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

Theoretically, nothing. It's mainly a weight thing. At any given moment in time a larger TV would be heavier.

If, however, the new TV is no heavier than the maximum rated weight for the stand, then you should be fine.

At some point the larger TV might be too big as there looks to be a fixed vertical clearance, but I'd expect that to only become an issue once the TV is over 100".

Assuming your stand uses VESA mounts, check to make sure that the larger TV has a compatibly-sized set of VESA holes.

https://www.oneforall.com/explore/ve...

As a guy who does AV work professionally the size thing is mostly BS for mounting as weight is the more important factor. You will also want to compare the size of the VESA mounting plate of your stand to the size that the newer TV uses. There are some adapter plates you can get that will let you adapt say a 75mm x 75mm plate to work with a 200mm x 200mm mount. Samsung for instance generally uses a 400mm x 400mm VESA plate for their TVs 65 inches and up. The fun part is you will often need to dig through the TV manual to figure out what size of VESA mount they actually use as they usually just list them as VESA Compatible on the product pages.

Okay, cool, that makes sense. Really good information to have. Thanks all!

The only way I've found size to be a factor is in the weight distribution. I have a monitor arm that claims up to 15lbs but only 27" in screen size. I put a 32" monitor on it that weighs under 15lbs and it mostly works, but I am unable to tilt it forward, as it immediately tilts all the way unless it's perfectly straight up. So I think this may happen because more of the weight is distributed further from the mounting point than it would be if it were a 27 inch monitor.

This is with a fully articulated gas spring arm, so less articulated mounts might not have this issue.

Even though the store mounted our 65" tv themselves, and guaranteed their work, and the tv, it still freaked me out to swivel the tv away from the wall.

Now, it's normally nowhere near the wall, and at quite an angle if I'm watching it from my recliner chair.
Weird how you get used to things.

This random image I found pretty much covers our before/after:
IMAGE(https://i.pinimg.com/474x/5d/ba/c3/5dbac3f1c8ae011265cc0a148241d338.jpg)

I use these at work. When mounted properly you can hang an overweight 42 year old off of them We used to hand these heavy as hell 85 inch Sharp multi-touch displays with them.

I did go with a slightly cheaper option at home though. I don't like the models with only a single support arm, I have seen them fail.

So I did a silly thing and bought Gigabytes 48” gaming focused OLED monitor

https://www.gigabyte.com/Monitor/AOR...

It’s using a 2020/2021 LG OLED panel so I wasn’t expecting it to be better than my LG 48” CX but given it has a more PC specific angle I figured why not..plus the built in KVM is nice for my multiple PC’s.

I will say if you are someone that dislikes tweaking monitor settings this has some great out the box settings that really show off PC and gaming much more so than your traditional HDTV. Colors are more vibrant and the brightness limiters are less aggressive than what LG does.

It has a display port in addition to 2 HDMI 2.1 ports which is fine but it would have been nice to get either an additional DP or HDMI. It does have a USB C port that can carry video for the few laptops or SFF pc’s that support that. The DP port means gamers on the 10xx Nvidia cards can run at 120hz on this panel.

I’m not sure I’d recommend this at $1499 over the LG 48” which I’ve seen for $1199 online but if you have the specific PC centric needs like the built in KVM it might be worth a look.

Man, how DO I choose an HDTV? We are looking at finally getting rid of our Panasonic 42" plasma so that we can move all of our TVs to wall-mounted. The Panasonic is 720p, about 5" thick, and insanely heavy by today's standards so even though it's a great TV, it's time to move on. I'm looking at moving our basement 55" upstairs to replace that, and getting a new 65" 4K TV for our basement home theater/gaming setup.

I honestly cannot tell from reviews and ratings how much the improvements in features/quality map to price differences. A friend of mine has the 65" LG CX and loves it. At $2000, it's way at the upper limit of what I'd consider spending. RTings seems to put the Hisense U8G as a great 4K TV option, and it's a much more palatable $1200. But it's LED vs. OLED and I guess I need to compare these side by side to see if I care. Then there's the Hisense U6G at an extremely affordable ~$680, but it doesn't have HDMI 2.1 or VRR support, and I don't know if I care about those either. Those seem to mostly be aimed at gaming/consoles?

Maybe something like the U8G is a good mid-ground to get solid value without spending a ton of money.

I just got an LG C1 OLED and it does look very nice, as well as supporting all the new features the consoles want (I'm a couch gamer all the way).

If your basement is below ground and you have total control over lighting, the OLED would do very well there. Even more so if you expect to have a lot of off axis viewing.

Boudreaux wrote:

Man, how DO I choose an HDTV?

Get your pitchforks, folks, but how I choose a TV is to entirely outsource the decision to someone who gives a crap about TVs. The reality is that I'm not that discerning a TV consumer, and honestly would rather someone just say "You want an X inches TV? Go buy that one, it's plenty fine for the budget you have".

Wirecutter, RTings, something like that, who's sole purpose is to make the decision for me so I don't have to.

Maybe something has changed the last couple of years, but Hisense used to be a low quality produce stuff for the cheapest price brand.

I would probably see what Costco had for the price point and size I am looking for and then go read reviews for those handful of models.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

If your basement is below ground and you have total control over lighting, the OLED would do very well there. Even more so if you expect to have a lot of off axis viewing.

I'm mildly concerned about OLED burn-in and my youngest son, who likes to leave the PS4 on a paused screen and walk away for several hours. I'm also not sure I want to spend $2k on a TV. I'm not sure I even want to spend $1200 for the nicer Hisense. Maybe the U6G is my sweet spot, per Jonman's approach.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Maybe something has changed the last couple of years, but Hisense used to be a low quality produce stuff for the cheapest price brand.

Yeah I wondered, but Rtings lists a Hisense as "Best Budget 65" 4K TV" and as an alternative to "Best 65" LCD TV". So apparently they're doing something right.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Maybe something has changed the last couple of years, but Hisense used to be a low quality produce stuff for the cheapest price brand.

I would probably see what Costco had for the price point and size I am looking for and then go read reviews for those handful of models.

Hisense has been on par with TLC for the best budget 4k sets for the last couple of years.

Badferret wrote:

Hisense has been on par with TLC

Yep. When it comes to their product line, there's no scrubs.

Ain't Too Proud to Beg for a good TV.

Now I wish that typo was intentional.

I will never pass up an opportunity to say how much I love my 40" TCL Roku TV. Totally overperforms considering the price. Just a pleasure to use, own, and carry around the house under one arm.

Both the TCL and my new LG were suggested by rtings, so I wholeheartedly agree with Jonman there.

I just bought the U8G from Hisense and love it. Ps5 and PC gaming both look amazing. 4K streaming is great as well. For me I couldn't justify the price jump to OLED and I'm
More than pleased with the TV. Would highly recommend

Snagged a fantastic deal the other day and felt the need to share/gloat.

I work at a Costco and used to be in the electronics department, so I let everyone there know I was in the market for a 55” oled. The 2020 LG CXs we’re finally replaced by the 2021 models about 5 months ago, so I’ve spent that whole time obsessively checking the inventory system to see when the last unit in a box sold so I could get the display unit.

The day finally came last week, so I came in early, found the right manager to give me the biggest markdown, and was able to get it for half off the already lowered price, along with the free extended warranty. Having been a display unit for the last two years or so it’s been on for over 5000 hours already, but hopefully if it does die it does so in the next seven years while under warranty. Waiting for this thing has been a very long process, but it’s a fantastic tv that I got for around $650 so I’d say it was well worth it.

For those of you that purchase electronics at costco, keep an eye on the price tags—anything with an asterisk in the upper right hand corner is something that they won’t be getting any more of, and depending on the agreement with the manufacturer the display unit may be available. You’ll have to talk to one of the folks in major sales to see if there are any units left in boxes (the display can’t be sold until all of the boxed units are gone), the markdown wholly at the discretion of the manager present at the time, and depending on the item you may be competing with employees, but if you’re able to wait and the timing works out in your favor you can get a great deal.

Does a projector offer the same resolutions as a OLED, or QLED? I take it it does not offer all the 'smart' functions that a smart tv has (or are there projectors that offer such things at or different price point. Although I suppose I can just use my console for most 'smart' functions.). I'm just trying to figure out not only quality of picture, but weight (i.e. moving it around), costs etc.

Donan wrote:

Does a projector offer the same resolutions as a OLED, or QLED? I take it it does not offer all the 'smart' functions that a smart tv has (or are there projectors that offer such things at or different price point. Although I suppose I can just use my console for most 'smart' functions.). I'm just trying to figure out not only quality of picture, but weight (i.e. moving it around), costs etc.

Lots of projectors include apps, but a lot of them don't and it just varies from brand to brand and model to model. Whether or not the projector is truly 4K will will differ from model to model as well. Some models use clever tricks or multiple lower resolution LCDs to produce a "4K" image. You can get a pretty good picture from a projector, but unless you have a perfect environment and a nice screen the colors can tend to look a little washed out compared to a good TV in the same room. Same goes for contrast and TVs are much better at HDR. One of the nice things about a projector though is no reflections off of the shiny glass/plastic like with a TV. If you have room for it and want something larger than 75 inches then the projector will definitely be the more wallet friendly option, but picture quality wise you are not going to beat an OLED period and you won't even get close without spending $10,000+ on a high end projector with something like a Black Diamond screen.

One thing I've noticed since going to a relatively cheap 1080p projector is that I don't notice pixels on a 100" screen from 6 feet away, and the screen uniformity is incredible compared to any LCD screen I've ever seen. Even with less than amazing contrast, I didn't realize how much for me screen uniformity could make up for that

So there's some options out there for projectors that people tend not to be aware of. One, you can boost contrast with an only marginally more expensive screen. I ordered some screen material samplers from Elite Screens recently, to see if I can maybe keep some shades open and still watch a movie. So I taped the new samples to my original all white screen. This is the result:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/eKcqDyU.jpg)

There's sliding glass doors on that right side of the room, and I usually just close blackout shades over them when I want to use the projector. The main standard white screen is a very cheap but still very nice Silver Ticket. The screen materials taped up are Elite Screens Cinegray, Cinegray 3D, and Cinegray 5D, in order from left to right. The leftmost is just a gray material that enhances contrast some by just simply being darker. The other two, in the middle and on the right, have ambient light rejecting qualities. They reject over 60% of ambient light from the sides of the screen and from above.

A 120inch screen with the Cinegray 3D material can be had for in the $500-$700 range. The white Silver Ticket was I believe under $200 back when I bought it. If you have control of the lighting in your room, it really is genuinely solid, especially for that incredibly cheap price.

The other thing worth mentioning is that some of the "Faux-K" projectors that use multiple 1080p panels and pixel shifting to imitate 4k resolution actually do an *incredible* job at this point, and I would happily bet the vast majority of people couldn't pick one out from a bunch of other native 4k projectors displaying the same image from the same source.

The Epson 5050UB in particular is excellent, and there is no TV in its price range that can give you its raw screen size. It's also incredibly versatile on placement options since it has such great lens shift/zoom/focus options.

I currently have both an older Epson 5040UB (just as good for SDR content, but lacks tone mapping for HDR content like the 5050 has) and a Sony VW325ES in the house. I picked up the Sony because their image processing and HDR Tone mapping is excellent, and the 5040's lack of tone mapping has made itself aware in more than a few instances where HDR content has been mapped extremely dark, which is something a projector can't overcome without doing tone mapping.

This is a shot from when I was playing Ghost of Tsushima on the Epson with the Silver Ticket screen, with the shades closed. It is day-time during this shot though, you can see sunlight around the shade on the door to the left that goes onto the back patio.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/5zA5T6Z.jpg)

No one I have shown both projectors to has been able to tell the difference between an SDR 4k image displayed on both the projectors unless I turn off the pixel shift on the Epson. I can see it in very specific scenes, usually closeups of actors faces, but only if I'm sitting there looking for the differences. Which is... dumb.

The Sony stands out clearly when running HDR content, but based on video and picture comparisons, I would expect that difference to be drastically less if I had the 5050 instead of the 5040.

Aaaanywho, just wanted to throw out some info since I've been down this hole for a long long stretch now.

Thanks for the info, Thin_J. I have a Carada brilliant white screen that seems pretty washed out sometimes, gonna try a cinegray 3d sample to see how it looks.

I'm honestly leaning toward paying the exorbitant price for a Stewart or a Screen Innovations. By all accounts they're better than the Elite Screens materials.

The Elite Screens samples were just kind of a cheap test because I could get the pack of three types for $7.99 and at least get an idea what an ALR material might actually do for me.

Thin_J wrote:

I'm honestly leaning toward paying the exorbitant price for a Stewart or a Screen Innovations. By all accounts they're better than the Elite Screens materials.

The Elite Screens samples were just kind of a cheap test because I could get the pack of three types for $7.99 and at least get an idea what an ALR material might actually do for me.

The Elite Screens I have dealt with have very cheap construction. I have seen the glue they use start to breakdown in less than two years on some of them. Da-Lite screens seems to be our go to for both motorized and manual screens. If you are doing a fixed screen then this is is probably way less important. I know a lot of AV people who consider Screen Innovations ALR screens to be the gold standard, but I haven't worked with any personally. I have seen demos and we briefly considered them when we were building our new building, but cost was the main reason we didn't choose them along with the reduced viewing angles (which is a bigger concern in an education environment than it would be in your home theater probably).

None of the Elite Screens models I have in any form of consideration use glue anywhere in their construction, except for sticking the black felt covering over the frame. Not sure I even understand where glue could be used on any of them to be honest. For what it's worth.

I may still try an Elite Screens, because I am definitely sticking with a fixed frame screen, and $550 is way easier to swallow than $3000.

But also there's the old "Buy nice or buy twice" and "Buy once, cry once" rules that often turn out to be true long term with things like this.

I just bought an LG C1 55. Upgrading from a 15 year old Toshiba LCD.

Oh My God.

I am fortunate to own PS5 and Series X and this thing is insane. It's like a video card upgrade for my next gen consoles, what a beautiful piece of tech.

If you are at all on the fence, they've had them on sale recently and wouldn't hesitate in the least to recommend it.