Samsung Q90R QLED Owners and Discussion Thread

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The artefacts you see are typical of many Samsung tvs . I have a q9fn and get them.Enabling motion plus makes it worse. Mine is set to either off and 0 and 2. Samsung tvs generally have bad motion. There is oftentimes a small pause between scenes and I've seen it on many tvs and the interfacing issues with stutter is ridiculous with high end tvs. I had Sky Q installed at Christmas and it helped a bit but still not right. If it wasn't for screen burn issues I would jump to Oled.Its a shame really as other aspects of the tvs a fantastic and most of the time the tv offers great pictures. I've learned to live with it.

Ta.

Thanks for the reply! Those are the exact Auto Motion Plus settings I find myself constantly switching between. Given that there are artifacts and strange behaviour when it's completely disabled I'm not so sure I can live with it though, I just can't relax because just as I start to another weird thing shows up on screen.

I'd be interested if you also find the auto dimming getting confused on the Q9F as well? On the Q90R I've had it get so confused that it's caused inky shadows creeping back and forth even over paused screens. That's with Auto Dimming set to any of the available options Samsung make available, with of course turning it entirely off not being an option.

I spent weeks reading reviews from various supposed trusted places after I had this TV recommended to me instead of buying the OLED I was originally interested in. All of the reviews praised the motion processing of the Q90R and not one mentioned that the backlight could cause dark shadows to creep back and forth on the screen due to the dimming zones becoming confused. One warning of how severe and common either issue can be in any of the reviews and the TV would immediately have been crossed off as an option for me.
 
The processing is even messing up bad enough to overlay the start of the next advert over the end of the previous one. I'm not even sure how this is possible unless the TV is somehow buffering the signal from it's input so that what you see on screen has already been held in memory for a split second before it's displayed... Could that be the cause of the lip sync issues people are getting I wonder?

Screenshot_20200127-120922_Gallery.jpg


Note that this is the end of the Tide advert with outlines of elements from the beginning of the advert following it somehow being imposed over it (you would expect it the opposite way around logically).

Also note: Auto Motion Plus is totally disabled in the footage this still is taken from.
 
How many people get a black screen for a 2-3 seconds when switching channels on Sky. Not a big issue, but can be annoying as you think the Tv has shut down.
 
The auto dimming does get is knickers in a twist on dark scenes however that issues doesn't really bother me. Try turning it down if you haven't already.There are a few reviews that mention the artefacts but nobody seems to want to talk about them including various forums. I haven't gamed on it so can't comment on that issue.
 
The auto dimming does get is knickers in a twist on dark scenes however that issues doesn't really bother me. Try turning it down if you haven't already.There are a few reviews that mention the artefacts but nobody seems to want to talk about them including various forums. I haven't gamed on it so can't comment on that issue.

I have been using it with auto dimming in Standard and Low but still keep getting creeping dark patches on backgrounds. Turning the backlight up helps in some cases but then I find it painful whenever a white or yellow screen is shown (I've come to dread the Sky Originals splash screen and the Expedia advert).

I've a video of the dimming repeatedly moving back and forth randomly covering half the screen diagonally even when it's set to Low and on a paused image of an advert for the upcoming new Sky Comedy channel.

Whatever I set the local dimming and other settings to it always eventually starts playing up. It's like a series of dimming zones suddenly become confused and so in turn go heavily aggressive, which then leads to the zones next to those following suit. Then on other occasions they can't seem to settle on if they should be dimming or not at all and so just keep switching back and forth to differing levels even on a completely still screen.
 
How many people get a black screen for a 2-3 seconds when switching channels on Sky. Not a big issue, but can be annoying as you think the Tv has shut down.

I haven't had that issue even once using my Sky+HD box with the Q90R, although maybe you're on Sky Q?

What I will mention is that if a Sky HD box is set to display programming at its native resolution rather than outputting everything at 1080i then changing between stations displaying SD and HD content always results in a momentary black screen as the box and TV each switch to the correct resolution. I would expect that goes for Sky Q boxes as well.

I always leave the Sky box set to output at 1080i and upscale SD channels to avoid the delay of it handing the job of upscaling to the TV to avoid black screens as the signal changes back and forth. Although I rarely switch to a non HD channel these days TBH.

I'd recommend going into the screen settings on whichever type of Sky box you have and checking what resolution it's set to output at. If it's at 1080i then you shouldn't be seeing black screens between channels (with a possible exception of watching UHD content on a Sky Q box I expect).
 
Thanks, that's what I feared as the issue wouldn't show up on that Doctor Who episode with Auto Motion Plus disabled.

If it wouldn't be too much to ask could you just try the scene one extra time with Motion Plus on just to see what happens? Any setting with Judder on from 1 upwards will do. This will tell me if the issue is localised to my TV or is present in the whole Q90R range, meaning any use of Motion Plus creates artifacts (logically, then it's fairly safe to make the assumption that if you could play the police footage that makes my TV freak out even with Motion Processing completely disabled then you'd likely experience the same as I get in the screenshots of the police chase footage I posted earlier).

Battlefield 1 on Xbox One X is fine for me when I'm aiming down sights as at that point the crosshair vanishes to be replaced by the gun sights. It's specifically the right and left sides of the white (by default) crosshair that sits in the centre of the screen when not aiming down sights. With Game Mode off and Motion Plus off, the game in HDR, turning left or right causes an artifact which makes the left or right line of the crosshair have a flickering double image trail after it. Not the entire crosshair, just the left and right 'spokes'. That's an example of the graphical glitches I experience if trying to game without Game Mode activated anyway. I'm curious if yourself or anyone else talking about playing games outside of Game Mode is getting these issues.

I'll try to remember to get a quick photo of it when I'm next able. But even outside of that use I'm getting so many strange and annoying issues with the auto dimming messing up whilst in normal TV broadcast use that I don't think I can keep trying to force myself to turn a blind eye to it and need to get onto Richer Sounds to ask if they can help.
I tried the Dr Who scene with auto motion plus on and i did have those patchy blocks on the door the same as you. But like i say i turn them off as all experts say that all those picture processing tools like auto motion plus and digital clean view just add problems and things that shouldn't be there. Watch any calibration video and experts always turn them all off.
 
The trouble is with all the settings off other issues are more apparent. I came from a Panasonic plasma and the motion was much better than these newer tvs. I have found doing a couple of soft resets everyday seems to help. Many reviews I read did say that at least with my TV the q9fn that Samsung motion takes a little getting used to. You would have thought the various issues would be sorted.
 
I tried another test this morning regarding the audio and video sync issue. I downloaded "Saving Private Ryan" and also got out my standard "Saving Private Ryan" DVD to use on the Sony Blu-ray player.
Trying the film first on DVD player, there is a slight lag, but not as bad as when watching Netflix/Prime or Sky. I then played the downloaded version and definite sync issue with audio lagging behind video.
The Samsung has definitely got an audio and video sync issue.
The other issue is that doing this test I discovered that the issue with the Q90 sound bar was the wireless connection is faulty or working intermittently and it keeps dropping out.
Seriously considering the LG E9 as a replacement where apparently the sync issue has been resolved and may stick with a replacement Q90 soundbar as when it was working it was brilliant!
I don't quite follow how you routed the sound in your testing. When I play with the TV built-in Netflix or C-More or sat receiver apps etc, and output the sound via TV-Opto and have the TV and AVR sound delay set to 0, sound in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM play with a good lip sync.
The dreaded massive audio delay that I have measured and reported only affects the sound when Dolby Digital is input at the TV HDMI inputs. I haven't checked if the video delay in the TV changes when an SD-signal is received but that could explain if the delay between video and audio decrease when you play the DVD. (Then, not all productions have a perfect video/audio sync, or players for that matter.)

Did you use an external player for both your "downloaded" test and Netflix/Prime ?
I assume when you mention the delayed audio on "Sky" you refer to switching the audio format back to Dolby Digital (since you reported that "Normal" (=PCM) works with a good lip-sync.
 
The film was downloaded off Sky and not off Netflix etc. We have the Sky+HD box. Our 40" Sony TV in the bedroom is on a 20' coaxial cable and is in perfect sync. The LG TV on a 20' HDMI cable is also in perfect sync. If watching i.e. commentary on an app like My5 sync is almost perfect.
We have Sky signal and Netflix into a combiner and then into a splitter. From splitter a 1m HDMI cable to the Samsung TV and the 20' cable to the LG TV.
 
I don't have those problems on mine. I switch all that motion plus and everything right off. One of the first things i do on a new TV. I'll try doctor who later for you see what i can find, see if i get the same or not.

Edit: Here is Dr Who in HD for me mate. I don't have any of those problems. Hope this helps.
This, same for me, no artifacts no lip sync issues, however I thought the skyhd box had a poor reputation with this anyway? There was poor lipsync this morning on the bbc news, but that was from an aerial to another tv and purely down to a weak signal. I would suggest eliminating all the cabling and splitter, some tv's cope better with different setups, some don't...
 
I've never seen a q 9fn without these issues not sure if it's the same with this model.I am fussy and years of these forums doesn't help when it come to tvs as you look for every issue.That been said I'm more that happy they just aren't perfect but what tv is.
 
my oled65e7 has lip syncissues with a sky Q box. the poorer quality SD channels are worse. News channels in HD can be bad at times. its done it from day one. i think the issue is sky as netflix and prime or downloads via plex dont show these issues
 
Well, Samsung got back to me today with its "final solution" for the HDR gaming issue. They put the blame on the Playstation 4 and said they wouldn't be doing anything about it. Despite the fact i made it clear to them the same problem happens on the Xbox One X. And despite the fact i told them that my Playstation 4 and Xbox One X works perfectly on numerous other TV's. It works fine on my Panasonic DX902, 2 Panasonic GX800's i had, and a cheap Samsung KU6400. Oh and a Panasonic EX700. Obviously i wouldn't take Samsung's lie and called it out. They then put me on the phone to a manager. The manager had no real answers for me. He was a lot of "Ummms, ermmm, ummm, errrrm" and claimed he didn't know much about the technical side of things. He then requested i send an email to him detailing the problems and add videos, plus gave me a direct phone number. He said he would get on it and get back to me in 3 days.
Someone else who reported this issue has been keeping in touch with me and Samsung has been giving them the run around as well. Samsung have sent this poor feller down the road of telling him its a faulty part on his TV causing the issue and they are going to take his TV to bits in an attempt to repair it! lol They didn't even remote access his TV to check for faults like they did with mine. With him they denied the problem claiming they'd never heard of it. Then they blamed the games consoles. Then they tell him its a faulty part on his TV causing the HDR gaming issues and they will be sending an engineer out to repair his TV. Its clear to see that Samsung doesn't really know its arse from its elbow. Its beyond shocking how they treat customers of its flagship products.

Oh, and i also mentioned that missing eArc update. You could tell he didn't like me mentioning that as well. He said he didn't know anything about it but would forward it on.

Will update when the manager rings me back. They will probably blame my dog or the milk man or something though. Wouldn't put anything past them at this point.
 
This, same for me, no artifacts no lip sync issues, however I thought the skyhd box had a poor reputation with this anyway? There was poor lipsync this morning on the bbc news, but that was from an aerial to another tv and purely down to a weak signal. I would suggest eliminating all the cabling and splitter, some tv's cope better with different setups, some don't...

But I've posted two examples of picture processing issues where all of the Auto Motion Plus has been disabled. I even bolded the text in my last post to draw attention to the fact that no motion processing was active.

My set up doesn't trigger the lip sync issues and my understanding of that particular issue is that the available Auto Motion Processing options make no difference to it at all either. My suggestion was that perhaps it's caused by the level of processing taking place on a base level - ie., the scaling implementation and whatever else Samsung have the TV doing with the picture which they give the end user no access to or control over.

You can't just dismiss these issues by saying "turn off the processing" when they're issues which happen when all the user settings for doing so have been set to off. That's without even getting into a debate on the fact you're also telling people to just accept having to then have other picture issues this leaves them at the mercy of which even the manufacturer accepts are bad enough that they need to put these picture processing options on the TV to help people defeat.

I personally like a more pure picture image generally but I can't achieve that with this TV by turning off options. So let me ask you the following question: I'm getting constant issues with the auto dimming feature as well and this has been confirmed to be present on the previous years model, there's no setting which disables this feature just as turning the motion processing options off doesn't prevent visual processing artifacts from still appearing, so what course of action would you suggest?
 
I have been using it with auto dimming in Standard and Low but still keep getting creeping dark patches on backgrounds. Turning the backlight up helps in some cases but then I find it painful whenever a white or yellow screen is shown (I've come to dread the Sky Originals splash screen and the Expedia advert).

I've a video of the dimming repeatedly moving back and forth randomly covering half the screen diagonally even when it's set to Low and on a paused image of an advert for the upcoming new Sky Comedy channel.

Whatever I set the local dimming and other settings to it always eventually starts playing up. It's like a series of dimming zones suddenly become confused and so in turn go heavily aggressive, which then leads to the zones next to those following suit. Then on other occasions they can't seem to settle on if they should be dimming or not at all and so just keep switching back and forth to differing levels even on a completely still screen.
On my side, in movie mode+warm2, I use the local dimming in standard for all except HDR where I put it in high. I found the result pretty good. One think to mention, I had "black issues" at some point, just after a firmware update and a reset of the TV fixed it. Now I'm always doing a factory reset after each firmware update.
 
The film was downloaded off Sky and not off Netflix etc. We have the Sky+HD box. Our 40" Sony TV in the bedroom is on a 20' coaxial cable and is in perfect sync. The LG TV on a 20' HDMI cable is also in perfect sync. If watching i.e. commentary on an app like My5 sync is almost perfect.
We have Sky signal and Netflix into a combiner and then into a splitter. From splitter a 1m HDMI cable to the Samsung TV and the 20' cable to the LG TV.

Please note above the underlined in bold as this seems to exonerate and issues with the Sky+HD box. On the Samsung Community site the issue has been acknowledged and at the moment Samsung cannot resolve the issue.
 
On my side, in movie mode+warm2, I use the local dimming in standard for all except HDR where I put it in high. I found the result pretty good. One think to mention, I had "black issues" at some point, just after a firmware update and a reset of the TV fixed it. Now I'm always doing a factory reset after each firmware update.

I use Local Dimming set to Standard or Low for Sky, although this means needing the backlight up at about 20 which means bright white or other bright colour screens are blinding. The only way to balance the contrast and brightness without having the backlight so high is to use Local Dimming in high.

Nevertheless, for Sky I've settled on the occasionally blinding screen over the worst of the Local Dimming issues I get when it's set to high. But even when set to Low, I still get the backlight dimming zones getting confused.

Resets haven't made any difference. I actually tried that after reading your earlier message about doing so following noticing washed out blacks, back when I was just lurking instead of actively posting in this thread. Thanks for the suggestion though.
 
Please note above the underlined in bold as this seems to exonerate and issues with the Sky+HD box. On the Samsung Community site the issue has been acknowledged and at the moment Samsung cannot resolve the issue.

Yes, I really don't think it's the Sky box causing you and others lip sync issues. If it was then it would happen on everybody's set up, when I can say it doesn't happen with the way my audio is set up.

I still stand by the theory that Samsung have the base processing of the picture slightly buffered in memory on the TV and that could be causing sync issues under certain set ups where the audio isn't also set to match. If that's the case they'll never admit it and I can't see them committing the resources to make what would be a huge processing software change. Same as with the picture and auto dimming issues which are driving me up the wall. :(
 
Yes, I really don't think it's the Sky box causing you and others lip sync issues. If it was then it would happen on everybody's set up, when I can say it doesn't happen with the way my audio is set up.

I still stand by the theory that Samsung have the base processing of the picture slightly buffered in memory on the TV and that could be causing sync issues under certain set ups where the audio isn't also set to match. If that's the case they'll never admit it and I can't see them committing the resources to make what would be a huge processing software change. Same as with the picture and auto dimming issues which are driving me up the wall. :(

That's a shame as I have been trying to decide whether or not to pull the trigger on a 75q90r, but this seems such a fundamental flaw that I don't think I can justify spending that sort of cash on something so broken out of the box. It seems like basic functionality that every manufacturer should have no problems with - i mean pictures and sound in tandem!! Makes you wonder what sort of quality assurance is being carried out by Samsung? The lack of concern by Samsung for customers who have spent hard earned cash on flagship sets makes my blood boil. I think I am now in the position of waiting another year - LG lcd's don't look great, Sony have the retarded androidtv operating system youview etc. Maybe Samsung will resolve this issue in 2020. It's a shame as I really wanted one of these.
 
That's a shame as I have been trying to decide whether or not to pull the trigger in an 75q90r, but this seems such a fundamental flaw that I don't think I can justify spending that sort of cash on something so broken out of the box. It seems like basic functionality that every manufacturer should have no problems with - i mean pictures and sound in tandem!! Makes you wonder what sort of quality assurance is being carried out by Samsung? The lack of concern by Samsung for customers who have spent hard earned cash on flagship sets makes my blood boil. I think I am now in the position of waiting another year - LG lcd's don't look great, Sony have the retarded androidtv operating system youview etc. Maybe Samsung will resolve this issue in 2020. It's a shame as I really wanted one of these.
TBH I have made inquiries on other brands forums and asked the question whether that brand also suffers from the audio lag and lip sync issues. So far no one has responded so it seems that the issue is wide spread. I have looked at LG C9, LG E9 and Panasonic GZ2000 and it seems they all suffer from this issue. Some more than others.
We have no issue with lip sync on our older TVs and do not want to bounce from one brand to another only to have the same issue. Maybe it would be better if we just got a refund and stuck with our 12 year old TVs. Admittedly the picture is not as good as the 4k but at least no issues with lip sync.
The worry is of course that when we buy a TV and sound bar we expect it to be good to us for 10 or more years, but this seems unlikely with the current lot of sound bars and TVs. We are now on our second Samsung sound bar and that has been diagnosed as faulty.
 
Well, Samsung got back to me today with its "final solution" for the HDR gaming issue. They put the blame on the Playstation 4 and said they wouldn't be doing anything about it. Despite the fact i made it clear to them the same problem happens on the Xbox One X. And despite the fact i told them that my Playstation 4 and Xbox One X works perfectly on numerous other TV's. It works fine on my Panasonic DX902, 2 Panasonic GX800's i had, and a cheap Samsung KU6400. Oh and a Panasonic EX700. Obviously i wouldn't take Samsung's lie and called it out. They then put me on the phone to a manager. The manager had no real answers for me. He was a lot of "Ummms, ermmm, ummm, errrrm" and claimed he didn't know much about the technical side of things. He then requested i send an email to him detailing the problems and add videos, plus gave me a direct phone number. He said he would get on it and get back to me in 3 days.
Someone else who reported this issue has been keeping in touch with me and Samsung has been giving them the run around as well. Samsung have sent this poor feller down the road of telling him its a faulty part on his TV causing the issue and they are going to take his TV to bits in an attempt to repair it! lol They didn't even remote access his TV to check for faults like they did with mine. With him they denied the problem claiming they'd never heard of it. Then they blamed the games consoles. Then they tell him its a faulty part on his TV causing the HDR gaming issues and they will be sending an engineer out to repair his TV. Its clear to see that Samsung doesn't really know its arse from its elbow. Its beyond shocking how they treat customers of its flagship products.

Oh, and i also mentioned that missing eArc update. You could tell he didn't like me mentioning that as well. He said he didn't know anything about it but would forward it on.

Will update when the manager rings me back. They will probably blame my dog or the milk man or something though. Wouldn't put anything past them at this point.
The problem is support staff will not understand such a complicated technical issue, you would need to talk direct to the engineers. And what you are really asking from them is a means to be able to turn off dynamic tone mapping in game mode.
 
Hello I have this wonderful TV for a week

I also bought the q70 soundbar

I have a few questions :
1.

do you need an additional google speaker to control the voice (tv and soundbar) via google asistant?
2.
how to set hdmi-cec (anynet +) with tuner vu uno 4k se, now to turn on and off with one remote control?
3.
can anyone have image settings for hd and 4k with hdr?
 
That's a shame as I have been trying to decide whether or not to pull the trigger on a 75q90r, but this seems such a fundamental flaw that I don't think I can justify spending that sort of cash on something so broken out of the box. It seems like basic functionality that every manufacturer should have no problems with - i mean pictures and sound in tandem!! Makes you wonder what sort of quality assurance is being carried out by Samsung? The lack of concern by Samsung for customers who have spent hard earned cash on flagship sets makes my blood boil. I think I am now in the position of waiting another year - LG lcd's don't look great, Sony have the retarded androidtv operating system youview etc. Maybe Samsung will resolve this issue in 2020. It's a shame as I really wanted one of these.

I feel that I should emphasise that's just my personal theory. I'm putting 2+2 together but that doesn't mean I'm right. Only Samsung's engineers will know for sure and they won't ever tell anyone.

Not that I'm recommending the Samsung Q90R here unless you're fine with their picture processing 'quirks' as documented in my earlier posts (keep in mind that 2 of the examples are with all processing options disabled too, just to avoid the mistake of thinking you can totally avoid the issues by turning off any picture processing options). But the audio sync issue is specific to having the TV pass Dolby Digital along to (certain?) audio devices via ARC if I'm understanding correctly. It doesn't affect PCM apparently and if you use Sky+HD (I can't vouch for Q as I don't have it but believe this equally applies to that also) through an AVR to the TV then you shouldn't get the issue. I don't get it anyway running through my Denon AVR, and nor do I get delay from the HD Freeview channels sending DD to my AVR via ARC (I've even just double checked that before writing this).

The main reason I'm pointing this out is that this year's Samsung Q90T model has been vastly downgraded. It's gone from hundreds of dimming zones in 2019 to this year's model having just under a hundred. Last I heard they hadn't even confirmed it'll have HDMI 2.1 yet, only confirming it for their 8K model. They're trying to push the enthusiast end of the market towards the 8K model and have effectively wiped out their 4K flagship in all but name in the process, likely hoping it'll still sell well on the brand name alone. And given I've had it confirmed that the 2018 Q9fn had all the same visual issues the Q90R has with both picture processing and local auto dimming, I wouldn't hold my breath on hoping Samsung totally revamp their picture processing (both base level and user selectable Auto Motion Plus parts).

If you can live with the many issues you'll find in this thread, are fortunate enough that your audio set up use isn't one which is susceptable to the lip sync issue, and you absolutely must have a Samsung, then I suppose it's better to jump now and beat the large downgrade that's coming.

The issue is that if you need a new TV right now and want to avoid OLED at this kind of price point in the market then there aren't really any other LED options out there. Every other company has switched to using LG OLED panels in their flagship models.

I'm stuck in this exact position in that I contacted Richer Sounds about buying an OLED and was continually advised to switch to buying the Samsung instead because they didn't feel comfortable recommending an OLED to me due to the risk of burn in/out/permanent image retention and it not being covered under both manufacturer or retailer warranties. Now, with discovering the picture issues that come as part of Samsung's package and struggling to be able to live with them, there are no other LCDs made by other companies to move to at this level and OLED has been suggested as something I should avoid.

Perhaps if you like Sony's method of motion processing (I love it personally and would've gone Sony, but the highest 2019 LCD model is lacking some features that were important in any new TV for me) and they update the 2019 model to having HDMI 2.1 with the features that brings if gaming is important to you, then that could be an option... If you don't game at all then the current model may be fine for you too. But I'd avoid any of LG's 'NanoCell' LCDs. To go LG at this point means going OLED. [Edit: Funnily enough I've since read a report that LG are about to seriously upgrade their NanoCell LEDs for this year and so my take on them may change as of some of this year's models if they live up to what's being suggested. Thought I'd add this into this post given they'll be out within a few months.] As for the options I have given I can't wait for the new models to be released, I'm effectively stranded between sticking with a TV that has issues I just can't stop running into or potentially risking OLED at the discretion of the retailer. The TV market is currently a mess and I don't see that changing for a few years yet at least.
 
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The problem is support staff will not understand such a complicated technical issue, you would need to talk direct to the engineers. And what you are really asking from them is a means to be able to turn off dynamic tone mapping in game mode.
I have spoken to engineers. They give different answers also. The tech support have also spoken to engineers on my behalf. All give different answers and fob you off in an attempt to get rid of you. And Samsung's "final solution" i told you about was them sending the problem to senior engineers.
 
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