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mayorblurps
499
Mar 8, 2018
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I.WANT.THIS.TV! I've watched it drop and come back a few times. My blessed ole plasma (circa 2011 Panasonic viera VT30) is buzzing, picture has faded, not nearly as crisp as it was...and its pushing 7 years old. I've loved my big heavy plasma, but it's time to get into 2018. I hope (O)LED has improved to the point where it doesn't have the soap opera effect?! I know I've seen panels that still have that odd effect that makes TV shows/movies look ridiculous, which my plasma never had-and one of the reasons I bought plasma over the nicer LCD/LEDs at the time.
I want a 65 at least and this deal seems too great to pass up. I know the picture on this will blow my mind. So many great reviews, seems to have what I want in a TV, and I do care about specs-black level, HDR, tweaking the settings, natural colors (especially since I'm coming from a plasma w fantastic THX mode for movies). Never owned an LG flat panel before, hoping the quality overall is just as good as the Samsungs and Sonys, and the longevity is there. Decisions.....damn.
Mar 8, 2018
FunktasticLucky
4
Mar 8, 2018
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mayorblurpsSoap Opera effect is due to features you have enabled. It has to do with FPS. Usually some sort of smooth motion being enabled.
Mar 8, 2018
mayorblurps
499
Mar 8, 2018
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FunktasticLuckyI don't experience this on my plasma. And only have seen it on my LCD in my bedroom which has to do w the frame rate. I turned off the smooth motion on the LCD. My question was about whether this TV has this effect (which I understood to affect any LCD or LED panel) and if so, hopefully it can be adjusted.
Mar 8, 2018
FunktasticLucky
4
Mar 8, 2018
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mayorblurpsYes. Smooth motion makes your TV make up frames so that you get higher FPS giving you the soap opera effect. Instead of 24 FPS it's running at 30 or 60. Either way yes you can turn it off. LG calls it trumotion.
Mar 8, 2018
willdude
2
Mar 8, 2018
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mayorblurpsYeah, I'm in basically the same boat -- 50" Panasonic Viera plasma from 2009. Works fine, but I'm kinda itching for an upgrade. Don't really care about 4k, at least not yet, but I think the gains on 1080p would be worth it. Just gotta decide if I wanna go 55" or really blow it open to 65".
Mar 8, 2018
EniGmA1987
607
Mar 8, 2018
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mayorblurpsThe reason plasma has such good motion and no "soap opera effect" is because plasma used picture display techniques like a CRT did. It flashes the picture to be shown on the screen for a very short duration and then the phosphors fade back to their non-illuminated condition and the screen displays black. LCD on the other hand uses sample and hold, which is where it transitions the pixels to the image to be shown and holds that state until the next frame data needs to be shown. OLED unfortunately uses the LCD style sample and hold.
So motion interpolation on a plasma can insert a frame and display it for a split second, then it displays nothing. So fast that you dont even see the blank screen. This results in smooth motion without weird artifacts. All plasma screens have motion interpolation on at all times and it is not an option to turn it off. The reason being the way the tech works, plasma always breaks each frame down into multiple frames of shorter duration, called subframes. It must do this because it needs to keep pulsing the phosphor cells that make the image. If plasma only pulsed the cells for the beginning time of a frame then at 60Hz and even lower like movies are, the image would seem to flicker too much and would be dim. So plasma pulses the frame image many times per "major frame", and is able to use the framew data to interpolate frames between the last one and the current one and use these in the sub-frames for better motion. It does this while still maintaining the original refresh rate, such as 60Hz. It would for instance show 600 frames in the time that it receives and *should* be showing 60 frames, because it broke each from down into those sub-frames. Think of it like 600fps in a 60Hz refresh window. LCD type motion interpolation inserts frames the same, but because it is holding frames for so long it results in weird motion artifacts, which have been nicknamed the "soap opera effect". LCD types are also more susceptible to this because they actually increase the frame rate for their motion interpolation. Plasmas do interpolation through their subframes, without increasing the frame rate. It is this combination of synthetic increased fps and holding of frames that causes weird motion. If the LCD/OLED screen actually receives a 120Hz or even 240Hz input signal the motion is far smoother because it isnt inserting frames, but it will still not be nearly as clear as a plasma because of plasma's natural "black frame insertion"
It is extremely sad, as OLED pixels have the same pixel response time as plasmas did (fractions of a millisecond). So the motion could be way better if they did not use the LCD style of frame display. There is however a way to fix OLED motion, and that would be to do a 10:1 ratio black frame insertion of each display frame. Forcefully making the display turn "off" in between frames in the same way CRT and Plasma works. Incidentally, this would also vastly reduce image retention because it would not have the pixels displaying the static image for so long, as would increase panel life by saving the pixel life sincve they dont have to display for as long.
Mar 8, 2018
mayorblurps
499
Mar 8, 2018
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willdudeOnce you go 65 you'll never go back :). I went 65 with my plasma 7 years ago and although it's big, it doesn't seem all that huge with other TVs out these days. I'd say go for it. My TV is the focal point of my living room and I wanted big! If I could go bigger without it looking ridiculous in the room I would!
Mar 8, 2018
EniGmA1987
607
Mar 8, 2018
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willdudeThis TV is incredibly nice and OLED is basically the next iteration of plasma screens. However, Samsung's MicroLED is basically an improvement over OLED in that it will never have image retention issues or burn in, and the first MicroLED display is coming out this year. So if you can hold off another 2 years, we should have 55-65" MicroLED dispays on the market that fix 2 of the 3 main problems with OLED
Mar 8, 2018
mayorblurps
499
Mar 8, 2018
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EniGmA1987Thanks for the info. Since I haven't been in the market for another TV (and didn't want to think about pricing another semi-TOTL 65") I really haven't paid much attention to the new models, except this one. Seems it's the best bang for the buck. But, based on your helpful info, I may wait.
What are the biggest 2 out of 3 issues you see with OLED?
Mar 8, 2018
EniGmA1987
607
Mar 8, 2018
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mayorblurpsImage Retention Panel life/color life Motion quality

1) Image retention is an issue in both OLED and Plasma because of the way they get the pixels. OLED uses the exact same techniques developed for plasma to minimize the impact of this however you still have issues that require the use of "anti image retention" programs in the TV that you need to run to help remove the IR. If you havent had problems with IR on your plasma, then you probably wont have problems with IR on OLED either as you know what to do and how it works.
2) Panel life/color life is also the same issue as plasma, as certain subpixels get used more often in an area, those colors will have less output years down the line. I believe some OLED have somewhat solved this problem though, by only using white color oleds and placing color filters over the led to make RGB subpixels. This fixes a lot of the color decay problem however when the pixel for blue, for example, in one area gets used a lot more than others, it will still degrade over a year or two (and more) and have lower output, it just wont be *as bad* as if they used a true blue oled subpixel. Again, plasmas have this same issue with colors "going bad" over the years as the phosphor coating of often used cells gets worn out.
3) Motion quality will be a problem simply because of sample and hold style imaging same as any LCD. Plasma will always have better motion quality at the same refresh rate as any LCD/OLED/MicroLED tech. The only way for LCD tech to overcome this and have equal to or better motion quality than plasma and CRT is for their refresh rate to reach at least a true 500Hz, prerferably 1000hz or more. This would mean the hold time is 2ms or less, so thus motion quality will be what it should be. For comparison, later gen plasma's have image "hold time" of 0.4 milliseconds and sometimes less. Basically equal to a refresh rate motion quality of 2,500Hz.


MicroLED tech uses individual LEDs for each subpixel, so it is basically the same as plasma and OLED in that each subpixel is individually lit and there is no backlight like a standard LCD panel uses. This means MicroLED will have "infinite contrast" as it is called same as plasma and OLED, because when something is black, those pixels are off and no light comes from them. So MicroLED will have many of the advantages of OLED and plasma, but will fix the image retention and panel life problems beause the LED subpixels will not decay at a fast rate like plasma and OLED, and because the LEDs will not retain their voltages in the same extent that plasma phosphors and OLED cells do. It will use sample and hold tech though, which means it still has the motion quality issue and plasma will beat it in this regard.
Mar 8, 2018
mayorblurps
499
Mar 9, 2018
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EniGmA1987Ok last question-- Samsung has released their 2018 qLED panels. The 'budget' option/lowest spec model in the lineup (Q6F) 65" is 2199 msrp. I think perhaps I should look into this model/model line instead? I've had good luck with Samsung TVs and Panasonic.
Mar 9, 2018
EniGmA1987
607
Mar 9, 2018
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mayorblurpsI assume you mean the Q7F, as that comes in a 65" $2199 model, it is however a 2017 model. Q6F is also 2017 model from what it looks like but I would have assumed it was a 2016 model given the pattern I am seeing... However I do see Q9's from last year so I guess the number doesnt mean that much.
The Q7F is an edge lit MVA panel, so its local dimming is terrible. Some of the worst possible really. It also only has around a 4700:1 static contrast ratio, which is one of the best you can get in an LCD panel but it is not even close to comparing with an OLED or plasma panel. I really think you would not like any of Samsung's QLED TVs from these previous years when you are coming from a plasma screen. They are just regular LCD panels with some better color tech, but their contrast is garbage in comparison.



The Q8FN is the 2018 model, and it uses MicroLED tech, adapted as a backlight for the LCD panel. It should be quite good, and challenge OLED in some ways when combined with the Quantum Dot tech. However I have not seen any in depth reviews yet. The MicroLED backlight tech has allowed Samsung to go from the previous best of something like 512 local dimming zones, up to something stupid like 22,000 dimming zones. lol. They should be pretty nice TVs, but the 65" Q8F is $3000. https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/qled-tvs/65-class-q8f-4k-smart-qled-tv-2018-qn65q8fnbfxza/ Looks like they release next month.
For comparison, plasma screens could technically be considered as having 2 million local dimming zones, which is how many pixels they have since each pixel is self-illuminating and has no backlight. OLED and MicroLED could be considered as having 8.2 million dimming zones. You wont ever see them as being claimed to having dimming zones, since they dont. But as a way to compare against LCD tech, that would be a sort of equivilent comparison.
Mar 9, 2018
mayorblurps
499
Mar 9, 2018
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EniGmA1987Here are the 2 recently released for order I am referring to- currently only on the official website. 2018 models... The Q6F is now called the Q6FN for the '18 version.
Back in the day, I paid a pretty penny for the plasma from Best Buy, but 0% financing option meant I could get it without chunking down 3k at once. All things considered, I don't mind paying that kind of money for a fantastic panel as long as it will last and be technologically-relevant after 3 or 4 years+, like my plasma has been.
https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/qled-tvs/65-class-q6f-4k-smart-qled-tv-2018-qn65q6fnafxza/
https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/qled-tvs/65-class-q7f-4k-smart-qled-tv-qn65q7fnafxza/
Mar 9, 2018
EniGmA1987
607
Mar 9, 2018
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mayorblurpsAh ha. I see. So samsung added an N after the model name to denote the change from 2017 to 2018 models.

I looked up the specs on the Q6FN and it seems it does not use the microLED backlight tech, it still uses the same old edge lit system. So I would still expect the contrast to be rather low and the local dimming to be pretty bad. Edge lit local dimming with low zone counts like this result in what is referred to as "blooming". Most tests use a black background with a slow moving white ball on the screen. In this test would would see most of the panel as black since the backlight is off, however large sections of the screen would be grey, as zones light up as the ball moves.
While this is a review for last years model, I would expect the contrast and local dimming scores to be fairly close to the new 2018 model year performance, as the panel is the same and it is still edge lit: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/qled-q7f-q7


It is a fine TV, but it leaves much to be desired in certain areas. I think this LG B7A is a better TV when comparing the two. The only Samsung TV of this year I think this LG OLED would compare against would be the Samsung Q8FN (not to be confused with the Q8CN). How they would stack up against each other im not sure, as there are no reviews for the new backlight tech yet.
Mar 9, 2018
hkarmark
0
Mar 12, 2018
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mayorblurpsThat soap opera effect is a setting you can actually turn off on the TV
Mar 12, 2018
vulchor
0
Mar 28, 2018
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EniGmA1987You're only partly correct when describing the way a Plasma screen breaks down the frame. You say that you can't turn off motion interpolation, and that is completely false. There's a difference between motion interpolation (smoothing), and what a plasma TV does to run at 600Hz. My Vierra (2011 model 65") has the option to disable motion interpolation, and it was off by default. It still has to flash the screen at 600 times a second, but it does that by repeating frames 10x or 20x each, depending on the source. It's true that if I enable the motion interpolation, it looks a whole lot better than it does on an LCD TV, but it's also kind of incredibly frightening looking. I just keep it off, best to watch content the way it was meant to be delivered.
Mar 28, 2018
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