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So my 15 years old Pioneer Kuro is dying - OLED, QD-OLED, QLED..

Spyxos

Member
That's quite shocking. I have bought many Samsung TV's since the early 2000's and have never had a single problem with any one of them. Samsung TV's have been flawless in my experience.
Everyone told me that Samsung is so great, Samsung this, Samsung that. At the end of the day, they only boil with water too.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
RIGHT NOW Dolby Vision is useless for gaming because almost no games support it, Xbox setting for DV just converts HDR10 signal. Once developers start to use DV it will be better format for games for sure.

HDR10 peak brightness in 4000 nits so brightness isn't the problem for games.

Right now HDR10 (console, PC) and HGIG (tv) is perfect combo.



Even the best QLED with thousands of dimming zones will be worse than OLED where every pixel is a light source. You are wrong.
I clearly said next gen which covers next gen tv's that some use the Pentonic chip which supports high fps with Dolby Vision. The thing is tv's released this year with it and more will next year.
Games will follow suit and support will come sooner than you think.

OLED can only hold like 175 nits full screen brightness due to ABL in most cases 🤣
A good mini LED doesn't have such issues with brightness nor does it have crushed blacks,floating blacks and as bad 24hz motion.
We could also mention the very real burn in issue but the terrible denial from OLED users is to tiring to read.
QLED Evangelicals are worse than Switch bros

"It looks just as good for half the cost!"
The sets I buy are roughly the same price if not higher.
 

King Dazzar

Member
What about this HDR thing?

Seems Sony doesn't support HDR10+
Samsung doesn't support Dolby Vision

🤷‍♂️
They are both dynamic tone mapping meta data formats used for some content. Dolby Vision is used far more than HDR10+ and both dynamic formats are only really of benefit for movies at this time. If your Tv cant decode the dynamic data i.e it isnt DV or HDR10+ capable. It will simply decode it with fixed data as normal HDR10 instead. In reality, I found both formats can be usually beneficial for emissive (OLED) displays. But when going high end LCD's, with more luminance, I actually found I prefer the Tv to stop decoding dynamically and found HDR10 often looking better than DV. So dont go in thinking that all DV content will automatically be better. It can vary from panel to panel and content to content too.

In short, you may get some benefit from DV. But YMMV and with Samsung's QD-OLED for example, I personally wouldn't be too upset with not having DV. However, I far prefer Sony's processing for other reasons.

Coming from a plasma, the most common complaint is with motion. I could ramble on and on about different experiences I've had with numerous different panels. But you really do need to go and get some eyes on for yourself. I'd recommend to take a look at Sony and Samsung mini-LED TV's. And both QD-OLED (Samsung and Sony) and MLA-OLED (LG G3 in any size other than 83").
 
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Mister Wolf

Member
I clearly said next gen which covers next gen tv's that some use the Pentonic chip which supports high fps with Dolby Vision. The thing is tv's released this year with it and more will next year.
Games will follow suit and support will come sooner than you think.

OLED can only hold like 175 nits full screen brightness due to ABL in most cases 🤣
A good mini LED doesn't have such issues with brightness nor does it have crushed blacks,floating blacks and as bad 24hz motion.
We could also mention the very real burn in issue but the terrible denial from OLED users is to tiring to read.

The sets I buy are roughly the same price if not higher.

That ABL nonsense steers me clear from OLED.
 

Bojji

Member
I clearly said next gen which covers next gen tv's that some use the Pentonic chip which supports high fps with Dolby Vision. The thing is tv's released this year with it and more will next year.
Games will follow suit and support will come sooner than you think.

OLED can only hold like 175 nits full screen brightness due to ABL in most cases 🤣
A good mini LED doesn't have such issues with brightness nor does it have crushed blacks,floating blacks and as bad 24hz motion.
We could also mention the very real burn in issue but the terrible denial from OLED users is to tiring to read.

The sets I buy are roughly the same price if not higher.

LG tvs support 120Hz DV without any Pentonic shit for quite some time now:



You can complain about bad aspects of OLED screens but fact is they produce the best picture. Only most expensive Mini Leds can come close but still can't match them in many aspects.

If you want to have 1000nits full screen that will melt yours eyes then yeah, mini led is the only option but I don't think anyone sane can complain about brightness of G1 or best Sony and Samsung QD OLEDs.

Burn in is an issue on QD-OLEDs, true.

Dolby Vision will never be a standard for games unless Sony supports it in their console, you also can't use DV on PC. Only Xbox with tiny market share use it.
 

Vick

Gold Member
Sorry for your Kuro, truly exceptional panels. My KRP-500M and VT50 are thankfully still going strong.

For your situation, I'd just quickly buy an OLED and activate the pixel orbiter in fear of retention, and since Panasonic aren't sold in the US I'd either go with LG or Sony.
I know you said quality isn't that important, but I could never be able to stand even near a random LCD after more than a decade of Kuro, it would genuinely kill entirely my interest for virtual media.
We have a LG 4K HDR LED in the living room (three little kids watch cartoons on it all day, an OLED would be destroyed), and I recently gifted my brother a Sony 4K LED (same GaaS filled with super busy HUDs running on it everyday for years, so again no OLED), both above 1k and they look so ghastly and I often wonder why even bother wasting time in front of those.

  • I hear that there's no TV nowadays that will match the motion resolution of Plasma so that sucks a bit, but I mean, unless someone corrects me, there's not a single tech in modern TVs that will match it, correct?
That's correct, a fucking bloodbath.
Last OLED update I heard was native 300 lines and 650 lines Trumotion ON interpolation .. on 4K panels, which is obviously quite the disgrace compared to full 1080 on 1080p panels. It's the curse of sample-and-hold, it could just never match CRT and plasma, you would need literal thousands of fps to match the look of simple 60fps on the VT50.

However motion on the Kuro isn't as impossibly perfect as latest Panasonic, the tiniest bit of motion blur was present so at least it should't be as jarring.
I'd be personally more concerned with near-black performance as I haven't seen a single commercially available panel holding a candle to these machines.

We'll see with MicroLED, but these power consumption limitations increasing every year concerns me alot.
 

dotnotbot

Member
Sorry for your Kuro, truly exceptional panels. My KRP-500M and VT50 are thankfully still going strong.

For your situation, I'd just quickly buy an OLED and activate the pixel orbiter in fear of retention, and since Panasonic aren't sold in the US I'd either go with LG or Sony.
I know you said quality isn't that important, but I could never be able to stand even near a random LCD after more than a decade of Kuro, it would genuinely kill entirely my interest for virtual media.
We have a LG 4K HDR LED in the living room (three little kids watch cartoons on it all day, an OLED would be destroyed), and I recently gifted my brother a Sony 4K LED (same GaaS filled with super busy HUDs running on it everyday for years, so again no OLED), both above 1k and they look so ghastly and I often wonder why even bother wasting time in front of those.


That's correct, a fucking bloodbath.
Last OLED update I heard was native 300 lines and 650 lines Trumotion ON interpolation .. on 4K panels, which is obviously quite the disgrace compared to full 1080 on 1080p panels. It's the curse of sample-and-hold, it could just never match CRT and plasma, you would need literal thousands of fps to match the look of simple 60fps on the VT50.

However motion on the Kuro isn't as impossibly perfect as latest Panasonic, the tiniest bit of motion blur was present so at least it should't be as jarring.
I'd be personally more concerned with near-black performance as I haven't seen a single commercially available panel holding a candle to these machines.

We'll see with MicroLED, but these power consumption limitations increasing every year concerns me alot.

Newest QD-OLED panels have potential to have amazing near-black performance but Sony A95K/L are desaturated at very low IRE levels while Samsung has corrected that in 2023 models but has a little bit of black crush instead (can't be fully corrected even with calibration).

WOLEDs will never be amazing near-black umless LG manages to fix white subpixel overshoot on the panel itself as no amounts of dithering can hide it fully in motion.
 
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Larxia

Member
I don't know much about it so I can't make any recommendations but when looking at monitors recently, I learned that QD-Oled is subject to chromatic aberration, so I would just recommend to be careful about that if it's something that could bother you.
I saw this video mentionning it too, it's in french but this time stamped link shows the effect clearly

It's probably not as noticeable on a TV with a bigger distance compared to a monitor on a desk though.
 

Silver Wattle

Gold Member
In OP you mentioned micro led but those aren't going to be mainstream for years.

I think OLED is best when used as your main screen, so I'd say get something that is good in bright conditions like a mini led.
 

Kuranghi

Gold Member
I'm a Sony fanboy but for your needs definitely the Hisense U8K, the Sony X90L isn't as good overall for the extra money, the X93L is great but too much extra again and the X95L is quite a bit better than the U8K but way too expensive to get there.

The software crapulence of the Hisense is way outweighed by the PQ + price, I don't know if built-in sound is a factor but the Hisense is also best in that regard out of all of these, only Sony OLEDs come close but their bass is lacking since they moved away from the leaning back easal design.

Just get an external android device and forget about the Hisense OS and remote for the most part since you should only be setting your picture settings once properly and then using the remote purely to change the backlight level/between day and night picture modes for dark room/night-time viewing. The android device will automatically turn on/off the TV and switch to the device HDMI input, you can even set the TVs power on functionality to "last source" in case HDMI-CEC fails to switch to the android device HDMI port.

The U8K simply can't be beat for value even considering its "sometimes better but somtimes slightly worse than Samsung"-level upscaling and motion processing. The Sony X95L has the best picture quality and image/motion processing overall, but it costs more.


I personally would definitely buy an X95L and even though I don't think Hisense image upscaling/processing is not as good as Sony I would buy U8K and get it calibrated over getting a QN95C because of Samsung's unfixable image presentation philsophy bullshittery and imo subpar game mode.

Peppa Pig looks in insane in 4K on the U8K, due to the fullscreen brightness ha, I've unironically closed sales with that somehow.

I would keep the cinema room/OLED money for the 83" Sony A95L successor preferably, but the 83" G3 successor (as long as its MLA or whatever newer thing they do to compete with QD-OLED) will be amazing too if the Sony 83" flaship QD-OLED is too much for your wallet.

The best QLEDs:



I have a Samsung QN90A and couldn't be happier. Bright image with colors that pop. If I were buying a new set it would be the X93L. They are 25% off right now on Amazon

Taking into account value, rtings lists the U8K as the best QLED as of writing this, because the QN95C, X93L and X95L aren't adding enough extra value for the massive increase in price for the majority of people. The X90L is a nice TV but U8K also beats it overall because it just doesn't have enough dimming zones to show HDR dark scenes properly, SDR looks better overall in those cases.
 
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Buggy Loop

Member
In OP you mentioned micro led but those aren't going to be mainstream for years.

I think OLED is best when used as your main screen, so I'd say get something that is good in bright conditions like a mini led.

I meant the led array for QLED. Mini led? Quantum dot led? Its getting confusing.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
I'm a Sony fanboy but for your needs definitely the Hisense U8K, the Sony X90L isn't as good overall for the extra money, the X93L is great but too much extra again and the X95L is quite a bit better than the U8K but way too expensive to get there.

The software crapulence of the Hisense is way outweighed by the PQ + price, I don't know if built-in sound is a factor but the Hisense is also best in that regard out of all of these, only Sony OLEDs come close but their bass is lacking since they moved away from the leaning back easal design.

Just get an external android device and forget about the Hisense OS and remote for the most part since you should only be setting your picture settings once properly and then using the remote purely to change the backlight level/between day and night picture modes for dark room/night-time viewing. The android device will automatically turn on/off the TV and switch to the device HDMI input, you can even set the TVs power on functionality to "last source" in case HDMI-CEC fails to switch to the android device HDMI port.

The U8K simply can't be beat for value even considering its "sometimes better but somtimes slightly worse than Samsung"-level upscaling and motion processing. The Sony X95L has the best picture quality and image/motion processing overall, but it costs more.

Peppa Pig looks in insane in 4K on the U8K, due to the fullscreen brightness ha, I've unironically closed sales with that somehow.

I would keep the cinema room/OLED money for the 83" Sony A95L successor preferably, but the 83" G3 successor (as long as its MLA or whatever newer thing they do to compete with QD-OLED) will be amazing too if the Sony 83" flaship QD-OLED is too much for your wallet.



Taking into account value, rtings lists the U8K as the best QLED, because the QN95C, X93L and X95L aren't adding enough extra value for the massive increase in price. I personally would definitely buy an X95L but most people should buy the U8K and certainly not even the QN90C over the U8K.

The X90L is a nice TV but U8K also beats it overall because it just doesn't have enough dimming zones to show HDR dark scenes properly, SDR looks better overall.

Made a roundup of prices in Canada as of now

Lg7mmWQ.jpg


U8K is same price as X90L

QN90C - X93L - LG C3 - S90C - A80L all in same price range

An interesting option is X93L which is last year's flagship, so no XR 2023 upgrades, but it should be better in image quality than X90L for sure. But is it $700 better?

X90L entered discussion after I saw this video (timestamped)



Also Sony looks better in this comparison to me, more natural looking. Might be a matter of calibration though and lottery.



You work at a place that sells TVs?
 

Kuranghi

Gold Member
Made a roundup of prices in Canada as of now

Lg7mmWQ.jpg


U8K is same price as X90L

QN90C - X93L - LG C3 - S90C - A80L all in same price range

An interesting option is X93L which is last year's flagship, so no XR 2023 upgrades, but it should be better in image quality than X90L for sure. But is it $700 better?

X90L entered discussion after I saw this video (timestamped)



Also Sony looks better in this comparison to me, more natural looking. Might be a matter of calibration though and lottery.



You work at a place that sells TVs?


Yah, I am a TV salesman. I wouldn't get TCL because the upscaling, motion processing and gradient handling is the worst out of all these brands and you said upscaling was important.

With X90L and U8K the same price even I would personally get the U8K because motion processing and upscaling is mostly irrelevant to me as the connected PC does it all and if you get the U8K calibrated it will be quite a bit better.

I just remembered the X95L is 85" only in NA so thats out, doh. If the X95L was the one that was $2200 I would say get that but I think the value is with a calibrated U8K vs. an X93L, waifu will like that it doesn't need a separate soundbar to sound decent also. The X93L is superb but the lower native contrast of the panel and lower dimming zone count will hurt its dark scenes more than rtings numbers imply. Just like the 75" U8K's ADS-Pro panel isn't really on par with the 65" U8K VA panel, as is still being reported on forums by owners of it who haven't see the 65" side-by-side in a dark environment in an accurate picture mode.

Tech Steve is a good lad, I am a member of his channel and use his videos to check out new TV's design, menu options and get some fast information among other things, but do not evaluate picture quality from his videos, he is a laymen when it comes this aspect and while he tries to show what the out-of-the-box picture quality is like he often just has random options on or off and doesn't really even understand the basics of what picture settings are, like what contrast or brightness (when it refers to digital black level, not backlight) settings mean/do to the image.

Having said the above the Sony's EOTF tracking and gradient handling, upscaling, motion processing, general image presentation and colour accuracy will be better OotB so what you sees tracks to an extent. The Hisense has a few quirks to how it should be set up, picture settings wise, but professional calibration will take care of that.

This would be my recommended order of purchase from LCD to OLED, for your needs:
  1. Sony X90L
  2. TCL QM8 (but must be calibrated or else get X90L)
  3. Sony X93L
  4. Hisense U8K
  5. LG C3
  6. Sony A80L
  7. Samsung S90C (but must be calibrated or get A80L or C3)
  8. LG G3
  9. A95L
*Seems overpriced where you are to me but I'm guessing still less than the A95L, is it the same as the price as the Samsung S95C?

I've worked for Sony and I work for another brand now, next I will probably work for LG, but likely never Samsung because I dislike their TVs. Maybe TCL instead of LG if they stop following the Samsung philosophy as much and improve their image processing/upscaling.

I would've said the same before I had time with the U8K and saw how much improved the image processing is in the Hisenses this year, in the UK its an even bigger jump in quality since the UK 2022 range was gimped vs the NA 2022 models. I hope 2024 will bring even more improvements and have a smaller sized (like 65"+) and an even more impressive spec-wise ultra high end LCD for Hisense, the 2024 UX certainly sounds impressive on paper and they didn't exaggerate the capabilities of the U8K at CES 2023 year, if anything they undersold it saying its 1500 nits when its 1800 even when calibrated and in a reasonable picture mode.

I'd personally still go for the sony though lol
🤷‍♂️

As a Sornby fanboy the X93L would possibly sway me over the U8K, but the X90L would not, I'm too used to my Sony ZD9, I need blooming to be at that level or better and I can't have the grey blacks X90L will give in challenging dark scenes due to their new dimming philosophy of lighting up too many adjacent/possibly needed zones to try and avoid any and all dimming of fast moving highlights and presumeably to make the blooming overall less distracting by it not just being a box around the highlight.
 
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Dacvak

No one shall be brought before our LORD David Bowie without the true and secret knowledge of the Photoshop. For in that time, so shall He appear.
LG C1 or higher supports them both
This is the move. I go down the rabbit hole of gaming TVs about once a year, and pretty consistently, the LG C-series OLEDs are the best bang for your buck (not that they’re cheap, though).

I’d recommend grabbing a C1 if you can, since the BFI is slightly better in that one (if top motion clarity for retro is a must for you). Otherwise, any of the newer versions are still spectacular.

The best thing to do, though, is go to rtings.com and look through their top suggestions, then dial one in based off of what’s important to you.
 

dotnotbot

Member
Just checked the U8K really quick on rtings, and its stats do seem really good, it even beats the sony at input lag outside of game mode, which is impressive. I'd personally still go for the sony though lol 🤷‍♂️

Beating Sony in input lag isn't hard as Sony usually utilizes dual processor setup in their mid and high-end TVs (X90H was an infamous exception), this always adds at least 2-3 ms in game mode and probably even more outside of it with heavier processing turned on. It's a trade off, they have the best native gradation handling on the market, great working features like their debanding filter (called "smooth gradation", the one on LG is much less efficient) at a cost of increased input lag cause everything goes through additional processor.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
LG tvs support 120Hz DV without any Pentonic shit for quite some time now:



You can complain about bad aspects of OLED screens but fact is they produce the best picture. Only most expensive Mini Leds can come close but still can't match them in many aspects.

If you want to have 1000nits full screen that will melt yours eyes then yeah, mini led is the only option but I don't think anyone sane can complain about brightness of G1 or best Sony and Samsung QD OLEDs.

Burn in is an issue on QD-OLEDs, true.

Dolby Vision will never be a standard for games unless Sony supports it in their console, you also can't use DV on PC. Only Xbox with tiny market share use it.

Who said they didn't?
The addition of the Pentonic chip is making DV with 120hz more available which will bring more actual support for it with gaming unlike the soso offering in the older video you posted.

Both displays have advantages so you can't say OLED is better like it's a fact cause it isn't a fact.

HDR demands high nits so you should want higher nits too.
Explains why you keep downplaying the best HDR tech that is Dolby Vision.

Burn in is a issue for all OLED tech. Only two possible counters are using a heatsink and not yet released PHOLED tech.

I played Dolby Vision on some PC EA games a few years back so that's incorrect.

Again back to the Pentonic chip releasing in more tv's next year plus other tv's like some from LG supporting DV/120... more support will be coming for games.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Made a roundup of prices in Canada as of now

Lg7mmWQ.jpg


U8K is same price as X90L

QN90C - X93L - LG C3 - S90C - A80L all in same price range

An interesting option is X93L which is last year's flagship, so no XR 2023 upgrades, but it should be better in image quality than X90L for sure. But is it $700 better?

X90L entered discussion after I saw this video (timestamped)



Also Sony looks better in this comparison to me, more natural looking. Might be a matter of calibration though and lottery.



You work at a place that sells TVs?

Wait for CES or shorty after Sony's TV announcements.

If you have to bite right now the Hisense U8K has the Pentonic chip and is priced nice.
The issue is I don't know if it(Hisense)will be reliable.
Also the Sony A95L 65 inch which also uses the Pentonic chip but has the best OLED picture I have seen.(I personally still won't do OLED)

This d00d buys all types of tv's.

He just ditched his OLED for a LED.

 
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Celcius

°Temp. member
For everyone saying OLED - what about the auto dimming? Do you all buy service remotes and disable it or just live with it?
 

SpiceRacz

Member
RIP to your Kuro. Those Pioneer plasmas were so nice. I can't recommend a specific television, but keep an eye on Costco.

Another thought if you can't find a good deal - Check FB Marketplace or OfferUp for another Pioneer plasma. With how heavy those fuckers are, you can probably find one for pretty cheap.
 

phaedrus

Member
What I don't miss upgrading from the 50" Kuro to the 65" 3D-capable LG OLED 7 years ago:

-The picture grain/noise.
-The "softness" of 1080p.
-The gradual red shift in color tone.
-The panel hum/whine.
-My electricity bill. Living in the tropics, I had to switch on the AC together with the Kuro otherwise the heat became unbearable.

What I missed:
- The motion clarity, for about a week. Then I got over it 🤷‍♂️
 
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Opinions and all that but...OLED isn't the game changer that many people claim to be especially after coming from a plasma - and this comes.from an LG C2 owner :

First of all, like many others have already mentioned, OLED and bright rooms don't go hand in hand, a full array LED or MiniLED would be the best options in this case, most importantly though - and I can't stress this enough - is that OLED, for anything below 60fps content is...terrible due to its near instant response time, and it's not about the usual 30 Vs 60fps "wars" either that we often see in these parts but everything 30fps is littered with judder, I can't play older Xbox/PS4 games anymore at 30fps 'cause of that, for.me personally, it's so bad that if I knew it beforehand I'd have opted for a miniLED or FA LED, it's that mothafuckin' bad and no amount of in-game motion blur can fix that, it's absolutely terrible.
Sure, coming from a Plasma, the OLED has some (identical) Pro's/properties like zero corner vignetting, no DSE (dirty screen effect), no blooming and no vertical banding compared to most LCD 's and LED's out there but other than that...

I was so happy with my Panny plasma, sure , it was obviously only 1080p and had no HDR (again, obviously) but its picture was so nice and clean and I could also play 30fps games without getting nauseated that if you told me that a newer by 11 years TV (OLED) would be so disappointing I wouldn't have believed you.
It's not that the C2 is bad or anything, it's just that expected much more - haven't been blown by HDR yet (I have it properly calibrated), 4K for console games is almost a lie and the judder due to the instant response time is just abhorrent , and yes, I have my TV properly calibrated but...

I'm kind of convinced that all the people that gash about OLED (especially on Reddit that mention it as an "endgame" thing) must have been playing on the world's shittiest LCD/LED panels before switching 'cause, again, coming from a Panasonic Plasma I'm not seeing THAT big of a difference nor am I having such a life changing videoludic experience that many people claim.

Got the C2 because it supported both VRR and 120Hz at the same time (some TVs out there up until recently halved the vertical resolution 'cause the shitty Mediatek chips couldn't handle it), supports Dolby vision and all 4 HDMI ports are HDMI 2.1.
 
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ShirAhava

Plays with kids toys, in the adult gaming world
Coming from plasma? Track down a high end CRT monitor anything else is a big step down....IMO

The OLED ghetto is dangerous place man burn-in lurks around every static image of a corner esp with QD-OLED

VA QLED is an underrated choice if you are like me and cannot see black crush at all its a small step down from OLED without any of the hassle
 

CGNoire

Member
Pouring Austin Powers GIF


That Kuro was amazing. I can't believe it lasted me even that long. Image quality was so good that I never felt the urge to upgrade when going to stores. On top of that, it served as a heater for Canadian winter :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Now the panel randomly doesn't turn on, has the 8 blinking lights of death, it sometimes start but it's getting really annoying when it doesn't want to as it really sucks for the kids, especially with holiday movie season. Probably fixable by toying around with the PCBs inside, but putting cash into a 15 years old display doesn't make too much sense.

So.. for a new TV
  • No intention of having the new TV as "the" home cinema, I'm renovating my basement for a movie theater so likely a 85~98" panel will go down there, in the meantime
    • I think 65" is good, and will serve as secondary TV eventually.
  • I don't have a PS5 nor an Xbox, no intention of future consoles either. I have a Nintendo switch I barely play with anymore but more than likely, my kids will eventually play it on it more and when they're older a bit I'll play with them.
    • So good upscaling, I doubt even Switch 2 will be 4K so upscaling that doesn't suck is high on the list. On top of TV channels barely moving out of the HD age.
  • A bit worried about burn-in, but technically we don't watch the troublesome things like news feed 8 hours a day or something. Kids playing games and leaving it ON for a while might be a problem.
  • I hear that there's no TV nowadays that will match the motion resolution of Plasma so that sucks a bit, but I mean, unless someone corrects me, there's not a single tech in modern TVs that will match it, correct?
  • I don't particularly aim for the BEST picture quality with perfect blacks infinite contrasts, etc. I love the Kuro image quality and that was not perfect. My wife will never care for it. I'll put in more cash into the future home theater setup, again, this will likely become secondary TV.
  • Right now it would be in a bright room with big windows

I kind of nailed it down to
  • Cheap LCD ~$1500 Canadian, hoping for a $999 sales soon? Don't think I can wait..
    • TCL QM8 / Hisense U8K, these are apparently trading blows, with Hisense having more software problems it seems, so I would aim for TCL, but how long do they last..
    • Sony X90L, its just a full array but apparently punch way above its weight with sony processing. Only a few scenes can be problematic with it but also the image would be more accurate as the micro-LED displays will typically just black crush details, such as stars disapearing. Sony has best upscaling from what I read?
  • Top range LCD ~$2100
    • Samsung QN90C
  • Mid-range OLED ~$2300 CND
    • LG C3 / Sony A80L / Samsung S90C, Samsung not having any Dolby vision, again, not even sure I'll take advantage of it..
Is OLED worth the extra ~$800 over cheap LCD for secondary TV?

Mind you, I already have an Apple 4K TV, so forget about the trash "smart" OS of the TVs, I could live with them being dumb as a brick for all I care.
Lossing a Plasma is Brutal. You have my Condolenses.......runs to other room to Hug his Plasma (holding back tears) "Dont you Leave Me!".
 

CGNoire

Member
They are both dynamic tone mapping meta data formats used for some content. Dolby Vision is used far more than HDR10+ and both dynamic formats are only really of benefit for movies at this time. If your Tv cant decode the dynamic data i.e it isnt DV or HDR10+ capable. It will simply decode it with fixed data as normal HDR10 instead. In reality, I found both formats can be usually beneficial for emissive (OLED) displays. But when going high end LCD's, with more luminance, I actually found I prefer the Tv to stop decoding dynamically and found HDR10 often looking better than DV. So dont go in thinking that all DV content will automatically be better. It can vary from panel to panel and content to content too.

In short, you may get some benefit from DV. But YMMV and with Samsung's QD-OLED for example, I personally wouldn't be too upset with not having DV. However, I far prefer Sony's processing for other reasons.

Coming from a plasma, the most common complaint is with motion. I could ramble on and on about different experiences I've had with numerous different panels. But you really do need to go and get some eyes on for yourself. I'd recommend to take a look at Sony and Samsung mini-LED TV's. And both QD-OLED (Samsung and Sony) and MLA-OLED (LG G3 in any size other than 83").
Whats wrong with 83"
 

Neilg

Member
Consider last season models. New tvs are launched in January and the old ones go on deep sale. I got a qn90a - 85inch, for $2200 this time last year. Buying it 12 months earlier would have cost double.
For something you plan to keep for 10 years, get last year's for half the price - the cutting edge will be out of date for 90% of the time you own it anyway.

OLED is nice, but my living room is so fucking bright only the Samsung can cut through and give a bright picture during the day.
 
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Faust

Perpetually Tired
Pouring Austin Powers GIF


That Kuro was amazing. I can't believe it lasted me even that long. Image quality was so good that I never felt the urge to upgrade when going to stores. On top of that, it served as a heater for Canadian winter :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Now the panel randomly doesn't turn on, has the 8 blinking lights of death, it sometimes start but it's getting really annoying when it doesn't want to as it really sucks for the kids, especially with holiday movie season. Probably fixable by toying around with the PCBs inside, but putting cash into a 15 years old display doesn't make too much sense.

So.. for a new TV
  • No intention of having the new TV as "the" home cinema, I'm renovating my basement for a movie theater so likely a 85~98" panel will go down there, in the meantime
    • I think 65" is good, and will serve as secondary TV eventually.
  • I don't have a PS5 nor an Xbox, no intention of future consoles either. I have a Nintendo switch I barely play with anymore but more than likely, my kids will eventually play it on it more and when they're older a bit I'll play with them.
    • So good upscaling, I doubt even Switch 2 will be 4K so upscaling that doesn't suck is high on the list. On top of TV channels barely moving out of the HD age.
  • A bit worried about burn-in, but technically we don't watch the troublesome things like news feed 8 hours a day or something. Kids playing games and leaving it ON for a while might be a problem.
  • I hear that there's no TV nowadays that will match the motion resolution of Plasma so that sucks a bit, but I mean, unless someone corrects me, there's not a single tech in modern TVs that will match it, correct?
  • I don't particularly aim for the BEST picture quality with perfect blacks infinite contrasts, etc. I love the Kuro image quality and that was not perfect. My wife will never care for it. I'll put in more cash into the future home theater setup, again, this will likely become secondary TV.
  • Right now it would be in a bright room with big windows

I kind of nailed it down to
  • Cheap LCD ~$1500 Canadian, hoping for a $999 sales soon? Don't think I can wait..
    • TCL QM8 / Hisense U8K, these are apparently trading blows, with Hisense having more software problems it seems, so I would aim for TCL, but how long do they last..
    • Sony X90L, its just a full array but apparently punch way above its weight with sony processing. Only a few scenes can be problematic with it but also the image would be more accurate as the micro-LED displays will typically just black crush details, such as stars disapearing. Sony has best upscaling from what I read?
  • Top range LCD ~$2100
    • Samsung QN90C
  • Mid-range OLED ~$2300 CND
    • LG C3 / Sony A80L / Samsung S90C, Samsung not having any Dolby vision, again, not even sure I'll take advantage of it..
Is OLED worth the extra ~$800 over cheap LCD for secondary TV?

Mind you, I already have an Apple 4K TV, so forget about the trash "smart" OS of the TVs, I could live with them being dumb as a brick for all I care.

I just purchased an LG C3 OLED and it is night and day difference over every other TV I had ever used (was using a X900H Sony Bravia 4K tv). It is a massive step up.
 

MCplayer

Member
I got a sony x90k this year and its perfect in every way, calibrated colors, great HDR (HDR10 & DOLBY VISION, 120hz, vrr and its cheap for what it is
 
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S0ULZB0URNE

Member
I'm a Sony fanboy but for your needs definitely the Hisense U8K, the Sony X90L isn't as good overall for the extra money, the X93L is great but too much extra again and the X95L is quite a bit better than the U8K but way too expensive to get there.

The software crapulence of the Hisense is way outweighed by the PQ + price, I don't know if built-in sound is a factor but the Hisense is also best in that regard out of all of these, only Sony OLEDs come close but their bass is lacking since they moved away from the leaning back easal design.

Just get an external android device and forget about the Hisense OS and remote for the most part since you should only be setting your picture settings once properly and then using the remote purely to change the backlight level/between day and night picture modes for dark room/night-time viewing. The android device will automatically turn on/off the TV and switch to the device HDMI input, you can even set the TVs power on functionality to "last source" in case HDMI-CEC fails to switch to the android device HDMI port.

The U8K simply can't be beat for value even considering its "sometimes better but somtimes slightly worse than Samsung"-level upscaling and motion processing. The Sony X95L has the best picture quality and image/motion processing overall, but it costs more.

I personally would definitely buy an X95L and even though I don't think Hisense image upscaling/processing is not as good as Sony I would buy U8K and get it calibrated over getting a QN95C because of Samsung's unfixable image presentation philsophy bullshittery and imo subpar game mode.

Peppa Pig looks in insane in 4K on the U8K, due to the fullscreen brightness ha, I've unironically closed sales with that somehow.

I would keep the cinema room/OLED money for the 83" Sony A95L successor preferably, but the 83" G3 successor (as long as its MLA or whatever newer thing they do to compete with QD-OLED) will be amazing too if the Sony 83" flaship QD-OLED is too much for your wallet.



Taking into account value, rtings lists the U8K as the best QLED as of writing this, because the QN95C, X93L and X95L aren't adding enough extra value for the massive increase in price for the majority of people. The X90L is a nice TV but U8K also beats it overall because it just doesn't have enough dimming zones to show HDR dark scenes properly, SDR looks better overall in those cases.
The Sharp XLED has even better sound than the U8K.
 
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