THX Gaming Mode: another useless certification?
5.8.2020
Translation: Patrik Stainbrook
THX, founded in 1983 by Star Wars creator George Lucas, is releasing new details on the upcoming THX Gaming Mode for TVs. The question is: what does it even do?
THX, the American tech company mainly active in the field of sound and image reproduction, wants to set a new standard for TV manufacturers with its own game mode for TV sets.
For quite some time now, their collaboration with TV manufacturer TCL has been public knowledge. The 2020 6-series models are equipped with «THX Gaming Mode». Up until recently, we only knew that the collaboration existed. Now THX has revealed new details about its own game mode.
The real question is: what's even the point?
THX wants cinema-quality images at low input lag
May 1983: Star Wars creator George Lucas founds THX Ltd. as a certification service for cinemas based in San Francisco, California. The driving force behind the company is sound engineer Tomlinson Holman, who repeatedly notes that the film sound he has mixed in the studio often doesn't reach the cinema in the same way.
Holman develops a crazy system of standards that unifies acoustics from the recording studio to the movie theatre, taking into account not only the environment and its characteristics, but also things like air conditioning. Voilà: THX is born.
Nearly forty years later, THX now wants to have televisions certified in terms of game compatibility. The criteria for a good gaming TV are different from those of a TV that is mainly used for watching movies and series.
THX's sudden interest in the gaming industry may be driven by Razer Inc., the gaming and computer hardware manufacturer that has owned THX since 2016. As their first partner, the Californians have chosen one of the fastest growing TV manufacturers in recent years: Chinese technology giant TCL.
According to the press release, more than 400 tests have been conducted to ensure that THX Gaming Mode delivers things like balanced colour reproduction and low input lag. In fact:
Colour: Games are intentionally programmed brighter and more saturated than movies and series. THX game mode is designed to ensure that colour reproduction is more accurately matched to the developers' ideas than to those of Hollywood colourists.
Frame rate: With THX Gaming Mode, certified devices must allow a refresh rate of 120 Hz or higher at UHD resolution.
Input Lag: Input lag is the time it takes for a TV to display commands it receives from an external signal source on the screen. THX Game Mode has to drastically reduce this delay. Exact details aren't yet known.
Response time: This basically describes how fast pixels can change their colour and brightness. The better the response times, the less fast-moving objects such as crosshairs in first-person shooters blur. Exact details on how low the response times will be in THX Game Mode are still unknown.
Sharpness: THX aims to reduce motion blur in THX Gaming Mode with Black Frame Insertion.
Smartness: THX Gaming Mode certified TVs are designed to automatically detect whether THX Gaming Mode enabled consoles or PCs are connected to the TV and automatically switch to the appropriate specs.
It all sounds promising. Or does it?
THX Gaming Mode: just another marketing ploy?
TV and its picture modes. The basic idea behind it is good. When you unpack your TV for the first time and turn it on, its probably in «Standard» mode. This is usually a mode with pre-programmed picture settings that you can use for just about anything: watching movies, series or even playing games.
Depending on the content, there are additional modes that are specifically designed to meet the needs of the user. «Dynamic» mode, for example, increases brightness and contrast to such an extent that the picture hardly looks natural, but is easier to see in bright living rooms. «Cinema» mode usually provides a warmer image, closer to the visions of Hollywood directors and colourists. «Game» mode switches off unnecessary image enhancement processes that shorten processing time, which in turn ensures low input lag – the be-all end-all for gamers.
But: more and more certifiers are trying to create their own settings. What started out as a seal of approval instead degenerates into a big picture mode mess. Like Panasonic's GZC2004-OLED-TV, which I recently tested.
It offers about six cinema modes. Although they’re visually hardly any different from each other, they all promise to be something along the line of «Hollywood tuning».
- Cinema
- THX Cinema
- THX Bright Room
- True Cinema
- Professional 1
- Professional 2
What you might not know yet: «Filmmaker» mode is up next, which is supposed to display movies exactly as the director intended. As far as I know, both the 2020 Panasonic models and the 2020 LGs have the certified «Filmmaker» mode, which is actually just another version of what «Cinema» mode usually accomplishes. Why was it necessary?
The thing is: certified picture modes that bring little real added value for buyers make the certification authorities good money from collecting the corresponding certificates. On the other hand, manufacturers can advertise with the certificates or obtain free PR if the press reports on them uncritically.
As funny as it sounds: certificates are sexy. At least from a marketing point of view.
Where does THX Gaming Mode fit in?
As I said, THX's interest in the gaming industry will be closely tied to its gaming hardware manufacturing parent – Razer. The timing for the announcement of THX Gaming Mode might also be related to the upcoming new console generation. Many potential Playstation 5 or Xbox Series X buyers will already be flirting with the purchase of a new gaming TV, which will exhaust the hardware of new consoles.
So is THX Gaming Mode a quality seal of approval for gaming TVs or is it more of a marketing ploy?
Previous experience shows: it's probably the latter. There's talk of 400 tests, which neither THX nor TCL closely examined. In addition, THX promises a lot, but doesn't give concrete numbers. What is the maximum input lag in THX Gaming Mode? What about the response time? That makes me suspicious. Without verifiable details, we'll only get marketing for the time being.
Anyway: the playback device can't be the only thing supporting THX mode. The signal source, i.e. the next-gen console or the connected gaming computer, must also be THX Gaming Mode certified for it to work properly. So far, nothing is known about compatibility with next-gen consoles or PCs.
Luca Fontana
Senior Editor
Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.chI'm an outdoorsy guy and enjoy sports that push me to the limit – now that’s what I call comfort zone! But I'm also about curling up in an armchair with books about ugly intrigue and sinister kingkillers. Being an avid cinema-goer, I’ve been known to rave about film scores for hours on end. I’ve always wanted to say: «I am Groot.»
