*NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

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Dochartaigh
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*NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by Dochartaigh »

Has anybody been following TCL's new 6-Series 4K HDR TV's? I know their last version of these (P-Series) was loved by gamers for it's low lag and compatibility with the OSSC. There's 100+ pages about them on the A/V forum if anyone is interested:

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/166-lcd-f ... eview.html
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/166-lcd-f ... st-36.html

I've been following a bit but honestly don't have enough time to keep up with those 100+ pages. Anybody have one? What are your thoughts? I saw one post which said "For the retro gamers who may be reading this thread: OSSC works fine with all modes just like last years P series". I did notice some people returned theirs for some stuck/dead pixels (but I think this can and does happen on any TV). Also saw some select people have banding in solid colors or something like that? -- quite a few complaints about this latter problem, but I can't tell if it's effecting like 50+% of these TV's, or less than a percent or whatever...anybody know?

If the majority of these are up to TCL's past TV offerings I'm thinking of grabbing the 55" for $599 from BestBuy ($1000 for the 65" is a little more than I want to spend although I would enjoy the larger size). I would check their return policy first because if it has any problems it's definitely going back. I'm mostly going to be using it for OSSC with my older consoles, but I'll probably have the Xbox 360 and Xbox One S hooked up to it as well (I don't have the new newest Xbox which does native 4k in games...too pricy at $500 for now...).
thebigcheese
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by thebigcheese »

Based on the Rtings review, personally I am happy to stick with last year's model (even though I could technically exchange it since I bought it two weeks ago): https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/tcl/6 ... -2018-r617. Looks like the blacks aren't as deep, the colors are both better and worse, the input lag is worse, quality control doesn't seem to be great right now, and the only substantial thing it added is motion interpolation which any gamer should turn off anyway.
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orange808
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by orange808 »

There's a new strobe/bfi option at 60Hz. That matters to me. I wouldn't have touched one of last year's models with a ten foot pole.

I personally can't stand sample and hold on a large screen. Everyone is different, but I absolutely hate blur. On a big screen, sample and hold at 60Hz is an absolute smearing mess.

The bad news is their implementation here looks bad. That's too much crosstalk. Vizio's P series last year had the best strobing.

In other news, Samsung just rolled out 1080p interpolation in game mode with about 23ms of display lag near the middle of the output. I have no interest in that feature this year, but it could develop into something interesting down the road.
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Dochartaigh
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by Dochartaigh »

To update this I grabbed a TCL 65R617 - actually had a service call in for the extended warranty on my Vizio E601i-A3 (1x1" area on the bottom right was WAY brighter than other areas) and they let me exchange it for another TV (I had to pay $200 difference of course). Some first impressions:

Would not fit in my full-size sedan at all...needed to borrow a pickup truck lol. Even that had about 1" of clearance between the wheel wells.

Wall mounting points are on the lower 1/3rd instead of dead-center like my last couple TV's. Had to move my mount down 10".

Be careful peeling off the protective coating off the rear - you're likely to peel off whatever film they have decorating the back of the TV (some faux-metalic film material which matches the actual-metal front bezel).



Besides that, this thing absolutely destroys my old Vizio. Like no competition whatsoever. Honestly, my biggest problem right now is trying to find some 4k or Dolby Vision content to watch. I absolutely hate 99% of TV series and that seems to be the only thing Netflix has in 4K (and I'm a big movie guy). Amazon Prime has nothing (that I don't have to pay for), neither does Sling TV. Even my pretty darn new Xbox One S won't let me play games in 4K (need to drop $500 on the Xbox One X model). My Mac Mini, Mac Pro, Macbook Air...all from 2009 to 2014 can't output 4k either... YouTube seems to have some 4k videos, but even watching those I thought some logo was supposed to pop-up on my TV letting me know if's in 4K or Dolby Vision and I see none of that...videos look just fine, but honestly, so far, the most impressive thing is the Netflix menu interface which looks absolutely stunning - I've never seen whites so bright on a TV (and I have several low-hour calibrated Sony BVM CRT monitors). I did break down and watch some Netflix 4K and Dolby series - look great, just not as stunning of a difference as I would have thought 4k vs 1k/1080p difference would be.

So right now I'm trying to find a decent website which outlines which service has what 4k content at any given time (hopefully movies), but everything I wanted to watch and was listed on Netflix for example was already taken down (which is why I hate Netflix!). ...and I'm trying to figure out how to reset all the settings since I've messed with so many I don't know which are the defaults lol.

*EDIT* been watching some short content in 4K and it can be pretty stunning. Watched a 4K timelapse video of Norway (the same one which convinced me to go there two years ago), and since I'm familiar with that video which I previously watched many times in 1080p on the old Vizio - 4K can be very nice and a decent step-up.
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by mvsfan »

Sounds awesome. wait till you try some classic games on it.

I hear they look good too through an OSSC.

I will be buying one of these too. I dont have to worry about where the mount mounts to though because right now I dont have a flatscreen tv in the room.
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cr4zymanz0r
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by cr4zymanz0r »

I believe I read this year's models have over 100ms latency with game mode off. While this isn't normally a big deal, I have one of last years models that can't handle some odd refresh rate stuff (Double Dragon PCB, X68000) through the OSSC without jitter unless I turn game mode off (and last year's models don't have near as much latency with game mode off). I don't know if that stuff will behave better with game mode on with this year's models.
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by mvsfan »

i think the only thing i have thats an odd refresh rate is a Consolized Neo Geo. but theres always component.

anyone know if these tvs support 240p component In?

I saw that It has a component jack but you need an adapter or a cable for it to go from 3.5mm to RCA.
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by nmalinoski »

mvsfan wrote:i think the only thing i have thats an odd refresh rate is a Consolized Neo Geo. but theres always component.

anyone know if these tvs support 240p component In?

I saw that It has a component jack but you need an adapter or a cable for it to go from 3.5mm to RCA.
It's a composite and stereo audio input using a TRRS jack, not component. (Component with audio would need a TRRRRS jack, which I don't think exists.)

Most modern TVs won't have anything beyond HDMI, because every other consumer video interconnect is obsolete, and maybe composite due to its commonness.
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Arthrimus
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by Arthrimus »

Does anybody know how these TCL tvs handle 720p sources? Do they do line multiplication or do they use some kind of scaling for lower resolution content. I'm considering replacing my 2013 Samsung in my game room, and I definitely want those sharp pixels.
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cr4zymanz0r
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by cr4zymanz0r »

Arthrimus wrote:Does anybody know how these TCL tvs handle 720p sources? Do they do line multiplication or do they use some kind of scaling for lower resolution content. I'm considering replacing my 2013 Samsung in my game room, and I definitely want those sharp pixels.
On my 2017 model it appears to be some kind of scaling to me, but very subtle. Content on the OSSC at 3x (720p) on my TCL looked noticeable sharper to me than content at 4x (960p).
Dochartaigh
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by Dochartaigh »

Arthrimus wrote:Does anybody know how these TCL tvs handle 720p sources? Do they do line multiplication or do they use some kind of scaling for lower resolution content. I'm considering replacing my 2013 Samsung in my game room, and I definitely want those sharp pixels.
I have no clue but I've been watching a 20+ movie series on YouTube in 720p and it upscales VERY well to my eyes. Actually switched over to the the ~3-4gb/each proper 720p rips of those (i.e. not watching through YouTube anymore) and those look even better (since they're a much higher bitrate).




I'll also add that I ran a bunch of DSE (Dirty Screen Effect) test videos on my 65R617 - and it's honestly pretty bad...that was until I ran the same tests on my pair of $1200+ NEC calibrated monitors I use for design work - and even those have a bit of DSE...so I guess it's not too bad. Still notice some slight dirtiness when I use the 65" TV as a monitor with browsing web pages, but when actually watching movies and playing video games it's still a pretty tight display (we'll see if my opinion stays the same as I use it more - I did just get it a week ago.
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cyborc
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by cyborc »

I have the 55" version and it has really bad DSE and banding. This is my second set. The first one had a bunch of dead pixels and TCL replaced it. I'm thinking about calling them and seeing if they'll replace this one too. It would suck to end up getting a set with even worse issues though!
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by BazookaBen »

I think I read that the 2018 Samsungs got a firmware update that gives them freesync. And in freesync mode their input lag is 7ms or so. Maybe you can put it in the freesync mode even if freesync isn't enabled on the source? I think they said overall input lag was reduced as well
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by Xyga »

Can't have FreeSync if the source isn't FreeSync, sorry.

Yeah this year's Samsungs almost have it all on the gaming-friendly features side, from NU8000 and up in the QLED range (by US model numbers/names), if you have an Xbone or AMD setup this is very interesting.

The really interesting ones are the QLED Q8 and Q9 (again by US's 2018 model names) though much more expensive than your average entry/upper-middle range TV.
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by mvsfan »

some of the LG tvs have Component input using 3.5 mm Jacks and adapters. they just use 2 jacks for all the signals. So It can be done, but they just didnt do it on this Tcl I guess.
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by fandangos »

My samsung has component over a single jack here, brazilian model MU6500 or something.
I need to find it, it's stashed somewhere.
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by nmalinoski »

fandangos wrote:My samsung has component over a single jack here, brazilian model MU6500 or something.
I need to find it, it's stashed somewhere.
Looking at the manual for the Brazilian MU6500, it's actually two jacks. The jack labeled "Component In" is a TRS jack that takes Pb and Pr, while Y and left and right audio are connected to a TRRS jack labeled "AV In".
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by thebigcheese »

cr4zymanz0r wrote:On my 2017 model it appears to be some kind of scaling to me, but very subtle. Content on the OSSC at 3x (720p) on my TCL looked noticeable sharper to me than content at 4x (960p).
3x (720p) can be integer scaled to 4K whereas 4x (960p) cannot, so that makes sense. 5x, on the other hand, is reaaaaaally sharp. While I can't say for certain that the TVs integer scale, with 5x I can't see any scaling artifacts, so it's either integer scaling or just generally very good scaling.
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by Arthrimus »

I ultimately found last year's model 55P605 on clearance at my local BestBuy, so I bought that instead. The handling of 720p is excellent on this TV pixels are razor sharp from the OSSC. It looks drastically better than my 1080p set did.
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by thebigcheese »

Arthrimus wrote:I ultimately found last year's model 55P605 on clearance at my local BestBuy, so I bought that instead. The handling of 720p is excellent on this TV pixels are razor sharp from the OSSC. It looks drastically better than my 1080p set did.
Keep in mind it supports 5x, too. If you think 3x looks good, try the 1600x1200 5x mode. That is true pixel beauty!
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Arthrimus
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by Arthrimus »

But 1600x1200 isn't integer scalable to 4k. 1080p mode is, but I don't like the way it crops the image. I think line3x is sharpest uncropped 240p option you can get
from the OSSC on a 4k set.
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Re: *NEW* TCL 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TV's (released May 1st)

Post by thebigcheese »

Arthrimus wrote:But 1600x1200 isn't integer scalable to 4k. 1080p mode is, but I don't like the way it crops the image. I think line3x is sharpest uncropped 240p option you can get
from the OSSC on a 4k set.
With 5x, I get slight borders on the top and bottom and a super sharp picture. Give it a try. I realize that 1200 isn't an integer scale to 2160, but the TV seems to be smart enough to figure out what's going on and scale it the right way because it looks fantastic. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I think it looks better.
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