Prices of Very Large Flat TVs are Falling Fast

[mhardy6647]

Oh, we always had a TV, and usually several. My father was, for most of my life, a self-employed TV repair person.
The quality and condition of those TVs, though, over the years, varied widely, nay, wildly.

Our first color TV was an upright RCA 21" round tube console with RCA's CTC-4 chassis. Even though it dated to the mid-1950s, it actually had the (very) optional UHF tuner -- which was useful by the time we had it!

I will note that my grandparents were very early Color TV adopters, having bought an RCA CTC-7 new way, way back. Had I to guess, that would have been the current model ca. 1956 or 57. I have very clear memories of watching things like Disney's Wonderful World of Color (as it was called way back when), The Flintstones, and Johnny Quest on it.

We did have one purchased new color console in my younger days - an RCA "20 inch" model, quite bare-bones. If memory serves (and it's foggy on this point) it had the CTC-31 chassis. It served well for many, many years.

My own first TV was a monstrous RCA CTC-15 21" round CRT (sans UHF tuner, ca. 1962 or maybe '63) that my father acquired from a customer. It worked well (for many years), and was in very good condition -- other than a battered on-off switch. It was of the "push off, pull on" type, ganged with the volume control, but the shaft had dislocated from the control and it was powered up and down by plugging it in or unplugging it, respectively. The shaft would control the volume (thankfully), but care had to be taken not to pull it out of the body of the pot entirely.

That CTC-15 worked flawlessly for years. I don't know what ever happened to it, in fact. I do know that I wouldn't mind to still have it. I guess the bonded safety-screen CRT would have a cataract by now, though.

I do happen to have a photo (sort of) of the CTC-15, although mostly illustrating its role by 1977 or so as a hifi stand when I was in college.

 

[Chromatischism]

I'd like them to start rating the active panels (WRGB OLED, RGB OLED etc.) not at their "off" brightness, but their minimum brightness.

Say you've got an 8 bit panel with white at 100 nits (properly calibrated).
0,0,0 would be R,G,B pixels all off. 1,1,1 would be the darkest grey possible.
Whatever brightness 1,1,1 is supposed to be with 255,255,255 at 100 nits, if an active panel can reproduce this level, it can be "Certified No Black-Crush"
Whatever signal needs to be sent before "off" turns to the dimmest grey "on", say it's (3,3,3), the TV would have "Certified Black-Crush -3"
If at 3,3,3, only R,G,B are lit, and it takes 4,4,4, it's "Certified Black-Crush -4"

Also, we need to start being told the effective bit depth of these displays...

For example, SDR content, white is supposed to be 100 nits. It's also most often 8 bit. From tests I've done on my own OLED, there aren't 8 bits of resolution with white at 100 nits.

8 bits means a range from (R,G,B): 0,0,0 to 255,255,255

If a display can give 255 distinct levels of brightness from each R, G, and B, with 255,255,255 making 100 nits, that TV can be a certified 8 bit SDR display.

Since these TVs all seem to have their own maximum brightness, if it's over 1000 nits, it can be judged for 10 or 12 bit resolution at 1000 nits.
If it's under or over 1000 nits, it can be judged for 10 or 12 bit resolution to its maximum brightness.

Right now none of this is standardized and it's sad. Nobody even reviews these things!
(especially the minimum brightness, I'm fairly sure black crush is still the same issue it was for OLED 5 years ago)

It's easy to put a test pattern up on the screen to examine this.

 

[ban25]

Stop the FOMO has a good video on the topic:

 

[mike7877]

It's easy to put a test pattern up on the screen to examine this.

That's my point lol. I've done it, it's extremely easy - I just made full size images of every colour and played them black in a dark room, looking for what brightness and contrast the TV needed to be set at for 1,1,1 to manifest, and if not 1,1,1, then 2,2,2.

Say it came on at 3,3,3 - if 4,4,4 didn't cause a change on the display, then test 5,5,5.

Of course, the way to know if you pass or not would be to calibrate 255,255,255 to 100 nits, then display 1,1,1, then check the display output with the desired brightness. If it matches, you have the dynamic range for 8 bit 100 nits. To know if you have 8 bit resolution, you'd then need to test for 255 different distinct levels of each colour, and if there were, and if gamma tracks properly, then you've got a proper 8 bit 100 nit display.

I'd wager not a single WRGB OLED pre 2022 did 8 bit within 100 nits.


Reviewers should be doing this - they should make a button that measures this with calibration software. The script would take someone an afternoon. It's actually their job, and the fact that this isn't a standard metric by now (especially with the state of performance of emissive displays...)


IMO it's completely unacceptable that OLEDs have been praised for their "perfect blacks" when they definitely crush a lot

 

[mhardy6647]

Reflecting on this topic (and catalyzed, in full disclosure, by a thread about big subwoofers elsewhere on ASR), I realized that the time is fast approaching that the worldwide standard units for advertising TV screen size will be the hectare.

Spoiler

one hectare = 100 ares or 10,000 square meters

 

[Ken1951]

We're "only" using a 65" Sony as I didn't feel like getting anything larger that would dominate even more our great room. Same reason we abandoned getting Magnepans again even as much as we both like the sound. Anything very much larger just wouldn't look right to our eyes.

 

[Chromatischism]

That's my point lol. I've done it, it's extremely easy - I just made full size images of every colour and played them black in a dark room, looking for what brightness and contrast the TV needed to be set at for 1,1,1 to manifest, and if not 1,1,1, then 2,2,2.

So is this your way of calibrating the set?

IMO it's completely unacceptable that OLEDs have been praised for their "perfect blacks" when they definitely crush a lot

Samsungs are known for doing that, Sonys not so much. Not sure about LG.

But "perfect blacks" is not the same thing. When someone says "perfect blacks" they mean the panel actually gets black. Unlike LCDs. I've been playing Dead Space on PS5 on my A80K and having those inky black areas contrasted with precision HDR highlights like fire and spark is stunning.

 

[Vacceo]

At the end it is still garbage in garbage out for most of the video and audio content. Just because master is 4K DV and Atmos does not mean that HD 2.0 could not provide a better experience with upscaling video and sound, especially if the underlying 4K content is shallow in real content to start with.

Where OLEDs obviously fail is in size. 97" OLED is priced higher in most markets than 110 or 115" mini LED. As far as I know, OLEDs are not going to get bigger and mini LEDs are going to get cheaper in every size.

There are prototypes of OLED beyond 100 inches, but the important term here is "prototype".

The problem of 4K at those sizes is that pixels per inch start getting way too low.

For someone with a room like mine, around 30 square meters, something around 83 inches is quite, quite nice. That is, logically, not your case.

 

[Oddball]

Actually, there is no problem with 4K at all and good luck with getting anything in 8K for a long while.

People watch 4K on 200” screens and quite happy with it

 

[Vacceo]

Actually, there is no problem with 4K at all and good luck with getting anything in 8K for a long while.

People watch 4K on 200” screens and quite happy with it

I guess my experience comes from gaming and well, at massive sizes, the experience is not that great.

 

[Oddball]

Well HT is certainly not gaming

 

[Chromatischism]

I guess my experience comes from gaming and well, at massive sizes, the experience is not that great.

It's true that your visual field can get overwhelmed. It's taken me awhile to get used to the 77" at 10 ft. But the games I play are so cinematic that it's worth it. I don't really do a lot of competitive playing anymore.

 

[Pearljam5000]

98 inch is the new standard

 

[mhardy6647]

so, is 4k on a 200 inch screen sort of like this?

PS Why are screen sizes described in inches?

 

[Randyman...]

Costco has a 100" Hisense for $1600 (might have gone back to $1799 by now). That's nuts.

 

[NOAMattD]

I guess my experience comes from gaming and well, at massive sizes, the experience is not that great.

I guess it's in the eye of the beholder, I'm gaming on 120" at 1440p or 4K and I vastly prefer it to TV or monitors. Sound system has a lot to do with it I'm sure or maybe it's the style of games I play.

I agree there's a real dearth of smaller bedroom-size TVs now

 

[Vacceo]

It's true that your visual field can get overwhelmed. It's taken me awhile to get used to the 77" at 10 ft. But the games I play are so cinematic that it's worth it. I don't really do a lot of competitive playing anymore.

That´s what I play too. Games such as the Horizon series, at 83 inches or more in 4K start to look a bit pixelated. Luckily, TV´s have improved their controling chips and compensate a bit, but it´s there. I guess beyond 100 inches, the effect is more evident, but around 60 to 83 inches (what I have tried), it is mitigated.

 

[mike7877]

So is this your way of calibrating the set?


Samsungs are known for doing that, Sonys not so much. Not sure about LG.

But "perfect blacks" is not the same thing. When someone says "perfect blacks" they mean the panel actually gets black. Unlike LCDs. I've been playing Dead Space on PS5 on my A80K and having those inky black areas contrasted with precision HDR highlights like fire and spark is stunning.

I've got a Sony - Its white needs to be at about 175 nits before it's got 8 bits of accuracy. Well, it looks good to my eye at 175, it's probably actually 200 or slightly above. I don't mind because most of the time I like my TV at about 150 nits, 250 during the day. To stop it crushing blacks I had to go into the service menu and manually adjust the black point (entirely separate process from TV calibration).
A quick way to check your TV (or any self emissive display)'s brightness resolution is with gamma. Using regular TV content at about 70% of full brightness (picked because it should be bright enough your display has at least 255 steps by then, and the picture will, 99%+ of the time, not be so bright that ABL kicks in, and as well it won't be so bright that your eyes are messed with), observe the image with gamma 2.2 for about 10-15 seconds. Then, adjust down to 2.3, pause for 1-2 seconds, then 2.4. Mentally note the overall amount that brightness is reduced with each step. Next, lower your TV's brightness to 50%, and reset the gamma to 2.2 (center/normal position). Observe 10-15, adjust gamma down to 2.3, wait, watch, 2.4. Note how the image was affected. Is it the same? If yes, reduce brightness to 40% and reset gamma again, repeating what you did at 50%.. Is the image affected? If not, go down to 30% and reset gamma. Compare 30% to 40%. The first time there is a difference, you will probably see it but not know it's the difference you're looking for. Once you see it twice, maybe three times, that's when you'll know the difference you're seeing is the difference you're looking for. Because of this, I'd suggest doing the above procedure with the following steps: go 70 to 50, 50 to 40, 40 to 30, 35 to 25, 30 to 20, 20 to 15, 20 to 10, 20 to 5, 15 to 5, 15 to 0, 10 to 0, 10 to 5, 10 to 0 (yes it's a lot, but don't worry, you won't make it to the bottom lol). Each time you reduce the gamma a step (with Sony each step is 0.1, middle is 2.2, range is from -3 to 0 to +3, or -2.5, 2.2, 1.9: other TVs I've seen have finer grain control and could vary by generation, so look into your model first).

Description of the difference you're looking for: when the brightness no longer reduced by the amount you've come to expect it to be with each gamma reduction, per every test before it (gamma reduction=increasing number, ...I know, lol)

You've found the difference you're looking for! It's 30%!

Great! From here, we can determine, to within about 10-15 nits, the minimum brightness setting for your TV. Yes, you could set it to 0, but our aim here is maintaining maximum image quality. How is image quality affected when you don't have enough bit depth? Colour banding becomes more prevalent, and there's a general loss of image detail. In most cases, colour banding a more severe issue than detail loss (that is, until many many brightness steps are lost), but in this case -the case of these self emissive displays - the issue is compounded by their inherent black crush (imagine the first 3 steps are just not there, and then, instead of having steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 above them, 4 and 5 share one level (real brightness = 4.5), 6 is correct, and 7/8 =7.5. I don't have to summarize this near black situation: of course performance is gonna suck!

So: 25% is where you notice. Is 30% your lowest full bit depth setting?
Yes and no. It depends on your preferred gamma setting:
Gamma 2.2: your minimum is 25%, recommended is 30%, completely safe is 35%
Gamma 2.3: your minimum is 30%, recommended is 35%, completely safe is 45%
Gamma 2.4: your minimum is 37%, recommended is 45%, completely safe is 50%


2.2 is normal. If you keep lights on in the room you watch in, you're going to want your gamma at 2.2 so that you don't lose shadow detail. While OLEDs do only reflect a fraction of a percent of the light that hits them, our eyes only have so much dynamic range, and in a bright room you can't make things dimmer than they can detect because if you do you can't see them (lol). Gamma 2.2 keeps enough of the shadows visible to be pleasant while watching in a lit, indoor room. You could increase gamma to retrieve this detail, but the side effect would be that the already visible portion of the image would become washed out. (ewww)

2.3 is for movies and streaming seriess (are you supposed to just double the s? it can't be s+apostrophe because that's not right, and neither is apostrophe-s...) if you mainly watch them at night and with the room dimly lit (or lit through the door of an adjacent room, to describe the light level). This makes the colours pop a little more and can make things look more realistic.

2.4 is for movies and streaming seriess (lol) in a completely dark room- walls painted black.
They don't have to be... but if they are? 2.4!
If you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't! Personally, I tame the colour a bit from 50 to 49 with gamma 2.4. To keep colour the same at 2.3 as 2.4 @ 49 (which is slightly exaggerated and nice), the setting is 51. To keep the colour the same as 49 @ 2.4 at default gamma 2.2, it's 53. Disclaimer: I have a Sony TV and its colour settings are probably like the colour settings of most other modern Sony TVs... If something changed very recently, or you're using another model, the above numbers can still be a guide (range 0-100).


Oh, yeah, last thing - I modified some settings in the service menu to essentially bias the entire display on, so that black crush is a thing of the past. It is true: I no longer have true blacks, but a FALD array on a 5,000:1 panel still has nothing on my OLED!
(I've actually only ever been able to tell it's not black during long portions of black during credits. No black crush with the tradeoff being nothing tangible? Perfect! The signal literally has to be 0,0,0 across the whole panel and the room has to be pitch black. Even when watching credits you can't see the bias. I highly recommend this tweak to anyone with an OLED. This is by far the best tweak I've made to my OLED TV (second was multiplying the contrast slider's effectiveness by about 2.4, which is especially useful for turning up the brightness of dim HDR content linearly - no funky business with image processing!).

I don't think the manufacturers want the method for the above easily found with a google search for just any dummy to mess around with - serious contenders can message me for details. Don't think I'm not going to keep their standard! haha

 

[mhardy6647]

We live in a house which is not small by any reasonable standard*
We - quite literally - do not have enough unbroken wall space** anywhere in the house for a seven-plus foot wide TV.
_________
* Although, by contemporary American standards, it is also not large, at about 2200 ft^2 (204 m^2) of living space. We Americans do like things supersized.
** Well, I might be able get one in the hifi room (on the back wall) -- but I seriously and totally don't want one there.

 

[ban25]

We live in a house which is not small by any reasonable standard*
We - quite literally - do not have enough unbroken wall space** anywhere in the house for a seven-plus foot wide TV.
_________
* Although, by contemporary American standards, it is also not large, at about 2200 ft^2 (204 m^2) of living space. We Americans do like things supersized.
** Well, I might be able get one in the hifi room (on the back wall) -- but I seriously and totally don't want one there.

Let me guess, you have a fireplace?