Sony X90L Brightness in SDR issue.

[Logan1769]

I have recently bought a SONY X90L. In a dark room it is really hard to get a picture that won't burn your eyes. Interestingly this only affects SDR (non HDR) content, HDR actually looks really bright but natural in the dark and can actually get dimmer than SDR via the brightness setting. I understand that some living rooms are very bright and it's brilliant SONY cater for these customers but when you buy an expensive TV of this size and price it should make great viewing for film nights in the dark, instead the viewer will have to deal with migraine headaches and severe eye strain. I have always used BIAS lighting (lighting behind the screen illuminating the wall behind it),this really helps with contrast and preventing eye strain. The problem seems to be with the panel brightness and the light sensor.

In comparison to my 49XH950 the 55X90L is MUCH brighter. The 950 is a bright panel when it's needed to be which is great, but when you set the light sensor to ON with that set you can still dim the brightness down in gradients of 5, all the way down to a level 0 that barely provides any contrast but the option is there, I normally set it to 10-15 and it's perfect. When the light sensor detects little ambient light it seems to basically go into "Night" mode, essentially dimming the screen instantly by around 20% while still allowing even lower brightness settings.

Meanwhile on the 90L with the light sensor set to ON the brightness drops very gradually and won't go down any further than 10 which seems to be the same brightness as around level 35  on the 950. This is a huge difference and I do wonder about the long term effects on the eyes. With both of these TVs I set power saving to LOW for reference. Reducing contrast helps it to be more bearable on the eyes but at a huge loss to image quality.

In effect I could happily view the 950 in a dark room for hours on end with contrast set to around 50, but with the 90L with contrast set to 15-20 I get eye strain and headaches after 20 mins of viewing. I REALLY do hope SONY will update the TV via software in time to let the user have more dimming control over the brightness, if they did this it would truly be a 10/10 set and would be almost legendary I feel. In its present state though it severely impacts night time viewing which is a huge part of movie watching and game playing and is making me wonder whether to sell the set as I can't return it as there are no faults at all.

[royabrown2]

@Logan1769 

How recently? If you bought it online, you have a 14-day cooling off period; if you bought it from a retailer, they should let you swap it in up to 30 days.

But do you really need to?

Personally, I hate using the light sensor, as it takes away all my control, and I anyway don’t need to adjust my set (a 66in LG GX), from the brightest day to the darkest night.

But your contrast settings seem weird to me; if I set my contrast that low, I would wind up with a bright picture I couldn’t control. So try curing your problem by setting the contrast higher, not lower (I keep mine at 100, backlight 100, brightness 50), turn off the light sensing, and then set your brightness manually to something you are comfortable with in the ambient conditions at the time. And you should be able to get down to 0 with the light sensor off, though I don’t think you’ll need to.

Then revisit it in the dark (or in the light if you set it in the dark), and see if it’s not still absolutely fine.

What you said about HDR, given the way this adjusts the picture settings, emboldens me to suggest the above for your SD/HD/non-HDR UHD usage.

My only slight demur is maybe whether you have an eyesight problem? If you suspect this, e.g. being abnormally sensitive to light, it may be worth seeing an optician…

[Logan1769]

Hi Roya 

Thanks for the reply. Well I tried what you said without the light sensor enabled etc and I don't see how anybody can view an LED backlit tv at 100% backlight brightness in dark conditions, it would cause severe eyestrain surely? I understand you're coming from an experience with an OLED tv though so it's understandable as in my experience they give off a different kind of more natural light. 

Like I said I'm coming from a XH950 FALD tv from a couple of years ago and I could view that in pitch darkness for any amount of time on the lower brightness settings, the X90L I have now is about 20% brighter on the lower settings, I never needed to go to 0 on the 950, I kept it quite happily at 15 for a dark room. My living room is always quite dark but more so at night obviously. Just to confirm Sonys setting for brightness is actually just Backlight control, and not the actual Brightness setting. 

To be fair I do have failry sensitive eyes but no more than many people. I'm a Lorry driver by profession so my eyes are extensively checked regularly. 

I really do love the set but it seems SONY are steering more towards people who tend to watch TV in a well lit room rather than people who enjoy a movie or gaming with the lights off. Just to be curious when I had HDR enabled I dimmed the brightness down (which I obviously wouldn't do normally) and if the SDR picture could get as dim as the HDR picture with low brightness settings it would be perfect.

I will bear with the set for now as I love everything else about it but I live in hope SONY perfect the brightness levels in a firmware update. 

[royabrown2]

Hi @Logan1769 

While our main TV is indeed an OLED, and these don’t certainly go as bright as LED ones, our kitchen/diner TV is a 55in UHD/HDR Samsung, and our bedroom one a 43in UHD/HDR LG Nano, likewise LED, and they are all on similar settings.

[Logan1769]

Thanks again for your input, I really appreciate it. 

I've owned Sonys LED tvs for around 15 years now and all could be set to the perfect picture for a dark room, I tended to upgrade every few years but this one I'd be keeping for the foreseeable future if it wasn't so bright!!! 

Hopefully once more of these TVs are out in the wild and a few others have a similar issue then they may review the backlight levels in an update. 

[Logan1769]

Just an update on my issue but I'm now having to hire a professional calibrator to see if a proper calibration improves the set, this is at a considerable cost to me and it is the first time I've had a problem like this with a Sony set. I've bought around 5 of them in the last 15 or so years as I tend to upgrade every few years.