OLED TV: is it time?

[lordkosc]

@stusser

I don’t let mine access the internet at all.

[Tortilla]

@stusser

I don’t let mine access the internet at all.

And here I thought I was the only weirdo who refuses to let devices that don’t get regular (or any) security patches onto my network. Nope, turns out there’s lots of us weirdos!

I really really hate it when manufacturing companies with no experience in software try to ship “smart” devices, because they are basically universally bad at it. This goes for all automakers, appliance makers, entertainment device makers outside of traditional PC manufacturers, etc.

[Menzo]

@dgallina

But I don’t appreciate them becoming worse than they were when purchased due to software fuckery.

NFTs are bullshit, but let’s get some perspective here. This is being delivered as an optional app that you can just ignore. There, now your life hasn’t been ruined.

[stusser]

No I have plenty of IoT stuff. I just segment it into a separate untrusted VLAN so when they inevitably get hacked they can’t access anything of value. If my smart light bulbs start mining Bitcoin or whatever I’ll find out about it through my NIDS and throw them out.

[Tortilla]

@stusser

No I have plenty of IoT stuff. I just segment it into a separate untrusted VLAN so when they inevitably get hacked they can’t access anything of value. If my smart light bulbs start mining Bitcoin or whatever I’ll find out about it through my NIDS and throw them out.

You’ve invested more heavily in home networking equipment than I have! I can do all that stuff at work but not with my home gear.

[stusser]

Yes I’m afraid it was a pandemic project of mine.

[dgallina]

@Menzo

but let’s get some perspective here

You’re right. It’s annoying but mostly not going to hurt much assuming LG don’t start bitcoin mining or something equally stupid on the hardware.

[Papageno]

Assuming one’s home router supports it, is it not enough to put the TV set in a “DMZ” of sorts, as it’s called (or at least used to be)?

[Dejin]

I tried hooking my laptop to an LG C2 and it’s giving me the option to run at 4096 x 2160 but it recommends using 3840 x 2160. Is there a reason why Windows wouldn’t recommend running at the higher resolution?

[AWS260]

The latter is the native resolution of your TV.

[Profanicus]

My PC is hooked to an LG C9 when gaming, and it has similar behaviour.

You want to run at 3840x2160. I would get small black bars on the sides doing this (Win 11), so in the display driver options set scaling to use display, not the GPU.

Like this if using Nvidia drivers

[Dejin]

Thanks @AWS260 and @Profanicus.

[Chappers]

This 65" Vizio OLED is on sale for effectively $1K if you use Costco enough:

https://www.costco.com/vizio-65"-class---oled-series---4k-uhd-oled-tv.product.100975818.html

I have the 55" and Vizio support was poor at the beginning and the firmware had a load of bugs. Thankfully with the latest update all the issues have gone away. I would say that it is equivalent to the LG C1 in terms of performance.

[MichaelD]

Nice sale at Best Buy on the 48” LG A2 - $569

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lg-48-class-a2-series-oled-4k-uhd-smart-webos-tv/6501902.p?skuId=6501902

[TheWombat]

We have a 2016 vintage Samsung 65" 4k TV. The so-called “smart” stuff is crap, and I use an Apple TV box for everything other than Comcast now. It is still connected via hardwire to the router, but given that I am using the Apple TV box, could I just ditch that connection entirely? That is, does the xFinity cable stuff just need the cable itself and not a network connection? I guess I should go check! We do have a DVR box from them.

In any event, we’ve been thinking about getting a new TV but if the zeitgeist is to not even use the onboard Internet stuff anyhow, I’m not sure that we would get much benefit going to a fancier screen. We can’t go any bigger because the wall isn’t big enough; maybe 70" max, and most of the stuff that gets watched is not any better than basic HD native I think. Some 4k maybe?

That said, when I look at TVs being advertised, or in the store, it’s bewildering. So many different price points for TVs that are the same size and at first glance the same resolution or whatever, but which on closer examination all seem to have a ton of differences in areas that are so technical I have no idea what they are talking about. I mean, price differences like $1500 between two 65" seemingly modern hi-res TVs; I have a hard time figuring out what I’d be paying for with that differential.

[Gigglemoo]

That’s a great deal. Here in Canada we’ve got a new low too, on Sony’s 48" A9S. Costco has it for 999$, which makes their warranty only 70 bucks.

@TheWombat - The biggest noticeable new feature in TVs in the last few years is HDR. No point getting a new one if you don’t want that or better blacks.

[Enidigm]

Yea, the basic difference today is IPS vs VA - which, paradoxically, only seems relevant on the low end, nothing above bargain level TVs use IPS - for viewing angles, and brightness as you move up the ‘price point’, and OLED vs LED. There’s a bunch of other technology (QLED, mini-LED) or “technology/marketing” (ULED, HDR10+, Dolby Vision) but that’s the crux of it.

As a layman, the big thing is that everyone says OLED looks better, and it does, but the higher end TVs are so stupidly bright that in fact, there’s a qualitative difference (and perhaps superiority) with mini-LED in many situations to OLED.

The other division is between the Brand Name TVs (Sony, LG, Samsung) vs the Chinese Upstarts (TCL, Hisense). Generally you can get hugely impressive ‘top shelf’ quality out of the top end TCL or Hisense units at a fraction of the cost (1/3?) of the similarly priced Brand Name models. The cost is that these units are much less reliable and often suffer from significantly worse ‘post processing’, motion handling, ect. Whereas now most of Sony’s effort is going into their ‘chipsets’ and their processing, for ex.

So there are Hisense and TCL LED units that reach 2000 nits of brightness (where, typically, an OLED can only reach 500-800 nits, for example, and then only briefly) for $650-$700. (The near equivalent Sony that costs $450-$500, by comparison, gets only about 350-nits of brightness, and the $600 Sony gets only about 600-nits of brightness). The similarly bright Samsung or Sony probably cost around $2000. The cost is going to be reliability (but then again, getting an extended 4-5 year warranty on a TV that’s 1/3 the price is going to be much cheaper as well) and, most importantly, probably some fussiness with certain content, where the Sony et al will handle just about anything without much thought on your end.

I wouldn’t buy a Vizio for any reason right now - they feel like a TV company about to die. The pandemic hit them hard, they seemed to have a bad year last year, and they just about failed to produce any new models at all for this year, and they’re shifting their business model to selling at low-wealth consumer stores and ad sales on their built-in menu system.

[abrandt]

Counterpoint on the extreme brightness is that my eyes can’t take it. Even on my HDR OLED I’ve had to drop the brightness. That’s clearly not true for everyone or likely even most people but certainly something to be aware of if your eyes are sensitive to brightness.

[morlac]

I find my OLEDs plenty bright but then we watch the new big one in a pretty dark room but the other is downstairs with windows on two sides. I do like the mini LED tech though but once you have unlimited contrast it’s hard to go back :)

[vyshka]

I’m still loving our LG CX 55" from a couple years ago. I finally got an Xbox Series X hooked up to it as well to use the gaming features.