I recently changed from a samsung 55" curve screen (it developed a white spot - fallen LED apparently, very annoying) to a 65Q75C the blacks are black, the colours are amazing.
On reading dozens of reviews, OLED vs QLED 4K vs 8K etc, If you’re doing a lot of top end gaming, then go for the higher spec.
There is nothing on TV which is 8K at the moment, it’s just future-proofing your TV. Apparently most films are still filmed upto and including 2K but there is more and more content being filmed on Netflix etc which are 4K.
So, for the average chappy who doesn’t want to see Laura Kuennesberg’s complexion in ‘highly defined’, then OLED/QLED won’t make a huge difference. If you want to travel through Deep Space 9 killing Zingloids with you MkVII Threshel Biffer, in black-out, then a QLED might be better for you.
What might be an idea is ‘try before you buy’ load up your car with beer, wine, crisps (or non alc alternatives), turn up at @billybutcher , @ChrisMann@MichaelL@Gareth@Rob_le_Pest 's door and check up their set-ups.
Personally I think 8K is a step too far at the moment, even for future-proofing - maybe for games as you mentioned, but not for TV/movie watching, especially if you mostly watch streaming services.
I think 8K broadcast TV will be a long time coming, if ever - most consumers are still happy with HD let alone 4K, and for the content providers the investment in new kit to support 8K would be huge. And unless seriously good new video compression techniques come along, squashing 8K into the available bandwidth
would be very difficult. The bit rate of satellite / streamed TV is already lower than that of BluRay in order to get all the channels to stream alongside each other.
Also it’s a little known fact that there is a lot of upscaling going on behind the scenes at film studios even with 4K BluRays - often films are scanned at 2K (HD / regular BluRay quality) and then upscaled for 4K - OK they use a posh hardware upscaler instead of the one in your TV set, but when you buy a “4K” copy of a favourite film it’s probably not a new scan from the original negative but an upscale from 2K. And a lot of movies were shot digitally in 2K so there isn’t any better original to get a 4K scan from. That goes double for 8K of course.
Sometimes with a major release they will go back and do a fresh 4K scan and restoration, especially where there is a good 35mm neg to scan. But not always!
So the TL/DR is I think generally 4K BluRays are worth buying (especially of modern films that were shot in 4K with Dolby Atmos sound (such as Dune), or proper restorations of classic movies. And having a 4K TV is worth it, but I’m not convinced about 8K.
I *was* considering upgrading the UK TV to a Samsung S90C and then taking the old set to France as we have realised the 40" one we have chez nous is a bit small - BUT
The French set has a satellite tuner which is convenient as we mostly watch Freesat if we do watch broadcast TV - the UK one doesn’t.
and
The cat just broke it’s leg which was unfortunate as her insurance lapsed at some point - I’m an unexpected £3k down that particular rabbit hole at the moment so frivolities such as a new TV will have to wait.
I know, it’s a minor loss of convenience rather than anything else.
The acute bit of fixing the cat should be done and hopefully we’ll get her back from the vet’s later today, but it was surprisingly hard to find a practice who could even take her on - it seems all the small animal vets who have an orthopaedic certificate locally have gone on holiday at the same time.
I can imagine - we’re going to have to entrust her to the neighbours that normally feed her when we are away in a fortnight. That is a little … worrying.
Did your vet have any suggestions? We lent one of our very large Airedale-sized dog cages to friends when their kitten was operated on.
Mind you, my vet did have doubts about the efficacy of a large cage, saying that one of her cat patients was swinging upside down from the top of her cage, which my vet felt was not a good idea!
We borrowed a smaller cage for immediate confinement pre-op and have bought a “medium” cage for post op confinement which will give her a little more room to move about and also some space for litter and food (which cats prefer to be as separate as possible).
I don’t think that would work, even if we could get the paperwork sorted.
Got her foot stuck between the window sill and radiator as she jumped down from the sill - somewhat freak occurrence that would be just about impossible to replicate I reckon.
Hi,
Easiest way is to look for shops stocking many TVs and checking out the sound and picture quality yourself.
I recently bought a 55" OLED and love it. The picture is amazing, so is the sound.
Not the best way to judge picture, shops tend to run the colour saturation and contrast high so the set stands out in the showroom. Some sets even have a “display mode” in their service menus for this very purpose. You’d quickly find that is not good for normal viewing of you ran it like that at home.
Glad you like your OLED - very happy with mine also. However I would agree with @billybutcher and @Corona that showroom displays can be misleading!
Not only can the colour etc. be turned up too high but the programme material they show is not always helpful. Either it’s very colourful and high-res 8K or 4K “demo” material, or (paradoxically) it can be a really awful live broadcast feed coming off an inadequate aerial or satellite dish via a big distribution network, which makes the TVs actually look worse than they are!
That said, seeing TVs “in person” is indeed useful to help you decide what size to get (and maybe to try out the operating system as those do vary), but I think reading reviews is the best way to get an impartial appraisal of sound and picture quality before you buy.
Ok clever people, thanks for all the advice. One last thing, the Samsung TV I’m (probably) going to get has Dolby Atmos, but the surround sound system (Sony HT-S40R with wireless rear speakers) is Dolby 5.1. I’ve read that the Atmos is better than the 5.1, but the question is will the Atmos from the TV be compatible with the 5.1?
TBH, I probably couldn’t tell the difference anyway but would like to know if its going to work and give a reasonably good sound. I can’t find an Atmos system with wireless rear speakers, and I’ve got no easy way to hide the cables.
You won’t magically get Atmos effects out of the 5.1 system, but you will get surround sound as “ordinary” 5.1 soundtracks will be passed through to the soundbar system by the TV via HDMI to be decoded there, and Atmos soundtracks are backwards compatible with Dolby 5.1, so it’ll work fine, you just won’t get the full Atmos directional sound effects.
Dolby Atmos out of a TV set is a bit of a nonsense to be honest because of the lack of speakers in the right places - your Sony soundbar should produce better audio than the TV.
A Sonos setup using a Beam 2 soundbar, Sub Mini, and Sonos One SL or Era 100 rears will give you Dolby Atmos and be wireless in terms of the connection of the rears to the soundbar (Sonos stuff connects via your wifi network), though the Eras or One SLs are mains-powered so will not be completely wireless in that sense.
It’ll sound amazing but cost you quite a lot more than the Sony HT-S40R though!
