LG admits OLED TVs have issues below 120 Hz variable refresh rate

 Following the recall of OLED TVs due to product overheating issues, LG's OLED TVs were again exposed to quality issues. This time, problems occurred when the OLED TV's variable refresh rate was lower than 120 Hz.

According to IT Home, LG admitted that its OLED TVs will have problems when the variable refresh rate (VRR) is lower than 120 Hz, such as flickering or instability in dark areas, which may affect users using next-generation consoles.

Using VRR when the refresh rate is less than 120 Hz will cause the OLED TV gamma curve to be inconsistent with the refresh rate. For example, a 40Hz frame rate is longer than a 120Hz frame rate. Therefore, the lower frame rate will cause the pixels to overcharge, resulting in flickering of dark gray images, which is noticeable for dark images rather than bright images because the human eye is more sensitive to low grayscale colors. LGD may solve this problem by establishing multiple gamma curves optimized for lower frame rates.

LG says it will try to fix the VRR problem by "building multiple gamma curves" to reduce the refresh rate, but it's unlikely to be fixed in firmware, and there doesn't seem to be a good solution at the moment.

In addition to the above problems, LG has been involved in two recall storms this year. In July, LG released a recall plan for OLED TVs in South Korea. In September, the website of the State Administration for Market Regulation released an announcement that LG Electronics (China) Co., Ltd. recalled OLED TVs. The announcement stated that from now on, a total of 13 models of LG-branded OLED TVs manufactured between May 2016 and September 2019 will be recalled, involving 9,434 units, and the consumer market has spread from South Korea to the Chinese market.

It is understood that the OLED TVs recalled this time are due to quality problems with the capacitors (X-Cap) used to eliminate impurity interference in the input power supply, which causes the current in the power board to increase, thus causing overheating problems. In special cases, the back panel of the TV may be partially smoked or melted. For OLED TVs within the recall scope, LG Electronics (China) Co., Ltd. will carry out defective product recalls, safety technology improvements, improve product safety levels, and provide free repairs to eliminate safety hazards.

Industry insiders said that LG Electronics has long been marginalized in the Chinese market, whether it is OLED TV or the entire color TV business, and these incidents have a relatively limited impact on it. However, what the outside world is most worried about is that it is likely to "affect" the trend of OLED TV in the entire Chinese market, including the sales of related products of companies such as Skyworth, Xiaomi, Sharp, and Philips. After all, the "panels" of OLED TVs on the market are all made by LGD, and LG's OLED TV problems drag down the reputation and trust of the entire industry.