4k v 1080p HD TV

blackste

So much negatvity from so many people, who i guess dont own a 4k tv.
Well, here is mine
http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv---all/panasonic/viera-tx58ax802b/pana-tx58ax802b
The picture is frankly gob smacking. I have a slightly older samsung HDTV, and the difference between the 2, watching the same program, from the same signal is amazing. I bought the 4k because i watch a lot of movies, and feel that things you use a lot are worth spending money on.
Best advice, go to a shop, look at the different panels, and see how you feel. 4k is coming, it may be slow, but then so was the uptake of cars, and you see a few of those around these days.

InsideInsurance

blackste wrote: »

Best advice, go to a shop, look at the different panels, and see how you feel. 4k is coming, it may be slow, but then so was the uptake of cars, and you see a few of those around these days.

And like cars, the original ones were grossly over priced and had to have a bloke with a red flag walk in front of it and so were hardly much benefit.

Those that waited and bought when the law had been abolished, roads updated and mass market production started got a better vehicle for less money that was more useable

I am not bashing 4K but the sets last year were £3,000 and wont play most of the current 4K content. This year equivalent sets to last year are ~£1,300 and will play the current content. Next year the prices will be lower still.

There is always the question of when to jump on the bandwagon, at what point you will get sufficient return on investment, how much of a premium you are willing to pay for early adoption

Personally, still holding out for a 4k OLED screen at a moderately sensible price but have to say my trigger finger is getting twitchy.

thescouselander

4k won't get you a better picture any time soon. As already said hardly anyone is making 4k content. Back when 1080 came out content producers had already making suitable output for some time - they had a head start and it still took a while for content to become widely available. Even now most HD content still arrives in 1080i so broadcasters are still not maxing out the current tech.

Forget all of this upscalling nonsense too. It is not possible to add extra detail to a picture to turn a lower resolution picture into a true 4k one. Perhaps a 1080 picture on a new 4k tv does better than an old TV but that's probably more due to refinements in processing and screen technology than the fact it has a higher resolution.

I'd say ignore the specs and look at the picture when being fed from a source you'll actually use (not a 4k demo disc) and then buy the TV that looks the best.

Daz2009

blackste wrote: »

So much negatvity from so many people, who i guess dont own a 4k tv.
Well, here is mine
http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv---all/panasonic/viera-tx58ax802b/pana-tx58ax802b
The picture is frankly gob smacking. I have a slightly older samsung HDTV, and the difference between the 2, watching the same program, from the same signal is amazing. I bought the 4k because i watch a lot of movies, and feel that things you use a lot are worth spending money on.
Best advice, go to a shop, look at the different panels, and see how you feel. 4k is coming, it may be slow, but then so was the uptake of cars, and you see a few of those around these days.

Where are you sourcing all these 4k movies from ?

blackste

Who is watching 4k movies?

Lumstorm

blackste wrote: »

Who is watching 4k movies?

So your telling us how amazing your 4K TV is but you don't have anything to watch in 4K. That is the reason why we don't have 4K sets there is no point until we can actually get 4K films.

almillar

But if you wait to buy a screen when content is plentiful a £800 set will be a heck of a lot better than a £800 you get today?

Yep, I'd be waiting.

looking at sd content on a £800 4k tv looks worse than on a £800 1080p panel.

Let's sort this out once and for all. You're looking at the content on a BIGGER screen. SD content will look just as bad on a 60" 1080p panel as a 60" 4K panel, with all the silly options turned off.
There's 500 odd lines of information over that massive area, it's like zooming in on a stamp.

I don't know when Sky will do 4K, I think they still can't do 1080p yet.

Sky (and all UK HD broadcasts) is 1080i. This saves on bandwidth. All the channels keep trying to use better and better compression to squeeze the bandwidth even more, and fit more channels in. Look how awful SD is. Now look at a DVD to see the same technology, when bandwidth isn't an issue.
This doesn't bode well for squeezing a single 4K channel in for a few years yet!

Lumstorm - I agree about upscaling. If you'll only ever watch upscaled stuff, there's no point in having all those pixels.

Netflix are starting 4K in April 2015 (6 months) in the US at least, so that's tangible. Plenty of films and TV are being made in 4K, and TVs at semi reasonable prices too that do 4k. Just like HD, it's the delivery method, broadcast in particular, that will be the final link.

InsideInsurance

almillar wrote: »

Netflix are starting 4K in April 2015 (6 months) in the US at least, so that's tangible. Plenty of films and TV are being made in 4K, and TVs at semi reasonable prices too that do 4k. Just like HD, it's the delivery method, broadcast in particular, that will be the final link.

Netflix already do 4k in the UK but at the moment content is limited to House of Cards and one other drama

paddyrg

Netflix 4k streaming is 15.6Mbps - that's just shy of 2MB every second. 1 hour (3600 seconds) is 7200MB, or 7GB for an hour of telly. Better hope your ISP isn't on a 10GB/month deal!!

Whilst that sounds like a lot, it's also HIGHLY compressed. Allowing for H.265 to give around 2x improvement of compression over H.264, 4k is 4 x the screen estate, so you're still effectively reducing the bits per pixel by half. 17Mbps is a very common resolution of AVCHD (home camcorder standard / H.264 variant). Canon DSLR's record 1080p at 44Mbps (H.264). 15.6Mbps is not a lot of data for the number of dots, even with the improved codec.

Strider590

blackste wrote: »

So much negatvity from so many people, who i guess dont own a 4k tv.
Well, here is mine
http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv---all/panasonic/viera-tx58ax802b/pana-tx58ax802b
The picture is frankly gob smacking. I have a slightly older samsung HDTV, and the difference between the 2, watching the same program, from the same signal is amazing. I bought the 4k because i watch a lot of movies, and feel that things you use a lot are worth spending money on.
Best advice, go to a shop, look at the different panels, and see how you feel. 4k is coming, it may be slow, but then so was the uptake of cars, and you see a few of those around these days.

I've got 48inch Samsumg HDTV, never used the HD until I got a new freesat box last week (A Humax Foxsat), i've had comments about the HD being "gobsmacking" and "vibrant" etc etc

BUT to be honest all I see is that when watching HD channels the box ramps up the contrast and colour. I think perhaps "gobsmacking" is literal term for "their face is so red that they look like they've been smacked in the gob".

I'm not using the HD channels because I can't be bothered to keep messing with the TVs colour settings.

IMO, it's just like how car manufacturers make their brakes over sensitive, it makes the test driver think "wow they're really good brakes", when in fact all they do is "snatch" unpredictably at the lightest touch.

And I stick by what i've already said, if they can show me adverts for 4k TV, showing me sample video/images ON MY TV, then why the f**k do I need new 4k TV?