Television technology - where are we?

Tim good suggestion! I plan to visit Best Buy to do some comparison shopping and then buy online for less.

I'll be replacing my Hitachi 55"Plasma, which is a stellar tv. I was an early adopter of HDTV and was very impressed with Hitachi - every bit as good as the Pioneer Elite Plasma's.

For me the real question is size vs resolution/quality. I have a large dedicated Home Theatre room, so going from 55" to 65" doesn't seem like it will be a significant leap forward, but we'll see.

dawgbyte:"Tim good suggestion! I plan to visit Best Buy to do some comparison shopping and then buy online for less."

Hello dawgbyte,

     I went to Best Buy, too,  to check out my Panasonic plasma before buying online.  I think it was about $4,500 at BB but got it for about half that online.  I felt a bit guilty but that's too big of a discount to ignore.
     Going from 55" to 65" is a bigger increase then you might think since they're measured diagonally.  Measured in non-diagonal terms, the size difference is better understood:
 
A 55" has 1,293.3 sq. inches of viewing area.
A 65" has 1,808.7 sq. inches of viewing area, which is 39.9% larger.  
A 55" is 47.9" wide x 27" high. 
A 65" is 56.7" wide x 32" high. 

     I highly suggest opting for the larger screen, even if you currently believe a 55" screen would be sufficient, to prevent future buyer's remorse.  
     If you need to save some money and are considering a 2019 model LG 65" hdtv, you should carefully compare current 4K model year prices and features to previous model year 4K models that may be discounted by some sellers.  Here's a link to start your research:

https://www.cnet.com/news/lg-2019-oled-tvs-start-at-2500-just-like-last-year/

     Have you made any decisions thus far?

Tim

     
 

Hello dawgbyte,

     If you're looking for the best deal on an LG 65" OLED 4K hdtv,  I'd be looking at the LG OLED65B8PUA model. It's a 2018 model and you'll need to look closely at the features to make sure it has everything you want/need but you can get one now for well under $2,000 if you shop around.  That's about $1,000 less than the 2019 model will be when it comes out later this year.  
     Just an FYI  I just saw it at www.newegg.com for $1,599 which is a great price and will likely be out of stock soon.  It looks to me like they're clearing out the 2018 model stock before bringing in the 2019 model. I'm thinking about buying one at that price. 


Tim

noble100 - I'm actually looking at the Samsung 83", not staying at 55". On Amazon it's like $2,200.

A point to bear in mind during all of this “4K” insanity is that IPTV and streaming services like Netflix et al are restricted by the bottleneck that is your Internet connection. True uncompressed 4K uses 6gb/s of bandwidth for 2SI and square division. There is plenty of opportunity to employ compression methods like J2K, to reduce the necessary bandwidth for true compressed 4K to 800mb/s, but even this exceeds most homeowner Internet service available bandwidth by a factor of 8 to 32.

Most assuredly, as I can see the awfulness of it all on my OLED TV. It is, however, entirely wonderful to see and appreciate 4K when playing Blu-Ray movies.  Even the sound is heads and shoulders above streaming. That is why it's worth it. Util they improve streaming capabilities, one can always knock it if streaming is the only metric.

All the best,
Nonoise