Test Bench

(For the control settings used in this review, go to soundandvision.com)

Measurements were made using CALMAN measurement software from Portrait Displays (portrait.com), together with a Photo Research PR650 spectroradiometer, a Klein K10 colorimeter, and a Fresco Six-g test pattern generator from Murideo/ AVPRO. The Sony XBR65A8H is compatible with the auto calibration offered by CALMAN, but I chose to calibrate manually. from a minimum of 0.14 at 100% to 1.23 at 60%. These out-of-the-box results were among the best I’ve ever experienced—perhaps even

best—so no calibration was really needed. But since the accuracy of Sony’s processor-derived HDR calibration depends on the accuracy of the SDR calibration, I attempted to make improvements.

(Delta E is a figure of merit indicating how close the color comes to the D65 HD standard at each point in the brightness range. Values below 3—some experts allow for 4—are generally considered visually indistinguishable from ideal.)

The post-calibration results, using only the 10-point adjustments, resulted in a maximum grayscale Delta E of 0.88 at 40% and 60% and a minimum of 0.36 at 90% and 100%.

Before calibration, the color Delta Es varied from a minimum of 0.5 in green to a maximum of 2.18 in red. Post-calibration, the minimum was 0.5 in magenta and the maximum 1.24 in red. With the Gamma control set to -2, the Sony’s gamma, both before and after calibration, correctly followed the BT.1886 standard for SDR sources.

The Sony’s image lag, taken with a Leo Bodnar meter at 1080p, measured 110 ms in the Custom Picture Mode and 18.2 ms in Game mode.

The Sony passed all of our standard 1080i and 1080p video tests.

ULTRA HD/HDR10

FULL- ON/FULL- OFF CONTRAST RATIO: unmeasurable

In Custom HDR Picture Mode with the Black level control at 50, Brightness at Max, Contrast at 92, Gamma at 0, and Peak luminance on High, the measured peak white level was 596.3 nits with a 10% white window and the black level 0.0004 nits. The latter number was the average of eight readings, and low enough to exceed the ability of our test tools to provide reliable measurements.

After calibration (using Sony’s auto adaption of the SDR settings to HDR10) the maximum grayscale Delta E was 3.4 at 70% and no higher than 2.2 at any other level. Its maximum color Delta E values at 50% luminance were 3.8 for cyan and 3.4 for green, but below 2.6 for all other colors. The Sony closely followed the HDR PQ curve though with some minor deviations, primarily below 20%.

As with all OLED TVS, peak white output on the 65A8H, most significantly for HDR, varied with how much of the screen was producing a white image. A 2% full white window produced 660 nits, a 10% window 600 nits, a 25% window 420 nits, and a 100% window 140 nits.

Using the 1976 standards, color gamut coverage was 74.4% of BT.2020 and 98.15% of P3.— TJN

DIMENSIONS: (W x H x D, inches): 57.2 x 33 x 2.2 (without stand); 57.2 x 33.8 x 12.9 (with stand)

WEIGHT:

(pounds): 48.1 (without stand); 52 (with stand)

VIDEO INPUTS: HDMI 2.0 (4), EARC on HDMI 3, composite (1, + L/R audio with adapter), RF cable/antenna AUDIO: Optical digital output, headphone output

OTHER: USB 2.0 (2), USB 3.0, LAN, Remote IR

was a film released in 1964 by watching it on Blu-ray. The restoration here may not be perfect, but most of the film looked breathtaking on the Sony. In particular, the detail in Henry Higgins’ study, a wealth of organized clutter, was superbly rendered. I can’t imagine a 4K version on Ultra HD Blu-ray disc exceeding this transfer, though I’d love to see one!

My Fair Lady didn’t tell me much about black level and shadow detail, so for that I turned to an old favorite Blu-ray, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. As Harry and his friends walk through a tunnel leading to Hogwarts (chapter 9), both the black and nearblack tones in close-up shots were strikingly well-resolved. Even more impressive, as the sequence changed perspective to place the characters in the middle of the screen, the blacks around them remained solid rather than turning gray. And in chapter 12, as Voldemort and his minions gather on a hillside near Hogwarts waiting to commence their attack, the surrounding gloom was totally convincing even as the important details remained visible.

ULTRA HD/HDR PERFORMANCE

As with HD/SDR, I watched both streamed and disc-based source material for my Ultra HD/ HDR tests. Except as noted, all comments here refer to discbased sources, which provide a more consistent visual reference than streamed video.

One of my favorite animated feature films is Disney’s

Tangled. While not as stunningly animated as the more popular Frozen, to me it’s a much better film. Tangled looked great on the Sony: colors popped, scenes were crisp without slipping into artificial edginess, and the images overall were as close to flawless as I ever expect to see.

As with My Fair Lady in the SDR discussion above, Tangled offers very few black level challenges, so I again turned to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2— this time on Ultra HD Blu-ray. Some have criticized this film for crushedlooking blacks in its many dark scenes, particularly the last 40 minutes or so during the siege of Hogwarts. But viewed on the Sony in my darkened room, the 4K/HDR results were gripping and clearly superior to the already excellent HD/SDR version. There’s little in the way of bright color throughout most of this film, but what there was jumped out of the surrounding gloom in a startling but still natural way. In particular, a scene with Harry and Dumbledore in an ethereal train station revealed considerably more detail in HDR, including a reddish glow around some of the white lights that was completely missing in SDR.

Both Tangled and Harry Potter were HDR10 discs, but what about Dolby Vision on the Sony? The new Ultra HD disc release of Jaws offers Dolby Vision, and the transfer looked superb on the 65A8H, though there aren’t many scenes in this film that make much use of HDR. On the other hand, episode three of the last season of Game of Thrones

( The Long Night), available on disc in Dolby Vision, is a killer app for challenging a display’s handling of black level and shadow detail. The GOT transfer isn’t perfect (it’s surprising that a TV production even attempted shooting in such challenging lighting), and there were numerous complaints from TV viewers who watched the high-def HBO premiere that it was so dark they couldn’t make out what was happening. But viewing the same material on a 4K disc with HDR on a state-of-the-art OLED is a different story. Watched in Dolby Vision on the 65A8H, some of the choreographed action remained confusing (particularly the aerial dragon battle), but all of the important dark details were visible in my fully darkened room. There was never any confusion in my mind about how the battle was going.

Sony’s primary competitor for the OLED crown to date (at least in the U.S.) is LG. And while our review sample of LG’S 65GXPUA OLED had been shipped back to the company prior to my testing Sony’s XBR- 65A8H, precluding a direct comparison, I can say that both sets offer superb performance. (My gut feeling is the Sony looks a bit better, but since I’m three months out from my last viewing with the LG, don’t take that to the bank.) The Sony does have the obvious advantage of automatically transferring an SDR calibration over to HDR with no additional calibration work needed. And the LG’S leg up is that it offers VRR and ALLM— features the Sony doesn’t have (though of interest primarily to gamers). The LG also offers HDMI 2.1 inputs, but other than EARC, which the Sony does provide, HDMI 2.1 is arguably of little or no significance on a 4K set for most existing source material.

What’s clear in the final consideration is that Sony’s XBR- 65A8H was a joy to live with. If I didn’t already own a 2018 OLED, it would definitely be on my short list for a new TV.

Quantum

capable. Other connections include a composite-video input with stereo audio, an optical digital audio output, a mini-jack headphone output, an RF antenna input, two USB ports (one 3.0, the other 2.0), and a LAN (Ethernet) port.

The 65H8G’S Android-driven Smart TV features includes a number of preloaded apps for wireless streaming, including Youtube, Netflix, Amazon, and Vudu. You can download others from an extensive list with popular sites such as Disney+ and Hulu through an Apps menu. I restricted my streaming to Youtube and Netflix, with picture quality ranging from adequate to superb depending on the source material. Along with apps, the set’s Android smart TV features include playback of your own music, photos, and videos.

Hisense makes no claims for special gaming features on the 65H8G such as Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), but it does offer a Game picture mode. With this active, I recorded a 10.5ms lag time using the 1080p Leo Bodnar input lag measuring device—a very good result. Measured in Theater Dark mode, however, input lag was 71.1ms.

The set’s remote control isn’t backlit. I initially managed to hit the wrong buttons in the dark, but as with most remotes, familiarity reduced that annoyance over time.

SETUP

The 65H8G comes with only a rudimentary Quick Setup Guide. There’s no onscreen user manual, though one is available on the Hisense website. Unfortunately, some instructions offered there were inadequate for the user having no past experience with the specific feature being researched. In particular, there was no useful guidance on the set’s included Alexa and Google Assistant capabilities.

Picture controls include a Color Tuner (Hisense’s name for its color management system, or CMS), both 2- and 20-step White Balance adjustments, and a multi-position gamma control. On most sets, the “gamma” for HDR is fixed and can’t be changed by the user since HDR gamma (more correctly called the EOTF, or Electro- Optical Transfer Function) by design must follow a specific curve (PQ, or Perceptual Quantization—try to keep up with the acronyms!). But the 65H8G’S gamma control is adjustable for both SDR and HDR10, though not for Dolby Vision. There’s also an unusual Gamma Calibration control that can adjust the gamma up or down at 5 percent brightness intervals and is separately adjustable for HDR and SDR. My advice: leave the “Gamma” control at its default setting of 2.2 and avoid using either of these adjustments for HDR.

Sound from the 65H8G'S optical output is 2.1 stereo, so you'll want to use its HDMI ARC port to get 5.1 surround.

I selected the 65H8G’S Theater Dark picture mode for all of my standard dynamic range (SDR) calibrations and viewing, and HDR Theater for high dynamic range (HDR10). Of the three Dolby Vision options— Dolby Vision Dark, Dolby Vision Bright, and Dolby Vision Custom— I used Dolby Vision Bright.

A Dynamic Contrast control is available to enhance the contrast between light and dark areas of the picture depending on the characteristics of each scene. Although the Low setting did offer a subtle enhancement with some material, I left this control off most of the time.

According to Hisense, 90 zones are used for the set’s full array local dimming feature. Four settings are available, including Off, but I used the default High setting exclusively. Related adjustments include Backlight Control, Automatic Light Sensor, and Minimum Backlight settings. Hisense claims an effective refresh rate of 240Hz, but its native rate is 60Hz. (Processing must be used to simulate 240Hz, which is typically done by modulating the backlighting.)

Some of the 65H8G’S Motion Enhancement features proved more effective and resulted in less soap-opera-like images than others. A separate Motion Clearness control inserts black frames between the actual video frames, a process that can

At a Glance

Effective local dimming Precise HDR tracking Low price

Poor off-center viewing Minor banding artifacts

$800

(888) 935-8800 hisense.com

reduce motion blur with fewer side effects than the typical frame interpolation techniques. But as is usually the case, the addition of dark frames here produced a dramatic loss of brightness. With all motion compensation controls left off, I saw a trace of judder on film material, mainly on horizontal pans across vertical objects such as fences, but it was never obvious enough to be an issue.

TO CALIBRATE OR NOT TO CALIBRATE

That is the question. In SDR mode, the 65H8G’S Low Color Temperature setting showed both a visible and measurable red shift. The Low-mid setting, which edged a bit toward blue but was no more accurate, will likely please more viewers who don’t pop for a professional video calibration. (People are more tolerant of excessive blue than excessive red in an image, which is why makers of TVS— and laundry detergent!— have long relied on excess blue to grab a viewer’s eyeballs.)

Whether or not an aftermarket calibration, which is typically priced around $400, makes sense for an $800 TV is a personal matter. A calibrated 65H8G might well exceed the performance of an uncalibrated $1,200 set, but there are too many variables involved to say for certain.

Hisense’s onscreen adjustment menus cover the entire right-hand third of the screen from top to bottom. During

calibration, this affected the precision of my readings, which required repeatedly dropping into and out of the menus to check the accuracy for each change, however small. The H8G’S 20-step white balance controls were also ineffective; I eventually abandoned them and used only the 2-step adjustments for both SDR and HDR10 calibrations.

One final setup note: The 65H8G has a user control called HDMI 2.0 Format with both Standard and Enhanced settings. However, the TV won’t maintain different settings of this control for SDR and HDR. It does so initially during setup, but then changes them after you switch from an SDR to an HDR source or vice versa. To avoid this issue, you should use the same setting

for both SDR and HDR (I used Enhanced). Otherwise, the set retains your separate SDR and HDR picture settings and switches between them when you change source formats.

HD/SDR PERFORMANCE

Except as noted, all of the SDR and HDR material used for this review was from Blu-ray and

Ultra HD Blu-ray discs.

The 65H8G’S performance on our standard video tests was superb, with the set upscaling 1080i sources to 4K with no jaggies artifacts or resolution loss. While its optical digital audio output delivered only 2.1 stereo instead of 5.1 soundtracks, there’s always the set’s HDMI ARC connection if you want to send full