Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Gallery Updated the TV

The old 58" Plasma died last weekend, reasonably good timing with Black Friday deals already out there, upgraded to a 85" Samsung Q70. This picture does not do it justice.

Still looks puny in that big room. I dropped Disney+ after one day. Not enough content for me.

I'm still on the fence as to whether i'm going to settle on:

• a really large current top of the line 75" LED based tv (don't care for the LED downsides including off angle contrast),
• wait one more year for OLED prices to continue to improve and spend way more on a 75" OLED (significantly higher cost, worth it or not vs. dollars for a new AVR as well?), or
• not bother with the 75" and find a cost middle ground with a 65" OLED instead (lower cost but the picture i want while extra cash difference can go towards a new AVR and this size is still 15" larger than the current unit).

Presently still hanging on to the old Toshiba RPTV 50" circa 2002 (it's vintage now!). I'm surprised the old girl has lasted this long.
Hold out in part b/c once i change out the TV, i'll need a new AVR with HDMI capability as well. The cost steamrolls.

I ended up snagging an LG OLED65C9 from Costco. Size stayed the same, coming from a 65" Panasonic plasma. I was debating and debating which TV to get, too. I would have loved to go to a bigger size for 4K, but I wanted the blacks of OLED, since I'm watching in a dark basement. I don't need the brightness levels of other technologies. I'd been collecting UHD Blu-rays since they started coming out, so I'm finally able to enjoy them full-on, not just watching the normal Blu-rays that accompany them. The image quality is continually impressing me.

There are a couple of weirdnesses. I disabled motion smoothing and other enhancements, and while it did reduce the soap opera effect, the motion presented still seems smoother than it used to on the plasma. I'm hoping it will just take some more reading. One side effect I couldn't have predicted is now I'm seeing things in real life moving more smoothly than I ever have before. It's off-putting.

The other thing I'll have to work out is Dolby Vision. I'm getting some weird sparkly/snowy looking artifacts at the very top of the screen sometimes when watching Dolby Vision titles. They have also appeared throughout the image as well, as not appearing at all. Oh, and it has even said "invalid format" on the TV a couple of times, even as the audio works. My suspicion right now is that my 35' HDMI cable is not adequate for the bandwidth.

jakewash, that would be the perfect size for my space. I'm very jealous of that.

Just curious which year that model came from. If it was older i suspect that motion tweaking would improve with newer models. If it was newer, i'm wondering if LG (not being the only OLED seller anymore) is just not the top of the game.

In reading a few years of OLED reviews, LG was the first leader in coming out with units and now there's a few other big names producing more models. I'm not an early adopter for the very reason that the little things take time to iron out and quality improves dramatically. I go back to the first days of LCD tv and i had a Phillips which was 4 inches thick and had the fast motion blur effects to which i was very sensitive, and now with LED versions, so much has changed and improved but that's 10+ years later. That being said, the problem of off axis contrast loss is still an overall issue but some brands/models are much better than others. I've just found that LG never improves as much on the faults.

Most of the LG tv reviews i've read over the years indicate improvement in the quality of their OLED but they don't seem to take top honours now that their are other companies in the mix putting more dollars into the new tech.
e.g.
https://www.whathifi.com/us/reviews/lg-oled65c9pla

Rival Samsung edges it at brightness extremes
Beaten for motion
Convoluted menus

At some point i will go OLED but what brand/model and price point will take some research with size being the one variable to assist with cost reduction if necessary/preferred.

It's a 2019. I figured I was already paying enough of a premium for OLED. I didn't think it would be worth it to pay even more for the Sony name. I'm sure I can be happy enough with this set until MicroLED is into a couple of iterations on the market.

Indeed, buying the Sony name still incurs a cost penalty, but i have to say other than the off angle contrast with the LED we have, the quality has been very impressive.

When it comes to OLED, the big three i'm thinking of are LG, Sony and Panasonic (all have same panel manufacturer but processor chips are likely different). It looks like there are some others but i can't say i have much confidence in their build quality/backend electronics (e.g. processor chips) at this time.
https://www.oled-info.com/oled-devices/latest-OLED-tvs

I'm wondering if Samsung is every going to get on the bandwagon or whether they'll keep trying to plug their high end LEDs but at ever dropping prices (hence declining profit margins as time progresses).

Either way, i'm on borrowed time until the inevitable death of our existing unit so i cannot wait for something like microled to develop. OLED will be the logical replacement and probably sometime relatively soon.

I would stick with Sony and Panasonic. I was looking at OLED to replace my plasma and from the research I could find Sony and Panasonic have higher quality electronics, not sure if that really makes a difference but it sounds like LG has a bit of an issue with some of the drivers etc.

Ultimately the size and price of the 85" won out and I have to say the black levels on this are extremely good. With a screen this big, off axis is pretty far to the side, greater than 45 deg. before any issues are noticed.

I picked up the Sony 75 900f last year. Upscaling is incredible, probably one of the best features of it. Would have liked the 85" version but for the bell curve on pricing as you go up in size...