- With fewer people wanting to pay
for movie theater experiences,
instead opting for watching films at home,
TVs have been a hot commodity
whether you have a really old TV or you wanna
up your game since you're watching
more blockbusters straight from your living room.
Speaking of blockbusters...
(dramatic orchestra music)
Okay.
I'm really never gonna get over that.
But back to it.
Pretty much all modern TVs come
with their own operating system
and a bevy of streaming apps.
So, to help make sense of it all,
here are four things you need to consider
before deciding which smart TV and
streaming platform combination is gonna be right for you.
Let's get into it.
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Number one.
Let me answer the question
about the platform and TV combination.
This one's deep, it's pretty technical,
so I'll make it easy.
Which TV and streaming platform combination is the best?
Not one single built-in TV and streaming platform combo.
Why?
In my opinion,
the best combination is whatever your choice
of modern TV is mated to a standalone streaming box.
Generally speaking,
a standalone dongle or box, a box especially,
will have higher end components,
more powerful spec, that's its chip set,
graphics processing unit and networking components.
It's most apparent, though,
at the lower end when you're paying only
three to $600 for 40 to 65 inches.
Part of the reason for this,
and more specifically speaking to
larger streaming boxes like Apple TV, Roku Ultra,
or Streambar and NVIDIA Shield Pro,
is that you have more space
for components and for heat dissipation,
though Google's Chromecast is certainly no slouch.
Now, which streaming box or dongle you'll choose is really
up to your preference and which ecosystem
you've already bought into your home.
Amazon, Google, Apple, they're all good
and we have reviews of each here on the channel
if you wanna take a deep dive into those separately.
Second consideration,
having said what I said about standalone boxes,
I think it's more important to focus
on TV viewing and audio technology than the streaming apps
or operating system that comes with the TV.
Look at the features you want that are within your budget.
If you have little to spend
versus having a bit more flexibility,
that's really going to make a difference
in what you should be looking at.
If you're going to purchase a TV that you know
you're going to keep for several years,
I always say buy as much TV as you can afford.
And there are a lot of options these days.
Since many people are connecting sound bars
and beefing up surround systems for at-home viewing,
I think the sound component is a crucial part
if you're going to spend a few dollars,
though you can fulfill this requirement
in the $500 range with TVs
like Vizio's V series where you can get a 50-inch TV
which has HDMI 2.1 and eARC,
which is what you'll need to ensure you have
Dolby Atmos pass through to your audio components
like a sound bar.
Let me break that down for you a bit.
Let's break that science down, demystify it.
Depending on how old your TV is,
you may have HDMI 1.0 or 2.0 ports on it.
HDMI 2.0 is fine for many things today,
but HDMI 2.1 is the most recent version of HDMI technology,
which by the way stands for
high definition multimedia interface.
2.1 offers almost three times the bandwidth
or pipe size that 2.0 does
so you can view 4K video at higher refresh rates
and with dynamic HDR instead of standard HDR.
In addition,
you have enough speed from the latest
standard to support eARC,
or the expanded audio return channel,
so that you can pass those bandwidth-intensive
Dolby Atmos and DTS:X signals
from your standalone streaming box through your TV
to your sound bar or speakers, which support Dolby Atmos.
Of course, if you have a sound bar and HDMI 2.0,
the workaround is to connect your streaming box
directly to your sound bar,
then your sound bar out to your TV's HDMI 2.0 input.
That is, of course,
as long as your sound bar actually supports Dolby Atmos
and it supports output to a TV.
Third consideration is a look at what kind
of backlight a TV has.
The main categories for LED back lighting are edge lit,
which is exactly what it sounds like.
Lights are placed around the edges
of an LCD panel to illuminate it.
LCD panels require a light source to
illuminate the pixels unlike the
last option we'll talk about, which is OLED.
Then there's direct back lit,
which is where LEDs are placed directly
behind the LCD panel to light it.
You're gonna get a better picture with this than edge lit.
Next up is full array with local dimming zones.
This breaks the LEDs up into zones of light
that can be turned on and off,
giving you sharper images with better, deeper blacks.
And it gets even better when we get
into another technology, mini LEDs.
Just like full array,
those are broken into zones, but being smaller,
you can get thousands of these mini LEDs
on larger TVs and ultimately more zones and smaller zones.
The best tech is OLED,
but you're gonna pay around $1,200 starting
for the privilege.
OLEDs need no light source as they themselves are lit
and give you the best blacks and color range
as well as the best way to clean out your wallet.
The best combination of performance to price
is going to be mini LED backlit TVs.
And you'll see sets like TCL Six series
which can be had for around $700
or you can step down to full array
local dimming minus the mini LEDs in TCL's Five series.
The 55 inch can be found on Amazon for $428.
And I've personally tested that one
with the Google version of it
and it's a really good TV.
You also have Vizio, Hisense, and Samsung units
you can look at in those price ranges as well.
The fourth consideration is sound.
Sorry manufacturers, but TV sound is less than desirable.
That's why we've seen a proliferation
of sound bars in the last decade.
Some folks don't want an entire surround sound setup
and sound bars offer a way to get much better sound
from your media than your stock speakers in your TV.
And the prices on them are pretty good.
Shop them around the holidays
and you can often get a really good deal.
In this area,
buying even an inexpensive sound bar is generally
going to provide better sound
than what is coming stock out of your TV.
And we have quite a few sound bar reviews up here
on the channel as well to check out.
You can go see Craig and his reviews for those.
So those are my four things that you should be looking at.
Those are my four things you should consider
before buying your next TV
as long with some of those considerations
being components to buy along with the TV.
I'm Tshaka Armstrong.
If you have any questions that
I didn't answer in this video,
please leave those in the comments below.
I'll get to them.
I love chatting with you all.
I will see you on the next video.