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After much deliberation, I decided to pick up a B7 55" to replace my fully functional LX-5090. I'd read around a few forums about the pros & cons but the draw of 4K and HDR was too much to resist. Interest free credit and same day pickup helped, I admit. I picked it up on Thursday and I've been using it solidly throughout the weekend, only leaving my cave for refreshments. I thought I'd share my transition experience with those who are thinking about replacing their plasma display (PDP).
The display has been initially configured as per a calibrator's thread on AV Forums which should ideally give as good a picture possible outside of professional calibration. I didn't use any of the CMS/White balance settings as these can vary too wildly to use values from another display. I aim for picture accuracy so my experience is based on a further configured "ISF dark room" preset. All streaming was through a wired 200MB connection.
The Bad
Motion: Coming from a PDP with 1080 motion resolution, panning shots were initially a tough pill to swallow on the new display. I don't use any of the motion features and a once smooth experience had been lost. I will admit that having used the display for over ten hours this weekend, I'm noticing the reduced motion performance less and less.
Screen uniformity: Whilst this is very much a lottery, I do have one or two thin vertical lines on my display that are often noticeable on dim, grey scenes (The Arrow Blu-ray release of Kurosawa's "Pulse" really brought this home). I very rarely ever see these manifest in higher PQ Blu-ray, 4k sources or gaming. I could play the swap game with Curry's until I get something better, but I can't be bothered as it's rarely apparent. As a comparison, my PDP had no such issues.
Image retention: The horror stories I've read online have really got me babying this display. Any gaming has been HUD-less titles such as Dead Space and Metro 2033. Having come from a PDP, I'm fortunately used to this lingering fear accompanying me for every usage period. It would be lovely to be free of such a burden, but I feel the trade offs in PQ would outweigh the advantage.
Posterisation: I'm noticing this in certain sky shots (opening of "House of Cards"). I don't know whether this is a common OLED drawback or just something I'd never noticed on my PDP... I think I'd have seen it.
The Good
Black performance: I'd convinced myself that the black performance on my PDP would be close to that of an OLED display. How wrong I was. This scene from Stanger Things (I've pulled a screenshot from the web) blew me away. A pitch black scene with a few lit characters was displayed perfectly with absolute blacks and not a hint of blooming or washing out. This really put my PDP, where I had to revert to bias lighting, to shame and has become one of my demo scenes when I'm showing the display to cave visitors.
4K: I was expecting that 4K Netflix would be about as good as high quality 1080p Blu-rays in terms of PQ but I my expectations were wildly off. The increased resolution just displays so much more detail. Having sat through a few true/shot 4K titles, it made going back to 1080P Blu-rays a bit of a tough ask. I had the Director's Cut of "Kingdom of Heaven" Blu-ray on my shelf yet to be watched and it has been rated as having a 4.5/5 by Blu-ray.com. Coming from the 4K marathon I had indulged in, this took a bit of adjustment when I fired it up. There are a few instances of picture degradation when streaming but this is inherent in compressed streams and I expect would not be present in UHD viewing.
HDR: I've been going through a few Dolby Vision (DV) demos, the BBC iPlayer 4K HDR trial (about 5 times) and Stranger Things Season 2 in DV. The improved colours and specular highlights are a sight to behold and has found me visiting previously ignored content purely on the basis that it carries HDR. I'll be picking up a 4K UHD player at the earliest opportunity. The overall detail, light coming off of the raindrops and colour in the below frame, when shown on an OLED, is definitely something you need to see if you need convincing.
Functionality: Coming from a 2009 display with no smart features to a TV that has everything is a pleasure. When I had the Plasma, I had no problem with running a ROKU (BBC iPlayer, Shudder, NOW TV) and a PS3 (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video). With everything bar the Blu-ray player and Shudder now available through the TV, in a responsive fashion, it would be hard to go back to all these separate devices and their associated remote controls. Without my intervention, the TV also recognised the HDMI control of my PS3 allowing me to operate it with the LG remote.
General: The ultra thin bezels of the display really add to the overall look vs. the chunky frame around my old PDP. There also isn't a hint of buzzing (or any running noise for that matter) when in use that - anyone with a Kuro should be able to relate to this.
Summary
Overall, I'm very happy with the switch. Of the four bad points, the image retention and screen uniformity points will be the two that stay in my mind for at least the next year. It's a shame that in 2017 we are still having to decide whether to accept things like this when purchasing a TV, but fortunately the advantages help smooth out the few creases.
I hope this helps anyone that is trying to decide whether to make the jump from their PDP. Have you done it already? If so, what has your experience been?
The display has been initially configured as per a calibrator's thread on AV Forums which should ideally give as good a picture possible outside of professional calibration. I didn't use any of the CMS/White balance settings as these can vary too wildly to use values from another display. I aim for picture accuracy so my experience is based on a further configured "ISF dark room" preset. All streaming was through a wired 200MB connection.
The Bad
Motion: Coming from a PDP with 1080 motion resolution, panning shots were initially a tough pill to swallow on the new display. I don't use any of the motion features and a once smooth experience had been lost. I will admit that having used the display for over ten hours this weekend, I'm noticing the reduced motion performance less and less.
Screen uniformity: Whilst this is very much a lottery, I do have one or two thin vertical lines on my display that are often noticeable on dim, grey scenes (The Arrow Blu-ray release of Kurosawa's "Pulse" really brought this home). I very rarely ever see these manifest in higher PQ Blu-ray, 4k sources or gaming. I could play the swap game with Curry's until I get something better, but I can't be bothered as it's rarely apparent. As a comparison, my PDP had no such issues.
Image retention: The horror stories I've read online have really got me babying this display. Any gaming has been HUD-less titles such as Dead Space and Metro 2033. Having come from a PDP, I'm fortunately used to this lingering fear accompanying me for every usage period. It would be lovely to be free of such a burden, but I feel the trade offs in PQ would outweigh the advantage.
Posterisation: I'm noticing this in certain sky shots (opening of "House of Cards"). I don't know whether this is a common OLED drawback or just something I'd never noticed on my PDP... I think I'd have seen it.
The Good
Black performance: I'd convinced myself that the black performance on my PDP would be close to that of an OLED display. How wrong I was. This scene from Stanger Things (I've pulled a screenshot from the web) blew me away. A pitch black scene with a few lit characters was displayed perfectly with absolute blacks and not a hint of blooming or washing out. This really put my PDP, where I had to revert to bias lighting, to shame and has become one of my demo scenes when I'm showing the display to cave visitors.
4K: I was expecting that 4K Netflix would be about as good as high quality 1080p Blu-rays in terms of PQ but I my expectations were wildly off. The increased resolution just displays so much more detail. Having sat through a few true/shot 4K titles, it made going back to 1080P Blu-rays a bit of a tough ask. I had the Director's Cut of "Kingdom of Heaven" Blu-ray on my shelf yet to be watched and it has been rated as having a 4.5/5 by Blu-ray.com. Coming from the 4K marathon I had indulged in, this took a bit of adjustment when I fired it up. There are a few instances of picture degradation when streaming but this is inherent in compressed streams and I expect would not be present in UHD viewing.
HDR: I've been going through a few Dolby Vision (DV) demos, the BBC iPlayer 4K HDR trial (about 5 times) and Stranger Things Season 2 in DV. The improved colours and specular highlights are a sight to behold and has found me visiting previously ignored content purely on the basis that it carries HDR. I'll be picking up a 4K UHD player at the earliest opportunity. The overall detail, light coming off of the raindrops and colour in the below frame, when shown on an OLED, is definitely something you need to see if you need convincing.
Functionality: Coming from a 2009 display with no smart features to a TV that has everything is a pleasure. When I had the Plasma, I had no problem with running a ROKU (BBC iPlayer, Shudder, NOW TV) and a PS3 (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video). With everything bar the Blu-ray player and Shudder now available through the TV, in a responsive fashion, it would be hard to go back to all these separate devices and their associated remote controls. Without my intervention, the TV also recognised the HDMI control of my PS3 allowing me to operate it with the LG remote.
General: The ultra thin bezels of the display really add to the overall look vs. the chunky frame around my old PDP. There also isn't a hint of buzzing (or any running noise for that matter) when in use that - anyone with a Kuro should be able to relate to this.
Summary
Overall, I'm very happy with the switch. Of the four bad points, the image retention and screen uniformity points will be the two that stay in my mind for at least the next year. It's a shame that in 2017 we are still having to decide whether to accept things like this when purchasing a TV, but fortunately the advantages help smooth out the few creases.
I hope this helps anyone that is trying to decide whether to make the jump from their PDP. Have you done it already? If so, what has your experience been?
Last edited:
)and didn't have even a whiff of image retention.
