HDR is now a thing which suddenly everyone knows is better than 4K. Panasonic is leaving the market. There’s apparently a new Bluray standard. OLED finds itself on the wrong side of the fence. Some TV are coming with built-in game streaming. Welcome to late 2016!
What is the contrast for some of these HDR (ultra-HD?) TVs? I can’t seem to find one listed for Sony’s.
Nooooo! My current Panasonic TV is the best TV I had in my life and the best smart TV I know at an affordable price. :(((
The wrong side of what fence?
The HDR fence. Apparently the two competing standards both mandate a higher brightness than OLEDs can display. OLED ‘cheats’ its way out by the consortiums changing the standards to have one for LED and one for OLED TVs, based on total contrast rather than a fixed max brightness, thus dividing by OLEDs considerably lower black level, but to a certain extent defeating the purpose. If a light source in a film is supposed to be blinding, simply being 10,000 brighter than an extraordinarily dark black isn’t the same as actually being blindingly bright.
Well, LCDs are horseshit. Here is why.
Try guessing which one is the OLED.
Whats this quantum dot stuff I keep seeing posted on the Samsung tv specs? I never heard about it before this week.
I continue to search for a 4K tv that I can use as a PC monitor also. Currently the best bang for buck I have found is this Samsung.
There is some kind of patent issue with OLED, so “Quantum Dot” is Samsung’s OLED-ish tech? Let’s see:
OLED, as the name suggests, is built from an array of tiny light emitting diodes (LEDs) each of which produces a color of light on demand, unlike LCD which requires a backlight. These LED’s are constructed from organic material layers and use phosphorescent color layers to produce different colored lights. Tweaking the make-up of these layers can result in displays with different efficiencies and qualities.
Quantum Dot (QD) displays are quite different as the technology is based on small conducting nanocrystals, usually in the range of 2 to 10 nanometers in diameter. The color of light produced or filtered by a dot is based on its diameter and using a few of these could produce all your necessary colors. Like OLED, light and colors could be supplied on demand and QD-LEDs can be very bright. However, current QD displays are based on a blue LED backlight which is then filtered to a white light before passing through the familiar LCD color producing layer.
But
However, as QDs are currently reliant on a backlight, the deep black accuracy and contrast ratio will still suffer from similar drawbacks as existing LCD displays. Therefore, OLED should still win out when it comes to contrast and high dynamic range imagery, as it can switch off pixels for a pure black dot, but QD displays will still see a boost in brightness over traditional LCD.
:(
I wonder if Walmart or Best Buy would let me bring in my gaming PC to hook up and try some Witcher 3 on them. :)
Quantum Dot is old news. Samsung is working on QLED (that’s a Q, not an O), which theoretically should be a strong competitor to OLED since it uses per-pixel lighting and, most importantly, doesn’t require backlighting. If a scene is dark, the pixel itself stops glowing, just like OLED/Plasma. Hence, black levels that would impress Nigel Tufnel.
But we likely won’t see QLED TV’s for another 3-5 years.
I googled and found this, reading it now. Most impressive.
Is overscan still an issue? To use a TV as a monitor, you need to make sure it’s possible to disable overscan, otherwise it will always be a bit fuzzy.
I have been using 1080p TVs (Hitachi,Panasonic,Samsung) as monitors since 2008, never had one that didn’t let me disable overscan.
We just got (two weeks ago) the Samsung KS8000 in a 65" flat model. It’s a great TV, by my standards, and the reviews are generally quite good. It’s modestly priced (Best Buy had it for $1799 though it’s back to $1899 now) and is, naturally, a huge improvement over my eight-year old Sony XBR 40" model. It has HDR but I couldn’t tell you much about the tech stuff as my level of videophilia is really marginal.
It is a really nice TV for our living room though.
Ended up going with this 43" Sony. It should be here Friday. As my max budget was $600, I did go a bit over, but I felt that the 10bit panel and quantum dot magics, was worth a bit extra. It will hold me over until OLED sets or whatever is awesome next, drops down below $1k. I just hope that sitting 5ft from it, the screen might be a bit too big.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FWIEO2E/
Saw it in person @ Best Buy, and the comments/reviews over at AVS forums, sold me on it.
Sounds nice! Our old Sony XBR was great in its time, for sure, so I imagine this one will be even better for you.
Just wanted to report in saying this Sony is fantastic, and that 43" of screen space is a lot. I tried some Chaos Reborn in 4k and it was so glorious. Also tried some DeusEx Mankind Divided @ 4k, made my pc cry with 22fps. So I gave a shot at 1080p and let the tv upscale. It was actually pretty good, my old many eyes found no issues with it.
Can’t wait to give Civ 6 a try @ 4k later this month. Here are some before and after setup shots. I decide to ditch my 9 year old 5.1 setup as only 2.1 of it still works, and the woofer is dying. Gonna roll with the TV speakers which are surprisingly good, till I find something I like better.
So you set it up as a monitor?
I’m very tempted by that Sony… I really want to get a 4K TV and a PS4 Pro, because I’m a sucker for tech. OTOH my 1080p Panny plasma still works just fine and do I really need to spend $1000 dollar for better Skyrim? And then I’d have to get it to work with my receiver/soundbar… hmm. But of course most of all, how do I possibly have the time to replay old games? Lord.
Correct, its my main gaming monitor and tv. I have a Dell U2415 something as my 2nd pc screen that I also use as a usb 3.0 hub, I usually toss my email / chat windows from Steam on there.
Its running at 4k 4:4:4 @ 60hz, the screen is 8bit+FRC which allows it to produce 10bit level color (1.07 billion colors) at a much lower price point than a true 10bit screen.
FRC is an 8-bit panel flickering rapidly between two shades of color to
simulate an inbetween shade. It’s not quite as good as a true 10-bit
panel but it’s very close and generally difficult to tell the difference
Its glorious. So glorious. I can’t wait for Battlefield 1 to release, people’s heads are gonna be the size of a half dollar when I snipe. :p
I’ll say again, that 1080p upscalling to 4k is really good with this tv.
@Endigm, I’m in the same boat. I have 1080P Panasonic Plasma that still has a beautiful picture. And going from Plasma to LED, even at 4K, is going to trade quality in some areas where Plasma excels for the advantages of newer sets.
OLED is an easier-to-justify jump from Plasma, but right now big OLED sets are stupid-expensive. Hoping they’ll drop by the time Scorpio ships.
OLED is orgasmically good. It really, really is that good.
I refer to LED sets now as “eye rapers”. I mean, if that’s what you’re into, I guess your eyes kinda had it coming. They weren’t exactly dressed for church if you know what I’m saying. And I think you do.
