Home Theater Geeks 478 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

00:00 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
In this episode of Home Theater Geeks, I update a previous episode about a lawsuit brought against Hisense USA for deceptive marketing. Stick around Podcasts you love From people you trust. This is TWIT. Hey there, scott Wilkinson. Here, the home theater geek.

00:35
In this episode, I'm going to update something I talked about in a previous episode, episode 473, to be specific. I talked about a lawsuit brought by Robert Macios against Hisense USA, claiming that the company engaged in false advertising and deceptive business practices. Robert had bought a QD5 TV that Hisense markets as a QLED TV, meaning that it uses quantum dots. That's what the Q stands for is a blue backlight, and that light passes through a layer, a plastic film, embedded with red and green quantum dots, which converts some of that blue light into red and green. And when you add the red, green and the blue, that gets through without being absorbed, you get white. That then passes through an LCD layer, through color filters, and you end up with a color image. Now Hisense claimed that this technology quote dramatically increases the color space and improves color saturation, allowing consumers to see colors like you've never seen before. You see colors like you've never seen before. Now Masios contends that these TVs either do not include quantum dots or contain them in such negligible amounts that it doesn't meaningfully enhance the image, the image. So in episode 473, I said that this seemed totally frivolous to me. Assuming that the QD5 and other Hisense QLED TVs actually have quantum dots and use them in the way that they're supposed to be used, I had no reason to suspect that they don't. Negligible amounts, as the lawsuit says, didn't make any sense and I explained why. So I'm going to reiterate that here just quickly.

03:04
In the first graphic we will look at how a quantum dot QLED TV works and you see a lot of layers here. Most of it we don't need to worry about. The ones to be concerned with are the ones circled in red. So we have a backlight, blue LEDs, mini LEDs in this diagram. It might go through a diffuser plate which diffuses the light, and then it hits what's called the QDEF quantum dot enhancement film, which is the film that has those red and green quantum dots that absorb some of the blue light and re-emit it as red and green. In some cases those quantum dots are embedded in the diffuser plate itself and that's called XQDEF, and then that light passes along, goes through the liquid crystal layer, through color filters and ends up being a full color image. So that's how it's supposed to work and that's, if you say QLED, that's what it's supposed. That's how it's supposed to work.

04:17
And if we look at the next graphic, we can see that this is the triangle you see here. This is called the CIE diagram and the triangle you see here represents or encompasses the colors that the TV can reproduce. And there's a point in the middle, kind of hard to see a little bit, called D65. And that is the white point. That is the point that the TV should be able to display white. And what I said at the time was if there were fewer quantum dots in that QDEF, that enhancement film, then more blue would get through than it was supposed to and pull that D65 white point down towards blue, which would make the picture look horrible. So I said no, they can't be doing that, they can't be doing that. Well, since then I've spoken with a very reliable source, friend of mine in the industry, who's deeply involved in this whole technology but who must remain anonymous, and so I'm going to honor that and this source will remain anonymous. But I can assure you he is very reliable and it turns out I was probably wrong.

05:40
When Hisense claimed that a TV is QLED, I assumed they would not lie about that, but it seems they might actually have done so. What? How can that be? Well, business is business, I suppose. According to my source, hisense and perhaps other TV manufacturers like TCL, at some point started reducing the number of quantum dots in that enhancement film and adding a phosphor to the blue LEDs to keep the white point where it's supposed to be. They were doing this especially in low-end models to save costs, and the QD5, which Robert Macios bought and is now suing over, is certainly a low-end model. In the worst case, they've even eliminated the quantum dots altogether and used conventional white LEDs, which are really blue plus a phosphor, and they have no quantum dots in them.

06:53
So in fact, it appears Masios' claim of there being no quantum dots or negligible amounts of quantum dots in the TV might actually be true and that Hisense's claim their marketing of the QD5 is a QD, oled, qled. Sorry my mistake. Marketing it as a QLED TV might well be false advertising. Wow. If so, his lawsuit has merit and should be fully pursued. It and should be fully pursued Now. I haven't personally taken apart a QD5 to see for myself, but I'm sure Masios' lawyers will find an expert to do just that and it will be readily apparent whether or not that film, that one layer there that's supposed to have quantum dots in it, has them or not. You can tell by looking at it, by the sort of color and how it reacts to light.

07:59
Now my favorite TV review site called ratingscom spelled R-T-I-N-G-Scom has just added an element to its TV reviews that could help people understand this issue. There's a new section in its reviews called Panel Technology, and it reveals the pixel structure and whether or not a phosphor is being used. And whether or not a phosphor is being used. Now they have in this new section called Panel Technology a really cool new graphic it's not really new but it's new for their reviews called Spectral Power Distribution, and it's basically a spectrum. So in this graphic this is the spectral power distribution of the Sony Bravian 9, which is Sony's flagship quantum QLED TV.

09:00
It's a true QLED and you can see it has three distinct and just separate bands of color red, green and blue. The blue is from the blue backlight and the green and the red are from the green and red quantum dots. Very clean, very nice. Now the next one is from the Hisense U7N, which is marketed also as a QLED. But here take a look at the red peak. It's actually got three red peaks and they identify. Art Ratings does in their review that the LEDs actually do use a phosphor and that's why the peaks look the way they do in the red. And I have one more example here for you. It's the TCL QM6K, also marketed as a QLED, and it also has similar three red peaks because it also uses phosphors, which ratings identifies in this section. So that's one way that you could tell if it's truly QLED or if it's pseudo QLED.

10:29
Now, of course, the bottom line is how does the TV perform, regardless of its underlying technology? That's, that's really the bottom line, except maybe for us geeks. But um and for that. But this power, spectral power distribution, is a good thing to look at. And there are other things, many other things in ratings reviews that are worth looking at to see how the TV performs.

10:56
For example, in episode 473, I looked at the color gamut of the Sony X900, which is not QLED, and here we can see it and it's, you know, it's pretty good. It's got some errors, above five, as you can see in that Delta E2000 list of colors. There, anything that goes above five is considered a visible error. And if we look at the next one, that's the Samsung Q90, which is a quantum dot QLED, and you still see the errors are less. There's one or two that go up near five. Anything higher than that yellow line is going to be visible, but it's better. Yellow line is going to be visible, but it's better. Okay, it's better. Is it dramatically better? No, it's not.

11:55
Another thing to look at is called color volume, and so we look at the same two TVs. Graphic eight is the color volume of the Sony X900H and you can see the colored in parts are the color volume, which is the colors reproduced at different brightness levels. That's what the TV can do and the wire cage part is the target. You want the colored areas to fill those targets and if we look at the Samsung Q90, which is a QLED, it fills those wire racks a little better. Again, is it dramatic? Not tremendously dramatic, but a little bit. It's certainly better and ArtRatings does a lot more testing. That is well worth looking at and, as I said in that previous episode, in the end consumers need to do their due diligence by consulting trusted sources like ratingscom and choosing the best performing TV they can afford.

13:07
Of course, the underlying technology can make a difference. As we just saw, qled does perform better than non-quantum dot-based LED in general terms, and in my opinion, qd, oled or even regular OLED performs better than LCD. It's not as bright, I will grant that, but it has much better off-axis viewing. So again, you have to decide, you have to prioritize. What are the important things for you, and they might be different than what they are for me.

13:51
Also, I will reiterate that consumers need to take marketing hype with a big grain of salt, maybe a big block of salt. All companies spew it to one degree or another. But if a company actually lies about the technology they're using they say they're using quantum dots, but there are no quantum dots in there Well, that's despicable and they should be prosecuted for it. Um, so when a company falsely uses the letter Q and the word quantum, which they all do way too much, I think they're just shooting themselves in the foot. So I wanted to update this story because my previous episode I did not realize that in fact there's evidence, strong evidence, that Hisense and other companies are in fact calling things one thing, that they aren't and that's wrong. That's all there is to it.

15:00
Now for more on the subject, I found a really great article from Ars Technica, which is a great technical news site. I'll include the link in the show notes because it's really a good read. So I suggest you check that out and in the meantime, as I said, do your due diligence and choose the TV that's best for you, based on its performance more than its underlying technology. So I'm glad to have been able to update that for you. Now, if you have a question for me, just send it right along to htg at twittv. I'll answer as many as I can right here on the show. I'll answer as many as I can right here on the show and, as you might know by now, all episodes of Home Theater Geeks are playing on YouTube for free, but they have commercials. If you want to go ad free, join the club, just go to twittv. Slash club twit and join up for ad-free programming. Until next time, geek out.