In this installment of You Asked, resident AV expert Caleb Dennison talks about the best plasma TV replacements, cheap OLED vs. high-end LCD, the best cheap TVs for movies, and what he thinks about the new Sharp mini-LED TVs. Answers the questions.
plasma replacement
Kevin Maple writes: I have a Pioneer 60-inch 1080p Kuro Plasma, which, in many respects, outperforms my two-year-old Sony 4K. I’m struggling with whether I should change it or not. The viewing angles and black levels are better than my Sony, and it looks fantastic – and probably better with sports broadcasts that, for the reasons you addressed, are still 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. It has HDMI (but not the latest) and it performs well with my AppleTV. What’s really there to be gained from selling a 14 to 15 year old TV (dumb TV) for over $3,000 new? Budget is not a constraint; I really don’t see any benefit from the new TVs with broadcast TV and sports. And in terms of viewing angles, LED seems to be lagging behind. I think I’ll benefit from Netflix 4K shows, but the old Pioneer does a great job with compressed video.
So, Kevin, I’m curious to know what your Sony 4K TV is like. But since you mentioned the Kuro has better black levels and viewing angles, I’m guessing it’s an LCD-based TV. And, if that’s the case, yes, I’d be reluctant to replace the Kuro with an LCD TV. That’s why I’d suggest looking at OLED TVs, which have much better black levels and off-angle viewing than your Kuro. And, I suspect, if you want to buy a TV the same size as the Kuro, 65 inches will be the way to go, unless you want to downsize. Then you’ll notice that OLED looks better in almost every way, except one: slow-motion shots on movies. This is where OLED can have a kind of flaring effect because its pixels are so instantaneous that the movement of light from one pixel to the next can be a little jarring to some viewers.
Watch my video titled Plasma vs OLED 2023 and see what you think. If you have more questions after watching it, please write again. But, at the same time, if you can buy a 65-inch Sony A95K I would recommend it.
@tomeliason3480 also had a plasma replacement question: My Samsung 8500 Plasma just died. Should I choose the LG C2, LG C3, or TCL QM8?
Mine too! In the Plasma vs OLED 2023 video I mentioned above, I used an F8500 plasma, and that TV died about a week and a half ago. I’m not going to go too deep into this, but there was a small flame, a plume of smoke, and the main board was fried – this happened after the TV went black, even though you could still hear the audio. Does any of this sound familiar? I’m very curious, so please write to [email protected] and let me know. And once we start chatting, maybe we can dial in which TV you should get because — as I mentioned in the sixth installment of YouAsked — I know more than you’ve given me. Needed
Best TV for Motion
Continuing the same theme, Daniele Amondolini writes:
I have a 2016 Vizio M50. Some backlight zones have failed, and there is a dark area on the screen. It’s safe to say, I’m ready to upgrade. In addition to your site, I also check Rtings reviews, and most TVs these days seem to suffer from motion issues when displaying 24 fps. [frames-per-second] Material. I’m a cinephile (and a filmmaker myself) and I want a TV that shines at showing 24 fps content. Everything else is secondary.
I’m not asking for a specific model (I’d like to be in the $500/$600 range for a 50- or 55-inch panel), but rather something to guide me in finding a TV that performs well in that specific area. I am staying. What should I look for? How can I identify that specific strength/weakness in the TV? Showcase material at department stores is very misleading.
Additionally, Rtings highlights how TVs with fast response times (which is most of them these days) especially struggle with 24 fps content. Ironically, it seems like watching movies/shows has become a niche use case for TVs and I’m lost.
So, Daniel, I feel your pain. The first thing I want to say is that any TV I recommend to you will outperform your Vizio M50. TV has come a long way since 2016. And, I will say that if you haven’t noticed particularly poor 24 fps performance on your Vizio, you won’t feel like you’re taking a step back with one of these. Much better performing TVs today. For a 55-inch at around $600, I’d recommend the Hisense U7K.
The problem with displaying movie content today is that the very fast response times of today’s LCD TVs and the quick response times of today’s OLED TVs result in movies displaying very slow frame rates, as many of us are used to. Don’t do it. Used to. You might think that fast-acting pixels would be a desirable feature. And for many things, they are. But what happens in slow pan is that the image is moving slowly, and it’s happening at a slow frame rate. So every time a pixel activates from dark to bright, you see that activation, and it appears as a kind of flash or flicker. You can address this to some extent by using motion smoothing. But if you use too much, you lose the rhythm of the film and it doesn’t look like a film – it looks like a soap opera. One reason we love Sony TVs for motion processing is that you can simply implement touch Smoothing out motion and getting rid of any undesirable effects while still making the movie look like a movie.
I hope that helps!
Inexpensive OLED vs. high-end LCD
Houston Lamb asks: From a cost-versus-picture quality perspective, are there situations in which you would recommend a cheaper OLED TV like the LG B series over a higher-end LCD TV?
no not anymore. a few years ago? Yes. Then again, OLED’s perfect black couldn’t be accomplished by LCD TVs, even high-end models. And that perfect black produced amazing contrast, so even if the OLED TV’s processing wasn’t as good as a high-end Sony LCD TV, the delta in black-level performance between the OLED and LCD was big enough that I would have chosen it. OLED. But today, many high-end LCD TVs are getting very close to OLED black levels, and so better image processing has become the key point in those high-end LCD TVs. Right now, I might buy something like the Samsung QN90C instead of an entry-level OLED.
Sharp TV makes a surprise comeback
The most popular question last week was regarding the new Sharp Aquos XLED Mini-LED TV and whether I’m going to review it and what I think about it. So, to these three who wrote: @strpyw1 @arthurvandermark5397, and @theworkoutgeek, thanks for asking. I know you represent many people who are thinking about the same thing.
So, it’s a little embarrassing to admit – I lost track of what was going on with Sharp in 2018 or 2019. So, I was unaware, until recently, that Sharp had its own brand name and IP again. So, at first, when people used to say, “There’s a new Sharp TV. What do you think? Are you going to review it?” My internal dialogue was “yes, no, probably not.” I am already reviewing Hisense TV.
For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about. Here’s the back story: Sharp, like all Japan-based TV makers, was struggling in 2014 and 2015. I suspect that the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011 had tremendous economic impacts, with ripple effects that were felt. , much after the incident.
Meanwhile, South Korean companies like Samsung and LG and Chinese companies like Hisense and TCL were growing in popularity.
Toshiba and JVC were bought out simply to license their names. Panasonic withdrew from the US market. And Sharp sold the licensing rights for US TV production to Hisense in 2015. So, from 2015 to 2018, if you bought a Sharp TV, you were buying Hisense.
Now, although Sharp sold its licensing and manufacturing capacity in North America to Hisense, Sharp remains Sharp. Foxconn bought Sharp and was the parent company until recently, but Sharp was, to some extent, still the Sharp we knew from when it made some of the best TVs you could buy.
Well, in 2019 – and this is where I deviate from the story – Sharp bought its name and all rights to it back from Hisense. And since then it has been planning a comeback. I missed that. full stop. It was buried in some industry gazette and I missed seeing it! Then, the global pandemic, and busy, busy, busy, and here we are today. I didn’t know that the new TV you all were asking about was actually made by Sharp.
I am ashamed. I feel like I should have known this. Please forgive me.
So yes. I want to watch this TV! I no longer have a relationship with Sharp, but I would love to reestablish one. And yes, I think there’s another TV coming for review! I am excited. This could be very good. It could be huge – or it could be disappointing – but I’ll remain optimistic.
