I had already said to the Mrs that if there was banding but it was ok in sci fi and horror that we watch then it would be kept but last night it looked terrible. ThsnkfThan this am after its first comp cycle it looked a million times better. It's still got all the usual oled problems but in general use all this morning it seems totally fine apart from a bar along the bottom which may yet fade more.
What Sci-fi movie/tv-show? I'll have a check on mine.
When you say terrible, do you mean multiple bands are CLEARLY visible on panning shots etc?
 
If its been doing compensations since Wednesday and your bands are still visible ,then get a replacement asap ,its not going to get any better now .

I'd agree with that. My last one never got better however, relating to my post above, I checked the TV this am after one evening of use and one comp cycle it is a million times better. Very slight lower band buy it was barely noticeable unless I was looking for it. I'll let it do another couple of days and see where it is at.

That's the thing, I didn't spot any bands until yesterday. I've been using the Xbox regularly too so feel I would have spotted any bands early on with using the Xbox games and apps menu and settings screen.

Out the blue I spotted a central light shaded band on the Xbox settings screen that I am certain was not there before. I googled and then tried the Marco Polo scene where two more also were visible.

Is it common for bands to just appear out the blue like that? I thought all I had to be concerned over was screen-burn and varying my content.

I'll try and run it for two seperate 4hr+ sessions today and see how it then fairs tomorrow. As of today I still see a central faint one on the Xbox settings screen, but it looks like overnight things may have improved as now struggling to see any issues on the same Marco Polo scene.

Fingers crossed it can sort itself out.
 
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All TV's (OLED, QLED etc) all of them have vertical banding to some degree.

My TV, a 4 year old LG LCD has no visible banding whatsoever, and if I was paying out OLED money, I'd be hugely miffed at the thought it was something I just had to put up with.
 
I highly doubt that.
Unless its a LCD with shocking contrast so it can't even display the light level needed (5-10% grey) so you wouldn't see banding unless it was dark/thick.
There probably are a few gems out there though.
I have yet to see any TV without banding to some degree, ranging from insignificantly faint to someone has took a black paint brush and put a line down the side.

Banding is created when the TV is manufactured and the layers are put down, uneven pressure etc when the panel sheet itself is being manufactured or uneven materials.

The banding present is even more magnified by OLED's contrast levels as any imperfection will be shown in full view due to the "perfect" nature of the black levels.

In terms of LCD. IPS will perform significantly worse than VA panels as they let more light through.
 
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What Sci-fi movie/tv-show? I'll have a check on mine.
When you say terrible, do you mean multiple bands are CLEARLY visible on panning shots etc?
I was watching haunted hill house and in multiple scenes I was seeing banding. It was mainly in ep6 (I believe) where they are in the room with the woman's body. The green walls in the room were pretty flat low brightness panels and as the camera followed them around the room the banding was so bad as to distract us. That's when I cracked out the low ire banding screens. I purposely didn't do it until I noticed an issue as I'm realistic about the tech limitations.

We also noticed it in blade runner 2024 on multiple occasions (maybe a lot at the sea wall fight) and we saw it badly in Jurassic world FK at the start in the water scenes.

My replacement TV showed the problem it had in the first episode of altered carbon on Netflix in the room with the fight at the start. Dark scenes with panning. I put the same scene on from haunted hill house and had the same issue. I put the screen on a compression cycle when I went to bed, my daufdaug got up early and used the TV for an hour (only second day of use), I got up and checked for the problem again and it was almost gone. Ire patterns show it a little at the side and still a bit badly on the right side but in normal use it seems ok so far.

To be clear, after I arranged to have the old one swapped I ran multiple forced comp cycles at night after using the TV most days and it made no difference.
 
I may add that upping your oled brightness does help to alleviate the issue in a lot of cases as the oleds seem to have issues keeping the same brighess at low levels.

My Vive vr headset is the same. When I a dark room one screen is a lot brighter than the other and it is very annoying. Because of the magnification you can also see lots of individual pixels that are randomly a lot brighter than those around about them.
 
Cheers I'll have a look when I get home from work.
Gives me a reason to watch Blade Runner I guess :D
I'm not even going to load the 5% grey thing, I as know fine well once I see it, its game over.
As I said I can only notice mine on specific content if I squint and really try hard to see them lol
Need to watch some more panning shots.
Its a massive improved from the previous OLED's.
Even one dark band is enough to ruin it as THOSE are wht you can mostly see the dark bands.
 
My TV, a 4 year old LG LCD has no visible banding whatsoever, and if I was paying out OLED money, I'd be hugely miffed at the thought it was something I just had to put up with.

I highly doubt that.
Unless its a LCD with shocking contrast so it can't even display the light level needed (5-10% grey) so you wouldn't see banding unless it was dark/thick.
There probably are a few gems out there though.
I have yet to see any TV without banding to some degree, ranging from insignificantly faint to someone has took a black paint brush and put a line down the side.

Banding is created when the TV is manufactured and the layers are put down, uneven pressure etc when the panel sheet itself is being manufactured or uneven materials.

The banding present is even more magnified by OLED's contrast levels as any imperfection will be shown in full view due to the "perfect" nature of the black levels.

In terms of LCD. IPS will perform significantly worse than VA panels as they let more light through.

I am no expert but it's not realistically possible for a screen to be perfect at the prices we are paying surely. Everything manufactured has tolerances and I think you would be lucky to have a perfect screen.

If you don't use lower brightness settings the banding all but dissappears. It's possible the settings on your TV are masking it or something.

I'm not going to get in some debate about your TV and settings, it's just a thought. I would assume there has to be a good reason (maybe as quoted above) that you don't see it on yours.

All the better though, you have a TV you are happy with and it's set how you like it so that's good!
 
So from what I gather reading recent replies here is that vertical banding is to be expected and is unavoidable.

I get that looking at test patterns is rather pointless, but even if the likes of Marco Polo and Arrival are considered stress tests... they are still normal content? Are bands visible in these scenes for most users then, and this is typically considered acceptable?

It's still a lot better than my previous 2018 Samsung QLED.

I obviously don't like to think I've got a dodgy OLED panel, so if the banding issues I see are considered normal then I should consider keeping this, right? As I say this is my first OLED so I am not overly familiar with what's deemed acceptable.

The bands are light and not dark, comments suggest this is a good thing, as in it could be worse?

Besides this banding concern I find that a lot of Dolby Vision Netflix content appears very washed out, like the areas that I assume should be black are close to grey. This even applies to some SDR Blu-rays too, such as Arrival.

All HDR10 content on the other hand has always looked incredible thus far.
 
So from what I gather reading recent replies here is that vertical banding is to be expected and is unavoidable.

I get that looking at test patterns is rather pointless, but even if the likes of Marco Polo and Arrival are considered stress tests... they are still normal content? Are bands visible in these scenes for most users then, and this is typically considered acceptable?

It's still a lot better than my previous 2018 Samsung QLED.

I obviously don't like to think I've got a dodgy OLED panel, so if the banding issues I see are considered normal then I should consider keeping this, right? As I say this is my first OLED so I am not overly familiar with what's deemed acceptable.

The bands are light and not dark, comments suggest this is a good thing, as in it could be worse?

Besides this banding concern I find that a lot of Dolby Vision Netflix content appears very washed out, like the areas that I assume should be black are close to grey. This even applies to some SDR Blu-rays too, such as Arrival.

All HDR10 content on the other hand has always looked incredible thus far.

It is my humble opinion that all the oled TVs will have some sort of banding, it's a manufacturing inconsistency of the panels. I think that some may have so little banding, your TV settings may be off enough for most content or you may not watch content that has images where it presents its self badly so as that you never see it.

Where it is obvious is darker scenes where a large area of similar uniform 'brightness' is shown, typically 2-5 ire I think. In my case it was plain walls shown in a scene in haunted hill house and a space scene in Solo among others that annoyed me enough in normal viewing to investigate (I didn't get the test patterns out until I realised I had an issue). I managed to nearly eradicate three issue on my second TV by doing a comp cycle and then by using a higher oled brightness setting, it's now barely perceptible and it becomes only slightly more worse if I turn oled brightness down.

In Solo I realised I had mucked with with the brightness 2 notches and it was too high so when I returned that to 'normal' (TV not fully calibrated yet but a lot of dark scenes looked obviously too grey) the whole film began to look fine (this does mean however some content will still show it, it just wasn't noticeable to me in this film due to lots of scenes with many different things on screen etc...)

I have still to try and remember how to use hcfr fully, I have set my white balance but don't have test patterns for hdr calibration yet. I have a feeling that my panel light output may now be above what is considered normal to help alleviate some of the banding but it's a compromise I could live with if the TV doesn't improve further. I am still open to information and suggestions from others, at I said above I'm no expert but I have done a bit of photography and editing/monitor calibration over the years which helps my basic understanding a little, I am also educated in mechatromecs and trained ini some forms of mechanical calibrations so I understand that basic manufacturing tolerances etc exist and affect things.
 
Excuse my typos, my auto correct is genuinely playing up after an updateuand my phone won't let me click the edit menu button!
 
How many hours have you used it so far? After every 4 hours cumulative use, it will run a compensation cycle the next time the set is placed in standby. After 4-6 of those, if the banding has not improved, it probably won’t and you should get the TV replaced.

How do you place the set in standby? By hitting the red power button on the included remote? I have not seen any evidence that my pixel refresher has ran, I read it's a white line? I don't see that after turning it off. Thanks.
 
How do you place the set in standby? By hitting the red power button on the included remote? I have not seen any evidence that my pixel refresher has ran, I read it's a white line? I don't see that after turning it off. Thanks.

From what I've read, you don't get any indication of the automatic refresh. You only see the white line after a manual refresh
 
How do you place the set in standby? By hitting the red power button on the included remote? I have not seen any evidence that my pixel refresher has ran, I read it's a white line? I don't see that after turning it off. Thanks.

The only way I know you can confirm that it’s working is to have some usb powered bias lighting. This will remain on until the cycle has finished.
 
Not wanting to drastically change the subject here, but after putting it into standby does anybody else notice single loud clicks occuring randomly? It sounds like it's from the right side. I recall reading somewhere a while back of others noting this issue coming from where the power cable is secured into the TV.

I hear it sometimes while the TV is on too, but just surprised how audible this is when it's in standby. I noticed a Quick Start (or similar named) option is enabled by default. I wonder if I turn this off if it'll stop the clicking when in standby?

I obviously still want the auto compensation cycles to run though, not sure if Quick Start needs to be on for that?
 

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