Replacing a 42" Panny Plasma

webby54

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So, one of my Panasonic plasmas has finally died and it looks like it's time to replace the primary one and move that into the secondary room. Both are 42".

I've been very happy with the picture and never really had any problems with motion while watching football. Also, the sound is good on those models.

Now, it would appear that OLED is the way to go, but at £1000 at least, I don't know if I can go that far.

Mainly, I want good picture quality like the plasmas.

Please answer the following questions:
  • What are your sources going to be? For example:
Do you have fibre internet capable of UHD streaming? 40Mbps haven't explored UHD streaming yet for obvious reasons
Will you be buying and using an UHD Blu-Ray player? No
Netflix? No
Amazon? Yes
Apple TV. Yes
Catch up TV? Yes
HDR games consoles? No....secondary tv will have an XBOX
PC usage? No
DVDs? No
FHD Blu-Rays? What?
Sky, BT or Virgin? UHD or HD? Sky, SD and HD, probably 40/60; we only have the free HD channels
  • Movies, sport, console games, PC use in percentage? movies, tv series, sport, football
  • How close can you view the TV? 11ft
  • Do you need to view the TV from the side or only straight on? Slight angle....20-30% We have 2 sofas at about the same angle
  • What conditions do you view in? During the day? At night with lights on? In the dark? A mixture. Evening with lights on ideally.
  • What TV are you currently using and what are expecting to see upgrading to a new TV? Bigger screen for more of everything, good motion handling, good darks and detail.
  • Motion - Are you interested in being able to use motion enhancements on your TV to reduce judder and/or reduce motion blur? Both frame interpolation and frame insertion let you do this, read more about it here. They both have their upsides and downsides, so read carefully.
My first thought for size is a 55". One thing to note is that the tv will be in the corner of the room as it does serve two sofa positions. I think for this reason it will have to be a 55" as a 65" may have to be brought forward a bit as its width will prohibit it going back into the corner too far.

Budget is anywhere between £350 and £500-600 but I really want a good picture and the motion handling; I do not want to see blurring watching football. A friend of mine had a 55" curved Samsung I think, only a few years old, and on football it was awful!!

Help! :confused:
 
I went from a 55" plasma one of the last panny of the line, to Lg C8 65".
C8 is in extension and panny in lounge. I have to say the OLED wows a lot for me, in streaming 4k and 4k blurays and 1080p blurays. I had concerns the OLED may look to unnatural compared to plasma but not at all. I see 55" are coming down in price but most I know still think 1k for a TV is far to much.
And to appreciate the OLED its got to be dark or near enough to.
 
I had one of those 42” Panasonic Professional plasma displays from 2006 until 2016. I was entirely happy with it with one exception. The screen size. It shrank! I’m convinced of it.

I knew I’d never be satisfied with an LCD screen after plasma and decided OLED was the only way to go. I was in the fortunate position to be able to afford a Loewe Bild 7 55” OLED. When it was first turned on I just went “wow”. The black levels were something the plasma could never attain.

We differ in our sources but if you want ultimate picture quality then only consider OLED and spend as much as you can’t afford. :D

Panasonic make very good sets but now the shops are open go and view a few. Quality costs so you may need to review your budget.
 
I really wouldn't suggest going for less than the Sony XF9005, Samsung Q70R/Q80R if you want a degree of future proof with HDR video. Hand in hand these TVs come with better motion (especially the Sony) and they are the best compromise you can make between future proofing without spending too much money.

Cheaper TVs cut too many corners, with motion or with HDR, or both.

If you intend to avoid HDR video then that is when cheaper options become good value. In your conditions a TV like the Hisense 55U8B or Samsung 55RU8000 would be suited. The 55Q60R is more or less the same TV as the RU8000 but tends to be on the expensive side and is probably the next best option.
Last TV to consider if you want to avoid HDR use is probably the LG SM9000.

I agree with what has been said above though, an OLED is definitely more of a like to like replacement for a Plasma TV. Going for an LCD TV, especially a mid range one or budget one is going to be too many steps back for each step forward.
 
Thanks all, a place to start some research at least.

What are your thoughts on size Dodgexander?
 
I really wouldn't suggest going for less than the Sony XF9005, Samsung Q70R/Q80R if you want a degree of future proof with HDR video. Hand in hand these TVs come with better motion (especially the Sony) and they are the best compromise you can make between future proofing without spending too much money.

Cheaper TVs cut too many corners, with motion or with HDR, or both.

If you intend to avoid HDR video then that is when cheaper options become good value. In your conditions a TV like the Hisense 55U8B or Samsung 55RU8000 would be suited. The 55Q60R is more or less the same TV as the RU8000 but tends to be on the expensive side and is probably the next best option.
Last TV to consider if you want to avoid HDR use is probably the LG SM9000.

I agree with what has been said above though, an OLED is definitely more of a like to like replacement for a Plasma TV. Going for an LCD TV, especially a mid range one or budget one is going to be too many steps back for each step forward.

The Sony is £749, the Samsung Q80R is £899, The LG SM9000 is the Nanocell right? That's £799.

Would they be completely outclassed by the OLED LG55B9PLA at £1098?....if I could strecth that far?

The Samsung RU8000 and Q60R are cheaper at £599 and £699, while the Hisense is in between at £649.
 
I moved from a 42" Panasonic ST60 (2013 model) to a 65" LCD TV and I wish I had gone bigger, but that is perhaps down to the kind of content I view, and that I view a lot closer to the TV for a cinema experience compared to some.

If you plan to use the TV for sport or film, then getting a TV as big as you can get is a really good idea as you'll get more immersion that way. Likewise a big TV offers more benefits when you use higher quality content.

Where it isn't a good idea is if you are still using the TV to watch daytime TV, or soap operas..or the kind of stuff you have on TV in the background. For starters, on a larger TV regular TV doesn't look that good. It can be pretty low quality, but also viewing too close to a larger TV can feel too much for some people.

So there's not really one correct answer, it all depends on your personal taste and how you will use the TV. Nowadays 55" is more or less a baseline size, with manufacturers only releasing higher end models at this size and upwards now. There's only one or two 50" models that can be considered better than average overall TVs...and TVs that are cheaper tend to have worse specs at smaller sizes too.

At your viewing distance I wouldn't overthink it though, perhaps make a cardboard cut out or tape with some masking tape on the wall the profile of different size TVs? Then perhaps you have an idea how big they look in your room. 11ft is quite far away to view, even from a 65". So its hard to imagine you'd find even a 65" overbearing.
The Sony is £749, the Samsung Q80R is £899
If you are looking to future proof your purchase you shouldn't consider TVs less than these in price. They will be problematic when used with HDR and thus, now or in the future if you play back content in HDR, you'll get problems displaying it. Only go for lesser models if you don't have the intention to use HDR with the TV and you are confident you can avoid it.
The LG SM9000 is the Nanocell right? That's £799.
This isn't really a good buy compared to the other models, I'd avoid it.
Would they be completely outclassed by the OLED LG55B9PLA at £1098?....if I could strecth that far?
Generally most people agree this would be a night and day difference overall compared to the other TVs you are considering. OLED tech will bring more all-round gains to picture quality than an LCD TV.
The Samsung RU8000 and Q60R are cheaper at £599 and £699, while the Hisense is in between at £649.
I'd only consider these models if you are on a strict budget and you plan to avoid using HDR with the new TV.
 
So, now I'm looking at the GZ950 and the LG55B9.... They both have deals with soundbars at the moment, although I've read that the GZ950's built in sound is quite impressive.

Apparently, the GZ950 doesn't have eARC, whatever that is, and something else I can't recall right now. One review also said it doesn't have HDMI 2.1....is that correct?
 
Ok, so now I'm looking at sizes and I've made a cutout for the room.

New......
IMG_0902.jpg



Versus current....
IMG_0903.jpg
 
I had one of those 42” Panasonic Professional plasma displays from 2006 until 2016. I was entirely happy with it with one exception. The screen size. It shrank! I’m convinced of it.

.....

Shrank!? I absolutely know what you mean. See my pics above. My 42" looks tiny now.
 
Shrank!? I absolutely know what you mean. See my pics above. My 42" looks tiny now.
Told yeh! :D It’s all a balancing act with large screens. Yes, 4K stuff will look brilliant however large the screen. But the larger you go the worse HD and especially SD will look.

I appreciate people may have a limited range of SD but with FullHD / Blu-Ray it’s important to get the signal as clean as possible. For example, I only switch my TV to UHD for UHD material. Otherwise it stays in 1920*1080 mode for Sky and Blu-rays.

I work on the principle that the scaler in my telly is a damn sight better than the one in the Sky box. Yes, it’s a pain switching resolutions in Sky but absolutely necessary for me. You’ll even see an improvement switching Sky to 576i for SD stuff as your telly will do the upscaling better probably.

Good luck and keep us posted. :thumbsup:
 
Right now it seems like the only choice is the 65 inch LG B9 cos it’s the most affordable. From what I’ve read it may just be better than the Panasonic 65GZ950 anyway which is £200 more.

Both of these bigger OLEDs are reported to have decent sound built in which is a plus.
 
I've read that the GZ950's built in sound is quite impressive.

I have a 55" GZ950 and I love it - it's a very worthy successor to the Panasonic plasma it replaced. I think it might be a bit of a stretch to describe the GZ950's in-built sound as impressive, but it's possible it might be better than that from certain other makes. I guess it all depends on what you're coming from and therefore what you're used to. I appreciate you're already pushing your budget, but you'd be doing such a good TV an injustice to use anything less than a decent soundbar (and preferably a full surround-sound system) - trust me ;)

Apparently, the GZ950 doesn't have eARC, whatever that is, and something else I can't recall right now. One review also said it doesn't have HDMI 2.1....is that correct?

ARC and eARC come in useful when connecting multiple external devices to an AV amp (or soundbar), because only one HDMI cable is then needed between amp and TV. It basically sends the sound from the TV back to the amp, whereas normal TV HDMI ports are input only. eARC is an HDMI 2.1 'feature' - it's an upgrade to ARC and allows more bandwidth for the very latest digital sound formats.

'Full' HDMI 2.1 is currently considered to be only of any real interest to gamers for future proofing against next-gen consoles and even then, it seems debatable as to how soon any consoles or games will be able to take advantage of all of the HDMI 2.1 features.

LG is currently the only manufacturer (I think) to offer 'full' HDMI 2.1 ports, although other manufacturers (such as Panasonic) are able to add certain HDMI 2.1 features such as Auto Low Latency Mode (for gaming in the GZ950) or eARC (in their 2020 models) to their HDMI 2.0 ports.

Basically, if you're not intending to connect a next-gen games console then I personally wouldn't worry about 'full' HDMI 2.1 but if you're committed to making your TV as future-proof as possible despite this, then LG is the way to go.
 
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Right now it seems like the only choice is the 65 inch LG B9 cos it’s the most affordable. From what I’ve read it may just be better than the Panasonic 65GZ950 anyway which is £200 more.

Both of these bigger OLEDs are reported to have decent sound built in which is a plus.

The LG B9 isn't a better TV than the GZ950 - it's the C9 which is LG's equivalent to the GZ950.

All these TVs use the same LG panel, but the B9 contains an older generation processor than the C9 so there will be some differences between them. 'Near-black handling' is one, from memory of watching many reviews on all these sets last year. Whether you can tell the difference between them yourself is another matter though and if budget is an issue, then I don't think you'd be disappointed with the B9 - far from it. They are all good TVs.

The main spec differences are that the B9 and C9 contain HDMI 2.1 ports if you're a gamer (the GZ950 only supports one HDMI 2.1 feature which is ALLM), but the GZ950 supports all the HDR formats (Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG) whereas the LGs don't support HDR10+
 
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I've seen the Panasonic TX-65FZ952B at Richer Sounds for £1499....

What is this, is it an older model? Any good?
 
I've seen the Panasonic TX-65FZ952B at Richer Sounds for £1499....

What is this, is it an older model? Any good?

The FZ952 was one of their higher-spec OLEDs from 2018 as it had an integrated soundbar for superior sound. It was very well reviewed at the time.

One disadvantage of that set though is that it doesn't support Dolby Vision, which is currently widely considered to be one of the better HDR formats. There will have been other improvements between their 2018 and 2019 sets, too.

It's obviously your money and your priorities may be different, but I personally wouldn't spend £1500 on a TV in 2020 that didn't support Dolby Vision. The majority of the HDR content I've watched on Netflix and Amazon so far has been in Dolby Vision and looks fantastic.
 
Thanks Mike, I'm inclined to agree.

I think at the moment the LG B9 offers the best bang for buck at 1599. Others on the shortlist are the Panasonic GZ950 at 1799 and the Sony A8G at 1699. The LG C9 is a stretch too far considering I started out with a lower budget.
 
Ok I’m now looking into uhd content and I’m maybe naively surprised to find that I will have to pay an extra £20 a month to sky for sky Q to get this!

Edit: I could be wrong on this, it's not entirely clear on their site; If I get Sky Q (£10pm), HD and UHD are included as part of the Sky Q "experience" which is as I would have thought, but again, it's not as clear as it ought to be. So, £10pm is no so bad.

What are your experiences with sky Q? I’ve read some not so good reviews.

What other ways can I get uhd content?
 
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I don't have Sky at home, but my partner has Sky Q at her place and it seems decent enough. It has a nice, modern, slick interface that makes Sky HD look dated and feel slow. She only has a 1080p TV though so I can't comment on how 4K HDR looks, but it's a very new service so if you're only upgrading to Sky Q for 4K HDR, then I would read up on it thoroughly first to check it's worth it. I listen to the AV Forums podcast quite often and I'm sure I've heard comments about 4K on Sky not always looking great, due to the compression they use ? I might be wrong though, so definitely look into this.

At my place, I get all my UHD content from Netflix and Amazon Prime. The good thing about Netflix is that you go month-to-month, so can cancel at any time. The bad news is that you need their most expensive package for 4K HDR (£12/month)

There's a reasonable amount of HDR content though. Lost in Space and their remake of The Dark Crystal looked great in HDR. Like Prime, they have a lot of exclusive content that you won't find on Sky.

On Prime, I've watched The Boys, Good Omens and Hanna in HDR, amongst others.

Did you go for the LG B9 in the end ? If so, it doesn't have HDR10+ but I don't think that'll matter too much. I believe that Sky and the BBC use HLG and I think most (if not all) of the Netflix and Prime stuff I've watched was in Dolby Vision.
 
When I bought my 4K TV back in 2016 SkyQ had just started. The 4K package would cost another £12/month which seemed reasonable. I have Sports and Movies packages plus Sky Atlantic, Nat Geo etc so have access to quite a bit of 4K material. Football is very good as are Movies. Recently they've added a new Nature channel which has HDR added. That adds an extra dimension but isn't as impressive as via 4K Blu-rays.

If you're going to have a 4K TV it makes sense to have some 4K programmes and Sky have the most of any broadcaster. Programmes like Chernobyl are extremely good. All 4K content has to be downloaded bar football where you have to press either Enter or the Red Button to access it.

One tip. Don't leave SkyQ in 3840*2160 mode for all broadcasts. The upscaling is poor. Set it to the resolution of the broadcast. Even SD looks better when you choose 576i rather than leaving it in 1080p mode. Fiddly but worth it.
 
One thing I forgot to mention is that you'll need a good broadband download speed to stream 4K reliably. Netflix recommend a minimum of 25Mbps.

If you have to download 4K content from Sky, as @RayP mentioned, then broadband speed is presumably less of an issue and a slower speed will simply mean that the programs take a longer time to download.
 
Mike and Ray,

Thanks, no, I haven't got the LG just yet... I have a broadband issue which I'm trying to sort out before I go any further. I recently upgraded to a higher speed connection but I'm seeing little difference and I have a dropout at the same time every day. Weird.
 
I've got a problem on my line which Sky are going to look into in the next 72 hours. If I'm going to upgrade to a new TV and Sky Q, I need to get this sorted.
 
So, finally, I think (fingers crossed) got my Internet issues sorted out. That was a royal pain in the ass.

Since then, the 65" B9 has gone up by £200 to £1799...not happy about that Sky!

So now the B9 is the same price as the Panny GZ950, while the C9 is another £200.

Is the Panny the better tv at this price?
 

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