LG enables Fine Tune Dark Areas feature on over 70 TVs to mitigate VRR raised black issues

LG has attempted to address raised black levels on some of its TVs with new firmware updates. The issue only occurs when someone enables Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) and pairs an LG TV with a PC or console that supports the feature, but it seems that enough people have complained about it.

LG stresses that the firmware updates 'mitigate some of the raised near black effects', rather than eliminating them. However, it seems unlikely that LG will ever be able to do so because of how gamma curves behave when VRR is enabled. As the OLED Association explains:

Gamma for OLED is optimized and fixed for 120Hz by establishing a fixed charging time for OLED sub-pixels. VRR is used when the frame rate is less than 120 Hz. When the OLED TV uses framerates less than 120Hz, the gamma curve is inconsistent with the frame rate.

Therefore, the lower frame rates result in overcharged sub-pixels, causing flickering of dark grey images, which is noticeable for dark images rather than bright ones, because human eyes are more sensitive to low grey colours. LGD will likely solve this problem by establishing multiple gamma curves optimized for lower frame rates.

Nonetheless, LG has added a feature called 'Fine Tune Dark Areas' on many of its 2020 and 2021 to address the problems described above. Currently, LG is updating its WX, GX, CX and BX OLED TVs, along with some of its NANO range. According to its changelogs, LG has added the Fine Tune Dark Areas feature on a few LCD-based TVs, too.

If your TV is yet to receive firmware 03.21.18, or 03.21.80 for TVs like the BX range, then you may be able to download and install it manually. LG has placed the Fine Tune Dark Areas option within Additional Picture Settings on its 2020 TVs and under Game Optimizer for 2021 ones. Anecdotally, Fine Tune Dark Areas contains 60 levels. LG hopes to bring Fine Tune Dark Areas to its 2019 OLED models at some stage, too.

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