This Diwali, our old but trusted Living room TV (Samsung KS7000) made way for a LG C5 (65”).
Here are my impressions over using it for the last two weeks.
Setup/Settings:
Our audio setup consists of an old (no-ARC) 5.1 Denon AVR; so C5 is connected to AVR on Optical out. On our earlier Samsung TV, we had a Firetv 4K, Airtel xStream DTH and Nvidia Shield (which is mostly used for Kodi and Casting).
In the new C5 setup, only the Airtel DTH and Shield remain; we have switched over to using C5’s in-built apps for most OTT content.
TV is located facing a large window about 16+ feet away and the room is moderately bright during daytime. Yet, C5 is plenty bright for all types of content. For SDR content, we found FMM (Film Maker mode) with 25%-30% brightness setting to be comfortable. For HDR content, FMM with 100% brightness is set. All AI modes are turned off. FMM has an Ambient mode setting – this is enabled. We haven’t found reasons to use different settings during day and night-time yet.
Picture Quality:
The screen feels immersive the moment you start watching HDR/SDR content; even 1080p SDR shows come across as absolutely life-like with depth. Shows in Dolby Vision HDR (e.g. Slow Horses, Last Frontier on AppleTV) really shine on this TV. Overall, excellent and natural picture quality. While Samsung OLEDs are pop-out colorful, I prefer the natural colors on the LG TV (think Samsung phone vs Pixel phone camera photos).
Audio Quality:
5.1 Dolby and PCM via optical turns out fine, no surprises here. One can also choose to play audio on BOTH optical and TV speakers, haven’t needed to use this feature.
FireTV apps vs built-in apps:
Having moved to using the built-in apps (primarily for OTT), the apps have been quite stable and performing as expected. HDR/Dolby Vision/Film Maker type indicators show up briefly on the top-right corner when starting to play content – a handy confirmation of what to expect from the video. In the two weeks, have seen updates to a couple of apps – this will be key to continued app stability. Further, the C5 also received a firmware update (to Ver: 33.22.65) during this time.
LG magic Remote:
No other way of saying it, while it feels good to hold, the remote is bad in terms of ease of use. Wheel as Enter button, fidgety air pointer, non-changeable app short-cuts, no direct input-change button, laughably useless AI voice – many reasons why this is not helpful.
In our optical-out scenario, we continue to use the earlier FireTV remote (without the Firetv4K) for basic AVR audio control (Vol +/-, Mute, AVR on/off) since the old Denon remote is partially non-functional.
One positive thing though – TV has Universal control (via CEC I presume), so same LG remote can be used for basic operations on the Airtel STB and Shield as well (anyway my original Shield remote is also long broken).
OLED image-retention concerns:
During installation, we ran some basic full-screen colour tests (white, rgb, etc) – all looked thankfully fine. The service engineer showed me one of his recent customers C5 example where burn-in spots was visible on an all-green screen. Anyway, I am limiting use of DTH channels where practical given the static logo in the top right corner on every channel; OLED panel-care logo brightness is set to HIGH (which I am told dims the logo maximum) – not sure I have seen it make much of a difference visually though.
Incidentally, tried to use the built-in LG Channels app for news, guess what – static logos show up here too and these channels are all very low-res standard-def (SD) stuff anyway.
Quirks:
Google cast. This didn’t work for the first two days after varying attempts at resolving it (and the service engineer couldn’t help). Found a way to “restart” the TV and it has been working well ever since. Have been able to cast up to 4K HDR on YouTube; looks like it can possibly replace my Shield for casting function.
Subtitles brightness. When watching any HDR content (where peak brightness is 100%), the subtitles are ALWAYS shown at 100% brightness – blinding and distracting it is.
SDR brightness setting. While we have set this to 25%, one must watch for different screens/apps that also need to be set independently. For e.g. LG-channels, Home-Hub, built-in browser – all need to be set independently.
Here are my impressions over using it for the last two weeks.
Setup/Settings:
Our audio setup consists of an old (no-ARC) 5.1 Denon AVR; so C5 is connected to AVR on Optical out. On our earlier Samsung TV, we had a Firetv 4K, Airtel xStream DTH and Nvidia Shield (which is mostly used for Kodi and Casting).
In the new C5 setup, only the Airtel DTH and Shield remain; we have switched over to using C5’s in-built apps for most OTT content.
TV is located facing a large window about 16+ feet away and the room is moderately bright during daytime. Yet, C5 is plenty bright for all types of content. For SDR content, we found FMM (Film Maker mode) with 25%-30% brightness setting to be comfortable. For HDR content, FMM with 100% brightness is set. All AI modes are turned off. FMM has an Ambient mode setting – this is enabled. We haven’t found reasons to use different settings during day and night-time yet.
Picture Quality:
The screen feels immersive the moment you start watching HDR/SDR content; even 1080p SDR shows come across as absolutely life-like with depth. Shows in Dolby Vision HDR (e.g. Slow Horses, Last Frontier on AppleTV) really shine on this TV. Overall, excellent and natural picture quality. While Samsung OLEDs are pop-out colorful, I prefer the natural colors on the LG TV (think Samsung phone vs Pixel phone camera photos).
Audio Quality:
5.1 Dolby and PCM via optical turns out fine, no surprises here. One can also choose to play audio on BOTH optical and TV speakers, haven’t needed to use this feature.
FireTV apps vs built-in apps:
Having moved to using the built-in apps (primarily for OTT), the apps have been quite stable and performing as expected. HDR/Dolby Vision/Film Maker type indicators show up briefly on the top-right corner when starting to play content – a handy confirmation of what to expect from the video. In the two weeks, have seen updates to a couple of apps – this will be key to continued app stability. Further, the C5 also received a firmware update (to Ver: 33.22.65) during this time.
LG magic Remote:
No other way of saying it, while it feels good to hold, the remote is bad in terms of ease of use. Wheel as Enter button, fidgety air pointer, non-changeable app short-cuts, no direct input-change button, laughably useless AI voice – many reasons why this is not helpful.
In our optical-out scenario, we continue to use the earlier FireTV remote (without the Firetv4K) for basic AVR audio control (Vol +/-, Mute, AVR on/off) since the old Denon remote is partially non-functional.
One positive thing though – TV has Universal control (via CEC I presume), so same LG remote can be used for basic operations on the Airtel STB and Shield as well (anyway my original Shield remote is also long broken).
OLED image-retention concerns:
During installation, we ran some basic full-screen colour tests (white, rgb, etc) – all looked thankfully fine. The service engineer showed me one of his recent customers C5 example where burn-in spots was visible on an all-green screen. Anyway, I am limiting use of DTH channels where practical given the static logo in the top right corner on every channel; OLED panel-care logo brightness is set to HIGH (which I am told dims the logo maximum) – not sure I have seen it make much of a difference visually though.
Incidentally, tried to use the built-in LG Channels app for news, guess what – static logos show up here too and these channels are all very low-res standard-def (SD) stuff anyway.
Quirks:
Google cast. This didn’t work for the first two days after varying attempts at resolving it (and the service engineer couldn’t help). Found a way to “restart” the TV and it has been working well ever since. Have been able to cast up to 4K HDR on YouTube; looks like it can possibly replace my Shield for casting function.
Subtitles brightness. When watching any HDR content (where peak brightness is 100%), the subtitles are ALWAYS shown at 100% brightness – blinding and distracting it is.
SDR brightness setting. While we have set this to 25%, one must watch for different screens/apps that also need to be set independently. For e.g. LG-channels, Home-Hub, built-in browser – all need to be set independently.
