'OLED TVs Will Finally Take Off in 2017' (engadget.com)

From a feature article on Engadget: After years of taunting consumers with incredible picture quality, but insanely high prices, OLED TVs are finally coming down to Earth. Prices are falling, there will be even more models to choose from and, at least based on what we've seen from CES this year, LCD TVs aren't getting many upgrades. If you've been holding out on a 4K TV upgrade, but haven't had the budget to consider OLED up until now, expect things to change this year. Even before CES began, it was clear the OLED market was beginning to change. Throughout 2016, LG steadily lowered the prices of its lineup -- its cheapest model, the B6, launched at $4,000, but eventually made its way down to $2,000 by October. Come Black Friday, LG also offered another $200 discount to sweeten the pot. A 55-inch 4K OLED for $1,800! It was such a compelling deal I ended up buying one myself. Since then, the B6's price has jumped back up to $2,500, but I wouldn't be surprised to see its price come back down again. So why the big discounts? LG reportedly increased the production of its large OLED panels by 70 percent last year, likely in anticipation of more demand. That could have led to a slight oversupply, which retailers wanted to clear out before this year's sets.

Comments

Who cares?

[DogDude]

I mean this literally... other than TV salespeople, who cares? Every decade or two, when it's time to get a new TV, I go to the TV store, and I buy something that they have in stock, within my budget. I couldn't care if it was OLED, LED, or FairyDust powered. A TV is a TV is a TV.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like the content is good enough that one would care if it looks better. OLED is the latest polished turd.

Re:Who cares?

[dontbemad]

I mean this literally... other than CAR salespeople, who cares? Every decade or two, when it's time to get a new CAR, I go to the CAR store, and I buy something that they have in stock, within my budget. I couldn't care if it was SUV, SEDAN, or EIGHTEEN-WHEELER powered. A CAR is a CAR is a CAR.

I mean this literally... other than HOUSE salespeople, who cares? Every decade or two, when it's time to get a new HOUSE, I go to the HOUSE store, and I buy something that they have in stock, within my budget. I couldn't care if it was COTTAGE, MANSION, or YURT powered. A HOUSE is a HOUSE is a HOUSE.

I mean this literally... other than DOCTOR salespeople, who cares? Every decade or two, when it's time to get a new DOCTOR, I go to the DOCTOR store, and I buy something that they have in stock, within my budget. I couldn't care if it was PEDIATRICIAN, ONCOLOGIST, or SPIRITUAL HEALING powered. A DOCTOR is a DOCTOR is a DOCTOR.

I get the point you are trying to make here, but don't you think your angsty "bah humbug, I don't care about this particular advancement, and therefore no one should!" mindset is a little retarded?

Re:Who cares?

[b0bby]

I'm with you on this - my last TV I bought because my old tube number got fried. I bought the biggest tv Costco had in my price range. It won't be coming off the wall until it dies.

Re:Who cares?

[Austerity Empowers]

Investors seem to care a lot about this particular one. I am guessing someone or other owns a good patent. To most of us it's not a particularly compelling reason to throw out a working TV.

Re:Who cares?

[tripleevenfall]

It'll be the latest thing consumers shrug at, like 3D or the curved screens. Nobody is going to rush out and buy it except for the gotta-have-it set.

Re:Who cares?

[msauve]

Yep. And, you can go out and find a slew of 55" ones for <$500. Pay 3-5 times that to get some gee-wiz marketing features? Some people have more money than they can spend, it appears. Whatever happed to those had-to-have-it 3D TVs from a few years back?

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I get the point you are trying to make here, but don't you think your angsty "bah humbug, I don't care about this particular advancement, and therefore no one should!" mindset is a little retarded?

Not that guy, but more importantly this site calls itself "news for nerds" and all we get is marketing hype for gadgets running on decades-old technologies and talks about M&As with some "le government is gonna take ur internets" thrown in. Slashdot is a sham so long as the slogan attached to this crap isn't "news for plebeian consumers."

Re:Who cares?

[Noah Haders]

Also, OLEDs are bad for gaming. they have really bad lag times.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you accuse other people of being "retarded", you should look at your own arguments first.

The GP described different underlying technologies that result in pretty much identical consumer-grade televisions, from the consumer's perspective. Notice that the product being discussed is pretty much the same, regardless of the technology being used to implement it. The consumer really doesn't notice much different at all.

You, on the other hand, have flown off the rails. You give your initial example of each product/service, but then for some inexplicable reason start bringing in vastly different product/service types (like SUVs and trucks, or cottages and mansions, or different specializations of doctors).

Not only did you completely misunderstand what the GP was saying, you went off on a totally irrelevant tangent that misrepresents what's being discussed.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's cute that you think you're not a "plebian consumer".

Re:Who cares?

[TheMiddleRoad]

Witcher 3 is fantastic on my OLED laptop.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is that you're not interested in televisions or image quality. You could say "who cares?" about anything. If you're not interested in cameras you could say, "who cares" when a new camera comes out, because "a camera is a camera is a camera". You could say the same thing about cars, operating systems, smartphones or anything else. If you're not interested, they're all just the same and you buy one that meets your budget.

However, there are those of us who do care and are very enthusiastic about getting riid of the utterly dreadful image quality that LCD delivers. We desperately need OLED computer monitors in particular, but unfortunately little progress is being made in that area, and Dells OLED monitor shown at the last CES appears to have been cancelled.

One question for you, if you don't care why did you bother posting in the thread? Do you post in every topic that's of no interest to you to say that you don't care?

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

640 x 480 should be enough for everybody.

Your vision must be pretty bad if you can't spot the difference between an OLED display and an LCD, but congratulations on finding two people who agree with you.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't care if it was OLED, LED, or FairyDust powered. A TV is a TV is a TV.

Then you're an idiot. Some technologies are more reliable than others and last longer while maintaining a higher quality than others. The fact that you couldn't give a shit and base your decision solely on price makes you easily exploitable.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the GP, but I feel confident that many, if not most, consumers CAN tell the difference between an LCD TV and an OLED TV.

Those who can't (like OP and yourself presumably) are lucky because you'll get to buy the steeply discounted LCD sets that no one else wants when OLED prices fall and in your mind they'll be just as good.

Re:Who cares?

[houstonbofh]

Just because you do not know them does not mean there are no differences... http://gizmodo.com/why-is-oled...
Why's it so great?
The LEDs in today's LED televisions are actually used only to provide a white back light, which then shines through a rapidly-refreshing LCD shutter array which tints the emanating light. OLEDs, on the other hand, operate as both light source and color array simultaneously. This may not sound like a big difference, but does offer a wide range of benefits including:
Lower power consumption
Better picture quality
Better durability and lighter weight

So the fact that cool previously expensive features are getting cheaper is news...

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am equally as confident that many, if not most, consumers CANNOT tell the difference between an LCD TV and an OLED TV.

Re:Who cares?

[AK Marc]

3D is great, I have it on my 6 year old TV I essentially got for free, as it was the last of the active-glasses line from LG, and nobody wanted active glasses. The glasses were discontinued and not in stock, and not included with the TV, so it was a really cheap 2D TV which I upgraded to 3D when I found someone selling the discontinued glasses cheap.

3D is going to come back, hard, when they figure it out without glasses, though that may not be until they get holographic displays.

Curved screens are not bad, but way over-priced for what you get.

Re:Who cares?

[AK Marc]

And flash is bad for storage, as it fails after 100 writes.

You need to update your bias. The technology has improved long past your prejudice. OLED no longer has any lag disadvantage, though there is a shortage of low-lag OLED, as they prices haven't dropped enough for that application. But a 55" OLED TV has lag average for 55" LED TVs.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

LED back-lit screens are known to harm retinas. Why did they stop selling CCFL back-lit screens.

Re:Who cares?

[grasshoppa]

I think many of us are kinda burned out from the TV industry selling "the next big thing" over and over again, when it's obvious they're only doing it in the hopes of getting fools ( read: consumers ) on a 2-5 year tv rotation.

It's always the same, "This is going to be huge! It's a revolution in TV quality" only to die off to little fanfare a few years later because it was an incremental upgrade at best, and not worth the extra cash for the vast majority of folks out there.

It'd help if the industry revamped it's marketing game and targeted only those who are purchasing TVs instead of attempting to manipulate everyone into upgrading.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got cheap cathode ray tube TVs for people like you....

Re:Who cares?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

What happened? I have a 3D TV in my living room. 65". Works great and I love it. Does the feature matter to everyone? Of course not. I'm glad to have it.

Re:Who cares?

[thegarbz]

A TV is a TV is a TV.

What are you doing on a news for nerds site? A TV is a TV is a TV within the bounds of each technology. When a display technology comes through an revolutionises colour and contrast reproduction people care.

I won't buy another TV till my current one dies, but I care to see progress rather than the world settling for the "it's just an idiot box" attitude. Interestingly you cared enough about it to post. Thanks for showing an interest in the story.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Every decade or two, when it's time to get a new TV

If you think TVs nowadays last "a decade or two", you obviously haven't purchased one recently.

Re: Who cares?

[Luthair]

This isn't really an OLED problem to my knowledge, rather an issue that most high end TVs have a long image processing pipeline.

Re:Who cares?

[by (1706743)]

Not to mention obscene contrast ratios (which is implied by your post, I guess) -- some claim 1,000,000:1, others seem to claim infinite.

I have an LCD (backlit) TV and a OLED phone -- in a dark room, displaying a black image on the TV will cause a noticeable amount of bleedthrough light. A black image on my OLED phone, on the other hand, can only be described by Nigel Tufnel.

Re:Who cares?

[harperska]

Not trying to be judgmental, just curious as your opinion seems to be in the minority. What sort of 3D content do you regularly view on your TV that you feel is enhanced by being in 3D?

Re:Who cares?

[dontbemad]

You're kidding right? OLED is an incremental upgrade? It is fundamentally different from how modern LCD based TVs work altogether. It is a larger change from the Plasma -> LCD switch that happened years ago. If you don't understand the technology change here, that's fine, but don't downplay the importance of this change.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who cares about the quality of the TV image should care because the differences between OLED and LCD are significant when it comes to dark images. Unlike an LCD TV, an OLED TV has no backlight. The individual OLED pixels produce the light you see. The significance of this is that when a section of the image is black, it's truly black, as- in absence of light black. An LCD TV on the other hand uses a fluorescent or LED light source behind the liquid crystal display. When a section of the image is black, you can still see the back light. It causes what is known as "back light bleed" where you see a non-uniform splotchy black or grayness in the dark areas of the screen.

Re:Who cares?

[AK Marc]

I mean this literally... other than CAR salespeople, who cares? Every decade or two, when it's time to get a new CAR, I go to the CAR store, and I buy something that they have in stock, within my budget. I couldn't care if it was SUV, SEDAN, or EIGHTEEN-WHEELER powered. A CAR is a CAR is a CAR.

I mean this literally... other than CAR salespeople, who cares? Every decade or two, when it's time to get a new CAR, I go to the CAR store, and I buy something that they have in stock, within my budget. I couldn't care if it was GASOLINE, DIESEL, or HYBRID powered. A CAR is a CAR is a CAR.

Yup, you summed it up perfectly, you just used deliberately broken analogy. People shopping for a TV care about price and size. Refresh rate, internal upscalers, and other features are not interesting to 90%+ of the population. Resolution and a few other features are "known" by the ignorant shopping public, so they'll be heavily advertised in some areas. But in most cases, a person will walk out of a store with the cheapest TV of the size they selected.

His point isn't that *YOU* shouldn't care, but that he, like most people, doesn't care. If someone can get a Plasma TV to out perform an OLED TV, why should he care about they type of display? The result should matter, not the details.

This is true of everything. Even those into something will get to some level of detail where it won't matter anymore. "Oh, I can't buy that car, the bore of the engine should be larger than the stroke, that's how all F1 cars are, so it's obviously superior, and any car that is undersquare is inferior." Instead, "That car makes 900 hp and gets 100 MPG? What do I care whether it's 4 2-cyl 2-stroke engines, one on each wheel, or a V12 Diesel hybrid?" is more likely the response.

How it gets the results is less relevant than the results, as observed by a non-expert consumer.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they're fucking blind. Which you know, a lot of people are. But blind people don't buy too many TVs.

Re:Who cares?

[AK Marc]

Just because you do not know them does not mean there are no differences

That the theoretical ideal of each has differences is unrelated to the retail experience. The thinnest LED TV is not far off the currently available OLED TVs. So should you pass up the thinnner, lighter LED TV because OLED is "thinner and lighter" despite being thicker and heaver than the LED TV next to it?

LED is closer to its theoretical ideal than OLED because OLED has other constraints, like cost, which has held back development.

Re:Who cares?

[msauve]

"don't downplay the importance of this change."

Haha - you misspelled "impotence."

Re: Who cares?

[Noah Haders]

I can get you a sammy 55" which can do 4k UHD at 20ms lag and has 1500 cd/m2 brightness. lets see you duplicate that on oled!

Re:Who cares?

[Noah Haders]

> But a 55" OLED TV has lag average for 55" LED TVs.

the average tv sux for gamin. the best LED will blow the best OLED out of the water.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

> It is a larger change from the Plasma -> LCD switch that happened years ago.

Most consumers went straight from CRT to LCD. By and large, only technophiles ever bothered with plasma or rear projection.

The jump from LCD to OLED is virtually unnoticeable to the consumer. Is it flat and lightweight and cheap? We'll buy it.

Re:Who cares?

[nmb3000]

Not to mention obscene contrast ratios (which is implied by your post, I guess) -- some claim 1,000,000:1, others seem to claim infinite.

Contrast ratios get silly and mostly pointless when you have a black that is fully non-emissive. It's the same as dividing by zero -- hence the claim for an infinite ratio.

With OLED panels, the important metrics will be brightness and color gamut.

Re:Who cares?

[LightningBolt!]

> Just because you do not know them does not mean there are no differences...

The parent said nothing about whether s/he knows the differences.

> Lower power consumption
> Better picture quality
> Better durability and lighter weight

Virtually nobody cares about 1 and 3 - TVs are already cheap to operate, durable, and lightweight. And there's a very small market for the marginal improvement in picture quality. Today's cheap TVs already have amazingly good picture quality.

Re:Who cares?

[houstonbofh]

> Just because you do not know them does not mean there are no differences...

The parent said nothing about whether s/he knows the differences.

> Lower power consumption > Better picture quality > Better durability and lighter weight

Virtually nobody cares about 1 and 3 - TVs are already cheap to operate, durable, and lightweight. And there's a very small market for the marginal improvement in picture quality. Today's cheap TVs already have amazingly good picture quality.

A lot of people in warm climates care a LOT about power consumption. Because that power returns as heat, which then has to be removed by an already struggling air conditioner. I personally spent an extra day specing my home server to drop 30 watts.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

But aren't OLED displays subject to burn-in?

Re: Who cares?

[mrchew1982]

Shhh.. those of us who buy used TV's need these morons to keep upgrading!

Re:Who cares?

[dontbemad]

he, like most people, doesn't care.

As someone who worked extensively in a customer facing role for a consumer electronics retailer, I think you might be a little confused with what the term "most people" means.

Believe whatever you want. It is wholly like slashdotters to ridicule mainstream consumer electronics, popularly held opinions, and products that hold form over function. The target audience of this site is anything but the "average consumer". So when the lot of you hivemind and mistakenly believe that "since others around me in a controlled environment believe the same thing I do, i must be right", you move ever further and further away from reality into your own bubble.

Re:Who cares?

[lgw]

It is a larger change from the Plasma -> LCD switch that happened years ago.

People changed from plasma to LCD? Not me - plasma looks great. LCD looks washed out and can't display black.

But it's an incremental upgrade in quality. Clearly most people don't care much about color fidelity, or LCD never would have taken off. Compared to plasma, OLED has some incremental advantages, mostly lower power consumption.

Re: Who cares?

[Miamicanes]

How could OLED possibly have more lag than, say, LCD? Isn't it just an array PWM-modulated LEDs backed by a dumb frame buffer?

Or is OLED kind of like the stupid design of first-gen CD players that multiplexed a single DAC between two sample & hold circuits because it was cheaper than using two DACs and 8 bytes of RAM (which is why they only had ~90dB of stereo separation instead of "infinite" stereo separation).

Personally, I would have thought "burn-in" would have been OLED's #1 problem *by FAR*.

Re:Who cares?

[Mr D from 63]

I occasionally enjoy some animated movies in 3D on my TV. Not sure if I would say they are 'enhanced', but I enjoy it. Lots of 3D movies still being made so there is certainly a market for them.

Re:Who cares?

[Mr D from 63]

It'll be the latest thing consumers shrug at, like 3D or the curved screens. Nobody is going to rush out and buy it except for the gotta-have-it set.

Curved screens have to be the most ridiculous TV gimmick I've seen. I get 3D, I even use it on occasion. Besides the occasional movie, I sometimes play around with stereoscopic photography and like to view pics on the big screen. Its fun in a hobby sort of way, but I don't take it seriously.

Re:Who cares?

[grasshoppa]

I understand, I just don't care. Neither do most consumers. They look at perceived picture quality and cost, largely. How is OLED significantly different in those metrics, other than being much more expensive?

Remember; most people are happy with LEDs. They're "good enough". So OLED brings...what to the table?

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

And even if the content was that good they're going to compress the living crap out of it anyhow.

Re:Who cares?

[mattack2]

I'm not claiming I will get a curved TV, nor do I deny that it's _largely_ a gimmick.

However, don't you agree that, in theory, if you were in the center, a spherical screen around you would be the best experience?

I think that the curved TV gimmick was _attempting_ to go slightly towards that, for the one person in the best viewing spot.

Re:Who cares?

[mattack2]

I mean this literally... other than CAR salespeople, who cares? Every decade or two, when it's time to get a new CAR, I go to the CAR store, and I buy something that they have in stock, within my budget. I couldn't care if it was GASOLINE, DIESEL, or HYBRID powered. A CAR is a CAR is a CAR.

I do. When I got a new car, I was purposely looking for an electric car. However, sort of to your argument, I purposely bought the most utilitarian car (electric smart car). I would have paid something for more range, but the "range anxiety" has mostly not affected me.

Re:Who cares?

[ShakaUVM]

>Lower power consumption
>Better picture quality
>Better durability and lighter weight

On the downside LG embeds advertising into the firmware of its TVs, so I will continue to refuse to buy them.

Samsung bakes advertising in as well, which is a shame, since they have much lower latency for gaming than any other LCD manufacturer.

I will not buy a TV that will advertise to me whenever I bring up the main menu.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

When a 32 inch model costs less than $250.00 you can get excited. Until then, just shut up!

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never compared an OLED TV to a LCD TV side by side.

But I have compared a LCD phone to a OLED phone side by side.

THE LCD IS BETTER.

Nope, not joking. The OLED phone looks like crap compared to LCD. Not only would I not pay more for OLED, I wouldn't pay as much for it, because it's shit.

Re:Who cares?

[Mr D from 63]

I'm not claiming I will get a curved TV, nor do I deny that it's _largely_ a gimmick.

However, don't you agree that, in theory, if you were in the center, a spherical screen around you would be the best experience?

I think that the curved TV gimmick was _attempting_ to go slightly towards that, for the one person in the best viewing spot.

That's the thing, there is only 1 place, and at a specific distance, where the perspective could see some improvement, but move off to a side and there are amplified perspective skews on that side of the screen. It makes no sense as a TV. It might make sense as a computer monitor.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

If everything was filmed with fish-eye lenses? Yes.
Except it isn't, so ... no.

Re:Who cares?

[AK Marc]

As someone who worked extensively in a customer facing role for a consumer electronics retailer, I think you might be a little confused with what the term "most people" means.

As someone who has done the same thing, people know they should want a specific feature, but are generally clueless about it. They say they want 1080p or 4k because they've been told they should want that. But they just want a kick-ass TV at a cheap price.

Re:Who cares?

[mattack2]

What does fish eye lenses have to do with anything?

Why are some of the IMAX screens curved?

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Contrast ratios get silly and mostly pointless when you have a black that is fully non-emissive.

Even fully-non-emissive blacks can be somewhat reflective. Think about that projector screen in the conference room: with the lights on and projector off, it looks gray, not black.

Now, if you have a black screen that's fully absorptive then you're onto something!

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Twenty-four hours exposure at high luminance was compared to a cyclic (dark/light) exposure at domestic levels for 1week and 1month, using different LEDs (Cold-white, blue and green), as well as fluorocompact bulbs and fluorescent tubes."

Nope. Don't see anything about LED-backlit screens there. Way to jump to conclusions.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want image burn in on my phone or tv. ymmv

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most recently....The Force Awakens 3D. It took Disney forever, but they finally put out the 3d version. Numerous other 3d movies... LG is the only TV set I would consider at present as they're the only ones still making a decent 3d set that I know of. I instead went with a 3D DLP projector to replace my 3d TV when it broke last year.

Re:Who cares?

[Dog-Cow]

I usually have sex in the dark, so fucking blind is my usual situation.

Re:Who cares?

[Dog-Cow]

You, personally, aren't the other 7+ billion people on the planet. I know of literally no one else who has gone to the trouble you have to save 30 watts. No one.

Re:Who cares?

[BostonPilot]

It is a larger change from the Plasma -> LCD switch that happened years ago.

People changed from plasma to LCD? Not me - plasma looks great. LCD looks washed out and can't display black.

So, isn't that exactly the point? OLED gets you most of the visual improvements of Plasma without some of the drawbacks (power, depth).

But it's an incremental upgrade in quality. Clearly most people don't care much about color fidelity, or LCD never would have taken off. Compared to plasma, OLED has some incremental advantages, mostly lower power consumption.

Well, in addition to power consumption, how about price, weight and depth? (and, knowing people, it was probably mostly price).

One remaining problem with OLED is light output. I think it's about 1/2 of a LED display. It's an issue for some people: my tv is in a room that's a wall of glass... so, even the LED is pretty unwatchable during certain hours of the day, which is fine: I only watch it at night so it works out okay, but lots of people probably value the light output over the darker blacks.

Personally, I paid $5K for an early Sony Bravia LED and the black level is pretty horrible, so I've been waiting for OLED, mostly for the prices to drop but also for the technology to become more mature. This might be the year that I pull the trigger.

Re: Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never eat a strange pussy in the dark. You have been warned.

Re: Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

My 16 year old rear projection panasonic is still doing fine, as is my 6 year old samsung. You were saying?

Re:Who cares?

[ai4px]

We are at a remarkable time in the history of television. The quality of the images far, far exceeds the /content/ of the programs. I'd LOVE a wonderful new 4k tv, but there's narry a good thing to watch.

Re:Who cares?

[Eunuchswear]

the average tv sux for gamin. the best LED will blow the best OLED out of the water.

There is no such thing as a "LED" TV. You mean LCD with a LED backlight.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, OLEDs are bad for gaming. they have really bad lag times.

LG B6:
1080P 60hz:27.6ms
4K 60HZ:27.8ms
4k 60HZ HDR:28.5ms

You were saying?

Re:Who cares?

[AmiMoJo]

The high contrast ratio is why I love my plasma TV, despite it using a lot of power and being unsuitable for things like games due to burn-in. If they can finally produce some really good OLED TVs that can match the colour quality of plasma I might finally upgrade.

I do miss AMOLED on my phone too. Not just the really vibrant picture, but the low power ambient display mode too.

Re:Who cares?

[golgotha007]

>>A TV is a TV is a TV.

It's clear that you don't know what OLED is. I just bought an LG OLED 65 inch two weeks ago and it's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The colors are incredibly bright. The contrast ratio is infinity because black means that the pixel is actually turned off. If the whole screen goes black for a moment while watching a movie, it's like the TV is turned off. Watching space movies at night with all the lights off is a jaw dropping experience. I just watched Prometheus again in 3D at night with all the lights off. It's a whole new experience. This is hands down the best TV I've ever seen or had.

Granted there's not much 4k content, but you can get quite a bit currently on Netflix. I'm currently re-watching all of Breaking Bad at 4k, 7.1 surround. I hightly recommend the OLED experience.

Re:Who cares?

[Noah Haders]

Samsung KS8000: 20.1ms for 1080p, 21.1ms for 4k UHD. I don't know the refresh rates. Presumably they are 60hz. Also 1472 cd/m2 and half the price!

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Current OLEDs may be. It's not a limitation of OLEDs, just the current implementations.

Re:Who cares?

[lgw]

Man, I remember when Sony made good stuff - before the sonytimer was the norm. Why not just get a plasma for a lot less, and get the same color quality? I'm waiting for OLED to come down to plasma prices, and mature a little quality-wise, but if it weren't for the jump to 4K I wouldn't bother (and you need a screen that's a bit oversized for comfortable viewing to even notice 4K, but my living room is a bit small so I might as well).

Re:Who cares?

[BostonPilot]

Yeah, the TV was state of the art when I got it, replaced a 34" CRT. Since then I'm boycotting Sony because of the Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal. Every now and then they come out with something really nice that I would otherwise be tempted to buy, but I don't because of that dick move they did. They deserved to go out of business at the time, and I'm still hoping they will.

I must have bought that TV back around 2003 - at the time a good plasma would have cost at least $10,000, would have been 780p instead of 1080p, and would have been thicker and used a lot more power. So, at the time it seemed like a good tradeoff even if the black level left a lot to be desired.

Re:Who cares?

[lgw]

Makes sense - in 2003 the landscape was very different. I bought a first-generation consumer plasma - 480p - and kept it for about 10 years. Still worked great, but 1080p had finally happened and it was time to move on.

Re:Who cares?

[houstonbofh]

Well, living in Houston Texas, I know quite a few. But a little town of 5 million with highs in the three digits for weeks at a time must not be on your radar.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I looked over your link. Came down to "Holding a police tactical flashlight at arms length, dilating your eyes with drugs, then staring at the flashlight for 24/7 is hard on your eyes."

Re:Who cares?

[JoKer_Destroy]

Joker stole the witch's magic sticks - Elsa and the children were punished Joker - uq-zmxU3StA http://ybproductionskid.blogsp...

Re: Who cares?

[Coren22]

Yeah, have they fixed that issue yet that makes the blues die relitively quickly? I still have my 10 year old 32" LCD tv, and it still works great. Have they prevented the OLEDs from color drift after two years that was reported on OLED phones yet?

Re:Who cares?

[Coren22]

http://mashable.com/2016/01/05...

Your post made me doubt my memory. 3d without glasses exists, I don't know if any current products have it yet though.

Re:Who cares?

[AK Marc]

3D without glasses is usable in short-distance small-form applications, like the 3DS, but nobody has gone to market with a glasses-free living room application. The effect's "dynamic range" (if that's the term) is limited when the angle between the eyes decreases, and a small screen at short distance has a larger separation, making it usable. The mechanisms used in the 3DS can *never* work with a livingroom TV, though they will work at a CES booth, where you force people to look at a 55" screen at less than 6' away (blame it on the booth size, but it's deliberate to create a 3D effect that is impossible at the 10'+ regular viewing distance where 3D glasses work fine.

Ultra-D (your link) was announced at CES about a year ago, and still has 0 products for sale. They are "coming soon" but have no details of when to expect them.

OK

[backslashdot]

I will install it in my fusion energy powered level 5 autonomous flying car so I can watch a movie on my way to the Spaceport.

Re:OK

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to add 3D printers and the Internet of Things.

Re:OK

[tripleevenfall]

but first, The Year of Linux on the Desktop (tm)

Re: OK

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't miss flying through the cloud in your self flying car while using your VR kit to checkup on everything.

But we got a TV in 2015

[TechyImmigrant]

I'm not going to be replacing it for a few years.

Let's hope the new features in 2020 are really enticing.

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you replace a TV after only five years?

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[TechyImmigrant]

Why would you replace a TV after only five years?

Because we are thinking of ripping out the wall that the TV is hanging from. If that happens, a smaller TV will be needed for the place it would go if we don't just ditch the TV.

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[houstonbofh]

So, better picture quality, lighter weight and much less power consumption is not enticing? OK, perhaps not at $4000... But once it gets under a grand...

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[TechyImmigrant]

Not really. No.

The picture quality has never been a concern.

I don't know what the power consumption of my TV is. My bill didn't change a lot when we got it. I am concerned about the power consumption of my servers because they are on 24/7.

Lighter weight is of transitory benefit when I'm installing the TV. We paid a guy to do it last time because I was out of town on business.

PoE would be a nice feature. So one ethernet wired to a socket behind the TV could provide the data and the power and it wouldn't occupy my WiFi bandwidth.

Really, really good programming would be the game changer. I haven't noticed that happening.

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more than JUST picture quality. There's no back light in an OLED TV. Black parts of the screen are literally black instead of the grayish black we normally see with back light bleed with normal LCD TVs with a CFL or LED backlight.

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[Anonymous Coward]

POE (802.3af) provides 12.95 watts. POE+ (802.3at) provides 25.5 watts to a powered device. I think most large TVs with their embedded processors will exceed those wattages. I've read that OLED's use between 50 and 300 watts depending on the mode used and content displayed.

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[Anonymous Coward]

When the difference is under 20 watts, no it doesn't make it enticing. I'll pick one up when I can get it under $200, like my current 42".

Do younger people even care about having a large TV anymore? I have two kids, one in high school and one living at college, and neither want a tv in their room. They say it takes up too much room and they don't see a point since they have a laptop and smartphone.

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[Anonymous Coward]

So, better picture quality, lighter weight and much less power consumption is not enticing? OK, perhaps not at $4000... But once it gets under a grand...

Better picture quality, yes.
Less power consumption, yes.

Lighter weight? Who cares? How often do you carry your tv around? Personally, I bought it, brought it home, unpacked it, set in on my stand, and that's where it's stayed for the last 2 years.

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[Anonymous Coward]

So, worse picture quality, lighter weight, about the same power consumption and nasty burn-in is not enticing?

FTFY.

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[antdude]

Ditto. I just replaced my 19.5" 1993 Sharp CRT TV with a Samsung 22" HDTV in 2014. :P

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[Dog-Cow]

There have been literally zero times that I've looked at any one of my LED screens and thought, "gee, I wish the black was really black". I can't imagine that on a TV screen, with it's always-moving picture, that I would change that number.

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[Anonymous Coward]

TVs are best bought secondhand anyway. Cheaper, do the job, no sales pitch, and you don't feel cheated if they die in 10 years (or 5 for that matter). New might be a bit bigger or sexier or whatever but the difference is low and the care factor lower, so meh.

Re:But we got a TV in 2015

[BostonPilot]

Not surprising that you might not notice. Question is, would a photographer/graphic designer/architect/interior designer/ etc. notice? Certainly as a part time photographer I notice it a lot!

The other thing is that people are amazingly good at getting used to crap. Many years ago when TVs were all CRTs I was visiting a friend. There was clearly a problem with his TV because the image was very very green. I asked him about it and he didn't know what I was talking about. He had gotten used to it and saw it as "normal". I couldn't believe that he didn't see how screwed up the picture was.

There are clearly changes which are very subtle that the average person won't notice. 4K is probably an example of that, except in very large screens. If you walk an average person into a room with an LED set, and then walk them into a room with an OLED set, yeah, lots of them won't notice, whereas if you show them side by side they probably will notice. It really is a huge difference in image quality, so just because you're used to LED crap, doesn't mean that OLED isn't a big improvement...

Would I pay $4K right now? No, especially because the light output is lower than LED and my screen is in a bright room. But when it hits $2K for a 65 or 70 inch screen, I'll probably upgrade from my LED.

Neh, TVs are dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone huddles around their monitors, tablets, and phones. The living room is done.

Re:Neh, TVs are dying

[TechyImmigrant]

Laptop in my household. 4 chairs, 4 people, 4 laptops. At least we are in the same room.

Disposable TVs

[Anonymous Coward]

OLEDs have a short lifespan. Ludicrously short for their price.

Re:Disposable TVs

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what will keep me from them. It's fine for phones that are pretty much disposable now anyway. I'd like to keep my TV for a while.

Re:Disposable TVs

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't you just 3D print a new one? I've been told over and over that it's the future and I'm a Luddite for not seeing it.

Re:Disposable TVs

[houstonbofh]

Early ones anyway... Hopefully it will get better. If not, the next one will.

Re:Disposable TVs

[Anonymous Coward]

No no. 2D printing of OLEDs is a thing: http://www.oled-info.com/tags/technical-research/frontplane/roll-roll

Re: Disposable TVs

[Anonymous Coward]

You really need to get out more. Average oled lifetime now exceeds lcd.

Still a bit much

[OffaMyLawn]

That's still a bit much for an impulse buy. I can see if you're in the market for a new TV, and have the disposable income, where it would be enticing. I don't think it would seem that great a deal to most uninformed consumers standing in their local big box store trying to figure out the difference between these and a standard LCD TV, not understanding, and making the decision based on price.

Also, has LG kicked in some money for advertising here lately? First their threatening to include wifi on everything, now a point by point presentation about their OLED sets.

Re:Still a bit much

[Nidi62]

Also, has LG kicked in some money for advertising here lately? First their threatening to include wifi on everything, now a point by point presentation about their OLED sets.

To be fair the "article" does mention Sony's OLED TVs (oh, but it just so happens they use LG displays so hey, LG still make some money off those too). Personally I was tempted to tag "ad" to this story.

Re:Still a bit much

[vux984]

I actually bought a new TV the day before yesterday. My previous one was 6-7 years old. I looked at OLED, I ogled the black levels, and then I bought a 4K LED backlit LCD with full dimming* that was 15" larger for quite a bit less.

* yeah still not nearly as good as OLED, but very good blacks for LED LCD.

The new screen looks great. The technology is proven. It would have cost me a LOT more to get an OLED TV at the same size.

Re:Still a bit much

[BostonPilot]

To be fair the "article" does mention Sony's OLED TVs

Not really replying to what you said just responding to the "Sony" part; I currently have a ~12 year old Sony, and they make some good stuff, but when they did the root kit thing in 2005 I swore I would never buy another piece of Sony gear, and I'm sticking with that... They deserved to go out of business over that snafu, so I'll just keep buying stuff from their competition and hope they eventually go out of business.

Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

Re:Still a bit much

[BostonPilot]

and then I bought a 4K LED backlit LCD with full dimming

I'm waiting for the OLED price to drop a bit (and hope that any kinks get worked out), but the reason I don't want to replace my old shitty-contrast LED TV is that the local dimming ones bother me - in lots of images I see the local dimming effect as an artifact, and it drives me crazy. I'll see a scene where it's apparent and suddenly I'm no longer watching the movie, I'm looking at the screen for more artifacts.

Am I the only one this bothers?

Re:Still a bit much

[coofercat]

Yep - OLED = early Plasmas

Back in the day of CRTs, plasmas looked amazing. Every pub got one because they were big, light enough that you didn't need to have reinforcement put into the walls to mount one up high and some of the were ready for the hood.

A few years later, those same plasmas started to look pretty shabby. They had screen burn, they'd cost a lot to run because they were ran very hot and in some cases needed to be regassed.

2017 might be the year of OLED, but that just means 2018-19 will be the year of QLED or whatever refines OLED. We just bought a new TV a year or so ago, so I guess we'll be waiting for OLED/QLED to be commodity before we buy another TV.

Re:Still a bit much

[vux984]

There's quite the range of 'local dimming' technology out there; some of its pretty bad... some of its really good.

http://ca.rtings.com/tv/tests/...

As expected the OLED stuff scores 10/10 but *some* of the full-array stuff scores really well. So does ALL dimming irritate you or just the bad stuff? Of course that's not a comprehensive list... but it does show the range of scores.

Also FWIW a number of TVs also have a menu option to turn it off or adjust the effect so you can get 'some dimming' but not as much... which will reduce the effect -- less 'contrast' but less artifacts.

So you have some options if you want 4K but or the TV otherwise impresses you besides the local dimming.

It isn't a good deal

[TheRealMindChild]

How is $1800 for a 55" 4k TV a good deal?

Re:It isn't a good deal

[Junta]

It's a good deal because the customer will have to buy another one after 3 or 4 years due to burn in or the blue wearing out. It's a great deal for the vendor.

(Continues to lament that we can't have both true black and a display technology that won't burn in or wear out quickly).

Re:It isn't a good deal

[Computershack]

It's a good deal because the customer will have to buy another one after 3 or 4 years due to burn in or the blue wearing out. It's a great deal for the vendor.

(Continues to lament that we can't have both true black and a display technology that won't burn in or wear out quickly).

I had to check the date because that ceased to be an issue a couple of years ago. My LG OLED gets around 70-80hrs a week of use due to me working nights and the wife working days and its now almost 2 years old with no sign of burn in and the blue is still where it should be, maybe because I had my TV calibrated which resulted in blue being reduced by between 8% and 10% from 20 IRE to 100 IRE. It went from this to this after calibration.

Re:It isn't a good deal

[grasshoppa]

Two whole years?

Golly.

Re:It isn't a good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah isn't it time he threw it out and bought a new one? His TV probably doesn't even support Android TV, the savage!

Re:It isn't a good deal

[msauve]

Because it's 28% off the regular price, which is only 400% more than the competition. You're not spending $1800, you're saving $700!

Re:It isn't a good deal

[thegarbz]

Two whole years?

Golly.

Yeah it's amazing that people can resolve an issue and that 2 years can pass between it. Golly indeed.

Re:It isn't a good deal

[thegarbz]

(Continues to lament that we can't have both true black and a display technology that won't burn in or wear out quickly).

Why do you lament on a pretty much solved problem which is primarily the reason why OLED's have taken 8 years to make it to the TV market?

Re:It isn't a good deal

[Bryan Ischo]

You and your wife watch too much TV.

Re:It isn't a good deal

[AK Marc]

Plasma has true black, and hasn't had burn-in problems for anything made in the past 10 years. All screens have burn-in. but it's only a "problem" for the technology you like least. CRT's burn-in problems are worse than plasma, yet the number of complaints don't match the extent of the problem.

Re:It isn't a good deal

[AK Marc]

My first CRT showed burn-in within a year (in the early '80s). I've seen LED LCDs with burn in within a similar time (especially things like bar and airport TVs that are always on, and on CNN or something else with a fixed banner in one place).

Re:It isn't a good deal

[Robert Goatse]

Cough plasma cough. My gracefully aging 50" plasma does true black very nicely.

Re: It isn't a good deal

[Miamicanes]

So, you're saying that with the latest plasma TVs, you can *literally* watch black-pillarboxed 4:3 at full brightness without stretching for 10 hours/day for a decade without visible permanent burn-in?

From what I recall, the plasma burn-in problem was "solved" by enforced stretching or slowly shifting the image back & forth to spread the damage (at reduced intensity) over a larger area.

Re:It isn't a good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Because OLED TVs are usually more expensive. No other display technology makes blacks literally black like OLED does. This is due to the absence of a back light.

Re:It isn't a good deal

[mattack2]

Umm, 2 years of 70-80 hours a week of use.. That's a lot (and I say that as a big TV watcher).

So think of it as many more years for a "regular" TV watcher.

Re: It isn't a good deal

[AK Marc]

I'm saying that the TVs that have poor blacks have the same problem. LED TVs will get burn-in, and give you bad blacks on the way to that burn-in problem. CRTs will give you good blacks, and burn in. Plasma and OLED will give you good blacks and burn-in. The burn-in problem isn't any worse with the "true black" tech than the non. Plasma doesn't have as bad of a burn in problem as they did initially. My 8-year old plasma has no burn-in, and spends plenty of time on 4:3 broadcast TV. And no, I don't have "anti-burn-in" turned on. That turns the "black" to grey so that it wears at the same rate as the "used" portion.

Re:It isn't a good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but at the rate of change in displays the industry is experiencing, 4k OLED will be obsolete by then and it will be time to upgrade anyway.

Re:It isn't a good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Blue does not wear out.

Namely, the current White-OLED technology LG used is not a true traditional RGB-OLED. It is white OLED developed by from Kodak used as a light source with a more traditional color filtering in front of it. It is actually a pretty good compromise. Positives are 2-to-3 fold cost saving over true RGB OLED and easier color management over time due to lack of different speed color wear-out. The only observable negative side is ~30% less brightness due to color filters.

Thus, wear in LG OLEDs is not color-dependent but can only affect brightess. Which is additionally somewhat managed by TV's firmware. Lifetime of such OLED panels is by now easily comparable with LCD-s.

Re:It isn't a good deal

[thegarbz]

All screens have burn-in.

False. But true for the three technologies you mentioned. A modern OLED's burn-in is apparently on par with Plasma. Except the colour is much better the resolutions can be made much higher, it has better refresh, and it doesn't act like a space heater or send your power meter into overdrive, which is quite important for a device that is used as much as the average American uses a TV.

Re: It isn't a good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, CRTs had glowing pixels too.

Re:It isn't a good deal

[AK Marc]

My 55" LG 3D Plasma (about 7 years old) uses less power than my 46" LCD (Sharp, about 10 years old). So the complaints about Plasma always seem to be factually incorrect. I can't ever figure out why.

I want QLED

[HalAtWork]

QLED for me. More power efficient, longer lasting color vibrance (won't yellow or fade), cheaper.

Re:I want QLED

[Anonymous Coward]

While QLED improves on other LCD light sources, it's still an LCD display with all the issues that come with LCD.

Re:I want QLED

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a shame there's no "-1: Linked to a mobile version of a webpage" mod...

Re:I want QLED

[Anonymous Coward]

Problems I can live with by the looks of it. I wamt a display that lasts.

Re:I want QLED

[known_coward_69]

saw one in Costco this weekend. looks awesome. but i'll wait a few years until 4K content is everywhere. it's not like you have to run out and buy it to be ready for 4K content.

once the content is here go buy the TV at half the price it's selling for right now

Re:I want QLED

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a shame there are seperate URLs for mobile and tablet, can't it detect on a page by page basis?

Re:I want QLED

[grimr]

There are two types of quantum dot TV technologies. That wikipedia article talks about both of them but makes it sound like they're talking about the current "so-called Quantum Dot TVs" for the whole article if you skipped over the explanation in the second paragraph at the to of the article.

In the History section they talk about the current TVs which as you also said are just an LCD display with quantum dots in place of the colour filters.

But in the Working principle section onward they talk about Quantum Dot LEDs. These, as they mention, work on the OLED design where each sub pixel emits light directly. These TVs are not out yet.

The GP I believe was talking about Quantum Dot LEDs. These are indeed more power efficient, won't colour fade and cheaper. They also offer higher brightness than LCD (no backlight) and the high contrast ratio that Plasma and OLED are famous for. They also have a faster response time than LCD as they emit light directly instead of having to wait for liquid crystals to realign.

All the current quantum dot LCD TVs offer is better colour gamut which most consumers won't care about.

Re:I want QLED

[thegarbz]

I want to see a QLED TV that lives up to the hype before I settle for that.

Mediamarkt has Samsung QLEDs side by side with LG's OLED. The difference is night and day in favour of the LG with the current stock, and fading isn't an issue for many. My TV would die from consumer grade old age (4 years) before it fades with the use it gets.

Re:I want QLED

[grimr]

That's because you haven't seen a real Quantum Dot LED TV yet. It's another case where marketing is making a big mess with the technology terminology.

Samsung's current QLED TVs are Quantum Dot colour filters with regular LED backlights. A real QDLED TV does not have a backlight and works like OLED where each subpixel is a Quantum Dot LED that emits light directly.

Re:I want QLED

[HalAtWork]

That's right, thank you!

Re:I want QLED

[AK Marc]

The tech looks to not have the drawbacks of LCD. The current implementations are in LCDs, but the tech can be used without LCD, just like you could use OLED behind LCDs, but it works better if you don't. QLED is the same, but the initial displays are using it to improve LCD, not as a direct display, like OLED, though it could be used as a direct display.

Re:I want QLED

[ffkom]

Given that electrically excited quantum dot LEDs (as available only on a very small scale today) also use organic material I wonder why people expect them to be cheaper to produce.
If it was trivial to produce an array of 24 million LEDs cheaply that you can drive precisely enough to get a great picture out of it, this would have been done with anorganic LEDs long since. And Samsung would have done it, earlier.
The point to LG's current market dominance is that they first managed to implement a viable production process for large (O)LED panels, and there is not a single reason why electrically excited QDLEDs should be easier or cheaper to produce.

Re:I want QLED

[Anubis IV]

You're confusing the just-introduced QLEDs for older quantum dot LCDs. Both use quantum dots, but QLEDs are based on OLEDs and avoid the drawbacks you're talking about, whereas the previous quantum dot displays were based on LCDs and had those drawbacks. I believe QLED-based sets were only formally introduced by Samsung at CES this year (i.e. about a week ago), so they haven't hit the market yet, but they more or less have all of the advantages that OLED already had over LCD, plus even better brightness and contrast ratios than were previously possible with OLED.

Re:I want QLED

[rahvin112]

Quantum dots have been in TV's since 2014 or so. Samsung's brand is SUHD, and AFAIK they've been on sale since then. I bought one of them in 2015 and the image quality is astounding compared to the previous HD set I retired with it.

Re:I want QLED

[grimr]

QDLEDs would be printed which is cheaper. OLEDs could also be printed instead of the current shadow mask deposition so I think the "cheaper to produce" might be against LCD displays.

It's not easy finding good technical information amid all the marketing cruft.

Re:I want QLED

[thegarbz]

So we're back to where I was just a second ago. I want to see it available and living up to the hype.

If I bought a TV right now it wouldn't be a QLED, marketing or not. If the "true" technology is not available yet that doesn't help anyone. OLED TVs on the other hand are in every electronics shop.

Re:I want QLED

[thegarbz]

Quantum Dots have been but not QLED in the way we think of them.

Re:I want QLED

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the AVS associate editor (and other sources), the Samsung QLED displays shown at CES are LCDs

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/166-lcd-flat-panel-displays/2701329-samsung-qled-tvs-ces-2017-a.html#post49528889

You're being conned by Samsung's usual bullshit marketing, in the same way people think an LED TV is something different to an LCD TV.

A display that is purely QLED, without the LCD panel, could be very good, but such a display doesn't exist yet, not even in prototype form.

Re:I want QLED

[Anonymous Coward]

The QLED they showed this year is *half way* to the QLED mentioned above, and is also different than the old QLED people sometimes confuse this with. It's not bullshit marketing, it's the fact of the technology.
The target for pure QLED is actually CES 2018 I believe, so I suspect that Samsung already has prototypes.

Re:I want QLED

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have gone to CES then....

Re:I want QLED

[grimr]

Not quite. They way you worded it before made it sound you doubted that a true QD-LED display can deliver on those promises because current QLED TVs don't. Now your saying that if it becomes available you're still doubting it can deliver on those promises.

What I'm saying is that there is no "hype". The technology can do what they say they can. The real question is can they mass market a full sized panel.

Secondly, QLED is just a slightly enhanced LCD TV. So I completely agree with you on which one I would buy right now if I had to. I would not buy an LCD TV and would go OLED instead. Right now I'm perfectly happy with my Plasma TV.

I disagree that it doesn't help anyone. The people (who care about picture quality) deciding to replace an old but still functioning TV can choose to get an OLED now or wait a little longer and see how QD-LED compares to OLED. If they mistakenly think that QLED LCD TVs are QD-LED TVs then they'll go OLED now but will be thinking "I should have waited a little more" when the real QD-LED TVs show up.

TL; DR: Don't compare QLED LCD to OLED right now thinking you're comparing QD-LED to OLED.

Phooey

[Anonymous Coward]

OLED will never catch on until the one true market innovator Apple decides its worthy of the iPhone.

Burn in?

[The Grim Reefer]

I'm not in the market for a new TV myself. But isn't burn in still a major concern with current OLED? Also, don't the colors wear unevenly with what's being sold at the moment?

I still prefer to watch movies and television on a large display, but it seems to me that a lot of people don't. My wife uses her tablet for almost all of the video she watches. My daughter prefers her phone. It's going to be interesting to see how this affects television in the future as well.

Re:Burn in?

[JustNiz]

>> But isn't burn in still a major concern with current OLED? Also, don't the colors wear unevenly with what's being sold at the moment?

Apparently not.
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/...

Re: Burn in?

[cerberusss]

Same for us. We don't watch the same shows (wildly different tastes) so DW watches on her laptop and I use mine. Kid's still too young. But our babysitter just watches YouTube on her phone.

Re:Burn in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Highly relevant 30 second clip from a David Lynch interview

Re:Burn in?

[known_coward_69]

even more so if all you watch is porn

Re:Burn in?

[The Grim Reefer]

That's a link to a discussion board. Current OLED is still much more susceptible to burn in than LCD. Samsung has recently announced 10 yr warranties against burn in, on it's LCD panels, as a shot at LG's OLED TV. I'm sure it's better than the original Plasma's, but it's still an issue. Also, the blue tends to dim faster on OLED. As far as I know, that has also not been addressed.

Re:Burn in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you go blind, the burn in doesn't bother you as much.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

55" 4k? Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, let's forget about OLED. Just focus on the 4k aspect. To even discern higher than full-HD with 20/20 vision on a 55" screen, you have to be sitting 1 meter away from it. Why pay more for 4k? Are you going to sit closer than at least 2 meters (that's about 6 feet or a few dozen fingers for the metric-averse crowd)?

Re: 55" 4k? Why?

[Miamicanes]

Until you factor in real-world over-compression. High-bitrate 4k downsampled to 2k still looks better than native-2k at today's reduced bitrates, even if it's ultimately viewed on a 2k-native display. 4k just gives us back the detail DirecTV, Comcast, and Uverse took away from us over the past 10 years as bitrates have gotten squeezed more & more.

Re:55" 4k? Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's LCM(720, 1080) ?

Burn in... Improvements?

[foxalopex]

LCD panels are already very cheap to produce and are virtually as thin as OLED panels. In fact OLED panels are so similar to LCDs that some manufacturers have come up with the stupid idea of curving them so that they're easier to market to consumers because we can barely tell the difference. (Completely distorts the image)

My major concern with OLED is burn-in which apparently is possible in OLEDs, I haven't seen that in my Samsung phone but it's still a concern compared to LCDs. If I'm going to pay several grand for a TV it better be almost bulletproof. And 4K TV's are just silly, it's very hard to find 1080p content (most commercial TV is only 1080i at best) nevermind 4K.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[squiggleslash]

And 4K TV's are just silly, it's very hard to find 1080p content (most commercial TV is only 1080i at best) nevermind 4K.

Won't disagree on the 4K thing, but the claim about 1080x is not right.

1080p and 1080i are the same resolution. The only difference is that in one the whole frame is transmitted at once, while in the other two successive half frames are shown, one with odd numbered lines, and one with even.

Additionally, there's plenty of broadcast 1080p content. The 1080p content is usually 1080p24, and is encoded as 1080i60 in a way the TV can restore back to 1080p24 (the process is called 3:2 pulldown.) Almost all movies and dramatic presentations (soap operas are a notable exception) use 1080p24, with 1080i60 usually used for news and sports.

Don't be fooled by the fact there's a 1080i intermediate form of the broadcast - the actual content, on both sides, with no related loss of information, is 1080p24.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just learned that OLED burn in is real, on my approximately 1.5 year old Samsung Galaxy S6. I've played a ton of this particular game that has an icon in the same spot on the screen all the time. It now is burned into my screen and shows up as a very faint dark version of itself on white screens. I can mostly ignore it but I'm annoyed that it happened. Hopefully "they" will figure out how to make OLED burn in proof at some point.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, seriously wrong. 1080p24 is only for blu-ray movies. HDTV is a combination of 720p (regular shows), 1080i (sports due to higher framerate). Pulldown is a thing of the past; all modern TVs are using very high refresh rates and show the same frame several times. Go back to 2005 for your "information".

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[squiggleslash]

Nope, what you've spouted is unmitigated bullshit.

HDTV channels stick to a single resolution. They don't flip between 720p and 1080i when they switch between sports and drama - there's too much that can go wrong if they do, so they generally stick to 720p or 1080i. For the latter, pulldown is used to encode dramatic material.

Pulldown is an encoding method, saying it's a thing of the past because modern TVs are using a very high refresh method shows complete ignorance of what pulldown is. Pulldown is a way to encode a p24 (480p24, 720p24, 1080p24, etc) video in an i60 (480i60, 720i60, 1080i60) video stream. That's it. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the framerate of your output device. Your output device can ignore it, or use it to reconstruct the original 1080p24 material, for output as whole frames.

Indeed, the problem with higher framerate devices is when the content isn't using pulldown, as trying to display interlaced content on a non-interlaced device - gets ugly unless you're willing to do a lot of post processing.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[thegarbz]

I haven't seen that in my Samsung phone but it's still a concern compared to LCDs.

You probably haven't seen it because it was an issue that is all but resolved a few years ago. It was very VERY prevalent on Galaxy S, S2, and less so on the S3 models which all had OLED screens. The S4 I still have with sustained far more of a beating (daily use for google maps for 1-2 hours per day on top of normal smartphone usage) shows zero sign of burn-in. The burn in problem is one of the primary reasons it took OLED so long to make it to a TV.

Also I wouldn't expect any consumer product to be bullet proof. This isn't the 70s. I expect it to last 4-5 years.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[thegarbz]

it's very hard to find 1080p content

So you clearly aren't at all serious about watching TV. Commercial TV? What is that? Whatever that strange thing is you can probably get it in 4k on Netflix.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[sexconker]

You're wrong. Telecine and 3:2 pulldown and all that shit is (thankfully) pretty much gone, and interlacing is a relic that only broadcast holds onto.

My cable feed gets me 720p or 1080i. Changing channels will change what I get (720p or 1080i) on the cable box. A channel will switch to 1080i when the big sport ballgame is playing and will drop to 720p when it cuts over to whatever the regular programming is, after the post-post-game show is finally over.

I've never seen 1080p on my cable feed or OTA. If I want 1080p consumer content I need to get a BluRay, watch Netflix/Amazon/whatever until it decides to feed me the 1080p stream, or just use my PC.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[squiggleslash]

You're wrong. Telecine and 3:2 pulldown and all that shit is (thankfully) pretty much gone, and interlacing is a relic that only broadcast holds onto.

No. Pulldown is how TV networks that have chosen to broadcast in 1080i60 broadcast 1080p24 content. It's the only method available to them.

Changing channels will change what I get (720p or 1080i) on the cable box

That's not relevent to the point. Of course changing channels will change what you get. Different channels have chosen different frame rates, resolutions, and encodings.

A channel will switch to 1080i when the big sport ballgame is playing and will drop to 720p when it cuts over to whatever the regular programming is,

No, it won't. It'll stick with one framerate, resolution and encoding. FOX, for example, is 720p. CBS is 1080i60. TBS - an example of a non-broadcast station - is 1080i60. Here's a full list.

They do not change resolution dynamically. Sorry. Just doesn't happen. Resolution/frame rate changes require transport stream breaks, and that can cause all kinds of issues. It shouldn't cause issues, but it does.

I've never seen 1080p on my cable feed or OTA.

Unless you've refused to watch drama (including movies) on 1080i60 stations, then yes you have. It was transmitted using 3:2 pulldown so it looked like a 1080i60 stream, and would look OK on a CRT TV displaying 1080i60, but your LCD TV almost certainly reversed the pulldown process.

That's why when you last saw a movie on CBS or TBS, you didn't see fringing lines where-ever there was movement. Well, at least that's probably why you didn't - if you did, you need a better TV...

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[grimr]

You probably have stations that send their content at one resolution and switch to their affiliated network's resolution when showing network content. All the stations in my area are either 720p or 1080i and don't switch.

Regardless, no cable company I've heard of sends 24 frames a second for movies. It's either 60 frames for 720p or 30 frames (60 fields) for 1080i. So to send a 24 FPS movie you have to do pulldown.

I wish pulldown was dead as most devices still don't do reverse pulldown properly.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[Dozy Lizard]

No. Pulldown is how TV networks that have chosen to broadcast in 1080i60 broadcast 1080p24 content. It's the only method available to them.

Assuming you are correct, how does the TV know the content was originally 1080p24? If you do inverse telecine on stuff which was originally recorded live interlaced you won't get very good results.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[TheSync]

"That's why when you last saw a movie on CBS or TBS, you didn't see fringing lines where-ever there was movement."

Indeed, no fringing lines on movement, but since most people leave motion interpolation on by default, they can see all kinds of weird things within 24p original material...

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[lgw]

All I get on Netflix streaming is "content will be be removed soon". Their streaming technology is OK (hate the client UI, but that's different), but that's only useful if I like one of the six programs they have left.

I wish I saw a good (legal) alternative to DVDs in the mail, but I still don't.

Re: Burn in... Improvements?

[Miamicanes]

Unless it's real 60fps video, in which case you're fucked. Deinterlacing film-source is child's play... you could probably do it in realtime using JAVASCRIPT. Deinterlacing real 1080i60 is another matter entirely.

Faroudja *himself* declared about 10 years ago that realtime automatic low-latency deinterlacing of high-framerate content is hopeless. At best, you might get semi-ok results from offline non-realtime AI-assisted deinterlacing, but a $200 (or $2,000, or $20,000) TV will *never* be able to convincingly deinterlace real 1080i60 with only 2 frames of latency, because it's mathematically impossible. It would be like trying to have the TV algorithmically colorize black & white in realtime.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[mattack2]

BluRays in the mail.. ba dum psh!

and/or RedBox.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

RedBox is awesome. I love it so much better than the old-fashioned video rental stores, with the caveat that I live in Minnesota and a lot of RedBoxes are located outside. Sucks on cold days.

If I can't somehow stream a movie I'm looking for, I wish RedBox could burn a disc for me - something like having their own proprietary BitTorrent service that would get ANY movie I want and burn it while I drive over to pick it up. Tits!

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[evilviper]

how does the TV know the content was originally 1080p24? If you do inverse telecine on stuff which was originally recorded live interlaced you won't get very good results.

It's very easy for a filter to try reassembling fields into frames, then checking if they match, and perhaps outputting the interlaced fields to the next filter unmodified if they do not.

The pulldown pattern of duplicate fields is quite uniform and consistent, with the exception of the occasional edit, so it's obvious after just a few frames if your guess was wrong.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

TV is mostly worthless, so not sure why that's your concern. Downloadable content and blu-rays come at various resolutions including 4k.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[thegarbz]

Upgrade to Bluray. Stop complaining about lack of 1080p content when what you're saying is you don't want to buy 1080p content. It's available. So is 3D 1080p content, and so is some 4K content.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

My cable co compresses the fuck out of all HD feeds to get 500+ channels so much that it all looks like shit. Why fucking bother?

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[lgw]

Bluray is a kind of DVD (which is technically a kind of laser disk, though with the different form factor it makes more sense not to call it that). It's still DVDs in the mail.

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[thegarbz]

I think what you meant to say was it's still 1080p content.

But sure move the goalpost, no true content is 1080p unless it comes through as a stream right?

Re:Burn in... Improvements?

[lgw]

Who are you arguing with, anyhow? foxalopex was obviously talking about streaming. I do the old-school thing, because the streaming content is so limited, but from most people's point of view these days, having to wait for a DVD in the mail is "hard to find content".

4K is really quite limited - buying a TV this year is definitely being an early adopter hopeful that the content will one day come. Netflix has the infrastructure to stream it, no doubt, but that's not content.

Supply side economics

[vvaduva]

Wait..did /. just make a case for supply side economics? Imagine that! The people that usually push heavily for government mandates, regulation and price controls are actually claiming that a high supply of widgets leads to lower prices.

Bwahahahahah

Re:Supply side economics

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for your meaningless groupthink jab. It has elevated the discourse on slashdot.

Please consider offering more relevant commentary in the future. As an alternative, consider exercising your right to remain silent.

Re:Supply side economics

[bluefoxlucid]

They also ignored technical progress. Supply-and-demand is a far-downstream economics behavior that everyone somehow got to thinking is a core economic tenant.

Technical progress is core. If you have an assembly line with 100 people making 10 things per hour, that's 10 hours of work per thing--ignoring the cost of tools on the line, organization (management), shipping, materials (which are produced by labor--how do you have stone when it's in a giant chunk 500 meters below the ground?), etc. That's a limiting factor on price.

How is it limiting?

Let's say you make $20/hr, and those line workers make $10/hr. Well, their 100 hours of work make 10 things; 10 hours of their work makes 1 thing; and you can buy that 1 thing with 5 hours of your work. Put another way: you can work 1 hour and induce those people to work 2. That's wage-inequality--it sucks, and it's also kind of required for a functional economy (it's the interaction between the microeconomy and the macroeconomy: humans economize by expending the least of their effort for the most benefit, and society economizes by expending the least of all its resources for the most benefit--which means inefficient businesses fail while better ones make the same products cheaper).

So to make a thing, you need 10 hours of labor at $10/hr, or $100. Ouch. That thing can't be priced for under $100 if you want to keep paying your laborers. Laborers need to eat, so they need enough money to pay the farmers, shippers, and super market retailers to get them food, too, so that $10/hr wage can be lowered... some; it can't be lowered indefinitely.

So there's a lower bound on price. That bound I just gave doesn't include the cost of payroll taxes, benefits, administration, risk, tools, supply chain, materials themselves, and so forth; and my explanation of the wage gap correctly displays your take-home wage of $20/hr after all taxes and the $10/hr supposed wage of the workers (failing to account for the things I just mentioned), but fails to point out that you had a wage of more than $20/hr and only have to pay to cover the pre-income-tax wage of $10/hr.

In the macroeconomy, those taxes end up spent on other government services, or pay debts that were accrued earlier to spend on other services, so cycle through the economy--not necessarily efficiently or inefficiently, depending on whether a private-market supplier is more-efficient than a government supplier, which is itself dependent on economic situation (e.g. various types of welfare reduce the general economic costs of things like unemployment or healthcare, but reflect a larger chunk of the total production of an economy for lower levels of technical progress and thus become more-efficient as technical progress increases--or, to show by example, unemployment and public healthcare are efficient for wealthy economies and inefficient for poor ones).

For our purposes, however, this all means that you have to pay the workers, That is, you have to pay the workers. You're buying the product of their labor; you supply the pay for that time.

Technical progress means we get those 100 workers to assemble 20 things per hour, and now it's $50 instead of $100.

Just so you know....

[JustNiz]

The new 2017 LG OLED TV's have dropped 3D support.

I own three OLED screens

[TheMiddleRoad]

A Nexus 6p, a 55" 1080p OLED LG, and the new Alienware 13" OLED gaming laptop. I did comparisons to the best LED laptops and monitors. The OLEDs cream them all, even for plain text. As for screen size vs color vs black level, I find black level and color far more important. I do most of my watching on the 13" laptop. The kids watch on the big OLED. My wife watches mostly on her LED laptop, but that's because she watches in bed, and there's no longer a TV in the bedroom. She also insists on watching without glasses, so there you go.

NOT getting a new tv UNTIL ATSC 3.0 tuners avail

[furry_wookie]

I am not going to bother getting a TV until 2018 or so when ATSC 3.0 tuners are included. No way I want to spend money on a new 4K TV and then be stuck in a couple of years having to have some lame external ATSC tuner and/or sell it and get a newer TV just a few years later.

Plasma replacement

[dhaen]

I've enjoyed a plasma TV for about 10 years and have been particularly unimpressed by the LCDs that superseded it. This year in Japan I saw the new generation of affordable OLEDs and realised that this is the technology that most likely will satisfy me. The colour is pretty close to correct (no I can't afford a Dolby monitor for home, though I have them at work). Without a reference white light (as used in my industry for accuracy), my eyes will adapt sufficiently to accept the small inaccuracies for home.

BTW for those with the "more resolution is better" obsession, I suggest you consider the frame-rate issue, in terms of quality perception. There have been many studies that suggest that extra bandwidth is better utilised in increasing frame-rate than absolute resolution.

Re:Plasma replacement

[grimr]

I'm still using a plasma. Love the contrast ratio on it and would never switch to LCD. OLED also has very good contrast but I'm worried about burn in and colour fade. The upcoming Quantum Dot LED technology looks like it will be the perfect replacement for plasma.

Re:Plasma replacement

[mykepredko]

I've had a plasma for 8 years and haven't thought anything about it until I bought a decent LCD for the kids.

I was shocked at the difference in the picture quality and clearly, if anybody thought LCD was good enough, they haven't seen what you can get with a plasma TV.

I'm looking forward to replacing the plasma in the next year or two with an OLED, when the burn in/life issues are understood and not a problem.

Re:NOT getting a new tv UNTIL ATSC 3.0 tuners avai

[Anonymous Coward]

Tuner?

Broadcast TV should die.

the OLEDs i seen are all big and expensive

[FudRucker]

like in 55' size and in the 5 thousand dollar range.
i dont want a TV that big and i am not willing to spend more than a 2 or 3 hundred on a tv and i dont need a tv bigger than 24' to 36' max in size.
i dont watch much TV anyway, i use a 24' LCD for a computer monitor, and get 6 stations over the air on an antenna.
I would buy a OLED when they get in the size range and price range that i want

Re:the OLEDs i seen are all big and expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Durr. You can get 55" LG OLEDs for $1800. Time to wake up. You are not a target customer, so why even comment?

Re:the OLEDs i seen are all big and expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

> You are not a target customer, so why even comment?

I just went to Target, and they didn't have OLED TVs in any size.

Re:the OLEDs i seen are all big and expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

like in 55' size ...

Cue Spinal Tap references...

OLED is probably bad if you like watching sports

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like the idea of OLED TVs because I really like watching sports. I wouldn't expect burn in to be a big problem if you're interested in watching ordinary TV shows, though I suppose the network watermarks might burn in slightly. However, I have a Galaxy Note 4, which has an OLED screen, and Android's status bar is severely burned in. That could be a big problem for watching sports because the same thing could happen. Most networks like NBCSN, FS1, and ESPN have tickers that scroll news and other scores along the bottom of the screen. It's nice because you can watch one game and keep up on what's happening in other games. There are also score boxes that are generally located near the bottom of the screen or in a corner. The exception is NASCAR, which generally uses the entire top of the screen to scroll through the order of the race. Regardless, if you watch a lot of sports, the tickers and score boxes could be severely burned in, just like the Android status bar on my phone. Unless the burn in can be addressed, this seems like a really bad thing for people like me who watch a lot of sports. Sure, I'd love to have better picture quality for watching sports, but it's not worth it if I'm going to have ESPN's "bottom line" ticker permanently burned in on my TV from watching college football and basketball.

TV again - woot?

[AndyKron]

Finally I'll be able to watch TV again after my smartphone spoiled me.

Thinner lighter will be cheaper yet

[Anonymous Coward]

The basic raw materials are pretty cheap, (unlike a big glass tube).
Once the R&D are amortized, the run cost of building them, is pretty cheap.
Curved will go the way of the Faux 3D.
There is a limit to how big a home owner will want to go.
When it looks like a theater stage/screen from 30 ft, at your living room's size.
Don't buy ones with all the crap built in. Get separate pieces, you can replace the parts that fail or get pawnd.

and 2017...

[monkeyman.kix]

will also finally be the year of Linux on the desktop.

sigh...

Re:NOT getting a new tv UNTIL ATSC 3.0 tuners avai

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off.
Broadcast is still the best way to do ephemeral programming.

This will go perfectly....

[thomn8r]

...with the soon-to-be-ubiquitous Linux desktop

New features like malware

[Actually, I do RTFA]

This is an LG TV. Didn't we just get told all LG devices are "smart"? Ransomwear is already a thing on "smart" TVs. Why aren't the display and the driver separated out and connected by a dumb cord?

Re:New features like malware

[TechyImmigrant]

That's why my next TV, if I ever get one, it likely to be a monitor, unless the TV makers improve their game.

Re:New features like malware

[mattack2]

Unless you literally mean a computer monitor, a "TV" monitor (i.e. tv without any tuning) actually costs more than a regular TV...

so just don't connect a regular TV to the network..

Re:New features like malware

[Anonymous Coward]

I count myself lucky. I bought a TV recently and the cheapest one they had, that had perfectly acceptable picture quality for me, was totally dumb. It was the only dumb one in the whole shop. I was very glad that I won't have to face this dilemma for another five years or so (I hope; I was astounded to realise the old one had lasted 12 years).

Re:New features like malware

[knorthern knight]

> so just don't connect a regular TV to the network.

Until such time as "a regular TV" won't work without an internet connection. At that point a computer monitor and a separate ATSC tuner are what I buy.

Worse than CRT burnin /w low display lifetime

[WaffleMonster]

I actively avoid OLED when purchasing anything with displays in them. IPS looks fine to me and is significantly more reliable.

Re:Worse than CRT burnin /w low display lifetime

[thegarbz]

I actively avoid OLED when purchasing anything with displays in them. IPS looks fine to me and is significantly more reliable.

You also seem to actively avoid keeping up on developments and trends in technologies if that is your opinion of them.

It's all crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Until they improve the quality of the shows, why would I want a TV?

Sounds Cool -- How Do I Disable The "Smart?"

[ewhac]

OLED displays look gorgeous, and that will probably be what I get to upgrade from my LED DLP.

Just one concern: How do I lobotomize the "Smart" that seems to be infecting all TVs these days? Stories concerning massive security and privacy issues with Smart TVs are all too easy to find, so you'd think it would be just as easy to find TVs that are "dumb", or at least articles on how to rip the "Smart" out of any given smart TV.

I know Vizio has a (small) line of tuner-free displays, but then they foul it up by bolting on a Chromecast and including an Android tablet as a remote (!).

Re:Sounds Cool -- How Do I Disable The "Smart?"

[ffkom]

Just do not connect your "smart"-TV to any network (wired or wireless). Only connect sources via HDMI or an unidirectional antenna/sattelite signal. This way, it's unable to phone home all the time, as "smart" TVs usually do, and won't tell the TV's manufacturer everything including the color of your underpants.

Re:Sounds Cool -- How Do I Disable The "Smart?"

[lgw]

Just don't put it on your wi-fi. Mine has an ethernet port, which I've used a couple times to get firmware updates, but now that it seems stable I won't even do that. None of the "smart" features are a problem without a network connection.

Re:NOT getting a new tv UNTIL ATSC 3.0 tuners avai

[Anonymous Coward]

But if ATSC 3.0 really contains everything in ATSC 2.0 I'm not sure I want to watch TV anymore...

Re:NOT getting a new tv UNTIL ATSC 3.0 tuners avai

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? You watch broadcast TV? Where do you live, the 90s?

They need to make it in sizes usable as a monitor

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been staring at 42 inches for six years, and I won't go back to laughably small sub-40-inch displays. At the same time, however, I recognize that going much larger than 42 inches is impractical. 55 inches is flatly impossible. There's a market for big TVs as PC monitors, and LG would be wise to recognize it. Then again, LG still have to figure out what they're going to do about latency.

QLED

[manu0601]

Now QLED is coming, manufacturers need to quickly cash out OLED R&D investments before the technology is obsoleted. This is why they will aggressively push it.

Re:NOT getting a new tv UNTIL ATSC 3.0 tuners avai

[mykro76]

Better not hold your breath too long my friend. ATSC 2.0 never even made it out the door and 3.0 will go the same way or be obsolete the moment it hits the market. ATSC is scrambling furiously to keep up with Netflix & co, and the internet tubes are only going to get faster and fatter every year.

Re:4K is such a waste for many TV sizes; OLED, yes

[AK Marc]

Yeah, people say the same about LCD over Plasma. Yet my 720p plasma has had multiple people ask me if I had 4k. Bright, crisp and clear, people assume it has to be better than the "old" and "bad" plasma and 720. And the OLED phones weren't rated more highly than the LED phones.

I'd rather have 4k than OLED, unless the OLED comes with some more tangible benefits, like weight and power savings with that "better" screen. But for now, the cost penalty for OLED for a screen that's substantially similar to an LED or plasma isn't worth it (for most people, as evidenced by the sales numbers).

Make up your minds!

[Anonymous Coward]

We took the OLED out of gasoline, now we are putting it into TV sets. Make up your minds!

Todays Bleeding Edge

[nehumanuscrede]

is tomorrows old news.

I don't pay ungodly prices for brand new tech anymore. Been burned too many times on that one. ( Bought one of the first HDTV's that didn't have HDMI :| )
When the prices of the tech I want comes down to something reasonable, and I actually need it, then I'll buy it.

Until then, I don't care if Angels Sing and lightrays from God himself powers the damn thing, it will sit on the shelf at the store.

Dont care about OLED, implement better scaling

[Anonymous Coward]

For years I've been wrestling with getting old game consoles to work well on new TVs. Sure, the better ones have a 'game mode' option which disables a lot of the image processing thereby removing a lot of input lag, but my concerns are mainly around video scaling, specifically:

• TVs treating 240p (SNES, Sega Genesis and older) as 480i (240p consoles technically output 'blank lines' to fill a 480p space (hence the 'scanline' effect)
• TVs that take a long time switching between resolutions (or even outright fail) - a lot of PS1-PS2-era games switch resolution in things like cutscenes/menus making them damn near impossible to play efficiently

And this is only going to get worse with 720p/1080p consoles now having to be upscaled to 4K resolutions.

Yes, there are external scalers out there like the Framemeister and OSSC, but they are expensive and add an additional layer of processing which you really don't need when going for frame-perfect input. And old CRTs and PVMs are becoming harder (and more expensive) to find cheaply, not to mention maintain and replace as they age.

So if any TV company execs are reading this and feel like addressing a niche to get an edge over the competition, take a good hard look at your internal video scaling hardware/software, because it's one of the biggest bottlenecks for gamers.

Re:NOT getting a new tv UNTIL ATSC 3.0 tuners avai

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this will be as big of a deal in the past given that "external device" could now likely now just be a USB stick.

Just In Time!

[StikyPad]

...to be usurped by QLED in 2018!

Input Lag?

[omfglearntoplay]

The only thing I care about is input lag. If they aren't better than the best of the older technology, not buying it.