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Post by julesd68 on Apr 11, 2023 10:32:31 GMT
The other night I attempted to watch a UHD film on Amazon Prime but very frustratingly and not for the first time, I had to give up. The picture was consistently too dark and no matter what recommended picture setting tweaks I tried, whether basic or "expert", I just couldn't get a satisfactory level of brightness and detail. Some of the most challenging scenes were nearly pitch black!
The performance of my modest Samsung is absolutely superb in 1080p on Netflix but it really can't cope with UHD elsewhere, on Amazon and BBC iPlayer. I'm thinking an upgrade is on the cards but I want to be sure what I get will fix the issue.
I'm reading that for watching movies in a dark room, as I do, an OLED screen is the way to go. These are quite spendy and what I'd like to know is if it's just not worth looking at cheaper panels, and whether there is any particular tech that is de rigeur for decent 4k replay.
If anyone has been through all this and can offer some pearls, I would appreciate your thoughts.
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Post by MartinT on Apr 11, 2023 11:40:03 GMT
Having made my choice when we moved here, there is really nothing to touch an LG OLED screen. They might be spendy, but they're the best by some margin. No problem with Netflix, Amazon or the BBC on UHD material with or without HDR.
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seanm
Rank: Trio
Posts: 162 
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Post by seanm on Apr 11, 2023 12:30:51 GMT
My guess is that this a HDR problem.... If I *attempt* to watch HDR on my old telly which is NOT HDR the colours are totally washed out and wrong... feels like 60% of the colour is missing. The easiest tell-tale is the red N logo for Netflix is only pale orange. There are several different flavours of HDR maybe the one employed is not used by your telly?
Cheers
Sean
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Post by Slinger on Apr 11, 2023 12:47:34 GMT
Just for balance, and your info, my 4K Max Fire TV Stick is working perfectly normally with my LG telly.
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Post by Clive on Apr 11, 2023 12:55:23 GMT
Just for balance, and your info, my 4K Max Fire TV Stick is working perfectly normally with my LG telly. There is indeed a good case to be made for relying on a Fire or Kodi stick to do all the processing, these receive updates long after TV software is obsolete and a new stick (should you need it) costs peanuts vs a new TV. |
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Post by julesd68 on Apr 11, 2023 13:22:49 GMT
My Samsung uses HDR10+ which I think is still current. I think possibly UHD just needs a brighter screen with better contrast abilities and shadow detail retrieval to do it full justice. Otherwise you won't see it at anywhere near its true potential - some UHD films on Amazon are at least watchable but no great gains over 1080p which is frustrating.
I have the same issue with 4k Blu-ray playback and BBC UHD streaming - it needs a lot of tweaking to get a lifelike and bright enough picture. During the last World Cup I ended up watching the 1080p stream which was way more accurate to my eyes, if not quite as clean looking.
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Post by Slinger on Apr 11, 2023 15:33:29 GMT
If you're having to crank the brightness and/or the contrast up beyond "normal" levels, I'd suggest, on the face of it, that the evidence points towards the set itself failing. Has it always been so, or does the performance seem to have worsened over time, Jules?
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Post by julesd68 on Apr 11, 2023 15:55:41 GMT
The set itself is working correctly Paul - as I say the HD performance is really excellent and Blu-ray is especially good but delivering UHD to its full potential is beyond its pay grade. This is well documented in this level of budget LED panel. I can get very modest improvement by changing picture modes, tweaking gamma and backlight levels but always leave brightness and contrast alone as increasing them will not improve things.
I'm especially sensitive to film & video quality having spent so many years pouring over it frame by frame for work. I strongly suspect that nothing less than a decent OLED will give me the performance I would like.
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Post by Slinger on Apr 11, 2023 18:48:52 GMT
Consider QLED as well as OLED, Jules.
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Post by julesd68 on Apr 11, 2023 23:18:43 GMT
Yes I've been looking at the Samsung QLED range - these seem to be roughly the same price as decent LG OLED, maybe a little cheaper. In broad terms OLED is supposedly superior but would be good to see them side by side.
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Post by MikeMusic on Apr 13, 2023 12:39:57 GMT
I'm really happy with my Panasonic plasma
£110 2nd hand on Ebay
Don't understand why I'm perfectly happy with it and happy to spend money on a sound system
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Post by Slinger on Apr 13, 2023 12:57:54 GMT
Plasma is the most expensive technology to run if I remember correctly, and possibly the most environmentally unfriendly, although I wouldn't swear to that, but I'm sure I remember reading it when I had a plasma set.
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Post by MartinT on Apr 13, 2023 13:17:49 GMT
My old plasma Panasonic used to run hot. The LG runs pretty cool and has a far superior picture quality.
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Post by julesd68 on Apr 13, 2023 14:02:44 GMT
I'm really happy with my Panasonic plasma £110 2nd hand on Ebay Don't understand why I'm perfectly happy with it and happy to spend money on a sound system We get used to our TVs looking as they do over time and then indifference creeps in - I'm sure if someone brought round a really nice decent sized OLED to your living room to watch that Guy Ritchie film we liked in UHD you might well be tempted. The same as audio is a completely different experience on a good system, well made films come alive on a good screen and you can get so much more pleasure from them IMO. Especially if you pay a bit of attention to the audio side of things too ... Yes the plasmas are electricity guzzlers compared to today's TVs. |
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Post by MartinT on Apr 13, 2023 14:27:30 GMT
It's true, I'm really appreciating UHD material from the major streaming services these days. The picture just pops with realism.
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Post by MikeMusic on Apr 13, 2023 14:39:43 GMT
If this gives up I'll bring the 40" Panasonic Plasma from the other room as it is now hardly ever used. Better still listen to music and stop using both  |
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Post by julesd68 on Apr 13, 2023 19:17:49 GMT
To be fair to my humble Samsung it did a pretty decent job with "Operation Fortune" streaming in UHD on Amazon Prime. Even the high contrast interiors were respectable. Not perfect, but it made me think I don't need to be rushing to John Lewis at the weekend! I'll take my time to make sure I get something that I'll be happy with for a few years.
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Post by user211 on Apr 14, 2023 5:29:12 GMT
I find Amazon and Netflix streaming sub par compared to YouTube.
Why? At least you get a full 16 by 9 screen for the most part with Google. And most of the content is not shot in the dark.
But here's the main grumble. These days so much Amazon and Netflix material is shot in the dark. In the future e.g. Picard they all live in the dark. It's a fact.
Apparently.
I honestly think so much of this is done to save on set costs.
Another perhaps surprising reality with a 4K 100 inch laser projector at 20 feet is good HD can be virtually indistinguishable from good 4K. What I think is far more important is the use of decent cameras without silly filters or deliberately poor background focus.
Picard still looks great due to the special effects on the laser projector, even though Amazon dish it out at HD. It has quite good light / dark contrast.
Even OLEDs struggle with dark, blury scenes with zilsch bright content. Including my 65 Panasonic which uses an LG screen (but excellent video processing tech arguably as good or perhaps slightly better than most LGs as it was a top of the line Panasonic at the time).
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Post by julesd68 on Apr 14, 2023 10:12:58 GMT
Interesting thoughts there Justin.
In terms of regular daily shooting of standard scenes, lighting is generally the thing that takes the most time. I used to pull my hair out waiting for lighting to be finished sometimes. The latest HD cameras are massively more effective in low light than previously. So the quicker you shoot with less complex lighting, there are big savings to be made over the course of a long feature shoot.
It's difficult to know in a movie generally speaking whether an interior shot with lots of contrast and shadow is done for creative or budget reasons - funnily enough I was thinking this the other night when watching the new Guy Ritchie.
The recent remake of Suspiria is virtually unwatchable on my TV in UHD it is so dark - I think that's a combination of the way it was shot and my TV struggling with the contrast levels.
Another thing I have found is that no streaming, 4k or other, can match a really good Blu-ray but the days of renting discs is over and I buy them very infrequently indeed. Streaming must still be heavily compressed. Perhaps the streaming services will up their quality gradually as we get quicker broadband but who knows when that will be.
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Post by Clive on Apr 14, 2023 10:34:14 GMT
Audio isn’t much better in that you need a good system to be able to hear some of the diction.
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