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buckeye · 14-01-2018, 15:41

Hi cityfan247, I recently purchased a very similar specced LG 49" UHD TV (in fact it is the one BenMcr linked to at Richersounds).
I'm sure you'll be very happy with your purchase however I do have one or two caveats to add.
I bought my TV ahead of schedule, I had been planning on upgrading at some point but had decided not to buy during Black Friday but rather save up for what my research had led me to believe was the best one below the OLED and QLED level and was pleasantly surprised to see it was discounted to £579 rather than being the £800 I had planned on spending,
however buying sooner than I expected meant I hadn't done enough research into all things 4k/HDR so hopefully you can learn from my mistakes.
At first I hated my new TV thinking "oh god what have I done" when every setting I tried to produce a good picture failed, however eventually I found a good calibration guide on AV Forums and with a few tweaks from that calibration I am now very happy.
I would urge you too to carry out a firmware update before you do any calibration or settings changes as a new Technicolor mode will become available which makes (imho) a vast difference to the picture quality.
In my experience as well unless you are very close to the TV when watching it then on a 49" TV the difference between full HD and normal (non HDR) 4K is very subtle, certainly not as striking as going from SD to HD.
HDR, Dolby Vision and HLG make a much greater difference, check out Blue Planet II on your new tele's Iplayer app to see how well it can be done if you don't have Netflix or Amazon, but to really see how good things can be you'd need to invest in or find a way to watch 4k HDR Blurays.

Now onto what could prove a costly mistake, I have discovered that unlike in normal HD land where a £2:99 Amazons Basic HDMI lead is just as good as one of the £60 ones the likes of Currys try and con you into buying in the land of 4K not all HDMI 2 (High Speed HDMI) cables are made the same and when buying a cable to connect to the 4K equipment you'll no doubt end up buying to go with your new TV you need to buy certified high speed HDMI cables,
to give an example, earlier in 2017 I needed to upgrade my HTPC so I invested in a future proof 4K compatible one for when I got a new TV, I found when running at 4K resolutions the screen was very glitchy and often disappeared completely with the original cables I'd bought, but when I switched to a certified cable all these glitches disappeared, luckily I picked up a couple of certified ones in an Amazon flash sale for only 7 quid each (as an aside for any HTPC users Windows HDR implementation is borked and is either permanently on or off, only Powerdvd will dynamically switch between the two).

Finally I would not recommend upgrading to a V6 yet as VM have no UHD material available, spend any extra money it may cost on Netflix and or Amazon and use the inbuilt webOS apps to receive 4K HDR/Dolby Vision loveliness.

14-01-2018, 15:41	#27
buckeye cf.addict Join Date: Jan 2016 Posts: 221	Re: New TV advice Hi cityfan247, I recently purchased a very similar specced LG 49" UHD TV (in fact it is the one BenMcr linked to at Richersounds). I'm sure you'll be very happy with your purchase however I do have one or two caveats to add. I bought my TV ahead of schedule, I had been planning on upgrading at some point but had decided not to buy during Black Friday but rather save up for what my research had led me to believe was the best one below the OLED and QLED level and was pleasantly surprised to see it was discounted to £579 rather than being the £800 I had planned on spending, however buying sooner than I expected meant I hadn't done enough research into all things 4k/HDR so hopefully you can learn from my mistakes. At first I hated my new TV thinking "oh god what have I done" when every setting I tried to produce a good picture failed, however eventually I found a good calibration guide on AV Forums and with a few tweaks from that calibration I am now very happy. I would urge you too to carry out a firmware update before you do any calibration or settings changes as a new Technicolor mode will become available which makes (imho) a vast difference to the picture quality. In my experience as well unless you are very close to the TV when watching it then on a 49" TV the difference between full HD and normal (non HDR) 4K is very subtle, certainly not as striking as going from SD to HD. HDR, Dolby Vision and HLG make a much greater difference, check out Blue Planet II on your new tele's Iplayer app to see how well it can be done if you don't have Netflix or Amazon, but to really see how good things can be you'd need to invest in or find a way to watch 4k HDR Blurays. Now onto what could prove a costly mistake, I have discovered that unlike in normal HD land where a £2:99 Amazons Basic HDMI lead is just as good as one of the £60 ones the likes of Currys try and con you into buying in the land of 4K not all HDMI 2 (High Speed HDMI) cables are made the same and when buying a cable to connect to the 4K equipment you'll no doubt end up buying to go with your new TV you need to buy certified high speed HDMI cables, to give an example, earlier in 2017 I needed to upgrade my HTPC so I invested in a future proof 4K compatible one for when I got a new TV, I found when running at 4K resolutions the screen was very glitchy and often disappeared completely with the original cables I'd bought, but when I switched to a certified cable all these glitches disappeared, luckily I picked up a couple of certified ones in an Amazon flash sale for only 7 quid each (as an aside for any HTPC users Windows HDR implementation is borked and is either permanently on or off, only Powerdvd will dynamically switch between the two). Finally I would not recommend upgrading to a V6 yet as VM have no UHD material available, spend any extra money it may cost on Netflix and or Amazon and use the inbuilt webOS apps to receive 4K HDR/Dolby Vision loveliness.