1080p plasma > 4K OLED for 1080p?

[Xyga]

That's annoying you can't try out stuff over there - The guy was brilliant in the shop, he spent ages with me and got everything set up as I wanted it in a separate lower light demo area. The two TVs happened to be set up next to each other and I asked him to take them out of shop mode and into game mode as you say. Then he showed me where the HDMI sockets were and just left me there for as long as I wanted! And then proceeded to tell me that for my purposes I should get the plasma and not bother with any of the TVs in the shop. What a great guy, he was more interested in telling it as it is than selling me a TV.

Fantastic, we had specialized stores with dedicated sales people like that too...back in the early 90's. *sigh*

Thanks for conforming things about those two sets. Unlike the 'normal' Sonys the A1 definitely must have some stupid processing forced on lower resolutions, the unusual higher lag with those already hinted at something.

[andykara2003]

So are their LEDs pretty good for upscaling?

[Xyga]

For a long time Sony have had the best reputation when it comes to scaling up lower resolutions. Which doesn't mean each and every of their sets has been tested well-enough for that so we could guarantee it 100% across the entire name brand's range(s)
But if you avoid the bottom-end and the flagship, you should be able to experience the 'signature' image of the brand, including the kind of scaling you would expect from their sets.
There aren't many current Sony models owners though so the info is mostly missing (scaling quality and OSSC compatibility being the most crucial)

Now if the focus isn't retrogaming there's tons of people satisfied with Samsung. It's not that all of their sets suck at scaling, it's just that it is less known than Sony's and more difficult to get reliable info about, it's been my impression for a long time that Samsung's scaling quality varies a lot across the series and yearly revisions.

[andykara2003]

Ahh OK I didn't know that cheers. One of my other concerns with the TV type we wanted was that we have one of those really wide U-shaped sofas so we need the viewing angles to be super wide. This was one of the factors that kept me away from LCDs, LEDs, QLED etc. and pushed me towards the plasmas and OLEDs. That Samsung QLED is amazing and has great reviews apart from the viewing angles for example. I'm not very clued up on the LCD/LED/QLED thing though - are there certain models that have viewing angles as good or very nearly as good as the plasmas, OLED etc?

[Xyga]

Ah yeah you'll want to avoid sets with VA panels then, AMVA (mostly Sony), SPVA (aka SVA, mostly Samsung) and sevral other brands.
Unfortunately those are the vast majority lol.

IPS panels will provide great viewing angles but less contrast and poor blacks (which sucks for movies) the main manufacturers will be LG and Panasonic I believe.
LG IPS sets are mostly budget and suck. Panasonic might fare better dunno, check UK review sites for those.
Sony also make one or two IPS, like the **X800E (**XE8004 in the UK), not bad at all but has all the downsides of IPS as expected (check the review on Rtings and compare with the X900E which is VA)

So yeah since plasmas are gone OLEDs are pretty much the only thing for viewing comfort at any angle.
Either go for that or another used plasma indeed.
Oh and, LG have the A7 Full-HD (yes) OLED coming, 'budget' model without HDR, actually it should be available already but no reviews in sight, no idea what it's worth but it should be more affordable than the 4Ks.

[andykara2003]

Great, learning a lot here, thanks for that. Good to know about the A7 - that might be one for people to pick up to have in the future for legacy 1080p games as long as the motion holds up. Hopefully there won't be too many too many compromises in being their 'budget' set. Ideal case scenario I suppose is that it starts at £1000 and later down the line just before it runs out ends up around £600. I might be interested in picking one up then if the motion is good. I've heard that the OLEDs motion is supposed to be better than the other modern TVs but not sure how good..


Edit: Just seen it's already available in Europe for between 1500 -1800 Euros - sounds a bit expensive! Perhaps a good price-reduced end of stock purchase in a 2-3 years then.

[Xer Xian]

The A7 can be easily found for €1100-1200 in Italy. Still too much for a 1080p panel that doesn't support any new HDR or hdmi formats imho - from an AV enthusiast's perspective it is already obsolete.

And motion resolution on OLEDs is a mixed bag. Response time is nearly instantaneous but being sample&hold they need to resort to either additional processing (frame interpolation) or black frame insertion to avoid the retina persistence effect thingy (see Blurbusters for more). Scanning backlight would be another way to improve motion but I don't know if it's possible on OLEDs or even sensible to implement.

Being a weird low-end €1000+ TV, there's a chance that the A7 may not have any of the above features for better motion (or maybe just crappy interpolation).

[Fudoh]

If they offer the A7 on sale during the black friday/cyber monday deals for - let's say - 999 EUR, I'll grab one, just to give it a spin.

[Xyga]

Scanning backlight would be another way to improve motion but I don't know if it's possible on OLEDs or even sensible to implement.

It is though afaik still only the Sony Trimaster OLED monitors and Oculus Rift have rolling scan.
Doubt any consumer TV will ever have anything like that, maybe if film makers and games devs pushed juicy new contents that totally require it, there would be hope.

If they offer the A7 on sale during the black friday/cyber monday deals for - let's say - 999 EUR, I'll grab one, just to give it a spin.

That's be great, honestly it should have been a sub-1,000 set from the beginning.
Cheapest it's been in France so far was 1,299 now @ 1,339.

[andykara2003]

Scanning backlight would be another way to improve motion

This sounds like it could be the perfect answer - although I wonder if it might have a similar effect as BFI in that it gives a darker picture? I've just tried frame interpolation on my plasma - it does smooth things quite out a bit on Mario+Rabbids when spinning the camera (the game is in 30fps). Does this produce any negative effects in games? I guess more latency would be a thing as it doesn't work in game mode.

If they offer the A7 on sale during the black friday/cyber monday deals for - let's say - 999 EUR, I'll grab one, just to give it a spin.

I'd be very interested to hear your opinions on that.

[Fudoh]

I'd be very interested to hear your opinions on that.

of course. Once I get the chance...

Regarding your experience with the A1: Earlier this year I spent an afternoon with the ZD9 and I'm convinced that the A1 has the very same processing onboard. Upscaling looked terrific. Not a straight pixel doubling for 1080p as available on the X90 set, but REALLY good scaling nevertheless.

[andykara2003]

Regarding your experience with the A1: Earlier this year I spent an afternoon with the ZD9 and I'm convinced that the A1 has the very same processing onboard. Upscaling looked terrific. Not a straight pixel doubling for 1080p as available on the X90 set, but REALLY good scaling nevertheless.

That's interesting, after a little check I think you're right - they both use the X1 extreme processor. Very odd as I was honestly surprised at how rough the A1 looked to me. I had a really close and careful look with Mario Kart Deluxe on the switch which runs at 1080p and it didn't look good to me. A kind of pixelated smeared look - worse than the Samsung to my eyes. Perhaps the TV doesn't play well with the Switch for some reason? I wouldn't be that surprised as Nintendo has a habit of producing images that can be hard to make look good when upscaled, like the Wii, N64 etc. Perhaps if I'd taken my PS4 in it would have looked much better.

I guess it's also possible that I'm being too critical, but I can at least say that to me it doesn't look nearly as good as the plasma for Switch games. Also I was looking quite closely - at a distance of 7-8ft those artefacts would be much less noticeable. Perhaps I'll go in again with my PS4 and see if it improves things..

[andykara2003]

Just to add that I thought something must be up here as you're obviously much more knowledegable than me on these things - so I checked out the reviews of the A1 and ZD9 and indeed both have a reputation for being excellent at upscaling HD. I can only think the problem must have been with the image from the Switch. I'll go back with my PS4 and Switch next week to compare them but it sounds like the PS4 will look much better.

[Josh128]

All this plasma lovin is making me smile ... My two Samsung F4500s and my F5300 are still rockin', no hint of burn in, fading, or anything. They look as good as the day I bought them. Thinnest plasmas ever produced and awesome PQ-- its an absolute shame plasma is dead.