Toshiba U79 and U80 Owners Discussion And Review !!

[lightgamer]

@lightgamer - Its actually a HDD connected to my Router where I keep movies and access over local Network/smb with max transfer speed of 25-30 MB/s over 5Ghz. I had issues in past playing very large movies like 15-20GB plus over the local network (Maybe because of speed limitation or TV not able to render, I had VU Premium then).

Anyways, I played HDR, SDR movies on VLC on Firestick 4k from local network and had no issues on U79 (file sizes were under 10GB though). I did have issue with TV's inbuilt media player, It played fine initially but started to lag / buffer after sometime. I am using Firestick 4k for more than 1 year now. Its a solid device, never lagged and UI is super fast. And as you can see in my earlier pics, Its CPU and Ram are in good state when playing UHD HDR10 or DV content. From my past experiences I can say VLC is much better on Firestick 4K also due to superior and stable 5ghz connection. May want to check the audio lag when connecting Bluetooth speaker to Firestick 4k or try using TV's Bluetooth connection, whichever works faster. Not an issue on VLC as it has audio delay adjustments. Have not tried Plex recently.

My PC has lots of cores (R9 3900X) so I keep lots of servers open. I have an SMB share running for network filesystem access, a Plex server running and DLNA running too over Plex. I generally prefer it over putting the HDD on router since it's easier to load data on the storage and everything I download directly is available. Also I have option for RAID which I'll soon go for. Had HDDs failing on me in the past so redundancy is good.

I ran a diagnostic on the PC when the U79 was accessing data from a network file. The U79 was accessing file multiple times per second per frame instead of keeping multiple seconds of buffer. Over a network this is an awful algorithm and that's why it lags.

Plex and VLC won't have this issue. Also they support every format. I guess Kodi is available on firestick too.

I'm definitely going with firestick 4k on Diwali sale between 14-18 if price goes down (which it will). Will probably get one more if it goes down to 3k or so. Amazon's own products get huge discounts each Diwali(got kindle paperwhite for <8k in 2018).

 

[aditya2603d]

My PC has lots of cores (R9 3900X) so I keep lots of servers open. I have an SMB share running for network filesystem access, a Plex server running and DLNA running too over Plex. I generally prefer it over putting the HDD on router since it's easier to load data on the storage and everything I download directly is available. Also I have option for RAID which I'll soon go for. Had HDDs failing on me in the past so redundancy is good.

I ran a diagnostic on the PC when the U79 was accessing data from a network file. The U79 was accessing file multiple times per second per frame instead of keeping multiple seconds of buffer. Over a network this is an awful algorithm and that's why it lags.

Plex and VLC won't have this issue. Also they support every format. I guess Kodi is available on firestick too.

I'm definitely going with firestick 4k on Diwali sale between 14-18 if price goes down (which it will). Will probably get one more if it goes down to 3k or so. Amazon's own products get huge discounts each Diwali(got kindle paperwhite for <8k in 2018).

Yes you can sideload Kodi on firestick. But you will need 32-bit version of it as 64-bit won't work because of firetvos limitation. I have been using Kodi on firetv and it works like butter recognizing HDR content when I stream content from my PC using SMB share or DLNA. I also tried streaming HDR movies from torrent directly using Elementum addon and it works fine. But Kodi app can take almost 1 GB of space if you populate it with fanarts of all your movies collection.

 

[sijuvrm]

Thanks a lot. The settings you used are kinda dull, no? I don't see any reason to keep local dimming at medium and backlight at 50% for HDR/DV content. You won't get good blacks without local dimming high and the backlight at 50% essentially makes it a mediocre 350 nit TV.

I've watched a lot of content till now and the only place where you'll keep local dimming to low is sports and and high everywhere else. Medium is bad with everything.

I'm assuming that if you go to the menu while playing DV you still get into HDR day or the HDR10 mode you set, no?

What about when you played HDR10 content with VLC? The TV correctly switches to HDR10 mode, right?

I am using this as my personal TV and my room is not very big, dimly lit and so its very bright, Max I can keep is 70% Backlight, Local dimming I changed to High which is good. By the way saves power too. 50% backlight consumes 100-104 watts, compared to 130-140 watts on 100%. Rest of setting don't effect wattage that much. But yes need 100% backlight for a medium size room and day time its necessary.

Yes, getting HDR Picture options available for all DV and HDR/HDR 10 contents and TV switches to HDR mode, even when playing HDR10 content via VLC.

 

[lightgamer]

I am using this as my personal TV and my room is not very big, dimly lit and so its very bright, Max I can keep is 70% Backlight, Local dimming I changed to High which is good. By the way saves power too. 50% backlight consumes 100-104 watts, compared to 130-140 watts on 100%. Rest of setting don't effect wattage that much. But yes need 100% backlight for a medium size room and day time its necessary.

Yes, getting HDR Picture options available for all DV and HDR/HDR 10 contents and TV switches to HDR mode, even when playing HDR10 content via VLC.

For the backlight I meant for HDR content. For SDR content I can understand keeping it 50% or lower.

Most content even with backlight set to 100% be tone mapped to 200 nits or lower so it won't matter much. For me even in dark room I don't get any eye strain with HDR backlight to 100%. Need to set SDR backlight to 25% in the same.

 

[BLASTO]

I am adding Pics for my above observation. I am adding those pics only that I captured at UHD with Firestick 4k running @ 4k resolution forced.
Doesn't make sense to post Firestick 4k running @ Auto resolution since everything was in Full HD (except VLC and Prime Video).

I am happy that I got my phone setting somewhat right, These pics are close to real life TV's performance (around 50-70% close, meaning TV display in real is still 50-30% better than pics demonstrate here, had to compress pics too under 1mb to be able to upload).

D+ is Disney +, PV - Prime Video, NF - Netflix, YT - YouTube. Everything running at UHD with difference being SDR, HDR, HDR10 Plus, DV.
Backlight at 50%, Local Dimming Medium, Brightness 50, Contrast 50, Color Sat 40, Sharpness 0, Adaptive Contrast Off, Ultra Smooth motion Custom - Judder 6 Blur 5, Noise / MPEG Reduction Off, Color Temp Warm, Picture Mode HDR Day. Two Pics of TV too, Netflix playing UHD + DV and Prime Video with UHD + HDR 10.

In Pics you can see Firestick Developer tools giving vital info. In top left (or in some case bottom left) you can see the Display resolution and Hz that a particular App launches in Firestick 4k. There is CPU, RAM usage etc on top in some pics. On Right you can see the actual Audio and Video details of content playing.

So much different from last set of pics. Changed any camera settings?

 

[sijuvrm]

So much different from last set of pics. Changed any camera settings?

LOL not much, Just took the pics from far this time like 6-7 feets and cropped them to post here. Camera is going crazy anywhere between 1-3 feet of TV as so much light coming from it.

 

[sijuvrm]

For the backlight I meant for HDR content. For SDR content I can understand keeping it 50% or lower.

Most content even with backlight set to 100% be tone mapped to 200 nits or lower so it won't matter much. For me even in dark room I don't get any eye strain with HDR backlight to 100%. Need to set SDR backlight to 25% in the same.

Yes understood that now, separated backlight setting for HDR and SDR. HDR looking much better at 100%.

I tried a 29 GB UHD HDR 10 movie file on vlc on firestick 4k, it started buffering after a min, maybe due to bandwidth limitations, as transfer speed of HDD over router's smb is 25 mbps and file bitrate is close to that. I just have 3300x on my PC so I will try running a server and see how it plays then. I have ssds only in my pc.

 

[lightgamer]

Yes understood that now, separated backlight setting for HDR and SDR. HDR looking much better at 100%.

For best image quality, you need to keep the entire settings for HDR and SDR separately since the content is mapped completely differently across different colour spaces and different brightness ranges. I've shared the ones I found the best for both modes here as you probably saw already. Let me know how these turn out for you compared to the ones you're using now. I think a lot can be improved from the ones you're using now, especially the saturation (40 is too low for HDR).

I tried a 29 GB UHD HDR 10 movie file on vlc on firestick 4k, it started buffering after a min, maybe due to bandwidth limitations, as transfer speed of HDD over router's smb is 25 mbps and file bitrate is close to that. I just have 3300x on my PC so I will try running a server and see how it plays then. I have ssds only in my pc.

A 29GB movie across 2 hours would be around 4 MB/s or 32 Mbps. Since your transfer speeds across SMB is over 25 MB/s or 200 Mbps I doubt that's the one causing issues. The problem generally is the router not being able to keep up with the constant data streaming and access. 3300x should be plenty fine since all the servers barely take any CPU resources, not even 1 core. And when it's active you won't be using the PC anyway. Since you have firestick 4k, you can just set 1 Plex server and forget about SMB or DLNA.

8 Mbps = 1 MB/s or 1 MBps BTW. Mbps means Megabits per second, MBps means Megabytes per second.

 

[sanshil]

I have gone through the discussion on this thread and I would like the view of you experts here if the Toshiba U7980 would be a good purchase in 65 inch size or should I wait for the U80 model to get launched ? Screen size is definitely 65" that i would want. My requirements are mainly movies on Fire tv stick 4k and a little TV watching on my HD set top box...... would a QLed display of U80 justify the extra spend of around Rs. 25000/27000.
My current TV is Vu Premium 55" 4K 2019 model for which i have a buyer at Rs. 28000/=. Suggestions requested.

Can anyone help me with their views on my above mentioned query. Thanks

 

[shainz]

Guys any update on U8080 its been frusating how long before thay launch it

 

[Infamous]

Can anyone help me with their views on my above mentioned query. Thanks

Hi, the Toshiba U80 if its a rebranded Hisense H9G, is way better than the U79 and is one of the best TVs you could get. It even beats the Sony X900H and that would be around 50k more for the 65" variant. The only reservation about it is the service you will get. Toshiba literally isn't responding back to customers for problems with their U79. So keep that in mind, you are spending 1L for a TV and if by chance you have any problem beyond the returns period, good luck running behind Toshiba. But if you get a well manufactured piece, you are set for years.

 

[bipin1143]

Hi, the Toshiba U80 if its a rebranded Hisense H9G, is way better than the U79 and is one of the best TVs you could get. It even beats the Sony X900H and that would be around 50k more for the 65" variant. The only reservation about it is the service you will get. Toshiba literally isn't responding back to customers for problems with their U79. So keep that in mind, you are spending 1L for a TV and if by chance you have any problem beyond the returns period, good luck running behind Toshiba. But if you get a well manufactured piece, you are set for years.

Yep that's the biggest concern about Toshiba TVs right now. They are not responding on any of their social media accounts also. But they are claiming there have so many services centre s all around India I doubt if it's true. Spending 1L should be double checked

 

[lightgamer]

Can anyone help me with their views on my above mentioned query. Thanks

Depends on what content you watch and how serious you are about the PQ.

You mentioned you will watch movies on firestick 4k, right? But if they are Bollywood movies mostly they'll be 1080p and SDR. For that kind of content spending extra on U80 is not worth it at all. However, if you watch a lot of HDR TV series on Netflix for example, then the U80 is worth the extra.

Think of it this way. For SDR(1080p and 4k) content there's absolutely very little difference between the two. For HDR, there will be a good bit of difference but even the U79 will be a massive improvement from your current TV. Your current TV is I think 450 nits with no local dimming. Compared to that, the 700 nits and local dimming of U79 will be worlds better in all scenarios. On top of it, due to manufacturing improving over time from 2019 of H8F, all of us have gotten incredibly clean U79 panels with no defects. I think mine also goes significantly higher than the claimed 700 nits (digital trends got 950 nits on their H8G compared to claimed 700) based on comparison with my 450 nit monitor.

The difference between the U79 and U80 is slightly more than the Sony X900G/H vs X950G/H. You can take a demo for these TVs and see if it'll be worth it for you.

Overall, if you have the budget for U80, can wait for it and watch a decent amount of HDR content, I'd say go for the U80 hands down. You'll use the TV for a few years at least and HDR content will increase in availability as you go on. Also, you won't have any regrets and itch to upgrade in a couple years.

 

[vaibhav007]

hey guyz. what do you think why there are no reviews out yet. there is no marketing behind the product.

 

[lightgamer]

hey guyz. what do you think why there are no reviews out yet. there is no marketing behind the product.

There's extremely low stock for this TV due to recent import restrictions from the government. That's also the reason U80 hasn't launched yet.

No point of putting those as review units when you can sell them instead. Reviews and review units only make sense when you have enough stock and want to increase sales.

When U80 comes to stock if you're interested in it, buy it ASAP. It'll go out of stock very very quickly.

 

[sanshil]

Depends on what content you watch and how serious you are about the PQ.

You mentioned you will watch movies on firestick 4k, right? But if they are Bollywood movies mostly they'll be 1080p and SDR. For that kind of content spending extra on U80 is not worth it at all. However, if you watch a lot of HDR TV series on Netflix for example, then the U80 is worth the extra.

Think of it this way. For SDR(1080p and 4k) content there's absolutely very little difference between the two. For HDR, there will be a good bit of difference but even the U79 will be a massive improvement from your current TV. Your current TV is I think 450 nits with no local dimming. Compared to that, the 700 nits and local dimming of U79 will be worlds better in all scenarios. On top of it, due to manufacturing improving over time from 2019 of H8F, all of us have gotten incredibly clean U79 panels with no defects. I think mine also goes significantly higher than the claimed 700 nits (digital trends got 950 nits on their H8G compared to claimed 700) based on comparison with my 450 nit monitor.

The difference between the U79 and U80 is slightly more than the Sony X900G/H vs X950G/H. You can take a demo for these TVs and see if it'll be worth it for you.

Overall, if you have the budget for U80, can wait for it and watch a decent amount of HDR content, I'd say go for the U80 hands down. You'll use the TV for a few years at least and HDR content will increase in availability as you go on. Also, you won't have any regrets and itch to upgrade in a couple years.

Thanks mate for a detailed information, I watch a lot of Netflix mainly English series and movies same with Prime Video and Disney Hotstar. Yes I definitely am fond of HDR content and always on the look out for series and movies in Dolby Vision/HDR.

Yes I do understand that U79 by itself would also be a massive improvement from my current TV but buying a TV now would be something that I would be using for minimum 4 to 5 years for sure so as per your suggestion I would like to wait for U80 to get launched which am hoping to happen in time just before the Amazon/Flipkart sale, I happened to speak with Toshiba Customer care on Friday enquiring when it would be launching and I was told to check back after a week as currently they had no details so hoping it gets launched during the sale.

I have sold my current TV today so I would be wanting to buy the new TV during the sale period.
If the launch doesn't happen during the sale period then I might just go for the U79 65" as like you mentioned even that is a massive upgrade.
In the meantime I will try to visit a showroom and try to check the two Sony TV models as suggested by you.
Thank for your valuable information and time... much appreciated.

 

[shainz]

Finally their is a review of Hisense 65 U7QF on youtube in telgu by shiv tech sadly no captions available so cant make much out of it no doubt it looks beautiful & clearly imported from china so that might b the reason why we havnt seen toshiba U8080 yet

 

[BLASTO]

Finally their is a review of Hisense 65 U7QF on youtube in telgu by shiv tech sadly no captions available so cant make much out of it no doubt it looks beautiful & clearly imported from china so that might b the reason why we havnt seen toshiba U8080 yet

European model review.

Hisense U7QF (55U7QFTUK) 4K ULED TV Review

Review of the Hisense 55U7QFTUK 4K ULED TV which features a FALD backlight, Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos.

www.avforums.com

 

[vaibhav007]

There's extremely low stock for this TV due to recent import restrictions from the government. That's also the reason U80 hasn't launched yet.

No point of putting those as review units when you can sell them instead. Reviews and review units only make sense when you have enough stock and want to increase sales.

When U80 comes to stock if you're interested in it, buy it ASAP. It'll go out of stock very very quickly.

umm. I don`t think this will be a sustainable approach for hisense or toshibha , whatever you may call the brand. Majority of the potential buyers have no idea that they can get something this good for the money. Niche community that we are, are not enough to to bring good sales. This is really a good product and i will feel bad for the brand if they are unable to meet sales targets. This is one of the only few products that i wish should catch attention of the masses and do good sales for the brand. They have to market this product well. The least they should do is get influential indian tech youtubers on the board and get it reviewed

 

[lightgamer]

umm. I don`t think this will be a sustainable approach for hisense or toshibha , whatever you may call the brand. Majority of the potential buyers have no idea that they can get something this good for the money. Niche community that we are, are not enough to to bring good sales. This is really a good product and i will feel bad for the brand if they are unable to meet sales targets. This is one of the only few products that i wish should catch attention of the masses and do good sales for the brand. They have to market this product well. The least they should do is get influential indian tech youtubers on the board and get it reviewed

That only works when you have enough stock. If you can't import enough units, what's the point of giving units to reviewers. That's what I meant above.

Assume two scenarios:

Scenario 1: You only have 1000 units to sell. You want to get more units, but the government is blocking imports heavily and it won't be solved for a few months. You have a demand of at least 5000 units. In this case, Toshiba will like to sell the 1000 units instead of giving 50 units to reviewers and selling only 950. Also in this case they'll just anger consumers who watched the reviews and couldn't get a unit.
However, once you get enough stock in a few months, you'll get review units out to increase demand from 5000 to 50000.

Scenario 2: You have 100000 units but only demand for 5000 units. In this case, you'll send 50 units to reviewers and get good reviews out(only works if product is good or you pay the reviewer). This will increase demand and you'll be able to sell way more units.

Again, as you see for the products Toshiba has stock for (U50 and below) they have sent out review units. However, for U79 they haven't and it's still out of stock. There's no point of getting reviews out because the product won't be in stock for a while. When they get enough units in for U79 and U80, they'll get the hype going by getting reviews out.

It's all about timing with marketing. You don't want reviews out when people can't get the product itself. That leads to hype dying out by the time product is already out and people forget about it.

Also, it's Toshiba and not Hisense. Hisense owns a majority stake in Toshiba and hence gets all the profits, and Toshiba gets to use Hisense tech. However, Toshiba has its own brand identity and as usual in these sorts of cases, they do have the freedom to innovate and differentiate for better or for worse. For example, OnePlus, Vivo and Oppo all are owned by BBK electronics and yet their phones are very different. The ownership only controls where the profits and tech transfer happens, but not about ideas or products 100%. Similarly with Toyota and Lexus or Volkswagen and Audi in the car world.