Looking to upgrade from my 46" HD Plasma to a 4k TV. I want good blacks so was looking at OLED. The LG 55" is a little over £2000 from Costco so looks like a great TV. Problem is that I sit just over 8ft from the TV so 55" is below the suggested size of a 4k screen. 65" is another £1200 so way over budget (and bigger than the wife likes). I could however get a 65" LED from Samsung for £2000 but feel that the blacks will always bother me and need to get it past the "it will dominate the room" issue with other half.

What is boils down to is the satisfaction of a great picture on a 55" OLED better than the bigger but in some ways less good picture of a 65" LED? I know is really subjective but opinion would be appreciated...

Steve

Check that the broadcast HD picture quality is acceptable to you at your normal viewing distance as no major services will be available in 4K in the near future. SD will look dreadful, unless you are very tolerant of poor pictures, with those screen sizes at that distance. Beware of 4K demos as they are meaningless, demand to see an off air picture.

You will get a lot of opinions about picture quality on these forums but remember that most of those will be from people influenced by their own personal tastes and the sets they have purchased, or would like to purchase if they could afford it. I suggest you take some time to review the TVs yourself and pick the one you think is best, after all you are going to watch it not them.

Assuming similar overall quality (the extra being just for the bigger screen) and ignoring the 'dominates the room' issue, it depends on where you will normally sit when watching TV.

If it's more than 8 feet from screen, you may need the 65 incher on 4K material but the improvement over the 55 incher is gradual as you move away. (for average eyesight). But SD will, and some HD may, look poor at closer distances/bigger screen. Calculator

At just over 8ft I agree that 55" is on the small size. Problem is it is difficult to get a really good demo in a shop as the demo videos are not representative of what we really watch. It's down to is a 55" OLED better than a 65" LED, quality over size. My other worry is lifespan as OLEDs may not last much more than 5yrs and over £2000 is a lot for a short span.....

Have you considered splitting the difference.
The Panasonic 58dx902 is a back lit, as opposed to edge lit, LED, so is much less likely to suffer light bleed issues.
It's £1999 at John Lewis at the moment which means a 5 year warranty. I'm sure shopping around will find it for less.
For what it's worth it is what I would go for now. OLED needs another year or two of development in my opinion.

http://www.johnlewis.com/panasonic-v...emium/p2531560

Thanks, that is indeed an interesting option although the reviews I have looked at still complain about backlight halos even with the 512 local dimming zones. I think this will take a little more investigation and as has been said seeing them in action. But yes it may tick the boxing with compromising the size and blacks....

You could move the sofa a bit closer and save yourself a packet and buy a smaller to.

Again a very good point, unfortunately the layout of the room would make that impractical and the wife would use her veto. What it comes down to is picture contrast vs resolution, along with how good a OLED is long term. Don't want to be looking at a half as bright tv in 4yrs time, but I also don't want to be distracted by halos on those dark sci-fi movies and series I like to watch. As much of the 4k content is still Netflix the bigger TV may not be best after all due to the compression.....all things it is difficult to gauge in the TV shop....

I have an edge lit Sony with only a handful of dimming zones. Watching it in a pitch black room is a painful experience because of the poor blacks and changing light output as the zones activate. Put some bias lighting behind it and those issues become so rare as to be virtually irrelevant.
If you already have, or can invest in some bias lighting don't worry about halos too much.
On the other hand, if you like a dark cinema type experience OLED is the way to go.
One other thing comes to mind.
There are some people over on AVForums who are having issues with the way OLED, or more specifically lg sets, handle motion which would be totally unacceptable to me. I can mitigate halos, but not motion judder etc.
By the way, I completely agree that in store assessments are worse than useless. The best way is to buy online from someone with a good returns policy after endless review reading.

Endless indeed, and now the judder factor for good measure! Hmmm.....the best price for the OLED is Cosco, not sure what they tolerate it terms of returns....JL have a good returns policy (remember rejecting a 37" LCD many many years ago within 28 days) if I went for the Panasonic and then rejected the "clouding" due to local dimming patches....

Unless you need to change your TV now you could always wait until January when CES takes place and most manufacturers announce new models and you will probably find the prices of this year's models will also drop then.

Hi there,I have a 65 inch Panasonic tv dx902, and I sit about 2.5m away, the blacks are a lot better than my old plasma, can't compare side to side with an Oled as I don't have one, the only thing is if you sit in the middle it's great, otherwise viewing angles are not that good on led tv, compared to Oled, if you know someone who has an led, go and have a look, our if you're near me you're welcome to come over,I live in Crawley, West Sussex

Again fair point, difficult now that I'm all ready to get a new telly......Costco have the 55" at just over £2000 with a 5yr warranty which is quite tempting. Also gotta sell my 46" plasma....not sure how much I'd get for that...

More grist for the mill....

You don't say which model you're considering, but at that £2K price, I'm guessing that's one of LG's 2015 models. You may be interested to know that the current models are a definite step up from the 2015 models.

The downside is of course, the price. The LG OLED55E6V, 55", (2016) is currently priced at almost £3K. It's already dropped £500 from its price at launch. I expect it will be nearer to £2K shortly after manufacturers launch their 2017 models at CES next year.

Full disclosure: I have the LG OLED55E6V. It replaced a 10 year old Sony LCD model. I find the PQ of the LG is remarkable. After a couple of firmware updates and turning off motion and picture adjustments I'm currently very happy I took the plunge and went for OLED.

I think you may struggle to adapt to the black levels of a LED backlit display if you're used to plasma. YMMV, of course.

The TV I was referring to at £2135 inc VAT was the B6 so this years model but without 3D. Don't want 3D anyway as I can't even see it myself anyway. Defiantly wouldn't get 2015 model. I actually bought it today and wow! it's amazing. Not got to grips with the universal remote as yet though but have a harmony remote anyway so just need to re program it....hope I didn't miss out on anything too significant in not getting the E6...

There always seems to be defiance on here

The B6 miisses out on only 3D and the sound bar as far as I can tell. Good choice!

Thanks. My only issue is that I had to remove any control over hdmi to stop it putting my amp on the ps4 input every time! Then with Netflix and using optical output of TV I only get stereo....how do I get it to output Dolby?

Moving from a Plasma to any new non plasma tv, you won't get blacks as good as your Plasma, as i found out recently after my Plasma packet in

I played with the HDMI control (CEC as LG refer to it) when I first got the TV and couldn't get it to work as I wanted it to across all my devices - PS3, Denon AVX4000 amp, Sony DVD-R, Sony BD, Panasonic UHD BD. I don't think it's an LG problem as such, more a problem with different manufacturers implementing HDMI control differently enough to prevent it working with kit from other manufacturers.

As for Dolby Digital 5.1 from the TV's optical out, I think there may be an option buried in the audio settings to control that. I'm pretty sure I set that up for watching Netflix and Amazon Prime Video via the TV as the source. I'll check tonight when I get home and let you know.

While that's true for LCD backlit screens, it's not true for OLED screens. As each pixel is individually illuminated - like a plasma screen - you don't get grey blacks, you get black blacks.

Assuming your B6 options are the same as the E6, to enable Dolby Digital, go to...

Settings (the "gear wheel" or "cog" logo)
All Settings (...)
Sound
Sound Out
Audio Out (Optical/HDMI ARC)
Digital Sound Out <Auto/PCM>

That should be set to Auto.

The available choices are Auto or PCM. If it's set to PCM you will only get PCM (which is just stereo in this case).

(Don't just go to "Sound Out" in the top level Settings menu. It doesn't show all the detailed audio settings that are available.)

If your choices are different, make sure you've updated the firmware on your TV.

True but the problem is, OLEDs cost 2 to 3 times the price of a decent latter day plasma of similar size! Yes they are UHD-1 phase 1 going on phase 2 but as there is so little UHD 1 phase 2 material out there, they are frankly not worth it for people who like me just want to watch broadcast HD and SD TV.

Hopefully by the time my three plasma sets pack up, OLED UHD-1 phase 2 (minus HFR) sets of say 55 inches will be mainstream and around the £1,000 mark. If the B6 was half the price, I'd be willing to get one now but I'd be just as happy with a full HD plasma for that price if they still existed. And OLEDs are still a risk due to doubts over their longevity.

Yes, I agree that price is the drawback to OLED. If you're not feeling the need to replace your TV right now then it's not unreasonable to hold on in the hope what you've got now lasts till OLED becomes mainstream.

The trouble is, if too many look at it that way, OLED might not catch on at all.

My old TV is 10 years old. I've had my money's worth out of it. I'm fortunate to be able to be a fairly early adopter this time around. I judge the combination of features and technology available right now to be enough to give me a good chance of future proofing and a good chance of keeping this TV just as long as the last one. But the risk is there. In the meantime, I'm happy to enjoy the best PQ around at the moment and hope it becomes more affordable and catches on.

As black as ink.