This time last year LG was telling the market that they had a superior TV, in particular they singled out the built in capability of their HDMI 2.1 which they claimed would carry the “‘full bandwidth’ capability of HDMI 2.1’s maximum 48Gbps data rate, now it appears this is not the case.
John Archer one of the world’s leading TV reviewers and a contributor to SmartHouse has revealed that this is not the case with the Companies new 2020 models and their new NanoCell TV’s.
The source of the confusion is that contrary to initial communications, all four HDMIs on the WX, GX and CX OLED TVs will instead handle 10-bit (rather than 12-bit) 4K at 120Hz with RGB 4:4:4 chroma sampling. This Archer claims implies a likely 40Gbps data rate.
This is a big turnaround from the HDMI 2.1 situation introduced with its 2019 4K TVs, with the revelation that none of its 2020 4K TVs, OLED or LCD, will carry ‘full bandwidth’ HDMI ports capable of handling HDMI 2.1’s maximum 48Gbps data rate.
The reality is that most avid movie watchers would not notice the difference.
The 48Gbps rate is required to handle uncompressed 12-bit 4K at 120Hz with RGB 4:4:4 chroma sampling which means Blue ray movies.
On LG’s BX OLED and the NANO91, NANO90 and NANO86 LCD TVs (which use LG’s Alpha 7 Gen 3 processor, rather than the Alpha 9 Gen 3 processor found on the premium OLED TV’s you will get two HDMI 2.1 ports capable of 10-bit 4K at 120Hz with RGB 4:4:4, and two lower bandwidth ports that max out at 4K/60P with 8-bit RGB 4:4:4.
Archer said ‘There’s no getting round the fact that the HDMI situation with LG’s 2020 4K TVs is a pretty big turnaround from the brand’s 2019 position, where it was very vocal about its desire to reduce the confusion and worry associated with buying a new TV by simply offering full HDMI 2.1 support when its rivals did not”.
