Can't understand why my 9 year old Sharp HD TV is still so much better in picture quality than my new Viewsonic 43" UHD monitor?

Happy Hopping

Happy Hopping

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My PC allows me to pipe my HDMI to a long cable to the back of my 9 yr. old Sharp HD TV. So I have 2 monitor so to speak.

5 yr. ago, I have that 40" UHD Philips PC monitor, and if I have both monitor on, with the very same background photo, usually a photo of my pet taken with an old Canon XTi camera, the photo on my SHarp 60" is much better in photo / picture quality. Clearly the photo looks a lot better. So I thought it's because Philips is just a cheap UHD monitor.

So the other year, that Philips dies, I move to a 43" Viewonic UHD monitor. Likewise, the picture of my Sharp TV is still much better than my new Viewsonic.

With video, same thing, I can easily tell the Sharp movie quality is much better.

I know from Sharp advertising that they claim they have 4 color gun. They claim they add Yellow. Is that really the reason their TV functions as a monitor is so much better than my PC monitor ?
 
Is image processing / enhancement enabled on the TV? I find TVs can subjectively look better for media / game content because they're boosting contrast/saturation and tweaking color balance, sometimes significantly. So while the monitor is actually showing the more "honest" image, the TV can look nicer because it's putting filters on the picture.
Or it could be that Sharp does have some special color reproduction in their panels, idk I'm not that familiar with their TVs specifically.
 
I got that TV 9 yr. ago, whatever the default setting is, I never touch it. I don't think there is an option on image process / enhancement. Is that a common function on TV these days?

and if what you said is true, shouldn't PC monitor manufacturer gives the same options for us

also, the cost of my 43" Viewsonic is more than the cost of a 60" Sharp at Amazon today. So whatever function a Sharp UHD TV has, it should c/w that as an option on a PC monitor
 
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I seriously doubt it. Sharp is a bargain brand owned by some Chinese company. They were a mid tier brand at best during the tube TV days.
 
vegeta535 said:
I seriously doubt it. Sharp is a bargain brand owned by some Chinese company. They were a mid tier brand at best during the tube TV days.
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Learn your history before you open your mouth and sprout garbage. Sharp produce the first ever LCD panel for transistor calculators in 1973 and was instrumental in LCD developments ever since. Arguably, without their heavy investment into large LCD panel production facilities in 2000. The whole LCD industry will not be where they are today. They probably made the best LCD TV during the tube to plasma/LCD transition and produced the first ever 65" LCD at 2005 and first ever 80" at 2012. They are what I bought when I start moving from 35" Tube to 16:9 during the HDTV transition. Sharp was not sold to Taiwanese Foxconn until 2015 so his 9 year old TV was probably still made in Japan.
 
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I thought Sharp was sold to HiSense, and then recently repurchase themselves from HiSense?
 
Happy Hopping said:
I thought Sharp was sold to HiSense, and then recently repurchase themselves from HiSense?
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In June 2017, Sharp sued its Chinese licensee Hisense for damaging the reputation of its brand, seeking an exit from its licensing agreement. Sharp accused the company of producing "shoddily manufactured" televisions under the Sharp name, including products they believed were in violation of U.S. safety standards for electromagnetic radiation, and the subject of deceptive advertising over their quality. Hisense denied that it engaged in these practices, and stated that it planned to defend itself in court and "will continue to manufacture and sell quality televisions under the Sharp licensed brands."[39][40] In February 2018, Sharp dropped the lawsuit against Hisense.[41] In 2019 Sharp re-acquired its own brand for use on TV's in the US market.[
 
that's good.

go back to my original question, is ANY brand HDTV screen better than any PC monitor screen? I mean, I am looking at my 2 screen, it's not just a little bit better, it's easily noticeably much better
 
Frankly, I'd argue that top-tier HDTV's have had better image processing then top-tier displays for the better part of a decade now. You trade off response times and gaming features for superior image processing. It's only now with OLEDs that TVs are winning even on that front.
 
Happy Hopping said:
I got that TV 9 yr. ago, whatever the default setting is, I never touch it. I don't think there is an option on image process / enhancement. Is that a common function on TV these days?

and if what you said is true, shouldn't PC monitor manufacturer gives the same options for us

also, the cost of my 43" Viewsonic is more than the cost of a 60" Sharp at Amazon today. So whatever function a Sharp UHD TV has, it should c/w that as an option on a PC monitor
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Even TVs that old had all kinds of image adjustment settings. If neither of your displays are calibrated or even using recommended settings from reviews, all you are experiencing is "I like the default settings of this device better".

You don't give a whole lot for us to go on as "looks better" is very subjective. It could be that your TV adds a pile of sharpening and oversaturation. Or it could be that it's more accurate out of the box than the others.
 
Happy Hopping said:
that's good.

go back to my original question, is ANY brand HDTV screen better than any PC monitor screen? I mean, I am looking at my 2 screen, it's not just a little bit better, it's easily noticeably much better
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Might want to try a VA panel which have much better contrast ratio and black than most IPS LCD monitors. Viewing angle tends to be narrow though but since you'll be seating center to it most of the time, it should not be a problem. In my personal view. The FV43U is a bargain now that it dropped to $699. The Samsung 43" QN90A/B are also very good, offers TV functions with apps and pretty good 4K upscaling for HD contents although the QN90A is only 60Hz.

What do you mean when you say that the photo is much better? Sharper picture/contrast/color? What resolution is you picture taken at? since monitor does not do image upscaling, a 1080P picture that get blown up to 4K will not look that great.

Check out page 7 of this thread, I posted a bunch of image from the HV43U.

https://hardforum.com/threads/gigab...ch-4k-144-hdr1000-qled-monitor.2009247/page-7
 
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Wiz33 said:
What do you mean when you say that the photo is much better? Sharper picture/contrast/color? What resolution is you picture taken at? since monitor does not do image upscaling, a 1080P picture that get blown up to 4K will not look that great.
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It would appear only in a small portion of the screen if that was true, all monitor that can render lower than native resolution signal fullscreen do image upscaling. If they can accept signal above their native resolution and display all of it, they must support downscaling.

If the computer is set to the native monitor/tv resolution, I would imagine that the computer that will be in charge of upscaling the picture and the display never knew the original picture resolution.

Different device can do a better or worst job at it.
 
LukeTbk said:
It would appear only in a small portion of the screen if that was true, all monitor that can render lower than native resolution signal fullscreen do image upscaling. If they can accept signal above their native resolution and display all of it, they must support downscaling.

If the computer is set to the native monitor/tv resolution, I would imagine that the computer that will be in charge of upscaling the picture and the display never knew the original picture resolution.

Different device can do a better or worst job at it.
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The do simple pixel multiplying/compression and is nowhere near the level of 4K up-scaler that is built in to most high end 4K TV. That's why I use a nVidia Shield TV pro for watching streaming media since it's 4K up-scaler is so much better for watching HD contents on the FV43U than using the same streaming app on the PC.
 
Wiz33 said:
The do simple pixel multiplying/compression and is nowhere near the level of 4K up-scaler that is built in to most high end 4K TV. That's why I use a nVidia Shield TV pro for watching streaming media since it's 4K up-scaler is so much better for watching HD contents on the FV43U than using the same streaming app on the PC.
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It change from monitor to monitor some are more fancy than that (https://www.samsung.com/hk_en/support/computing/what-is-magic-upscale-on-my-monitor/) or claim to be, I imagine none are sophistaced has a Shield or a good tv because a monitor can kind of assume it will never upscale (who do not send native resolution to them ?), but if you plugged PC had a set resolution of 4K on the FV43U you were not using the monitor Upscaling to start with no ? You were using the streaming App /PC to the all the upscaling, send a 4K signal to the monitor that had nothing in that regard to do receiving a native resolution signal to display.

Maybe you were changing your resolution down for 1080p content to let the monitor upscale and judge it and up again for your 4K contain (or your video card did not support 4K resolution), but I doubt either of those.

I could be all wrong, this is based on assumption and very old things back in the day when I did code very simple upscaling algorithm into TV box/phone flash player in the old age.
 
LukeTbk said:
It change from monitor to monitor some are more fancy than that (https://www.samsung.com/hk_en/support/computing/what-is-magic-upscale-on-my-monitor/) or claim to be, I imagine none are sophistaced has a Shield or a good tv because a monitor can kind of assume it will never upscale (who do not send native resolution to them ?), but if you plugged PC had a set resolution of 4K on the FV43U you were not using the monitor Upscaling to start with no ? You were using the streaming App /PC to the all the upscaling, send a 4K signal to the monitor that had nothing in that regard to do receiving a native resolution signal to display.

Maybe you were changing your resolution down for 1080p content to let the monitor upscale and judge it and up again for your 4K contain (or your video card did not support 4K resolution), but I doubt either of those.

I could be all wrong, this is based on assumption and very old things back in the day when I did code very simple upscaling algorithm into TV box/phone flash player in the old age.
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HD (native 4K contents are fine) contents from PC (Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc) on a 4K desktop is scaled by app/windows and is never as good as a dedicated hardware based scaler.

as for the comment to the OP about his picture not look as good is that the image have toi upscale by software on the OS for the monitor.
 
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Wiz33 said:
HD (native 4K contents are fine) contents from PC (Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc) is scaled by app/windows and is never as good as a dedicated hardware based scaler.
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And would be in both case here on the op TV and monitor, thus not the difference maker ?
 
LukeTbk said:
And would be in both case here on the op TV and monitor, thus not the difference maker ?
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No if it's a 1080P being display on this Sharp HDTV in native and then being scaled to fit the 4K monitor.
 
Wiz33 said:
Might want to try a VA panel which have much better contrast ratio and black than most IPS LCD monitors. Viewing angle tends to be narrow though but since you'll be seating center to it most of the time, it should not be a problem. In my personal view. The FV43U is a bargain now that it dropped to $699. The Samsung 43" QN90A/B are also very good, offers TV functions with apps and pretty good 4K upscaling for HD contents although the QN90A is only 60Hz.

What do you mean when you say that the photo is much better? Sharper picture/contrast/color? What resolution is you picture taken at? since monitor does not do image upscaling, a 1080P picture that get blown up to 4K will not look that great.

Check out page 7 of this thread, I posted a bunch of image from the HV43U.

https://hardforum.com/threads/gigab...ch-4k-144-hdr1000-qled-monitor.2009247/page-7
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it's not just the pictures. As I mentioned above, video quality is much better too. The color of the photos / video is more enriched. It could be better contrast. But everything is better. So it has nothing to do w/ the photo. The photos were a no. of years old. So a Canon 10 M Pixel photos. Nothing to write home about. The video are movies, HD or UHD quality
 
Happy Hopping said:
it's not just the pictures. As I mentioned above, video quality is much better too. The color of the photos / video is more enriched. It could be better contrast. But everything is better. So it has nothing to do w/ the photo. The photos were a no. of years old. So a Canon 10 M Pixel photos. Nothing to write home about. The video are movies, HD or UHD quality
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OK, I would give the FV43U a try if you're in the U.S. as the $699 Amazon price is a bargain and you can return it if it doesn't meet your expectation. I bought it at full price and is still really happy with it. It certainly a couple level up from my 1st 4K (Samsung JU7500) from 2015.
 
Adding yellow subpixel was gimmick that served no real purpose because humans cannot differentiate between yellow and red + green and video signal only encoded red, green and blue so even if we could see yellow as different color then trying to display it using yellow subpixels rather than red + green wouldn't really mean colors would be more accurate. And by the time display is calibrated its yellows will look identical to other display. Another thing about these displays is that apparently their backlights used normal W-LEDs without any special peaks for yellow.
1652380514930.png

Doesn't look all that accurate to me < <
Maybe if they took care for skin tones look natural image will look good. It is only skin tones which look out of place when colors are bad.

From what I remember from stores these Sharp TVs were advertised using sun flowers and other yellow things.


Quite possible that these were very good LCD TVs. It is not like this technology improved much.

The issue with this topic is that there is zero information what displays we are talking.
Despite I can already say that TVs generally used VA panels and those usually had much better parameters than monitors have.
IPS panels range from ok-ish but too much IPS glow and unpleasant light to very good but in all cases performance in dark room is underwhelming so best looked with lots of light in room.
VA panels in monitors usually are pretty terrible.
 
XoR_ said:
The issue with this topic is that there is zero information what displays we are talking.
Despite I can already say that TVs generally used VA panels and those usually had much better parameters than monitors have.
IPS panels range from ok-ish but too much IPS glow and unpleasant light to very good but in all cases performance in dark room is underwhelming so best looked with lots of light in room.
VA panels in monitors usually are pretty terrible.
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So the Viewsonic I bought 2 yr. ago is the VX4380. Prior to that, is the infamous Philip BD4350UC

https://hardforum.com/threads/phili...-free-monitor.1894807/page-14#post-1043123876

Neither 1 of these 2 UHD PC monitor is remotely as good as that Sharp 60" HDTV screen that I bought 9 yr. ago, that model is LC-60LC830U
 
Another thing is that on monitors they tend to use matte anti-glare coatings while TVs usually are more glossy. More effective in blocking out reflections but this does affect the image quality a lot actually. Not that many monitors are glossy, the only recent one I can think of is the Alienware QD-OLED.
 
okay, so what about you people? I can't be the only person who pipe the same PC output to a HDTV screen? For those who have 2 screen, how do they compare
 
Interesting screen. I guess the tech got left in the dust because of extreme input lag?

 
I shot some pictures on my iPhone 12 while playing the FFXIV Endwalker trailer on the FV43U, Some of them may be a bit blurry as I did not pause and I think it's pretty damn good.

IMG_E9490.JPG


IMG_E9501.JPG


IMG_E9510.JPG


IMG_E9516.JPG
 
1) so it look like what XoR said is in contrast vs. what Frameless link said. Who should we believe?

2) encl. 2 photo taken by my same camera, a Canon EOS 7D w/ A 24-70mm L lens, the photos are taken at night as I have a window at the left side of my room, during the day, the sun comes in, so I can't take any photo w/o the sun refection. The software is ACDSee 12

Top photo is my Viewsonic VX4380, you can see the skin tone is not as good as the skin tone taken on the 2nd photo, neither is her hair. Photo is scanned by me from a magazine a no. of yr. ago, the original saved JPG was 2560x1600 back in 2008
0V6A2843.JPG
fdgdfgfd.JPG
 
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Happy Hopping said:
1) so it look like what XoR said is in contrast vs. what Frameless link said. Who should we believe?

2) encl. 2 photo taken by my same camera, a Canon EOS 7D w/ A 24-70mm L lens, the photos are taken at night as I have a window at the left side of my room, during the day, the sun comes in, so I can't take any photo w/o the sun refection. The software is ACDSee 12

Top photo is my Viewsonic VX4380, you can see the skin tone is not as good as the skin tone taken on the 2nd photo, neither is her hair. Photo is scanned by me from a magazine a no. of yr. ago, the original saved JPG was 2560x1600 back in 2008
View attachment 474215View attachment 474216
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Take the photo of both monitors from the same distance and orientation. Otherwise things like viewing angles etc will have an effect. Also post the original JPG so we can see how our monitors display it as reference.

Based on these pics the second one looks like the color temperature is more blue (blue tint in the UI) and the display is set much brighter and contrasty. To me it looks oversaturated. If I had to gauge which to me looks more accurate I would say the first pic (gray looks gray) but without seeing the source material it's impossible to say.
 
the thing is, this Sharp TV is 9 year old, eventually if it dies, I need either a 4K or a 8K replacement, depends on cost. As far as quality is concerned, it is still here after 9 yr., so I am tempted to stick to the same brand name. And as to picture quality, whatever the default setting is on the Viewsonic and the Sharp, I leave it as is. I do have calibration video , some old DVD that allows me to do some calibration, so I suppose I could use it. The Viewsonic c/w different temperature profile, and this is the part I don't know what temperature profile to pick. I don't want to mess around and makes it worse. Some profile, when I accidentally touch it, makes it look wash out.
 
Happy Hopping said:
So the Viewsonic I bought 2 yr. ago is the VX4380. Prior to that, is the infamous Philip BD4350UC

https://hardforum.com/threads/phili...-free-monitor.1894807/page-14#post-1043123876

Neither 1 of these 2 UHD PC monitor is remotely as good as that Sharp 60" HDTV screen that I bought 9 yr. ago, that model is LC-60LC830U
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Those are IPS monitors vs VA TV
In bright environment lower contrast should not be an issue but in darker room there will be visible glow to IPS panels.

Other than contrast monitors tend to have lower gamma (often even below 2.2) which can make image more washed out, while TV's have more like 2.4 to be within Rec. 709 specs. Its nothing which cannot be easily corrected.

Happy Hopping said:
the thing is, this Sharp TV is 9 year old, eventually if it dies, I need either a 4K or a 8K replacement, depends on cost. As far as quality is concerned, it is still here after 9 yr., so I am tempted to stick to the same brand name. And as to picture quality, whatever the default setting is on the Viewsonic and the Sharp, I leave it as is. I do have calibration video , some old DVD that allows me to do some calibration, so I suppose I could use it. The Viewsonic c/w different temperature profile, and this is the part I don't know what temperature profile to pick. I don't want to mess around and makes it worse. Some profile, when I accidentally touch it, makes it look wash out.
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Just get OLED TV - should have superior image quality to that Sharp :)
 
Happy Hopping said:
here comes the actual source from the magazine that I scan back in 2008View attachment 474231
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That's a cool pic.

On my LG CX 48" OLED TV which should be fairly accurately setup, what I see is somewhere in between the two pics you posted. The skintones and hair color are closed to your pic 1 whereas pic 2 has excessively red hair, way too much contrast to the point that skintones are crushed. Meanwhile the top photo looks washed out so it has problems too but I don't know if that is caused by the picture angle/distance or maybe camera picking it up differently. In any case neither of them is representing the pic correctly and you are perhaps more used to the oversaturated look of the 2nd one.
 
The second pic is classic TV store room demo processing, the picture is oversaturation and overbrightened to the point detail is completely lost.

A lot of people like the way that looks, it pops more and gets your attention, but it isn't a realstic representation of the image, and you are losing a lot of detail.
 
Happy Hopping said:
the thing is, this Sharp TV is 9 year old, eventually if it dies, I need either a 4K or a 8K replacement, depends on cost. As far as quality is concerned, it is still here after 9 yr., so I am tempted to stick to the same brand name. And as to picture quality, whatever the default setting is on the Viewsonic and the Sharp, I leave it as is. I do have calibration video , some old DVD that allows me to do some calibration, so I suppose I could use it. The Viewsonic c/w different temperature profile, and this is the part I don't know what temperature profile to pick. I don't want to mess around and makes it worse. Some profile, when I accidentally touch it, makes it look wash out.
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Sharp TV have not re-enter the U.S. market yet probably because it will take a tremendous PR effort to repair the damage to the brand image done by Hisense. That said, I would really want to see the Brand return as what I saw of their 4K-8K products while I was in Japan look quite amazing. Here's a short 4K video that I took using a Osmo Pocket of their 8K Aquos in Jan of 2019 when Japan was testing their 8K broadcasting system in preparation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic. As expected, the video did not capture how impressive the TV was when you're sitting in front of it. I just want to sit there all afternoon but as usual when you travel, there's so much to do and see during your limited time. I was last there in Jan 2020 and while I did not take any in store video this time, Sharp TV are always given one of the most visible display area in most Japanese electronic stores.

 
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Here's how it looks on the FV43U side by side with one viewed on the forum page and one downloaded to the PC and open in Photos.

IMG_1333.jpg


I have a window on the right side of my desk that have some light leaks even while shaded so I swap the image position on this one.

IMG_1336.jpg
 
Wiz33 said:
Sharp TV have not re-enter the U.S. market yet probably because it will take a tremendous PR effort to repair the damage to the brand image done by Hisense. That said, I would really want to see the Brand return to the US as what I saw of their 4K-8K product while I was in Japan looks quite amazing. Here's a short 4K video that I took using a Osmo Pocket of their 8K Aquos in Jan of 2019 when Japan was testing their 8K broadcasting system in preparation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic. As expected, the video did not capture how impressive the TV was when you're sitting in front of it. I just want to sit there all afternoon but as usual when you travel, there's so much to do and see during your limited time. I was last there in Jan 2020 and while I did not take any in store video this time, Sharp TV are always given one of the most visible display area in most Japanese electronic stores. Video is still uploading and will probably need another hour before it's viewable in 4K on YouTube.

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I see they run the same scam as manufacturers do in the west and that is to give top line TVs the glossy AG coating treatment, and give cheaper TVs the semi-glossy matte coating to trick people to believe there is a big difference between TVs with the same panel.
 
Frameless said:
I see they run the same scam as manufacturers do in the west and that is to give top line TVs the glossy AG coating treatment, and give cheaper TVs the semi-glossy matte coating to trick people to believe there is a big difference between TVs with the same panel.
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This does have a anti-glare finish but Japanese stores are brightly lit unlike some U.S. store where the TV area run on dimmer lighting.
 
Wiz33 said:
Might want to try a VA panel which have much better contrast ratio and black than most IPS LCD monitors. Viewing angle tends to be narrow though but since you'll be seating center to it most of the time, it should not be a problem. In my personal view. The FV43U is a bargain now that it dropped to $699. The Samsung 43" QN90A/B are also very good, offers TV functions with apps and pretty good 4K upscaling for HD contents although the QN90A is only 60Hz.

What do you mean when you say that the photo is much better? Sharper picture/contrast/color? What resolution is you picture taken at? since monitor does not do image upscaling, a 1080P picture that get blown up to 4K will not look that great.

Check out page 7 of this thread, I posted a bunch of image from the HV43U.

https://hardforum.com/threads/gigab...ch-4k-144-hdr1000-qled-monitor.2009247/page-7
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Q90 absolutely smokes my old U2711 in all areas, its not even fair side by side. Makes it look like a cheap TN, that said it has served well and paid for itself many times over. 22k on hours since ~2011 and definitely has worn a little. Going oled though as light control is fine in my room and that black and p2p transition is unbeatable for me.
 
kasakka said:
That's a cool pic.

On my LG CX 48" OLED TV which should be fairly accurately setup, what I see is somewhere in between the two pics you posted. The skintones and hair color are closed to your pic 1 whereas pic 2 has excessively red hair, way too much contrast to the point that skintones are crushed. Meanwhile the top photo looks washed out so it has problems too but I don't know if that is caused by the picture angle/distance or maybe camera picking it up differently. In any case neither of them is representing the pic correctly and you are perhaps more used to the oversaturated look of the 2nd one.
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1) how long have you been using OLED TV? what's the latest on your TV in regards to "burn in"

2) when you compare the above, are you using the reference photo I post on Post # 28?
 
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your tv is "enhancing" the image with some built in processing. the first pic looks closer to what my 4k is showing with the og. its(tv) color is also wrong, as mentioned before, the whites are blue.
 
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