PC Monitors & TVs thread - The Bear and Badger

nick_md

My grandma got a new TV last week and said something felt wrong about it because there were no / minimal bezels. Fun fact eh.

Yeah will take that into account.

EvilRedEye

My gran and great aunt always used to complain that they missed square televisions.

yourfavouriteuncle

Yeah, and just to generally echo, absolutely go for the Oled, and if size is really bugging then the 48 inch, though the 55 is where the real value lies. There’s no frame or bezel though so it’s basically all screen, so you’ll get more screen for less space.

nick_md

Darling buds of may was on the other day and they'd zoomed in on it to make it 16:9 rather than show it with side bars, meant most people had the top of their heads cropped. Madness.

LivDiv

Fucking hate that.
I dont know what is worse, that or stretched.

nick_md

This is going to be me intending to spend about £600 max on a 43" and ending up with £900 gone on a 50 isn't it?

nick_md

LivDiv wrote:

Fucking hate that.
I dont know what is worse, that or stretched.

Innit. I don't even know if they check the show's suitable for cropping? Surely there's one case out there of pivotal info getting missed.

LivDiv

nick_md wrote:

LivDiv wrote:

Fucking hate that.
I dont know what is worse, that or stretched.

Innit. I don't even know if they check the show's suitable for cropping? Surely there's one case out there of pivotal info getting missed.

There is a whole process and department involved including QA.
So its either a decision to run with that or a decision not to pay to QA it and the wrong info has been supplied.

Probably the latter.

nick_md

Stretch it then crop it, fuck it all!

Funkstain

Just spent the last 24 months researching new tellies.

In short everyone is right. If you want a new telly, you want it to make a difference. HDR makes a difference. Like, “fuck me that looks like a cinema screen” difference if it’s well handled. 4K, at less than 55”, doesn’t. But there’s nothing wrong and everything commendable about not buying a huge fucking telly like a rich psycho single man.

But good HDR costs money, and best HDR is really OLED. A 48” OLED is £900 in sales.

If you don’t go for good HDR then any new telly will look marginally more decent than you current telly. Bit brighter, bit more vibrant but you’ll feel the £600 would’ve been better spent on booze and women.

There are two options: Philips 806, or LG C1. Both excellent. Philips has ambilight which is fucking ace.

As for hdmi. You plug everything into the new telly, and use the ARC (audio return channel) HDMI to plug into sound bar. Done

Yossarian

One thing you do want to watch out for is HDMI 2.1 or Freesync over HDMI (for Xbox at least, not sure if PS5 supports it). VRR is a huge bonus when gaming, no more screen tearing, stuttering smoothed out. That feels like a next gen feature to me.

nick_md

Funkstain wrote:

4K, at less than 55”, doesn’t.

Is this opinion or fact? (not asking in a cunty way, is there a size threshold where for some reason you won't see benefit?)

I really don't want a large TV but also don't want to buy something that defeats the purpose of buying for shinies.

Surely a 43" shiny TV is going to do the job for me wrt console shinies? If it doesn't, what the hell is the world coming to?!

nick_md

Don't pc players use smaller monitors than that and they get all the shinies?

Yossarian

They sit closer to their screens.

b0r1s

I think you will be ok with a smaller 4K set. Besides it’s all a moot point, all sets now, apart from bedroom TV’s are 4K. And as you say, you’ll probably sit closer to the set anyway.

Another thing I keep seeing on here is that 4K isn’t important, compared to HDR, but I can’t escape the feeling that the 2 are intrinsically linked. HDR gives more colour and luminosity range. 4K gives more pixels to show that range, to say 4K isn’t important misses the point of what HDR is doing. Showing more data for our eyes to make it look better. The more pixels, the more subtle that move from light to dark, or from colour to colour.

I also appreciate that few movies are full 4K, a lot of FX, even on modern films are mastered at a lower resolution, but good transfers from actual film keep all the data and show it better on a 4K remastered image.

EvilRedEye

I have a 55 inch LG CX and I think the resolution difference is in some sense perceptible in that I can perceive the difference in detail in brickwork and stuff between the Spider-Man games running in 60Hz RT at 1080p and the games running in the higher resolution modes but, on its own, the shift from 1080p to 4K doesn't have the wow factor that SD to 1080p had. It's really a conjunction between the resolution boost and HDR and if you don't fork out the HDR ain't there.

Re: size, it's worth checking out the recommended size for your viewing distance - I know mine is just about right for 55 inch but if your preference is to sit closer and have the TV take up less room it may be that a 40-ish inch set would be more ideal for your viewing distance anyway.

nick_md

I always sit in the same spot on my sofa and just move the TV closer to me, setting it on the coffee table right in front of me if I'm gaming or watching something that isn't bg viewing tbh (not something I would or could do If I didn't live alone tbh).

Thanks again for the insights lads, got some browsing and thinking to do.

b0r1s

Ok one more thing to add, that you won’t get in reviews, is the LG is bloody heavy. About 40 lbs. It’s the base designed very well to keep it stable but it’s not designed to be easily lift especially on your own. Normally 40 lbs may not be an issue but combined with a very thin screen and it’s not the best thing to move around.

Funkstain

It’s just a matter of resolution acuity. Your eyes simply can’t detect pixels smaller than a certain size. If you’re sitting more than a couple of metres from the screen, you can’t really tell the difference between 4K or 2K at less than 55”. There’s a chart about it. Bor1s recommended the very website I found it on: RTings.com. A US site so they don’t review Philips tellies.

I mean it’s a moot point anyway: if you’re spending any more than a few hundred quid on the thing it’ll have 4K horizontal pixels.

Both the sets I recommended have all the things you need for next generation gaming, although the LG is better (can do 4K/VRR/DV, whereas Philips tops out at 2K/VRR/DV. I could not tell the difference between 2K vs 4K at 55”: ymmv, and anyway you may feel that forking out £900+ means you want to know it’s got 4K damnit).

Both tellies have all necessary hdmi2.1 and eArc hdmi etc

GooberTheHat

Ambilight shouldn't be disregarded either. It is genuinely great. If you haven't seen it for real and think it is just a gimmick, I can assure you it's not. It's very effective.

Funkstain

Yeah glad I listened to you on that we love it

hylian_elf

Fucking hell. All this time, I have been listening to sub par sound with my Sonos. Noticed surround didn’t sound very surround or loud. Had to Google it and check the millions of options on LG TV and change a couple of options and now I have PCM 7.1 being passed through. Success, but could’ve done with it while playing Halo and watching a couple of movies recently!

Minkymu

I fancy a gaming monitor for the next gen consoles to give me some set up flexibility

I already have the series x set up to my 55 LG BX oled, is the LG UltraGear 27GP950 any good?

Moot_Geeza

Nick moving his telly to within inches of his face in preparation for a proper run of screentime has blown my mind.

nick_md

Living my best life m8.

Moot_Geeza

"It's like being in the cinema!"

*Tinker call-out shakeycam footage from 1997 kicks in*

nick_md

I feel totally seen.

EvilRedEye

Thought this was an interesting video. LG are getting confident enough in preventing OLED burn in that they're starting to be able to increase the brightness of their upcoming panels.

Escape

I've heard of people using OLEDs as monitors without burn-in, so I wouldn't upgrade a fairly recent one to a '22 (not for that reason). It's an already small risk that they won't eliminate.

Increased luminance is welcome, but with ABL it's a personal compromise. I'd prefer to disable it in the service menu for max output with BFI, which might not be an option.

EvilRedEye

I think I've heard something about the smaller size 2022 models not having the increased luminance due to LG's fears that they'll be used as monitors so I'm not sure that would be an issue.

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