Apr
17
We’re inundated with advertising on a daily basis it seems as if it follows us at every turn, you might even find a bit here. But occasionally advertising goes beyond hawking products and actually attempts to educate you in the process. Take for example Panasonic’s Premiere plasma campaign, it asks the simple question: Looking for true black or black that’s true?
The question in of itself is one some may not have pondered and those who are aware that black level is important, may not have realized that there’s more to black level than just absolute black reproduction. You may have heard me mention grayscale or shadow detail, well take a look at the illustration at Panasonic’s Premiere page and hover over the image. I think you’ll quickly see that there’s more to black level than just the ability to reproduce deep, dark blacks.
Hovering over the lower left portion of the cave gives a good representation of what I refer to as crushed blacks (note, the actual performance of the premiere is irrelevant for my purposes and this shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement). Yes any given display may indeed create deep, dark blacks but if it destroys any semblance of detail in the process, who cares?
Kudos (not Kuro) to Panasonic for at least wanting to hold themselves to this level and trying to educate the public at the same time, they clearly believe they have a high performance product on their hands and I’m anxious to get a look at one. Regardless of what brand you’re interested in I recommend finding a scene like the one simulated in the ad and use it as your benchmark for determining black level. I would recommend the chase scene in Batman Begins and in particular the scenes inside the batmobile; view that clip on several different displays, I’m sure some of them will reveal details missed by other displays.
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