An expensive TV is a poor investment, and people spend FAR too much on them - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 08:27:13 pm
content: As title says, I think an expensive TV is aVERY VERYpoor investment, and people spend FAR too much on them, and yet it seems that the quality of the acting and presentation from the TV stations is getting worse and worse.I cannot see how anyone can justify anything over £500, **maybe** £600, for a flat oblong that sits there and doesn't show you ANYTHING "better" than the last flat oblong you owned, did. People who "pixel peep" and get all hung up on OLED, Qdot, LCD etc... who cares? You only take interest in this nonsense because you are marketed to, by the TV companies, who blurt out all these fandangled acroynms, and because all your mates down the pub are also too easily impressed by all these acronyms (and because of the ever idiotic "Keeping up with the Jones' " effect). People are SO easily fooled - look at any "X brand vs Y brand" food/drink taste test - even self-proclaimed "experts" cannot tell one from the other.Further, the investment you make, cash wise, is a VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY poor one, since the price you paid will crash through the floor in 1 year, and in another 2 years from then, you will either see your TV as "outdated" (marketing BS again) or it will melt, collapse, dissolved into a heap of raspberry sherbet... or whatever. All this nonsense, FOR WHAT? It's a flat thing that shows you the same RUBBISH you can see on any other TV, many of which are hugely more affordable.Someone recently gave me a 43" LG 4K TV, as it was being thrown out due to the blue LED syndrome of the backlight; they'd rather spend £2,000-3,000 on a new TV, vs £100 for the repair.A friend of mine runs his own, very successful industrial plant hire and earth moving business, which he started from nothing, ALONE. He once told me about a friend in the same business who was more preoccupied with "image" and "prestige" than just buying a tool for a decent price (because it's just a tool, and the tool is moving earth, not flying people across the world) - he said that the friend would buy a brand new CAT/JCB etc, and then my friend would be in disbelief, as his friend would NEVER recoup the lost premium he paid for a brand new CAT/JCB - it's all shine and mark-up. Since the new tool is no more capable ofmoving earththan the bargain he got for 1/10th of the cost at auction, set his hand to and repaired for a fraction of the price, I can only agree.I. Just. Don't. Get. It. WHY?

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 08:30:51 pm
content: Watching TV in the first place...

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 08:35:16 pm
content: Quote from: magic on February 01, 2022, 08:30:51 pmThere seems to be this new, strange form of (inverted?) snobbery where people consider TV as a waste of time, across the board. No, where we live, in England, we are known for some spectacular acting and production levels, but I do not watch as much TV as many. However, writing ALL TV off as "bad", depends on where you live, but that certainly isn't the case in the UK (or maybe people just have poor taste - and looking at the TV schedules here... YEP, they VERY VERY much have APPALLING taste!)I pick carefully the handful of things I want to watch, and I am not one to watch dumbed-down "documentaries" aimed at the great unwashed, that are 1/100th as sensible and informative as they were in the 70s-90s.

author: BrokenYugo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 08:43:17 pm
content: The sooner you make peace with it and let them go be dumb, the happier you will be.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 08:47:00 pm
content: Quote from: BrokenYugo on February 01, 2022, 08:43:17 pmMy being eternally baffled with it makes me no less "at peace" with it, as you say. I am not bothered, just find it strange. People are capable of not caring at all, whilst being simultaneously baffled and curious as to why something occurs.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 08:48:52 pm
content: "An expensive TV is a poor investment, and people spend FAR too much on them"1) It's not an investment. Neither is the opera, pizza, or Super Bowl.2) Is there some beginner-level technical matter for this thread?

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 08:57:47 pm
content: I have had some friends who had brought 55 - 60" tv's and they had failed within a couple of years like the back lights and what should set off alarm bells was the warranty of these things were only for a year or two at best. The best warranty replacement led's I can find for a TV I am looking at is about £130 for only 6 months warranty. There are 126 (a few 2x2 strips, 28 leds in series and some 1x2 strips 14 in series) to replace and it only takes a few to fail to trip the string it is on. It looked to me like the LED'S were over voltaged to get them brighter when I looked at the LED output voltage on the power supply and higher with 3d and those are only rated 3v according to the datasheet. On powering working strips at exactly 3v using a regulator they didn't really bright at all. I noticed overheating marks on the power supply and many of the used ones on ebay so is looks like poor air flow.I'd expect at least a 5 year warranty like the with 40" set I got in 2013 that still works fine today.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 09:02:19 pm
content: Quote from: eti on February 01, 2022, 08:35:16 pmIt will be soon. Defunding the BBC, one of the most respected broadcast institutes in the world, is already planned.Nadine Dorries (culture secretary), the most upright, honest, integer, staunch... (and in no way a turncoat!) Boris J. brown-noser is preparing the field.You might as well sell your TV right now.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 09:07:01 pm
content: Quote from: Benta on February 01, 2022, 09:02:19 pmGet with the times. The BBC used to be excellent, but we never watch it any more. They have badly lost their way.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 09:10:06 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 01, 2022, 09:07:01 pmEveryone it entitled to their opinion... even if they are wrong!Edit: I agree with Benta if not clear.

author: johnboxall
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 09:31:24 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 01, 2022, 09:07:01 pm

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 09:49:08 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 09:10:06 pmI'm genuinely interested. What is left on the BBC that is watchable? I often listen to BBC radio when driving, but even that has gone downhill. BBC TV really has nothing to offer. The last thing I watch on the BBC itself was a dramatization of The Name of the Rose a couple of years ago (not something they themselves produced). I've watched a few excellent older things from the BBC since then on other services.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 10:53:55 pm
content: Great documentaries that none of the other broadcasters would make/fund (otherwise they already would have), News, World Service, most of the stuff on BBC4 (TV), Radio 3, Radio 4, and actually quite a lot of really good drama series. Sure, they make some crappy Saturday night lowest common denominator audience crap, like all the other broadcasters do, but at least they make the good stuff too!How else do you think they sell so many programs to other international broadcasters?

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 10:59:41 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 10:53:55 pmA SUPERB example of a BBC masterpiece is "Call the Midwife". There are many more.If you need something gorgeous to keep your TV busy, try these:

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 11:05:06 pm
content: Quote from: eti on February 01, 2022, 08:27:13 pmBecause you are old, and grumpy, and act like an armchair general. That's why you don't get it."Everything new is bad, the old was good, we should go back the things they were." Just open a topic like this, and place there your daily rant.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2022, 11:38:33 pm
content: i don't have a tv subscription like cable or satellite. programming has deteriorated to the point they interrupt the commercials to show bits of a movie. and you need to pay to watch the commercials.streaming only. i watch what i want, when i want. no commercials.i don't even goto movie theatres. the seats are cramped. there's invariable a tall guy in front and a back kicking, stinking popcorn munching kid behind. with some person that needs to get up in the middle of the movie to answer the phone. if anything interesting happens you can't stop and rewind and if you need to get up to pee you miss half the stuff. i have a motorized double recliner with center console and a 85inch 4k HDR screen and kick-ass surround.between my Netflix and amazon prime (and CBS pass to watch star trek discovey, picard and others ) i have any program i like. There is nothing on 'live tv' i care about anyway. programs like shitfactor , the masked whaler or nobody's got talent don't interest me.scifi, documentaries , the big bang theory, young sheldon, dexter , the blacklist, walking dead. all stream.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 12:16:38 am
content: "...who praises, with enthusiastic tone,All centuries but this, and every country but his own..."Gilbert and Sullivan,The Mikado, Act I.

author: EHT
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 12:32:02 am
content: Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 10:53:55 pmFully agree. UK TVs used to just have 4 buttons on the tuner: BBC1, 2, ITV, Ch4. Now we have literally a thousand channels on any set-top-box, but almost all of them are rubbish, unless you want to pay extra for sports, which I don't. I could still just have 4 buttons except replace ITV & Ch4 for BBC3, 4.In practice, I only watch through iPlayer, a few series & films on Netflix and listen to R4 on podcast. BBC Current Affairs, Drama, David Attenborough & similar. Unfortunately the UK's new "culture secretary" has instigated the dismantling of the remaining culture we have left. To be fair the BBC have a very broad reach that could be slimmed down but it's not easy to work out how a new funding scheme that wouldn't have a massive negative impact overall.Regarding the TVs, there is usually a sweet spot in price. Once you go past it, you pay a much higher % premium for a luxury model- same with CPUs etc. AFAIK you can get a really good value screen say around £500 mark and excellent at £1k, but obviously they will depreciate pretty fast.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 01:24:07 am
content: Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 10:53:55 pmIt used to be that all the channels offered pretty good documentaries. ITV has never been quite as down market as most people remember. They are all pretty bad now.Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 10:53:55 pmBBC news, both its UK and World Service forms, are completely disconnected from reality. World Service TV was OK when it was launched, but it pretty dreadful now.Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 10:53:55 pmI've never noticed anything there that drew me to look.Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 10:53:55 pmRadio 3 is still OK, although they've gone for a more annoying DJ style of presentation. Radio 4 (and extra) are a pale shadow of the service 30 years ago. Radio 4 used to be great for comedy. Now its about as funny as toothache.Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 10:53:55 pmNot like there used to be. As I said before, I've watched a few older BBC made dramas on other services in the last couple of years. Really good stuff. All of it at least 10 years old.Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 10:53:55 pmEvery channel always made Saturday night pretty grim.Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 10:53:55 pmThey do well in international sales with children's programs and natural history. You don't see as much BBC drama, comedy and other material around the world as you did in the 90s.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 05:46:10 am
content: I have to disagree with the point you made about brand X vs brand Y... there are some significant difference both in terms of specifications and image quality between brands and models.Like with most things technology-related, you get what you pay for. Last time I bought a TV, I spent weeks doing my homework and actually looking at different models before I came to a decision that was right for me. For example, if you go and compare your basic run-of-the-mill 165cm model from brands such as TCL, Kogan or Hisense (at something like AUD$1000) to a more mainstream brand such as Sony, LG, or Samsung, you're going to notice quite a significant difference in quality.Aside from the quality of the panel itself, a lot of those cheaper TVs tend to be under-spec'd. Couple that with all the "smart" garbage they install on them these days, the user experience can be rather sluggish and horrible, so it does pay to get a unit with a faster CPU and more RAM. Televisions, like many other appliances these days, are like buying computers. No longer are they merely a "light box". Most TVs will do quite a bit of image processing depending on the settings (which is sometimes quite useful for low resolution or low frame rate video).However that being said, consumers need to look past the marketing bullshit and look for the features that are most important to them.One thing is true however, no amount of money you spend on a television will ever fix the absolute garbage that is broadcast these days.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 11:19:20 am
content: Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 09:10:06 pmMore often than not, opinion is subjective, rather than right or wrong. Whether the BBC is any good or not is an objective opinion. It's not something you, or anyone else has the authority to determine as right, or wrong.The main criticism I hear from many and I agree with is, like much of the mainstream media, the BBC has gone far too woke. They keep pushing ethnic minorities on the screen, who are invariably talentless, just to tick a diversity box. They tell lies about British history and erase xenophobia and racism by casting ethnic minority actors in period dramas, set at a time when England was 99% white, when anyone who looked different was treated with suspicion, yet they show ethnic minorities being treated like everyone else. Comedy is now crap because they don't want to risk offending anyone. Inequality and racism are covered through the lens of critical race theory, rather than an objective manner.News coverage is horribly biased. They way they've dealt with COVID-19 and the government's response just proves this. They've failed to adequately challenge the government's policies: lockdown, school closures, mask mandates etc. Perhaps they were right and necessary, maybe the BBC agreed with them, or perhaps they were an over-reaction, with greater harms, than benefits, but that's not the point. It was their duty as a public broadcaster to question policies which placed the greatest restrictions on our freedoms, during peacetime.My TV license is due in spring, but I'm going to cancel it. They can fuck off. I'm not paying another penny to those evil cunts.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 11:45:48 am
content: Firstly, to quote your own comment back at you...Quote from: coppice on February 01, 2022, 09:07:01 pmIf you never watch the BBC, then it seems that you are hardly qualified to be able to give an informed opinion on its output. Most of the output youdowatch seems to be 10 years old and on other networks.QuoteYou illustrate my point perfectly, The output of ITV and most other channels are governed by their investors and advertisers. They go for the lowest common denominator - soaps, game shows, 'reality TV' etc. The lowest effort and expenditure for the maximum financial return. The result - low end crap. A possible exception is the Channel 4 / Film4 etc umbrella, who do finance film projects, though not as much as they used to (they are relying on imported US shows and 'reality TV' more and more though). The BBC has none of these restrictions (other than the amount of money available from the license fee).QuoteWhat about BBC World service Radio? You should maybe ask international readers to comment on the world service, there are many in more 'troubled' parts of the world who rely on listening to the World Service to find out what's actually happening in their own countries. In the worst countries, governments make listening to it a punishable offence! I suspect that the BBC probably has more foreign correspondents than any other news network.With regard to news in general. The BBC represents that ideal of a state broadcaster that is owned by thewholepopulation, not the government (how many around the world would, and do, die for such principles). It is an organisation that can, and does, hold to account the government, of whatever flavour (and even utility companies for polution etc.), without the bias of proprietors or advertisers (show me a newspaper that doesn't have a proprietor bias either). In these days of government spin and twitter output over integrity, it is an institution that we should defend at all costs. Yes, we would all like the licence fee to be lower, but it is a small price to pay for independence. The only flaw in the system is that the government can 'punish' it for telling the truth as Benta mentioned previously.We typically watch a couple of hours of news and current affairs in the evening, the news at 6pm for UK and main international, and then over to the BBC news channel for Open Source to get a bit more in depth on the international situation.These daysfar to manyget their 'news' from clips social media, complete with all the hidden agendas, misinformation, and conspiracy theories, an then have the nerve to proclaim themselves knowledgable about what is happening in the world. That's how you suddenly get the mobs turning out.QuoteStrongly disagree (both are good). That smacks of a 'kids of today' mentality. Also, who else other than the BBC makes decent Radio dramas.Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2022, 10:53:55 pmThey do well in international sales with children's programs and natural history. You don't see as much BBC drama, comedy and other material around the world as you did in the 90s.What evidence do you have for that? I understand that BBC world is quite popular in the US.P.S. I forgot to mention the obvious one - no advertising or commercial breaks.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 11:51:29 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on February 02, 2022, 11:19:20 am...but I agree, it is a subjective opinion at the end of the day.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 12:03:51 pm
content: As a Slovakian, most of my exposure to BBC was via Doctor Who. Considering what atrocities they have committed to the show in the last few seasons, if a horde of rabid gerbils eats the place I'll laugh my head off.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 12:40:04 pm
content: I tend to agree. There are people I know who waste their lives watching TV when they could be designing an RF amplifier or writing a PID algorithm in C. What is wrong with them!Seriously though, I do watch non-commercial news on the TV each night (Australian ABC TV). Hence I have a TV. The only crap I watch is a half hour show once per week... HardQuiz on the ABC, to chill out and have a few laughs.... I have not watched commercial TV for over 20 years and I feel I have missed nothing.As for movies, I found modern American movies are generally very shallow, bug infested and aimed at the lowest common denominator. Bad acting, stupid plot. So I avoid modern American films. Hence I have no idea of what the famous celebrity actors and actresses look like. They don't make smart movies like 1964's Fail Safe anymore. I remember seeing an American SCI-FI movie at a cinema that had random beep noises sounding as data was being printed out on a screen. I walked out.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 12:53:16 pm
content: 'Suspension of disbelief' if very hard to maintain for many technical folks watching movies. Surely the production teams are supposed to have a technical advisor on the payroll. Certainly old war movies always had a couple of retired army or navy types as advisors. Maybe their technical advisors studied arts subjects these days!

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 01:27:54 pm
content: simple and cheap I have been buying dumb TV's for yrs. 4k is overrated IMO as most moves are in 2K or 1080p.smart features like USB and 720p upscaling are standard nowadays so why pay more?most dumb TV's screen size is about right for the room and have no internet hardware and or software to go out of date or stop working.3D TV was a total failure as was most of the other expensive $ gimmicks.my cheap dumb TV lives out its life as avideo monitorforgames & video playback. most family members are the same.

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 01:41:51 pm
content: Modern cheap TVs have one big, major issue: Advertising.Why do you think they are cheap? Why is a simple display that does not even have any TV functionality, but uses the same panel, significantly more expensive?Advertising and data collection.I would willingly pay more for a TV that while still having at least limited smart functionality, does not show me any additional advertising (over what the TV stations are doing anyway).I am soon in the market for something new, and still have no idea what to get.I want something simple to use, that does not take ages to change channels, with an integrated DVB-S2 receiver, and limited "smarts" to access the internet offerings of the german public tv stations, that does not show any additional ads anywhere.It's for my mum, and she likes it simple. Understandably so.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 03:09:33 pm
content: I like good visual quality, so I own a Panasonic 42" plasma TV from 2012.It has excellent image contrast, dynamic range and colour accuracy. Films look pretty good on it.It's not 4K, just full HD 1080p. It has smart functions, I've used them once. It has active-shutter 3D, I've used that maybe twice. It's just a big, nice display monitor right now.It cost me £120 second-hand, so probably worthwhile.The only thing that could replace it is an OLED.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 03:14:56 pm
content: Quoteonly since 1982,you youngster wont remember the days when the 4'th button was either the betamax video recorder or itv from another region,of course if your even older all you had was bbc (1) or itv

author: HighVoltage
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 03:15:17 pm
content: I have stopped watching TV many years ago! We don't even have a TV set anymore.

author: pardo-bsso
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 03:28:09 pm
content: About the BBC and its defunding.Being in South America, I used to listen to it over shortwave for quite some time before the modern interference in my town made that impossible (and internet arrived).I'd gladly pay them to be able to watch their content but alas, the contortions needed to do so are a chore.

author: bingo600
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 03:59:16 pm
content: My new 55" SmartTv LG was connected to the internet (via PDS cable) once, when new to get a firmware update.And i actually connected it via a VPN connection. I know that VPN worked , because it belived it was in that country's TZ after the update.Since then no internet for the TV ...So it's not a Smart-TV , but a"Dumb-TV"All watching is done via an AppleTV , that is "locked a bit down" via a pi-hole./Bingo

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 04:28:11 pm
content: QuoteThat's unsustainable. If everyone did that there would be no new ones to be worn out and auctioned off, so any that were available would cost pretty much the same as a new one anyway. But there might not be any new ones any more since the manufacturers can't live on second-hand auction sales, so your mate could well end up paying more than the new price for a turd.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 04:57:44 pm
content: A TV isn’t an investment, it’s an expense. And they’re cheaper than ever.There’s tons of trash on TV, but at the same time we’re in a golden age of TV, where even the networks are making some outstanding programs (the fact that there’s tons of crap as well doesn’t make their great work any less great), but above all, Netflix is bringing everyone the best of TV from around the world. 20 years ago, we watched what came on TV when it came on (occasionally using a VCR to time shift it) and that was that. Now we can be very selective, and watch what we want, when we want it.Additionally, YouTube has enabled the creation of high quality video content that networks would never have given the green light. Channels like eevblog, Ask a Mortician, and the gazillions of really excellent cooking channels (like Maangchi, Cooking with Dog, or Pasta Grammar) could never exist on network TV, at least not in the way they do. (For example, how episodes can be as long as they need to be, not crammed or stretched into half hour slots.)Meanwhile the Hollywood movie studios appear to have been castrated at some point, in that they no longer have the balls to make anything except for Yet Another Stupid Movie based on Marvel or DC Comics superheroes.Me, I haven’t actually had cable (or satellite or aerial) connected to my TV since 2008. I’ve used streaming and downloads exclusively since then.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 06:37:46 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on February 02, 2022, 11:19:20 amThat's not entirely true. While the BBC's actual news program coverage of COVID has been really bad, I've listened to several genuine analyses on Radio 4. Things where they have broken down government announcements, shown how deceptive they are, and basically called out the lying scumbags.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 06:57:57 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on February 02, 2022, 11:45:48 amI only stopped paying the licence fee last summer, when I realised we hadn't watched anything on the BBC for the 3 month since my wife went to care for mother outside the UK. She was still watching a few things on the BBC until she left, and I saw the poor quality. I especially saw the very poor state of BBC news coverage. Currently she's not living in the UK right now, so I had no reason to renew our licence.Quote from: Gyro on February 02, 2022, 11:45:48 amHow does what I said illustrate your point? ITV revenue has always been driven by pulling the maximum audience it can, and used to find the best approach was to produce a diverse range of high quality material. More BBC1 thanBBC2, but not garbage. Once audiences become split across a wide range of options its very hard for any of them to gather enough funds to produce high quality output. This has happened over and over across the world, especially since satellite channels exploded the number of broadcast channels possible. As you say, the BBC has not been starved of resources to the extent of others. It just didn't have to try very hard against cash strapped competitors, and gave up caring.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 06:58:20 pm
content: As I understand it there are two issues for BBC: Mandatory subscription if you own a television, whether you watch the channels or not, and the fact that BBC took sides over BREXIT. They absolutely should lose their protected 'public' status. And paying for a service you don't want seems problematic.In the US, we have PBS, a poorly subscribed Public Broadcasting System. It is funded by donations and attempts to avoid taking sides:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBSPBS creates some very interesting content but I haven't watched it in decades. I'm not sure why... Maybe because I don't watch any news or documentary channels.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 07:04:00 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on February 02, 2022, 06:58:20 pmThere was a time when some of the US PBS stations, like WGBH in Boston, produced a lot of great science and natural history series with the BBC. They were mostly edited and redubbed for the local audiences, because it seems Americans can't understand English, but 95% of the program's contents were the same.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 08:36:52 pm
content: A huge monitor OTOH is a very useful thing to have and a good investment, if its also cheap.I'm much more productive with a big monitor because I am kind of disorganized and like to have things out and visible.I think research on productivity and multitasking has been fairly conclusive as to the usefulness of multiple monitors and big monitors. Then, you can also use it for watching videos (what I think of when people say "watching TV") Its been several years since I actually watched TV from the cable. (Although I do sometimes watch OTA TV from New York City, which I get here, fairly well now, for free) But I find that most over the air TV programming is fairly lame. (with the exception of some comedy shows that I like a lot)

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 09:03:47 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 02, 2022, 03:09:33 pmSounds very like the 50" Panasonic that I finally upgraded in late 2020. I'd had it professionally calibrated and it was excellent.I replaced it with an LG OLED, which took quite a lot of adjusting to make it match the plasma in terms of brightness, contrast and colour accuracy - but it was well worth it.Side by side, showing the same content, the plasma suddenly looked noisy and flickery. The OLED image is much cleaner.The really big difference, though, is HDR. You really need to see it to understand why; it's not about having a brighter image overall, but about having an image in which specular highlights and other light sources actually look like lights, and aren't just white. I didn't realise that I'd never seen a display anything like it before; it really did show me something genuinely new, and it's not something I was expecting.Oh, yeah, it's 4K too, but I struggle to tell the difference from 1080p on a 55" screen at a normal viewing distance. For movies I have a true 4K projector, and at that size, the extra resolution is both noticeable and worthwhile. Projected 3D with active shutter glasses is brilliant too, *much* more watchable than 3D TV.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 09:54:33 pm
content: Be careful what you wish for. BBC shows on PBS and now on some commercial networks blow most American TV shows out of the water. At least your lot can come up with complete paragraphs, and treat the viewer as if they are not sixth graders, which is year 7 in most of the UK school systems.I live forMystery!, Downton Abbey, Inspector Morse,etc. The Science and History shows can be first rate from BBC and ITV. Dame Lucy may be crazy, but she can tell an intelligent tale.Our TV is more concerned about the Kardashians, what ever the heck that is. Our best PBS informational show,Frontline, is placed on very late at night to avoid offending basically Anyone. We used to haveNova!for Science, but that was watered down when the producer retired.I don't speak Russian, but I have started watching their Science shows on Youtube. Imagery and Locations are first rate.We had a channel for a while that ran European detective shows, which were awesome. Even if all I had were subtitles.If you live in the States, you have to pay a fortune for streaming services, and 90% of that is still crap.Steve

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 10:04:31 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on February 02, 2022, 09:03:47 pmWhen did you get your OLED screen? Up to 2016 they looked great in a darkened room, but couldn't achieve the brightness for a normal room without looking like cartoons. There was a substantial improvement in 2016/2017 and after that they got the brightness to pretty reasonable levels with nuance. They still seem to struggle to get good contrast in a bright room. Obviously in a darkened room the contrast of an OLED is very impressive, but they have generally reflected too much of the room's light to give high contrast in a lit room. This seems to be improving, too.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2022, 10:53:17 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on February 02, 2022, 09:03:47 pmYes, HDR is something I'm keen to get into, I've always been a little bit of an avgeek.For many years I had a 9th Gen Pioneer Kuro plasma, a fantastic TV, I eventually sold it as I got tired of the "dirty screen effect" and panel buzzing (unfortunately many Kuros suffer from this, and it gets worse over time.) I was able to adjust the settings in the service menu to the point that the image contrast was extremely good, I did get a tiny bit of maldischarge if pixels hadn't been used for 30 seconds or so, which showed I was really pushing the panel to its limit, but it looked superb. A great example is 'Gravity', where you get shots of the Shuttle against a pitch-black background. You just need to see it to experience it. By the way, if there are people on here that enjoy calibrating test equipment and so on, I dare you to dive into tweaking a Kuro PDP, as it has about 20 different parameters adjustable from the service menu, from power supply voltages to rise and fall rates to oscillation periods and panel resonance tuning. Truly a work of (engineering) art.I bought it second-hand as well, though with a fault and fixed it (common for a regulator on the digital board to go bad.) I think it cost about £300 at the time, when working examples were still selling for about £2k. But, I kept it regardless.Ironically, I bought the Panasonic fully working (I don't know how I got an ST50 for so little, it was the 2nd-from-the-top Panasonic at the time, but maybe "plasma" was becoming a dirty word.) It was one of the few TVs I ever actually purchased in working order, and it died about 18 months later. A small optocoupler on the sustain board had gone open circuit, causing the controller to think the HV was missing on the floating voltage side. Took about an hour to find and a scrap optocoupler from a Samsung plasma board sorted it out fine. Been fine for 4 years since.I've been considering a late-generation OLED panel, and I thought I might as well go big or go home, so will get a 65" one. 4K still probably won't matter for that, but I suppose it'll make things look a tad better. Thing is, the Panasonic hasn't died, and it's got 20,000 hours on the panel now, with no perceptible burn in, so I'm in no rush.

author: Ground_Loop
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 12:33:50 am
content: Quote from: jpanhalt on February 01, 2022, 08:48:52 pmYou beat me to it. People need to understand the difference between investments and expenses.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 12:36:39 am
content: Quote from: LaserSteve on February 02, 2022, 09:54:33 pmJohn Thaw died 20 years ago. This might limit his further output of episodes of Morse.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 12:44:07 am
content: His sidekick does well enough after "promotion". RIP Mr. ThawSteve

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 12:49:33 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 03, 2022, 12:36:39 amGeorge Lucas has gotten very good at, um, reanimating old English actors.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 12:51:10 am
content: Quote from: LaserSteve on February 03, 2022, 12:44:07 amIt was one of the best series made for UK TV, and was made by ITV. Good television in the UK was never exclusively a BBC thing, and both BBC1 and ITV has always had more garbage (especially for Saturday night) than they should. The endless garbage now just comes down to diluted audiences starving the makers of resources. <10M viewers for a program for a broad audience used to mean a failure. Now 10M means a raging success.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 01:05:24 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 02, 2022, 10:53:17 pmYou haven't lived until you've tried adjusting the colour convergence on an old school tube colour TV!

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 01:53:47 am
content: Quoteonly 20,if you want a real challenge the old barco 3 head crt projectors can give you hours of fun

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 02:33:02 am
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on February 03, 2022, 01:05:24 amAnd don't forget waving a de-gaussing coil around in circles, as you slowly.... slowwwwwwly back away as if you're cautiously stepping away from a live bomb!

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 04:37:12 am
content: YES, you are right ! But......I bought an early DVD Player, that is; a 'portable', plus it had the, required, OPTICAL PORT, (for surround audio). Yeh, it 'ran too hot', went scruzntzy screen when hot, and not many movies, on DVD (1996).The Matrix, was acting, virtually, like a DVD marketing tool; excercising every feature they could.Yeh, too expensive, can't get shi7, BUT...I got a decent intro into DVD and 5.1 audio. Yeh, my woofer bass, was a 1970's boom speaker, tweeters were $ 2 .79 crap from 79 cent store, but...Yeh, portable player screen was tiny, BUT: it was 1 : 2 format or whatever, just a tiny, tiny wide.Haha, the audio player / 5.1bit stream decoder was huge, like a 1940's record player (19 inch chassis).Yeh, wires up the ying-yang, and very little 5.1 audio material...BUT...but that was OK,I GOT TO TRY 5.1 audio / DVD movies !

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 04:56:48 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on February 02, 2022, 05:46:10 amYep.13 years ago got a HiSense and it quit just short of the 3 year warranty. Screen all green and fuzzy, no pic. Replaced free and the new one (gave it to friends) went for about 6 months and the right side of the screen went green. After the first one we went and got a Samsung and it's still going strong after 10 years.Interesting thing, the first NonSense as I call it, ran Linux and someone did a bit of hacking on theirs and they said the X video subsystem was set for max resolution of 720p, not 1080p. The actual physical screen was 1920x1080 though.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 08:49:52 am
content: Quote from: Gyro on February 02, 2022, 11:45:48 amAuthoritarian governments prohibit all outside media. North Koreans face death for listening to South Korean radio.QuoteI don't mind bias, as long as I'm aware of it. I'll happily watch GB News and read the Guardian, but this difference is, I know they're biased.The BBC are very selective about what parts of the government policy they criticize. I could give a list of examples, but it'd would be too political for this forum.Quote from: coppice on February 02, 2022, 06:37:46 pmI haven't listened to Radio 4 for years. You're right, it's often more balanced than their other channels, but it has relatively low audience compared to the main news. That sort of thing should be on prime time TV.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 10:12:24 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 02, 2022, 10:04:31 pmIt's an LG CX, purchased October 2020. It's plenty bright enough, no issues there.If there's one significant area for improvement, it would be to make it less glossy and reflective. I do see reflections of my wall lights in the screen, which are annoying, but I'm not sure I can really blame the TV for that.Maybe my next TV will look like I'm staring at a black hole whenever it's turned off - some time around 2028 based on how long I usually keep a screen before upgrading.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 10:26:38 am
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on February 03, 2022, 10:12:24 amI wonder if there's some sort of material you could stick to the screen, to give it a matte finish.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 11:49:23 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on February 03, 2022, 10:26:38 amThere are certainly films you can apply. I don't know how hard it is to get them bubble free. The people I've seen apply them have no trouble, but they've done it frequently. These films won't overcome the reflectivity of the actual OLED panel, though. These panels just aren't as dark as an LCD panel when turned off in a lit room. I think LG are reluctant to add further filtering because it would also absorb some of the light from the OLEDs, and they are already doing a lot to maximise the light output from those.

author: EHT
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 07:45:38 pm
content: We won't be able to agree on how to save the BBC or how crap everything is but maybe we could share info on which manufacturers are making well made TVs / Monitors from taking them apart!!?I'm currently using a couple of HP 27" QHD monitors. The panel is made by LG, same one was used in the Mac screens. It's an enterprise model, but IMO not really upto the standard I was expecting. Various failures and only 2 modes (VGA, QHD), which ends up causing nasty problems with display drivers at times. One needed some LED chips replacing; very hard to find the right LEDs and hard to swap them. Also had PSU problem and some intermittent faults in the main board.TV is a Samsung which does 1080p resolution, was good value, not a top end model. No problems after many years

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 10:40:37 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 02, 2022, 03:09:33 pmAnd you don't mind high electricity bills, running a power guzzling TV like a plasma.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2022, 11:41:09 pm
content: Quote from: eti on February 01, 2022, 08:27:13 pmMy answer might be very, very difficult, for some to understand.But it is actually the ('Buy cheap, buy/pay Twice!') cheap stuff, which (can be, but not always) is the poor investment, in the longer term.For Example:You save a huge amount of money, by buying a $0.49 screwdriver. It looks kind of good, until you use it, the screw head gets chewed to pieces and damages the item you were trying to open. The cheap screwdrivers shaft soon bends out of shape, and it needs to be tossed in the waste. You then buy a second one, for $9.99, a quality make. It works really well, never or almost never chews up the slot in screws, and lasts a lifetime.My understanding is that many of the cheap TVs, are cheap because they have too few backlight LEDs, those LEDs are poorly/inadequately cooled, and fail prematurely. Somewhat pushing the owner to pay again and again for new TVs, every couple of years, or whatever the repeat period is.tl;drIt is cheaper to pay more, for something that will last a long time. Than to pay less, but it doesn't last very long at all, is somewhat useless, and you end up buying the higher priced item, as well, anyway.So the more expensive one, is cheaper in the long term. If you buy a sensible long lasting TV. Even expensive ones, especially if poorly researched beforehand, can last for short periods of time.EDITED: Big size reduction, too long.EDIT2: As regards the TVs. I sometimes hear contradictory reports/stories/opinions on the internet. Many seem to be saying, if you buy the right/correct lower cost TVs. They can be good buys, even for the long term. So maybe the TV answer is not absolutely black and white (clear cut). As there are many claims, that some of the cheaper ones, are both reasonably good and reasonably long lasting.So maybe the answer is (as already mentioned in this thread), do the research and get a good, long lasting one. Rather than ones that don't last very long.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 12:10:05 am
content: Quote from: MK14 on February 03, 2022, 11:41:09 pmBacklight LEDs are the new vacuum tubes.That said, what was the economic life of a vacuum tube TV back in the day? Not how long it could be made to last but how long it was worth the average person getting it fixed every now and then. And the relative purchase cost compared to a normal TV nowadays? Mum and dad's first TV in 1957 seemed to last forever, a lifetime in fact. And when I was 12 it did.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 12:22:09 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on February 04, 2022, 12:10:05 amI agree with that, a good analogy.Valve/vacuum tube TVs, tended to break every 3 months to 5 years (year of manufacture plus age/luck dependent). Later Transistor/IC TVs, could last 10, 15 or even 20+ years, with no servicing. Especially Japanese ones.In the days of Valve/Tube TVs and early transistor/IC ones, people in the UK, tended to rent them. Because they were very expensive (relatively speaking, compared to today), potentially extremely unreliable. I'm convinced they could easily need repairing, a number of times each year.There were certain eras, when TV rental was a big proportion of the population. Off-hand, I'm not sure of the exact years of when rentals were very common. Probably (maybe earlier), 1960s, 1970s and the early part of the 1980s I suppose.As you say. If you own it, and it costs more to repair, than it was worth, the new TVs are better. It perhaps wasn't worth getting it repaired. Also, new TVs were better, at certain points in history, such as bigger black and white screens, faster switch on (warm up times), colour TV, more tunable stations, bigger screens, stereo sound. Remote control. As TVs became better and better, over the years.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 10:03:14 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on February 03, 2022, 10:40:37 pm120W when running on a normal programme, about twice that of an LED-backlit panel.The Kuro was 360W! And it could peak up to 600W on the right scenes (>50% pixels white).Still, at the current rates I'm paying the TV costs about 2 pence per hour to run. Otherwise known as negligible.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 10:43:30 am
content: CRTs often degrade slowly, rather than suddenly. A supermarket down the road from my parent's house has a CRT TV, used as a CCTV monitor. The shop opened in the mid 90s and I'm pretty sure has not changed the TV, since then. It's open on average of 12 hours per day, 7 days per week, except for say Easter, New Years and Christmas day. I don't remember exactly what year it opened, but I'll guess 1995, so the TV has been on at least 12 hours per day (it's probably also on a bit when the store is closed, whist the staff are there) for 26 years, minus three days a year, giving about 113k hours of run time. It still works, but the picture quality is poor. It's dimmed and distorted. Degaussing may partly restore it, but the electron guns and phosphor have deteriorated. One day it will just fail and they'll get a new one.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 11:54:35 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on February 04, 2022, 10:43:30 amWhen the power goes out, the image remains on the screen?

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 05:41:39 pm
content: Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on February 04, 2022, 11:54:35 amYou mean burned into the phosphor, so the dead phosphor is visible when off? I don't know, because the TV is always on, when I'm in the shop. I've never seen it switched off.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 06:05:16 pm
content: Plenty common with mono CRT displays, where you could read the fixed menu items power on or off. Also very common with early plasma displays, which would burn in logo places on the screen after a few months. Later ones came with a screen burn removal mode, which simply ran all pixels at full brightness in a slow moving band for a few hours. Brightness much higher than the display would normally allow, and limited to a small band so as to not overload the power supplies.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 06:47:31 pm
content: "IPS" flat-panel displays can also suffer from burned-in images when the image does not change.-hp- explicitly denies warranty for such displays used with unchanging images, such as surveillance monitors.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 07:11:03 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on February 04, 2022, 06:47:31 pmAre you really talking about IPS, or might you have meant OLED ?I've yet to see any image retention or image burn on any IPS or LCD (IPS is a form of LCD screen, as well) monitor or TV.I've seen it on CRTs though.EDIT: Here is a source, where they tried on purpose to create image burns, on all 3 TV (monitor) types. It would seem their results indicate, success with creating the problem with OLED, but IPS and VA, didn't show any such issues. Over a very long period of time, such as two years.https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/permanent-image-retention-burn-in-lcd-oled

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 07:55:44 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on February 04, 2022, 06:47:31 pmI've seen the same on 7 segment LED displays. There's a power supply where I work, with 24 burned in on the voltage display, which can be seen with the power off. It surprised me that the heat/light from the red LEDs was enough to bleach the filter, but I suppose it took tens of thousands of hours.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 08:33:16 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on February 04, 2022, 07:11:03 pmIt’s definitely a thing, I’ve seen it before on IPS computer displays, with the Windows task bar or Mac menu bar stuck. I’ve also seen it on ATMs and ticket machines. But it’s usually not permanent, exercising the display with video normally gets rid of it.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 09:30:37 pm
content: This is a warranty disclaimer that I received from -hp- with my IPS monitor:"MonitorsAll Monitor models are not suitable for applications that exhibit static, stationary, or fixed images. Static images may cause image retention damage that may appear as stains or watermarks on the screen. This HP Limited Warranty does not cover monitors that are in use for applications that exhibit static, stationary, or fixed images for long periods or for 24-hours per day that result in image retention damage. To avoid image retention damage, turn off the monitor when it is not in use or use a power management setting, if supported by your system, to turn off the display when the system is idle."

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 09:36:27 pm
content: I spent approx 6K$ on this Mitsubishi AM3501R back in early 90s:I thought it was a great investment. It was the first 35inch progressive multiscan monitor which could natively go up to 38Khz even though I pushed it higher.It was the only CRT with perfect corner-corner convergence. Displayed 1280x960 72hz laced desktop with a legible fine font and it's color and black level regulation was near perfect. Dead perfect smooth MPEG2 HD movies at the time. (In the early 2000s once they became available...)I used it up until 2015 and then gave it to a friend as a gift. That's around 24 years of use. How can you say an expensive TV is a poor investment, being that it was really super expensive for a 35inch display of the time. This was the only screen at the time which save my ears from that stupid 15.7KHz coil whine noise and got rid of the flicker and every other screen was a flickery 15khz corner unfocused with terrible convergence mess which couldn't even be connected to a PC in progressive or higher speed interlaced RGB modes, let alone be usefully functional for 24 years.And yes, the Chassis was made ofreal wood...

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 10:06:05 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 04, 2022, 08:33:16 pmQuote from: TimFox on February 04, 2022, 09:30:37 pmI have heard there can be image retention issues, with IPS monitors. But it seems, that it has never applied to any IPS monitor/TV I have been involved with or seen, so far. Also, (as Tooki says), it is usually the much more minor, temporary image retention type. Which is NOT permanent, and is perhaps due to uneven heating effects or something.What really worries me, is the PERMANENT screen burns, that can occur with OLED monitors/TVs, e.g. with fixed/stationary images, while watching OLED TVs. Especially if it has been set to a bright setting, and especially with older OLED TVs. The later and later generations of OLED TVs, have used techniques to try and at least reduce, the possibility and effects of permanent screen burn. But it is still suppose to be a problem with OLED screens.tl;drI don't seem to ever encounter or significantly hear of screen burn or image retention issues on IPS screens. I have (rarely) seen reports about it, but not often enough to really believe it. As the internet is a very big place, and you can usually get people claiming all sorts of weird things, such as free energy devices, Elvis is still alive, etc.Whereas, I've heard a lot about OLED screens, getting permanent screen burn and/or bad image retention problems.I don't hugely react to the warning in the manual you quoted (thanks for that). Because, sometimes manuals warn about all sorts of things, just to defend themselves in court and other reasons, rather than necessarily actual problems.But I do concede, I have heard rumors of IPS image retention, and I have also seen lots of things (as sometimes, I'm very interested in that subject area), which say that later/modern IPS screens, have somewhat badly cut-corners, to save money, rather than make a quality, long lasting product. By moving to Edge-Lit LED backlighting, with too few LEDs, running too hot, with too little cooling. Which are not expected to last a long time and/or be reliable.Which perhaps (overheating in panel), maybe makes issues with the LCD (which probably don't like high temperatures), which could be image retention.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 10:12:25 pm
content: Summary:I'm NOT an expert on monitors/TVs (just an average user, with technical knowledge, which most EEVblog member have as well, who reads up on screen/monitor/TV technology/reviews sometimes). So take what I have been saying in this thread, as partly opinion/subjective. In my own personal experience, I've never seen an IPS screen play up, as regards image retention or screen burn.But, I can believe it can happen, but I'd prefer to experience it myself.But I've heard lots of bad things about OLED permanent screen burn damage. Also, I've seen pictures of image burn OLED screens, for sale very cheaply on ebay. Which puts me off OLED screens, especially for any somewhat stationary image uses. Maybe an OLED just for watching movies, isn't so bad, assuming there are no brand/channel advertising icons (or black boarders, on none 16 : 9 stuff), permanently on the screen, during the movie.Just went on ebay. Found example of screen burned OLED tv ('PHILIPS 55POS9002 55 INCH OLED 4K ULTRA HD SMART TV - SCREEN BURN'https://www.ebay.co.uk/rvh/165134163457?rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l48144sorry but hard to link to properly, as ebay insists on showing new/fresh auctions, instead ), via completed listings search, in UK. Please Click below:

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 10:26:53 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on February 04, 2022, 06:05:16 pmSome old computer systems were notorious for this. The console of a TI990 mini-computer displayed the same menu all day long in most cases, as they were widely used in applications where the console was merely used start things up in the morning, and shut them down at night. They constructed the menu entirely from high brightness characters, and had no screen saver mode, to ensure the screen wore as fast as possible.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2022, 10:31:22 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on February 04, 2022, 06:47:31 pmSome LCD panels also suffer from a kind of pseudo burn in, that is not permanent. I have a Dell 27" monitor that is a good example of this. You can often see a shadow of windows that were previously displayed when the screen is just displaying plain white. However, over a few hours to a few days those shadows will fade and be replaced by shadows of newer windows which have been displayed.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2022, 01:07:00 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on February 04, 2022, 10:12:25 pmPlasma TVs suffer similarly if used for static images (I’ve seen some awful burn in on plasmas used as airport departure boards, for example). But used for video, absolutely not a problem. My Panasonic plasma is from mid 2009, and there is not even a hint of burn-in, not even a difference on the edges from the black bars on 4:3 content, which I watch plenty of. (Practically 100% of my viewing is via an Apple TV box, which shows a screen saver after a few minutes, including when video is paused, so the TV is never exposed to long-term static images.) While I do suspect that OLED is more sensitive than plasma, I know I’d be comfortable buying an OLED now.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2022, 05:21:29 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 05, 2022, 01:07:00 pmTo check my understanding. Are you saying you'd be happy to buy an OLED TV, but only if it is used for Movies (and other non-static content) ?Or would you be happy to buy OLED TVs, for massive static image content, such as computer/gaming/live-TV(station channel icon burns) uses ?Which many households would do, depending on who lives in that household.The later Plasmas, especially the Panasonic ones, with a claimed (and probably true), 100,000 hour screen life and advanced image retention/burn protections. Would probably have made good purchases at the time, they were readily available. I think the issues were more that mud sticks, and Plasmas had got a bad/poor reputation, from the earliest Plasmas, which did sometimes cause screen issuesBut those would have been (the earliest), before the screen manufacturing techniques improved (as regards screen life time), and anti-burn technologies were introduced, and possibly other advancements, to limit/protect the later Plasma TV screens.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2022, 05:33:54 pm
content: I just checked our plasma in the test patterns mode.I can just about see some signs of burn in on the red/green patterns, from a channel logo, interestingly the blue phosphor is perfect (not sure why it would last longer?)But it's so subtle you need to really look for it, and you can't see it on ordinary images or on the full white screen.Certainly Panasonic seemed to have cracked the burn in issue if a 10-year old TV is still almost factory perfect. I wonder how good OLED will be in the real world.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2022, 06:30:31 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 05, 2022, 05:33:54 pmNow you mention it. I think in some past thread on here (that I didn't participate in), explained or mentioned that some modern OLED TVs, have (what I think), is a very clever innovation.They are able to either remember how much each pixel has been used, and then using maths formulas, keep the entire set of pixels in calibration. By automatically balancing out the intensities (presumably, more use=needs intensifying, less use = needs attenuating intensity).Alternatively, they have some way of sensing how much each pixel, has worn out. Perhaps (following is speculation on my part), during a special calibration/anti-burn in fix mode, it electrically measures each pixels, voltage/current/hence-resistance/other-measurable-characteristics, and hence makes the screen look perfect or nearly perfect.If I remember correctly.

author: KaneTW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2022, 07:59:20 pm
content: The Sharp LCD panels' datasheet I have here explicitly says that static images should not be displayed for longer than two hours, otherwise damage to the liquid crystal may occur.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2022, 08:11:31 pm
content: The thought that a TV is an investment at all is the real problem here. Unless you're in the business of buying wholesale and selling retail, and even then you don't want to buy more than you can sell in the very near future.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2022, 08:20:25 pm
content: Quote from: KaneTW on February 05, 2022, 07:59:20 pmApparently, newer LCD screens, can also suffer from some kind of image retention. Most sources seem to say it is a temporary effect, but maybe it can be permanent. The following link, talks about it further and gives a picture, where it has happened.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_burn-inI suppose these technologies are changing all the time. Sometimes for the better, other times to save production costs, and it will not necessarily be good for the user and/or the product life expectancy.I'm use to somewhat older LCD screens, which may not represent the latest, modern LCD panels. Perhaps they have got worse in later years.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2022, 08:52:41 pm
content: I've never actually paid money for a TV, but if I ever do buy one it will be OLED. They just look THAT much better than LCD, the deep inky blacks and vivid colors. The screen burn problem is mostly due to those stupid channel logos all of the broadcast channels have now, I haven't watched cable/satellite/broadcast TV in years now largely because of the annoying logos. CRT based projection TVs which used to be the only way to get a big screen were notorious for screen burn. Same with plasma, and to some extent even regular direct view CRTs were prone to it if used long enough at a high enough brightness. OLED is no different really, use it for watching video without static elements and it isn't an issue.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2022, 08:59:27 pm
content: Quote from: Circlotron on February 04, 2022, 12:10:05 amThey weren't as reliable back then, but they were very expensive so it was worth getting them fixed and it wasn't unusual for people to keep a TV for 10-20 years. The very first color TV sold in the US came out in the 1950s and cost the equivalent of around $15,000 today. Even in the 70s a basic 19" B&W TV was around $200 and that's equivalent to around $1200 today.

author: KaneTW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2022, 11:41:44 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on February 05, 2022, 08:20:25 pmRight now there are only a handful of these panels in existence so I don't want to waste them, but once we have some more I'll run a static image test and see if it actually occurs. These are pretty bleeding edge panels with ~1.2k PPI, so it wouldn't surprise me if they have to make longevity tradeoffs to get the PPI that high.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2022, 11:50:26 pm
content: Owner of a 2008-era 55 inch Sharp LED TV still going strong, which was the biggest motivator to get another Sharp in 2015 (a 70 inch 3D) model. Both work incredibly well, but the image on the bigger one is less consistent.MK14, is this the thread you had in mind?https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/oled-tv-panel-broken/

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 12:46:30 am
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on February 05, 2022, 11:50:26 pmI don't think it was. I vaguely remembered it being user Wraper, who mentioned it.Ironically, in a similar thread to this one, with identiclal OPs (eti).https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/why-do-backlight-leds-burn-out-and-go-blue/msg3806399/#msg3806399The OLED stuff, is dotted about that thread, all over the place, but I pointed to one of the mentions, related to measuring the OLED parameters to calibrate out the screen burn. In that (or other posts), they say that some OLED repair threads on here (I think you found one or a similar one, in your link), mention about calibrating out the screen burn.EDIT: I tried somewhat extensive googling and youtubing, but not found out much more. Except the OLED TV itself, explains about it. It says something about measuring the thin film transistors (tft) voltages to recalibrate itself and fix the image retention/burn, or something. See here (At around 2 mins 35 sec):https://youtu.be/dHwB1IDVzZU?t=155

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 09:10:07 am
content: A friend of mine had similar issues with image retention on his OLED. He eventually started leaving it plugged in (normally it was powered off at night as he had one of those 'standby saver' devices that turns things off when his AVR is off.)That apparently helps, because the Sony OLEDs are programmed to do a cycle a few hour after power off, which helps with image retention, once every couple of weeks. You can't even really see it: a very thin grey line marching up and down the panel for 15 minutes a few hours after the TV turns off. No idea how that helps, but apparently it does. Sounds similar to the "smoky OLED" story but a manually activated cycle.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 12:49:33 pm
content: Warning, QD-OLED has just hit the market.Unlike OLED, true pure colors (no stupid white pixels to boost OLED's weak brightness), 3 year no-burn in guarantee, brighter overall white level and also already available in desktop PC monitors.Be prepared to pay the new adopter's tax, but it looks worth it.

author: m k
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 02:21:07 pm
content: I've seen a small Sharp color LCD so burned that I thought it was dim when it was actually off.It's possibly still among us and now been off for few years after showing generally same picture for 20 years.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 02:42:33 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on February 05, 2022, 05:21:29 pmAs far as I am aware, even early plasma TVs were just fine when used normally for video, without any static images. Unfortunately, that was coincident to the advent of always-on channel badges. :/Additionally, plasma displays also have temporary image retention, which people sometimes mistook for burn-in. (Like going into a shop, changing the source, and seeing a slight ghost of the prior image. If they waited 10 minutes it’d be completely gone.)As for OLED, I’d be comfortable getting one for my usage as described above. I don’t watch enough live tv (as in, zero for over a decade) to really know how big an issue that is. Burned screens like the one shown earlier are likely from pubs and similar uses with high hours of very similar content that I doubt are representative of ordinary household wear and tear. I probably wouldn’t get an OLED as a TV to leave on in the background all day long as some folks do. (Just as I wouldn’t do that with a projector of any kind.)

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 02:47:01 pm
content: Quote from: BrianHG on February 06, 2022, 12:49:33 pmAdding the white subpixel isn’t stupid, it’s smart. Any time you have all three RGB subpixels lit simultaneously, the “common” brightness level is just white. (E.g. if the RGB levels are 230/175/60, then you can subtract 60 from all of them and instead run the white subpixel at the equivalent brightness of 60/60/60, sparing the blue subpixel some wear.)Mind you that like plasma, OLED really isn’t intended for high ambient light environments; LCD is better for that. But in ordinary household light levels they’re totally fine.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 02:49:51 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 06, 2022, 09:10:07 amReminds me of the folks who remove AC power from their inkjet printers to save money, not realizing that that causes the printer to do a slow, very wasteful deep cleaning every time, since it loses its memory of when it was last used. (With that memory, it will skip the deep cleaning if it was used within some time window).

author: bw2341
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 04:20:04 pm
content: Quote from: BrianHG on February 06, 2022, 12:49:33 pmFrom what I've read, Samsung is using inkjet printers to deposit the red and green quantum dot colour conversion material onto a blue OLED matrix. The high initial price must be due to the poor yields of a brand new process. Hopefully, they can get the hang of it and bring the price down.It's too early to say how badly QD-OLED will burn in. It's still blue OLED at its core which would be the life limiting factor. The much higher luminous efficacy of the direct view blue and QD converted red and green should result in lower power levels and longer lifetime in direct comparison to LG's white OLED based displays. If Samsung cranks up the power to exceed the brightness of their own LCD based TV's, they'll use up a lot of the lifetime they've gained.

author: BeBuLamar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 05:19:07 pm
content: Unless you own a bar or restaurant or dentist office and need TV for your clients the TV is never an investment. But I do think expensive TV is worth the money.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 10:06:21 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 06, 2022, 09:10:07 amThat's exactly what I heard, when I did my recent OLED research, for this thread. (Make dependent), as or similar to what you said. After around 4 hours of TV viewing usage, it activates the need to recalibrate the pixels. It then waits until the TV has next been turned off into stand-by mode. It then waits a further 4 hours (presumably to let the TV cool down fully and/or ensure a TV user is unlikely to immediately turn it back on again). It then draws the horizontal and/or vertical line patterns, that seem to measure and correct the 'thin film transistors' voltage levels. My earlier posts in this thread, detail some of the sources.It takes around 1 hour to complete that pixel calibration procedure. Then after 2,000 hours has been reached, it does the same thing, but in a much more time consuming way.There are differing opinions and information sources, as to if the recalibration procedures (manually activating them), reduces the maximum service life of the OLED panel. The people who think it does shorten the panel life, could well be right, but I don't know for sure.

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 11:04:58 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on February 04, 2022, 07:11:03 pmIf you traveled through airports back when they used CRTs for the departure/arrival status displays, you saw a lot of burned-in images.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 11:32:24 pm
content: Quote from: Bassman59 on February 06, 2022, 11:04:58 pmAlso, railway ?? stations ??, arcade machines (especially when switched off), and other things. Usually home TVs were fine, because of the varying TV pictures.EDIT: Changed my mind. Not sure, so put ??, where applicable.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2022, 11:46:19 pm
content: I find the best bang for the buck with TVs is to buy a high end one, but that is a few years behind in tech. Never buy whatever tech just came out, you will over pay. I guess that goes for most things, but especially TVs.My current TV is actually a HD TV I bought like 10 years ago, I had paid like 1k for it at the time, it was a 3k TV that was on sale by a lot. So for the time it was a good deal. One key with expensive purchases is to make sure they remain useful for as long as possible. I just don't get people that buy iphones every year. Paying over a grand for a phone only to ditch it a year or two later. Seems so financially wasteful to me.I am kind of eyeing 8K TVs, mostly to use as a monitor, since that would be a crazy amount of screen real estate, but if I do that I'll wait at least a couple more years to see if they come down in price. I have two 4k monitors right now but the issue is they have burn in already after only a few years. I did not do my research enough when buying them. I did not realize burn in was still a thing. When I DO upgrade I will want to make sure I get a tech that does not have burn in.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 12:28:50 am
content: Quote from: Bassman59 on February 06, 2022, 11:04:58 pmIf you travelled through transport interchanges during the plasma era you saw even worse burned-in images. The Windows BSOD page was deeply burned into almost every one.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 12:42:24 am
content: Quote from: tooki on February 06, 2022, 02:47:01 pmLOL... Right... OK....

author: Vgkid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 12:51:49 am
content: I checked the date of manufacture for our 46in panasonic 1080p plasma, 2010.It was older than I thought, i was thinking 2012ish.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 01:04:11 am
content: QuoteI think the idea is you only pay full cost for the first one, then after that you buy a new one and flog off the previous one. These things retain a good resale value, so effectively your $1000 phone is only costing you $300 or whatever. Once over that initial cost hurdle it's pretty much the same as a mid-range Android device from there on.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 04:36:59 am
content: It is a sad fact that any display technology where image production comes from the varying brightness of elements that have a finite life is - inexorably - prone to burn-in. Any mechanism to address such artefacts cannot rejuvenate the impacted elements (well, not that I am aware of) - which leads to the conclusion that whatever those mechanisms might be, they are quite likely reducing the overall life of the panel. (Something that was mentioned above.)Such an attribute doesn't affect me too much. Aside from a couple of OLED phones, the display tech around me is all LCD. I have two 27" IPS monitors in front of me now and the TV is a cheap Aldi 39" LCD.The cheap TV is only Full HD - but that's pretty good enough to watch movies. I've set up a PC to run into it mainly to use Kodi and that works pretty well. (It's absolutely crap as a monitor.) It does have a bit of light bleed, but not all that noticeable unless you watch space shows - but then I try and forget about that and just get into the story.It does, however, have one trait that I find rather annoying ...In images where there is a notable area of gradual shading change, there are very obvious steps. It's like looking at a contour map overlaid on the image. If there was ever an argument for going for a high bit count video decoder, this is it. I sometimes wonder if it has an 8 bit decoder or a 6 bit! I sometimes dream of something with 12 bit.For the most part, these irritations are passing and by not getting hung up about them, I get to enjoy my media.I have seen 8K. I have seen OLED. ... and I have seen the credits rolling on a dozen screens on display in a major electronics retailer. The two Sony units were clearly identifiable - just by looking at the upward scrolling text. On all the other units, the text movement was jittery - but on the Sony units, it was buttery smooth.QD-OLED certainly has my attention as well, but I am a little hesitant about the ageing issue of OLEDs. Yes, by having all the OLEDs the same colour, one issue of ageing is addressed - but they are still going to age. Elements being driven at different intensities will cause different ageing - so burn-in is still on the cards.I can appreciate ALL the things that various manufacturers can bring to the market - and I look forward to seeing where we go with it all. BUT, I am not preoccupied with seeking the latest and greatest, shelling out more cash to watch material which - for the most part - makes little improvement in my life.I held my 3 day old grandson for the first time yesterday. That was worth more than any TV.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 07:55:52 am
content: Quote from: Brumby on February 07, 2022, 04:36:59 amDepends how you define the "life" of the panel. Has it reached EoL when the overall brightness has fallen below some fraction of its original level, or when there are visible artefacts in the content (colour shifts, static logos and the like)?QuotePosterisation is very common with low end equipment for exactly this reason - insufficient bit depth.It might be worth trying a different source component; this effect is noticeable on my TV when viewing Netflix using my cable provider's box (Virgin Tivo V6), but the same content is smooth using the Netflix apps on my BD player and PS5. The difference is simply that both of these are made to deliver a level of performance rather than being strictly built down to a price.QuoteThat's just default settings being different. Intermediate frame creation is a standard feature to help smooth motion; on movies, for example, some people prefer a screen that shows 24 frames/sec to exactly match the original source, others like to have the extra (interpolated) frames. Sounds like the Sony units may have this feature on by default, and others have it off, but either way, 30 seconds in the setup menu and you're sorted.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 08:22:16 am
content: Quote from: Brumby on February 07, 2022, 04:36:59 amThat buttery smooth is an image processing feature of the TV's chipset. It is bs. It is not the original film's 24fps. Yes, apparently, there are those who like it, but, you are no longer seeing what the original film actually looks like but an interpreted process of what the chipset believes should be displayed inbetween and mistakes are usually made during high speed action sequences.Note that you can turn the feature off in the Sony's by selecting the 'reference director's film mode', or whatever the industry calls it. The director's mode also turns off the stupid auto-dynamic range BS making most movies look a lot darker, but now the daylight outdoor scenes will be properly bright without blooming in bright areas and dark or indoor filmed scenes will be properly dark.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 11:09:07 am
content: The thing is (aside from the low bit depth) I only really notice this stuff when I'm actively looking for it. I'm not going to shell out a fistful of cash chasing something that only bothers me rarely, if at all.Anyway, most of my "screen time" is on the monitors before me as I type.....

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 11:41:09 am
content: Quote from: BrianHG on February 07, 2022, 12:42:24 amWhy don’t you actually explain why you disagree instead of just a dismissive smirk?

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 12:06:54 pm
content: QuoteThe LEDs in an LCD TV will age too, and eventually become too dim. But I guess the effect will be constant across the panel (although as they dim, perhaps the colour will subtly change so you might get the same effect as the OLEDs, just in a different means of getting there).

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 02:27:18 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 07, 2022, 11:41:09 amWhat if you want 100% red. Or 100% Green, or 100% blue, or 100% yellow, or 100% cyan, or 100% magenta. You wasted surface area of each pure color pixel for white loosing the maximum possible color saturation brightness. 1 chip DLP projectors did the same thing when they went from the first original RGB color wheel filters in the early 2000s to the newer ones with a transparent and yellow portions of the newer color wheel to get brighter whites known as 'Brilliant Color'. It messes up the natural colors through processing to achieve a stronger brightness, but false color rusty looking image wherever there supposed to be rich skin tones and rich greens and blues look dark. The side-by-side photographs of OLED vs QD-OLED from CES shows this exact same color limitation errors. Disabling the 'Brilliant Color' on those 1 chip DLP projectors fixes the color to it's proper levels, but with that color wheel having that dumb white and yellow sections now not in use, you get a net loss of around 40% brightness where as if they kept the original full RGB color wheels, this would have only been around a 20% loss of brightness, but true color.Take a zoomed up magnification look at the RGBW OLED screens. The white pixels are the largest ones wasting the potential output capability of the much tinier red/green/blue which must now fit in the remaining available space.If the 'white' was such a good idea, then the same would have been done with every LCD screens and even old CRTs which would have been manufactured with 4 guns and 4 types of phosphor, RGBW, to get those brighter whites. The white is a cheap countermeasure fix hoping that people don't know what the original image supposed to look like and without a reference monitor side-by-side, you know tricks are being made to fool you into thinking what you have is correct and king when the colors are actually all wrong. Never accept backup correction countermeasures for the true thing as those tricks always fail to give the true representation whenever compared to the original source unless your source image doesn't exceed a combination of 40-50% color saturation+brightness drive.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 02:36:40 pm
content: QuoteIsn't this verging on audiophoolery territory? Surely, unless you are trying to make a backup or do absolute measurements, the criteria is whether it is good to watch (or listen to)? Does it have to beexactlyas the camera saw it so long as it seems to be OK? If you're watching with a daylight background whatever you're watching will seem different to the same thing when viewed with a 2700K tungsten lighting background, so fooling the eye and brain isn't exactly unusual.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 02:50:19 pm
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on February 07, 2022, 02:36:40 pmYou have got to be kidding me. A 40% error in saturated color picture drive capability is somehow equivilant to the BS of audio foolery issue of copper cable for your speakers VS the 10k$ speaker cables which have NO MEASURABLE effect on the output? How in the world can you equate a 40% measurable photograph-able difference to a 0% measurable actual difference of the audio foolery BS.Just look at the picture at the 11 second point.Does that look like audio foolery?The color difference is identical to the stupid 'Brilliant Color' mode on my DLP projector, except that the QD-OLED is full brightness.(Yes, I had to disable 'Brilliant Color' on my projector to see the difference, otherwise all three images are approximately equivilant except for brightness.) My studio grade CRTs show the largest difference between the 3 examples.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 02:54:38 pm
content: In non-foolish audio, the usual threshold for concern is 1 dB, which is a power increment of 26%.In critical color photography, the usual threshold for concern is 1/3 stop, which corresponds to 1 dB in optical power, or 26% again.If you tell a 10-year-old kid to turn down the volume, he will turn it down by 1 dB.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 05:25:09 pm
content: QuoteYou are missing my point where I said "the criteria is whether it is good to watch". Clearly, if the picture is as bad as you show then it ISN'T good to watch. How hard is that to grasp?You were complaining earlier that the nice-to-watch stuff (like the Sony make-it-up-so-it's-smooth thing and the white's being too white or something) is bad because it's not 'true to the original' and that kind of thing. Who the hell cares? Did I enjoy watching it <-- that should be the criteria unless you've got OCD about technology.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 07:07:37 pm
content: Quote from: BrianHG on February 07, 2022, 02:27:18 pmThere have been LCDs with subpixels beyond RGB, notably Sharp’s Quattron which added yellow. Single-chip DLP projectors all use multicolor filter wheels, including very high end ones.Why wasn’t this widespread in the past? Cost. It takes a lot of image computation to separate out to more colors, and in the days of CRTs that would have been a ton of cost for little reward. LCD doesn’t need that help because it can achieve more brightness simply by using a beefier backlight. OLED lifespan being limited by the blue subpixel lifespan, it makes a ton of sense to relieve it as much as possible. Additionally, it gives the ability to have a truer white than RGB “white” can achieve.You seem to be a sort of image purist (based on this and your comment about motion interpolation), but that requires ignoring that photography and videography are inherently interpretations of reality, not a theoretically “authentic” rendition.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 09:20:05 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 07, 2022, 07:07:37 pmComputation? To get a boosting white channel beyond the RGB, you would use 3 appropriate resistors plus a driver amp. Hello, analog world...Yes, mechanically, a 4 point aperture grill and phosphor coating will be the bulk of the cost.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 09:39:58 pm
content: Quote from: BrianHG on February 07, 2022, 09:20:05 pmIt’s not a boost, dude.It’sreplacingthe white component of the RGB channels. That’a a dynamicsubtractiveprocess.And you do realize that computation can be analog? (Just like the YUV->RGB transform done in analog color TVs.) I never said it had to be digital.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 09:49:12 pm
content: P.S. Take a look at the HSB color model. Replacing part of the RGB with white is sorta like considering the B component of a color and pushing that alone onto the white subpixel.

author: G0HZU
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 10:22:32 pm
content: I'm still watching an old Pioneer Kuro plasma that I purchased new in 2009. These were the last of their kind and the image quality can be really good with plasma. It also has its limitations so I've always yearned for something better when it finally dies.I expect I'll buy a decent OLED model to replace it and this will probably cost more than I paid for the Pioneer plasma in 2009. I'd happily pay double if I get a significant improvement compared to the (flawed but still impressive) plasma image quality.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2022, 11:29:23 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 07, 2022, 09:39:58 pmIf R+G+B = W, and the colour balance of the white pixel is set such that the output of the white pixel equals the sum of three equivalent RGB pixels at similar luminosity, I can't see why it would change anything about the colour balance. All of this colour mixing nonsense just sounds like "videophoolery". Our eyes have three cones, and the red and green cones sense very similar wavelengths. What we see is going to be limited to that - so why would using a colour model that is different create such a vastly different experience?Talking about weird displays (Quattron was weird!) Samsung demonstrated a plasma back in (2010?) that used a white pixel. As far as I know it never reached production but we did see a weird PenTile matrix plasma as one of their last: the PN60F5300. Widely regarded as one of the strangest plasma displays ever produced, because all prior PDPs had been RGB vertical striped. There was much speculation on why this was done, but the likely reason was just cost (reducing the number of 60V driver ICs that are embedded in the panel surely helps), though it may also have increased brightness somewhat too.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 01:49:57 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 07, 2022, 11:29:23 pmBecause some manufacturers were tempted by marketing specs, so instead of just using W (or some other additional component beyond RGB) to maintain the same luminance range, they would turn every channel on hard to get a higher peak brightness. Which has a limited gamut in those brighter regions.......at which point you head away from linear color theory and need to consider perceptual colors, which arent as well agreed upon.TV/Video capture chains are already working inside a synthetic gamut, which is why mono chromatic LED lighting can look so bad/wrong in images. Chopping out some of the possible color gamut for more brightness was a trade off plenty of consumers were happy to go with.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 01:54:10 am
content: There exist color LCD displays that have no color filters and instead use a backlight that rapidly switches between the 3 primary colors. It hasn't caught on due to the difficulty of making a LCD fast enough for that to work well, the main niche it had limited success in are ebook oriented tablets that can also display color. In principle, such a display can switch between any combination of the 3 colors at any time, but the power use of the DSP needed to coordinate it all would likely cancel out the power savings.

author: bw2341
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 03:38:32 am
content: Quote from: tooki on February 07, 2022, 07:07:37 pmI'm going to have to agree with BrianHG on this one. White channels are a clever workaround to make up for deficiencies at the expense of picture quality. Pure RGB direct emission is the way to go.Sharp’s Quattron was a short lived product. High brightness business grade portable DLP projectors need white on the filter wheel, but high end home theatre DLPs have moved to RGB LEDs or laser light sources. To achieve the highest brightness and picture quality, movie theatre DLPs have three DLP chips and RGB lasers.A white channel reduces the colour gamut at high picture levels. Imagine that the white, red, green and blue channels can reach 60% of the desired maximum brightness. Typical medium brightness colours would be perfect, even if you use as much white as possible. But what happens if you need pure red 75%,0%,0% ? You need to compromise the picture quality in some way. You can either reduce the colour purity or dim the pixel below the desired brightness. That would be either 15%W,60%R,0%,0% or 0%W,60%R,0%,0%.From what I've read, LG WOLED TVs have significant image processing behind the scenes. There is a very aggressive automatic brightness limiter because of a strict power budget for the whole panel. This means that a full screen of pure white is very dim compared to pure white box in the middle of normal image.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 07:37:41 am
content: Quote from: G0HZU on February 07, 2022, 10:22:32 pmFYI, when Pioneer discontinued plasma production, they sold the Kuro technology to Panasonic, so at minimum the late higher-end Panasonic plasmas in essence are Kuro panels.My Panasonic is a 2008 model (I got it in 2009, when I was able to buy the top-of-the-line 2008 model for the same price as the entry-level 2009 model.), so it can’t be a Kuro in disguise, and it’s still a great TV. The black levels aren’t as black as modern LCDs (never mind OLED), but the color quality and viewing angle are superb.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 07:40:56 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 07, 2022, 11:29:23 pmExactly. It sounds to me like he thinks they’re just adding white to all the colors indiscriminately, washing it out, or that it’ll somehow reduce the available color space?

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 08:59:18 am
content: Quote from: tooki on February 08, 2022, 07:40:56 amHe says that this is what they do to exceed the brightness available from RGB pixels alone when such brightness is called for.Which doesn't sound completely implausible. Consumer technology is crappy like that and it doesn't get more consumer than TV

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 12:49:19 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 07, 2022, 11:29:23 pmExcept for the few who have 4 kinds of cone cells.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Humans

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 01:04:29 pm
content: If the big fat white pixels were the true solution, then the first QD-OLED panels would have had them too.As for the negative color offset mentioned earlier with the image processing, yes when having the 'yellow' sections on the color wheel of the DLP projectors, you do need the 9 channel color space converter instead of the normal 3 channel one to try to attempt further correction which would not be required on a CRT with a strict WRGB 4 channel phosphor. Just the offset recognition of the white additive boost which can be done within the analog multiplier circuitry of the YUV to RGB converter in most TVs.The best solution is to get the standard gan blue LED layer to be printed/deposited in a compatible chemistry to a silicon active-matrix layer which will not age as quickly as the organic elements currently in use. I'm sure a clever means will come up which will give us a huge power budget boost per panel with pixels which will last much longer.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 01:52:47 pm
content: I don't see how adding an extra colour such as yellow, or white, especially the latter, can be a good thing for colour definition. It will increase intensity, but at the loss of colour definition, at higher intensities.Colour definition can be improved by using red, green and blue emitters with narrow peaks. Using far red, >700nm, rather than bright red, helps a lot, because it will not stimulate the green cones so much, but is much less efficient.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 02:03:28 pm
content: If you're looking at a bright light, don't surrounding colours get washed out? A bright red in front of a brighter white is a dull red, isn't it?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 02:49:15 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on February 08, 2022, 01:52:47 pmIt depends what the panel is for:For a TV (or anything else displaying natural images, rather than tightly constrained graphics) it works extremely well. Our eyes don't normally see rich colour in fine image detail. That's why analogue TV could get away with a far lower definition for colour than for luminance. Most "pictures" aren't tightly aligned with the pixels, so we are rarely looking at distinct individual pixels displaying distinct saturated colours. Digital cameras don't equally prioritise R, G and B, so the source for material displayed on TVs is not like a clean R + G + B image, anyway. The vast majority of what you see on a TV has been further compressed between the camera and the display in ways which reduce the colour definition quite markedly.For a computer monitor (or other graphics display panel) it works really badly. Computers display highly unnatural images, which only look right when tightly aligned with the pixels. We view these panels from a short range, where we are highly aware of the individual pixels, rather than seeing them blending into a picture. Here even an RGB panel, which must have a spatial separation between the R, G and B pixels, has issues. We sit close to the display, and can often clearly see that a single line of pixels of a non-primary colour is actually adjacent lines of the primary colours.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 02:51:09 pm
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on February 08, 2022, 02:03:28 pmAny sufficiently bright light basically looks white(ish).

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 04:52:39 pm
content: Quote from: magic on February 08, 2022, 08:59:18 amBut that’s not what the white is for per se. It’s to offload the white component of the RGB value to a white subpixel to reduce wear on the blue subpixel. It’s not that the RGB subpixels can’t achieve the desired brightness, it’s that doing so wears out the blue subpixel faster.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 04:58:37 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on February 08, 2022, 01:52:47 pmIt’s the exact opposite: while human visionpeaksat certain wavelengths, our color receptors actually have very shallow curves, meaning we are still quite sensitive to other wavelengths besides the peaks. This, together with the reflectivity characteristics of objects, is why so many physical objects look awful under RGB “white”. And while we can simulate many colors on displays with well-chosen RGB wavelengths, it’s not 100%, and yellow is one area where we are really sensitive to it being “off” because skin tones are yellows to reds. Hence Sharp’s attempt to improve color rendition with a yellow subpixel. It certainly wasn’t for brightness, since if anything, the added pixel structure reduces overall brightness.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 05:05:16 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 08, 2022, 04:58:37 pmWell, of course they do., If they only responded to 3 narrow spectral bands we'd have some really funky gaps in our vision.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 05:21:33 pm
content: Exactly. A wavelength between two broad peaks in the human eye's sensitivity spectrum excites more than one receptor.Note that although "wavelengths" (e.g., narrow laser spectra) have "color", a "color" or "hue" typically has a broad spectrum of "wavelengths".What is the wavelength of "brown"?

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 05:27:55 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 08, 2022, 04:52:39 pmIt makes other pixels smaller so saturated colors can't reach the same level of brightness anymore, or the pixels are driven harder than before under such conditions (and may wear out faster still).And there is obvious marketing benefit in cranking up contrast by cheating with those white pixels.For anyone interested, the controversy should be easy enough to settle by observing Windows BSOD under a loupe

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 06:31:33 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 08, 2022, 04:58:37 pmThe light from the TV is not used to illuminate objects. The aim is to reproduce as larger range of colours as possible, so it's more desirable to have sharp peaks from the red, green and blue emitters, to ensure they only excite the intended cones.The eye can't distinguish between spectral yellow and a mixture of red and green light, so there is no point in having a yellow emitters on the screen.

author: bw2341
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 06:35:50 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 08, 2022, 04:52:39 pmLG's white OLED TV displays are effectively a uniform array of white OLED subpixels. A blue emissive layer is combined with an orange emissive layer to make white. Red, green and blue filter stripes are use to make the RGB subpixels, just like in an LCD TV. For the white stripes, the subpixels are simply left unfiltered.So in an overly simplistic analysis, the white subpixels are three times brighter than the red, green and blue subpixels at the same power level.My criticism of LG's design shouldn't be considered an attack. The competition between LG's OLEDs and Samsung's LCDs is excellent for consumers as they've raised picture quality and lowered prices at the same time. Still, we have to acknowledge both the advantages and disadvantages of any new technology.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 06:45:44 pm
content: Quote from: bw2341 on February 08, 2022, 03:38:32 amThis is pretty common on emissive displays. Most plasma display panels exhibited the same effect where the maximum number of sustain fields was limited by the number of set pixels.For the Pioneer Kuro, for instance, the typical ABL was about 60%, so once more than 60% of the panel was full white (or some greater proportion was grey) the panel would dim. The dimming is progressive to keep the overall power limit at a peak.You could override this in the service menu, turning the ABL threshold up to about 80%, which increased the brightness. The consequence was the set would pull about 800W on full white, and the PFC section on the PSU would occasionally chirp (possibly going into current-limit hiccup) - though with no noticeable effect on the picture as there was enough bus capacitance to hold the whole set up for way too long.I didn't run my panel long in this configuration, I was sure something would break! But, it was damn bright on full white.I'm not sure what the ABL is on a WOLED, but the effect on a plasma display was only really visible under certain situations; the film THX1138 comes to mind. And, your eyes tended to adjust reasonably quickly, so it never bothered me.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 06:51:10 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on February 08, 2022, 06:31:33 pmI didn’t say TVs are used to illuminate objects.If we had absolutely perfect RGB emitters, the above theory would hold. But a) we don’t (the peaks may not be where they need to be, and in filtered subpixels, they are often impure and allow some white to “leak”), and b) yellow subpixels allowed some of the spectral yellow light from the white light sources used to be utilized to improve color rendition.I’d be curious to know why RGB LED backlighting hasn’t become widespread in LCDs, instead we create broad-spectrum white light and filter it. Sony does it in some models (“Triluminos”), but I’m not aware of others.

author: bw2341
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 06:57:43 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 08, 2022, 06:51:10 pmIt is very common, but not with RGB LEDs. Quantum dot enhancement film is used in front of a pure blue LED backlight. The film has a mix of red and green quantum dots that efficiently convert the blue light to narrowband red and green light.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 06:59:27 pm
content: I’m aware of that approach too, but does anyone beside Samsung make panels like that?

author: bw2341
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 07:02:01 pm
content: Everyone?It seems like every brand, including the discount ones offer quantum dot products at the top of their lineup.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 07:08:03 pm
content: Huh, it looks like Sony reused the Triluminos name to mean quantum dots long ago. I hadn’t realized they’d abandoned the RGB LED Triluminos.

author: Jester
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 08:18:19 pm
content: in·vest·ment/inˈves(t)mənt/the action or process of investing money for profit or material result.I have never viewed a TV as an investment.We don't watch a lot of TV so when the old one dies, we do a quick review search to find out what's good and what's bad mostly from a reliability perspective and then go purchase what is on sale that day that matches the list we just spent 10 minutes researching. There is usually some enthusiastic shopper while we go that is into the latest and greatest and will probably pay 5 or 10 x what we will pay to get the latest feature.Years ago when big screens were all the rage our neighbors the "Joneses" just could not help themselves and purchased this massive monstrosity. They put the cardboard box on the front lawn for like two weeks supposedly so there son could play in it. There son was about 13 YO at the time. I felt sorry for them, but we did have a few good chuckles.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2022, 08:49:58 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 08, 2022, 06:51:10 pmA few years ago there was hype over blue-phase displays that would work kind of similar to this display Mike tore apart:... but for full-colour active matrix. The advantage is obvious: you eliminate the three subpixels, so you can simplify the manufacturing of the panel and drive electronics. The RGB transition rate however would need to be quite fast to get over the rainbow effect, probably above 100Hz (I'm not sure how fast DLP colour wheels go in the real world) which would put the necessary switching speed around a couple milliseconds. Allegedly blue-phase could achieve 1ms, but we've still not seen it appear commercially.Sharp demonstrated a small mobile MEMS display that operated on a similar principle, but instead of an LCD panel, a MEMS array of shutters blocks the backlight. Another technology I've not heard much from since it debuted - I expect it cost too much. LCD panels are *really* cheap for what they are, and it's going to take some seriously disruptive technology to shift them.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 12:01:01 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 08, 2022, 08:49:58 pmI've heard about this back in 2008 at a trade show. Infinity : 1 contrast ratio. It was for Cinema grade projectors. However, at the time, the light sources were still too hot (no super-bright led/laser white) and there was no way to cool the center of the device.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 11:40:36 am
content: Quote from: bw2341 on February 08, 2022, 06:35:50 pmYeah, it is insane how good TVs picture quality became in the last few years. I would argue that a 4K LG OLED is plenty good for watching movies. Of course the new QD-OLED will be somewhat better, brighter. I think the most advancement in the next years is actually not going to come from the panels themseves, rather the upscaling methods, motion smoothing, and when streaming services will improve their quality.And about burn-in: I've never heard of anyone who has OLED who would be worried about burn-in. Just use the damn thing.Same about the SSD that I bough 7 years ago. Flash on it got used up and became extremely slow. So I went out and bought an equivalent size SSD for 30 EUR. After 7 years.

author: Neper
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 03:16:12 pm
content: I still prefer radio. The picture is much better.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 04:49:34 pm
content: 50 years ago, the American comedian Stan Freberg did a series of radio commercials in favor of radio advertising showing the power of imagination in the radio listener vs. the limited vision on a TV screen.My favorite involved converting Lake Michigan into the world's largest ice-cream soda, completed by the Royal Canadian Air Force carefully dropping the world's largest cherry on top, accompanied by 10,000 cheering extras.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 09:27:40 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 08, 2022, 08:49:58 pmMy parents used to have one of those. It was given to them by British Gas. I didn't take it apart but the rainbow effect was visible, when an object is moved across it very quickly. I suppose it's cheap and uses less battery power, than a TFT. The new one uses a TFT though.I wonder if there are any scopemeters which use these sorts of displays? The longer battery life might outweigh being limited to only 8 colours.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 09:32:04 pm
content: Quote from: Neper on February 09, 2022, 03:16:12 pmBut you get an even clearer picture (in your minds eye), and longer battery lifewith paper books.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 09:44:36 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on February 09, 2022, 11:40:36 am”Plenty good” is a wild understatement. I recently discovered that one local cinema has (for a few years already) one of the first direct-view LED screens in the world; a high quality 4K video wall, basically. And in one of the articles I read about it, it mentioned that home TVs have been better than cinema projectors for a long time. I think people forget just how much projectors suck, and underestimate just how good typical modern LCD panels are. And OLED (and direct-view LED) are better still.The one thing where LCDs (and certain OLEDs, like the ones in phones) still disappoint is viewing angle. While todays models are light years ahead of early LCDs, there are still subtle color shifts that I find distracting. CRTs and plasmas were excellent in this regard, and OLED TVs seem to be. Projection varies wildly, depending on the type of screen. High-gain screens have distracting reflection patterns. :/

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 09:50:05 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 09, 2022, 09:44:36 pmFor a long time most good cinemas have used 3 channel DLP projectors, which are capable of very high quality results on a large screen.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 09:53:04 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 09, 2022, 09:50:05 pmI’m well aware. They’re not even close.(LCD projection is essentially dead. With Sony having exited the cinema projector market, all cinema projectors are now DLP. Most non-cinema ones are too, although rarely as 3-chip types.)For example, do you know that cinemas do not support HDR in any way? Home theater overtook cinemas in terms of picture quality years ago. (Sound is an altogether different matter.)

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 09:54:50 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 09, 2022, 09:53:04 pmMaybe the cinemas gave up bothering. The DLP projectors themselves are capable of an extreme dynamic range.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 09:56:06 pm
content: There aren’t any distribution standards for HDR cinema.But with the comparatively low contrast of projection screens it barely matters.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2022, 10:12:47 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 09, 2022, 09:44:36 pmWould love to see one of these in person. Some older direct-view LED displays look pretty awful, but I've noticed a marked improvement in their performance now. Cinema will be a true challenge.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2022, 12:00:33 am
content: Yeah, I’ve been meaning to go see a movie there so I can form an opinion on the screen. Given how good modern video walls are (at least high-quality ones), I expect it to look great.

author: bw2341
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2022, 01:14:39 am
content: There's a high end LED video wall at my local Apple Store and I was able to walk right up to it. Very impressive. The light modifiers blend the LEDs together very well so I was not able to discern individual LEDs. Even though the display faces the outside glass curtain wall, there was plenty of contrast in the image. They were using it for the in-store teaching sessions. This was in The Before Times, of course.Linus of Linus Tech Tips considered acquiring Samsung's The Wall MicroLED display as the ultimate YouTuber showoff piece. He was dissuaded from moving forward for multiple reasons. Experienced installers informed him of the extreme power, cooling and building structural requirements. Also, frequent replacement of modules due to failure is to be expected. In fact, the sell sheet for LG's competitive product mentions the inclusion of on-site spares in the package.

author: bw2341
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2022, 01:31:14 am
content: Quote from: tooki on February 09, 2022, 09:44:36 pmThis is probably an artifact of 3D capable theatre screens. Most theatres use circular polarization optics to project the separate left and right eye images. The screen material has to retain the polarization of the incident light when reflecting it back to the viewer. Otherwise, there will be crosstalk between the left and right eye images. The screen has to be high gain so that the image is acceptably bright through the 3D glasses.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2022, 07:58:00 am
content: Quote from: bw2341 on February 10, 2022, 01:14:39 amThe one at an Apple Store is also the only top-quality one I’ve seen up close, and I agree that they lookfantastic!Quote from: bw2341 on February 10, 2022, 01:31:14 amNope. High-gain screens have been used for decades, they have nothing to do with 3D. They use surface structures that prevent light from scattering off-angle as waste light. But the disadvantage is that it reduces viewing angle. (Fun fact 1: top-quality cinema screens use surfaces so delicate that touching it ruins it. Fun fact 2: cinema screens are acoustically transparent because they have the front speakers behind them.)You’re probably correct about an incompatible screen interfering with polarization 3D, but I don’t know for a fact.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2022, 08:30:30 am
content: Quote from: bw2341 on February 10, 2022, 01:31:14 amAww, they are still pushing that crap.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2022, 09:22:04 am
content: Quote from: BrianHG on February 10, 2022, 08:30:30 amFilms are still made and shown in 3D, though it is becoming less common. 3D TV/home cinema is basically dead.The last time I saw a 3D film in the cinema was 2014 and it made me quite unwell.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2022, 09:40:45 am
content: Quote from: tooki on February 09, 2022, 09:56:06 pmYes, what limits dynamic range in projection setting is the white (or silvery) screen reflect the light on the walls, ceiling, floor, even the people, and this light ends up back on the screen; this can't be avoided even if the projector optics are perfect!The whole theater and all its materials could be painted matte black, but somehow consumers don't want that either.A screen of a "large TV" can be made nearly black, meaning it reflects very little light coming in from the front, solving this problem.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2022, 09:54:54 am
content: Not to mention despite the power of a projection bulb (3-10 kW in current cinemas) it's still a relatively small amount of light dispersed over a large screen.A huge LED matrix could achieve, say, 500W/m^2 without breaking too much of a sweat, especially if it had thermal ABL (brightness limited by temperature or average power, rather than just peak power.) This would massively improve the apparent contrast ratio. I could see some of these screens pulling 10-20kW for certain scenes.(Maybe cinemas will start to prefer darker films, saving them money on the electricity bill and the maintenance of the panel.)I do worry we'll see films with lots of dead pixels/modules though. I've seen a few large outdoor matrices with entire blocks of ~32x32 pixels showing garbage.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2022, 11:18:42 am
content: QuoteAnd is why early adopters of digital projectors often found the image wasn't as good as expected when projecting onto an existing screen,pixels would disappear through the little holes in the screen that made it acoustically transparent.Quoteso much for modern technology being more efficient ,the old vicy 5 had a 2-2.5kw lamp that was more than bright enough for the average uk cinema

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2022, 11:54:44 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 09, 2022, 09:53:04 pmHDR still exists, but in very limited projection rooms around the globe. I am fortunate enough to live in the same metroplex as Cinemark HQ and they have the latest releases in the technology there. My wife worked in cinema HDR projection some ten years ago and she touched (and fixed bugs!) on a number of features of cinema projection for what was back then the only movie still in production in HDR/HFR: The Hobbit trilogy.A Christie or Barco projector blows a home TV out of the water.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 01:15:56 am
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on February 10, 2022, 11:54:44 pmOMG, Duh......125k$ to 750k$ and even higher $ projectors will obviously roast any consumer shit.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 02:58:20 am
content: Quote from: BrianHG on February 11, 2022, 01:15:56 amPay attention, dude. The quote I was referring on my post is:Quote from: tooki on February 09, 2022, 09:53:04 pm

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 08:01:33 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on February 10, 2022, 09:40:45 amPrecisely.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 08:59:37 am
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on February 10, 2022, 11:54:44 pmWell, anarticleabout the direct view LED cinema claims otherwise: “ Tatsächlich kriegst du Zuhause technisch gesehen das bessere Bild als im Kino.”

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 10:38:10 am
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on February 11, 2022, 02:58:20 amSorry, but the 2 of the Christie setups I've seen just outdo everything else. Standing right in front of a 300 inch screen, their corner to corner optical focus alone, at every location on the screen where you can seed a clear square grid hatchet from the DLP surface, free of any chromatic divergence whatsoever roasts any consumer grade projector I have ever seen. No smear at all as if I were looking at a gigantic LCD TV, except each pixel has the RGB superimposed into a single square block. The true 4k 240Hz support 3 chip dlp also just operate on another level.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 03:21:07 pm
content: If you're comparing anything home-theatre wise to an LCD TV, you're going to be sadly disappointed.For picture quality plasma, and now OLED, have always been the frontrunners. LCD was always compromised by slow refresh rates and poor contrast ratio. The technology has got better over time, but it will fundamentally never keep up with OLED, it's just not achievable.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 04:19:21 pm
content: Quote from: BrianHG on February 11, 2022, 10:38:10 amHome cinema projectors suck. Gigantic LCDs can look really good. A huge part of the flaws come down to the sources used and the image processing done in the TVs.Cinema projectors are great, but they can’t ever reach the black levels of a direct-view display.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 05:49:59 pm
content: The advantage projectors have is size, the picture can be really, really big, and very economical. The physical unit can be very small, for example mounted to the ceiling with a screen you lower while using. Below about 80" though LCD or OLED is going to look a lot better.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 05:55:41 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 11, 2022, 04:19:21 pmI wonder how sustainable the market for high end TVs might be? Last year we replaced our high end LG 55" 4K LCD TV from 2013 with a current basic LG model of the same size (I think the old TV died because of a BGA connection problem, but fixing it would have been a PITA). The new one is WAYYYYYY better than the old one. Sure, the top of the line current models look better than the one we bought, but the difference is no longer the huge gulf it used to be, and the price difference is quite large. We just didn't think the difference was worth it.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 05:57:39 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on February 11, 2022, 05:49:59 pmArguably that advantage is diminished by the fact that I can buy a 65" OLED TV for about ~$1500 USD equivalent now.A 4K projector + screen equivalent is going to be butting against that in terms of cost. I might be able to get 80" or 90" screen size but brightness is going to suffer. And unless I get a LED projector, I'm going to need to replace the bulb fairly frequently.So, poorer contrast and brightness but a bigger image, versus a huge frickin' OLED panel... I know what I'd choose.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 06:04:28 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on February 11, 2022, 05:49:59 pmDirect view LED can be as big as you like. This thread has only talked about the cinema ones, but the huge panels made for public displays are now very impressive too. Its only a few years since most of these things looked awful, yet there were impressive ones in the early 2000s. In 2003 I used to see an experimental display being developed outside an R&D site of a division of TCL in Shenzhen. It must have been about 10m wide, and in bright daylight the images looked superb. I guess that one was only 1920x1080. I never saw how the LEDs were calibrated, but I did see the calibration corrections being turned on and off sometimes. It looked pretty bad until it was calibrated.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 06:28:50 pm
content: Cost is the limiting factor at the moment: direct-view LED is still several times as expensive as cinema projectors to achieve the same size.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2022, 11:34:17 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 11, 2022, 05:57:39 pmSure but that's only 65". I know several people who have home theater setups with 100" plus screens, there's really no comparison. Personally I have a 65" LCD TV that is good enough for my purposes but it's not really close to offering the cinema experience. The lamps in lamp based projectors last at least a couple of thousand hours, that's many hundreds of movies. I have a projector that I've used occasionally over the last 10 years or so and I've never changed the lamp which was used already when I got it.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2022, 07:51:09 am
content: Also bear in mind that physical room layout is an issue, for any room that's not a dedicated theatre.We have a 55" OLED screen, which sits on its stand in a bay window. A bigger display wouldn't physically fit the space.For movies, though, we also have a 120" projection screen mounted to the ceiling, which can be dropped down for the duration of a film, and retracted otherwise. It practically divides the room in two; there's no way we'd want a fixed screen of that size all the time, but it does give a genuinely cinematic experience when needed.I'm waiting for the industry to come up with the 'projector-less screen' - a large format OLED (or whatever) panel printed onto a flexible substrate, that can be deployed when needed and rolled up out of the way otherwise. We've already seen the phone industry start to experiment with smaller flexible screens, so it's not as though it's a technology that's completely in the realms of science fiction.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2022, 09:39:16 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on February 12, 2022, 07:51:09 amLG showed off rollable OLED screens a while ago. Oddly, they rolled up from a box in the table. I would have through the market would really be for ones rolling down from above - i.e. like a projector screen coming down from the ceiling when needed.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2022, 10:23:51 pm
content: Maybe the thinking was that a box on a table is easily moved and plugged in (and stored). OOB experience is high. Fixing to a ceiling requires at least a handyman, probably an electrician, etc. OOB experience is s l o w.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2022, 10:44:57 pm
content: Some other interesting tech that didn't take off - rollable plasma screens.Yes, you read that right... though I notice they were very careful to limit the amount of flex on the actual panel.

author: bw2341
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2022, 11:40:32 pm
content: https://displaysolutions.samsung.com/pdf/datasheet/3902/The_Wall_Datasheet_200315_WEB.pdf.pdf]https://www.lg.com/global/business/download/resources/CT00000221/LG%20MAGNIT_Datasheet(preview)_Micro%20LED_210916.pdfhttps://pro.sony/ue_US/products/led-video-wallsJust daydreaming a bit and reading up on MicroLED displays. It looks like what the TV companies are bringing to the market are finer pitch displays and higher contrast. I wonder where that leaves the legacy videowall companies that seem to be smaller and regionally focused. They were probably importing generic Chinese LED matrix panels to make their videowalls.I tried to look up the contrast specifications for LG's OLED displays to compare and came up with a bunch of infinite contrast nonsense. (Something divided by zero equals infinity!) The standard way to measure might be in a totally dark environment, but that's not very useful. We're not going to be sitting in the dark wearing black pants, sweater and balaclava.Samsung specifies the contrast of The Wall at 30000:1 with 10 lux illumination. A quick search found that 10 lux is the brightness at twilight. So I guess that is a bit darker that a typical living room. Still that gives a number for comparison.LG claims that their MAGNIT display is 150000:1 at 10 lux. It would be fun to hold up an LG panel next to a Samsung to see what a claim of 5 times blacker looks like. From the videowall at my Apple Store, an unlit panel looks as dark as matte black wall paint. It isn't a pure deep black like a glossy piano or a car. The Apple Store displays are probably commercial grade displays at a few thousand to one contrast ratio.Sony's LED video walls all claim "More than 1,000,000:1", even the high-brightness models that have a washed out product photo compared the high-contrast models. Thanks for nothing Sony!

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2022, 08:56:59 am
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on February 12, 2022, 10:23:51 pmMy guess would be it's intended for rental, in which case it's important to have a product which can be transported from site to site without the need for 'installation' as such at all.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2022, 12:09:48 pm
content: At that price, rental would make sense, yes.