Another "pick my TV" thread, but a focused question . . .

[BonzaiDuck]

For the last 12 years, I've had this LG LED-LCD 42" "smart tv" connected to -- first -- my HTPC, and more recently -- to my ROKU device. The picture was good enough. Sound could've been better, but it had been variously connected simultaneously to my PC 5.1 sound and my ONKYO receiver 5.1. Because of the demise of Win Media Center, I weaned myself from exclusive use of the HTPC and bought a ROKU. My brother, meanwhile, spent six months getting the proper TV for his wife. They had three big TVs, and were replacing one. Sis-in-law lost her mind: she wanted a TV to cover the wall in their bedroom! Bro prevailed, but became a stickler for QLED, high-end TV processor and other features. They bought a Sony. We all had Sonys at one time or another, and everyone was happy as a pig in s*** with them. But! Now! They're manufacture in Mexico. Osaka is not in Mexico.

Mine HAS TO BE a 43". 50" might still work, but anything bigger just cannot find a place in this room.

But let me get to the chase. I'm still window-shopping TVs. I was looking at the Sony X85K 120Hz LED 4K unit. Some of the bad reviews insist that this model doesn't play well with a PC connection, but I want my TV to do that.

Second, I"d seen reviewers talk about some "lock" feature getting tripped after connecting their ROKU device. If I must entirely re-initialize my ROKU to make it work so I don't encounter some disaster, I will. But maybe someone can tell me about the HDCP features of ROKU with a TV. I KNOW that I have to reconfigure the ROKU so it controls volume and on/off for the TV. Maybe there's a step-by-step I need to follow in order to get there.

The smart TVs -- many -- have Android/Google TV built-in. Certain Hisense models have ROKU built-in. I just wouldn't be sure about picture quality and other things from a Jhinese television, or how long a Jhinese TV might last following its warranty. My LG was on constantly for about 12 years, turned off briefly an average of 12 times annually for various configuration and other chores. Picture never degraded! In the end, it was suddenly changing its volume by itself, and its own LG remote was showing some flaky behavior. My brother had told me "GET A NEW TV!" for the last six months.

Now -- I HAVE to get a new TV. Gotta be 43" to 50" and no larger. Prefer 4 HDMI ports. Would LIKE a 3.5mm stereo phone output, maybe to add a 2.1 PC speaker set for the sound. Prefer to have decent or better picture quality.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I can't tell you what to get (coz there are too many options out there) but I can tell you what NOT to get. Don't even look at OLED TVs. You can't keep them on constantly. So that should help to narrow down your search (exclude all OLEDs).

You can look at QLEDs (Samsung) or QNEDs (LG). Going lower than that would be IPS or VA panel TVs that should be pretty affordable. TCL may have something you need. Hisense? I have a Hisense OLED. Picture quality is the same as any other OLED but the TV OS is crap. Turn any picture processing on and it lags so bad like you wouldn't believe it. Feels like they put a Rockchip SoC in there.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I can't tell you what to get (coz there are too many options out there) but I can tell you what NOT to get. Don't even look at OLED TVs. You can't keep them on constantly. So that should help to narrow down your search (exclude all OLEDs).

You can look at QLEDs (Samsung) or QNEDs (LG). Going lower than that would be IPS or VA panel TVs that should be pretty affordable. TCL may have something you need. Hisense? I have a Hisense OLED. Picture quality is the same as any other OLED but the TV OS is crap. Turn any picture processing on and it lags so bad like you wouldn't believe it. Feels like they put a Rockchip SoC in there.

It's a shame we all must learn from our mistakes, when an item like a TV is something you don't want to be without for too long. Buying a TV was always something with which I didn't want to take more time than necessary. I even accepted used hand-me-down units from neighbors as long as they worked properly -- I just didn't have the time for the long shopping experience. That was back in the "tube" days.

I finally just decided to spring for the Sony X85K. Most of the buyers in reviews seem satisfied. Of course, Mexico doesn't have a city named Osaka, but the world has changed, companies carry their quality-culture with them. Sony had a reputation for longevity. Does Hisense or TCL have any reputation? I don't know. I could look at them some more, and plan to buy another TV in a few years. But comparing a 12-year-old LG LED_LCD to a 2022 Sony, I don't think I'll be disappointed.

Anyway, I tell my brother I pulled the string for the X85K. He finds a link at "HowToGeek" about display technology, explaining the difference between full-array, direct-lit and edge-lit. He was disappointed that I got direct-lit.

If I have any other concerns, it is that the TV has many streaming apps through Google Play, but the skinny on the street suggests that they don't have a Spectrum app -- which . . . I think . . . is insane. So? I'll plug in my ROKU and configure it on an HDMI port. I'll still connect a twisted-pair ethernet cable.

I've been getting my TV news-feed from an 8" tablet and my desktop PC for the last four or five days. I just couldn't wait around on this while I devoted too much time to do more research. The tablet freezes occasionally. The desktop is not accessible from my sofa. And it could be a year or two before I rearrange my room so I can manage a 55"+ for a wall-mount.

 

[igor_kavinski]

He was disappointed that I got direct-lit.

That only matters in a dark room. If you are not like me and you have no issue being in a well-lit room, the X85K will look great for you.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

That only matters in a dark room. If you are not like me and you have no issue being in a well-lit room, the X85K will look great for you.

I'll have to wait and see about this. Why it would be worse in a dark room seems puzzling -- you'd think the issue would be ambient light. But if I need to add light to the room, I can do that . . . But features like viewing angle are not important to me, since I'm likely to be the only person in front of the TV most of the time, looking straight at it. My eyes will be 10" from the screen.

I'll make a point of scanning through the Amazon reviews to see what other buyers said about lighting.

I should've done more extensive research, but I'm adverse to not having a TV in this room for more than a week's time.

That only leaves the shortcoming of "No Spectrum TV app" for Sony. Who the hell is responsible for that? It's crazy! But if I want Spectrum, I'll hook up the ROKU as I originally planned. Even so, another reason to re-examine the $100/mo TV part of our subscription, with the option of adding You-Tube for $65/mo and getting approximately the same channels.

While I wait, I'm finally going to go ahead with adding MediaPortal to my HTPC so I can know what I can do with that.

Correct or inform me, but it seems like I should be able to run my streaming subscriptions through the HTPC. Certainly it works that way with Spectrum, and I've tried others. I already have the streaming subscriptions on my Android tablets. I should just need MediaPortal, and I would then be able to view anything and everything on the new Sony with an HDMI connection.

All this taken together, Jack Valenti was the spearhead for the DRM, HDCP and other obstructions. The anniversary of his death is the 27th of April, and I spit on his grave!

 

[BonzaiDuck]

QUESTION UPDATE:

Here's an excerpt from a review by an older woman, who doesn't seem to be so tech-savvy:

"It's a good TV. At $850 or so, it's a bargain, really. My only really big gripe is that I lost all access to my prepaid Apps: HULU, STARZ,SHOWTIME. Nine of the apps recognized me and I was used to my Firestick logging me in automatically which it no longer would. Even -frustratingly, manually- logged on, my stuff no longer existed. Thanks, Google."

I have a ROKU. ROKU support FAQs suggest that you'd only need to hook up the existing ROKU to a new TV and then go into ROKU setup if you want the ROKU to control the TV's volume and power switch. Luckily, I made sure all my subscriptions have the same account ID and password. I think I most certainly would need to set up the TV's own streaming through the direct ethernet connection, one subscription at a time. I had assumed as much from the beginning and before I ordered the X85K Sony.

The HTPC project should give me some indication of what to expect, but I've never had trouble streaming my subscriptions through multiple Android and Windows 10 systems.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Why it would be worse in a dark room seems puzzling

Your brother must have been wanting you to get a Full Array Local Dimming zones HDR TV. This means that the colors pop. Like REALLY pop!

Behind the screen, there's an array of LEDs. These LEDs have variable brightness levels. So if you see a scene with a lamp in a room or a fire-lit torch in a forest at night, the portion of the screen with the light source will get brighter than the rest of the screen. It will seem as though a REAL lamp or torch is behind the screen. It looks AWESOME!

But the TV you bought isn't that bad: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sony/x85k



So the only issue will be with small highlights for you. The rest will look really good. If you have never had the pleasure of viewing HDR content, this TV will rock your world!

Dark room performance will leave a bit to be desired, because you might notice blooming in scenes, especially around subtitles. Some people find them very distracting. Your TV's brightness is a bit on the low side so you may have to view it in a dark room anyway to appreciate the intensity of the colors. This TV will show you 1 billion colors. The one you owned before probably went upto 16.7 million colors or maybe less. When you get the TV, turn down the lights, load up the Youtube HDR channel and prepare for eyegasms!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCve7_yAZHFNipzeAGBI5t9g

P.S. Not everything will look as good as what you see on that channel. Content needs to be HDR compatible. Best way to get that is Netflix.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'll need to review that review again -- that's the one i'd seen previously. The excerpt you provide is useful information.

I know people are goo-gah about a TV image that looks like it's going to reach out and wick your willie, but I'm easy to please. Right now, I'm marveling at how many DVR captures I have on my HTPC which will play properly. I started playing "Hombre" in SD format, and was stunned by the blood on that cowboy's face when Paul Newman defends his Apache brothers and smashes the guy in the face with a rifle butt.

I think I've even got the entire Bourne trilogy, and "The Long Hot Summer" -- another Newman classic with Orson Welles and Joanne Woodward -- later Newman's wife. Great films. They're not in HDR or UHD, but they were great films. Somewhere, I have a DVR of "Road to Perdition" -- another film with the aging Newman -- Tom Hanks gave a marvelous performance. It's got to be in the disk folder somewhere . . . . I'm sure that it played or was captured as unencrypted . . . Yea-ahh! I've got Road to Perdition! I have PILES of stuff on that old HTPC . . .

 

[igor_kavinski]

Right now, I'm marveling at how many DVR captures I have on my HTPC which will play properly.

Considering the age of that HTPC, I'm guessing it's got a hard drive? Better upgrade that to SSD. You never know when HDDs decide to go kaput. It could just be opening one file at some particular sector that starts giving it trouble and before you know it, the heads won't stop screeching.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Considering the age of that HTPC, I'm guessing it's got a hard drive? Better upgrade that to SSD. You never know when HDDs decide to go kaput. It could just be opening one file at some particular sector that starts giving it trouble and before you know it, the heads won't stop screeching.

I think I could upgrade a lot of disks in this house. My server in an upstairs bedroom has a drivepool of four 3TB Hitachi HDDs. I dumped all my DVR files from the HTPC down here to the server. The key aspect of this, is that, no matter where I store the DVR files, they will play properly on the HTPC, but they will ONLY play on the HTPC.

So here's an update since I started this thread.

The Sony X85K arrived yesterday, and I bought a $30 stand for it, which has a 3/8"-thick black glass base and a heavy plate that fits the VESA holes in the back of most TVs, including the Sony. I feel so old and tired these days, I really-really take my time with this stuff. But I got the Sony up and running by late afternoon today.

You expect that the menu system will just let you get to the core of the matter and configure one HDMI input at a time, but the damn thing has a mind of its own, and insists on running "Setup" like the consumer is a captive to the process. I was planning to give it a wired Ethernet connection, but it just proceeded to configure itself to the Wi-Fi 5G part of my network, so I just let it do its thing.

There's nothing to do with the ROKU, but instead of configuring the ROKU to turn on the Sony, I configured the Sony remote to turn on the ROKU. But all my streaming apps are fine on the ROKU, including the streaming app for casting my HTPC to it.

Now there is a feature on these new TVs for configuring "HDR" or high dynamic range. I need to read up on it. However, the HTPC grabbed the TV as its second monitor, and I opened PowerDVD and slid it over to the Sony display. I discovered that one can start playing a movie, and that the Sony wants to configure the input for HDR. If you give it the go-ahead and answer "Yes" to the dialog, then attempt to start a DVR movie, PowerDVD goes into an endless loop and must be terminated with Task Manager. I got that all sorted out now, though.

I need to familiarize myself with the Sony's setup menus in case I need to manuallly change something before I switch from HDMI-1 to HDMI-2.

As for configuring the TV to download the apps for my streaming subscriiptions directly, I was also able to do that. I was able to log on and open the HULU service without using the ROKU.

If I can re-program my Windows Media Center Green-button remote to control PowerDVD, this is going to be a great entertainment system.

I ordered a $25 Bluetooth receiver which feeds a 3.5mm stereo jack to a 2.1 PC speaker system. This way, I can hook up a Klipsch Promedia THX 2.1 speaker set to the TV via BlueTooth. I think my brother suggested that the speakers in the Sony TV are only putting out 20W combined power, and I think the Promedia THX throws out 200W.

As for the picture, without further tweaking "HDR" and other features, I see no reason to adjust the colors. It's perfect. It's going to be a great TV, a great HT entertainment system. Porting all my music to PowerDVD, I can play an album on the HTPC, I get surround sound 5.1 from the HTPC, and no sound goes to the TV because the default audio is the Logitech 5.1 system, and not the HDMI port that connects to the TV. So I can start an album, switch the HDMI to the ROKU, put Lawrence O'Donnell or Rachel Maddow on MUTE, and listen to the music while watching the news and reading its content.

I just wish I could make traditional DVR captures to the HTPC. Right now, I'm only able to do it with my TABLO and OTA broadcasts, saved to the HDD I put in the TABLO. I'll figure something out.

Another thought. The HTPC was built of new parts in 2014. I anticipate a lot more life out of it. And I don't need to buy a separate Blu-Ray player for the system, since I can use the HTPC. PowerDVD seems to have all the menu items that Windows Media Center had. I will probably try out Media Portal before I reprogram the Green Button. I should give myself a chance to see how it works. But PowerDVD works just great.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Now there is a feature on these new TVs for configuring "HDR" or high dynamic range. I need to read up on it.

In a gist, HDR needs an HDR signal from the source. If the source can't provide that, the TV will most likely upconvert the signal from SDR to HDR, doing the relevant colorspace conversion. Some TVs, like LG OLEDs, do this very well. I had the Sony X900E before. While it was good, it was horrible at SDR to HDR conversion because the red dots in its pixels used some weird material that made the red color too vibrant. In fact, jarringly so. Watching Spiderman trailer on Youtube, my eyes just couldn't deal with the mess that his suit looked due to the really bad red. In the end, it was a relief to get rid of that TV without too much loss in sale price. I hope Sony has fixed that issue in your TV's model. You can check if HDR is turned on or not by clicking the Picture Mode button on your remote. It should say HDR in the top right corner of the screen, in a very non-prominent way, at least it was like that on my X900E.

You can manually set the picture to run in SDR mode too. Sometimes, that's the only thing needed to make the picture look natural, though I never need to do it on my LG coz even the worst it does seems acceptable to me.

You should also check out the motion smoothness settings. Sony is supposed to be the best in the industry for that. Even my X900E looked amazing with Motion Flow turned on. It was kind of mesmerizing as the onscreen motion mimicked real life motion pretty closely. I think you are going to have a lot of fun messing with the motion related options.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

In a gist, HDR needs an HDR signal from the source. If the source can't provide that, the TV will most likely upconvert the signal from SDR to HDR, doing the relevant colorspace conversion. Some TVs, like LG OLEDs, do this very well. I had the Sony X900E before. While it was good, it was horrible at SDR to HDR conversion because the red dots in its pixels used some weird material that made the red color too vibrant. In fact, jarringly so. Watching Spiderman trailer on Youtube, my eyes just couldn't deal with the mess that his suit looked due to the really bad red. In the end, it was a relief to get rid of that TV without too much loss in sale price. I hope Sony has fixed that issue in your TV's model. You can check if HDR is turned on or not by clicking the Picture Mode button on your remote. It should say HDR in the top right corner of the screen, in a very non-prominent way, at least it was like that on my X900E.

You can manually set the picture to run in SDR mode too. Sometimes, that's the only thing needed to make the picture look natural, though I never need to do it on my LG coz even the worst it does seems acceptable to me.

You should also check out the motion smoothness settings. Sony is supposed to be the best in the industry for that. Even my X900E looked amazing with Motion Flow turned on. It was kind of mesmerizing as the onscreen motion mimicked real life motion pretty closely. I think you are going to have a lot of fun messing with the motion related options.

I think, the initial problem was a need for an "Auto" setting on the TV for this function, because the HTPC and Sony no longer show a problem with it.

I had mentioned that my brother had made himself an expert on TV picture specs, going through two previous Samsung returns to COSTCO before he got his own 75" Sony, his wife being the major consideration, and she would have a 100" TV on her wall if it would fit. He was telling me that my 43" Sony Bravia didn't have the best display technology, but then, he looked at the X85K's specs and told me today that I indeed had "the best".

All I can say is that the picture is marvelous, whether the eco-power-saving is on Low, High, or Off. I had always been a nit-picker for adjusting the color, contrast and brightness for the most life-like picture. But after hooking up the X85K, I cannot see any need to adjust anything, because it is already perfect in my judgment.

I'm waiting for a Bluetooth receiver to arrive tomorrow so I can add a Klipsch Promedia THX 2.1 speaker system to the TV. Then, today, I decided to resurrect my ONKYO TX-NR616 HT Receiver and try for a TV-HDMI (ARC)-to-receiver (ARC) configuration. I went to turn on the ONKYO, which had not been used for at least a few years, and found it to be DEAD. I went through the hoops to correct this as a symptom, but to no avail. It's a 12-year-old Ethernet-enabled, 4K-capable 7.2 system set up as 5.1, with a set of JBL 5.1 speakers. Of course, I have 5.1 with the HTPC and an old Logitech speaker set, for which I've never been able to complain.

So I have to ask myself, to capture the value of the JBL speakers, if I want to buy another HT receiver. In this room, the options I already mentioned seem like more than enough.

Something that frustrates me is the way you need separate "apps" for either ROKU or Sony to access different streaming subscriptions. But it's not the individual apps that peeves me, but their design. They just splatter Icons or thumbnails over the screen, and you have to search through them. If you open, say, You-Tube TV,, Prime Video, PBS, etc. they all have different menu and access designs, and they all come up with . . . thumbnails splashed all over the screen.

Furchrissake! All you would want is a channel guide for each one, hopefully with numbered channels for LIVE TV, and then some alphabetical listing -- in a "channel-guide" format -- for streaming movies and TV series. I can think of a good example from the Charter set-top box menus before it became Spectrum, although I think the Spectrum STB still has the same design. It was "On Demand", with logical menus and submenus for different categories of films.

I think I prefer the ROKU and its remote to the Sony's streaming menus and its remote. But so far, I've set up my Prime Video, PBS, TABLO, and You-Tube TV access, and HULU. I'm considering to drop Spectrum TV (set up on the ROKU) for You-Tube TV, because Spectrum doesn't have an app for the Sony.

But Spectrum has a fairly sane guide and menus. Maybe I need to accustom myself to You-Tube TV, so I'll take the 21 days of free time to assess it. But if I choose to keep Spectrum, the ROKU has to stay in the loop.

When I was a kid in the early '50s, we had an RCA black-and-white TV. You had to spin the channel knob to get maybe 15 stations. And every time you wanted to change the channel, you had to get up off the floor, walk to the TV and twist the knob. I could watch "Crusader Rabbit" and "Sky King" or "Gunsmoke" in addition to the three or four news sources. I just think if you suddenly have access to the sources I have, with additional premium channels and their offerings, you can spend a half-hour or more scouring through thumbnail clutter just to find what you wanted to watch.

And if there's a Tablo TV Android app for the Sony, why shouldn't there be a Spectrum app?