That would have been my worst-case (meaning my Kuro was dead) scenario also. The Sharp Elite of a couple years ago would work also, if the cyan issue were resolved and they were available.

It is such a shame those Kuro tvs got discontinued and manufacturers have such a hard time surpassing it with something better.

In about 20–30 minutes I should be off to Scarsdale. I'll probably leave early to come back, before the Q&A (work is at 7AM), but we'll see what's happening. I wonder how the Sony 4K UHD set will do. The 900 series has side-mounted speakers, just like my Kuro PRO-111. I prefer a TV with good on-board sound. I hope the picture is equal to the sound system.

I have the 850B series Sony 4K HD TV and love the picture, even if it's not 4K resolution.

I run all my sound from the cable STB to my pre so I don't use TV speakers at all.

Let us know what you think!

Well, I attended the Shootout on Sunday. I had to leave before it was all over, so I don't know all the details or how some of the calibrators' tests went. But here is what I observed while there.

There were 3 1080p sets: the Samsung PN64F8500 plasma (last year's audience favorite); the Samsung KN55S9C OLED; and the LG 55EC9300 OLED. On the 4K side: Samsung's UN78HU9000, UN85HU8550, and UN10559W; and Sony's XBR79X900B and XBR85X950B. Sets from Toshiba and Vizio weren't ready in time for consideration, as it turned out.

From my perspective, if I had to replace my Kuro, it would be with the Samsung plasma or one of the OLEDs. The LG in particular had black levels so low they were unmeasurable, literally a "0" for that reason. Next was the Samsung OLED with .0007. The F8500 plasma, with a black level of .0041 was next. The best black for the 4K sets was Sony's 950B with .0044. Sequential contrast ratio, as you might expect, had the LG OLED, Samsung OLED, then the Samsung plasma as the top three.

The sets all looked mostly good with normal program material, but when the calibrators begain putting them through their paces, that's when stuff started to show up. Anyone with an Oppo blu-ray player is aware of the screen saver with the white Oppo logo moving around a black background; of all the sets, the F8500 had the best image; the others had a halo around the letters, even the OLED sets. With the grayscale tracking, most of the sets weren't pure gray; the KN55S9C, in fact, turned very red when viewed off-axis. The LG and F8500 did best, to my eyes.

But the killer was when a night scene from a Harry Potter movie was played. The 4K sets, which for all their fanciness are still LCDs after all, couldn't match the OLEDs or the plasma. The Sony 950B was pretty good, but it had a backlighting issue, as there were halos around the "A/B" in the top black bar as scenes were transitioned. And anything white on a black background had the zone around it partially lit up. Not good for a set costing as much as the 950.

One of the persistent concerns with OLED is longevity. The LG method (adding white to RGB) has the potential for shorter life span than the Samsung's more regular RGB model. I guess we'll see. Anyway, the audience voted the LG OLED best, while the calibrators voted the Samsung OLED best. The F8500 had the most accurate color and best motion resolution as voted by the audience.

Charles.......Thanks for the interesting HDTV shoot-out review. The results are interesting and food for thought.

The votes are in from Sunday's event, and the audience favorite was the LG OLED set. The calibrators, however, chose the Samsung OLED. If I had to buy something now, it would be the F8500 plasma.

Why? Well it was best with color accuracy and motion resolution, its black levels are more than respectable, and off-axis was very good. Even the OLEDs had off-axis issues. And the slightly higher than last year's black level (.0017) is due to a firmware fix for floating blacks. However, the 64" F8500 is too wide for my space. I think there's a 55" one. Mike Wood from Samsung was there and says the 8500 will be manufactured up until around year's end (probably November, which is when Samsung exits the plasma buisiness officially).

My take is that for all its improvements, LCD is still LCD. Maybe Samsung will be motivated to get back into OLED, as they had stopped work from what I heard. The OLED at the Shootout is from last year.

I have a Pioneer 500M and they are very hard to beat..even today!..

I love the TV picture BEST when it's in the Studio Mode, you have to open up the Integrator Menu to get to the Studio mode there

To open up the Integrator Menu you hold down on the Display Info button for five seconds and then you release that button and push the Home Menu button and that will open up the Integrator Menu there.

You should see football games in Studio Mode, it looks so real!..

Here's my settings in


Studio Mode:


Contrast 47
Brightness -2
Color +45
Tint +5
Sharpness +15

White Balance

R High -43
G High -20
B High -60
R Low +60
G Low -1
B Low +36

Color Management

R +14
Y -30
G +18
C -28
B -19
M +10

You can turn your fans on.. Max in the Integrator Menu too...if you have the fans on Auto, they hardly ever comes on!..

A few days ago, the voting was re-examined and it was decided there would be co-winners as far as audience vote. The F8500 plasma had the highest overall average score, though the LG OLED won the most categories. So it was declared a tie.

One thing the results show is that resolution alone isn't the most important thing in picture quality.

Are you in NY?