Right! Here it is - the complete LG OLED 55B6V Thread, according to Big Aura..! With a big thanks to gel and BigBoss, who were very helpful in bargain hunting and flagging.
So - about my current system and set-up. I live in a Victorian terrace, so my living room isn't huge (4.7m long by 3.6m wide). The AV set up is housed in a bespoke cabinet which sits in the bay, so I was somewhat limited in what the AV cabinet would accommodate. My previous TV was a Sony 40w4500 (a 5star award winner in its day (2007/8?)). To be honest, I never really warmed to it. PQ was quite good, but the black levels were awful, and there was a noticeable bloom of light in the top right that developed after a year or so. It was annoying, but not enough to offload it. The rest of my set-up is Denon AVR3312, Sony BDP S760, Samsung SMT-7800 Freesat, B&W 685 Theatre 5.0, and an ancient Jamo E4 sub. I only use the sub when the wife is out, as she's concerned about the neighbours. I don't really care for the neighbours.
I really had a hankering for OLED, so all this Q-Dot malarkey was just a distraction. Sadly they didn't proliferate at a rate that filled me with confidence, nor did the price tumble happen at the right pace for me. Then, with the shock Brexit decision and the predictable currency devaluation as the markets told us all exactly what the future has in store for the economy, it was clear that the short term meant imports were unlikely to be getting cheaper... I'd resigned myself to another few years with the mediocre Sony. Then it started playing up. At first a precise band across the top of the screen was out-of-focus. Then it started bloom clouds of black vertically in the middle of the screen. It was fine if you let the TV warm up for 10 minutes, but that's no way to live. The hunt for a new Telly was on...
Looking at the small band of OLEDs, there was only really one screen size that suited. Reason being, the space between my speakers is 1236mm. The 65" screens are too big (both for the gap, and really for the room). I don't care about on-board sound from the TV, and I don't like 3D at all. And I think curved looks silly and will probably follow 3D onto the scrap heap, along with MiniDisc and pet rocks. The 55B6V had just been reduced to £1499, so was the obvious front runner (and at 1229mm, it fits!). I looked at the rivals - there was no OLED in that bracket, and just couldn't bring myself to go for the Samsung or Sonys that were LED. So I ordered it from Currys.
The transaction itself was painful. Through a scheme with my employer, I have access to discounted gift vouchers. The maximum denomination is £250, so I bought 6 of them, and proceeded to buy online. The Currys website only accepts a max of 5 vouchers. This is not in their Ts&Cs. It is in their FAQs (but 1. The FAQs are not contractual terms; 2. Who checks FAQs before buying a gift voucher; and 3. Is that really a question that is frequently asked?!). So I had to go to a store to exchange 6 £250 vouchers for some larger denomination ones. Painful, and a big red mark against Currys... The TV was duly ordered and arrival was forecast for 08:05 - 12:05. That was fine, as I was WfH that day, but I did have to drop kids to a summer camp (and pick on up early when a tooth collided with a bigger boy). Whilst I acknowledge it was a free delivery and beggars can't be choosers, I would have liked a further update text (e.g. "you order is likely to arrive within the next 60mins") so I didn't get caught out if I had to pop out for 10 mins. In any case, it wasn't an issue - TV was delivered precisely in the middle of the window - 10:05. The delivery guy was a lovely chap - well done him.
So - to unboxing. Easy to get out. The pictorial unboxing instructions were a bit confusing, but I'm a big boy and I figured all by myself! Getting the stand on was probably a two-person job, but I managed that too. I was on a roll. Then to setting it up. It has a freesat tuner and a freeview tuner, so I planned on dispensing with the Samsung Freesat box and even bought myself a 2 terabyte hard drive to record to. I connected both an aerial and satellite cable, and tuned it. Now, perhaps I should have looked at the manual but meh to that - I couldn't figure out how to get it to work nicely with both sources. I wanted to use Freesat at the prime source and the aerial as the secondary (mostly as I've been using freesat for more than a decade and I like how it works). That proved beyond my competence. It kept defaulting to aerial. But more importantly, the PQ was very, very poor from both tuners. (Both freeview and freesat, the latter was tested when I defaulted to freesat after unplugging the aerial connection). Now at this point I hadn't calibrated anything, but still - I reconnected the Samsung Freesat box and used that, so relegating my OLED to a display only.
The PQ from the Samsung Box, massaged and upscaled by the Denon AVR was leagues ahead. I then went on a calibration mission. I also downloaded some firmware over wifi which took an hour (allowing me to collect the injured child). I will double check the settings and insert as an edit later tonight. It just got better and better. The final calibration was done Saturday afternoon. Gardeners World on BBC2 HD had a horrific aura around anyone moving. It was like an outline that shimmered like the Predator. A quick google told me it was the Tru-Motion. I had it set to low. I turned it off and the issue resolved. Now I know the TV companies try all this fancy smoothing tech, but if it is set to the lowest level and makes a woman slowly walking in a garden shimmer like the Predator, perhaps it should be flagged as a "fail" and not included?
Onto the smart functions.... This is my first smart TV. I've previously used, and loved, a Chromecast. To be honest, I think the wand remote is a bit of a faff. Pointing and clicking on stuff via Netflix is easy. Trying to type in names of shows is a pain. There's a natural inclination to dip the remote each time you press down to click on a letter, resulting in the wand moving slightly and clicking on the wrong letter. Using a phone with the Netflix app is much, much easier. Another issue with the smart TV was that Netflix didn't output 5.1 over the ARC. It was coming out in stereo. Another quick google tells me this was a common complaint. The fix was to change the sound settings from PCM to Auto, and ensure the SmartSync remote is on. (More on the NOT-SO-SMART-Sync later). So that was solved. Again - why do they bother with settings that aren't quite right out of the box? So this bloody SmartSnyc. The TV acknowledges that "it might not work as intended with non LG devices". Understatement. IF IT DOESN'T QUITE WORK DON'T QUITE INCLUDE IT. When I try to switch from internal Netflix to my external freesat, the usual AV Input switch isn't on the remote. It's a faff to find out how to do it. It's not intuitive, so much so I cannot describe the process now to do it. I'd need to look at the remote, and think for a bit, and then guess. And that's every time. It's just not obvious. Now this is a small gripe, and I'm sure it will become second nature in a few more day, but still - TVs have had an AV input switch since time immemorial... But onto the ARC and smartsync remote... I need to have SmartSync enabled or else it won't send stereo (and latterly 5.1) from Netflix to the AVR. But... when I moved back to TV, the TV decides that because I'm turning on my Samsung Freesat Box, it should also turn on my blu-ray player. Why? WHO KNOWS! And then the AVR senses the BD player is on, so changes the input from Freesat to BD. And then I turn off the BD Player and then the TV turns it back on again. And around we go again. Extremely annoying. I googled for a fix. There isn't one that I can see. It seems the workaround is to ignore the HDMI ARC input/output on the telly, and use one of the "normal" HDMIs and use an optical cable to send Netflix etc. sound back to the AVR. Tut tut.
Now, onto picture quality. I've said how unimpressed I was with the inbuilt tuners. How does stuff look via other sources? Now here's a big wavy finger at professional reviewers. Most of the reviews of 4k TVs focus on how they look with 4K. What percentage of stuff is in 4k? The majority of broadcasts are SD, and HD is growing all the time, but it's not there yet. 4K is years off...
So 4K? Not really watched much yet. I ran Medici on Netflix and it looked beautiful, but to be honest it probably didn't stand out from HD. Maybe I need to do more side by side comparisons. I also watched the supposed 4k Stream of the Champions League Final (shame on you, Sergio Ramos). This was over Wifi, rather than a wired connection. The router is 80cm away from the TV. Download speed is normally 60-72Mbps. The Champions League final was awful. It looked SD most of the time. I was glad I was watching it just the kids and not showcasing my sleek new TV's 4k abilities for friends. So, verdict - 4k hmmm, not so sure.
Blue Ray? Only watched 10 minutes of Force Awakens. It was lush. It was amazing. I wanted to marry the picture it was so lovely.
DVD - not done any yet.
HD TV. BBC HD looks amazing (and good that I can do an a/b comparision with SD). Really top notch, but not sure how much of that is due to upscaling from the AVR. C4 HD was nice too (watched a bit of the Krays movie on Saturday). ITV HD was less stunning but passable.
SD, as you would expect, a 55" screen leave nowhere to hide. Some really soft/smudgy looking picture. It's passable on BBC but really weak on the Tiny POPs kids tv channels. I expect that other "low budget" channels will be similarly rubbish.
Finally, there's a funny artefact on the TV which I only noticed last night. When I turn it on first there was a 1mm band across the bottom and up the right side of different coloured blocks (a bit test card like). It lasted a minute and went. I will try and photograph it to see, as if this is an actual problem the set will go right back. I lived with the blooming corner in my Sony for too long, won't make that mistake again.
So if you think TL;DR, here the summary.
Smart remote is a bit of a pain, but the Sync with other devices is terrible. Shameful. Inbuilt tuners are poor. If you use Sky or an external PVR, this won't matter to you (and I expect my tightness in not paying for Sky is rare for people buying OLEDs). Motion smoothing tech is a waste of space, turn it off. I don't use the sound from the TV so cannot comment. A few bugs but otherwise this is a glorious set. Really happy. But for the price (even when it's been heavily discounted), I would expect it to work seamlessly. I'm still getting to grips with it, so my impressions may change.
Picture Quality: 5/5
Sound: Not Assessed
Smart Features: 3/5 - stupidly complicated to get the ARC working to output Netflix, Remote Sync an embarrassment.
Style of Set: 5/5 VfM: 4/5
Overall:4.3/5
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