Answered Samsung UE49KS8000 or LG 49SJ810v

Afaik, 'back-lit' is a term that's applicable to all LED-tv's, since they all need 'backlight'. The 49SJ810V is edge-lit. From my experience, the light is very evenly distributed on this TV. There's a different kind of backlight though called FALD (Full Array Local Dimming), meaning that the backlights are distributed evenly in a raster behind the LEDs. This results in the ability to very locally 'dim' the backlight when no leds are active in that particular zone, thus better contrast. These FALD TV's are usually (far) more expensive. On the 49SJ810V, there's only 'local dimming', meaning that only a full vertical area can be dimmed, since it is edge-lit. It is not very effective, since if just one pixel needs illumination in a partical vertical zone, the whole vertical area will have to be illuminated.

Thanks for your informative reply Christopher it really helps!
Well I went into a currys superstore at the beginning of the week to have a look and try to compare TV's. The LG was in there looking quite good although the colours & brightness didn't seem quite as good compared to a few around it which I was surprised about., but still a great looking picture.
I spoke to one of the advisors who went over a few things and told me that it is the best 49" TV in store within that price range by far (£649). I went away to think about it.
I returned on Wednesday with the intention of purchasing the TV, and was having a nose around the other TV's when a different advisor came to speak to me. I thought I would play dumb (as in not let on that I had already spoken to someone) to hear this guys opinion (or spiel!)
he was soon joined by another who told me they wouldn't even consider the LG as it is nowhere near as good as some other options (didn't seem to particularly be upselling as they showed me a sony bravia 49XE8077S at £709). They said this is because LG have poured all their money into OLED at the expense of their smaller TV's. The sony did look good but I have not read good things about the operating system, with it being slow and laggy - something that would drive me crackers!
I also like the remote on the LG. I left empty handed.
Now I really don't know!
I also looked at the 49XE9005B at £1199, a big jump in price but the picture was visibly a lot better! hmmmm.....
anyway any info or advice regarding the above will be very much appreciated. or suggestions of what else to look at, ideally around £600/£700 but willing to go higher if there is a big advantage.
Thanks
 
Thanks for your informative reply Christopher it really helps!
Well I went into a currys superstore at the beginning of the week to have a look and try to compare TV's. The LG was in there looking quite good although the colours & brightness didn't seem quite as good compared to a few around it which I was surprised about., but still a great looking picture.
I spoke to one of the advisors who went over a few things and told me that it is the best 49" TV in store within that price range by far (£649). I went away to think about it.
I returned on Wednesday with the intention of purchasing the TV, and was having a nose around the other TV's when a different advisor came to speak to me. I thought I would play dumb (as in not let on that I had already spoken to someone) to hear this guys opinion (or spiel!)
he was soon joined by another who told me they wouldn't even consider the LG as it is nowhere near as good as some other options (didn't seem to particularly be upselling as they showed me a sony bravia 49XE8077S at £709). They said this is because LG have poured all their money into OLED at the expense of their smaller TV's. The sony did look good but I have not read good things about the operating system, with it being slow and laggy - something that would drive me crackers!
I also like the remote on the LG. I left empty handed.
Now I really don't know!
I also looked at the 49XE9005B at £1199, a big jump in price but the picture was visibly a lot better! hmmmm.....
anyway any info or advice regarding the above will be very much appreciated. or suggestions of what else to look at, ideally around £600/£700 but willing to go higher if there is a big advantage.
Thanks

I can only speak from personal experience. I bought this TV kind of 'blank', because when I bought it there was hardly any information available. Now, after 4 months of usage, I can honestly say I'm perfectly happy with my purchase. I'm still amazed by the very bright, natural and vivid colors.
But i'm not here to 'promote' this TV, which is different from the sales guys you spoke with, who may (or may not) want to sell you the most expensive one and will probably not be completely honest about the downsides of one particular brand or TV. Also, (and this makes choosing the right TV even more difficult) the color/brightness/motion setup in stores is usually a mess and far away from personal preference.
If you're going to watch TV and can't be bothered too much about "true blacks", then this TV is definately a good buy. I usually watch TV with normal room lighting or slightly dimmmed with room lights turned on. (never in complete darkness). One thing to consider is that the LG line-up of 2017 are all IPS panels. Those are not great at displaying black, but have great viewing angles. Most other brands use VA panels. Those are better at displaying black, but have worse viewing angles. So this comes down to personal preference.
Other things to consider: build quality. If it's about that, don't buy a Samsung. ;) Check how the front panel is connected to the back panel (preferably screws). In fact, I wouldn't recommend a Samsung at all, since their prices for their "QLED" line-up are simply rediculous. The OS: webos 3.5 and the LG magic remote are perfect. I don't think other brands can really compete with that (don't take my word for it, read the reviews).
Anyway, most of the choices have to do with personal preference. There's no "best TV" in this price range. OLED would have been my preference, but still too expensive.
 
Once again a really helpful reply Christopher thanks. I think I am just going to stop doing my own head in over-thinking it and go and buy the LG!
 
Hi everyone,
I'm reaching out as another brand new 49SJ810v owner!

First impressions: the colours and picture detail are amazing and the contrast is pretty good also, mostly with the help of Local Dimming, which works pretty well.

I'm a little disappointed with the backlight uniformity, there's IPS clouding in the right corners, but the Local Dimming hides this well.
Also motion could be more clear, but for the price point it's excellent.

I've been trying to optimize the picture settings which already worked out pretty well. I found some good settings to start with below on a review site (reference at the bottom)

Has anyone tried other preset modes like Theater, HDR Effect, Technicolor,... ?

Preset: Standard
Brightness: 52
Sharpness: 25 (Rtings.com advises to set this to 0 for other reviewed LG's)
Color temperature: C20
Color Tint: G3
Contrast: 95 (I bumped this to 100 on my set)
Color saturation: 63
Backlight: 68

Energy Saving: Off
Eye Comfort Mode: Off
Dynamic Contrast: Off
Dynamic Colour: Low (Rtings.com advises to turn this off for other reviewed LG's)
Skin: 0
Sky: 0
Grass: 0
Colour Gammut: Wide
Super Resolution: Low (Rtings.com advises to turn this off for other reviewed LG's)
Gamma: Medium
Noise Reduction: Low (Rtings.com advises to turn this off for other reviewed LG's)
Mpeg Noise Reduction: Low (Rtings.com advises to turn this off for other reviewed LG's)
Black Level: Low
Real Cinema: On
Motion Eyecare: Off
Led Local Dimming: Medium (I bumped this to High on my set since it doesn't annoy me)
TruMotion: User: De-Judder 6 / De-Blur 8

Still playing with the TruMotion settings to find a good balance.

Credit to: LG 49SJ810V televisie test en prijzen | Consumentenbond

Cheers,
Bram
 
Ok So I went out and bought the LG last night.
First impressions...... great!
Until I connected the virgin box through it. SD channels are displaying terrible! really blurry/pixely where there should be detail (for example peoples faces most noticeable, or on a footy match the timer in the corner, there is not a distinct edge to the numbers against the blue background) HD channels do not have this problem and look sharp. I have tried playing around with the display settings on the virgin box (2160p, 1080p etc) but makes no difference. The currys sales guy did try and tell me I needed high quality HDMI leads (surprise surprise) which I declined his 'offer' of 2 for £80 instead of each. I did quiz him about it though and he was talking about the transfer speeds of the cable. is this something I need to be looking at? and could this be part of the issue? I doubt it as HD & UHD displays crystal clear.
Can also be very juddery when there is movement, massively noticable when viewing a HDR stream via amazon or netflix app. I'm hoping all of this can be rectified via setting changes which I have been playing around with to no avail (thanks for the info above Bram I have given these settings a go but no cigar yet).
I love the way it communicates with the virgin box & surround sound to enable controls, menus etc to all be done from the TV remote. very impressed with this!
Hoping to get this sorted or unfortunately it will be going back! apart from the smart facilities, it is being showed up by my 8 year old HD LG
 
Hi gazzdid,
Sounds like you're facing Upscaling issues for SD content.
I assume your Sky box already upscales the SD channels to 1080p output and doesn't do this with very good quality (my cable box outputs 720p and also upscales SD content with bad quality, I can't say I see much difference between my old Samsung and the new LG for these SD channels).

To confirm this theory, you can set the Sky box to output with SD resolution like 576i or 480i / 720 x 480 and see if the LG displays the SD channels better.

From what I've read the "Super Resolution" setting should be suitable to upscale & sharpen low-resolution content.
Try setting it to High, and set Noise Reduction & Mpeg Noise Reduction to AUTO.

As for the motion clarity I've found that "De-Blur" actually increases the noise or the artifacts, try setting it to De-Judder 5 and De-Blur 0. Or turn off TruMotion completely to test the difference.

At least for 24fps content the De-Judder setting really works wonders when setting De-Blur to 0 (this seems similar to the TruMotion on LG OLED TV's)

In the meantime I've also changed the Gamma setting to Low to see more shades in dark scenes.

Edit: I've also set "Sharpness" to 0 in the meantime, this seems to smooth the picture as well.
 
Thanks outlander! I will have a play with these settings and let you know how I get on
 
Reading through this thread its disappointing to note that motion handling may not be that great for an £800 set.
However I guess you can't have everything and need to see where your priorities rest
 
Exactly taxboy, movement is not stutter-free and the contrast is annoyingly poor for dark scenes.
Also some Dirty Screen Effect can be noticed in vertical pans...

In the same league of 49" TV's, (even mostly higher priced) you have Samsung's MU6000, MU7000 and MU8000 series, which all suffer from motion blur issues because they use 60Hz panels.
I was planning to buy a MU7070 (same as MU7000T) instead because this is the only "cheap" panel with > 6300:1 static contrast but the motion was so terrible, a red shadow behind all moving white objects on a dark background.

Still thinking this is the best choice in this price class for a 49"?

You've got to try the Technicolor Expert mode. Looks definitely better than the "optimized settings" in Standard mode. It also offers the options to toggle Edge Enhancement and has a fourth Gamma option.
 
Moreover it's quite striking that the most recent reviews/comments about this TV set on multiple sites are far more negative than the older, initial reviews which were all giving top marks.
Which leads me to believe LG has produced different qualities of panels. My trust is forever lost in LG.
 
Moreover it's quite striking that the most recent reviews/comments about this TV set on multiple sites are far more negative than the older, initial reviews which were all giving top marks.
Which leads me to believe LG has produced different qualities of panels. My trust is forever lost in LG.
Or does the cynic in me suggest that the people who get the TVs for early review are only able to do so because they don't offer "robust" feedback
 
Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the advise. Based on the comments here, I recently bought the LG 49SJ810v. I am happy with the TV in general, but I find the sound quality from the internal speakers very "flat". When watching a movie which has alot of special sound effects, like "Fast and Furious" for example, I lose/miss alot of the background / special effects sounds.

My sound mode is set to Cinema and this still doesn't help. In fact, the voice levels is very low in this mode as well. My previous TV was a LG 37LG6000 37in LCD TV and the sound quality on that was so much better that I didn't need a sound bar. So I hope you're not going to recommend that I pay €200 for a sound bar now in order to get better sound quality.

I can still return the TV within a week, so if I can't find a decent solution, I might end up taking it back. Any suggestions on how to improve the sound ?
 
Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the advise. Based on the comments here, I recently bought the LG 49SJ810v. I am happy with the TV in general, but I find the sound quality from the internal speakers very "flat". When watching a movie which has alot of special sound effects, like "Fast and Furious" for example, I lose/miss alot of the background / special effects sounds.

My sound mode is set to Cinema and this still doesn't help. In fact, the voice levels is very low in this mode as well. My previous TV was a LG 37LG6000 37in LCD TV and the sound quality on that was so much better that I didn't need a sound bar. So I hope you're not going to recommend that I pay €200 for a sound bar now in order to get better sound quality.

I can still return the TV within a week, so if I can't find a decent solution, I might end up taking it back. Any suggestions on how to improve the sound ?

how much was the price difference compared to the two?

The samsung is by far the superior tv it has much better contrast ratio, and is a lot brighter in hdr and sdr. KS8000 is a great TV.

I dont rate LG at all, I really don’t understand with people buy in to them! there all round performance is much poorer compared to samsung and sony tvs.

Wish i was here to say go samsung over LG to get your moneys worth.
 
The Samsung is about €200 more.

Even a cheaper VA panel sony or samsung tv would be a better tv than this. Rtings shows it has poor contrast and poor sdr brightness, the hdr brightness is pretty decent but man I dont know why Lg get bought so much. They’re so inferior to other brands using VA panels. Plus the 2.8k fiasco on lg tvs not displaying full 4k. I just don’t understand why so many people continue to buy in to that.

Lg get the premium UHD lable slapped on it but only puts out 2.8k makes sense.
 
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