CE Week 2016 TV Shootout has come and gone, and for me at least this was a very educational event and a lot fun as well.

To start, this was an opportunity to meet some new people, Robert Zohn the Owner of Value Electronics (he puts this event on every year), Joel Silver from ISF (presenter/moderator this year) and Jay Catral (from Konica/Minolta). l also got the chance to get a better understanding of a few people that I already knew, Jeff and Matt Murray from Muridio/AVPro store who provided the 18 Gbps switching components and who in Matts case meant running this gear for the necessary test patterns and content for Joel's presentation. Along the way I also spent a fair amount of time with the folks from Napco Media (Dealerscope and Technology Integrator) talking about the problems and issues that we as "CI's" and mfgr's deal with. Lastly, but by no means least,I had the wonderful opportunity to talk HDMI and Installation problems with one of the Top LG guys (sorry name withheld by me to protect him from a barrage of emails).

That done let’s get to the Shootout

To start, I (Metra Home Theater/Ethereal) was not involved with the Shootout until the Friday (17 Jun) before the shootout (22 Jun), when the concern was raised about having cables that would work at the distance needed (greater than 4 meters) to support the switching system, the Muridio guys suggested my product (Metra Home Theater/Ethereal) to Robert and he and I conversed on midday Friday. Since we (Metra Home Theater/Ethereal) could not pass on this opportunity, there was a mad scramble on my part to get the HDMI cables, flight and a room within walking distance to the show all lined up. Not only was I able to get it together and get there by Tuesday morning, but I actually beat everyone to the show floor (not by much though). Tuesday afternoon once all had arrived we starting getting everything setup and while I had some serious reservations going in about Jeff/Matt having a working 8x8 18Gbps matrix, my fears as it turned out were unfounded and it worked (damn impressed by the way).

During the course of the setup I had the chance to test our 12 meter Velox (active 18 Gbps cable) and our 17 meter MHX/GA1 (passive cable with our 18 Gbps Gigabit Accelerator) on all of the displays (see list below) and found that there was substantiation for an ongoing problem that dealers are seeing in the field. The Samsung display did not work well with the 12 meter active cable while the LG, Sony and Vizio did, however it did work great with the 17 meter MHX/GA1 combo, this added validation to what dealers have been telling us and also supported the need for one of our newest products the HDM-ACVS (Active Cable Voltage Stabilizer). The reason for this failure is that the TMDS power supply (display powers devices downstream from it) was insufficient to power the active cable and the source output (in this case the matrix), when switching to the MHX/GA1 combo which does not pull power from the TMDS feeds (it gets from the USB port) this issue disappeared.

All of the displays except for the Vizio which arrived just 30 minutes before the first seminar on Wednesday had been ISF calibrated prior to shipment and looked great, the Panasonic 4K/UHD BD players on loan from Panasonic were easy to setup, versatile on connectivity, provided a great picture (and yes there are differences between brands) and had the usual easy to use Panasonic remote. The 8x8 Matrix Switching system provided by Muridio/AVPro Store had the ability to set Zone out Resolution, EDID and HDR type (this is a very big WOW) making it easy to compare the same disc on the tested 4K displays and the previous industry standard Pioneer Kuro (more about that below).

[Sidebar] On Tuesday afternoon Joel Silver took the time to show us (Matt, Jeff, Robert and myself) what real color should look like on his True Color Animator laptop. The differences between what we see and what they the content creators make is huge, however with HDR, P3 and Wide Color Gamut we are getting a lot closer.

Wednesday morning arrives (early) and the first Press Showing is at 0900, the Vizio display shows up at around 0830, Roberts guys get it unboxed and mounted, Joel and Jeff do an ISF calibration on and boom it is time to start. There were multiple abbreviated 1 hour Press showing on Wednesday and then two 4 hour demonstrations on Thursday with a preface by two of the press's most reconnected members when it comes to display testing and reviews, Lee Neikirk of Reviewed.com and Caleb Denision of Digital Trends.

As a comparison to the “Best of the Past” Robert brought his personal ISF calibrated Pioneer Elite 60”, this is the display that has long been considered the very best. The Pioneer did a great job of acquitting its technology on the standard 1080P HD material although the LG was its equal (imo). But when HDR and WCG content was displayed, well then there was no comparison, all of the displays kicked its butt. Oh well, “the King is Dead, Long Live the King”.

When it was all said and done the LG OLED was by a good margin the winner (see results below), if you looked at only the numbers the Samsung would have taken the prize, but the black levels and the definition of colors on the LG just looked more pleasing.

While all of this was going on I took a few minutes to carry the spare 17 meter MHX/GA1 combo up to the Epson booth to test with their new 4K projector as well, and yes it worked great there too.

Overall as a cable guy my big concern has always been getting the signal from one point to another and had not spent the time to learn and understand what ISF calibration can do for you. After seeing the change in the Vizio picture this is something that I am now onboard with and will get it done at my house as soon as possible.

In closing; Thank you Robert Zohn for this chance to show and test my cables on today’s flagship displays and also for two great dinners, Thank you to Joel Silver for opening my eyes as to what a display can be and Thank you as well to the Murrays (Matt/Jeff) for suggesting my cables to Robert in the first place (BTW: they are not a dealer for my cables so their recommendation means a lot to me).




Brent McCall
Product Specialist
Metra Home Theater Group
(866) 839-9187 #2203

Brent,

Thanks for making the time to participate in this event and report on it.  This is a good summary!

Paul

Great Stuff Brent! HDR will change the video world!

The Gigabit Accelerator AKA the Viagra for your cable.
Thanks for the overall info from the show. Great information on the state of TVs and calibration.

Shocked to hear the Velox cable not play nice with the Samsung display. Absolutely shocked.

The sarcasm font does not display on this forum :)

That wasn't really sarcasm. I really am surprised. I have tested that cable he is referring to with almost everything. We don't sell much Samsung anymore so I hadn't tested with a Samsung display yet. I guess it isn't that big a deal as you usually aren't more than a couple meters from a TV display. (Usually)

I'd like to see this shootout with projectors instead of televisions.

Thanks for the info, Brent. Very useful information.

And make no mistake....This is not against Ethereal in any way. I have seen first hand the passion they have for signal path...that was a dig at Samsuck.

As as our livelihood (at our shop anyway) has to do with long HDMI runs this is vitally important!

Do you mean 4ke? As in the new 6040? If not, to which model do you refer?

Yes, I think that is what Charley called it, really good looking unit for around $4000 (I think).

Correct, $3999. And a pretty stunning unit indeed.

Outside of the OLED realm what would you have rated as the best? Can you maybe do a brief write up of the top 5 or 10?