I wonder what the firmware of the local S95B will be OOTB.
Been following the YT vids on S95B.
Firmware 1302 seems to have made Movie mode and Filmmaker mode similar.
Mixed opinions from the YT community.
Game mode it seems the movement tracing is improved, based on the YT vids I have watched.
Not interested in Sony A95K due to Sony tax and the game mode is not as good as Samsung.
And also of this:
https://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/tec...m-xbox-game-pass-and-nvidia-geforce-now-games
Not to forget, it does affect Game Mode as well. Samsung S95B's HGIG is still using Dynamic Tone Mapping. It results in people not knowing how many clicks it takes for the in-game HDR calibration to reach 1100 nits for example because the Dynamic Tone Mapping will constantly allow them to push further till around 4000 nits. This results in a lot of scenes having low Average Picture Level (APL) aka, darker midtones, in order to reserve those 4000 nit details. So there's a lot of guess-timation to calibrate for each game's HDR for every new game that has HDR.
However, in reality also, many are complaining that their peak highlights are blown out and clipped. Such as not being able to see the sun's shape in-game. When the tone mapping stopped working temporarily when someone updated his FW to 1302, he was so happy to see the details in the sky such as the clouds. But when he factory reset his unit to double confirm it wasn't a bug, DTM was re-engaged for Game Mode HGIG. And his clouds, sun and any specular highlights were clipped once again. I've been following the toxic forum thread there. What a mess of issues.
Also, a YTuber managed to check HGIG before and after the 1302 update and it seems to have an effect however so slightly.
This was how overly bright the mid tones in Game Mode HGIG was thanks to DTM's own custom tone mapping.
It has somewhat been changed too. So not just FMM and Movie Mode.
All I can say is, all these issues the S95B has, some of it would have easily been solved just by giving a Dynamic Tone Mapping toggle like on the LG. So purists can have their accurate tone mapping curve tracking the EOTF curve as the director intended. And those who likes bright punchy pictures can have their slice by enabling DTM and getting those bright pictures that they got initially prior to the 1302 FW update.
But what I most don't understand is why did they decrease the peak brightness overall. Like it used to reach nearly 1200 nits on a 10% window. Now, it is closer to 1000 nits and actually below that for both FMM and Movie Mode. You know the display is capable of it. It was even marketed as such. You could have easily tracked all the way up to those nits. Instead, you only track it to slightly below 1000 nits. Literally gimping the display to WRGB OLED territory.
Anyway, in terms of colours, the Color Management System (CMS) is atrocious. It is all over the place and blown out when selecting BT.2020 but yet, that is the proper colourspace. Changing to DCI-P3 is a lot more accurate but still wrong. And not to mention, you will lose the advantage of QD-OLED of being able to reach 90% of the BT2020 colourspace.
Someone on the forum managed to correct it after much work. But sadly, anyone who bought this TV who never went to that forum is going to face horrendously inaccurate colours.
And another caveat is that the CMS is exclusive to just FMM and Movie Mode. It is not the same and therefore, cannot be applied to other modes like Standard or Dynamic which still retains those high peak brightness.
What a mess of a situation to be in. Truly like as they describe it, being a paid beta tester.
PS. Someone did say SDR looks better now. In other words, Gamma might be tracking properly. So Gamma 2.4 should be closer to accurate. But it hasn't been tested yet. So take it with a pinch of salt. Else, Gamma on SDR is tracking lower causing raised shadow details.
Basically, every corner you turn on this TV, there are a lot of caveats. SDR has problems not to mention its massive lack of details making it worst than other TVs for low bitrate SDR content you might want to watch on Netflix or Apple TV. Game Mode has blown out highlights issue. HDR has colourspace issues with skintones looking overly plasticky and pink if no CMS adjustment is done.
