Which dumb 4K TV(s) should I buy?
That's a really good question, as it is qualified by the '4k' requirement ...
It's very easy and relatively inexpensive to buy a 1920x10280 commercial display unit, such as the NEC p461, which you have probably seen 10k times in airports.
However, there is not much demand for 4k panels for videowalls since ... the videowall grows to larger than 4k resolution anyway just by virtue of being a wall of panels.
So, at this time, in 2019, it is difficult and very expensive to buy a commercial display panel (that is what you would search for) that is 4k.
If I had to find one I think I would probably get that Dell 43 Ultra HD 4K Multi Client Monitor (P4317Q) with the caveat that it is "only" 43 inches in size.
And that’s an old Samsung TV. On top of that, Samsung’s current flagships are among the worst TVs right now vs the competing major brands’ flagships (because all the best are now OLED, and Samsung is the only hold-out).
Even the improvement from a Samsung Q90 (which I had for a few weeks) to LG C9 OLED has to be seem to be believed. On some content, the improvement is drastic.
The technological progress of modern OLED TVs vs LED LCD is practically magical, when viewing good HDR content. If you go for an old panel for the sake of privacy, you’re either going to be sorely disappointed or blissfully ignorant of what your missing.
I would much rather buy a modern model and figure out how to disable the radios, if I was this worried about privacy.
I never realized that 1080p60 would look better on a 144hz monitor than a television but everything is so crisp and smooth in games, it's honestly breathtaking with the right scene. I didn't realize that having a panel that can handle 144hz means that vertical sync is pointless, and for the games that I can actually render at 144hz, the effect is magical by comparison.
I find myself replaying more cinematic games (like say Witcher 3) on the new panel and it's like experiencing the magic of these scenes all over again for the first time.
I couldn't ever imagine going back to a television for gaming.
Compare high end models in similar price ranges (as I have) and you’ll see what I’m talking about. For example: Compare an LG OLED in a dark room to any modern PC monitor, and I would be surprised if you were anything but blown away by the OLED, and appalled by how expensive these gaming monitors are compared to what a similarly priced OLED is capable of (especially now that LG OLEDs are capable of 120hz and variable refresh rate with input lag lower than many gaming monitors).
Of course, the main reason we don’t see everyone using OLED PC monitors are concerns about burn in effects from long term use. But for most people for TV and movie viewing, it’s not a concern. My 3 year old LG B6 OLED is still going strong with no signs of burn in, and has picture quality that still puts the best of the best non-OLED TVs to shame.
Color calibration isn’t everything BTW. The contrast ratio modern TVs are capable is pretty much unrivaled by any modern computer monitor until relatively recently, and even now the only ones that come close cost many times the price of an equivalent TV.
But no monitor on the market can hold a candle to the image quality experience of an OLED TV for HDR movies and TV shows. This is not really under any dispute btw among audio video forums: virtually everyone admits that emissive technology like OLED has inherent quality advantages. The main debate centers purely around whether or not OLED burn in is likely to occur for various use cases.
If you haven’t experienced modern HDR content on a flagship TV (particularly OLED), you are missing out on something really special. No current PC monitor can even come close, except those that cost >2x the price of a modern 55” OLED TV.
I'm curious as to how a 10-bit display measures up, isn't HDR just a fancy standard for high-bit-rate color? Other than the backlight I imagine they'd still be superior.
I'd still prefer a giant computer display over a TV, if anything to avoid the various "smart" features and other value-adds, but to each their own I guess. I'll check out OLED TVs when I can but the demo reels they play are almost always blown-out contrast-wise and I can't stand images that feel like the saturation is set to max.
BTW I highly recommend you do some research into HDR, and color gamut. I don’t think you know just how much you’re missing in terms of HDR, color gamut, contrast ratio, etc, that comes with modern TVs. Color gamut goes way beyond sRGB. Modern HDR TVs are far, far more than just “10 bit color”, and allow an express-able color gamut and color volume far beyond sRGB. A LG C9 achieves sound 99% DCIP3 color gamut and 75% REC2020.
To make a crude example, it’s kind of like 150% sRGB coverage, over a range from perfect black to extremely bright for each pixel individually, with enough precision for smooth gradients across these colors. These TVs can display colors that your sRGB monitor is physically incapable of reproducing, and they can display pixel by pixel contrast radios that allow realistic details and specular highlight brightness levels that cannot be done on regular LCD monitors or TVs. And it all absolutely shows in the picture quality when viewing recent movies/TV that are mastered well.
P.S. Stay away from Samsung if you care about color accuracy as I do. Sony and LG and Panasonic all have excellent color accuracy, and likely will be better than any PC monitor within twice it’s price. But Samsung not only comes out of box with horrible defaults, but actually CANNOT be correctly calibrated due to always-on tone mapping. Among videophiles, it’s well known that Samsung is not the way to go. But please don’t let Samsung’s overly flashy demos turn you off to the amazing technical abilities of modern TVs in general. Just because Samsung made arguably greedy marketing-driven design choices that cheapen and destroy the artistic accuracy of the content does not mean everyone else does too. Only Samsung does this as far as I’m aware, among the top brands.
If you want color accuracy, picture quality perfection, superior color gamut, contrast, HDR, AND low latency (0.1ms response time and overall input lag on par with dedicated gaming monitors), LG OLED is THE way to go.
- HDR
- analog volume “puck”
- more hdmi connections
Also - source code is at least claimed to be open.
Nothing really like this on the European market to be found.
I had a top end 4K TV die last year just after the warranty ran out. It was going to be almost $100 to have the company repair guy look at it, then parts and potentially additional labor to fix it. I opened the back, did a bit of research and made an educated guess about which board was the problem (which was pretty easy based on the symptoms) and it turned out to be a $130 part that I found on ebay for $25 and I swapped it out within a few minutes.
It turns out there are half a dozen companies that strip down broken TVs and sell off the boards that are still good. That board had actually been through a few revisions since the original one I had, so now it runs even better than new. hehe
Connect to your own wifi and block any traffic?
Even if they don't do this yet it's only a matter of time before the manufacturers catch on and start doing so.
>If you've got logic to connect to nearby open Wi-Fi, why wouldn't you also use it as a fallback if the primary Wi-Fi is down?
One idea to counter this would be to use something like this[1] to deauth the TV instantly, or spam a bunch of open networks so it gets stuck trying to connect to those rather than actually working ones.
Even if it can be blocked, I don't recommend anyone buy these and look for alternatives (commercial displays, old second-hand ones, https://ironcast.tv, etc)
There are limitations in the room you can use (not too bright, big white wall, good place to place the projector). But if you can manage it I strongly suggest it.
I have a $80 one off Amazon with 4000 4.5 star reviews. Gives about a 8'x6' pic on my bedroom wall. Has all the inputs.
Eighty dollars!