LG has taken a leadership position at the top end of the TV market with their exclusive OLED TV range but it is in the UHD 4K TV market that the Company is competing head on with a new range of UHD 4K TV’s.
One TV in particular is the LG 65″ UH95OT.
This model comes with the latest HDR and Dolby Vision technology which if you are a Netflix fan you will now find streams with several of their series including Marco Polo enabled with such technology as Dolby Vision.
This technology is also set to be available in 2017, on new 4K UHD Blu ray movie discs, some HDR enabled movies are currently being released for 4K UHD Viewing, however you will need a 4K Blu ray player or later this year one of the new low cost gaming consoles set to be released by Sony PlayStation and Microsoft with their Xbox S console to view the new 4K content.
What’s different about this LG TV is that it delivers 8.3 million pixels to the screen and trust me when I say this makes one hell of a difference if you are stepping up from Full HD to an Ultra High Definition TV.
Retailing for $5,995 this TV also delivers is Full HD (SDR) content.
In plain English, HDR delivers the ability to expand the different stops of both bright and dark levels in a 4K TV for a wider, richer range of colours, much brighter, more realistic whites and much deeper, richer darks, all being manifested at the same time on the same display screen.
What this means is that contrast and colour are the two pillars of HDR technology and the new development in 4K TVs is aimed squarely at enhancing both to the maximum possible degree.
A 4K TV like the LG 65″ UH95OT can’t just be an HDR television because it has a bright picture. There are actually highly specific specs behind the technology and there are also even different “levels” of HDR technology that can be applied to genuinely HDR-capable 4K TVs similar to what LG is delivering to the Australian market.
Another technology found in this TV is Dolby Vision this will launch on Ultra HD Blu-ray in 2017.
There are two types of HDR content -Dolby Vision & HDR10.
LG claims that Dolby Vision is considered to be the superior HDR format by the professional movie industry and content producers including Netflix, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox.
So what is the difference?
Dolby Vision capable TVs include a special microchip which at this stage is only found in LG TV’s like the 65? UH950T.
Super UHD TVs are certified and calibrated by the team at Dolby Laboratories to deliver HDR optimised scenes.
Dolby Vision (Dynamic HDR) content instructs Super UHD TVs to adjust colour and contrast for each frame (on average 172,000 times during a movie), to maximise contrast and colour detail in brighter and darker scenes.
LG Said that the Dolby Vision experience is preferred by Netflix over HDR10 on Netflix certified TVs.
When viewing Netflix, where both Dolby Vision and HDR10 is available, 4K UHD TVs with the Dolby software and chipset, will receive Dolby Vision metadata as a priority as I discovered when I watched two Netflix programs on this TV.
I got to review this TV overnight in a hotel room where it had been set up along with the new LG SH7 Wi Fi enabled soundbar, which delivers 360W and 4.1 channel sound.
Retailing for an additional $799 this sound bar when combined properly with their new TV delivers sound equal to any movie theatre.
I cheated with this review because I took with me a competitor’s new Blu ray 4K UHD player along with two new 4K UHD movies including the Revenant with Leonardo DiCaprio.
The result was spectacular.
The vision and the sound was explosive, the colours rich and deep and the sound was excellent especially in the opening scenes when they are hunting in a shallow lake, and you hear the natural sounds and the slopping of water and the squelching that the footwear makes as they close in on their prey.
I was also supplied with a USB stick that had several HDR Video’s, this allowed me to watch both locally shot and overseas content.
Visually this TV is very stylish, wafer thin at the top end this TV is like a thick sheet of glass. It’s only at the bottom of the TV that that LG designers have expanded the TV to add weight to the bottom and allow for the inclusion of a new generation of circuit boards that contain a new generation of 4K Ultra High Definition chipsets.
WEB OS
A big advantage of owning an LG TV is Web OS. This is an operating system that was initially developed by the team that delivered the Apple iOS.
When LG acquired the code for this OS they immediately set about customising it for TV.
Developed as a smartphone operating system. WebOS 3.0 released this year has a few notable features.
You’ll be able to split your screen into two different channels at the same time, or one channel and another source like a Blu-ray player. You can also run LG’s Music Player app through your speaker setup with the TV turned off, as well as control LG smart appliances using LG’s IOT app.
You also get:
Netflix Recommended
LG UHD TVs are recommended and certified by Netflix, for a fast start-up and resume user experience.
Google Movies and TV
Purchase the latest movies and TV shows, from the huge library on Google Play.
Some TV shows are available within days of screening in the USA.
Save websites to the Launcher
Click the Favourite button in the browser.
to save 5 of your regular websites for quick access anytime you want.
The software’s new standout functions, however, are a trio of “magic” features – LG’s stand-in for “smart” – aimed at taking advantage of webOS 3.0’s deeper hardware integration. Magic Zoom will let you magnify any portion of the screen without any loss in picture quality, according to LG.
The company has also updated its Magic Remote so it can toggle set-top boxes on and off and control DVR functions as well. Magic Mobile Connection is an Apple AirPlay-like feature that lets users stream apps from their smartphone to LG smart TVs.
Conclusion
This is a very clever TV that is packed with a new level of display technology. The overall design is good and the 4K UHD display is also good when compared with other UHD 4K TV’s.
I’s not as good as OLED but that is a whole different story.
Against
The Magic Remote is not always easy to direct and point and can wobble on and off an icon. It’s extremly sensitive and for some it could become annoying.
4.5/5.0
