Go Easy on the Jargon…
I have been a faithful reader for many years, from Stereo Review to Sound & Vision. I’ve read many television reviews through the years and ingested the tech jargon, which mostly seemed self-explanatory. But Thomas J. Norton threw me for a loop in his recent review of the Sony XBR- 65A8H OLED TV (October/november). In the HD/SDR Performance section, he wrote: “I saw no posterization (false conturing). I’m sorry, what? In the same paragraph he mentioned “streaking,” and “dirty screen effect,” Huh? Can we get a glossary of terms to accompany your TV reviews?
Michael Wozniak
/ Lake Havasu City, AZ
Thomas J. Norton replies: We’ve used the terms posterization and false contouring before, but you may have missed them.
Both refer to essentially the same issue. A good example would be a blue sky near sunset, when the blue of the sky transitions smoothly as the brightness of the sky varies from light to near dark. But instead of varying smoothly as it does in life, with posterization (aka false contouring) it varies in obvious steps. The “dirty screen effect” refers to a randomly varying, blotchy gray haze across the screen (therefore the name). Streaking refers to a somewhat more uniform unevenness in the image, usually vertical. The good news is that both can be very hard to spot with real world, complex images. To test for both problems, we typically view full-screen, solid, stationary test patterns of varying brightness, from very dark gray to near full white, as this can clearly reveal if either issue is present. Few sets are perfect in this regard though, as noted, it’s usually hard to spot either problem on real-world images. is, and how I would benefit from using it. Even though I’m an electrical engineer, like many of your readers I’m still using a 10-year-old A/V receiver to power a 5.1 surround speaker system. I understand that my equipment is getting really dated and attempt to use your reviews to guide my upgrade decisions.
A recent example of what I’m talking about: the NAD M33 “Streaming Integrated Amplifier” review in the December 2020/ January 2021 issue. With no closeup image of the rear panel, it was unclear if it might augment my current system or would constitute a wholesale upgrade (which I’m almost ready to do anyway). Overall, Daniel Kumin did a terrific job, and Kris Deering’s review in the same issue of the Monoprice Monolith 16-channel surround sound processor was also well done, but in that case I also don’t have a clue whether I need this unit. Technology changes rapidly and existing components are puzzle parts that your readers are tasked with fitting together. Please provide a lead-in background tutorial on the component under review, and how it might fit into an existing system.
Rik Pierson
/ via email
AG replies: Thank you for taking us to task for not doing a good enough job of contextualizing new products in our reviews and explaining how they might integrate in an existing system— something I’m sure many readers other than yourself are concerned with. Between the NAD M33 streaming integrated amplifier, Monoprice HTP-1 surround processor, and Denon AVR-X6700H A/ V receiver, the December/ January issue was packed with cutting- edge gear, and it appears we got carried away with nerding- out over their advanced capabilities. Point taken, and we will try harder in the future to provide a simplified introduction to, and broader context for, products reviewed in
Sound & Vision.