Home Theater Geeks 494 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
00:00 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
In this episode of Home Theater Geeks, I answer a question from Edwin Boone, who has a 12-year-old plasma and wonders what would be the best replacement. So stick around.
00:15 - Leo (Announcement)
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00:31 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Hey there, scott Wilkinson, here, the home theater geek. In this episode I answer a question from Edwin Boone who writes I've got a 60-inch Panasonic Viera Plasma TV that's now 12 years old. It's running great. I keep it out of the sun through the windows. In fact I usually only use it after sunset and I turn it off completely after use. I have blown fresh air from a leaf blower to the vent areas a couple of times and so far no bad side effects have appeared.
01:08
I worry about the TV's electronics. They're old but no failures yet. I'm very happy with the plasma, but it can't go on forever. Any advice about which models might be comparable these days? Well, edwin, I've got plenty of advice. The Panasonic plasma TVs were great, second only to the Pioneer Kuro plasmas which I had for many years. But the Panasonics were also great and if you're happy with the TV's performance, I'd use it as long as it works.
01:47
No reason not to Well, there might be which I'll get to in a minute and you're doing all the right things keeping it out of direct sun, turning it off when it's not in use. I would say also, don't pause content for long periods of time unless your source has a screensaver that kicks in after a little while, because still images on a plasma can lead to image retention, which is temporary, which would be sort of outlines of still images that were on the screen for a long time, or burn-in, which is the same thing, only it's permanent. Plasmas were particularly susceptible to this, so I would recommend not doing that. Also, if you watch a lot of news programs with tickers along the bottom, or if you watch a particular channel for a long period of time that has what's called a bug in one corner that identifies the channel that you're watching, these can also cause image retention or burn-in. Also, if you play video games, I was just at my nephew's house yesterday and was watching doing some video games with him and there's a big old scoreboard in the lower corner of the screen and it just stays there, and if you did that for many hours or days at a time, that would definitely cause image retention or burn in.
03:22
Now there's two things that your Panasonic plasma can't do 4K or UHD resolution and high dynamic range or HDR. Of those two, hdr is far more important in my opinion. There's quite a bit of 4K UHD content out there now and your plasma can't take full advantage of it, but it also can't take full advantage of high dynamic range, which is really important. It really improves the picture tremendously. In fact, it has a lot more obvious impact improvement in picture quality. So this is a strong argument for upgrading your TV sooner than later.
04:14
As you know, plasma TVs aren't made anymore. They ended quite some time ago now. It was my favorite TV technology of the time, but times have moved on. The most comparable TV technology today is OLED, which I prefer over the other primary television technology, which is LED backlit LCD, which is called LED TV for short. Now, led TVs are often brighter than OLEDs, but OLED can achieve essentially perfect blacks, which LEDs generally cannot, and also, oleds look a lot better when viewed from off-center, what we call off-axis. Now, in general, oled TVs are generally more expensive than LED TVs of comparable size, but in my view, it's well worth it because of those perfect blacks and the better off-axis viewing. Now, when talking about replacements, you don't mention a budget, but I'll give you a few recommendations anyway. Oleds typically come in 55-inch, 65-inch and 77-inch, along with some smaller sizes in many cases and a few that are larger 83 and even 97 inches in a few cases, but not 60. The Plasmas came in 60 inches, but OLEDs don't, so if you want something of a similar size, you're going to have to stick with 55 or 65.
06:02
Now, the main companies in the US that sell OLED TVs are LG, samsung and Sony, and recently Panasonic got back into the game. As you know well, they have a. They used to sell plasma TVs in the US, but they got out of the US market some time ago and they've only recently re-emerged into the US market with some OLED TVs. So I put together a little spreadsheet that I will show you here and we can go over some of the options for OLED TVs that would be good replacements for your Panasonic plasma. And if we take a look at that, we can see. I've categorized them into less than $2,000 and more than $2,000. And LG has the most models that are available and I looked specifically at the B series and the C series. In the lower end. They also make an A series, but the B series has 120 hertz refresh rate, which is where I'd like to start. So, as you can see and I included the 2024 models and the 2025 models and they're indicated by the last digit in the model number.
07:28
So the 55B4, which was last year's model, is selling on the website and, by the way, all these prices are from the manufacturer website. Sometimes they indicate a sale. They say, oh, the list price is this, but our sale price is this, and I'm listing what they call the sale price. It's effectively the purchase price. I think those are relatively long-term sales, shall we say. Anyway, so the B4, as you can see, the 55-inch, is $1,000. The B5, which is current model, $1,300, $300 difference. If you go up to the 65-inch Bs, the B4 is $1,200 and the 65-B5 is $1,600.
08:15
Interestingly, take a look at the Cs in the LG line. The C4, the 55-inch C4 from last year was not discounted. It was listed on that site as $2,000. That's like what? I don't get that at all. The 55-inch C5 is only $1,400, $600 less than last year's model. Okay, that doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's what was on the site, so, okay. And then the 65 inch C4, as you can see there, c4 is 1400 and C5 is 1700. Continuing in the under $2,000 range, panasonic has a lower end model, 65z85a for $1,000. That's pretty good for a 65-incher.
09:07
Samsung has three models under $2,000, which you can see there, and those are all QD OLED. The LGs are all what are called W OLED, which means conventional OLED a red, green and blue subpixel and a white subpixel, hence the name W OLED. The Panasonic Z85A is the same. The Samsung models are what are called QD OLED or quantum dot OLED, and that's a better technology. Oled or quantum dot OLED, and that's a better technology, no question about it, because it uses quantum dots, doesn't have that white subpixel, so it maintains color saturation at brighter, at higher brightness levels. And they have three models here inch S85F, the 55 inch S90F and the 65 inch S85. The S90F does have a 65 inch version, but it's actually over $2,000. So I put it in the next category and you can see the prices there.
10:15
Sony has two OLEDs under $2,000 called the Bravia 8, the 55 and 65, also W OLED, conventional OLED, and you can see there they're just a little bit more expensive than the Samsungs which we have come to expect from Sony. Just a little bit more expensive but, in my opinion, worth the extra $100 because they generally have better processing. Samsung processing is no slouch, don't get me wrong, but I will say this the reason I normally don't recommend Samsung TVs is not because they're not good TVs. They are good TVs, but they don't support Dolby Vision, high dynamic range. Samsung has chosen as a company to not support Dolby Vision in any of its TVs. And I think Dolby Vision, first of all, it's common, it's used a lot and it's a really good HDR format. So I want a TV that supports it. So that's why I generally don't recommend Samsung. So that's under $2,000.
11:29
If you have the budget to go over $2,000, you've got some options as well, and they will generally be higher quality. And, by the way, I will say this when you go from one model line up to the next say, for example, from LGB to C, you're going to get more brightness and better processing. That's the primary difference. They're all going to be 4K, they're all going to be HDR, they're all going to be 4K capable. Samsung's won't support Dolby Vision, but they do support other HDR formats. So that's basically what you're getting when you go from one product line to the next.
12:11
So, over $2,000, we have the LGs, again the G4 and the G5 from 2024 and 2025, and you can see the prices there and again the 65-inch G4, last year's model is way more expensive than this year's 65-inch G5. So weird. I don't get that the Panasonic Z95A only comes in a 65 inch. The 85A only comes in a 65 inch as well, as far as I could tell, and that's 3,200 bucks. That's very expensive, very expensive. Uh, samsung has some QD OLEDs, uh, that are over 2000,. But under $3,000. Well, the 65-inch S95F is $3,300, so that's pretty expensive. And then the Sonys the last year's A95L is the TV I actually have in my theater and I love it. I think it is a beautiful TV and you can get the 55-incher for $2,000. This year's QD OLED is the Bravia 8 Mark II and it also comes in 55 and 65-inch versions and you can see there they're quite a bit more expensive than the A95L.
13:38
So what I recommend, the models I recommend, are in green in this spreadsheet and so you can see. I recommend for the low end, lower end, the LG C5 and 65-inch C4 or the Sony Bravia 8. Both of those are really, really good and these are all good. Oleds generally are exceptionally good. Let me not miss that fact. They're just a much better technology, in my opinion, than LCD, any LCD-based TV. But those LGs and the Sonys are my favorites in the under 2000 category.
14:28
In the over 2000 category I would still recommend? I would mostly recommend the Sonys either the A95L or the Bravia 8 Mark II. Those are all QD OLEDs as well, and QD OLED is my favorite currently available TV technology. So if you're going to replace the TV, depending on your budget, I would get one of those. It's the closest thing you're going to get to plasma and it's going to look great, really great, as long as you choose cinema mode, picture mode or movie picture mode or filmmaker mode, one of those modes that gets it close to being calibrated and Sony goes a long way toward calibrating their sets on the assembly line Another reason I really like Sony and another reason they're more expensive but worth it, in my opinion. So, anyway, that's what I recommend and I wish you all the best.
15:36
Now, if you have a question for me, please send it along to htg at twittv and I'll answer as many as I can right here on the show. And, as you know, twit is now offering all of its programs for free on YouTube with ads. If you want to go ad free, join the club. Go to twittv, slash club twit to sign up today. Until next time, geek out.
16:09 - Leo (Announcement)
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