Vizio M502i-B1 50" SmartTV

Lazybones · November 24, 2014, 10:22:46 PM

Well due to an odd blue discoloration in the corners of my old 42" and the fact my ROKU 2 as a very functional but boring looking client and old netflix client I decided to take advantage of the sale and pickup the M502i-B1 at future-shop.

First thing I noticed playing movies on it was that I hated them.... then after a little googling I figured out it was the Soap Opera effect and i turned off smooth Motion (motion interpolation / fake frames). Everything felt much more natural and my wife stopped complaining it was giving her a headache and looked fake. I will leave the high framerates for content that actually uses it, like gaming or future movies.

The Appstore is provided by Yahoo, which surprised me, but I found my three core apps (Plex, Netflix, and YouTube) quickly and loaded them without trouble... The smart apps are fairly quick to respond and are the most up to date versions of each... There was a little bit of pausing scrolling up and down in the Netflix app but I think that is because it draws in the background images.

The Plex app is almost identical to the one just released for Xbox with some minor layout differences... There as still bugs and it is appropriately labeled Preview release. Regardless of this, it is still a good plex Video client... I look forward to them expanding its features.

I am a little disappointed with the remote that comes with the set, it is double sided with a keyboard on the back... Only the keyboard is backlit however... not the normal remote side witch is a bit odd... The remote works well but is chunky.

The app store is fairly sparse, but that may have to due with the fact Visio isn't common out side the US.. The remote even has a dedicated Amazon streaming button but no app in Canada.

If you ignore the smartTV parts the TV still seems to be a good deal at the price.

Tom · November 25, 2014, 04:04:54 AM

You don't want the fake framerates with games either. It adds processing latency, up to a few frames worth.

If the tv is truly capable of > 60fps (not many are, some do 120). Anything higher that 60fps is probably using interpolation to get there, and theres no guarantee the actual interface the tv uses supports > 30 or 60fps, so even with a 120fps source, it'd probably only output at 60fps, then the tv would re-interpolate that to 120fps. heh.

At any rate, it's a pretty pointless feature for the forseeable future, except when using it as a computer monitor. then give me ALL THE 120/144hz's.

Speaking of doing such things, I use my big 55" samsung as a computer monitor almost exclusively. It turns of ALL of its processing when using the PC input. And I prefer it that way. The "soap opera" effect is really jarring.

Hope that new tv works out for you

Mr. Analog · November 25, 2014, 08:51:13 AM

I know Sharp has preset modes that give you the best experience possible (Movie Mode / Game Mode / etc)

Some movies it works well on some not so much, I set up the presets per input and really haven't looked back.

Lazybones · November 25, 2014, 08:51:38 AM

Yep that is what I was saying. The only inputs that could really exceed 60 fps are PC and gaming.

It's an evil setting, just like stretch modes that mess with the aspect ratio. Zoom and crop to me is sometimes OK but most of the time I just leave all the bar there and watch as the content was originally produced.

Mr. Analog · November 25, 2014, 09:30:05 AM

Ugh Stretch Modes!

AUGH old non-anamorphic DVDs!!

Lazybones · November 25, 2014, 09:45:41 AM

The thing to note is that much like an overly bight color setting these are the defaults... Good sets let you tweak them... All of these things can be changed..

I am surprised how BAD the Soap Opera effect is on new high refresh sets that use the frame faking. I have been wondering for a while why I hated specific demo units at stores for the last few years and now I know... I am glad it can be disabled.

Thorin · November 25, 2014, 09:49:02 AM

I'm surprised some people actually like the soap opera effect. I don't and won't ever. It just looks ... wrong.

Mr. Analog · November 25, 2014, 09:56:33 AM

The only film I can suggest where it looks good is the DVD version of "North by Northwest", for some reason that really brings some scenes to life, even the classic Saul Bass credit roll seems to look nicer

But for most films / tv shows it's awful, disable!

Thorin · November 25, 2014, 10:16:05 AM

Interesting info: http://www.rtings.com/info/what-is-the-refresh-rate. Go through the four pages and find out how much the refresh rates listed on tvs is just marketing doublespeak.

Also, I never really understood what people meant with motion blur. Turns out it's because I bought a plasma tv way back when: http://www.rtings.com/info/lcd-vs-led-vs-plasma. Mind you, I'm not a super technical videophile; I bought the plasma because it was cheaper (because it was 720p when the new thing to have was 1080p); about $600 cheaper than the same size LCD tv. Anyway, apparently there are no more plasma tv manufacturers. Someday I'll have to buy a new tv, and it'll be LED (because that'll be the cheapest option at the time).

Lazybones · November 25, 2014, 10:23:07 AM

Quote from: Thorin on November 25, 2014, 10:16:05 AM
Interesting info: http://www.rtings.com/info/what-is-the-refresh-rate. Go through the four pages and find out how much the refresh rates listed on tvs is just marketing doublespeak.

Also, I never really understood what people meant with motion blur. Turns out it's because I bought a plasma tv way back when: http://www.rtings.com/info/lcd-vs-led-vs-plasma. Mind you, I'm not a super technical videophile; I bought the plasma because it was cheaper (because it was 720p when the new thing to have was 1080p); about $600 cheaper than the same size LCD tv. Anyway, apparently there are no more plasma tv manufacturers. Someday I'll have to buy a new tv, and it'll be LED (because that'll be the cheapest option at the time).

Due to the high refresh rates on LED/LCD sets now motion blur isn't really a problem even with the frame interpolation disabled. Both my previous set this replaced (42" Samsung) and the one in my basemen (51" Samsung) are 720 Plasma sets so motion blur has never been a problem for me.. I believe the last Plasma sets will be phases out this year actually, everyone is getting out of the business of making them as they are too expensive at the higher resolutions.

Thorin · November 25, 2014, 10:48:49 AM

Well, a lot of the advertised refresh rates are marketing-speak: http://www.rtings.com/info/fake-refresh-rates-samsung-clear-motion-rate-vs-sony-motionflow-vs-lg-trumotion. Nice to know motion blur is ameliorated with higher refresh rates, so now just make sure that tv you're looking at actually has a higher refresh rate, rather than some weird feature that they claim increases the refresh rate.

Lazybones · November 25, 2014, 01:40:30 PM

Looking at the chart I am happy I went with the M series, the real refresh rate should be 120 which should be more than enough.

Mr. Analog · November 25, 2014, 02:08:02 PM

Just looking at my TV specs out of curiosity

120Hz (60 fps) with a 4ms response

Not too shabby for 60" 2010 model ( http://www.sharpusa.com/ForHome/HomeEntertainment/LCDTV/Archives/LC60LE820UN.aspx?tech_specs=1 )

In general the only time I'm interested in a higher framerate is playing games. even then, the only systems I have that really have games that support 60 fps or higher are my PC and Wii U and I haven't run into any issues on either of those yet (though I'll probably have to put Smash Bros through those paces to notice it)

Thorin · November 25, 2014, 02:47:48 PM

Quote from: Lazybones on November 25, 2014, 01:40:30 PM
Looking at the chart I am happy I went with the M series, the real refresh rate should be 120 which should be more than enough.

On one of the pages at rtings.com they talk about the 3:2 pull-down method, where you try to fit 24fps into 60Hz displays, and it shows one frame twice, then the next frame three times, to get it all to fit properly in a second. 120Hz doesn't have this problem, instead it shows each frame five times. Thus 120Hz does away with "judder" caused by a mismatch between the source fps rate and the display fps rate.

And then it goes on to explain that TVs nowadays don't have that problem anymore because they can adjust to a different framerate, just like computer monitors, so they just switch to 24Hz... http://www.rtings.com/info/what-is-the-24p-playback-on-tvs

Mr. Analog · November 25, 2014, 03:11:01 PM

Yes, standard framerate for a motion picture is 23.97 fps and field repeated (added frames) to 29.97 fps.

BluRay sources at 1080i playback 24 fps, whereas 1080p playback can go up to 60 fps

The highest fps films to date (like The Hobbit) are 48 fps, which in general made people nauseous on large screens and has that "soap opera effect"

A lot of console games are locked at 30 fps, not so much that they can't be run at a higher fps but in general console hardware uses the lock as a way of managing framerate drop during gameplay (even though it still happens anyway.) It's a real annoyance if you are used to 60 fps or higher on a PC port of the same game and find the console version framelocked at 30 fps

I know because last year I was a bit on the fence upgrading until I found out that both GTA V and WATCH_DOGS would be framelocked at 30 fps on next gen consoles like the XBone and the PS4, so it put me off those consoles and I can and will wait for PC releases of most console games that will support higher framerates without artificial limitations

EDIT: Fun fact of the Day: The reason why NTSC refresh frequency is 59.94 Hz (29.97 fps) is because that was the nominal frequency of AC power in the United States

The things you learn while Unit Tests slowly run