-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
HDTVTest - I Measured TCL's ๐๐๐๐ก๐ง 115-inch Mini LED TV - Projectors are in ๐๐๐ Trouble
- Thread starter HeisenbergFX4
- Start date
The Cockatrice
Member
Nice. If Im ever rich Ill consider it.
kiphalfton
Gold Member
Forget that home projectors are even a thing. IIRC they are freaking expensive for a good one too.
cinnamonandgravy
Member
im in once it's a microLED 8k120
Magic Carpet
Member
I'm never going back to the dank dark world of projectors again. I did that for over a decade in my last house. Friends and Family are happier too with the 82" direct view during Super Bowl everyone can see the chips and dip.
Last edited:
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Mr.Phoenix
Member
Nope. Projectors aren't in any kinda trouble. I really don't know why tech reviewers do this thing all the time. Turn everything into a vs piece or a (insert whatever here) killer type thing. Even when they have no business doing so.
There will always be a place for UST projectors, and that tech is just one breakthrough away from making it the best disp[lay tech on the market.
However, both technologies can co-exist being that there are things one can do that the other simply can't. Eg. Try getting that 115" TV up a staircase or into an elevator. Meanwhile for something about the size of two PS5s side by side and a screen you assemble in your living room you can get screen sizes up to 150".
There will always be a place for UST projectors, and that tech is just one breakthrough away from making it the best disp[lay tech on the market.
However, both technologies can co-exist being that there are things one can do that the other simply can't. Eg. Try getting that 115" TV up a staircase or into an elevator. Meanwhile for something about the size of two PS5s side by side and a screen you assemble in your living room you can get screen sizes up to 150".
acidagfc
Member
And below 1k usd.
Mokus
Member
It's about click bait. It has the potential to attract more people from either side who normally would have ignored this review.
Last edited:
Mahavastu
Member
It has over 20.000 dimming zones. Should be "good enough"
Overall impressive device. I have a projector (125" screen), but this TV seems to beat it easily. Maybe one day...
mr stroke
Member
Projectors are in trouble . Even the cheapest TV will destroy 90% of projectors on Picture Quality. And now that you can buy a 98" TV for $1999 its a slow death for projectors
Kuranghi
Member
A guy asked me about the Hisense 110" UXN today and I said do you know its like 25-30 grand? He said oh my budget is 4.5, what about a 97" OLED? Ehh nah thats 25k mate, well what about an 83" G4? I've got a 77" G3. Yeah thats 7 grand.
Winner by default to sell him my Hisense 100" U7K! There really aren't any other 98s or 100s worth considering in the UK market. The Samsung 98Q80C and Sony 98X90L are wildly overpriced TVs, they have like 120 dimming zones, wtf is that shit spec when they're ยฃ4000+. The TCL 98C805K is pretty good but it has the shitty TCL upscaling/bad crap-bitrate smoothing, gradient handling and crushes blacks in the tricky scenes + its 1344 dimming zones vs the 1620 in the 100U7K.
Someone bought a Samsung 98QN90D for fucking 11 grand the other day, what a disgusting rip off that is, I can't find the dimming zone count for the 98" but going by the 85" count (1210), it probably has 1620 like the Hisense. Maybe 1920 but that still wouldn't justify the crazy price difference.
Winner by default to sell him my Hisense 100" U7K! There really aren't any other 98s or 100s worth considering in the UK market. The Samsung 98Q80C and Sony 98X90L are wildly overpriced TVs, they have like 120 dimming zones, wtf is that shit spec when they're ยฃ4000+. The TCL 98C805K is pretty good but it has the shitty TCL upscaling/bad crap-bitrate smoothing, gradient handling and crushes blacks in the tricky scenes + its 1344 dimming zones vs the 1620 in the 100U7K.
Someone bought a Samsung 98QN90D for fucking 11 grand the other day, what a disgusting rip off that is, I can't find the dimming zone count for the 98" but going by the 85" count (1210), it probably has 1620 like the Hisense. Maybe 1920 but that still wouldn't justify the crazy price difference.
CamHostage
Member
Some projectors still offer 3d support. My PS3 and small but enjoyed 3D BD collection still welcome a projector.
Magic Carpet
Member
My Benq projector has 3d. I had several pairs of wireless 3d glasses. The projector would flash a red image to sync them up.
It worked well as long as you didn't look away from the projector. The bulb is too dim to be usable anymore and it's too expensive for replacement.
Now I use the Quest 3 if I want to do any 3d anything.
Reallink
Member
You're never going to "break through" the limits of a reflective light source. In the short to mid term, projectors will indeed be rendered moot and obsolete by affordable ultra large flat panels, and in the longer term by MicroLED's arrays.
Mr.Phoenix
Member
I will take it that you don't have any recent experience with a projector.
First off, in a dark room, on an ALR screen, projectors will not only match TVs, but they actually exceed them in some categories. Eg(s)....
When we talk about brightness in TVs, a very common misrepresentation is that they are only referring to brightness on a 10% window. Full screen (100% window) brightness is significantly lower. With projectors, there is no such thing as 10, 20,30%....etc window. Brightness on a 10% window is the same with full-screen brightness.
Then we have color volume and accuracy. No TV on the planet. You read that right... NO TV on the PLANET will ever match a triple laser projector when it comes to color volume and accuracy. Only projectors exceed the rec 2020 color space. And by exceed I mean score over 100%. There isn't a TV on the market that even scores as high as 90% in the rec 2020 color space. And that has to do with the technology behind how these devices produce color.
And then we have projectors that use LcOS technologies. And with display drivers like those, you do not even see the screen door effect anymore. Basically, go close enough to any TV, and at some point you start making out the pixel grid. With LcOS tech, that shit is gone.
The point is... it would be ignorant of anyone to say TVs wipe the floor with projectors. Because the simple truth of the matter is that they don't. And as I pointed out, there are obvious advantages that projectors will always have over TVs. And that is all I bothered to discuss initially. I can get a UST, the is 27 inches wide by 13 inches deep and 5 inches tall. And that projector will let me get a screen size of anything from 80 inches all the way up to 150 inches. Can you even imagine what or how you would get a 100" TV up to a 2nd-floor apartment room? Let's not even get started on a 10th-floor one.
And I said projectors are one breakthrough away from being the best display tech on the planet. That breakthrough is screen tech. I don't know when, or how, but sooner or later, they have to crack the problem with projectors which is that you cannot project black as that is the absence of light. So a projector will only ever give you blacks as dark as how dark its screen material is. Which is why projectors typically excel in dark rooms. But there are rumblings of tech that allow projectors to project onto a black surface. And once such tech becomes mainstream, you can kiss TVs goodbye.
MicroLED arrays... that I can agree with. But that tech has a loooong way to go. But even at that, I believe in a world where we have a UST projecting onto an actual black screen that somehow manages to reproduce its received light, that UST will win over even microLED. On so many levels. Problem is, we just do not have the tech yet.
And we should never say Never. I mean 10 years ago we didn't even have ALR projector screens. And now, we have the Carbon Black screen that is specifically sensitive to laser light. And they are also working on a screen material that is reactive to laser light but transparent, which would mean that it can be fastened onto a jet black surface.
Last edited:
Buggy Loop
Member
and also the fact that itโs completely different to have the light reflected back rather than emitted. In a dark room a big TV is almost eye watering. Itโs not even a good experience.
Also you can literally put a projector wall to wall width, which is what Iโm planning to do with my renovation. Acoustic screen with in-wall speakers, I can make it was wide as the room and speakers are still well positioned. Even the center is true center at the same height as the L-R and ideally same power. I can put a baffle and get a true 2.35 format with a projector that supports it.
I have an amazing TV at home but having seen with my eyes a truely great projector setup, I donโt care about raw numbers, it looks insane for an home theater room.
Reallink
Member
The problem with increasingly exotic and complex screen surfaces is they become similarly exotic in price and production complexity (current ones of actual quality start in the $1000+ range). When you're talking about $6000+ for a relatively entry level laser projector and decent ALR setup---that struggles to hit 50 nits at minimum zoom on 100% brightness (not a typo, that's 50 with 1 zero), there's simply no reason to opt for it over a cheaper or similarly priced flat panel. LG could absolutely produce 100" OLED's at $6000 if they had the desire to devote a factory to it and a large enough market willing to buy them, which would certainly trounce any projector or screen in existence.
Mattyp
Gold Member
Eh, my laser projector and 145" would argue otherwise.
This is a dedicated theatre room, no windows, sound proofing, atmos etc... I think most people just compare $1,000 projectors running in a sunlit room. Projectors have a place, it's a dedicated theatre room.
I much prefer a projectors image on any movie, has that natural cinema feel to it the way it's meant to be watched a lot of movies. TV shows, YouTube etc I'll still just watch on a normal tv.
Sporting events projector also.
Reallink
Member
Yeah I'll concede the super sized 150" sizes are a niche projectors will be able to maintain for a long while, until mLED arrays are semi-affordable and more common. I don't foresee flat panels being practical at that size as the logistics are too burdensome.
Last edited:
Mr.Phoenix
Member
Well.. you are not wrong. Not entirely right either.
I believe one of the problems is the very niche or unstandardized market that are projectors. So pricing is literally all over the place. For every $1000 ALR screen you see, you can find a $600 ALR screen that matches it in every way if you are ready to shop around a little. And in some crazy cases, the cheaper one is even the exact same screen just called something different. The same thing happens with the projectors. We have UST projectors for as low as $2500 that would outperform and are even technically better than UST projectors that retail for $5000. But one would be called LG and one would be called ForMovie.
And at 120", most of those UST projectors will get you a screen brightness of around 150nits. And while that is nothing compared to the 2K+ 10% window brightness that nearly every mainstream TV boasts of these days, most of those TVs, especially the Oleds, end up with a 100% window brightness of around 250-400nits.
Dont get me wrong, I am all for 100" TVs, as I feel that any way you spin it, a 100" TV that cost anywhere from $3k - $5K, will always be better than a projector. From a simple plug-and-play perspective. We don't even need Oleds to hit those prices anytime soon. But my thing is, as you start going above 100 inches, those TVs literally start becoming a logistical nightmare. There is a market of people that simply cannot go bigger (in some cases not even up to) than 100" not because they cant afford it, but because you cant fit that thing into an elevator or a stairwell. And size, or form factor, is just as important a piece of the puzzle for any screen technology.
Sure, MicroLED can change this if they continue maintaining the panelized form factor... but that's just a whole different can of worms right now. Have you seen how much power those things use?????
My thing is this though, as I have said, projectors are just one breakthrough away. If for whatever reason, no one ever figures out a way to make a photoluminescent screen material that allows you to project to what would appear as a black screen that has a gain of around 3.0 to maintain the ANSI lens output while doing so, then yeah, MicroLED it is. But if that shit is ever cracked, like with every technology, prices will drop as adoption picks up. And I suspect that such a screen material will always be cheaper to make than any TV.
But lets see what happens I guess. I just know enough about projectors to know that if or when such tech becomes available, there really isn't anything TVs can do to match them. But yh, that's the challenge, black screen with a gain of 3.0. Well that's one way of doing it, the other would be to figure out how to make a sustainable laser light source that uses the same amount of power while outputting 10 times the brightness and pair that with a 0.2 gain screen, which for all intents and purposes would be pretty much a black screen.
Deputy Moonman
Member
A 115" panel would be amazing. Im still using a 75 inch TCL 6 series from 2018. Someday, I'd like to make the jump to an 83 to 85" OLED. That's the goal, but probably looking at years from now. LED's keep getting brighter and brighter, which only serves to destroy my retinas even more lol. OLED is plenty bright enough for me. One day!!
MrRenegade
Report me if I continue to troll
BIG trouble, I'll tell you why. Next cheque: Porjectors are a thing.
Akuji
Member
Where is the slot i can put my subwoofers and Center behind the screen?
Oh there is None...
Projectors are for dedicated rooms. Tvs dont offer the most important Feature, accoustic transparent screen.
Diffrent tech for diffrent usage
Also doors Arent big enough for 150 or 180 inch screens, 115 inch isnt small but it aint big either.
Last edited:
KungFucius
King Snowflake
100 inch screens were that price a few years ago, now you can get them for 4k on sale. The prices will come down as long as enough people buy them.
Akuji
Member
Dont use Screens like that please, i missunderstood what u meant for a bit.
A screen can also be a projection screen so in a thread where you can mean a tv sceen or a projection screen its not that easy to always figure it out on the first read for non native speakers ( iam from germany )
But ur right and wrong at the same time. its not just about economy of scale here, but also tech avaiability. These things are dependent on mother sheet size ( the big panel that tvs are cut out from )
as well as yields etc also logistics becomes a problem as the standard size atleast in europe is 120x80cm for a pallet. So a TV these days is pretty much already larger then that but if they increase even more in size they then take 3 spots instead of 2 right now.
Also making them more expensive to ship and store etc pp.