New LG C1 OLED owner thoughts (1 Viewer)

[Hanson]

After having owned mid-level Vizio LCD sets for the past 8 years, I finally took the plunge on a 77" LG C1 OLED TV.

1) I understood what black was, but now I know what black is. The inky, deep, light stealing black of the LG C1 is incredible to behold. It's actually blacker than the LCD screen was when it was turned off.

2) SDR material looks as good on the C1 as HDR material looked on the LCD set. HDR material is on a whole new level of PQ. The whole family was freaking out over the huge upgrade in picture quality. Watching Encanto in 4K HDR was mind blowing -- colors were popping off the screen. Just in general, all the colors and look rich and vibrant.

3) No halos! I find myself staring at the credits scroll by when it's white text on a black background just because it's so... Beautiful

4) We had a habit of just pausing what we were watching and walking away for bathroom breaks or to get snacks and then absent mindedly doing other things before getting back to the TV 20 minutes later. It's fine with LCD, but not a great idea with OLED. Thankfully, we can use Alexa to turn the TV to standby, and since it wakes up quickly we should be able to get into the habit of turning it off instead of just pausing. We're all used to turning the lights on and off with Alexa already.

5) I ordered a soundbar with the TV, but it won't arrive until Tuesday. In the meantime, I was blown away at how good the TV speakers are -- it's better than the Denon 5.1 surround setup I had but without all the clutter of wires. The only thing I'm missing is the deep bass, but it's not a deal breaker. If the soundbar doesn't blow me away, I'm going to return it. Had I gotten the soundbar the same day, I would have set it up and never even bothered with the TV speakers, so who knows, that might have saved me $900.

6) The upscaling is quite impressive. It handles 720p and SD material like a champ. Looks way better than before.

7) The screen is plenty bright during the day. Besides, a beautifully rendered dark scene where you can see all the detail in conjunction with inky blacks is way more satisfying than eye-searing whites.

8) One of the things that attracted me to the C1 was the 77" size. It's a small increase over the 75" Vizio I owned, but that extra 2" seemed to put me over some visual threshold because I can see fine details I missed before, especially with animation. All the Disney and Pixar films look even more lush and detailed than before

I knew that the OLED set was going to have better PQ than my Vizio, but quite frankly, I thought my Vizio looked top tier. I got it right before the QLED sets came out en masse. I was willing to stick with it for another couple of years, but the C1 kind of fell into my lap. The actual leap in PQ is staggering -- it's not unlike the time I got laser eye surgery and could really see for the first time. I don't regret having waited this long to jump to OLED, since the panel tech has really matured in relation to burn in and the prices went down far enough to be in the affordable range. I have never been this thrilled over a TV purchase, which is saying something because I was doing handsprings when I got my 75" LCD set.

 

[Sam Posten]

Awesome, enjoy! Don’t read any other reviews for next 4 years!

 

[Hanson]

Awesome, enjoy! Don’t read any other reviews for next 4 years!

I have a limited budget so I have learned not to covet things that I know I cannot afford. It will be at least 3 years before the C3 or whatever they call it even approaches my budget ceiling

I actually forgot that the new display required new madvr settings. Now that it's set to HDR passthrough with flags, the picture is somehow even better. Could just be placebo effect.

The one annoying things is that audio setting keeps randomly switching to Game Optimizer. I tried changing an output setting in the Nvidia dashboard, but it only reduced the number of times it switched but didn't resolve the issue altogether.

 

[Todd Erwin]

I love my 55” C1, except when I’m watching a movie that has extended dark sequences, causing the TV to dim gradually.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I love my 55” C1, except when I’m watching a movie that has extended dark sequences, causing the TV to dim gradually.

There are ways around that issue.

 

[Todd Erwin]

There are ways around that issue.

I have been tempted to turn that off in the service menu, but have been simply pausing, grabbing the LG remote, hitting the gear button, wait for the screen brightness to return, hit the gear button again, then resume the movie. I understand why both LG and Sony have done this, but they really need to improve the algorithm that still seems to fail to detect movement on the screen during these darker sequences. Bridge on the River Kwai really gave me issues with this.

 

[Hanson]

I just found my new reference material that shows off the OLED's deep, rich blacks and infinite contrast ratio -- For All Mankind on Apple TV+. Now, the show is excellent and the period costumes and set design look incredible on the C1. But the scenes on the moon -- oh my god, the freaking moon -- are absolutely breathtaking. It highlights how important contrast is to picture quality and how OLED just wipes the floor with backlit LCD when it comes to displaying HDR. Not having halos just widens the gulf in picture quality.

The beauty of those moon shots are beyond anything I ever anticipated from OLED. I mean, I was floored. It might be the most compelling moving image I've ever seen, either home or the cinema.

I had this vague idea about how the OLED would look better in comparison to the old LCD set. I imagined more eye popping color but at the cost of brightness. I imagined no halos from the backlight. I don't really know if the sum total of what I was expecting was really worth upgrading. Perhaps I was lowering my expectations. But the brightness thing is completely overblown. It's plenty bright, and I use Filmmaker mode. When I put it into Vivid it's a blinding eyesore. So this thing can get bright. It's just a matter of why would you want it like that. The colors are eye-popping and vibrant. I love the absence of halos way more than I had expected.

But it's the deep blacks and the infinite contrast that make everything pop off the screen. With the right material, it kind of looks like it's 3D. Encanto doesn't simply look colorful -- it looks like light floating in the air in front of the screen.

But what it can do with lesser material is nothing short of miraculous. To watch NTSC DVD on a 77" screen and think, "not bad!" is a real turning water into wine moment. 720p looks like 1080p. 1080p looks like 4K. SDR looks like HDR. 4K HDR looks like... Well, 4K HDR looks like the face of God.

I don't regret having waited this long because even a couple of years ago a 77" OLED set was 5K easy and there was no way in God's green earth that was going to happen. I mean, it would have been worth it, but 5K for a TV is just so far out of my budget it's unthinkable. And there's just an avalanche of 4K HDR material now.

All I can say is, what a time to be alive!

 

[Hanson]

I had initially decided to get the 85" Samsung QN90A as a TV upgrade but came to the unfortunate conclusion that it was simply too large for the TV area, and would have resulted in people brushing or bumping into the set while heading in and out of the front door. It just seemed like a tragic (and avoidable) accident waiting to happen. As I settle into my 77" LG C1, I realize just how fortunate this limitation was.

I had some pretty heavy DSE on my old Vizio LCD set, but I didn't feel at the time that it was worth packing up and exchanging it so I lived it with. It wasn't really that big a deal at the time, but I didn't realize how much it affected PQ until now. I just couldn't live with DSE anymore, but all LCD screens suffer from DSE to some effect. I am glad to have not participated in the panel lottery with the QN90A.

I am sold on Dolby Vision. I had read from some corners that DV isn't any better than HDR10. This is wrong. I have watched some DV movies and shows, and what I've found is that CG animation generally looks brighter in HDR10 with punchier colors. But when it comes to live action, especially for dark scenes, DV absolutely smokes HDR10, showing more detail in dark scenes without losing deep blacks. Samsung doesn't support DV, so I would have completely missed out. I watched Prey in DV a couple of nights ago, and it looked spectacular. I watched Avengers Infinity War in DV and every scene revealed new picture detail that I swear hadn't noticed before. The opening scene between on the wrecked spaceship looked like it was in 3D.

A month into the C1 and we are still just marveling at how amazing the picture quality is. Moana was on last night, and by gosh, the 4K HDR picture was breathtaking. I still just play random chapters from Encanto just to marvel at the light, colors, and contrast. This is easily the most impactful home theater purchase I've ever made.

 

[Clinton McClure]

I thought DSE could also affect OLED panels?

 

[Robert Crawford]

I thought DSE could also affect OLED panels?

It could, but it's more prevalent on non-OLED displays.

 

[Hanson]

Even OLED won't have 100% gray uniformity out of the box, but the amount that it is off by is much less than the variations found in a typical LCD screen. The new LG sets will actually correct uniformity issues over time, as usage and pixel cleaning will even out existing irregularities. But you're also not getting the gray vertical banding that causes the kind of DSE that affects every scene with panning.