OLED TV: is it time?

After much deliberation I’m finally getting my B7 55” later this week! The rtings review of the c8 convinced me it’s not appreciably better than the b7/c7

Planning to get the B7 55" myself next month at Costco. Really excited.

Still waiting for a 65" OLED TV with HDMI 2.1 and variable refresh rate for <$2000. That’s when I’ll bite.

You’re a patient man. :)

I saw that the 55" C7 is down to $1700.

Dell has good Memoria. Day specials on the top-rated 2017 LG OLEDs. The 55" and 65" inch B7A models are $1300 and $1800 respectively & I’ve just ordered the 65" !

Diego

http://deals.dell.com/productdetail/vqm
http://deals.dell.com/productdetail/11u6

I picked up a 65” 2018 LG C8 this Saturday and got it wall mounted. Fantastic picture and a big upgrade from our old 55” 2015 model.

We were watching a baseball game on it Sunday and it winked off. And that was it - dead as a doornail. I had just tossed out the box a few hours earlier after deciding it was a keeper. Blargh. So, so bummed.

Arrgh. What a kick in the head. Possible bright side: Don’t know if you calibrate your set (or have it calibrated), but at least it didn’t wait until after all that work had been done.

Sorry, that hugely sucks!

The boxes for these are also a pain since they essentially permanently fall apart when you unpack the TV in the first place.

Well, this sucks. It seems like Netflix may be about to hike prices for people who want HDR (on top of the existing premium for 4K).

There’s barely enough 4K content for me to justify the added cost of premium, and they want to charge even more for HDR? I’ll strongly consider dropping back to the basic tier if this goes through.

Yeah that’s really weird to me. I already have little interest in paying for the 4K/HDR plan which exists today, despite having an LG OLED.

I mean, I watch a lot of Netflix stuff, but most recently it’s just been re-watching Friends, and watching some other stuff like comedy specials and Portlandia.

If I want 4K UHD HDR stuff I’ll just rent it or watch on Amazon Prime streaming which includes 4K HDR content at the same Prime price.

It may be different in the US, but I find that much less of Amazon’s Prime content is 4K HDR than Netflix’s. Or at least I’m interested in fewer Amazon originals (and there are fewer of them in general), and neither service has many 3rd party movies or shows in 4K HDR. It seems that Amazon largely keeps the UHD content for the PPV service (which may be at the studios’ insistence, of course).

For myself, I get enough value out of it to justify the current premium, as I watch quite a few Netflix original shows and have enjoyed a handful of their movies, but I don’t think I’d kick it up any higher just for HDR. At least not unless they expand it to 3rd parties.

That’s definitely true.

To make things worse, 4K HDR stuff on Amazon is almost impossible to find. It’s not included in the same product listings as the main product listings. So it’s not like the 1080p version will automatically go up to 4K / HDR during playback.

Instead, you need to manually search for and find the Ultra HD versions.

For example, here’s the heavily promoted listing for Goliath:

But here’s the completely separate Ultra HD version, which you need to search for on its own:

On the LG TV Amazon app it was impossible for me to find no matter how many different searches I did. The only way I could watch the Ultra HD / 4K HDR version was by first wishlisting it from my PC, then pulling up my wishlist on the LG TV app.

It used to be the case that you could scroll down a little bit and there was a UHD-only tab, but they seem to have buried it in the recent UI update.

I just checked. It’s still there. But in my case I had to scroll past 94 other tabs to find it. I’m not joking.

Complaining about the price of Netflix is like complaining about the price of antibiotics, after I cut my hand while cleaning a fish :-D. I need that stuff to survive! I would keep my subscription going if they raised the price to $50 per month, without hesitation. Don’t tell them I said that.

I know that’s not exactly your point but I thought I’d point out the insane value that is Netflix right now.

Even on the TV apps? I could’ve sworn I looked but could’ve missed it.

Yup. It’s insanely far down though.

Are you in the UK or Canada? I’m not sure any of Amazon’s content is available in Canada in HDR, and for a long time none of it was available in 4k either, although that may have changed recently.

I can’t imagine not wanting 4k dolbyvision Netflix if you have the hardware for it - it’ll be a drag if the price increases for it (what would be the point of Premium then? 4k but no DV or HDR?) but still a lot cheaper than 4k Blu-rays. And if this change means we will get stuff other than Netflix originals (i.e. blockbuster movies) in 4k, I’d be pretty happy to pay a lot more than $4/month for that. It’ll save me a lot of money going to theatres.