Stephen Neal
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Has anyone else seen their XE90s (49XE9005 in my case) exhibit stutter / judder - particularly on shot changes on 50Hz native content? (Strictly Come Dancing is a great example)
Thought I'd share as I appear to have discovered a design issue (or firmware issue) with the current 49XE9005 TV.
I bought this display from John Lewis 2 weeks ago. Within 15 minutes of switching it on - after disabling MotionFlow, all the contrast enhancement, noise reduction etc., but before doing a Calibration on it. I like to start from a 'what comes in is what I see displayed' standpoint before adding any processing.
My XE9005 stuttered - literally jumped back on a text crawl right after a shot change - on the first Sky+ HD recording I played on it. Not good. Replayed it, stuttered at exactly the same point. Watched the same recording from the same Sky+ on a different TV - no jump.
Then watched the opening of the Halloween Strictly - jumps and stutters all over the place.
I've now done a LOT of digging... (I work for the BBC - used to be a Broadcast R&D Engineer elsewhere in the industry, now work making progreammes)
Going back to the Strictly broadcast masters (which working for the BBC I have access to), and playing a 720p50 high quality deinterlaced version of these with embedded 50p timecode (so every frame has a unique number) of these back from a BlackMagic video card connected to my MacBook - and filming the result at 720p240 on my iPhone (i.e. slow mo) I can capture what the TV is actually doing (and compare it to another TV (49X8505B) fed the same content via an HDMI splitter).
I went for 720p50 to avoid any deinterlacing artefacts (the timecode is in the progressive domain) and to ensure every frame is unique (with i25 aka 50i stuff you would get two fields with the same timecode frame number). I've also burned AVCHD 'Blu-rays on DVD' with this content which friends have tried on their non-Sony TVs (Interesting a Panasonic OLED has some issues - though not the same)
My XE9005 is dropping pairs of 720p50 frames (often on cuts) - which you don't really notice - but then repeating pairs of frames - as pairs - just after cuts/shoot changes (which you definitely DO see - as the motion jumps backwards and forwards) It's content related as the timecode that these jumps and drops happen is very consistent (and many - but not all - happen at the same point whether the source is 1080i25, 720p50, 1080p50 or 2160p50). If it can't hide the drops or repeats on a shot change, it does them mid shot, and I also think it is showing some 50p frames for only 1/100th second, not 1/50th to also try and reysnc itself. It never drifts more than about 2 frames out - but the constant stutters make it unwatchable.
Example frame sequence (with a cut before Frame 1) :
1 , 2 , 3 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6...... N , N+3
So frames 2 and 3 are repeated as a pair and shown twice in sequence - so you see a jump back when frame 2 is shown again after frame 3, and then frames N+1 and N+2 are dropped to counteract the repetition and avoid the set having to buffer a gazillion frames and slowly drift out of sync - or vice versa)
I also tried the same content re-timed to 720p59.94 (i.e. sped up so each 720p50 frame maps 1:1 with a 720p59.94 frame) and the same issues were present.
I've taken the same material into a John Lewis and played it on a display model - guess what? Exactly the same issues - at many points at the same timecode.
So two TVs of the same model do it.
I can't believe other people haven't spotted this - so I thought I'd ask.
I'm within my 35 day return window with John Lewis (who arranged for me to test my content on a display model), and trying to get any sense out of Sony Customer Support is proving impossible. Even though I've documented it happening on multiple versions of the same TV they want to do a board swap on mine (which John Lewis don't want to happen). Sony CS seem unable to take any feedback that isn't related to a 'broken telly'
Thought I'd share as I appear to have discovered a design issue (or firmware issue) with the current 49XE9005 TV.
I bought this display from John Lewis 2 weeks ago. Within 15 minutes of switching it on - after disabling MotionFlow, all the contrast enhancement, noise reduction etc., but before doing a Calibration on it. I like to start from a 'what comes in is what I see displayed' standpoint before adding any processing.
My XE9005 stuttered - literally jumped back on a text crawl right after a shot change - on the first Sky+ HD recording I played on it. Not good. Replayed it, stuttered at exactly the same point. Watched the same recording from the same Sky+ on a different TV - no jump.
Then watched the opening of the Halloween Strictly - jumps and stutters all over the place.
I've now done a LOT of digging... (I work for the BBC - used to be a Broadcast R&D Engineer elsewhere in the industry, now work making progreammes)
Going back to the Strictly broadcast masters (which working for the BBC I have access to), and playing a 720p50 high quality deinterlaced version of these with embedded 50p timecode (so every frame has a unique number) of these back from a BlackMagic video card connected to my MacBook - and filming the result at 720p240 on my iPhone (i.e. slow mo) I can capture what the TV is actually doing (and compare it to another TV (49X8505B) fed the same content via an HDMI splitter).
I went for 720p50 to avoid any deinterlacing artefacts (the timecode is in the progressive domain) and to ensure every frame is unique (with i25 aka 50i stuff you would get two fields with the same timecode frame number). I've also burned AVCHD 'Blu-rays on DVD' with this content which friends have tried on their non-Sony TVs (Interesting a Panasonic OLED has some issues - though not the same)
My XE9005 is dropping pairs of 720p50 frames (often on cuts) - which you don't really notice - but then repeating pairs of frames - as pairs - just after cuts/shoot changes (which you definitely DO see - as the motion jumps backwards and forwards) It's content related as the timecode that these jumps and drops happen is very consistent (and many - but not all - happen at the same point whether the source is 1080i25, 720p50, 1080p50 or 2160p50). If it can't hide the drops or repeats on a shot change, it does them mid shot, and I also think it is showing some 50p frames for only 1/100th second, not 1/50th to also try and reysnc itself. It never drifts more than about 2 frames out - but the constant stutters make it unwatchable.
Example frame sequence (with a cut before Frame 1) :
1 , 2 , 3 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6...... N , N+3
So frames 2 and 3 are repeated as a pair and shown twice in sequence - so you see a jump back when frame 2 is shown again after frame 3, and then frames N+1 and N+2 are dropped to counteract the repetition and avoid the set having to buffer a gazillion frames and slowly drift out of sync - or vice versa)
I also tried the same content re-timed to 720p59.94 (i.e. sped up so each 720p50 frame maps 1:1 with a 720p59.94 frame) and the same issues were present.
I've taken the same material into a John Lewis and played it on a display model - guess what? Exactly the same issues - at many points at the same timecode.
So two TVs of the same model do it.
I can't believe other people haven't spotted this - so I thought I'd ask.
I'm within my 35 day return window with John Lewis (who arranged for me to test my content on a display model), and trying to get any sense out of Sony Customer Support is proving impossible. Even though I've documented it happening on multiple versions of the same TV they want to do a board swap on mine (which John Lewis don't want to happen). Sony CS seem unable to take any feedback that isn't related to a 'broken telly'
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