Black Filters - marketing or is there a difference

[egertmic]

Hi,

This is my first post (I think?) so please excuse any lack of knowledge/poor terminology.

I've decided to upgrade the TV in what has now become the main viewing room. I currently have a Pioneer KRP-500A which is great (and will be moved to my office) but suffers from one big problem - it's highly mirror like and in a very light room (effectively a conservatory).

I'm looking at 65inch TVs and leaning towards an OLED which effectively means a choice between LG, Sony and Panasonic. Given I've no particular interest in the audio side and, from what I've seen and read, there are fairly incremental pros/cons and strengths/weaknesses for each, this leaves my two main determining factors as:

1 - form factor. Orientation of how the cables plug in (from the back, side, bottom etc) and practicality of wall mounting with a slight downward tilt, and

2 - how well does the screen deal with in room reflections

1 is easily dealt with (though I'm still not sure if you can wall mount the Sony A1 with a slight downward tilt?).

2 is harder to determine as I haven't been able to view the candidates alongside each other at a retailer and none of the reviews seem to explore this. Panasonic promote their Absolute Black Filter but is this just marketing that they've latched on to? Do all of the 65" OLEDs have some form of filter or is Panasonic demonstrably better at reducing in room reflections?

Things have obviously moved on so I'm sure that they're all better than I'm used to, but how do they stack up in relation to this one 'feature'? Hopefully they're all similarly capable as I'd rather stay in the £4k - £5k range than shell out £7k (which would make me feel somewhat nauseous!).

Finally, and just out of curiosity - given the likely use for these TV's why isn't anyone offering a pared down monitor?

Many thanks in advance
Mike

 

[EndlessWaves]

Rtings reckons that the Sony A1 has a similar anti-reflection coating to the C7 and that the C7 gives reflections a slightly less purple tint than last year's models. They are US-based so they won't be reviewing the Panasonics.

Sony A1E Review OLED (XBR55A1E, XBR65A1E, XBR77A1E)
LG C7 Review OLED (OLED55C7P, OLED65C7P)

 

[egertmic]

Bar the absence of the Panasonic that's exactly the info I was after. Many thanks

 

[Joe Fernand]

Ambient light - window shades are the better option.

Form factor - most of the mainstream manufacturers have 'Pro' models with a cut down feature set and offer higher brightness, wider viewing angles...

Joe

 

[Dodgexander]

Its only the flagship EZ1002 that has the black filter. The EZ952 doesn't. From the review on this very site:

Panasonic 55EZ952 4K OLED TV Review

But thats not to say it performs worse than the others. I don't think any of the tv's have anti reflection filters, they just have glossy panels that deal well with them well and OLED as a whole deals with reflections far better than Plasma.

With LCDs like the Samsung Q7 and KS series its different, they have anti reflection filters, but thats probably because the panel technology benefits from it more.

 

[egertmic]

Yes - it was the 1002 that I was looking at.

I think your comment about OLED being better than plasma in general, and that LCD screens (I was looking at the Samsung Q9F) require them more, has tipped me in the direction I wanted to go...namely mildly insanely priced 65" OLED rather than very insanely priced 65" OLED.

Many thanks

 

[Dodgexander]

I think you will have much better value buying a 2016 model if you still can, but if not waiting for the OLEDs to drop in price. Not so long ago you could get the 2016 OLEDs for almost half what they were retailing for at release. It will be the same with this years models. Come black friday they will get reduced and slowly (with ups and downs) come spring next year you will get large reductions in price.