4k v 1080p HD TV

searchlight123

hi
in the market for a new tv around 50" size.
at present i have a 5 year old samsung LCD 1080p 40" that has been great but i am giving it to my step daughter as she is furnishing her first flat.
i've always thought that as no broadcaster transmits in 4k then whats the point of having one of these tv's yet? but i was in costco the other day and they had 2 tv's side by side showing the same feed (which i'm sure was a tv feed not a promo video) and the difference in picture quality between the 4k tv and the HD tv was very noticeable. i have done a bit of research about the upscaling of a picture to fit a 4k screen and i'm reading conflicting reports as to it's quality difference.
does anybody have actual experience of this and can offer any advice as to whether the picture is noticeably sharper watching the upscaled tv.
i have seen this one on offer at currys:

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-blu-ray/televisions/large-screen-tvs-32-and-over/lg-49ub820v-smart-4k-ultra-hd-49-led-tv-10029077-pdt.html?srcid=8324&cmpid=em~CURRYS~WKL~WED_PRO~wk29~M~20141119~3~PRO~TVN~1NOM1~227628&emid=33670632&&cm_ite=1NOM1_TVN&cm_lm=tonygolding@sky.com&cm_ainfo=&&&&&&ET_CID=227628&ET_RID=8840803#cat-0

which seems good value but would love to hear from anyone that is in the know about this stuff.
many thanks.

missile

There is very little 4K content available and whether it is worth the wonga is doubtful. I have a recently purchased a 4K Samsung TV to replace my Panasonic HD and the picture is truly amazing.


The benefit is more noticeable on bigger screen sizes.

searchlight123

missile wrote: »

There is very little 4K content available and whether it is worth the wonga is doubtful. I have a recently purchased a 4K Samsung TV to replace my Panasonic HD and the picture is truly amazing.


The benefit is more noticeable on bigger screen sizes.

hi
thanks for reply.
you say there is little 4k content but also say the picture is amazing so do you think the upscaling (from hd to 4k) works well on a normal hd / sky type transmission?
pricewise they are coming down all the time (my link shows an LG 50" at £749).
what size screen have you got and at what distance do you sit from the tv. i sit about 4 metres from the screen.

bod1467

Bear in mind with upscaling the 1920 x 1080 resolution picture will be altered to "smooth" the picture across the 3840 x 2160 pixels of the 4K TV.

So for TVs with the same physical size, the pixel size of a 4K TV will be 1/4 that of a 1080p TV. Hence why it may look better.

But ultimately it depends on the quality of the upscaler if the feed is not 4K.

PenguinJim

tonygold wrote: »

i have seen this one on offer at currys:

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-blu-ray/televisions/large-screen-tvs-32-and-over/lg-49ub820v-smart-4k-ultra-hd-49-led-tv-10029077-pdt.html?srcid=8324&cmpid=em~CURRYS~WKL~WED_PRO~wk29~M~20141119~3~PRO~TVN~1NOM1~227628&emid=33670632&&cm_ite=1NOM1_TVN&cm_lm=tonygolding@sky.com&cm_ainfo=&&&&&&ET_CID=227628&ET_RID=8840803#cat-0

which seems good value but would love to hear from anyone that is in the know about this stuff.

It's £600 at Pixmania, which seems like a good price. Why not read some reviews?

InsideInsurance

Be aware that the Pixmania is a European specification TV not UK. I know with the Samsung TV I was looking at which was much cheaper from them the freeview tuner wouldnt work properly here and the menu system would be locked into a language other than English.

I use Sky rather than Freeview and rarely go into the menu system and so it wasnt an automatic deal breaker for me but worth considering.


If you are watching a standard definition program - ie 704×576 - the no matter what TV you are watching it on there is only 576 rows of pixels being received. If you have a 4k TV then your screen has 2160 rows of pixels and so the TV has to spread each row of picture over 3.75 rows of screen.

Obviously the maths for doing can become fairly complex depending on how clever its trying to be but in the most basic form it creates the missing rows by creating an average of the row/columns surrounding it.

Depending on the material and the sophistication of the upscaling it should give an improvement on a large screen -v- seeing the same on a lower resolution screen of the same size however look closely and the picture may be more fuzzy and may suffer more from smearing in fast moving scenes.

RumRat

At those prices you may as well get the 4K TV. You can discuss the science all day long, but, it's what the result is in your lounge, for you personally. Just make sure it has HDMI 2.0, which that LG does.

paddyrg

How close do you plan to sit to the TV? There's a genuine and very real limit to the angular resolution the human eye can determine. In the shop you're looking up close, but think about your real front room, where you sit, and look at the sets at that distance. If you can tell a real difference, may as well go for the 4k, then upgrade your blu-ray player and tv subscriptions. If you can't, it's wasted money.

Something to remember, however - 4k is a lot of pixels. You cannot spin 4k worth of pixel data uncompressed from consumer kit, so everything you get over the air, internet or on disc is going to be highly compressed. I personally see a LOT of compression artefacts on 1080p TV, it's only going to be worse at 4x the pixel count. If TV is played at a high enough bitrate to map each pixel for each frame, you'll have hundreds of GB per movie (this is more or less how cinema films are compressed, big string of JPEG2000's - they come on a hard drive). Think of the data costs on your broadband when many home packages get 10GB a month!! In short, you either pay a heap of money for bandwidth and disc arrays, or the signal is highly compressed, and you have to sit a long way back to not see the compression artefacts, in which case your eyes don't resolve the dots!

Disclosure - I work in film production, this stuff is core to our world. The most popular movie camera is only 2k. I don't believe dot-count is the answer as good movies are good movies no matter the resolution. 28 Days Later was shot standard definition video, Hitchcock didn't have the level of kit we have today, I'd rather watch either of those than most current films.

andyrpsmith

Please be aware that 4K TVs made prior to 2014 do not have the new codec decoder built in to decode 4K broadcasts (ie Netflix). Due to the data rate required for 4K there has been a new codec launched H265 which covers Ultra High Definition and some people have bought 4K TV and cannot get the Netflix broadcast 4K films/content as the decoder has not been included in the TV. I believe most TVs made in 2014 now have it included.

InsideInsurance

paddyrg wrote: »

Something to remember, however - 4k is a lot of pixels. You cannot spin 4k worth of pixel data uncompressed from consumer kit, so everything you get over the air, internet or on disc is going to be highly compressed. I personally see a LOT of compression artefacts on 1080p TV, it's only going to be worse at 4x the pixel count. If TV is played at a high enough bitrate to map each pixel for each frame, you'll have hundreds of GB per movie (this is more or less how cinema films are compressed, big string of JPEG2000's - they come on a hard drive). Think of the data costs on your broadband when many home packages get 10GB a month!! In short, you either pay a heap of money for bandwidth and disc arrays, or the signal is highly compressed, and you have to sit a long way back to not see the compression artefacts, in which case your eyes don't resolve the dots!


Disclosure - I work in film production, this stuff is core to our world. The most popular movie camera is only 2k. I don't believe dot-count is the answer as good movies are good movies no matter the resolution. 28 Days Later was shot standard definition video, Hitchcock didn't have the level of kit we have today, I'd rather watch either of those than most current films.

Your colleagues have already made the news complaining about 4k & 48 fps http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29940270

Dots arent a replacement of a good story but visuals/ special effects etc can enhance (or damage) an otherwise good movie. There will always be stories that suit a grainy/ gritty type look etc but there are also ones where stunning scenery and such are a notable part of the story.

You also have to remember that TV sizes continue to grow at a stupidly fast rate. My TV penultimate TV was big at 32" when I bought it. My current one was average when I bought it a few years ago at 40". Look at the likes of the AVForums now and many are deciding between a 65" or 75" screen.

I dont believe our lounges are getting any bigger, if anything the opposite and so bigger screens, sat closer to them, then you "need" higher resolutions to maintain the same quality.

Certainly getting 4k content to screens is going to be a challenge but people said similar with 1080P initially.

Strider590

I have to laugh when I see adverts for these 4k TVs, it's just like when HD first came out years ago and DVD when those came out decades before that, they show you all these great images (usually slow motion rain drops) and then tell you that you need a 4K tv to see them........

Like REALLY? !!!!!! have I just been looking at then???? A f**king illusion????

It's all a load of non-sense, you use it once to show off to your mates and then you spend the next few years paying for it.... After which the price comes down to half what you paid and the next new thing is just coming out.