The big "How do I choose an HDTV?" thread.

Or do what I do: never connect a TV to the Internet in the first place.

Samsung reveals pricing for two of its new 2017 Quantum Dot HDTV's

https://hdguru.com/samsung-reveals-p...

All models are edge lit LED

wtf.. at those prices nobody should buy these over an LG OLED and that way maybe we can force competition and get more distinct OLED manufacturers.

TheGameguru wrote:

wtf.. at those prices nobody should buy these over an LG OLED and that way maybe we can force competition and get more distinct OLED manufacturers.

Yeah that pricing is ridiculous relative to OLED pricing. I seriously paid $1000 less for a 55 inch OLED than they're charging for their equivalent size flat set.

And now that LG's fixed the OLED input lag stuff I don't see any meaningful advantages for the Samsung sets beyond maybe color depth? I think the QLED sets are supposed to come closer to filling all the HDR color standards.

That's pretty minor to me at this point though tbh.

Thats really expensive for an edge lit.

OK, just ordered a 65 inch Vizio P series since Costco has them on sale. That has me covered in terms of both HDR types, right?

EvilDead wrote:

OK, just ordered a 65 inch Vizio P series since Costco has them on sale. That has me covered in terms of both HDR types, right?

correct.

OK, great. Now I'm debating on upgrading the xbox to the type-s (4k blu-ray) or wait for the scorpio. Either way I would need to upgrade my receiver too since I use that as a pass thru. I imagine I will need new HDMI cables too.

EvilDead wrote:

OK, great. Now I'm debating on upgrading the xbox to the type-s (4k blu-ray) or wait for the scorpio. Either way I would need to upgrade my receiver too since I use that as a pass thru. I imagine I will need new HDMI cables too.

Scorpio all the way.

Yeah I wouldn't buy an S at this point either. I didn't, in fact. HDR on its own isn't so big an upgrade it's worth forking up that kind of cash. And other than HDR and a 4k blu ray drive (that's hit or miss on whether it even plays everything btw) it really offers nothing meaningful over the regular Xbox One.

Definitely wait for Scorpio.

That seems like the logical route since I'll probably want the Scorpio either way. Heres to hoping it's <$500 at launch.

I'm debating that same thing. I'm getting a new TV in June, thanks to my wife honoring a political bet we made. That's when I expect the first sale or price drop. My plan right now is to get this TV:

Sony XBR49X900E

Yep, after posting about how Sony never has TVs that interest me, I find a Sony that meets my needs pretty damn well.

I need to limit the screen size to 50" because out front room is pretty small, and my wife would choose to go smaller than our current 40" if she could. The choices at that size are limited, and finding the Samsung KS8000 in that size is not easy, and the prices have gone up, not down. I also really like the design of the Sony, in particular over the KS8000.

I'll keep watching rtings.com and other places that review new offerings, but right now, I'm comfortable with this as our next TV. Since that will be June, I can watch E3 and decide if I can or need to wait for Scorpio or if trading my XB1 Elite for an S will make more sense. Honestly, if they had a black Xbox One S, I probably would have already made the jump.

But by E3 we should ave a date and price of the Scorpio, and the landscape will be a bit easier to predict. I do have a pretty big hankering to play FH3 in HDR, but I can wait for now.

The number of games that are already getting tweaks to take advantage of the PS4 Pro are a harbinger of the future, for me. It may not be all games, but many of the biggest, newest games will be better on Scorpio or Pro, unless this trend reverses.

Truth be told, I'm way ahead of where I would normally be in terms of adopting new tech.

I would imagine It was a couple years into compact discs before I finally caved. I waited until more than half the floor of my record store was dedicated to CDs before I dove in. I used the same gauge for deciding to get a DVD player. Likewise, I waited for a critical mass of my cable channels to go HD. That same gauge helped me avoid wasting money on a BluRay player.

There is no real way to look at the available 4K content and say that it meets what I usually consider critical mass. But I do agree that the current outlook suggests that 4K and HDR are going to be the next step. But buying now does increase the odds that a change will come in formats that will make me regret this purchase.

Gaming is 100% driving this.

Jayhawker wrote:

I'm debating that same thing. I'm getting a new TV in June, thanks to my wife honoring a political bet we made. That's when I expect the first sale or price drop. My plan right now is to get this TV:

Sony XBR49X900E

Yep, after posting about how Sony never has TVs that interest me, I find a Sony that meets my needs pretty damn well.

I need to limit the screen size to 50" because out front room is pretty small, and my wife would choose to go smaller than our current 40" if she could. The choices at that size are limited, and finding the Samsung KS8000 in that size is not easy, and the prices have gone up, not down. I also really like the design of the Sony, in particular over the KS8000.

I'll keep watching rtings.com and other places that review new offerings, but right now, I'm comfortable with this as our next TV. Since that will be June, I can watch E3 and decide if I can or need to wait for Scorpio or if trading my XB1 Elite for an S will make more sense. Honestly, if they had a black Xbox One S, I probably would have already made the jump.

But by E3 we should ave a date and price of the Scorpio, and the landscape will be a bit easier to predict. I do have a pretty big hankering to play FH3 in HDR, but I can wait for now.

I have last year's version the X940D in 75 inch. Great tv so far. No complaints. I use Plex a lot and the upscaling of Sony TVs can't be beat. My PS4 Pro is also connected to it.

https://www.howtogeek.com/218949/htg...

Good article on why sound is so bad on HDTV's. For those of us that no longer want to deal with AV receivers and 5.1, 7.1 or even 11.2 surround sound setups it means getting a quality soundbar is important.

Sonos released their latest soundbar the Playbase today for $700. It has a specific mode for dealing with the above issue. I ordered one for my living room where I was just using my LG TV's built in speakers and report back... Would love to pair it with the Sonos sub but I'm pretty sure my daughter would knock it down to sit on it constantly.

I've been really happy with my 3.1 Samsung sound bar. Sounds great, and the wireless sub is perfect. And it has the capability of adding rear wireless speakers for 5.1, but I don't really have there space, even for wireless speakers. I chose the 3.1 because I felt like it would provide that center channel to produce clear dialogue.

My mom was complaining about how hard it was to hear the TV last year, with all the same complaints from the article. I bought my folks the 2.1 version of my sound bar, and it did the trick. All they really watch is the news, sports, and HGTV, so I figured the dedicated center channel was less necessary. They were pretty blown away by how much better everything sounded.

The only thing I am debating now is inputs. I now have a Switch and a PS4 Slim, as well as my TiVo to get sound from. The sound bar only has one HDMI In and Out, an Optical In, a USB In, and an AUX In. Before the Switch and PS4, I I ran the HDMI Out from the XB1 to the TV and the Optical Out from the XB1 to the Sound Bar. Technically, I could have run the HDMI from the XB1 through, but limiting the number of HDMI connections on the XB1 seems wise.

When I got the Switch, I just ran its HDMI out through the sound bart and to the TV, and that worked fine. It's funny how quickly even my wife got used to not needing o change inputs on the TV. This set-up also required changing the input on the sound bar from Digital In to HDMI. But all was good.

Now I have added the PS4, and I'm out of inputs. The real solution is to run all the HDMIs into the TV and feed the the Optical Audio back to the soundbar. That works, but the Xbox does not recognize that the sound bar can do surround when I do this, and only sends sh*tty stereo. And since this also carries my cable TV sound, that's just not gonna work.

For now, I went back to my original set-up, but with the PS4 plugged into the sound bar's HDMI, and the Switch plugged into the TV, getting sh*tty TV sound. But my wife plays it the most, and much of the time, she plays without the sound on, or very low. I think its weird, but its what she does.

I'm considering a few options. One is to get an HDMI switch. That's less than optimal, but it would solve everything for now. Another is to sell my current sound bar, and buy a newer one that has three HDMI Inputs, of which there are a few good ones. What I'm really wanting to do is buy an Atmos sound bar eventually. They are too crazy expensive now, but it feels like they will be the next step.

TL'DR - Sound bars are great, but they are a lot less flexible than AVRs when it comes to inputs. They really aren't made for folks with many devices, yet. Hell, if the XB1 didn't have HDMI In, it would get even more complicated.

I think wired devices just have to go away soon. For devices that are close together, The 802.11ad 60ghz wireless standard should be the solution.

My 5.1 receiver was screwing up sound as described in the article and I couldn't get it to even out no matter what I tinkered with. Finally said to hell with it and bought the Samsung 5.1 soundbar package with "wireless" sub and rear channels. I ended up running all my devices (XB1, PS4, Steamlink, Wii U) HDMI into the TV and one optical out to the soundbar. It works well, but I need to play with it some because the sound is definitely not on par with the old system. It just seems tinny or reedy compared to the old system. I don't know if that's a function of running through the optical, which I understand can't do a lot of higher quality audio types, or just the less powerful speakers.

A year ago, I got a sound bar for our bedroom TV.

After having it for about a month, my wife admitted that she thought it was kind of silly at first, but now, she liked it and "didn't realize how much she wasn't hearing". And she's mostly just watching YouTube and Gilmore Girls.

TV speakers suck. I still have a big heavy AV receiver in the living room, but the sound bar has the bedroom TV covered and it's good enough that I'll probably go sound bar whenever the AV receiver bites the dust.

bighoppa wrote:

My 5.1 receiver was screwing up sound as described in the article and I couldn't get it to even out no matter what I tinkered with. Finally said to hell with it and bought the Samsung 5.1 soundbar package with "wireless" sub and rear channels. I ended up running all my devices (XB1, PS4, Steamlink, Wii U) HDMI into the TV and one optical out to the soundbar. It works well, but I need to play with it some because the sound is definitely not on par with the old system. It just seems tinny or reedy compared to the old system. I don't know if that's a function of running through the optical, which I understand can't do a lot of higher quality audio types, or just the less powerful speakers.

Even the best soundbars won't compete with a decent true 5.1 system. The soundbar may be over-emphasizing the higher frequencies, which can sound tinny if the speakers are weaker than your old system in the lower frequencies.

I suspect bighoppa's issue may be more XB1 related. It has had issues delivering surround since it launched. I would go in and look at the audio settings. The issue I had when using HDMI the way bighoppa has it set up is that in the settings it would no longer let me choose 5.1 and 7.1. All I could get is stereo uncompressed.

That sucks because my workaround is using the optical out on the XB1 to to the sound bar, which works great. But that eliminated the use of optical out on the TV for the other inputs.

Hmm...possible. We use the XB1 as a media player (Plex, Netflix, Hulu) mostly. We watched Rogue One via the PS4 last night and it sound seemed better. I just chalked it up to the PS being a better console all around. The wife doesn't like having to find a PS controller to turn the thing on though, since Sony won't let the Harmony Ultimate turn it on for some reason.

I'll check the XB1 audio settings tonight after work.

So, writing this all out spurred what should have been my obvious solution. I went back in and ran the XB1 HDMI out into the sound bar, and the HDMI Out of the sound bar into the TV. Then I just used the TV's HDMI ports for the Switch and PS4.

The XB1 liked that a lot more. I had to go to the settings and turn off the optical port, which then let me set the HDMI to bitstream. Then I set bitstream to be Dolby. Everything worked perfect.

That let me use the optical out of my TV to plug into the sound bar, which then handles the sound for the Switch and PS4. Both of those sound good, and are both in surround as far as I can tell. It's just the XB1 that does not handle having it's sound re-0routed out of the TV for some reason.

So, as Microsoft wishes, Input One of for my TV and XB1. Inputs 2 and 3 for for the Switch, which then require I also switch from HDMI to Digital In on the sound bar.

In other news, I'm not sure if this was in the latest update, or if it has been there awhile, but there is now an option for headphone output for surround via the controller. It is listed as beta and only for apps right now. But apps includes TV, which means you do get the special surround acoustics in any pair of stereo headphones you plug into your controller. And from watch a bit of GI Joe, it works damn well.

Hopefully they get that set up for games soon.

Question for folks : How much do you let things like the stand for your a TV you are interested in dictate your purchase. For example. I am really considering Samsung's 55" KS8000. Heard great things and its at a pretty awesome price point. However the stand that comes from Samsung seems like it might be a tiny bit longer than what my TV shelf can handle. Do I go with a universal mount--something like this? https://www.amazon.com/ECHOGEAR-Univ...

Thoughts GWJers?

For me, that stand on the KS8000 was definitely an issue. I would have had to use that mount. The Sony X900E that I want has a much better stand that is not only centered, but is designed to feed the wires through to maintain a cleaner look, which is noice for those of us that use a stand instead of mounting.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/IOFgbZr.png)

The 49" Samsung would fit just barely on my stand, while the 55" is too wide. With a center stand, I can get the 49" Sony, or even the 55" if I let it hang over just a bit.

The larger models in the Samsung have two possible positions for the feet.

I don't know if that includes the 55 inch or not, but the 65 has both the very wide positions and also two closer to center.

And on those sets they use Samsung's connect breakout box for inputs. The only thing you run to the TV is power and that one cable.

Thin_J wrote:

The larger models in the Samsung have two possible positions for the feet.

I don't know if that includes the 55 inch or not, but the 65 has both the very wide positions and also two closer to center.

And on those sets they use Samsung's connect breakout box for inputs. The only thing you run to the TV is power and that one cable.

I was looking on the AV forums and it seems that different positioning starts after the size hits 60" unfortunately. I'd really like to save money, but that seems silly when it is something like the stand/mount.

FYI, the KS8000 is last year's model. This year's is the MU8000. On the plus side, this year's model has the narrower slot starting at 55". The downside is that it reviewed slightly worse than the KS8000 at rtings.com. I think it still looks like it's a great TV, though.

If you are going to get the KS8000, you may want to hurry, as it is in short supply. Amazon only sells it via third party distributors now. BH Photo and Crutchfield only has the 60" in stock.

I don't think the MU8000 uses quantum dots though, as its contrast ratio and color volume is a fair bit worse than the ks8000, so I'd get the latter if your can find it. Costco still seems to have some, definitely worth getting there as you get free shipping and a longer warranty.

Question regarding the Vizio P series for those who have them.

How did you set up the remote tablet (tablote)? It required me to log in with my google/gmail ID to download required updates for it to function. I immediately realized that was a bad Idea when I started to get notifications for emails and hangouts through the tablote. Obviously that is a lot of personal info that is completely unnecessary to have exposed. Do I have to make a dummy google account or is there some workaround that Vizio is hiding.

Also I'm a little annoyed that Vizio requires so much access to my personal info for the thing to work at all. The app won't even launch if I don't let it access my location.