Good TV for watching sports, Discuss low stutter TV's

[etios]

Looks like all the top end TV's forum members have bought like LG CX and Samsung QN90A have performed badly in sports content, many people spend a lot of time watching sports and would rather sacrifice some contrast ratio and picture quality instead of bad sports experience. So, let us discuss and list TV's with low stutter in this thread.

A good list by Rtings with ratings given for each TV:

Our TV Motion Tests: Stutter

Stutter is an artifact of motion that happens when a frame stays on the screen for too long. It can be bothersome while watching movies or low frame rate content because the TV has to hold each frame on longer.

www.rtings.com

 

[lightgamer]

Looks like all the top end TV's forum members have bought like LG CX and Samsung QN90A have performed badly in sports content, many people spend a lot of time watching sports and would rather sacrifice some contrast ratio and picture quality instead of bad sports experience. So, let us discuss and list TV's with low stutter in this thread.

A good list by Rtings with ratings given for each TV:

Our TV Motion Tests: Stutter

Stutter is an artifact of motion that happens when a frame stays on the screen for too long. It can be bothersome while watching movies or low frame rate content because the TV has to hold each frame on longer.

www.rtings.com

Stutter is present in low frame rate content like movies, which is the opposite of what you want in sports as even on DTH sports are in 50/60 fps.

For sports, you want low response time/high clarity, which means OLEDs and TVs with low response times are ideal. This is also what you want for gaming. For movies/24p content you want high response times/motion blur for the content to not look stuttery as it inherently is. That's why older panels like plasma TVs don't look that bad.

A perfect display with 0ms response time will be terrible for movies as the inherent stutter of 24fps content will be very visible on the panel. So as displays get better and better, this problem will become more and more apparent. I hope the cinema industry will move on from the draconian 24fps by then though.

 

[etios]

Stutter is present in low frame rate content like movies, which is the opposite of what you want in sports as even on DTH sports are in 50/60 fps.

For sports, you want low response time/high clarity, which means OLEDs and TVs with low response times are ideal. This is also what you want for gaming. For movies/24p content you want high response times/motion blur for the content to not look stuttery as it inherently is. That's why older panels like plasma TVs don't look that bad.

A perfect display with 0ms response time will be terrible for movies as the inherent stutter of 24fps content will be very visible on the panel. So as displays get better and better, this problem will become more and more apparent. I hope the cinema industry will move on from the draconian 24fps by then though.

But that is not the observation by the owners of the LG CX OLED on this forum, two of the LG CX owners have said the sports does not look good on their OLED @Maint1234 and @Jayaesh1

Leaving 24p movie talk as this thread is purely meant for sports.

 

[Jayaesh1]

But that is not the observation by the owners of the LG CX OLED on this forum, two of the LG CX owners have said the sports does not look good on their OLED @Maint1234 and @Jayaesh1

Leaving 24p movie talk as this thread is purely meant for sports

Yes but provided that particular FALD/LED Unit is free from DSE/ Array Banding. OLEDs have have generally good grey uniformity . It is just my opinion but unless you are a competitive gamer Motion/ stutter/ pixel response should not be a primary yardstick to judge Image Quality.

 

[Chulbulee]

I believe that until unless someone specifically pointed it out, ordinary viewers won't feel the stutter or motion blur. I remember watching football on the yesteryear CRT Tvs, then watching it on LED Tvs, and till pointed it out, never noticed, or it did not bother.

 

[Maint1234]

https://www.reddit.com/r/OLED/comments/geaplf

Its the motion blurr which is distracting. But its not uniform across all inputs.
I have tatasky and Disney for sports and disney seems worse.
This tv is best for watching stuff with 4k signal and old stuff with no fast motion. I have started watching csi and have no issues even though picture is very grainy. Dont mind that. But I dread watching sports .

 

[Jayaesh1]

Yes some folks can be very sensitive to motion but I am one of the opposite , I have QN90A n LG CX both 55 inches but I am oblivious to motion when viewing Starsports or Sony Sports channels. Even on my Samsung S20 plus i can't differentiate between 120 Vs 60 Hertz except for the fact that 120 drains the battery lot faster.


Perhaps this thread should explore among members whether the panel uniformity or motion related issues have a bigger impact on viewing sports.

 

[lightgamer]

But that is not the observation by the owners of the LG CX OLED on this forum, two of the LG CX owners have said the sports does not look good on their OLED @Maint1234 and @Jayaesh1

Leaving 24p movie talk as this thread is purely meant for sports.

If you watch sports(especially cricket) on Hotstar, then the source itself is bad and no TV can do anything about it. A TV can't help if you can't pay for DTH for watching cricket. Hotstar streams cricket in 24/25fps and at a resolution + bitrate that looks like 480p 15fps honestly. Garbage in => garbage out. If someone claims that Hotstar cricket looks good on their TV, I can recommend them a good eye doctor.

Tata Sky HD gives 1080i 60 or 1080p 50 depending on your region and looks soooo much better. Though still not as good as Sky in UK or Fox in Australia though, which stream high bitrate 1080p 60 or even 4k in Fox's case.

 

[dillihifi]

One small clarification. The source is the same as both hotstar and tatasky get it from the same place. How to check what is native frequency of broadcasted content.

If i remember correctly the format of broadcasting determines the frequency I.e either PAL or NTSC. In older days high end TVs supported the much vaunted 24p.

 

[lightgamer]

One small clarification. The source is the same as both hotstar and tatasky get it from the same place. How to check what is native frequency of broadcasted content.

If i remember correctly the format of broadcasting determines the frequency I.e either PAL or NTSC. In older days high end TVs supported the much vaunted 24p.

PAL was used in older TVs in India and most of Europe, which was 576p 50fps. NTSC is more of a US thing, which was 480p 60fps.

With Satellite TVs and set-top boxes, that whole equation is no longer there as every single provider can vary how they signal and decode content. That's why there are even a couple 4k channels on Tata Sky, which wouldn't be possible on PAL. Even 1080p won't be possible on PAL.

If Tata Sky HD for cricket is 8/10 on quality, Hotstar is at best 2/10. It makes my head hurt watching cricket in 24fps cinematic framerate, and even that's not consistent with lots of frame drops.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OLED/comments/geaplf

Its the motion blurr which is distracting. But its not uniform across all inputs.
I have tatasky and Disney for sports and disney seems worse.
This tv is best for watching stuff with 4k signal and old stuff with no fast motion. I have started watching csi and have no issues even though picture is very grainy. Dont mind that. But I dread watching sports .

Motion blur is the opposite of the problem you both mention. OLED panels have no motion blur at all, which will make low framerate content with fast motion look stuttery. If they had motion blur like old Plasma TVs, the scene would look a lot more natural. Read the first reply on the reddit thread you posted, that guy knows what he's talking about.

Regarding Hotstar, that's on Hotstar to provide really bad content for sports. The only time cricket on Hotstar looks watchable to me is on my phone with it 2-2.5 feet away from my face. And that's their target demographic. Cricket on Hotstar isn't meant to be watched on a TV, as they don't have the quality for it and they never will. Hotstar VIP plan is mostly free for everyone through some offer or another. For that cheap of a price, they have to cut back heavily on quality to serve more customers.

 

[dillihifi]

Well i do agree that hotstar doesn’t care about quality as their service which has some good content and live sports is basically free and/or prices are so low that it seems that they do not have the resources for maintaining the quality or even ironing out small bugs. Having pursued hotstar regarding the quality of audio and video for around last three years i have realised that they do not care about quality as they bundle their service with the telecom operators and only target the phone users who are more concerned about getting the streams on the go rather than worry about quality.

Well though the online streaming comprises on quality but still can use it for vod for convenience. Further in the content space there are ultra high quality providers like kaleidoscope for movies but looks like there is going to be an eternal wait for getting high quality sports broadcast.

 

[Maint1234]

PAL was used in older TVs in India and most of Europe, which was 576p 50fps. NTSC is more of a US thing, which was 480p 60fps.

With Satellite TVs and set-top boxes, that whole equation is no longer there as every single provider can vary how they signal and decode content. That's why there are even a couple 4k channels on Tata Sky, which wouldn't be possible on PAL. Even 1080p won't be possible on PAL.

If Tata Sky HD for cricket is 8/10 on quality, Hotstar is at best 2/10. It makes my head hurt watching cricket in 24fps cinematic framerate, and even that's not consistent with lots of frame drops.

Motion blur is the opposite of the problem you both mention. OLED panels have no motion blur at all, which will make low framerate content with fast motion look stuttery. If they had motion blur like old Plasma TVs, the scene would look a lot more natural. Read the first reply on the reddit thread you posted, that guy knows what he's talking about.

Regarding Hotstar, that's on Hotstar to provide really bad content for sports. The only time cricket on Hotstar looks watchable to me is on my phone with it 2-2.5 feet away from my face. And that's their target demographic. Cricket on Hotstar isn't meant to be watched on a TV, as they don't have the quality for it and they never will. Hotstar VIP plan is mostly free for everyone through some offer or another. For that cheap of a price, they have to cut back heavily on quality to serve more customers.

Tennis on hotstar. And i have the premium plan for mandalorian.
I can't define the issue technically but watching non 4k fast moving images on the cx is not natural. Whether its blur or judder or stutter or a combination of all 3 , cant say. Its not ok. Tata sky hd sports as i said is better . Since i don't have a 4k set top box, cant say how that is.
It seems some people are more sensitive to the motion processing while others are ok with it.
Which oled do you have ?

 

[Maint1234]

Well i do agree that hotstar doesn’t care about quality as their service which has some good content and live sports is basically free and/or prices are so low that it seems that they do not have the resources for maintaining the quality or even ironing out small bugs. Having pursued hotstar regarding the quality of audio and video for around last three years i have realised that they do not care about quality as they bundle their service with the telecom operators and only target the phone users who are more concerned about getting the streams on the go rather than worry about quality.

Well though the online streaming comprises on quality but still can use it for vod for convenience. Further in the content space there are ultra high quality providers like kaleidoscope for movies but looks like there is going to be an eternal wait for getting high quality sports broadcast.

When i bought the tv in may , the initial weeks were spent with YouTube 4k videos and Netflix and disney movies. Which i really like.
But since the start of the French open and Wimbledon and the football, these sports related issues have cropped up. And since their is no 4k sports telecast in India, seems watching sports will not be the best of experiences.
But early days yet. I enjoy a challenge like this and will do something to make it acceptable.
Though the rtings ratings i had posted in the thread in which cx is the worst is not a good start.

 

[dillihifi]

Well since last three/four years I have ditched tatasky and have subscribed to hotstar premium for basically the sports feed. I actually tend to watch mostly sports on my telly badminton, tennis, football, cricket and of course wait for the athletics and swimming action when they are available. Got an oled this year otherwise I was using my 50 inch plasma and sometimes the extra bright benq projector.

Well sometimes I have faced buffering and the feed being in low quality inspite of my having dual broadband fth connections.

 

[lightgamer]

Tennis on hotstar. And i have the premium plan for mandalorian.
I can't define the issue technically but watching non 4k fast moving images on the cx is not natural. Whether its blur or judder or stutter or a combination of all 3 , cant say. Its not ok. Tata sky hd sports as i said is better . Since i don't have a 4k set top box, cant say how that is.
It seems some people are more sensitive to the motion processing while others are ok with it.
Which oled do you have ?

The premium plan means nothing. The stream will still be in 24fps. Sports need at least 30fps to look watchable and 50/60fps to look natural. If you look at 24fps sports, it will look unnatural but that's not the issue with the TV itself.

All I'm saying is that the problem is with the content and not with the TV. As you yourself say that Tata Sky HD looks better and even Tata sky only does 1080i60, which is equivalent to 1080p30 only. So even from 24 to 30 it's such a big improvement.

You should look at a 50/60fps stream of any sports on YouTube and you'll realize how good it can look.

 

[Maint1234]

Well since last three/four years I have ditched tatasky and have subscribed to hotstar premium for basically the sports feed. I actually tend to watch mostly sports on my telly badminton, tennis, football, cricket and of course wait for the athletics and swimming action when they are available. Got an oled this year otherwise I was using my 50 inch plasma and sometimes the extra bright benq projector.

Well sometimes I have faced buffering and the feed being in low quality inspite of my having dual broadband fth connections.

On which tv is this ? I have tatasky and hotstar premium. I can watch sports on tatasky but dont like the idea that a top of the line oled is incapable of decent sports. In anycase can never ditch tatasky as we have 4 connections at home. For 4 different consumer groups.
So you are more or less satisfied with your oled's sports performance through hotstar , since its your sole provider ?

 

[Jayaesh1]

I can still tolerate below par sports performance in Hotstar as i mainly have Tata Sky HD for that. Now I got the Premium plan as Hotstar is home to many of the TV Series/Shows from HBO, Showtime,Hulu. The quality is generally lacking here as well, although the info button on most of the shows says 3 to 5 Mbps bitrate @ 1080p but while viewing it doesn't feel that way. Prime n Netflix also have lots of 1080p inventory but they appear at least twice as better as Hotstar. The Disney original programming n the Hotstar Special are the only exceptions.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

I feel the addition of channels on Apple TV and Amazon Prime could bridge this gap going ahead. These OTT platforms as they move from apps to channels, could substitute satellite service providers like Tata Sky eventually. For example, I can visualise Apple TV insisting on 60fps if Hotstar wants to come onboard as a channel. After all, they already have the hardware for it. Of course, true blue content providers such as Netflix and Hotstar will resist becoming channels till they can, but would eventually have to yield. The economics (and unified user experience) is bound to drive market consolidation in the form of channel-based OTT.

P.S. Can’t understand how Tata Sky remains so myopic when obsolescence is staring it in the eye. By now, given the Tata might, they could have gotten ahead in the OTT game leveraging its huge customer base had they responded to the changing consumption preferences in time. Of course they’d have had to rebrand it as it wouldn’t be any longer Tata ‘Sky’.

 

[dillihifi]

Well please dont underestimate the volumes of ppl who are subscribing dth or broadcast tv. In India the nos who are relying only on ott and others is quite small and maybe they do not have the leverage for forcing the same.

As regards quality for movies u need to buy the uhd discs for proper audio/video others are compressed and it shows when we use a high end av setup. Lets see if apple tv can shape such behavior I am truly skeptical. Hotstar is availble with the same crappy quality in app store so I am not too sure they will comply.

Now I am interested in ott content as long I choose, subscribe and unsubscribe at my will. I dont think prime and appletv are progressing in that direction though they have a nifty feature of aggregating content as long as one is subscribed to the channel.

 

[rajeshpapani]

The premium plan means nothing. The stream will still be in 24fps. Sports need at least 30fps to look watchable and 50/60fps to look natural. If you look at 24fps sports, it will look unnatural but that's not the issue with the TV itself.

All I'm saying is that the problem is with the content and not with the TV. As you yourself say that Tata Sky HD looks better and even Tata sky only does 1080i60, which is equivalent to 1080p30 only. So even from 24 to 30 it's such a big improvement.

You should look at a 50/60fps stream of any sports on YouTube and you'll realize how good it can look.

no live streaming now,i will check fps later on live streaming,but why here fps in -1?