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OLED burn in is very real, there's no way around it. It's how the technology works. If you're using the TV like a projector (turn it on watch a movie or a TV episode, then off again), there's nothing to worry about (in most cases). If you turn on the TV in the morning and let it run all day long, be ready to be "burned". I usually do it when working from home, turn it on, let it run for hours and hours. Every hour, I look at it for a minute or two otherwise I just listen here and there while working. It's not as bad as plasma, but it's still there. You can always ask the manufacturer/dealer to replace burned panels and hope they do it free of charge (been there, done that, multiple times).

In the end, OLED will vanish once µLED takes off. And if someone is talking about best TV, that's Samsung The Wall for now. Wouldn't worry about Dolby Vision or HDR10+, when you want the best, you want dynamic tone mapping for your HDR, which is light years ahead in quality, but comes at a cost of course.
 
I had a plasma for many years (yes, a KURO). It was just a display (I didn't even buy its speakers) and did wonders. But its age meant it was loosing brightness rapidly.
So, a few years ago I got an LG G7. Why: OLED (beats anything else out there), 4K, HDR/Dolby Vision, ... It's without a doubt great.
But the smart part of it ... well: the vendors forget about updating their software the year after you bought it, they only focus on those buying their new models, not their existing customers. So its software is essentially obsolete the moment you buy it.
Therefore: forget about the smart aspects of the TV except if you have a premium subscription to something like Netflix: you'll only get the 4K HDR ATMOS content on devices they truly trust, and your TV is more trusted than anything else.
Aside of that: an Apple TV 4K does a far better job than anything else out there and it's much cheaper to replace with the next model than to replace your big screen should Apple declare it obsolete at some point or if it becomes not the obvious choice anymore.
Input and ARC etc: obviously when you go for a high end solution you'll end up with a AV receiver, so one HDMI port on the TV is all you'll ever hook up. The rest can be switched on your receiver much more easily than on a TV.

As to Google Assistant: no Google, Facebook or Amazon microphones in my home.
 
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But the smart part of it ... well: the vendors forget about updating their software the year after you bought it, they only focus on those buying their new models, not their existing customers. So its software is essentially obsolete the moment you buy it.
Not true for every manufacturer. I own several TVs and projectors from different manufacturers, different technologies too. I recently had a new software notification on an older 75" Samsung TV from 2014. In general, LG and Sony are the worst when it comes to software updates. Sony is a little better at their "premium" products, such as the VW5000, but still nowhere near what I'd expect from a $60k projector. As sad as it is and as much as I hate Samsung as a company, they're doing well as far as updates go. Firmware updates are not just about the Smart part of a TV, which I personally don't care about.
 
I have 2 ATVs, hooked up to Sony A9F and LG B6 OLEDs. Hands down get a Sony OLED (wait for this year's models for the upgraded BFI system though).

Why Sony over LG? Better processing, better motion, and you can actually use black frame insertion with 24p content. LG BFI is only 60hz so you get 3:2 judder. My A9F has a very plasma-esque image. Motion is not as good as plasma, but it's fairly close with BFI. This year's models should hopefully bridge the gap.

Forget about LCD. It's all hype and pure garbage. Every single year.
 
Forget about LCD. It's all hype and pure garbage. Every single year.

This week I learned that both Samsung and LG will stop producing LCD TVs and use the production capacity for producing QLED and OLED respectively. :)

It's a great development that has made my mind up for me. I'm buying and OLED next year when multiplied supply will drive prices down and significantly bridge the gap between OLED and LCD.
 
Samsung won't end producing LCD TVs, since QLED is a LCD TV using quantum dots. All LCD TVs with LED backlight using quantum dots are called QLED. These are just marketing terms.

LG isn't going to stop producing LCD either, they'll stop making them in South Korea and shift their production to China.

Good luck on the wait, you won't see prices change much up to 65". 77" and above and the new 8k panels will drop though. So if you're fine with 4k and up to 65", buy now. Then again, 65" is so small, waiting now and pushing for something bigger next year might be worth it.
 
Good luck on the wait, you won't see prices change much up to 65". 77" and above

There have been substantial price drops on the 65" in the last year (C8 data):

Screen Shot 2020-04-02 at 6.11.48 PM.png

The C9 now lists on Amazon at $2196. I would expect it to drop some, but the large drops we've seen in the past few years are likely over, other than Black Friday.
 
@HDFan maybe I read that wrong. I thought waiting for next year and then buy a new model (next years), not waiting and then buy an old model (this years). You are correct that a specific model will drop in price during its life cycle, so it will get cheaper over time. The new models will be in the same ballpark as the older ones during their introduction. When the C9 came out, it retailed for $3499,-, which is more in line to the graph you posted. I'd be much more interested in the price for the 8k 88" Z9 replacement next year.
 
Don't know about a $3499 initial price for the C9. But the C9 price very early on in it's cycle stabilized its price at $2000-$2200 which was lower than the sale price (~$2600) of the C8. The C8 got of course even cheaper when it became last years model.

New models have been selling for less than their predecessors very early in their sales cycle. November pricing of the C8 in its model year was ~$2500-2700, C9 ~$2000-$2180. That's a $500 drop. These huge drops can't continue, although I would expect prices to be somewhat lower for each new release until it reaches a point of stasis. So in that sense I would agree with out that waiting for a price drop each year will become less and less productive.
 
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Looks like Samsung is still on track for a 2nd half 2020 release of micro LED in consumer sizes (whatever that means), despite the corona virus. That’s going to be the death of OLED.
Would love to see a 100” model, but doubt it. So hopefully 85” to 90” with a single panel.

Wonder what that means for the home theater market. Maybe larger panels or drop in price, or different sizes and resolution for different panels for those of us that want 15’ to 20’ wide screens in dedicated rooms.
 
If the micro LED TVs follow OLED pricing they will be prohibitively expensive initially, at least for most mortals. It will take some years before they become a mass market product. LGs' OLED is only now beginning to enter the top end of that range and it has been 10 years since they produced their first model. Initially they cost in the 6 digit range, at least when I started watching the price.
 
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We're talking about mass market products for prices similar to what we have now. At least that's what Samsung is planning for later this year. It looks like they've had a major breakthrough in manufacturing. We'll see what happens towards the end of the year. They're also going to merge quantum dots with OLED, so I guess there could be two different product lines for next years models. I'm more interested in micro LED.

The "expensive" stuff is already out there and has been for a while, it's only interesting for larger screens though, but still not an alternative to larger projection which is currently in the $350k to $800k range, depending on what you want. The 16' Sony micro LED is ~$700k but fixed size. Unless you want to use it in daylight, I'd personally put that money into a projection system, which allows to go even bigger or be more flexible and if nothing else cheaper. Don't get me wrong, I know a few people running micro LED walls, but given the price, problems with installation, generated heat and speaker placement, it's not there for me yet - at least not from an upgrade point of view. If I'd have to start fresh, who knows.

For now, I'm waiting to see the new stuff towards the end of the year (and maybe early next year) and and if I see anything I like, upgrade then.
 
I think it's telling that Samsung is phasing out LCD in favor of (quantum dot) OLED.

REGARDING BURN IN: it is also a problem with QLED. Yet forums don't get spammed with people telling other people not to buy them because of it. OLED is the better tech. If motion or stuttering really bother you then the extra price of the Sony OLED is prog worth it. Otherwise LG is the way to go for now.
 
I think it's telling that Samsung is phasing out LCD in favor of (quantum dot) OLED.

REGARDING BURN IN: it is also a problem with QLED. Yet forums don't get spammed with people telling other people not to buy them because of it. OLED is the better tech. If motion or stuttering really bother you then the extra price of the Sony OLED is prog worth it. Otherwise LG is the way to go for now.
First of all, QLED is LCD.

Samsung is phasing out LCD without quantum filter layer and LED backlighting (which is what QLED is). Samsung has a long history of misleading customers. It was Samsung that first used LED TV terminology to refer to LCD TV with LED backlighting, making them sound far superior to LCD TV with CCFL backlighting. They are doing the same with QLED.

And no, QLED like LCD that it is, is not susceptible to permanent burn in. Like any modern LCD TVs, it is also good at mitigating temporary image retention.
 
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I apologize, my statement was bit extreme and perhaps a bit of a troll. Here's a more nuanced reply.

QLED is not the exact same as LCD LED in that the quantum dots are an emissive (although not self-emissive) layer. As such there phosphorescent quality will fade over time (eg burn-in). However, in doing further research it does appear that Samsung's latest quantum dots have a projected life span of hundred of thousands of hours. The way I phrased my first comment suggested quantum dot LEDs and OLEDs degraded at the same rate. That is not true.
 
The way I phrased my first comment suggested quantum dot LEDs and OLEDs degraded at the same rate.
That wouldn't even matter. If the degradation rate of OLED pixels would be uniform, it would simply lose brightness, which would be ok. Every light source does, LED, laser, whatever. The problem with OLED is, that the rate of degradation depends on the energy/heat applied to a pixel. That means that some parts of the panel might degrade faster than other parts, depending on image content that is shown. At that point it might make sense to differentiate between classical burn in, where so much energy/heat is applied to a pixel that the material is damaged and what is commonly called burn in, which is faster degradation of the material, so there's a loss in brightness in comparison to other pixels.

Think of it as discrete fuel cells, the more fuel burns away in a cell, the dimmer it gets. The whole idea is that sometimes a cell on the top left is burning bright, sometimes one on the bottom right and so on. Over time, it will be uniform so all cells can burn equally bright. That is not the case with static image content such as station logos. That's why these spots can leave a "shadow image" or burn, which is nothing else than inability of a pixel to be as bright as it should be.

In addition, different colored pixels have different efficiency and degradation rates. That's the reason why LG made the red sub-pixels larger, starting with 2019 models. The heat/energy dispersion just works better with larger areas. That's also the reason Samsung is only using blue OLED material in their quantum dot - OLED hybrid, they're using the QDs for the other panels.

That's just how OLED works. You won't see a difference in one hour of certain parts being bright and others not, but over time, you will. LG has a feature in the firmware that checks after what time a channel is switched. If you watch a single channel for more than 8 hours (or was it 10?), the warranty for your panels is void, as they consider it not normal use. If they still exchange the panel is up to them. In the end, their margins are so high by now, they cut easily offer the TVs at half the price and still make a nice profit, but then they couldn't change panels all the time for free.

So for those using their TVs to watch movies and a TV show here and there, that isn't a problem. But if you just turn it on and let it run for hours, day after day, then be prepared to be "burned". No technology is perfect, for OLED I'd like to see higher brightness, better shadow detail (blacks are great, but they're crushing some stuff just above that), color gamut, a few other things, but mainly the fact that we need it much bigger. Even their 88" is way too small for a proper movie experience, so bring out the 10' to 20' rollable panels and sell these like motorized projection screens. They showed a 65" rollable screen at CES (2019!), which is still not out, but the price is ridiculous. $60k for a stamp sized screen? Hm, no thanks. They need to get their act together and show something as an alternative to projection and micro LED walls, NOW, because the time is ticking. I'd happily buy a 15' wide (rollable or not) OLED screen for a dedicated room (movies only) and not worry about burn in. Would have to be in the right price range though, because if they're approaching micro LED prices, there'd be absolutely no point going with OLED.
 
Hello
This year I will upgrade to a 65-75 inch with HDMI 2.1, 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10 and Dolby Vision.

My current 49' TV was purchased in December 2015 and was one of the very last dumb 4K TVs. The viewing angles, response rate, backligt, colours and everything has been top notch. I'm genuinely sad to replace it but will buy the next generation Playstation and Xbox and want HDR/DolbyVision.

Because my current TV is dumb and I have used Apple TV4 as the brains, I'm oblivion to the litany of issues that smart TV owners suffer. This ranges from input lag and lackluster HDR with Apple TV to random restarts, slow boot-up and forced firmware updates.

For you whom have a HDR/DolbyVision TV with ATV4K, which model of TV do you have and what issues should I be aware of?

I have a Sony X930e 55 inch which is a year or two old and works great with all of these formats and Apple TV.
 
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