55" oled variable frame rates etc.

[andykara2003]

I'm due for a TV refresh and am considering a 55" lg oled. Unfortunately I can't have a 65" TV in the house as it'll be too big for the living room.

What would be the best strategy regarding how long to wait to buy an lg oled? I don't mind waiting for up to a year & I don't want to miss out on features that the PS5 would have like variable refresh rate - are there any other factors or features I might want to wait for that lg's 2019 oleds would likely have?

Lastly, if I remember correctly, there's a point in the year when the current lg oleds drop in price - would anyone know when that usually is? If that tends to be in the autumn, perhaps the best strategy is to wait for the 2019 oleds to drop in price and buy then for the latest features at the cheapest price?

[Ed Oscuro]

Just did some reading on this issue - everything about the PS5 is rumor at this point, even the launch date. 2020 seems plausible but different sources seem to be saying different things even in the last 24 hours, as Sony is going to skip E3 2019.

I've read / heard people saying OLED is still bad for gaming, so I'd do an in-person demo before plunking down the cash. I also am not sure that the OLED screens I'd want are gaming-focused enough. Rtings.com is my go-to review source now and they make it easy enough to search for such features.

For variable refresh rate support on consoles you'd be looking at AMD FreeSync, an optional part of HDMI 2.1.

Unfortunately Sony have no FreeSync-ready TVs, nor have they ever bothered to support the technology on the PS4 despite the Xbox One series having done so on very similar hardware. I am not hopeful Sony will offer it on the PS5, unless FreeSync adoption goes through the roof soon. (They really ought to support it, but I can think of a reason why they would not - extra testing to get good results at different framerates.)

Not to make things more complicated, but one other thing I am watching is whether next-generation consoles will combine backwards compatibility and 120fps support in uncapped games to allow some titles to be played at frame rates faster than 60fps. Currently, the Xbox One X supports 120fps games, but a game has to allow an uncapped framerate to even allow faster framerates, let alone be able to run fast enough on the hardware. The good news is that TVs with true 120fps support seem to be pretty decent performers for gaming.

Good lucky andy (:

[andykara2003]

Thanks very much for that Ed :) It's a bit of a minefield - I think I'll at least wait until next year's TVs get announced for details on VRR etc. I've had a look but can't find much on why LG's oleds aren't good for gaming apart from burn in - Rtings seems to rate them highly: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/best/ ... deo-gaming. I'd be very interested if there are other reasons not to go with them though as that might put me off. The Lgs might be my only option for oled as I can't afford a Sony.

I'm thinking VRR must be a feature in PS5 as the Xbox one X even the S has it - but I hadn't considered 120hz. Another factor is that we have rough internet here so 4K streaming isn't possible. I'm wondering, then, if 1080p content from Netflix, BBC etc might actually look worse on the OLED than my current Panasonic GT60 plasma?

[Konsolkongen]

I don't understand where the "OLEDs are bad for gaming" are coming from :/

I'd say that they are by far the best displays for gaming. Compared to other sample and hold displays they blur much less, meaning that they will retain more clarity during fast motion. Actually OLEDs have zero blur, but it's still being perceived that way because of how our eyes work. Black frame insertion (LG's 8 series and up) will give perfect clarity, but introduce flicker (think CRT).

The LG OLEDs support 1080@120Hz like the Xbox One X supports.

The input lag on the LG OLEDs is great, at around 21ms. Sure there are displays that are even faster, but it's not that many years ago that no TV could even approach this amount of lag. It should be more than good enough for most gamers.

The LG OLEDs support all the various and weird resolutions the OSSC can throw out. It's a perfect match.

The picture quality is second to none. The colors are amazing and once you experience a TV with true blacks there is no going back. It will blow your socks off! :O

The HDR on OLEDs is generally really, really good. The brightness might not go higher than 700nits, but the perfect blacks means that this will look much more impactful than any LED with the same level of max brightness. HDR on LEDs can be a confusing mess, as many TVs claim to support it but in reality it makes little difference.

The main problem with OLED is the panel uniformity at near blacks. Here there will be some slight vertical bands across the screen. This will vary from panel to panel, and can even drastically change over time. This is annoying, but I also feel that you notice so rarely that (for me at least) it's not a huge problem. LG (who makes all the OLED panels for every manufacturer) has continued to improve this problem every year, so it should be slightly better on the 8 series compared to the 7.
Still, even with these slight bands, I would make the claim that the panel is still far more uniform than most LEDs out there, where the backlight usually brightens the screen unevenly, can cause darker edgers and whatnot. Most LEDs are really bad in this regard.

And lastly burn in... I mention this last because it's practically a nonissue these days.
Yes, permanent burn-in can absolutely happen on any self emitting display as the pixels age differently. BUT compared to plasma, this happens really slowly on OLED. So unless you play the same game with static HUD for 8-10 hours every day, for a month, you keep in on the same TV channel all day every day, or god forbid are stupid enough to use it as a PC monitor, I think it's safe to say that there's nothing to worry about.

I've been playing 4:3 games with black borders for 4-5 hours in a row, watched several letterboxed movies in a row and kept the TV on the same channel for hours on end. I was very careful to begin with, but I've learned that as long as you vary the content you watch it won't be a problem. At the very worst you'll see some slight image retention, like on plasma. But unlike plasmas which could display this retention for hours and even days, it usually disappear within minutes on an OLED.

The TV also has built in methods of preventing burn in. The pixel shift, makes the whole screen move a few pixels every few minutes. And every four hours your TV has been in use, it will perform a compensation cycle when in standby that will clear up any image retention.

People like Linus, from Linux Tech Tips will spout this nonsense that OLEDs are bad for gaming and that burn in is a huge risk. But that guy is a moron who uses his LG W7 OLED as a damn desktop monitor! Meaning that it has been running with the same static windows bar at the bottom and the same background for months! That's downright retarded, and OF COURSE this would cause permanent burn in...

I hope this helps you in your buying discussion

About the price drop, in Denmark this happened on black friday last year, and the price for the LG C7 was kept very low ever since.

As for HDMI 2.1, don't hold your breath hoping that 2019 models will fully support it. The very first HDMI 2.1 chipset was just recently made available, making it very unlikely that it will find its way into many TVs the next year, as the internals are pretty much set at this point. That being said, VRR can be implemented on HDMI 2.0 as Samsung has already done on some of their TVs this year. But it might not arrive until 2020 on LGs.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah, I'm a bit mystified by the OLED hate, for the reasons you mention, but I figure it's worth testing to one's satisfaction (even on the first handy display model, to get a rough idea what to expect) given how expensive these sets are still. Some people might be ranking LCD screens ahead because some have strobing backlights for "CRT-like" motion handling, which would be a plus over OLED - but it doesn't work with adaptive sync (yet), and I don't know of any TVs that use it, either.

I'm a bit spoiled by the reviews (and my super-fast PC monitor) these days, so I'd be tempted to go to an LCD screen anyway. Definitely a good kind of 'problem' to have, considering how slow many TVs were up until recently.

[Fudoh]

There are LCDs available that can achieve frame interpolation while keeping the lag relatively low. If this is your thing (turning 30fps titles into 120fps ones), then this is a huge argument in favor of those. LG's frame interpolation is rubbish (and so is LG's upscaling from low resolutions like 480p).

[energizerfellow‌]

Some people might be ranking LCD screens ahead because some have strobing backlights for "CRT-like" motion handling, which would be a plus over OLED - but it doesn't work with adaptive sync (yet), and I don't know of any TVs that use it, either.

Black frame insertion on TVs is most definitely a thing and Rtings reviews even have a section in their standard review template to cover BFI. The 2018+ LG OLEDs also have BFI.

There are LCDs available that can achieve frame interpolation while keeping the lag relatively low. If this is your thing (turning 30fps titles into 120fps ones), then this is a huge argument in favor of those. LG's frame interpolation is rubbish (and so is LG's upscaling from low resolutions like 480p).

What kind of scaling algorithm sins is LG doing, specifically?

[bobrocks95]

If you have or plan to get a high-end PC, I'm of the mindset of waiting for HDMI 2.1. The idea of 4K@120Hz is way too tempting to me to consider a large purchase any time prior- we also already know LG's panels can handle it, as you can play 4K 120fps videos via USB.

On the console end, I think VRR is all you really need to look out for, and I think it's likely that LG's next models will have it, since Samsung has already implemented it on a few of their current sets.
As for Sony supporting it, I see no reason why they wouldn't in the future. Both them and Microsoft use similar AMD APUs, the Xbox One has just been more forward-thinking with implementing it (they did so before it was even in the official HDMI spec). I'd be really disappointed if Sony's next console didn't support it.

[Konsolkongen]

What kind of scaling algorithm sins is LG doing, specifically?

Fudoh is right that the LGs scale 480p really poor. However 720p, 960p, 1080p and 1200p from the OSSC is scaled really well. Sure I would have prefered integer scaling on 720p and 1080p, but from a few meters you’d be hard press to notice the difference. It looks very sharp, and ringing is not an issue (provided you set sharpness to 0).

I own every major console since the NES with exeption of the PC-engine and using an OSSC I never have to input anything less than 720p to the TV. Therefore 480p handling is not a huge problem as it can easily be worked around

[orange808]

I had a bad experience with a Samsung QLED this year. SNES and NES signals were put through a generic frame rate conversion algorithm. I used the DVDO to identify the range the display displayed without resorting to frame rate conversion. I don't remember the specifics, but I posted it somewhere on here. The range is too narrow to get smooth native frame rates from SNES, NES, and Neo Geo.

Also, you might consider motion handling. The black frame insertion on Vizios is the best to my eyes. Unfortunately, I ended up getting multiple replacements for my last Vizio under warranty--and I moved on after my final (warranty replacement) unit also failed. The first Vizio I brought home from the store had a section of backlight that didn't work; I returned it. A few months later, my replacement failed and I contacted Vizio directly. I ended up getting three replacements from Vizio while under warranty. It's actually four, because I refused delivery on one of them. Terrible build quality on the D series I had.

Sorry to dump horror stories, but that's what I found.

[andykara2003]

A lot of really good information here, and very good to know that 720p & 1080p scale well on the LGs - although I wonder how much extra lag that introduces?

It looks like I need to wait for the next generation of LGs as it doesn't look like they're going to support VRR until then. If bobrocks95 is right and VRR is the only extra detail we need to worry about with the next gen consoles then that simplifies things quite a bit. BFI sounds good, but I don't like the idea of it reducing brightness and basically negating HDR with the oleds.

[Konsolkongen]

1080p doesn’t add any lag. Never seen any measurement of 720p, but It’s probably the same.

[andykara2003]

Thanks, very good to know.

[SNK-NEO-GEO]

I have 2 OLED 55 and picture retention is a problem for me and very distracting..buy one where it has a good return policy. OLED are at the right price for 55 model costing bellow $1500 on slickdeals or dealsea, the best time to buy is next week, Black Friday.

[bobrocks95]

A lot of really good information here, and very good to know that 720p & 1080p scale well on the LGs - although I wonder how much extra lag that introduces?

It looks like I need to wait for the next generation of LGs as it doesn't look like they're going to support VRR until then. If bobrocks95 is right and VRR is the only extra detail we need to worry about with the next gen consoles then that simplifies things quite a bit. BFI sounds good, but I don't like the idea of it reducing brightness and basically negating HDR with the oleds.

I think worst case scenario is if the new LGs don't support VRR or have anything else significant that's new, and you don't want to wait another year, you could likely still get the 8 series for relatively cheap at that point. I think the new models launch around March, and they're probably going to be shown off at CES in January, where you'd hear them hyping up features such as VRR if they've implemented them. They maybe won't be Black Friday prices, but they're still going to be significantly cheaper than MSRP.

[copy]

The main problem with OLED is the panel uniformity at near blacks. Here there will be some slight vertical bands across the screen. This will vary from panel to panel, and can even drastically change over time. This is annoying, but I also feel that you notice so rarely that (for me at least) it's not a huge problem. LG (who makes all the OLED panels for every manufacturer) has continued to improve this problem every year, so it should be slightly better on the 8 series compared to the 7.
Still, even with these slight bands, I would make the claim that the panel is still far more uniform than most LEDs out there, where the backlight usually brightens the screen unevenly, can cause darker edgers and whatnot. Most LEDs are really bad in this regard.

Personally, I found the vertical banding to be an unforgivable issue. I did notice it constantly, and it always took me out of whatever I was watching. All the other benefits of OLED didn't make up for this major flaw for me.

I'm much happier with the near-perfect uniformity of my LED. I won't try OLED again until LG fixes this; it's inexcusable that the supposed premium display technology has such an awful problem. There's a long thread about it on AVS Forum

[andykara2003]

I think the new models launch around March, and they're probably going to be shown off at CES in January, where you'd hear them hyping up features such as VRR if they've implemented them. They maybe won't be Black Friday prices, but they're still going to be significantly cheaper than MSRP.

Sure, that's a good point - I guess the other, maybe best case scenario is if they do announce VRR with the 2019 models and there are other worthwhile improvements, wait until next autumn until the B9/C9 price has dropped and go for it then as they seem to have huge price drops over just a few months for some reason. Also, there's a reasonable chance that Sony will reveal the PS5 during the summer, hopefully with some details on features/specs which would be useful.

It's a bummer to hear from Fudoh that the Lg motion interpolation is bad - and have they sorted the black crush issue with lg oleds or is that thing of the past now?

[Konsolkongen]

Do you need motion interpolation? I personally hate that stuff, but to each his own

I’ve calibrated my set using test patterns, calibration discs and a colormeter, and there is no black crush. Maybe that was only on the older models? Never heard it before.