Best 4K HDR TV's for One X, PS4 Pro [2017-2020]

[DuckThor Evil]

It should have ads on the Home screen. Did you ever connect your TV to your network?

https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/tv/thread-id/1614/page/6

Yeah I use the network features all the time. Yeah I read that there are adds in the left bottom corner, but I haven't seen them. If I pop the menu open now, there are no ads... Other than if I move the cursor over say Netflix and it shows some Netflix programs on another bar, but that can't be what people are complaining can it?

 

[Nesh]

HDR mode might have really over-saturated colours or blown out whites that wash out detail.

That monitor's using a 6-bit (with FRC) panel with a 1000:1 contrast ratio and 250 cd/m² of brightness. None of those specs indicate an ability to represent HDR very well.

The issue isnt just that HDR isnt well represented.
It is that the resolution of the screen appears like a mess in HDR mode. Like the image is 720p. Actually even worse.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

That's is my home bar with the youtube app running. Just has the app icons in the bottom. I guess some people or regions has ads there, but I have not seen one.

Spoiler

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Yeah I use the network features all the time. Yeah I read that there are adds in the left bottom corner, but I haven't seen them. If I pop the menu open now, there are no ads... Other than if I move the cursor over say Netflix and it shows some Netflix programs on another bar, but that can't be what people are complaining can it?

Interesting. No, I don't think the Netflix shows can be what people are complaining about. There's also a difference between in-app ads and TV served ads, and as you mentioned, the Sammies are supposed to have ads in the left bottom corner of the home screen. That's why I was wondering how intrusive they were, apparently not at all in your case! It could possibly be a regional thing as you've surmised. I'm not sure where you are located, but I've read complaints from both US and UK Samsung owners. How does your app bar work? Is it possible the ads are at the end of your bar maybe?

Because this would quite annoying to roll over an ad and have it take up half the screen.

Spoiler

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I am just north of the wall in Finland I did some googling and apparently the ads aren't enabled in Finland. That's good.

 

[mrcorbo]

My TV has a Roku-based interface and it has a giant ad on the right of the screen I ignore it. It may as well be a part of the background image for all the effect it has on my experience using the TV. I couldn't even tell you what the current ad is for. I might feel differently if it did anything to draw attention to itself or if I had to navigate around it to use the interface, but as present it's a non-issue for me.

And the Roku interface itself and the apps that run on it are all great. Much better than my consoles in both areas.

 

[mrcorbo]

The issue isnt just that HDR isnt well represented.
It is that the resolution of the screen appears like a mess in HDR mode. Like the image is 720p. Actually even worse.

It could be that the display's HDR processing is expecting a 4K signal and is not handling only getting sent 1080p well. I had a look at the manual and it says the following.

Setting the maximum resolution of Movie HDR and Game HDR:

1.In Windows 7, Windows 8,Windows 8.1, Windows 10.
2.Select the OSD Movie HDR or Game HDR.
3.Right-click on desktop and click screen resolution.
4.Click the dropdown list of screen resolution and select 3840×2160.
5.Click OK.
NOTE:
If you are unable to set the recommended resolution, contact the
manufacturer of your computer or consider purchasing a graphics adapter that
will support the video resolution.

Contracted with the non-HDR setup instructions

Setting the maximum resolution (Except for Movie HDR and Game HDR):

To set the maximum resolution for the monitor:
In Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10:
1.For Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, select the Desktop tile to switch to classic desktop.
2.Right-click on the desktop and click Screen Resolution.
3.Click the Dropdown list of the Screen Resolution and select 1920 x 1080.
4.Click OK.

 

[Scott_Arm]

@mrcorbo Good catch. Weird behaviour, because on PC really any resolution can be HDR.

 

[Nesh]

It could be that the display's HDR processing is expecting a 4K signal and is not handling only getting sent 1080p well. I had a look at the manual and it says the following.



Contracted with the non-HDR setup instructions

Oh thanks for the info. Very strange requirements for HDR,

Tomorrow I will be getting my new PC build which is powerful enough for 4k and HDR. I will test it and tell you guys how it looks.

But in the mean time the results I am getting are very weird. It is actually not just the resolution the problem. I just found out that the colors also dont look better. They are greyish and worse looking.

This is how this monitor displays HDR on a vanilla PS4.

Strangely this is how it previews a non-HDR preset. The HDR looks kinda better, but small difference right? Well....

If I DO choose the non-HDR preset though this is how it REALY looks

This is the resolution in HDR mode. It is actually a lot worse than it looks here


This is the resolution in non-HDR mode.


Also the menu is affected. HDR on


Non-HDR mode


So I am really curious now how it will look with the recommended resolution. But based on the above strange behavior I am not very hopeful.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Looks like it has some kind of crazy aggressive image sharpening?

I just looked up your monitor and I'd honestly demand my money back. Looks like Dell is marketing "Dell HDR" which is actually just some software version of HDR on non-HDR displays. It's trying to simulate HDR on a monitor that doesn't meet any of the specs. Probably why they have that weird image sharpening applied and the colors look messed up.

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/dell-offers-u2518d-wqhd-ips-panel-with-fake-hdr.html

 

[Nesh]

Looks like it has some kind of crazy aggressive image sharpening?

I just looked up your monitor and I'd honestly demand my money back. Looks like Dell is marketing "Dell HDR" which is actually just some software version of HDR on non-HDR displays. It's trying to simulate HDR on a monitor that doesn't meet any of the specs. Probably why they have that weird image sharpening applied and the colors look messed up.

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/dell-offers-u2518d-wqhd-ips-panel-with-fake-hdr.html

I suspected that something fishy was going on

Gonna check tomorrow with my PC just to make sure and inform my seller accordingly

 

[Scott_Arm]

I suspected that something fishy was going on

Gonna check tomorrow with my PC just to make sure and inform my seller accordingly

It's a 6bit panel with dithering to simulate an 8bit panel. They claim 99% srgb, but an HDR panel should be true 10bit. So on the colour side, it's way out of spec. It's also only listed as 250 cd/m2, where an hdr panel should be pushing close to 1000. That means the display will have to use aggressive tone-mapping to try to represent hdr highlights, so the image is probably going to appear very dark in general. Either that or it'll just clip anything that's an HDR highlight meaning ... sdr

For comparison, Dell just released an HDR monitor with local dimming and 1000 nits brightness, but it's 8bit with dithering and it costs $1500 USD.
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_up2718q.htm

This is actually really shameful from Dell They're outright deceiving people with a $300 display with totally fake HDR. Kind of stuff puts them on my "do not buy" list.

 

[DieH@rd]

Samsung has come the closest to releasing good HDR monitors with their CHG70 lineup.

There is three types of HDR now it seems

Lots of fake HDR - obviously inferior panels who can detect HDR metadata, but don't have performance to achieve any benefits from it [no wide color gamut, no high contrast, no high illumination]
Entry HDR - panels that can show HDR in wide color gamut, but with low illumination [good for viewing HDR in dark rooms only, like Sony's 43XE8005] or with other negative points [blur, input lag, etc]
Good HDR - Good representation of HDR, but with an obvious high price tag [XE9005 and above]

 

[RobertR1]

There no reason to attempt "HDR" with a display that has such poor peak brightness. Just let it go.

 

[Jupiter]

This is quoted:
"I was at the event. Let met get a few things out of the way which are important. Vincent, Tyler and the Crampton and Moore crew did a phenomenal job at the event. It was an absolute pleasure to be there so thank you all for putting this on and spoiling us!

Outside of Tyler, I was the only American there and as such, I have no British reserve in me. I was happy to ask questions and point things out when something seemed odd. Any oddities were quickly addressed and the having a large array of content made this extremely valuable.

For a TV nerd, this was the perfect opportunity to see the top sets in their settings calibrated by experts.

The sets were (in order of display):
- LG B7 OLED
- PANASONIC EZ1002 OLED
- SONY A1 OLED
- Reference: Sony OLED professional monitor
- SAMSUNG Q9 LCD
- SONY ZD9 LCD

Here are my findings in relation to the main categories:

Best Gaming TV: LG B7 OLED
LG = Low input lag and great punch in HDR. The LG and Sony Z9D were immediate standouts when the feeds came up (winner)
Panasonic = Higher input lag and not as much punch in HDR as the LG
Sony A1E = Input lag dependent on source feed. HDR not as good as LG
Samsung = Game mode had sharpening applied (could be calibrated out?) and HDR implementation heavily favors detail over brightness which reduces it's impact
Sony Z9D = Input lag dependent on source feed. Great HDR (2nd choice)

Best HDR TV: LG B7 OLED
LG = Great in low light HDR. Bright picture HDR is the best among OLED's. Great balance in tone mapping with Dynamic Contrast set to low (winner)
Panasonic = Great in low light HDR, bright picture HDR lacking punch. Tone mapping is a good balance but the lack of HDR punch is clear compared to the LG.
Sony A1E = Good in low light HDR, bright picture HDR lacking punch. Tone mapping is a choice a between Cinema Home and Cinema Pro settings. Both are not great options. Either you get a dim pic or blown out details.
Samsung = Very poor low light HDR performance put this set well behind the others.
Sony Z9D = Ok in low light HDR, bright picture HDR is great. Tone mapping doesn't come into play as much due to the high peak light output the set is capable of. (2nd choice)

Best Living Room TV: LG B7 OLED
LG = With the lights on and still looking for a punch picture with various sources, the LG will do a great job (winner)
Panasonic = Top PQ but the ABL is noticeable compared to the LG (2nd choice)
Sony = PQ on part with LG but ABL performance is the worst out of all the OLED's present
Samsung = Even in daytime viewing the poor black level/dark scene performance is inexcusable
Sony Z9D = Being a FALD set has it's limitations even in a daytime viewing setting. The motion artifacts on the Z9D were quite pronounced which takes it out of the running


Best Home Theater TV: Panasonic EZ1002 OLED
LG = Great all around but it's main benefit a higher peak output is neutralized in a critical viewing environment
Panasonic = The better colors and detail compared to any of other sets made this set standout (Winner)
Sony A1E = PQ similar to LG but smooth gradation is great feature making this a runner up (2nd choice)
Samsung = Absolutely not. There are no positives here.
Sony Z9D = As great as the Sony is (miles better than the Samsung) it's just plainly outmatched by any of the OLED's in a critical viewing environment

Summary: Price being equal, my choice would be the 65inch LG B7. It's top 2 in most categories and when it comes to the future needs of HDR, it pulls away comfortably from the other OLED's. It's ABL not kicking in as often makes it a better choice for SDR PQ consistency also. I was initially going to wait until next year but after having been to this event, I'm placing an order for a 65inch B7 to be calibrated by Vincent. If you have specific use cases or preferences, I'm sure most of the other sets can fit your bill. However, my viewing will be a mix of everything and for that the LG was consistently towards the top.

DV vs HDR10
Vincent made the ultimate sacrifice. He bought 2 copies of the new Power Rangers movie so we can have a comparison! The LG was showing the DV feed and the rest showing the HDR10. In this release, there was an easily noticeable different between DV and HDR10. The DV version had more depth to the picture. However, there was a bit of over saturation which was acknowledged but that didn't impact the 3D depth of the scene delivered by DV.

Random notes:
- All sets were calibrated to 200nits. This was to balance out the light pollution from multiple sets being on at the same time for comparison
- BFI = Flicker from BFI on the Sony and Panasonic was unbearable for me. The LCD's did a good job but the reduction in light output is severe
- Choppy motion on the Panasonic OLED = There was some pull down issues with motion that were fixed by turning on game mode so this is something a firmware update should be able to fix
- Red push on the QLED = I pointed this out before lunch and the team went to work on it. It was improved but still present throughout
- Smooth gradation on the Sony = Vincent showed us instance where the algorithm got confused and decided to remove the detail on tiles of a storefront. However that's something you have to look for. It's a good feature that should be enabled and kept on low"

Source: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/40-ol...-oled-sweeps-all-categories.html#post54626368

 

[BRiT]

That is from RobertR1 and posted already on our very forums here, back on page 10.

...

 

[DieH@rd]

Anyone knows if USB DVR recordings made on Sony 4K TVs are any good [better than PS4 Pro's DVR quality], and can those files be copped to PC?

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Went with the X900e, I'll get it next week. It should be a huge upgrade over my plasma, and I'll trust rtings that I'll be so pleased with it I really wouldn't have noticed the benefit of spending an extra $1000 on the 930e. It also makes me more comfortable knowing I can use that money on a pixel phone, XB1X or 1080Ti later in the year if I get the itch. I've read where lots of people are hoping for either Black Friday deals or for 2018s to hit for discounts, but from looking at a bunch of different TV's from Samsung, LG and Sony, it doesn't seem there's a huge discount on 2016 models, so I can't imagine there's going to be tremendous bargains on the 2017's any time soon so I just pulled the trigger now.

I guess this means I'll have to update my Netflix account! And the other issue is just how poorly the speakers perform and how to address that issue.

It's always something.

 

[RobertR1]

One week update on LG OLED 65C7:

- Eye ball calibrated the set using the Kuro (which was pro calibrated) as a reference for SDR
- No chance of doing a HDR calibration without a pro
- Breaking the set in does help clean up the image
- Viewing distance on a 65inch screen is around 9ft-9.5ft which feel nice and immersive. 75inch would be fantastic though
- 4K is most notable on clean content. Video games and animation upscaled from 1080p look really good (Forza Horizon 3)
- HDR from youtube/netflix/amazon prime is great. Unlike 4k, HDR benefits are visible clearly regardless of the source
- 4K from streaming sources is surprisingly
- 4K on film grain heavy content is barely an upgrade
- The set can get uncomfortably bright. Keeping the OLED light between 50-60 (out of 100) in daylight with the blinds pulled and 20-30 at night
- Wife, who generally mocks me about these things is quite impressed by the image quality
- WebOS and the apps are great. The streaming apps native on the TV simply work a lot better than via 3rd party devices. Highly recommend sticking to them
- The remote is working out quite well to control all my devices
- Motion better on cable now that I'm pushing 720p via Sky HD box than 1080i. TV doesn't like interlaced signals
- You need to do reading up if you're gonna set it up yourself. There are weird gotcha's on settings that you need to learn about to set it up right. You can easily have a bad experience with the set with a few misjudged settings

 

[Rangers]

How are you getting HDR from youtube?

On my Xbox One S these are the sources of "UHD" I'm aware of:

Netflix (limited content, by searching HDR, works on my TV)
Xbox S Blu Ra player (the one UHD disc I purchased wont trigger HDR on my LeEco, maybe some bug? at 25 bucks a pop I'm not going to be buying a lot of UHD BLu Ray to see if it was a one off)
Xbox store, there are a very few HDR movies. Typically pretty expensive, like 5 bucks even to rent for 48 hours. I rented one, Kong. It had issues triggering HDR on my set as well. Since the Blu Ray on my Xbox didn't work, I was going to chalk it up to an Xbox issue with my TV, but at some point Kong did start displaying HDR, I'm just not exactly sure what triggered it.

Youtube 4k/HDR, that's only through the ultra chromecast right? I dont have that.

Amazon Prime, can you do HDR through the S? I do have a monthly prime sub for another 2 weeks.