The Annual TV Shootout at CE Week 2017 is an an annual event that has grown and evolved over the years. Unlike years past, where a "King of TVs" was crowned by an audience vote, 2017 brought changes to the scoring. This year, a panel of judges who work in the AV or film industry voted in three categories: Studio Lighting/Home Theater, HDR, and Streaming Performance. And the winner? For all three categories, it was the LG E7.

Joel Silver, founder of ISF (Imaging Science Foundation), was the primary presenter, and he was joined by the esteemed calibration expert and president of ISFTV , Kevin Miller. Tyler Pruitt from SpectraCal lent his expert hand to the proceedings by calibrating the displays.

ISF founder Joel Silver hosted the Annual TV Shootout at CE Week 2017.
This year's competition was between six TVs from five manufacturers, all at a 65" screen size. The TVs were the LG E7 OLED , Sony A1E OLED, Sony Z9D LCD, Samsung Q9F LCD , Vizio P Series LCD, and a suprise last-minute entry from Westinghouse, the WA65UFA1001 Amazon Fire TV Edition LCD. Also on hand was a $30,000 Sony BVM-X300 mastering/grading OLED monitor that provided a true reference.

Studio Lighting/Home Theater

Congratulations to LG for taking the Studio Lighting/Home Theater prize with its E7 OLED, which is most akin to the "King of TVs" award from years past. Historically, emissive displays have won the shootout far more often than transmissive models, and 2017 continued the trend with OLED.

Wide viewing angles, accurate colors, and excellent contrast combined to give the E7 an edge over its OLED competitor, the Sony A1E. However, the Sony was given an honorable mention for coming close to the LG.
HDR

Even with HDR, where LCDs enjoy an advantage in peak luminance, the judges and audience found more to like in the performance of the OLEDs. The LG E7 eked out another win here, thanks to a greater contrast ratio as compared to the Sony A1E. Once again, OLED technology is the winner.

Streaming Performance

Streaming performance relies on image-processing technologies like noise reduction that are typically not used on pristine source material. Here, the the LG E7 OLED won again, beating out the Sony A1E.

The sweep of all three categories, combined with four consecutive years of wins for LG OLED TVs at the shootout, demonstrates that emissive display technology remains the videophile's favorite. Congratulations to LG!




Home Theater Geeks Episode 363






HDR Calibration Reports

Here are the calibration reports for all six TVs involved in the shootout. Please note that the Westinghouse did not offer calibration controls.

LG E7 ( OLED65E7P  )


 




Sony A1E ( XBR65A1E  )


 




Sony Z9D ( XBR-65Z9D )


 




Samsung Q9F ( QN65Q9F )



Vizio P65 ( P65-E1 )






Westinghouse ( WA65UFA1001 )