55" OLED or 65" LED TV...
Discussion
varsas said:
Interested to hear your opinion. My first thought are here:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
and my mind hasn't changed much, except that I have begun to realise that 'The Revenant' is exceptional, it really is like watching one of those demo loops, but that most UHD BluRay's around at the moment, at least the ones I have, can't hold a candle to it and are only subtly better than the BluRay. I hope this will improve.
I think I need to have a fiddle with the settings, because I am not seeing too much difference between 4k HDR and standard Blu-Rays. The most impressive I have seen so far is Avatar on standard BR (and that was an 32gb MKV file on one of my hard drives and played through my HTPC). I bought the 4k version of The Da Vinci Code (wife likes it), and watched that last night. Not too impressed, TBH. The darker scenes (of which there are many in this film) look quite grainy in places. The 4k version of Oblivion is better, but it is not twice as good (never mind 4 times) as the standard BR version that is also included with the HDR version.http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
and my mind hasn't changed much, except that I have begun to realise that 'The Revenant' is exceptional, it really is like watching one of those demo loops, but that most UHD BluRay's around at the moment, at least the ones I have, can't hold a candle to it and are only subtly better than the BluRay. I hope this will improve.
But I may need to fiddle with the settings when I get time. I really don't fancy spending £20 on The Revenant, I feel that is a film I would only want to watch once, and not keep..
Chris, if I have no intention of utilising the 4K capabilities of the LG would it still be a worthwhile purchase even for 1080 stuff? I currently have an old 42" Panasonic plasma which is quite flattering of even 720p MKVs and I'm wondering whether the LG might be wasted on me and what I watch?
Funk said:
Chris, if I have no intention of utilising the 4K capabilities of the LG would it still be a worthwhile purchase even for 1080 stuff? I currently have an old 42" Panasonic plasma which is quite flattering of even 720p MKVs and I'm wondering whether the LG might be wasted on me and what I watch?
I would say yes. I did like my plasma TV and there was nothing wrong with it. However, the picture on the OLED is so much more vibrant, and really does bring BR (and MKV HD files) to life. The picture is definitely more colourful and sharper.One thing I have learned is that uncompressed MKV files are as good as the original BR played through a £400 BR/HDR player.
ETA - The picture is so good I have now started to buy BR versions of my favorite films and shows I have on DVD.
Edited by chris watton on Monday 7th November 10:08
Cheers. I have a mix of 1080/720 stuff but have been waiting for a display which does blacks like a plasma can. Nice to have the 4K option down the line if I want it.
Most of my stuff is driven from the PC which has an MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr card in it. That card only has HDMI 1.4a and I think the max resolution it will output is 2560x1600 (WQXGA).
I'd be a bit gutted to buy a new screen and find it made video which looks pretty good on the plasma look terrible. On the current screen I've found that 720p is a good compromise between quality and file size...
Most of my stuff is driven from the PC which has an MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr card in it. That card only has HDMI 1.4a and I think the max resolution it will output is 2560x1600 (WQXGA).
I'd be a bit gutted to buy a new screen and find it made video which looks pretty good on the plasma look terrible. On the current screen I've found that 720p is a good compromise between quality and file size...
Edited by Funk on Monday 7th November 10:17
Funk said:
Cheers. I have a mix of 1080/720 stuff but have been waiting for a display which does blacks like a plasma can. Nice to have the 4K option down the line if I want it.
Most of my stuff is driven from the PC which has an MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr card in it. That card only has HDMI 1.4a and I think the max resolution it will output is 2560x1600 (WQXGA).
The GPU in my HTPC is around 4-5 years old (EVGA GTX460), so that's probably only 1.4a, too. But I was astonished just how good Avatar looked, and the other MKV files.Most of my stuff is driven from the PC which has an MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr card in it. That card only has HDMI 1.4a and I think the max resolution it will output is 2560x1600 (WQXGA).
gizlaroc said:
£1800 on Very with 12 months By Now Pay Later.
Now that's very tempting! But I'm not in desperate need for a replacement TV so might wait out until next year in anticipation of a post-xmas price drop 
But is it actually worth getting an OLED TV if all I watch is Sportsmania, iPlayer and torrented films?
Shaoxter said:
Now that's very tempting! But I'm not in desperate need for a replacement TV so might wait out until next year in anticipation of a post-xmas price drop
But is it actually worth getting an OLED TV if all I watch is Sportsmania, iPlayer and torrented films?
You get 12 months Sky Q for free as well at the moment. But is it actually worth getting an OLED TV if all I watch is Sportsmania, iPlayer and torrented films?
DDg said:
Anyone got the Samsung UE65KS8000? Any buyers remorse? It's about £2,000 now, gets good reviews, but like the OP I'm thinking "this, or a 55"LG or go nuts and spend an extra £1k on a 65" OLED"...
I had the 55" and it went back. No where near as good as my 3 year old Sony W905. Just couldn't do blacks at all as soon as there was any bright content on screen, made the whole thing look drab and washed out.
chris watton said:
varsas said:
Interested to hear your opinion. My first thought are here:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
and my mind hasn't changed much, except that I have begun to realise that 'The Revenant' is exceptional, it really is like watching one of those demo loops, but that most UHD BluRay's around at the moment, at least the ones I have, can't hold a candle to it and are only subtly better than the BluRay. I hope this will improve.
I think I need to have a fiddle with the settings, because I am not seeing too much difference between 4k HDR and standard Blu-Rays. The most impressive I have seen so far is Avatar on standard BR (and that was an 32gb MKV file on one of my hard drives and played through my HTPC). I bought the 4k version of The Da Vinci Code (wife likes it), and watched that last night. Not too impressed, TBH. The darker scenes (of which there are many in this film) look quite grainy in places. The 4k version of Oblivion is better, but it is not twice as good (never mind 4 times) as the standard BR version that is also included with the HDR version.http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
and my mind hasn't changed much, except that I have begun to realise that 'The Revenant' is exceptional, it really is like watching one of those demo loops, but that most UHD BluRay's around at the moment, at least the ones I have, can't hold a candle to it and are only subtly better than the BluRay. I hope this will improve.
But I may need to fiddle with the settings when I get time. I really don't fancy spending £20 on The Revenant, I feel that is a film I would only want to watch once, and not keep..
DaVinci code was shot on film, so there will be grain, especially in dark area's where the signal/noise ratio of the camera gets low. Film grain can also be an artistic choice.
Oblivion looks stunning on Bluray. Given my experience with other modern films I would expect the difference on UHD to be subtle but they do look beter. Oblivion was finally mastered at 2k (as are a lot of films) so that erodes the difference even more.
Funk said:
I'd be a bit gutted to buy a new screen and find it made video which looks pretty good on the plasma look terrible. On the current screen I've found that 720p is a good compromise between quality and file size...
OLEDs show up poor compression like nothing else. I've also ripped all my BluRay's, converting them to mpeg4, 1080p, from 1 to 6 GB per hour (depending on the film). They look really good on everything, including close up on my 27inch monitor but look awful on my OLED, it's where they get dark suddenly a load of macro blocking and posterisation becomes apparent that just doesn't show up on other displays. I have to watch the original BluRay's now. I expect the original MKV as Chris is watching would be the same as the BluRay.Edited by Funk on Monday 7th November 10:17
iPlayer and YouTube (at 1080p) look very good though and they are hardly pristine sources.
varsas said:
Funk said:
I'd be a bit gutted to buy a new screen and find it made video which looks pretty good on the plasma look terrible. On the current screen I've found that 720p is a good compromise between quality and file size...
OLEDs show up poor compression like nothing else. I've also ripped all my BluRay's, converting them to mpeg4, 1080p, from 1 to 6 GB per hour (depending on the film). They look really good on everything, including close up on my 27inch monitor but look awful on my OLED, it's where they get dark suddenly a load of macro blocking and posterisation becomes apparent that just doesn't show up on other displays. I have to watch the original BluRay's now. I expect the original MKV as Chris is watching would be the same as the BluRay.Edited by Funk on Monday 7th November 10:17
iPlayer and YouTube (at 1080p) look very good though and they are hardly pristine sources.
Perhaps the LG would be wasted on me then, I'll mull it over and thanks for the feedback.
Off topic I know, but with this talk of showing video files on an OLED TV and not looking very good, I have to say that all of my MKV files look and sound just as good as the original disk they came from. (Including the DTS sound for BR's and Dolby 5.1 for DVD's)
It got to the point where I had so many DVD's and Blu-Rays (and now 2x4k HDR BR's
), it became increasingly impossible to have easy access to all of them. I decided it would be better if I backed them up, uncompressed (otherwise what's the point of watching/listening to something inferior)? onto 4tb hard drives, and box up my DVD's and store them as back up. Even all the extras were backed up.
I ended up buying an 8 bay hard drive unit and added the hard drives as I went, separating all of the different film and TV types into their own folders, so they'd be easily accessible. Storage is so cheap now, there's little need to have great films compressed into tiny file sizes which compromise the quality. Having my complete music and video library stores all in this one place, in this little box which takes up little space appealed to me. because they are 4TB drives, they have to be played through the HTPC as standard TV's and DVD players don't recognise any drive over 2tb.
I did have a couple of MPEG4 video files that have been on my drives from years, but I decided to buy the BR's (I think each one was around £3 to buy)! and re-copy them in MKV format.
I would not dream of trying to watch a great film or TV series which has been compressed to an inch if its life, there simply is no need for it now that large amounts of storage is so cheap.
I can tell you, hand on heart, there is absolutely no noticeable difference between the original BR disc and MKV files, both visually and in sound, when watching them on the new OLED TV.
It got to the point where I had so many DVD's and Blu-Rays (and now 2x4k HDR BR's
), it became increasingly impossible to have easy access to all of them. I decided it would be better if I backed them up, uncompressed (otherwise what's the point of watching/listening to something inferior)? onto 4tb hard drives, and box up my DVD's and store them as back up. Even all the extras were backed up.I ended up buying an 8 bay hard drive unit and added the hard drives as I went, separating all of the different film and TV types into their own folders, so they'd be easily accessible. Storage is so cheap now, there's little need to have great films compressed into tiny file sizes which compromise the quality. Having my complete music and video library stores all in this one place, in this little box which takes up little space appealed to me. because they are 4TB drives, they have to be played through the HTPC as standard TV's and DVD players don't recognise any drive over 2tb.
I did have a couple of MPEG4 video files that have been on my drives from years, but I decided to buy the BR's (I think each one was around £3 to buy)! and re-copy them in MKV format.
I would not dream of trying to watch a great film or TV series which has been compressed to an inch if its life, there simply is no need for it now that large amounts of storage is so cheap.
I can tell you, hand on heart, there is absolutely no noticeable difference between the original BR disc and MKV files, both visually and in sound, when watching them on the new OLED TV.
The thing with OLED is it shows show much detail in the low IRE ranges, and most LCDs will crush this detail, they struggle doing black, so they make the very dark greys look black.
The problem with this is a lot of the compression techniques struggle in these areas too, and when viewed back on a display that crushes the lower ranges it is missed.
I would rather a display that doesn't hide artifacts in the source, as we are seeing it less and less as time goes on.
It is normally TV broadcasts, Netflix, Amazon etc. where it is an issue, not on Bluray.
The problem with this is a lot of the compression techniques struggle in these areas too, and when viewed back on a display that crushes the lower ranges it is missed.
I would rather a display that doesn't hide artifacts in the source, as we are seeing it less and less as time goes on.
It is normally TV broadcasts, Netflix, Amazon etc. where it is an issue, not on Bluray.
chris watton said:
It got to the point where I had so many DVD's and Blu-Rays (and now 2x4k HDR BR's ), it became increasingly impossible to have easy access to all of them. I decided it would be better if I backed them up, uncompressed (otherwise what's the point of watching/listening to something inferior)? onto 4tb hard drives, and box up my DVD's and store them as back up. Even all the extras were backed up.
This is my end goal too. I want to buy a NAS/Router thing, store all the films on an external USB drive and use DLNA to play the files anywhere on any device. this nearly works. The problems are that you can't buy a 2.5inch drive big enough (I need 6-8TB just for my current BluRays uncompressed and I want it powered over the USB port) and the players I have tried (Samsung/Toshiba/Somy bluray players) crash if the audio gets over about 2,000kbit/second. I haven't tried my UHD player yet. ), it became increasingly impossible to have easy access to all of them. I decided it would be better if I backed them up, uncompressed (otherwise what's the point of watching/listening to something inferior)? onto 4tb hard drives, and box up my DVD's and store them as back up. Even all the extras were backed up.I'd quite like a solution where you could image the entire disc rather than ripping parts out of it, so that you get the menus etc too, haven't hugely looked in to it so that might be completely possible. Last time I looked in to it was a while ago when you'd have to find the files on the disc and rip them, so extras would just be separate video files, and no menus etc.
varsas said:
This is my end goal too. I want to buy a NAS/Router thing, store all the films on an external USB drive and use DLNA to play the files anywhere on any device. this nearly works. The problems are that you can't buy a 2.5inch drive big enough (I need 6-8TB just for my current BluRays uncompressed and I want it powered over the USB port) and the players I have tried (Samsung/Toshiba/Somy bluray players) crash if the audio gets over about 2,000kbit/second. I haven't tried my UHD player yet.
I decided to build a small HTPC because I thought it'd be a neat all-in-one solution at the time. I could listen/watch my music and film library with just a click of the mouse, surf the net and play my Steam games on the big TV. The plus side to plugging the extra hard drives into the PC rather than TV or BR player is that I could use drives much larger than 2TB, and using the mouse is much less 'faffy'.If you want to attach the hard drive directly to your player/TV, they will have to be no larger than 2TB - but you can still put a lot of stuff on that. You could buy a HD caddy which can house 2,4, 6 or 8 2TB drives, and your player should be able to recognise the HD's (Western Digital drives work just fine). I use the paid for version of MakeMKV to back up my library, it always works very well.
I find that most BR film files are around 15-25gb, but some long films (like Titanic) is over 40gb.
For the first time, I went and looked at some TVs properly today. Before I went, I was fairly sure I didn't need OLED and wasn't even convinced that I need 4k, since my content will be mostly streamed. Apart from the fact that there is very little 4k available, I understand that streamed 4k is sufficiently compressed that I'll hardly tell the difference anyway.
However, viewing them did change my mind a bit. OLED looked noticeable better to me - much better contrast is colours. This was true with the demo discs Curry's were using but also normal HD TV (loose women!) in Costco, although Costco only had the LG in 65".
I must admit, I was also surprised to find that I really liked the slightly curved screen.
I looked up when I bought my Pioneer Kuro - on Wednesday this week it will be exactly 9 years so it's doing well. However, although I've seen threads saying that it's hard to buy a modern tv that will beat the Kuro's, even in the non ideal shop displays with every setting maxed out I thought the LGs blew my TV away.
So, I'm currently trying to convince myself I need to spend £2k on a new TV!
However, viewing them did change my mind a bit. OLED looked noticeable better to me - much better contrast is colours. This was true with the demo discs Curry's were using but also normal HD TV (loose women!) in Costco, although Costco only had the LG in 65".
I must admit, I was also surprised to find that I really liked the slightly curved screen.
I looked up when I bought my Pioneer Kuro - on Wednesday this week it will be exactly 9 years so it's doing well. However, although I've seen threads saying that it's hard to buy a modern tv that will beat the Kuro's, even in the non ideal shop displays with every setting maxed out I thought the LGs blew my TV away.
So, I'm currently trying to convince myself I need to spend £2k on a new TV!
Edited by davek_964 on Monday 21st November 18:08
Edited by davek_964 on Monday 21st November 18:10
ks about the Kuros being hard to beat, I had one that had tweaked black levels in the service menu and was calibrated to perfection and the OLEDs are much better. 
Gassing Station | Home Cinema & Hi-Fi | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff