My first post, please be gentle
Hello everyone, first time posting, I found this forum while Google searching reviews of the TV and possible fixes for issues I am experiencing... lI wanted to see if I am the only one noticing these things. I am a long time tech fan and even bigger fan of TV viewing that puts you there in that moment. I am sorry if this is a really long first post, but I am hoping to find some help or guidance in figuring out what to do (and maybe bring up issues that others are experiencing as well?) as I continue to back read this entire thread.
I got the 55" 850B from Best Buy a week ago for $1,500 ($1,950 after tax and the 5 year coverage plan) I am on the fence about this TV however, as when it shines, it's the nicest picture I have ever seen on a TV, EASILY. Even when it's up-converting DirecTV at only 1080i, it's obvious that this TV is leaps and bounds prettier than my old Samsung, which I still think has a wonderful picture. When the 850B doesn't shine, it's distracting to see so much distortion or ugliness around objects when there is fast motion on the screen. I am not sure if the distortion is just that bad, we are sitting too close (about 7-8 feet away in my bedroom) or that my eyes get used to the picture being SUPERB 75% of the time, so that when fast movement occurs, it's jarring how much of a loss of quality there is. I have played with settings every time I have turned on the TV, but find that I must compromise certain features to get the picture to somewhere that is acceptable for motion and non-motion. If I could get the picture to look as it good as it does most of the time, all of the time, I'd recommend this TV to anyone and everyone.
I have been trying to do as much back reading as possible in this thread, but I still have a lot to go. Maybe I will get answers from that back reading, but this is what I am looking for so far and have not found answers to.
#1 . The slow action that occurs on the screen is amazing. Literally jaw dropping. Makes my girlfriend who isn't big on technology, go "Ohhhhhh, wowwww" when watching certain shows or playing Grand Theft Auto 5 on PS4.We saw it in Best Buy after I did a bunch of review searching the days leading up to the purchase and as soon as we saw it, we both could clearly see how much better the picture was than the other TV's around it. At home, even when not a 4K image, certain up-converted shows look real at times. Certain times, football looks like we are watching it through a window, especially close ups in between plays. 'Godzilla' on Blu-ray is just all sorts of beautiful. However, fast action, when motion flow is turned on, seems to get a lot of distortion around the moving focus of a particular screen. The only way to get most of the halo or distortion gone from the screen, is to turn the motion flow off, but that comes at a cost... I like motion flow, but hate the distortion field that floats around a player on the football field for example. Using the "football button" doesn't exactly give us the best picture setting for actually watching football, not that I have found anyways.
#2 . I like the way the screen looks with the motion flow on either at Standard, True Cinema or Clear, eventhough clear does seem to darken the screen a bit more... I find it makes it look like you're watching a live taping of whatever it is you're watching (especially helpful for live action such as football) I get that it is adding extra frames that might not actually be there from the source content. Sometimes, things look like they're moving too fast, but most of the time, we both REALLY like it and have trained our eyes in this week to expect more than 24 frames per second. Looking at my old Samsung 61" that is 1080 and really really nice, seems odd now
We watch "House" on Netflix on the new TV and it just is a different level of immersion that we've never seen before, and we've watched that show for 10 years now ():
#3 . The screen is too shiny and reflective (as of this morning) I have heard a lot of people complain about it here, but only noticed it this morning with the Sun coming through my window and shining on my bed. During the evening, the picture is awesome sauce and there is no reflection in a dark room or even with my overhead fan light on, even with dark images on the screen. 'Godzilla' this morning though, near the end when he shoots the radiation into the mouth of the Muto, it is so dark that I could see my bed and myself clearly in the reflection (until Godzilla shoots the radiation and the screen lights up, then it is perfectly clear and you see no reflection) I was going to say this was a non-issue as I hadn't noticed it all week until the sun was shining as it was.
#4 . I'd prefer to lose the "Smart TV" aspect of the TV, as the web browser isn't all that awesome and wont show certain... shall we say, adult web sites haha To my girlfriend, this is the biggest problem as we went with the Smart TV because we thought we'd view porn easily without having to connect a lap top that can't produce 4K output anyways. Netflix IS sweet however, and looks better when watched from the TV, vs watching it through my PS4.
#5 . I would like to get the 65", as I know that 4K really lends intself to bigger screns, but $1500 was and is a lot of $ to me, so if the issues I am having with the 55" are only going to be made worse with the bigger screen in my small-ish room, then there is no point to spending the extra $1,000. My 61" was in the bedroom and was a bit too big, but since we got used to that in there, the 55" seems a tad-bit smaller, loses the theater effect.
#6 . With motion flow turned off, the overall clarity and immersion seems to be cut down, but it does tend to "fix" the distortion halo issue for the most part. I like motion flow and it gets another mention here because even without a lot of 4K content, the TV makes regular TV look better and certain 1080i shows look 4K, at least to us.
#6 b. When watching the 4k Netflix shows like Oceans or Flowers, the distortion is really noticeable even with motion flow turned off, when the screen does a wide pan of a vast field of flowers or something of that nature. It starts to look like a giant bunch of colorful noise until the scene slows down again. It's sad to see all those detailed flowers turn into a bunch noise instead of a clear view of a bunch of flowers. I figured 4K would keep the detail a lot better than that.
#7 . I have been playing Grand Theft Auto 5 on the PS4 and at times, it's EASY to say that is the best a video game has ever looked, the motion flow makes the game look and feel real at times, especially now that the PS4 version of the game got as nicely cleaned up as it did.. Other times, it seems (especially when driving really fast and buildings are flying past you) that the screen judders or jumps around/skips a bit. My theory on this is that since the game is only being sent from the PS4 at 30 frames a second and sometimes when a lot of action is going on, the game would slow down a bit on my old TV, the new TV is trying to fill those gaps/slow down moments and really over emphasizes the jumpy effect. It looks visually like what it sounds like aurally when a CD skips briefly. It's not an all the time thing, and when playing it on the old TV the issue doesn't really happen when just driving fast through the city, so it's definitely something that the 850B is trying to do and seems to be failing at.
#8 . I have until Jan 14th to decide what to do, with no restocking fee, I can return it to Best Buy with zero cost to myself.
Sorry for it being so long, and thank you if you read up to this point
This has been my experience with this TV so far. I want to say it's the best TV I ahve ever seen, and it is at times. But unless I can figure out the distortion issues and get the motion flow to work without it wrecking fast action, I might have to save my $1500 until faster processing engine come out later this year. That is the best way to describe it... Like the TV would be perfect, if the engine behind it was processing faster. I am wondering if the 120 hrz refresh rate is the issue? Would 240 keep a clearer picture all the time and get rid of these halo distortion issues?