Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Time for a new TV....

I had to start wearing glasses about a year ago. Still trying to get used to them. It's been a hard fight. Guess I'm lucky that it took 50 years of life to start going blind.....

In my great room, I have been using a 55" Panasonic plasma TV. We sit about 12' away from it. I also have the home theater room with a 8' 2.35 screen where we watch movies. The TV is just for incidental boob tube watching and football season with friends.

Motion blur drives me crazy and I kinda hate the idea of getting rid of the plasma. It's great for motion.

I may be able to fit a 75" TV where it needs to go, which is above the fireplace mantel. I ordered a Mantle Mount brand TV mount and need to get it installed to determine if I can squeeze a 75" above the mantle. I know a 65" will fit.

I was in Best Buy the other day, and a surprisingly knowledgeable salesman was showing me TV's.. I was ready to buy a Samsung UN65MU8500F that was on sale (non-curved). The sales guy kept trying to talk me into buying a Sony model that was similarly priced. He said the Sony was a better TV. At that point, I decided to hold off and do my own research.

I do have a budget. I had planned to spend up 2500. No need for one of the OLED's. I figured HDR and a 240 motion rate would suit my needs well enough for this viewing area.

So here I am, hat in hand asking for input......My favorite place to go for AV and computer advice.

I think everyone reacts differently to motion blur , but for me i have not found an LED set i can watch for sports. I watch hockey and all my viewing is done in my bedroom on a 60 inch plasma since i find hockey unwatchable on my 70" LED. I hope OLED comes down in price before i have to replace my plamsa. I went so far as to download some olympic hockey and took the usb to the electronics store and oled was the only thing i could watch. I have not seen the latest QLED's from samsung but that is only their top of the line models and outside my budget. All these sets have motion enhancement settings but i would make sure you try before you buy or buy where you can return if your not happy.

Hi Michael d,
My sympathies go out to you on having to start wearing glasses. I had to start wearing them when I was in my 40s, when I became a full-time magazine editor. Staring at the computer monitor all day accelerated the deterioration of my distance vision. (I still don't need them for close-up work).

Anyway, I recently picked up an LG Ultra-HD 4k 65-inch Smart TV, which I do find quite stunning, after my old Samsung 50-inch HD rear-projection finally gave up, after 13 years of service.

I could as easily have bought a Samsung 4K Ultra-HD 65-inch, which was on display beside the LG; they were indistinguishable, one from the other. I don't recall seeing any Sony sets at the time, but I can't imagine it being superior to the Samsung or LG.
I did look at OLED, but again, as in the past, despite the rhapsodic reviews of some former colleagues, I was underwhelmed. They just didn't look great, or even as good as the LGs and Samsungs. I certainly had the budget for an OLED, but they didn't measure up.

By the way, I have detected absolutely no motion artifacts at all in the LG, and I didn't see any in the Samsungs on display. I sit about 8 or 10 feet back from the LG, and I recall thinking that I might have been tempted by the 75-inch, but from a practical standpoint, it would have been just too large for the corner location in my average-sized apt. living room.

The astonishing thing is that the LG was much less expensive than the old Samsung HD rear-pro, when the latter was introduced, and the image quality is so vastly superior (and no spinning color wheel!)

I don't think you can go wrong with either an LG or Samsung 4K Ultra-HD.

Regards,
Alan

Also interested in 70-80" TV here.

Have a near 10 yr old 52" Samsung LCD, never had a problem with it so I'd vouch for a Sammy. Not sure about Sony, we always had trouble with their CRT's for some reason...barely got 5 yrs out of them, probably their led/lcd's are much better (I hope). A lot of people say Vizio is the best bang for the buck, esp on the larger screens. I agree about the OLEDs, great picture but too much of a premium at the moment.

Mike, it apparently takes the eyeglasses to remind you of passing birthdays, since you didn't check the belated wishes I posted last month(just kidding).

The February issue of Consumer Reports showed their TV tests and a similar Samsung to the one you mention(UN65KS8500 at $1,900)was ranked just below the LG OLEDs. Interestingly, motion blur for both it and the OLEDs got the same "very good" rating(none of the 65" models got an "excellent" for blur). The similar Sony 65X930D was ranked slightly lower, but still received a "recommended" rating.

So there seems to be no good reason not to go with the Samsung.

Nothign worse than seeing a football leave a stream through the air, or not being able to make out jersey numbers... Have you ever seen or vewed a TV with 240 hz? Most or 120.

Thanks Alan! I did not look at any LGs. It appeared that all on display were OLED, so I just walked by them. Did not occur to me to see if they had any standard 4K TVs.

I friend of mine bought a Sony LCD about three years ago. After two weeks of use, half of the display went nuts. My projector is a Sony though, and it's worked flawlessly. I love the thing, and have no desire up "upgrade" it.

Sorry. I don't find myself logging into this site much anymore. If you called me out by my full name, I probably won't touch it though.

Thanks for info John.

Hi Micheal. My LED tv i have now is a LG 70" 4k 240hz model and I got it a little over a year ago though they change models so fast it could be a couple years old. All i wanted to convey was that it would be a good idea to be able to have access to all setting because the stores tend to turn up all the extra features that control motion. When i got mine the SOP was absolutely unbearable, motion enhancement can really upset the viewing experience. Apparently some people are affected more than others, and fwiw i dont care what the reviewers say, i have to see it for myself. We have one chain store where i live that specializes in AV and they gave me 7 days to try the set and return if i didnt like it so im sure that is pretty standard these days. I hope before i need anymore tv's the price of oled comes down. Also something to consider is that LG uses ips panels which are great for rooms with lighting but have greyish blacks in a darkened room though they do have better off angle viewing. Samsung has TN panels are offer better blacks at the expense of viewing angle though their latest panels have quantum dot and much improved viewing angles. Lg also uses a rgbw subpixel on its lower end sets so research each model before you buy. The best features cost the extra money.

Find another plasma...

Thanks for the info!

I went through a similar conundrum when researching for a new display. Here is what I interpreted my findings on the technologies:

1) your source is likely only outputting at 50hz or 60hz at most (unless you output from PC). Back in the day where a 32" CRT TV was considered "huge" and the picture quality mediocre by today's standard, you didn't notice motion blur as, lets face it, the image was blurry to begin with.

2) there is no LED/OLED TV out there with 240hz refresh rates. Most 4k UHD or SUHD are at 120hz with some sort of graphic chips to enhance to "240hz".

So, back to motion blur and why it happens. With bigger TV's in the 60"-70" range now, there is a lot more image for your brain to notice flaws. With a 60hz source (and yes, even 4k broadcasts will only have a 60hz refresh rate for all 4k pixels), your brain has a much bigger picture to notice the time delay between refreshed images. Your brain then tries to fill in the gaps with what it thinks should be happening between the gaps and creates the blur (it's not actually the TV). If you could actually pause your TV for each frame, you would be amazed at how super sharp each image is and wonder where the blur is. The answer is really you are the source of the blur. Also, with sports, you have two reasons why blur is more likely than with a movie/tv show... the camera is moving to follow a moving object...

Ok, so there are two technologies to help fool our brain, frame interpolation and black frame insert (bfi). Frame interpolation is basically inserting an extra frame (or 2 or 4) in the 60hz feed to create a 120hz or 240hz refresh. The problem is at how well and fast the chip can create the fake frame. BFI instead of creating a fake frame, inserts a completely black frame to prevent/trick your brain from making assumptions. In both cases, if the chip gets it wrong, your brain will see the error or think the image is flickering.

So here is the kicker... you get what you pay for in most cases. The better graphic chips cost more and the cheaper TV's cut corners. Also, you need to know if your brain responds better to interlace or BFI or a combination of both.

Generally speaking, tests seem to indicate that Samsung and LG have better graphic chips dealing with the issue. I personally settled with an 120hz, 65" 4K UHD LG model after first trying out a similar priced Samsung model. What I did notice is that my wife's brain and mine must interpret motion differently as she remarked that the Samsung appeared sharper during hockey to her. I believe Samsung uses a combo interlace/bfi favouring more bfi. For this reason, I found the image less bright. LG also uses a combo motion blur technique but it must favour more interlace and have better predictive algorithms so the image appears crisper/brighter to me. Since I watch more sports than she does, my opinioned mattered most (honestly, I think should could have cared less).

Final note, you need to turn off motion enhancement when watching movies or else the image is too good, looking unnatural!

Edit: Oh, forgot to mention why your Plasma appeared to be sharper... its related to how that technology works. Essentially, Plasma's work like bfi where it takes 8 to 10 rapidly on/off cycles (and why they "claim" 480hz (8x60hz) and 600hz (10x60hz) refresh rates) to create 1 image. For this reason, Plasmas use way more energy to create the same 1 frame image but the superior bfi makes it appear motion is more fluid. Unfortunately, expensive to create in the larger 60+" models and energy hogs.

Thanks for the info.

Just passing through and wanted to say how it warmed my heart to see Mike, Adrian, Alan and John still helping each other.

Cheers to you, my friends.

Tom!!!

New TV yet, Michael?

Not yet. I should have read the installation instructions on my "Mantle Mount". It severely limits the size of TV I can use, if I use it as designed. I'm looking into modifying it, or making something to allow a larger TV. If I use my existing TV mount, I'm limited to a 65" TV, and it will be a real PITA to install it. I did however look at a bunch of TVs the other day. I prefer the Samsung with 240 hz. I think it was a 8000 series that I looked at.