Topic: 4k TV Recommendations

I got my TV last night and loving it so far. I have been watching some stuff on Netflix in 4K and it's simply stunning...

I haven't got to game much yet but did throw on Witcher 3 and Drive Club to see and both looked great.

I have been playing around with the Picture Modes and Dynamic is hands down my favorite so far. I haven't played in Game Mode yet but plan on giving that a go tonight.

I can't wait to get my hands on the PS4 Pro.

@BAMozzy: I'm confused about your use of UK (I assume this means EU) model numbers / US model numbers.

Please could you let me know if this is the right one? http://www.amazon.es/dp/B01EGI3L0C

Cheers

@Drawfull: UK and EU models are virtually the same TV - occasionally you mat see a slight variation (like KS8005 for example) so I quote the UK model number as that's easier for me as I am much more aware of the products available here. The main difference, and where confusion can lie is between the US and EU model numbers - particularly with Samsung as the KS7000 series is the KS8000 in the US, the KS8000 series is the KS9000 in the US.

The model you have linked is the 49" version of the one I have - which is the best Flat Screen Samsung are making this year. It is full HDR10 certified and has the low input lag for gaming too.

@BAMozzy: Thanks for that, I need to measure to see if a 55 will fit (only have 40 atm), but it's that or the 49 then. Crikey expensive few month's - thanks Sony!

@Drawfull: You could opt for the KS7000 which would save you a bit of money - maybe as much as the Pro costs. The major differences are things like Sound, number of tuners and stand which mat not matter if you use a soundbar, don't use freeview or own an external HDD for your TV and/or wall mount. The KS7000 is HDR10 certified too and has the same panel as the KS8000 but you would need some sophisticated equipment to measure the difference in Black level and Peak Brightness.

@BAMozzy: That's good to know, cheers. I'll take a look next time out out shopping. Amazon is surprisingly bad for TVs in Spain.

I'm also now on the lookout for a new TV as my six year old 42" Plasma has now decided to start revealing either ugly black lines down the centre or even thicker rainbow lines,which is really distracting and obviously spoils the whole enjoyment of watching a film or playing a game.
But I'm so far behind the times I wasn't even aware Plasma tvs are not even around anymore and there are so many tvs with so much mixed reviews I find it all very confusing!
Price doesant really bother me so long as I know it's a quality product but due to size of room I probably won't be able to have anything bigger than a 50" I'm not interested in smart tv,freeview etc cuz it's going to be a gaming tv only, but it seems all tvs come with it? So long as there is no motion blur or lag I'll be happy

@Wazeddie22: All 4k HDR TV's offer Smart and Freeview. OLEDs screens have essentially replaced Plasma. As far as 4k HDR goes though, the smallest I believe is 55" for the LG B6 but that has 54ms of lag - more in HDR. The E6 is better but more expensive at £3.5k (unless the price has dropped in the past week or so) and gas around 35ms Lag - it also offers 3D too.

The smallest 4k HDR TV at the moment is 49" and the best input lag is around 21ms. Both are found on the Samsung KS7000. 55" opens up more options in terms of manufacturers and features but if you don't want Samsungs but must have 4k HDR, then input lag will start at around 35ms in game mode.

I think you would need to go up to 55" and probably buy the LG E6 to get what you want. If you don't mind curved, the C6 has similar Input Lag but HDR increases it to over 60ms. The B6 has 'decent' HDR lag of nearly 40msbut standard its high at 60ms. http://uk.rtings.com/tv/tests/inputs/input-lag will give you all the input lag under different modes and including HDR options. Its US based so model numbers maybe different from UK - the KS7000 in the UK for example is the KS8000 on here. You can also go to the review and find out how these handle motion too.

@BAMozzy: Cheers mate for all the helpful info,like I said I don't think I'll be able to do bigger than 50 inch but I guess I'll have to measure just to make sure,although to be honest I don't particularly want a huge tv just for gaming anyway as I have another 42" plasma for tv in the main room.No real interest in a curved tv but will have a look at the Samsung you mentioned.Being a very indecisive person lots of choice really isant a good thing for me lol

I really don't mean this in a political way nor to imply any political preference, but we've been talking graphics so much recently that as I watched the US Debate tonight I kept thinking about how Hillary's face was getting washed out in the light and how I wondered if it would be better in HDR

I have had my 4KTV for about two weeks now and really enjoying it. Thanks again to @BAMozzy for pointing me in the right direction.

I did run in to some minor motion blur out of the box that had me worried. I had someone suggest turning off "Auto Motion Plus" in the settings and that fixed it.

I have been binge watching 4K videos on YouTube and it's really unbelievable how good it look's. Watching TV is good and playing games is good but watching something in true 4K is stunning... I simply can't wait for the PS4 Pro.

@Splat: Glad to have helped! Have you watched the PS4 Pro 4K videos of games like Horizon: Zero Dawn? The difference between that and the E3 demo is obvious. I thought the game was looking great before but this looks incredible!

The difference that HDR TV's can also bring to HD content is amazing as well in my opinion. The darker blacks and better local dimming makes normal non-HDR content seem more vivid and a higher PQ - eliminates the issues usually associated with backlit LED TV's such as haloing, blooming etc.

Yep. One of the first things I did. I'm a huge Mass Effect fan so I watched that one first. I'm more exited for Andromeda and Horizon than any other games come out next year.

@Splat: Andromeda video was quite impressive visually and I can see how that scene would look very impressive in HDR. Trouble is with Mass Effect is that so far we haven't really seen much action and there was something off with the character models in the E3 brief showing. The bodies seemed out of proportion with the heads or something. I still have it pre-ordered though.

Ever since Sony revealed Horizon: ZD, something about really captured my attention. It was sitting behind Uncharted as my 2nd most anticipated game but now U4 has been released, its taken over top spot. Days Gone has become like Horizon and currently sat right up there behind Horizon.

As a fan of the ME trilogy, I really want Andromeda to live up to expectation. Some screenshots look amazing of the worlds we could visit but U am also aware that this is a new cast/crew and development has been a rocky ride. The lack of actual consistent game-play (well apart from that minute at PS4 Pro reveal) hasn't helped allay my concerns and raise the profile of this game to me.

I can't wait to see news about a number of 'Star Wars' games but I can't get excited about screenshots or 2secs of game-play - especially if it doesn't show any real action. All these games need to do is show a few minutes of actual gameplay, including some aspects of the action and that can make a world of difference to me. Part of the reason Days Gone is currently more anticipated than most of the big name franchises is because of that game-play at the end of Sony's E3 presser. The way the game started off slowly and built and built until you were running for your life, using the environment to buy a few extra seconds, seeing hundreds swarming after you, the intensity of the situation and the sheer quantity of enemies on-screen in a AAA title that looked great was amazing - another game that will also benefit from HDR.

Since I live in Japan, it is not that easy to get my hands on Samsung, also here we don't like to support Korean TV brands, when we have our own who struggle in sales and I am happy to help the Japanese market with my wallet. Personally I am a big Sony fan and I really don't like Samsung anymore (also coming from being an Apple Fanboy, haha). I know the TVs are good, but I got myself I think that X850D in 65", because the other ones were just out of my budget. Would have loved to get the 930D, but well. I am pretty happy with that TV. Since I still don't completely get that HDR stuff, I just see what I see and I like what I see on my TV, when it comes to HDR movies/games (now with Deus Ex). Not sure if it is "true HDR" experience or not, but it is definitely a big improvement to a normal consumer like me.
Also I am often playing Mario Kart, where I had big issues with Input Lag on a previous Samsung monitor. I know my Sony has input lag, but I it is low enough for me to not notice it when I just keep playing. I think it would be noticeable in a game like Wipeout HD. I mainly play RPG games, so it is fine for me.

At the end as a consumer you might not see big differences and I think as long as you go with one of the top tiers, you won't really regret your choice much. At least I am right now not crying because I couldn't afford the Sony X930D, I am super happy with my choice.

@tatsumi: At the end of the day, its your money and you have to be happy with your choice. 35ms input lag is considered to be adequate for even fast paced FPS games and lets be honest, that's 0.035s which is an incredibly small amount of time. Samsungs may well be under that and Sony's TV's are a little bit above that but input lag is generally only 1 aspect when considering a TV. Samsungs for example don't offer 3D which may well be important.

Only Sony's ZD9 and X930D actually match the minimum specs for HDR10. The 850D (for example) doesn't reach the required black level or reach the required peak brightness by quite a margin (around 430nits) but at least it offers the wider colour gamut and of course that extra brightness over SDR can give a noticeable difference. According to RTiNGs though, the lag in HDR is ridiculously high at 93.6ms.

Like I said though, there is a number of factors involved with buying a TV. As you said, you only want to support those made by Japanese companies and a TV that fits your budget. If you have parameters like this, then of course it narrows down your parameters. Other factors like 3D, connectivity, size, flat/curved, LED/OLED, edge lit or FALD etc all play a part in deciding the right TV for you and I would never presume to tell someone their decision was 'wrong' for them.

Whilst the Samsung KS series undoubtedly has the best input lag (and in HDR too) as well as meet the minimum specs for HDR10, I appreciate that others may have other priorities or parameters that lead them to other choices.

Exactly. I just want to say that people shouldn't stress out because they were not able to buy the most perfect device. We are talking about top range devices that are better than most other TVs anyway.

@tatsumi: NO TV is perfect. Some are better than others in some areas but not as strong in other areas.People need to weigh up what is most important to their needs and what the TV is going to be used mostly for. Its no point buying the Samsung if 3D is important to you as it cannot offer that. Its no point buying a top of the range 4k HDR TV with very high input lag if all you are using it for is gaming either. Somewhere along the line, compromises will have to be made.

I compromised with the KS8000 on 3D and FALD as I didn't want a 'curved' set - the KS9500 (EU model) is curved, has FALD and considered by many as the 'best' for HDR but still has 'issues' associated with LED technology. OLEDs have their own 'issues' too. As a gamer and someone who spends a LOT of my time gaming - often more than 50% of my TV use, input lag was a higher priority than 3D (for example) but for someone with a big collection of 3D movies and maybe someone who games less frequently, then they would probably opt for something very different.

The reason I state the Samsungs as being the 'best' though is purely from a 'gaming' perspective. No other TV comes close to matching it for input lag. Even with HDR, its better than the majority of other TV's in standard game mode (with SDR content) but other TV's can still deliver a 'respectable' input lag figure and offer more features - like 3D too.

As with gaming, so many people get caught up in playing the 'numbers' game. Whether its fractions of milli-second for input lag, the number of 'frames per second' or native pixel count to the teraflops of performance a GPU has and ghz of the CPU.

@BAMozzy - I've just found out that HDR works in all picture modes now on our KS8000 but when you said before that while an HDR video is playing that the Backlight automatically jumps to 20 (max) well it doesn't, not in any picture mode, I tested this on FH3 and Netflix. I'm wondering that whenever an HDR video is playing, should I be manually adjusting the backlight and set it on 20 or keep it on 8 in game mode seeing as we use our TVs in a dark room.

Also I've been switching back and forth between game mode and natural mode and with each mode having basically the same settings (apart from natural modes backlight on 12) game mode looks a bit washed out compared to natural mode which looks clean and clear. I know input lag is preferred for games but surely you would want a cleaner and clearer picture?

@MaccaMUFC: HDR settings are remembered regardless of what mode it works in. If you turned down the backlight whilst watching HDR in Movie mode, it will still be turned down in Game, in Standard or any other mode.

I use these - I mainly stick with the 'movie' (nightime) setting as I use my TV in a dimly lit room and my HDR settings are the same too.

I don't know how you see 'games', what you prefer and are used to. However I certainly don't think games on my TV look washed out in game mode. In fact I find the colours and vibrancy to be the best I have seen and better than any of my previous Televisions. I know the colours are as the developer intended - pure! They are made digitally and have a specific value (like 0-1024 Red, 0-1024 Green, 0-1024 Blue) and the TV just shows these pretty much as a monitor would. Maybe if you prefer or are more used to applying some 'filter' over the top or some over processed look instead of the pure 'digital' image, then that's your choice. To me games on my TV look much more vibrant than they do on youtube which I access primarily on a PC. Even more vibrant than the video's on the in-built youtube app - mainly because of the 10bit screen, great colours thanks to Quantum Dot technology and excellent blacks. Maybe the over-processed modes make then appear 'more' vibrant again but the quality of the visuals to me is stunning and the 'game-performance' is very responsive. Later on today, I should be able to test Gears 4 in HDR too.