Since I was aware of this rising MLL problem before I bought the TV, I decided to keep a track of my black level from day one. I did not want to spend money on a colorimeter to read the values off the screen but used a camera with complete manual setup shooting a black screen in a dark room during the night to keep the variables to a minimum throughout the years. My aim was shooting the same image every two weeks or so and besides full black screen I also prepared one screenshot of a dark movie scene (I believe it’s from some Batman flick) and a sample photographic color chart (some random picture from the internets) to see how the changing MLL affects picture quality. I present here those pictures in original 1920×1080 dimensions so you can download the files and use them before and after reset (comparing them to my images will not make much sense as every camera/sensor/processing/lenses is a bit different on each maker/model).

The first rise I experienced between 232 and 295 hours, second between 942 and 994 hours, and third (final?) between 2176 and 2326 hours. Since I do not watch a lot dark movies, some changes I did not notice immediately. If I remember correctly, the first rise was obvious and I spotted it at once since I was watching the panel closely from 0 hour. Second one I kind of felt it happened but was not sure 100% and the last one I only spotted after comparing the pictures on a computer (probably because I was not paying so much attention to the MLL anymore).

After the reset I took another picture of a black screen. From the image I can conclude that the reset brought back the MLL to the state it was when the set was new. I photoshopped all the readings (averaging the MLL) into one picture so it’s easier to spot and compare the black level.

Here is a gallery of full-sized unmodified photos of my black screen. You can observe that some readings feature some IR ghosting but the jumps can be clearly distinguished between the shots. I will post also those real-life images for comparison. The pictures were taken on uncalibrated input in default settings so they serve just a reference in-between the measurements.

Next section: Final thoughts