The HDR Experience: A Disappointing Reality

When it comes to High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology, many people are under the impression that it's a game-changer for television viewing. However, our experience with the Fire TV Omni is a stark reminder that this isn't always the case. The peak brightness of 430 nits, while sounding impressive on paper, is not enough to make a significant difference in the overall HDR experience.

Brighter whites may come at the cost of turning darker parts of the screen gray, and this doesn't necessarily translate to an enhanced HDR image. In fact, our testing revealed that brighter whites often come at the expense of detail in dark areas of the screen. The Fire TV Omni's inability to accurately depict dark scenes is a significant drawback, making it feel more like SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) than true HDR.

One of the key technologies behind modern HDR TVs is full array local dimming, which allows the backlight to selectively dim or boost its light output in different zones based on the content being displayed. However, this technology is not present in the Fire TV Omni, resulting in a lackluster viewing experience. The TV's inability to accurately adjust its backlight according to the scene means that details will be lost in both bright and dark areas of the screen.

The absence of full array local dimming also means that the Fire TV Omni struggles with color accuracy, particularly when it comes to HDR content. This is likely due to the fact that the TV's HDR capabilities are largely reliant on the source material rather than any inherent technological advantages. As a result, our testing revealed that the Fire TV Omni's HDR image was often less accurate and nuanced than expected.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Fire TV Omni is its inconvenient backlight adjustment feature. When the TV is not displaying video, the user can only adjust the backlight in the settings menu, but this is typically unnecessary when there is no content to display. This limitation is further compounded by the fact that adjusting the backlight while watching content does not provide any meaningful benefits for HDR performance.

The dynamic backlight feature, which adjusts the entire backlight brightness depending on the scene, is also a disappointment. While it may help improve contrast in some situations, it does little to address the fundamental limitations of the Fire TV Omni's HDR capabilities. In fact, our testing revealed that this feature often resulted in an overly grayed-out image, losing all detail in both bright and dark areas of the screen.

Gaming Performance: A Major Disappointment

As someone who also uses their TV for gaming, I was eager to see how the Fire TV Omni would perform in this regard. Unfortunately, my experience was nothing short of underwhelming. The TV's LCD panel, while not inherently problematic, struggled with input latency, making it feel sluggish and unresponsive.

When watching a game that required quick reflexes, such as Overwatch or League of Legends, I noticed a significant delay between the time an action occurred on screen and when my character responded accordingly. This delay was consistently around 100-150 milliseconds, which is unacceptable for games that require fast and precise inputs.

Fortunately, switching to game mode did alleviate this issue somewhat, but it's clear that this TV is not well-suited for serious gaming. The lack of low input lag and high refresh rates makes it feel like a chore to play, rather than an enjoyable experience.

In conclusion, the Fire TV Omni is a disappointing entry in the world of HDR TVs. While it may look impressive on paper, its performance falls far short of expectations. With mediocre brightness, poor color accuracy, and inadequate backlight adjustment, this TV is not worth considering for anyone looking to upgrade their viewing experience. Even if you're looking at it as an affordable option without too many high-end features, there are better alternatives available in the market, such as TCL or Vizio TVs that offer similar performance at a lower price point.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- What's next?A Kirkland Signature gaming PC.I mean, come on.It's one thing if Amazonwants to shamelessly rip offsomeone's messenger bag,but engineering, a big screen TVis a little morecomplicated than cutting upsomeone else's, turningit into a blueprintand assembling your own,which is why they didn't.But the Fire TV OmniSeries appears to servea very similar purpose.It's been contractmanufactured by someone.Hopefully we can figure outwho by the end of this videoand exist specifically forAmazon to compete directlywith its partners offeringlow everyday pricesand already aggressive dealsduring promotional periodslike Black Friday.The only question to answerbefore millions of yourushed out to buy one thenis, does it totally suck?Thanks to T-Mobile forsponsoring today's video.T-Mobile is a customer-focusedmobile providerwith low rates and nationwidecoverage in the US.Almost any phone works with T-Mobile.To learn more and get $25in credit at linus.t.com.(upbeat music)All right, you got me.It's not quite Amazon basics,but the Fire TV 75 inchOmni is still pretty basic.It takes all the mostimportant boxes, 4K 60 Hertz.HDMI 2.1 with arc, HDRwith Dolby Vision support,voice control with ALEXA andsupport for pretty much any appthat you'd want.But if you were expectinganything more extralike ultra thin bezels, supportfor variable refresh rateor a comprehensive color calibration menu,then you won't need to waste your timechecking out our links down below.For everyone else once youmake it past the initial setup,prompting you for your Amazon account,regular Amazon Firestickusers will find themselvesfeeling very much at home.You've got your main apps.Amazon specifically calls outthere'll be vision supportfor Disney Plus, Netflix and Prime Video.And then along the top,you've got a dumpster fire.Literally 40% of the homescreen is taken up by ads.Fortunately, thenavigation isn't the worst,but all the stuff you careabout is in this little thin barand then the options will populate belowas you navigate through.One weird quirk we ran into during testingwas that picture settingsweren't giving us anything otherthan a brightness option out of the box.We're not sure how, orwhen that got fixed,maybe installing some appsfor some update or something,but it seems okay.Now let's have a look at IO.We've got USB type A, ethernet.It doesn't say how fast,but based on the fact thatits speed test is slowerthan the onboard wifi,I don't think we'll be streamingany original quality,Blu-Ray Rips and plaques.There's a jack for theincluded IR receiver.This is pretty nice.If you don't wanna have to aim your remoteright at the TV, you can justrun it off somewhere else.A digital optical audioport, three HDMI 2.0 ports,and then a fourth HDMI 2.1 port.Now you might wonder whyAmazon bothered with HDMI 2.1.if the panel is 60 Hertz.But being able to take advantage of IR,to pass Dolby Atmos audioto your receiver or soundbaris a pretty good, nice to have.Just like it's nice to havethis sweet, sweet party shirtfrom lttstore.comand like, it's nice to haveaccurate colors on your TV.We're not sure where Amazonis sourcing these panelsand our contact at Portrait isn't sure.- All right.So Linus asked me totake apart the Fire TVand do some digging.This thing is huge.So I got a hand from one ofour new hires in logistics.We got it apart and started searching upthe back link controllers,as well as the like LCDpixel controller boardand basically every code wesearched came back as TCL.So we're pretty sure that'swhat we're dealing with here.Amazon bought either finished TVsor at least a bunch of parts from TCLslapped their logo on thehousing, integrated Firestickand put it in the box and on the shelves.- What I do know is that out of the box,our sample was not very impressive.In standard mode, coloraccuracy had an averageDelta E of 12.6with primary colors likered, green, and bluedoing all right, but anything in betweendipping off significantly.To put that in context,anything over a Delta E of twois going to be noticeableto the human eye.However, putting thedisplay into movie modedrastically improved matters.We've got a very decentaverage Delta E of twowith a max of five and a half, not bad.The main points of failurewere blues and grayswhile red and green were pretty spot on.As for HDR accuracy again inmovie mode, it's not great,but it's markedlyimproved with our averagewithout luminance errorgetting cut in half.So if you care about watching content,as it was intended to be viewed,you're not gonna wanna havethis thing in any picture mode,other than movie.Although you still might notbe getting the full experience.It's not particularlybright, at least in SDR.We measured a peak luminanceof 277 candela per meter squared.For those of you on awarenits and candela per meter squaredare basically interchangeable values.So unless we're talking aboutan enormous projection screen,less than 300 nits, ain't that bright.And unfortunately, in spiteof all the marketing noisemade about it, the HDR experienceis not a whole lot better.Our Fire TV only reached about430 nits peak brightness,which sounds better when comparedto the peak SDR brightness we achieved.But here's the thingbrighter whites that come at the costof turning all the darkparts of the screen, graydo not an HDR image make.And the Fire TV Omniis simply not equippedfor decent HDR performance.The thing is modern IPS and VA type panelsrely on a technology calledfull array, local dimming,where the back lightshining through the panel,selectively dims or boostsits light output in zones,depending on the contentbeing displayed in each zone.So this thing we're looking at right here,you'd wanna turn down theback light at the bottomand turn it up at the top.So the star shine nice and bright.And if the significantbacklight bleed in the cornersand along the bottomedges anything to go byyou won't find that technology heremaking this TV yet anothernotch in our HDRint belt.And of course, adding insult to injury,our color accuracy was significantlyworse when testing HDR.That's not to say that, you know,it'll necessarily be noticeable.Let's give it a chancein the real world, right?Oh, that's super annoying.So the stupid thing where wecan only adjust the backlightin the settings menu is back.When it's not on a source,if it's absent video, you can't adjust it.We had a whole paragraphabout how inconvenient this isbecause on a TV where you aregoing to be wanting to adjustyour picture settings,you can't be looking at contentwhile you make your tweaks.Like what's the point of getting somethingwith a Fire TV built-inand then you have to go buyan Nvidia shield anyway,so that you can actually runin the right picture profile?So when the contents actually playing,you can change, what?To clarify it has thisdynamic backlight feature.So that will adjust theentire backlights brightnessdepending on the scene, butthat will not help you with HDR.Good Lord, this thing is not very bright.Oh, my God.I can't even see anything.So much for the dynamiccontrast or dynamic backlight.So now the whole image is just gray.We get HDR signal, but that is not HDR.Like all the detail in thedark parts of the sceneis completely lost.And you can kind of getthe specular highlightsoff of Toothless' scalesand stuff like thatbut they're not bright.It's not HDR.They don't sparkle like thewhite dragon, the Light Furyyou're supposed toreally see like glintingoff of the white scalesand stuff like that.It's not there.And what I opened this up to talk about,which is color accuracy.It's not over cooking greensor reds or any of the thingsI would normally look for in a cheaper TV.It's actually like reallysolid as far as the color goes.I think this is just anexpectations problem for Amazon.If they didn't talk somuch about the Dolby Visioncompatibility in HDR, I'd belooking at this going, okay.I wanna talk about gaming.It's an LCD panel.So we don't have to worry about burning,but how does it actually feel?Well, one thing I can tellyou is whatever you do,don't leave it in anythingbut game mode for gaming,or you're going to havea seriously bad timewhen it comes to input latency.Oh, I guess I got to try that now.- Yeah.- Oh, fantastic.Holy bananas.That is horrendous.I mean, you guys can probablysee this through the camera.We don't even need a high-speed camera.Watch this, watch this,look at that delay.It's exactly as bad as I expected it to bebased on the desktop.You just cannot react tothings quickly like this game.Oh, that's so much better.Yeah. That feels very better.Everything looks so doll though.We can try turning on thedynamic backlight again.No. It just really doesn'tlook very good for $1,000 TV.I'm sorry.Like I know it's big,but you still might as welljust get the TCL or the Vizio.- Same price, same size.- Yeah.In standard picture mode,which is what it comes set to defaultand what I'm playing in right now.We measured an averageclick to photon latencyof 139 millisecondsusing our Nvidia Elder.That's not just bad.That is outright unplayable in gamesthat require precise inputs,like \"Super Meat Boy\".And fixing the issue endedup being kind of confusing.You see, normally picturemode just applies presetsto color tint, saturation,that sort of thing.But here the game picture profile,which a lot of the timewe'll do stupid stufflike boosting up dark parts of the scenealso enables low-latency processing,which put us all theway down to an averageof 29 milliseconds from click to photon.That is pretty darn good.Now to be clear,many TVs these days dohave a game mode settingto help produce latency.It's just usually, orat least on good TVs,it's its own setting and notbuilt into the picture profile.Both of our tests we're using \"CS GO\"running at around 280 frames per second,which is much fasterthan our 60 Hertz panelcan take advantage of.And honestly, (laughs) thisis funny before we read it,our color measurements in movie mode,we said you should justleave it in this modebecause the accuracy is nodifferent from standard,but you're gonna wanna be flipping backbetween movie mode and game mode,depending on what you're doing.Although I would probablymake the argument,you shouldn't be flipping back and forthbetween either of thembecause you just shouldn't buy this TV.Which raises a pretty big question.Linus, why are there somany five star reviewsfor this thing?Are you just being a hater?Well, no offense, but there's a reasonthat the people giving thisthing five star reviewsare school teachers orbus drivers or lawyersor whatever else it is that they dorather than tech reviewers.I mean, I don't doubtthat it's a lot betterthan their old TV.That's kind of how technology goes,but compared to otheroptions that you can getin this same price range,like this TCL 5-Series Roku TVthat does have local dimming,or this Vizio M-Serieswith Airplay, Chromecast,variable refresh rate,and local dimming.The Fire TV Omni reallystruggles to stand out.I mean maybe if you're really into Amazonspecial sauce featureslike the microphone,which thankfully includesa physical disable switchor the webcam support for video chat,which is coming in a future update.And Airplay support, which is also comingin a future update.Then I guess maybe youcould kind of justify it.But for my part,I think it's fair to say that Kirklandprobably would have done it better.Better luck next year Amazon.Privacy lets you buy thingsonline using virtual cardsrather than having to use your real card,protecting identity andyour bank informationon the internet.Like have you ever signedup for a free trialand then forgotten aboutit only to find chargeson your account for a subscription serviceyou never really wanted?With privacy.com, youcan create a new cardjust for that trial.All you do is designatethe card to be single useand set the monthly spending limit to $1.So companies actually cannotcharge you even if you forget.Privacy.com is PCI DSScompliant and uses encryptionto secure your information.They also offer two factor authenticationand since they make money for merchants,there is no cost to you.In fact, if you sign uptoday, you'll get $5 for free.So check it out todayat privacy.com/linus.That's privacy.com/linus.Are you looking for a new TV?Love Amazon hate Amazon,let us know in the commentsand if you like this video,be sure to check out our videoon the Skyworth 55 XC 9000,a 65-inch OLED display thatyou can actually get for lessthan what this thing costs.And the brightness isn'teven actually that much worseeven though it's OLED.Yeah, this thing is sort of poo poo.\n"