Home theater fans will be happy the LG G6 OLED TV fixes this overlooked picture issue its predecessors had — but there’s a catch | Daily Reports Online
The LG G6 OLED TV has arrived and it’s one of the best TVs I’ve tested in the past few years, with improved picture quality and processing power over its predecessor the LG G5 (which was already one of 2025’s best OLED TVs).
Among the improvements I found the G6 has made over the G5 when I put them-side-by-side, in terms of picture quality, are improved reflection handling, a big fullscreen brightness boost, and more refined color reproduction. But the G6 also fixes one of the G-series’ longest running issues: color banding.
What is color banding? Have you ever looked at a picture on screen and when there’s a large gradient of one color, say a sky at sunset, some clear ‘steps’ between different shades of the color appear, making it look ‘blocky’ rather than a smooth, natural gradient? That’s color banding, and it occurs when not enough different colors can be shown to make the gradient look totally natural.
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While the LG G5 is a fantastic TV, color banding has been known to occur. In fact, color banding has been an issue for many OLEDs for some time (though it’s not always caused by the panel, it can be caused by the image source)!
When I was shown the LG G5 side-by-side with the G6 for the first time at an event, a scene from The Green Knight showed off just how reduced the G6’s color banding was compared to the G5.
I’ve had the G6 in for testing for the past few weeks, so I decided to explore this color banding with some other scenes that would highlight the issue.
I’ve taken photos of the results, but bear in mind that because these have been run through image compression to reach the screen you’re viewing them on, that process may have also added in color banding of its own. But, if you can see banding one TV and not the other, that’s a good sign that one TV has struggled and the other is better, still.
Sunset skies
The reason I mentioned skies at sunset above is because they are excellent for showing color banding because of the way a complex gradient of colors is formed. Blues blending with oranges, pinks and purples will really highlight color banding.
I first decided to use a couple of scenes from La La Land, where sunset skies have this exact color profile and lo and behold, the color banding was worse on the G5 than the G6. As Sebastian walks on a pier with the sunset in view, the G6 reproduced the gradient of the sky with greater accuracy, retaining colors while the G5 had the rings you’d expect when banding occurs.
The same was true in the ‘A Lovely Night’ scene; as Sebastian and Mia dance together, the sky, again at sunset, showed more signs of banding on the G5 compared to the G6. This was more subtle however as the sky was less of a focal point compared to the aforementioned pier scene.
It’s a similar story with brighter scenes using the Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark 4K Blu-ray, where blue skies that blend with the horizon show a cleaner, more uniform gradient on the G6 compared to the G5.
While it doesn’t have the same blend of colors to really show off the gradient you’d find in a sunset image, it’s still interesting to note that this banding can occur in a brighter image.
But the above scenes were all tested in HDR10, so I decided to try Dolby Vision HDR in the same scene from The Green Knight that I’d been shown in a demo by LG itself – and this threw in an interesting wrinkle.
The Green Knight
First, I started off viewing The Green Knight in HDR10 once again, in Filmmaker Mode. The scene in question involves Gawain diving into a lake to retrieve a skull. During this scene, a large area of red light, which stands out against the deep blacks in the foreground and left side of the screen, really shows the G5’s color banding, with rings towards the middle and outer sections of the red light. On the G6, the gradient of red color is more uniform as expected, showing the G6’s better color reproduction.
However, switching to Dolby Vision HDR in the same scene, the G5 actually seemed to have less color banding than the G6: the opposite situation to the HDR picture.
While color banding wasn’t as obvious in Dolby Vision on either TV as it had been when using HDR10, there was no denying that the G6 had more visible rings in the red area compared to the G5. It also had a faint gray light on the edge of the red gradient, fading into the black.
I’d been very impressed by the LG G6’s dark scene handling and black level performance, so this was a surprise. The red color itself still looked punchy and vibrant with good accuracy, but with Dolby Vision, the G5 showed less color banding in this scene.
I also tried out Lawrence of Arabia on 4K Blu-ray in Dolby Vision, which has plenty of scenes of the desert sky at various times of day and brightness. In all of these scenes, both TVs showed good uniformity with minor signs of banding: it wasn’t as obvious as it had been with The Green Knight, so this scene appears to be very much a stress test.
A big win overall, but not a total shutout
I’ve rated the LG G6 as a five-star TV in my review, and I stand by that despite the surprising Dolby Vision result here, because I really didn’t see that kind of result in most things. I’ve used the set with far more movies than the ones I’ve mentioned here in Dolby Vision, and loved it without noticing obvious color banding.
There’s a lot more content out there being watched in SDR or HDR10 than Dolby Vision, and the LG G6 handles the first two of those better than the G5, no question.
But there are still improvements LG could make in Dolby Vision, that’s obvious. Maybe it will come in an update – after all, it’s had one already, and it’s only just coming out, so there may be more in the future.
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