Hi all,
So, snagged my first HDTV/4k last year and a week ago started noticing a slight line that seemed to appear only when the scenes were really dark.My girlfriend thought I was crazy as she couldn't see it and at first I thought I was going nuts too. But, once I saw it I couldn't unsee it and started mucking around with the settings to see if it could be fixed.

After doing some searches online it appears it's Vertical Banding. From what I have read, most LCDs (even on pricier sets) will have this and a lot of people just deal with it. I suppose my thought there is if I paid to get good picture why should I have to "deal" with this streak or two on black/smokey scenes.

What are some people's here thoughts on this? Does your TV have vertical banding? I've read it lessens over time?

It's also called "DSR" or Dirty Screen Effect. Most panels have some version of it, save for maybe OLED. I have a 6 Series TCL 55", and it's absolutely rocking on PQ - except for the banding, which happens in certain instances when the screen gets white. In general, I have no idea if it lessens, although for me, it's remain the same. I will say it doesn't happen every time the screen is white, so it's not consistent on my panel. I have read some people have NO DSR on their panels, what they often call the "panel lottery". Sounds like there are flawless panels very few and far between. People often return theirs an try for better panels, but I decided to just roll with my first one to see how it is. Overall, it can be annoying, but I can live with the DSR on mine. It doesn't happen all the time, and it's mostly only when watching network TV during bright scenes. Anything I watch in 4K looks so damn good.

Thanks for replying. I just started reading this thread on avforums today that dates back to 2017 (https://www.avsforum.com/forum/40-ol...ignetting.html) where people are showing their screens on a 5% grey test over on Youttube and some look worse than mine, others better but, what really puzzles me, ALL have it as though this should be the norm in home viewing. Ok, sure, my old Sony Wega 100 lbs television won't rack up to state of the art, couldn't show 4k, etc. but certainly didn't have streaks running down it.

I guess what I am wondering is why we have accepted this as "normal" or how sets are now made so, in short, best get used to it.

I mean, I admit, I am kinda' anal about my viewing of things in many ways. A burnt pixel on a monitor is something I can't help focus on and this banding or dirty screen effect is another. I imagine it was there for the first three months of ownership and not noticed but, again, not that I see it I can't unsee it.

I'm super picky, but remember sort of the same effect in the middle on some CRTs. I've had my LG for 2 years now and just figured out a problem with it- there is a pink color baked into the panel. I noticed it when I first got it but thought it could be adjusted- I don't know why it took me 2 years to figure out that it's in the panel itself, and the pink doesn't reduce even when turning color all the way down til the picture is black and white. I use my computer on it so this shows itself worst when the screen is all white. It's still rather subtle, and hardly noticeable on regular material. I've seen far worse in pictures of other TVs online, so this is probably within "manufacturer's tolerance" as they call it. Probably impossible to replace the panel at this point even if I were willing to pay for it; figure I can live with it but gives me reason to get a projector as soon as I have room to set one up. This will still be the last TV I ever buy if they never make ones that can show 3D again.

Someone on another forum mentioned that they saw this problem also and it went away when they moved their speakers. My speakers are very close, as I've got extremely limited space here. I tried moving one speaker away from it for a minute and that didn't change anything right away, but after moving it might. The clouding on it in dark scenes was pretty bad when it was new, but that seems to have settled down since then.

So a year later after posting this thread I opted to take the TV back as the banding was too distracting.

During the holidays I picked up one of those TCL TVs everyone is raving about online annnnnnddd...a band or two appeared as the poster above described during lighter scenes, especially grey skies and smoke. I tried, damn it I tried, to ignore this and let it go but my "you can do better" brain thought, well, you can do better. I returned it for same set and, oy, this one is worse: four corners are darker, not only two or three vertical banding lines but also horizontal ones. Trying to play PS4 makes this very obvious.

Seriously, what the hell is up with these televisions?

Going to return this one and hope for the best on #3 but, you know, if you roll the dice each time I am kicking myself for not keeping the somewhat tolerable previous set.

Is this going to be something I'll just have to accept. You'd think they'd have fixed this by now.