I recently purchased a PS5 and was excited to take advantage of HDMI 2.1 on my LG OLED C9. I got everything hooked up, and let everything setup to the detected hardware and the recommended settings. My LG C9 brought up a notice stating that it was switching to “HDMI ULTRA HD Deep Color” setting, which is the first time I have seen this setting on my TV, but understand that it is necessary to display the best possible picture. After everything was finished setting up, I started playing a couple of games (God of War with PS5 4k 60fps patch, and Astro’s Playroom) and immediately noticed something was off with both games. The refresh rate is slightly jittery and not silky smooth like it should be at 60fps, which both games claim to be able to achieve. The screen motion is even slightly jittery in the PS5 user interface, which is not a graphically demanding application at all. That suggests to me that the input device is struggling to accept the high bandwidth signal from the PS5. Even my PS4 Pro looked much smoother with God of War running in performance mode, which doesn’t even achieve a consistent 60fps. I turned on both the PS5 and PS4 Pro, and switched between HDMI channels to do a direct head to head comparison, just to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. The PS5 is noticeably running choppy and jittery compared to the PS4 Pro. I understand that the PS4 Pro is far less demanding, and only utilizes HDMI 2.0 output with lower screen resolution, but that shouldn’t matter since the PS5 and LG C9 both claim to be able to handle the higher bandwidth of HDMI 2.1. I have tried setting it up with both the supplied HDMI 2.1 cable that comes with the PS5, and a more robust Audioquest “Forest 48” cable, which claims to be able to handle 8K/10k 48Gbps data transfer. I also tried all the different HDMI inputs on my LG OLED C9, despite the claim that they all have HDMI 2.1 functionality. As expected, I encountered the same issue on all ports. Also of note, I am hooking up directly from the PS5 to the C9 HDMI ports. The software version I am running for the LG C9 is 05.00.03, which is apparently the latest.
After some online research, it turns out the only way to address this problem (that I found) is to go into the PS5 “Screen and Video” menu and access the "4k video transfer rate" setting, and switch it from the default “Automatic”, which is full RGB 4:4:4 chroma subsampling, to “-1”, which restricts it to YUV422 chroma subsampling. After trying this, it did address the jitter issues, but the colors are noticeably less deep and vibrant now. Switching it to “-1” compresses the chroma subsampling down to 4:2:2 (from the default RGB 4:4:4), which downgrades the color reproduction noticeably, and restricts the overall bandwidth transfer down to HDMI 2.0, effectively removing the HDMI 2.1 functionality from a TV which claims to have fully HDMI 2.1 capabilities. This also means I won’t be able to achieve 4k at 120Hz. You can see the full list of limitations here I found under “4k video transfer rate”:
www.reddit.com
Another thing I noticed when switching it from “Automatic” to "-1" is that the sound volume noticeably decreases, which also suggests audio compression.
While changing the 4k video transfer rate down to “-1” does address the refresh rate and jitter issue, it is obviously not the ideal solution, and seems to only be a “fix” aimed at TVs which do not offer HDMI 2.1 support. Has anyone else had similar issues with their LG C9 OLED? I’ve found a couple of similar issues here on Reddit, but I have not found any good solutions, aside from lowering the chroma subsampling, which basically just turns your C9 back to HDMI 2.0 TV. The LG C9 claims to support HDMI 2.1 functionality, but this experience is making me doubt that claim.
Edit: This issue has been solved. For anyone else who experiences this, set your "Picture Mode Setting" might be in Standard Mode. It needs to be in Game Mode. I figured the TV would preset, but that was the one thing it didn't automatically preset to.
After some online research, it turns out the only way to address this problem (that I found) is to go into the PS5 “Screen and Video” menu and access the "4k video transfer rate" setting, and switch it from the default “Automatic”, which is full RGB 4:4:4 chroma subsampling, to “-1”, which restricts it to YUV422 chroma subsampling. After trying this, it did address the jitter issues, but the colors are noticeably less deep and vibrant now. Switching it to “-1” compresses the chroma subsampling down to 4:2:2 (from the default RGB 4:4:4), which downgrades the color reproduction noticeably, and restricts the overall bandwidth transfer down to HDMI 2.0, effectively removing the HDMI 2.1 functionality from a TV which claims to have fully HDMI 2.1 capabilities. This also means I won’t be able to achieve 4k at 120Hz. You can see the full list of limitations here I found under “4k video transfer rate”:
guides/video-settings - playstation
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Another thing I noticed when switching it from “Automatic” to "-1" is that the sound volume noticeably decreases, which also suggests audio compression.
While changing the 4k video transfer rate down to “-1” does address the refresh rate and jitter issue, it is obviously not the ideal solution, and seems to only be a “fix” aimed at TVs which do not offer HDMI 2.1 support. Has anyone else had similar issues with their LG C9 OLED? I’ve found a couple of similar issues here on Reddit, but I have not found any good solutions, aside from lowering the chroma subsampling, which basically just turns your C9 back to HDMI 2.0 TV. The LG C9 claims to support HDMI 2.1 functionality, but this experience is making me doubt that claim.
Edit: This issue has been solved. For anyone else who experiences this, set your "Picture Mode Setting" might be in Standard Mode. It needs to be in Game Mode. I figured the TV would preset, but that was the one thing it didn't automatically preset to.
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