OPINION: Earlier this week, I travelled to Frankfurt to the World of Samsung event to get a closer look at the TVs, soundbars, and projectors that the Korean electronics giant is launching this year.
As you’d expect from any tech brand worth its salt, AI was at the centre of the story, with algorithms driving the performance and conversation.
Though AI has been in TVs for several years, with the rise of ChatGPT and other language models, it’s become an exciting thing for companies to latch on and tell their story alongside.
Speaking for myself though, I’m not so sure it’s as exciting as it could be.
if( window.ipcTags.section === ‘mobile’ ) {
var widget_1_sid = null;
window.addEventListener(‘message’, (event) => {
if (
event?.data &&
typeof event.data === ‘string’ &&
event.data.indexOf(‘lre:playerReady://’) === 0)
{
let sessionData = JSON.parse(event.data.slice(‘lre:playerReady://’.length));
console.log(‘lre:playerReady’, sessionData);
let widget = window.anyclip.getWidget(null, sessionData.sessionId);
if (widget) {
console.log(‘LRE WIDGET READY’, widget);
widget.pauseMon();
} else {
console.log(‘LRE WIDGET NOT FOUND’);
}
}
});
}
.keystone-video-block .flexible-container .ac-lre-player-ph-ext {
position: relative;
padding-bottom: calc((2 / 3.1) * 100%);
padding-top: 30px;
height: 0;
overflow: hidden;
}
.keystone-video-block .flexible-container .ac-lre-player-ph-ext.ac-lre-carousel-vertical {
padding-bottom: calc((2 / 3.9) * 100%);
}
.keystone-video-block .flexible-container .acw1 {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
}
@media only screen and (min-width:1301px){
.keystone-video-block .flexible-container .ac-lre-player-ph-ext {
padding-bottom: 440px;
}
.keystone-video-block .flexible-container .ac-lre-player-ph-ext.ac-lre-carousel-vertical {
padding-bottom: 350px;
}
}
The AI Vision of the TV future
My view of AI in TVs has moved towards it making things more efficient. Rather than burrowing through dense menus to find a setting or trying to mould the picture the way you want it, the most sensible way to incorporate AI would be ways in which either it gets the viewer where they want to go quicker, or it removes the hassle of performing a function.
Where the likes of Samsung and LG, along with Panasonic and a few others, have moved towards is an AI picture mode. Panasonic has had it on premium TVs (like 65z95a) for the last few years in its Auto picture mode that detects what you’re watching and changes the picture and sound to reflect that. So if I’m watching news, ideally the mode should make voices clearer. If I’m watching a film, the TV will automatically know and change the picture mode to movie so I don’t have to manually do that.
Samsung’s Vision AI is doing something similar but on a slightly more ambitious scale.
Switch on the AI mode and it’ll optimise the picture and sound while adapting to the environment you’re watching the TV in. The TV’s light sensor will know how bright it is in the room and change accordingly, the idea is that it’ll produce the most optimal experience for your living room.
I’m not too sure about that claim.
AI is smart but not wise
Trying the AI feature on the Samsung Frame Pro and it seemed to forget that I was watching a film in the first place. The AI mode gave the film a cooler colour temperature as if I was watching it in the TV’s Standard picture mode, and it turned the warmth of the Movie mode into a darker image, one with more contrast but at the expense of detail.
I can’t say I like it much as the Vision AI seemed to completely disregard what I was watching and create its own alternative of what it thought the picture should look like. It looked less like a movie and more like a daytime TV program.
Then I tried the AI features on Samsung’s Q990F 8K TV. The AI Gamma feature analyses the content and room environment and then re-calculates gamma (basically the brightness of the picture) in real time. It should allow for more detail to be seen in the darker parts of the image, so you’re seeing everything you’re meant to see.
In the demos Samsung showcased in its Tech Seminar it worked effectively on its new OLED TVs, but trying it with real-world content (4K Blu-rays), and I found the changes were harder to see. Perhaps no changes were made because there were no changes needed, but I’ve viewed the same content on other TVs and seen better shadow detail.
And then there was an issue with the AI mode. It seemed to recreate the TV’s Dynamic picture mode. It made the image very bright but was not as sharp, not as detailed and less ‘natural’ looking than the Movie mode (which I should add, looked great). It was a Dynamic mode by any other name, and when I’m watching a movie, that’s not how I want it to look.
The question I was left with was why would I want AI optimisation when it made the picture look worse?
Right now I’d prefer if AI had more of an unseen hand than a very noticeable one, as its idea of picture quality is not the same as mine.
I understand where Samsung and other TV manufacturers are coming from though. Most people tend to leave the picture mode in Eco or Standard, and this AI mode would get around that by knowing what it is that you’re watching and massaging the image and sound in response.
The problem is that it feels like a rather rough massage. I don’t doubt that it’ll get better over time but I find the AI more heavy-handed than subtle, and more towards how Samsung wants you to watch on its TVs than how you want to watch. There’s a risk that AI will decide how we should watch films and TV series but the problem is that it doesn’t seem to know what we like in the first place.
You might like…
The post Sound & Vision: I see the potential of AI TVs but I'm still unsure about them appeared first on Trusted Reviews.
