In a firmware update, Samsung Electronics has added support for Quick Media Switching to its flagship QD-OLED televisions. This is a feature that will enable users to seamlessly switch between frame rates without the black screen showing up briefly when moving from 60 frames per second to 120 fps and vice versa.
These awkward black screens show up in a lot of places, most often when choosing to watch content from streaming services, where the menu systems often run at 30 fps or 60 fps, whereas most movies run at 24 fps, which is the cinematic standard. Apple TV users may have also noticed it when watching content on YouTube, because on that service the ads generally run at 30 fps, whereas most videos are at 60 fps.
The QMS support is coming to Samsung’s two flagship QD-OLED televisions – namely last year’s Samsung S95C, and this year’s S95D. In the case of the latter, FlatPanels HD says it apparently supported QMS at launch, just that Samsung didn’t advertise the fact previously. As for the S95C, it has always had the necessary hardware to support QMS, but it only gained the functionality recently via a firmware update.
There is no confirmation from Samsung on whether or not QMS will come to its other TVs, such as its 4K Neo QLED Mini-LED TVs or 8K New QLED Mini-LED TVs, such as the QN95D or QN900D.
On Samsung’s TVs, the new feature is called QMS-VRR, as it is reliant on Variable Refresh Rates. For now, it only works when using the Apple TV 4K 3rd Gen from 2022, so the new feature is really about future-proofing Samsung’s TVs, as the QMS standard is expected to pop up in other HDMI-based media players in future.
Samsung wasn’t the first TV maker to enable support for QMS. That honor goes to LG Electronics, which added QMS to its LG G3 and C3 OLED models last year. It’s not clear if or when other brands, such as Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Hisense or TCL will add support for QMS.
