Juha Saarinen: How much picture quality is too much on a 65-inch TV?

The Samsung S95C TV. Photo / Supplied

OPINION

One does not simply review large TVs. Instead, you watch in awe as the courier carries in a box almost as big as himself, politely declining an offer for assistance, and then the reviewer’s remorse starts.

Intrepid technology journalists would normally gladly set up a TV like the Samsung S95C, with a screen that measures 65 inches diagonally, on their own.

That’s because describing the pain and suffering, sorry I mean the setup process is how a TV owner’s journey of experience starts. Besides, there’s a certain nervous thrill to be had as you gingerly juggle a massive and expensive TV, knowing that a disastrous fumble will cause severe vendor-wrath and possibly a Disputes Tribunal appearance.

This time around, a technician got to experience all that. It pleases me no end to report that the person struggled with the physical setting-up, especially with the stand for the S95C.

There’s only one way to do it, and it’s shown right there in the setup diagram. Any shortcut taken causes profuse swearing as the stand installation has to be un- and redone.

After that, it was dead easy to go through Samsung’s slick software setup for the TV. It involved using both a smartphone and the TV, but it was quick, mostly automated and without one-letter-at-a-time screen keyboarding.

With the setup done using the defaults Samsung suggested, the S95C image looked stunning.

Maybe a bit over processed though, with some Netflix movies looking “too realistic” if there is such a thing. The picture clarity settings for motion blur and judder reduction were both set to full for example, along with the screen brightness. Movie geeks will shudder as the S95C removes all the judder.

Fear not, the S95C image and audio are both super-tweakable, once you wade through deeply nested menus using the tiny remote with a minimalist amount of buttons and a clicky wheel selector. Or a smartphone.

A Smart Calibration run seemed like a good idea. It uses a smartphone camera placed close to the S95C screen to measure the viewing environment the TV is in.

After calibration, the image had the brightness and contrast pulled back for a more natural look.

However, programmes like Sweet Tooth now displayed really annoying judder which is very visible on a big screen. Long story short, this is fixable with patience and fiddling with image settings while watching different content (especially in cinematic 24 frames per second).

For the impatient, put the set into the Filmmaker Mode instead of using the Smart Calibration feature. Filmmaker Mode is a good baseline for customisation.

Part of the setting up involved adding an S800B sound bar (very long and slim) and a thumpy subwoofer to the S95C.

Don’t get the S95C without an S Boob as my hilarious fellow viewer thought it was called. Running the soundbar, subbie, and TV speakers at the same time makes a huge difference, especially for surround sound. On their own, the sound from the S95C speakers isn’t all that.

You can game on the S95C at a fast 144 Hz refresh rate for smooth action, and look, there’s AI as befits the times, with Samsung’s Neural Quantum Processor seeing use again for image processing.

Now, the key tech for the S95C is that it’s made with organic light emitting diodes which nobody calls them ever so they’re just OLEDs. This year’s update for the 4K set involves a Quantum Dot OLED screen that’s 30 per cent brighter than before, Samsung says.

Really though, the OLED wow factor is that little organic light emitters go black. Completely dark as they switch off, providing infinite contrast. It’s hard to imagine better image quality than what the S95C provides once adjusted, and I suspect going back to my regular set will require expectation management.

Digital screen tech is very deep geek. If you immerse yourself in it, many fascinating dinner party conversations around the pros and cons of eg. Mini/MicroLED v OLED (and now, Micro-OLED as in Apple’s 4K Vision Pro headset) become possible.

For TVs where you sit some distance away from the set, ever-shrinking pixels aren’t as important as when you’re looking at the display near your face however; will TV screens become drastically better, or just see small improvements in the next few years? Will 8K make a difference, or is 4K the sweet spot? Will TVs as we know them be around soon, big, black slabs as they are, or will we sit around in headsets like a scene from Black Mirror?

So many questions begging for answers and it’s all very first world. So’s the price, $6750 for the S95C and $677 for the S800B. That kind of money will have austere business editors and their economist drogues take you down the Walk of Shame for frivolously blowing out the nation’s current account deficit.

Or so I thought until I spotted the 77-inch version of the S95C which goes for almost 13 grand. It makes the 65-incher look like good value, but if your budget stretches to $13k for a TV, it’s probably not a consideration while getting the best possible image quality is. Please contact the writer with hints and tips on how to join that exclusive club.