Bigger TV (65") Recommendations

If you’re not doing gaming, the Sony has nicer built in speakers(also if you’re not using external speakers)

 

Sony > LG.

Apple TV 4K (2nd Gen) is great. Just make sure to turn on dynamic range and frame rate matching. I love mine with my Samsung 1080p plasma. Going to use that TV until it dies.

 

Thanks guys. This one is one level below Sony's top tier, but if any big sale coming up I bet I can get this one within my target:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sony-5...k-uhd-smart-google-tv/6455217.p?skuId=6455217

 

Sorry for double posting but that is super helpful. I normally watch films in 2.0 and I don't need anything fancy. If the internal speakers are good enough, then that's one less thing to worry about. Prefer not using a sounder since my cats will think it is a toy.

 

You'll have to pry my Sammy plasma from my cold, dead eyeballs. My bedroom setup is a Samsung 1080p plasma + PSB Imagine W1 on-walls, great combo. There's a sub in there somewhere too.

 

Cool, I'll go ahead and wait next month to see current deals on the A80 before I bite. January is a heavy spending month bills wise for me.

 

ymo you could also try this site https://www.greentoe.com/product/Sony_55_4K_XR_OLED_TV_XR55A80J?site_category_id=a05E0000004uSdAIAU

 

my 2 cents.

2-3 years ago I would have agreed with everyone saying Sony is the way to go, but currently, I think its more of a wash even with just movie watching, aka not counting gaming, cause if you care about gaming its a slam dunk for the LG.

The Sony is slightly better at tone mapping HDR content into the brightness capabilities of the OLED panels, as in it maintains more highlight detail and color saturation at the top end of the brightness range, without having to lower the average picture level of the scene.

The Sony is also slightly better at dealing with lower res content, and upscaling it to 4k, but if you're using an Apple TV or some other streaming box, it will most likely being outputting at 4k, and upscaling itself, so this isn't a particularly relevant point.

The LG honestly has better near black handling. the current OLEG panels all have some issues at very close to black levels, with potential near black chrominance overshoot, crush, gamma, etc. The LG has much finer gamma controls for near black allowing you to dial this is much better with calibration, the Sony just does the inverse of crush and raises near black gamma to avoid the issue. making some very dark scenes look more washed out.

The LG is also more accurate when calibrated, its 3d lut system is more advanced.


As for the kvetching about having to fiddle with menus to turn off all the shit to stop you from hurting the panel, the Sony has all that too, but it also has undefeatable logo dimming, which can be defeated on the LG, albeit in the service menu. But I think all of that is in place for a somewhat valid reason, OLED panels, as good as they are, have downsides, and they are trying to mitigate them for the average Joe, so having to turn those things off is just part of the experience of getting the most out of them.


I also don't subscribe to this idea that OLEDs have too black blacks, contrast is king and is the foundation any video experience is built on, specially if you can get the near black gamma adjusted properly as to minimize the issues there. I wouldn't watch any serious long form video content on an LCD for this reason, I owned a pioneer kuro plasma for like a decade before I finally upgraded to the LG OLED.


One thing that OLEDs aren't great at is motion compared to a plasma or crt, but this is the case with all sample and hold displays, like OLEDs or all LCDs. OLEDs are even slightly worse for this cause of how fast the pixels transition, leading to more filmic stutter, from the amount of time each frame is on screen, whereas with an LCD they are slower so the frames blend together more during the frame changes. One way you can fix this is with motion interpolation, aka the soap opera effect, which is awful, don't do this, or on the OLEDs you can use black frame insertion to vastly increase motion performance, and because the panels are so fast it works great. EDIT: BFI is really only great on the CX or C1 or newer, on the C9, it wasn't good, so don't use it there.

note: this filmic stutter is not the same as 3:2 pulldown, which is judder caused by fitting 24hz content into a 60hz display, it is instead a perception issue of our eyes and the sample and hold display tech. the OLEDs are correctly using 5:5 pulldown on 24hz content to get judder free movie playback.

 

I was at Worst Buy (Best Buy) earlier in the morning to see the demo units with ultra-hyped demos with colors that are just too much for my eyes.

As expected, the 65 in screens are too big for my eyes. Being near one of the 65 in panels my eyes were hurting since it was too much info overload for me. Also, those demo units I wear have vivd color setting up to max and it just became too much for my eyes to look at after the while. However, the father you are away from the bigger screens the more they look normal to my eyes.

From my measurements, I'll be sitting either 3 ft to 9 ft away from the TV. For most of this, 55 in is more than sufficient except if going like 8 ft and up. Being near a 55 in TV up close didn't caused any info overload and I was able to see everything just fine without my brain melting. The LG OLEDs are pretty good, but I didn't like the picture processing of them at times. The Sony OLEDs are just the LG panels but with their own magic on it, and I like it a lot. True the demo units are not the ideal setting, but my local Worst Buy had a Magnolia room where it is in a much darker environment and thus I saw the 55 in A80J 2021 Sony OLED upfront. Looks damn good of course since there's not much light in the area. However, the other Sony OLEDs in the main floor look more than enough on a brightness level.

I also kind of laugh when I keep seeing the same firework demo video that was made by NHK. NHK always have these demo videos of a new video tech when they were introduced. I saw tons of NHK made videos from back of the 80s/90s when something like HD video was a thing in the early 90s and stuff.

Anyhoo, I think the 55 in Sony A80J 2021 OLED will be my target purchase, I'm just waiting until the prices continues to drop since Spring is coming soon and that's when normally the 2022 models comes out. I'll go with Amazon since I have credit with them and other reasons.

One thing I am planning to get is an Apple TV, since I prefer a Dumb TV without any OS, 24p support is f'ing huge in my world and benefits if you have the Apple ecosystem. One nice see I see that when you turn on one of the Sony OLEDs for the first time you can tell it if you want to use Google TV OS or just use it for a display only (which shuts off all TV OS crap). As much as people are buying Smart TVs, Dumb TVs gives me the flexibility that I want. I just wish I didn't had to pay for a TV OS System that nowadays are loaded with ads. I always pay more for something if I can get rid of most/if not all ads. Why most streaming boxes are cheap? They do what Amazon does: Sub the cost with ADDDDDDSSSSSSSAASSSS!

 

Yeah that was one of the reasons I got an appletv, no ads. the firetv sticks are just ricidulously loaded down with ads on the home page

 

Semi-related to this thread, has anyone here tried using ultra short throw projectors instead of a tv?

 

Open-box Sony A80J 65" open box $1,125 at a Best Buy 30 miles away
1 year factory warranty
Great price or wait for better?
Amazon wants $1,500 for 'renewed' and only 90 day warranty
My 55" Panasonic plasma is 12+ yrs old; still works great but can't last forever

 

That seems like a great price!

I got a LG C2 65" 3 weeks ago. Coming from a C7 55", this thing is a great upgrade. I love that I can just set it to Filmaker mode and not have to worry about anything.
And it's a beast for gaming! The C7 had a broken HDR game mode and no VRR or 120Hz support (via its inputs, the panel itself is 120Hz), which is a must!

 

seems like a good price if the tv doesn't have dead pixels or burn in, oled tvs in the US should all be more or less similar since they all use the same panels made by LG and its for the most part all just firmware/software differences (which also only really matters much if you're into HDR stuff - never mattered to me since I only watch SDR).

"correct" colors etc and calibrated HDR on tvs is also just a whole other rabbit hole of nervosa if you ever care to go look into the the (not) standards

 

I was going to get a 55" LG C2 but decided to get the 65" instead. I'm very happy with it. There were so many settings to figure out! Took some time as the UI is a bit unfriendly at times, but all is well now. Bought a Panasonic 4K player at the same time. Video bliss.

 

Well damn. Last evening after posting, the Panny Plasma has developed a pretty noticeable hum. Not good. Picked up the Sony today. Open box = no box, but it was bubble-wrapped. Quick look, it seems unmarked. No remote, boo. But factory warranty card, yay. Have the correct remote from Amazon arriving Saturday.
I was able to turn it on and play a BluRay because my player is a Sony and the remote works. But can't do any picture settings, so it was crazy bright and had that weird motion thing going on. Can't see any screen defects, so fingers crossed. I have 14 days starting tomorrow to return it if there's any flaws.

 

Sad sad news. The HDMI board in my precious Panny has died. I have not been able to find a mainboard replacement in stock anywhere. I am heartbroken.