If you’re a regular reader of What Hi-Fi?, you will undoubtedly have noticed there are some films that we come back to time and time again to put the latest tech to the test.
Bladerunner 2049’s starting scene, for example, is one that most of us have seen at least 20 times. The quite frankly rubbish film Pan is another one that crops up because it is mastered to an unusually high brightness figure at 4000 nits.
Now, there is another film that has ticked a lot of boxes in terms of what we’re looking for in a test disc. Enter Conclave.
As soon as I started watching Edward Berger’s Conclave at the cinema, I knew it would make a great addition. So, I invite you to peek behind the curtain and see why this makes such a good tester.
I sat down to watch the movie on Apple TV streaming on two TVs side by side, the 48-inch LG OLED C4 and the 55-inch Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED Mini LED Series. The 4K edition is yet to be released, so I opted for HDMI10 on the LG and HDMI10+ on the Amazon TV.
After the death of the Pope, Cardinal Lawrence (played by Ralph Fiennes) is given the task of finding the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Powerful religious leaders flock to the Vatican, and Lawrence discovers a trail of secrets that could change everything.
The importance of colour
First off, this is an excellent test disc when it comes to colour. During the first conclave when the initial votes are cast for whom the next pope should be, the high-ceilinged room is adorned in opulent fabrics. The various religious leaders in the room are no less lavishly dressed in identical red robes, creating a sea of scarlet. On the OLED, these rich colours are shown in dazzling detail whereas the Mini LED offers a more balanced palette.
There is certainly a balance to be had between the richness of the colours and making them seem unrealistically bright. As the colour palette is limited to mostly red, white and black, Conclave offers a great test of how subtle a TV can be.
It’s all in the (dark) detail
Another way our latest tester runs the two TVs through their paces is with its black levels. One scene that sticks out is when Fiennes’ Cardinal Lawrence is settling down to bed before hearing loud voices outside his room. He’s wearing an all-black robe (an excellent pyjama choice, I must say) and the space around him is bathed in darkness.
With the Mini LED, these different levels of black tend to blur into more of a grey and don’t manage to capture the subtleties of the picture. Instead of seeing exactly where his body ends and the room begins, for example, you can only see his face peeking out of the darkness among the black crush. The OLED, on the other hand, manages to differentiate better between his clothes and the dark area around him.
Brighter does not equal better
The film’s lighting is also a stand-out factor. As there are barely any scenes set in the outside world, most of the characters are portrayed under artificial light. This can be a challenge for TVs to make a person’s skin look realistic. There’s a fine line between someone’s skin looking naturally blushed and like they have just run a marathon. On the other side of the coin, you do not want a character’s face to look ghostly pale unless the situation calls for it. When some of the conclave break off for a secret meeting in an amphitheatre, a stream of white light is shining into the centre of the scene. Where the OLED certainly makes the scene bright, the Mini LED does a better job at making the characters’ faces look natural under such harsh light.
All this adds up to mean that, rest assured, you will be hearing plenty more about how Conclave puts TVs to the test in future reviews.
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