LED-Lit Ultra HD TVs Finish Behind Plasma, OLED Sets at NY-Area Shootout

SCARSDALE, N.Y. -- A few unexpected results emerged from Value Electronics’ 2014 Flat-Panel TV Shootout Saturday and Sunday to determine the best premier flat-panel TV for the 2014-2015 selling seasons.

The least expensive models -- HD and not Ultra HD TVs -- finished first and second in the competition. The overall winner for black level, contrast ratio, ambient light viewing and general video quality was the $3,499 LG 55EC9300 OLED TV, and the champ of the color accuracy and motion resolution categories was last year’s overall winner, Samsung’s PN64F8500 64-inch plasma TV, which was selling Tuesday at Best Buy for $3,099. Samsung is pulling the plug on plasma TV production in November.

When all the votes were tallied among the attendees -- composed mainly of early adopter video enthusiasts, but also a sampling of TV makers and press -- last year’s Samsung plasma TV finished with the highest average score, all categories being equal. The official winner, because of a score apparently weighted toward results in black level and contrast ratio, was the LG OLED. Of the eight models in the contest, five were Ultra HD TVs, five were LED-based LCDs, two were OLED models, four had curved screens and one was a plasma.

The video calibration experts who set up the TVs to make sure they performed to their best abilities, meanwhile, chose Samsung’s KN55S9C OLED TV ($9,999) as the best of the bunch. Finishing in the middle of the pack in enthusiasts’ voting was Samsung’s statement-piece $120,000 UN105S9W 16:9 curved LED-lit TV, which made its debut at the Shootout. Sony’s $24,998 UN85HU8550 finished mid-pack, too.

Not only did video enthusiasts pick the least expensive TVs as winners, they also voted for emissive technologies -- OLED and plasma -- over the more popular LED-lit LCD TVs. All of the TVs were calibrated by outside professionals over the week before the event, with the mission to get each TV to perform to its maximum potential according to video performance standards, rather than to the overly bright levels typically shipped with TVs to compensate for retail floor lighting.

The TV shootout included the most varied selection of TV options since the event began 10 years ago, said Value Electronics owner Robert Zohn. Zohn opens the event to top-tier manufacturers that want to put their best TVs to the test, and participating TVs go through an initial evaluation by Value Electronics staff before being selected for participation. There are no co-op dollars or company sponsorships as part of the event, Zohn said. Eligible TV makers include this year’s participants -- Samsung, Sony and LG -- and other tier-one companies including Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba and Vizio, Zohn said. Vizio and Sharp were unable to get products to Value Electronics in time for the initial evaluation, and Panasonic declined to participate, Zohn said, citing an exclusive retail relationship for high-end TVs with Best Buy.

The TV Shootout was the first public showing of LG’s curved 55EC9300 1080p OLED TV, Zohn was proud to point out, saying the TV will make its nationwide retail sales debut next week at Best Buy before rolling out to other regional dealers. Tim Alessi, LG director-new product development for home entertainment products, reinforced that the competing TV was a mass-production model, and not a production sample, which turned out to be validated by the contest’s results.

On hand was Larry Weber, developer of key plasma TV technologies for Plasmaco before its purchase by Panasonic. Weber gave props to other advanced TV technologies, but while pulling out his laptop to reveal a photo of an 8K 145-inch plasma TV developed by Panasonic and NHK in Japan, said, “Plasma’s always got to be a little better.” The size of that statement display was determined by what would fit through the door of a Boeing 747, Weber joked, “but they forgot to figure out much it would cost to ship it.”

"It’s a little sad to say that plasma is dying out,” Weber said, citing Panasonic and Samsung’s announced exits, leaving LG and Chinese TV maker Changhong as the last plasma TV manufacturers. Weber blamed marketing plasma TV’s failure. He speculated that Samsung has 100 times more investment in LEDs than in plasma “so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you don’t want to market the wonderful attributes of the plasma at the expense of your major cash cow,” he said. “It’s not that the technology wasn’t good,” Weber said. “If you can get those plasmas, you're going to be real happy with them,” he said, saying the prices for Panasonic plasma TVs on eBay have been going up as plasma TVs are harder to come by. “It’s too bad that plasma couldn’t survive the big time; maybe it will survive in some smaller sense,” he said.