OLED or LCD? Newbie needs advice for TV

akagi1945

Member
To start, I've spent the last 8+ years without a TV in the house :( . After reducing my working hours, I now plan to get one.

My Requirements
The viewing distance in my room, from seating to the screen will be approximately 4m.
We don't watch terrestrial TV at all.
We would only use it to watch a movie on a weekend and a possible hour of a TV-series on a weeknight.
I am hoping to get a PlayStation 5 when they come out.

So far I have been reading a lot from Dodge, whose posts are very informative. I am thinking I will purchase a 65" LG C9 around May so hopefully the price will have gone down a bit. Is this TV suitable?

I currently download anything I watch or watch on Youtube using my computer.

The part I may need more help with is, what else do I need with the TV to enjoy it properly?
I currently have a Marantz AV receiver and a Kef 5.1 egg system, both are approximately 12 years old. Would they still do the job?

I've seen people talking about Apple TV/nVidia Shield, NAS, 4K players, HDR etc. I dont know if these will be required or not as I honestly don't know what they do.
I hear some use Kodi or Firestick devices, but again my knowledge is limited.

Could anybody help me? What else do I need to watch films and TV Series and have a decent experience on a TV.

Any help is appreciated.
 

Xmint

Member
Yes, the choice between OLED and LCD is crucial at this stage - it's not an easy decision and there are pros and cons to each technology so I would advise doing your own research to decide which one suits your needs the best.

A 65" TV would be great at your viewing distance - some would even go bigger, although 77" OLEDs carry a huge price premium and so are prohibitively expensive for most people at the moment. 1080p and 4K content will look great but SD material takes a big hit at these larger screen sizes, although your viewing distance will be a bit more forgiving than those who sit a lot closer.

If you're intending on getting a PS5 then LG is a good option as I think it's currently the only manufacturer to offer HDMI 2.1 ports, although bear in mind that (a) some of the HDMI 2.1 features are available on other manufacturer's sets via HDMI 2.0 ports and (b) there seems to be some doubt about whether the next generation of consoles would make full use of these features anyway, at least to start with.

Due to the age of your Marantz AVR, I'm guessing it might not have HDMI sockets ? Provided it has an optical input (Toslink/SPDIF), then you'll still be able to enjoy surround sound in it's basic form (definitely Dolby Surround and possibly Dolby Digital 5.1, depending on what the TV is capable of outputting). As you've been out of the loop for a while, it's worth noting that TVs no longer tend to have RCA/phono outputs so HDMI (via an HDMI/ARC-equipped AVR), digital out (SPDIF) or a headphone jack (not usually ideal) are the only ways of getting sound from the TV to AVR.

A TV like the C9 will have a reasonable selection of the more popular apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube and the catch-up TV apps (eg. iPlayer). It will also have it's own basic media player for playing any movie files you have. People often prefer to use external streaming devices like a Firestick or NVidia shield because the selection of apps will be much larger and they will often play/stream certain file formats that a TV's inbuilt media player won't. Many also prefer the interface on external devices, although the LG OS is supposed to be one of the better ones in that respect, compared to other manufacturers.

HDR is a feature that increases a picture's dynamic range (the contrast between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks). If you buy a TV like a LG C9, then it will be an HDR TV and should display HDR material from it's own apps whenever the material is available in 4K HDR. You would obviously need to buy a 4K BluRay player in order to play 4K disks but if you can wait for the PS5, then I believe that will double-up as a 4K player.

There are a number of different HDR formats - the latest LG TVs support Dolby Vision but not HDR 10+ whereas Samsung supports HDR 10+ but not Dolby Vision. If you want support for all the HDR formats, then you'll need to look at manufacturers like Panasonic or Philips.
 
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