Export thread

The spouse and I are in the market for a new wall-mountable flat screen TV. Our current one is about 10 years old, a ~60" Pioneer Elite 720p plasma. We sit about 18 feet from where the screen hangs. We're looking for something in the 60"-70" range and have been looking at some of the 4K screens out there. However, online research seems to indicate that 4K might not be the best choice at this time/for our situation and I was wondering if anyone might have some thoughts on the topic? Side speakers are not needed/desired since we have a 7 speaker setup in the room and neither of us is particularly impressed with 3D (plus the rest of our hardware doesn't support it and most of our discs are not 3D). Thanks!

Is there any reason you're not considering a straight-up monitor instead of an actual television? Do you require a built-in tuner?

--Patrick

We went with a 1080p projector (which does, in fact, do 3D when desired), and, for a screen that large, it's something to consider, but if your room has a lot of ambient light it's not as good as a TV.

4K just got standardized HDMI signalling, so if you do go that route, then it'll be ready for 4K content as you upgrade other components in your system. Given you're buying such a large TV, I expect you don't replace it frequently, and in 5 years there's likely to be a lot of 4k content. So I wouldn't dismiss 4K just because there's little available now, but it is an additional cost, and even 5 years from now 80% of the content you view is still likely to be 1080p. Note that if your audio/video switcher/amp doesn't support 4k or 4k passthrough you'll have an added expense the first time you buy another 4k component.

I'd probably focus more on the framerate (120Hz if you don't care about 3D, 240Hz if 3D), and the LED backlighting. Newer TVs obtain better blacks by having a matrix of individually selectable LEDs behind the LCD, and particularly dark areas of the screen dim the LEDs. This means that even if the LCD has a poor contrast ratio, deeper blacks can still be obtained. I don't know how common this is now (Happy with my projector...) so you'll have to do a little research to find out who does this and what their particular trademark is for it so you can compare TVs.

If you get a 4K TV, it's worth getting the built-in netflix or roku. They will actually stream 4K content to you, but current set-top roku boxes and similar don't support that yet.

If you're not getting 4K, you should focus more on the TV quality and ignore any built in stuff. Use an external roku, the built in boxes are never upgraded and usually just complicate the remote, becoming useless after a few years when everything else is upgraded.

Note that there are no 4k blurays or 4k bluray players. There are "4k optimized" bluerays and "4k ready" blueray players. The idea is that the same 1080p resolution is encoded on the disc, but it's encoded in a way that makes it easier/better to upscale to 4k than without this encoding. It's better than 1080p on a 4k TV, but it's not 4k. I know they've got stuff in the works, but they're struggling with a few issues (do you really want to switch the disc in the middle of a 90 minute movie?) and I think the streaming industry (directv, netflix, comcast, etc) are going to finally get what Apple's been trying to do for years - the death of physical media.

But everyone seems to agree - it's not really worthwhile investing in 4k devices right now.

Spend the extra money on a TV with better blacks, better colors, and a good refresh rate so you can view all your content correctly. Then spend some time calibrating it.[DOUBLEPOST=1426697563,1426697255][/DOUBLEPOST]If you can get an IPS panel, it's worth it. Better colors, better viewing angle for everyone in the room.

Also, if you do get 4k, this is obviously the one to buy:

Amazon product

Better hurry, though, Amazon only has one left in stock! Free enhanced delivery too, which will come in handy as they muscle the 250 lb 98" behemoth up your stairs.[DOUBLEPOST=1426697696][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, the first real 4k blu rays won't be available until later this year - if then.[DOUBLEPOST=1426697740][/DOUBLEPOST]Broadcast 4k is a loooong way away. Years at the earliest. I'm guessing the 2020 olympic games might feature 4k broadcast TV if everyone gets their act together now.[DOUBLEPOST=1426697782][/DOUBLEPOST]I wish the "Double Post Merged" notice incremented correctly.

I think
http://www.panasonic.com/business/Plasma/3D/3D-Plasma-TH-152UX1.asp
is a better option.

Plasma? A last gasp of a dying industry.

FYI 24fps 4k footage runs about 42GB/hr when encoded with H.264 (the compression used by Blu-Ray discs). Dual-layer Blu-Ray discs can hold 50GB.
So we're still limited by the optical storage medium as to how much footage can go on a disc.
A 4k release of the newfangled 48fps cinema would only be able to ship about 30min/disc, and that's including the shift between layers that nobody likes.

--Patrick

Well I decided to look it up, and it appears they released some details of the upcoming 4k bluray spec at CES:

The original bluray disc format allowed for up to 8 layers, supporting 200GB of total data. The bluray video disc format never supported more than two. The new bluray disc specifications for 4k actually squeezes 33GB per layer (vs 25GB for current blurays), adds a third layer (to give 100GB per disc), implements h.265 (HEVC, which is what streaming services are using for HD content these days), and increases the read speed so you can achieve 128mbps.

Strangely, the read speed for 2 layers is only 108mbps and for three layers is 128mbps. I'm thinking they are requiring bluray players to have multiple read heads, and reading layers in parallel (oh yeah? Well my VCR is a four track, so there!). This is probably necessary to avoid high speed rotation - a disc flying apart at 3-4k rpm is much less destructive than one flying apart at 10k rpm.

So the disc capacities will probably look like this:

BD single layer 25GB
BD dual layer 50GB
BD4k dual layer 66GB
BD4k triple layer 100GB

Your 42GB/Hour requires over 96mbps, so the new specification just barely meets it, though I don't know what the overhead (error correction, disc encoding, etc) cost is, so the actual disc read speed will have to be higher. Given the new h.265 codec though, they may be able to lower the bandwidth without appreciably affecting the video.

Still, this time next year we'll have movies released simultaneously on DVD, blue ray, and blue ray ultra 4k whatever-moniker-they-finally-settle-on.

I wasn't accounting for H.265, because then everyone will have to whine about how they have to replace their entertainment systems and media again.
(actually, software players will probably be able to switch back and forth to H.264, it's just the non-upgradeable ASIC people who will be really disappointed)
I assume the increased read speed will merely be a consequence of having the same rotation speed but higher data density.
As for uncompressed bit rate, it looks like H.265 can compress files 35% smaller than H.264 at the same subjective video quality.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

Is there any reason you're not considering a straight-up monitor instead of an actual television? Do you require a built-in tuner?

--Patrick

Click to expand...

Sorry, you're right, I'm looking for a monitor. We have a cable box and pre-amp/receiver to feed the screen.[DOUBLEPOST=1426705511,1426705316][/DOUBLEPOST]

Bubble181 said:

I think
http://www.panasonic.com/business/Plasma/3D/3D-Plasma-TH-152UX1.asp
is a better option.

Click to expand...

I forgot to mention it needs to be less than 80" wide in order to fit between the windows on the wall it'll hang on.[DOUBLEPOST=1426705666][/DOUBLEPOST]1080p screens are an option, but we haven't studied the screens available. There can be a lot of ambient light even with the blinds shut, so I don't think a projector is a good option for this room. Does anyone have recommendations of 1080 monitors in the 60"-70" range with strong performance on colors and blacks?

stienman said:

Plasma? A last gasp of a dying industry.

Click to expand...

True enough.

Somewhat seriously, though they *are* still bloody expensive, OLED screens are really, really nice to look at, color-wise. http://www.lg.com/us/tvs/lg-65EG9600-oled-4k-tv for example (as I said - pricey. But not as ridiculous as either what stienman or I posted earlier as jokes). If you're willing to "settle" for 55" (good lord, I feel poor now - I have a 32" and consider it a big tv ), the LG OLED screens are actually fairly affordable (around $3K instead of $9K for the 65"...You can tell making big panels is where the cost lies for OLED) and, really, it's a big difference in image quality.

Thank you for all the feedback so far. This would be kind of an anniversary present/tax return/yearly bonus splurge all wrapped together, with the intent that last us 10+ years. Among the 4K screens we've looked at, the top two seem to be:

Amazon product
Amazon product

The Sony has great colors and blacks, but we're not crazy about the price. It seems to be coming down rapidly though (maybe Sony is coming out with something new?). The Vizio is a close second in picture quality, but we're not sure how well they'll support their product, especially with possible firmware updates down the road. A 1080p screen would be a possibility, but we'd basically have to start over. We're not sold on the curved screens since we sit so far back. It seems to be a better feature for sitting close.

If you go with the Vizio, you may want to check out Costco. They're $500 less. That would more than pay for the membership, and if you go executive, the TV alone would probably give you the membership cost back in a rebate.

http://www.costco.com/Vizio-70"-Cla...D-Ultra-HDTV-P702ui-B3.product.100131120.html

If you are going for 4k, each month you put the purchase off, the cheaper they get. If you can wait until fall (black friday or holiday sales) chances are you'll be able to get 25% or more off today's prices.

But then, this will always be true. Come november, you'll have to know that waiting another half year will reduce them again.

The two you've listed are both very good, and I'm sure you'll be happy with either. If you were watching them side by side I'm certain you'd notice the Sony was better, but the difference between the two probably isn't worth the huge difference in cost. In fact, you should buy the second one, save the $2,500 difference, and then buy a new one in a year or two. You'll end up with something much better than the Sony, and "making do" with the Vizio for 2 years will certainly have been worth it.

But once you get it set up, I'm pretty sure you'll be very satisfied with it.

Lurker said:

with the intent that last us 10+ years.

Click to expand...

Personally, I think you're crazy to buy any electronic device with the intent that it last more than 5 years, let alone more than a decade.

These days it's not so much about whether it'll last 5 years as whether it will still be relevant in that time.

--Patrick