New TV Time
- Thread starter Mike_Rupp
- Start date
Can not go wrong with Samsung, Sony or LG. I have a 37 inch LG from 2006 that still works like the day I bought it. It was the 'big' flat screen of it's time, LCD. I hear the LED's are great now.
I found a great Samsung a few years back at a pro audio/video store. They had many models that the Best Buys and Amazons don't stock, the higher-end stuff. I would start there.
Samsung had all the latest innovations at CES this year including a 1mm thick TV they are calling wallpaper.
I've read that OLED is good, but could you give me the cliff notes version of why I'd get that vs the old LCD/LED tvs?
OLED stands for organic light-emitting diode.
Its panels are made from organic materials that emit light when electricity is applied to them.
As a result, OLED panels don't use a backlight meaning they are thinner than LCD displays.
OLEDs additionally have bright colours, brilliant contrasts and a wide-viewing angle.
The top manufacturers are banking on this new technology to take off and be the next big step, replacing LCD, Plasma and older LED technology.
Its panels are made from organic materials that emit light when electricity is applied to them.
As a result, OLED panels don't use a backlight meaning they are thinner than LCD displays.
OLEDs additionally have bright colours, brilliant contrasts and a wide-viewing angle.
The top manufacturers are banking on this new technology to take off and be the next big step, replacing LCD, Plasma and older LED technology.
So I just went to Best Buy. The issue is that they are all playing different content to show off their strengths. That being said, the Samsung, LG, and Sony all look pretty damn good.
To expand on this:
Each OLED pixel is its own light source (emissive display - like the old tube sets). LCD has a back light (the LED in current form, vs a very large fluorescent flat tube) and each pixel has a liquid crystal shutter. That means when the OLED pixel goes black, there is no light coming from it; all LCDs will have some amount of bleed through of light. Hence, much better contrast in OLED, and true blacks.
Also, turning a pixel on/off (or varying the brightness) is always going to be faster with OLED since you are just manipulating the flow of electrons. In LCDs, one manipulates the flow of electrons at the pixel to create a field, which then aligns the LCs to allow more/less light through. Thus, better motion rendering.
All that said, LCD TVs today are pretty damn good, especially the 4K. The high end 4K ones are probably on par (at least to the human eye) with OLED.
I bought a 60" Sony last summer off of Amazon for $700 and it's great. If you've got the scratch (~$4K I think), OLED. Otherwise any Sony, Samsung, LG is going to be very good.
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The LG 65" OLED is $2999. I think I'm going to pull the trigger.
Apparently, TiVo makes a 4K box, which will be the next thing to upgrade. I spent some time looking into DVD players. It seems like Oppo makes some good stuff.
Apparently, TiVo makes a 4K box, which will be the next thing to upgrade. I spent some time looking into DVD players. It seems like Oppo makes some good stuff.
Price has come down since I looked last year. Good deal.
Just FYI - At the same time I bought the Sony, I had a Sony DVD (BluRay)/streaming player that was starting to crap out. Recent reviews said there were a lot of problems with its software (I was seeing that - Netflix would hang). I bought the Samsung BluRay version (my TV is not 4K); havent had any problems. I see there is a 4k version now for $400
The amount of 4k programming is limited right now, it will take years if not more to see full implementation. That said, I hope it's shorter because a true 4K picture is something to behold. I think firetv offers some 4K as well.
I bought a cheap Visio P series a couple of years ago. The picture looked great. I started to have a slight issue with it, and the warranty replaced the entire tv and let me keep the old one ($99 square trade from sam's club). So I looked into replacing the t-con board that I thought might have been the issue. That board also fits Sony XBR of the same year, so it appears they have the same panel in them.
I just started looking into it. Netflix has a bunch of shows. Most importantly, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and Daredevil are all in 4K.
How do you run netflix? That's the question. Love our Apple TV 3 but it lacks 4K. For now I can do without, like the Apple TV that much.
1. It has the Netflix app on the TV itself. That being said, I've had issues with the "smart" features not working that well. My Sony TV has a very nice picture, but it couldn't stream worth shit. It didn't matter if it was Amazon or Netflix; it just couldn't handle it.
2. TiVo Bolt. I have the previous TiVo box for my Comcast cable as well as being the device that I use to stream everything like Amazon & Netflix. The nice thing about the TiVo box is that nearly everything that I do is there: live TV, dvr, streaming, & Pandora.
3. There are rumors that Apple will be releasing a 4K version later this year. I don't believe that anything is confirmed. I have an Apple TV as well, which is great except for the fact that Amazon and Apple won't grow the fuck up and get along.
Simple solution. Airplay from your phone or tablet. If you have a iphone or ipad. Didn't mean to get your hopes up.
Open up the prime app swipe op from bottom to activate airplay and there is an absolute flawless stream right from the device to the apple TV.
Matter of fact this works for any website that streams. I like to keep up with the Big South Conference basketball here. Sometimes games are on ESPN 1 and 2 but the games are almost always streamed in HD right from the Big south website. It works perfect. Can watch games on the big screen that most that pay $120 for cable or SAT can't. I win.
I'll have to check out using Airplay from the iPhone. I've done it, but it's been a while.
My system is a complete clusterfuck. I have the Tivo box that I use for live TV, DVR, Pandora, Netflix, and Amazon. Then I have Apple TV that I use for HBO Now and a few other things. Then I have a Blu-Ray player that gets used for Blu Rays obviously as well as playing ripped DVDs that are on my NAS. Oh, we also have an Amazon Fire TV device which we use to access my wife's content on her account.
Thankfully, my Yamaha receiver has 4K HDMI pass through, so I can keep that.
My system is a complete clusterfuck. I have the Tivo box that I use for live TV, DVR, Pandora, Netflix, and Amazon. Then I have Apple TV that I use for HBO Now and a few other things. Then I have a Blu-Ray player that gets used for Blu Rays obviously as well as playing ripped DVDs that are on my NAS. Oh, we also have an Amazon Fire TV device which we use to access my wife's content on her account.
Thankfully, my Yamaha receiver has 4K HDMI pass through, so I can keep that.
