50" plasma to 55" OLED - underwhelmed?

[stiv674]

As the thread title suggests, I'm considering changing from a 50" Kuro plasma to 55" OLED, I'm concerned that I'm not going to be particularly wowed by the change, I'm sat about 6/7ft away.

Has anyone gone down a similar route and been underwhelmed with the result?

I'd like a 65" but it's too big for my room, why aren't there any decent 60" TV's...

I've been wanting to change for the last few years but can never make up my mind.

Thanks

 

[mikej]

I went from a 46" Panasonic plasma to a 55" Panasonic OLED a couple of years ago. I was forced into it due to the plasma failing, admittedly, but I don't regret it.

Whether you'll be wowed by the move to OLED may very well depend on the content you watch - to get the best from a 4K OLED (especially at that viewing distance), you'll need to start looking at HD and above if you haven't already ditched your SD viewing although, saying that, my GZ950 does a surprisingly good job of upscaling old SD material when there's no alternative. It's 4K content that will make a good OLED shine though - 4K HDR from Prime or Netflix looks fantastic and that's something you can't experience on a 1080p plasma.

So can you see yourself moving towards 4K ? ie. subscribing to Prime if you don't already, upgrading to the top Netflix package, going for a PS5/X Box Series X (if you're a gamer) and/or upgrading to a 4K Blu-ray player ? If so, then that's a good reason to upgrade but if not, then you really won't be getting the best out of an OLED and the modest jump from 50" to 55" may not give you the wow factor you're wanting.

 

[mikej]

One other thing you may want to suss out is motion - I haven't had any major issues going from plasma to OLED, but some people struggle with the motion handling.

 

[stiv674]

I went from a 46" Panasonic plasma to a 55" Panasonic OLED a couple of years ago. I was forced into it due to the plasma failing, admittedly, but I don't regret it.

Whether you'll be wowed by the move to OLED may very well depend on the content you watch - to get the best from a 4K OLED (especially at that viewing distance), you'll need to start looking at HD and above if you haven't already ditched your SD viewing although, saying that, my GZ950 does a surprisingly good job of upscaling old SD material when there's no alternative. It's 4K content that will make a good OLED shine though - 4K HDR from Prime or Netflix looks fantastic and that's something you can't experience on a 1080p plasma.

So can you see yourself moving towards 4K ? ie. subscribing to Prime if you don't already, upgrading to the top Netflix package, going for a PS5/X Box Series X (if you're a gamer) and/or upgrading to a 4K Blu-ray player ? If so, then that's a good reason to upgrade but if not, then you really won't be getting the best out of an OLED and the modest jump from 50" to 55" may not give you the wow factor you're wanting.

Hi, a lot of my viewing is Disney, Netflix etc, although I'm not sure how much of that is 4K as I don't look for 4K content specifically.

£1k+ is a lot to spend, especially if there's no immediate wow factor.

I think a 65" would give me that, if I can make room for one...

 

[mikej]

Hi, a lot of my viewing is Disney, Netflix etc, although I'm not sure how much of that is 4K as I don't look for 4K content specifically.

Disney and Prime include 4K at no extra cost but you would need the Netflix Premium package (£13/month) for their 4K/UHD stuff. There is a lot of 4K content on those streaming services these days though, so there'll be plenty to choose from. A lot of Netflix's exclusive content (eg. Squid Game for example) comes in Dolby Vision and looks amazing.

 

[mikej]

£1k+ is a lot to spend, especially if there's no immediate wow factor.

I think a 65" would give me that, if I can make room for one...

With the right OLED, the wow factor often comes from the addition of HDR rather than the jump from HD to 4K. What 4K would allow you to do though is increase your screen size fairly dramatically (eg. to 65"+) without loss of picture quality - this is obviously at the expense of any SD material though, which starts to look too soft when upscaled to 4K on a larger screen at shorter viewing distances.

When I was upgrading a few years ago, I didn't go for a 65" OLED mainly due to cost. A 65" was at least 50% more expensive than a 55" (so easily £2000+), which would have also made any potential 'screen burn' a lot harder to swallow. It was my first OLED and still early days as far as the (now standard) screen burn-countering features were concerned. Disney+ didn't exist back then and I didn't have the UHD Netflix package - we were also still watching a fair amount of SD (Freeview, DVDs) from time to time. 46" to 55" at my viewing distance of around 8-9ft was a decent upgrade at the time and one I've been more-than happy with. I wouldn't necessarily want a 65" at my viewing distance for normal day-to-day TV-viewing, but a 65" screen would definitely be a big advantage when watching 'letterbox' movies, where you lose some of that screen 'real estate' to the black bars.

In terms of the future, my viewing habits have definitely changed since I got the OLED - I've now got access to HD/4K from Disney+, Prime and Netflix and watch virtually no SD these days. My thinking is that by the time I next come to upgrade, a jump to 65" would be a logical step. Prices are likely to have come down, too. One thing that puts me off the larger screen sizes though is screen uniformity issues, which seem to be a lot more common at the 65"+ sizes than at 55".

 

[stiv674]

Disney and Prime include 4K at no extra cost but you would need the Netflix Premium package (£13/month) for their 4K/UHD stuff. There is a lot of 4K content on those streaming services these days though, so there'll be plenty to choose from. A lot of Netflix's exclusive content (eg. Squid Game for example) comes in Dolby Vision and looks amazing.

Thanks for that, I think I do pay for Netflix premium as my niece uses my account on her 4K TV. There's definitely a lot of decent 4K content available now.

Screen uniformity is a concern as well, fingers crossed I get a decent panel, if I can ever make up my mind

 

[sapphire88]

Dunno if this is still a live concern - if you already bought a new TV or not .... I've just replaced a 5080D kuro with a LG C1 77. I would say that for SDR stuff the LG has a comparable basic image quality with better black levels although some tweaking is need to dial out some of the black crush (to my eyes).

Obviously for HDR you get those sexy eye popping highlights and they do add to certain types of content especially space/sci-fi stuff.

To be honest If I did not have a serious hankering for a bigger size I would not have replaced the kuro and that opinion hasnt changed having now compared it to a modern premium grade (but not flagship) OLED, but I wanted to treat myself to something really big and spectacular to watch the last season of the Expanse on (and probably the rest of it as well eventually).

TL DR: yes its worth the upgrade if you going for a bigger screen, if not then its not enough of a step up to warrant it IMO, which goes to show how fantastic TV the kuro was (and still is). Again IMO 4k makes no odds on the 50 - 55 size range in fact its only a marginal improvement over 1080 on my 77 (which is probably because the LG is so good at upscaling).

Also if you have a library of SD / sub-SD / low bitrate content the Kuro is still unmatched at this - anything below 720p is pretty vomit inducing on the 77.

 

[filmalskaren]

I have a 5090 kuro plasma and the panasonic hz2000. I bought the oled two months ago. One will be in our bedroom, and the other one in the livingroom. I think they complement eachother; there bad at different things if i only could have one it would probably be the plasma, sadly. There are to many issues with oled im afraid. The buggest is motion! Second is uniformity. As others have pointed out, it dependz on content and thats why i think i need both tvs. I think i could have waited for the "upgrade" but i dont think the motion issue is solved for yers, if ever. As my self and others said, motion is the main problem, it can not be undestated!

 

[rpr]

I initially went from a 42" plasma to a 55" OLED and now have a 65" OLED. Not once regretted changing, neither me nor the rest of the family have seen any motion 'issues'.

 

[jdevil]

I would rather save and wait another year then go for the 65" if you can. It's hard enough to see 4K difference on a 55" screen.

 

[sapphire88]

Cinema screen: on and tru motion: cinematic settings on my LG C1 77 look pretty much the same as my kuro. Without at least the lowest level of motion smoothing its just too jerky so you have to be able to tolerate some motion smoothing. Also my screen is perfectly uniform as best I can tell, at least nothing noticeable in actual content, I dont really want to go looking for minute flaws though and dont want to spend hours fiddling with test signals.

 

[sapphire88]

I would rather save and wait another year then go for the 65" if you can. It's hard enough to see 4K difference on a 55" screen.

I can barely see the difference between 4k and 1080p on my 77 - high bitrate / hvec 1080 looks fantastic and was well worth the upgrade from 50. Below 1080 you really do notice the drop off in quality quite quickly though.

 

[sapphire88]

duplicate .. (remove)

 

[jdevil]

I can barely see the difference between 4k and 1080p on my 77 - high bitrate / hvec 1080 looks fantastic and was well worth the upgrade from 50. Below 1080 you really do notice the drop off in quality quite quickly though.

That's quite surprisingly, I thought at 77" the difference between 1080p/4K must be quite jarring but a lot of the time it depends on the content. Some specific contents on 4K looks brilliant like Matrix/Lucy, while others look no different compared to the Blu Ray (all Marvel films).

 

[filmalskaren]

Cinema screen: on and tru motion: cinematic settings on my LG C1 77 look pretty much the same as my kuro. Without at least the lowest level of motion smoothing its just too jerky so you have to be able to tolerate some motion smoothing. Also my screen is perfectly uniform as best I can tell, at least nothing noticeable in actual content, I dont really want to go looking for minute flaws though and dont want to spend hours fiddling with test signals.

This is spot on. If you turn interpolation completly off, then its to distracting with the jerkyness. Anyone seen the tom cruise-video where he states that it should not be used because its not the directors intent. Well, a jerky picture like that is not the directors intention either im sure. The black frame insertion combined with interpolation at min gives a good compromise for sdr, but iys not usable for hdr because the light drop.

 

[sapphire88]

That's quite surprisingly, I thought at 77" the difference between 1080p/4K must be quite jarring but a lot of the time it depends on the content. Some specific contents on 4K looks brilliant like Matrix/Lucy, while others look no different compared to the Blu Ray (all Marvel films).

The encoding quality makes more difference than the resolution up to a point - give me high bitrate low noise 1080 over noisy/grainy 4k any day.