Which TV to buy 4K or 3D

jshm2

4K isn't worth buying at the moment unless you're doing 4k production work.

SKY only have one 4K channel and most others are no different.

The thing about 4k is that it's only any good when the material being shown is itself 4k or better. Most stuff today is 720p and some at 1080p and a lot of stuff is just upscaled to HD.

4K and 8K standards coming in over the next few years will make money for the industry. They'll also likely take the chance to re-release all the crap they did at HD to UHD again.

motorguy

jshm2 wrote: »

4K isn't worth buying at the moment unless you're doing 4k production work.

SKY only have one 4K channel and most others are no different.

The thing about 4k is that it's only any good when the material being shown is itself 4k or better. Most stuff today is 720p and some at 1080p and a lot of stuff is just upscaled to HD.

4K and 8K standards coming in over the next few years will make money for the industry. They'll also likely take the chance to re-release all the crap they did at HD to UHD again.

Sorry but this is willfully wrong.

Samsung TVs upscale FROM HD not TO HD when you have a 4K TV. Admittedly, if you've a regular non HD input, it wont do much, but HD upscaled to 4K is a BIG difference.

There is a huge difference between a regular Samsung HD TV of say, 55 inches, to a 4K Samsung of similar size in terms of depth of picture and picture quality.

VERY worthwhile upgrade.

motorguy

jshm2 wrote: »

4K and 8K standards coming in over the next few years will make money for the industry. They'll also likely take the chance to re-release all the crap they did at HD to UHD again.

Of course - and where there is no advantage in the technology, i see little point. I'm no fan of technology for technologies sake.

HOWEVER, 4K is a BIG step forward in terms of quality.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Posted June 2010 - 6.5 years ago in this thread :

3D or true 3D ?, if they want to impress me, when they are able to model the image in all three physical dimensions, I'll begin to take an interest. If I can, from where I'm sitting, look around the scenery / characters just like I can now look around the back of this monitor - I'll begin to take notice of 3D, until that time arrives it's really only [ Emperor's~New~Clothes ] 2D with knobs on.

It's just a Paul Daniels effect, a senses based experience not reproducible in an ordinary home, even in a ' home theatre environment '.

Seeing 3D in a megga cinema where a persons whole field vision [ including the peripheral ] is saturated with images and in addition directional sounds fills other primary senses makes me wonder if it's ever a home based experience - even wearing electric goggles.

N.B.1. I've never seen a 3D TV and N.B.2 I still have (somewhere) an 8/10/? year old ASUS video card complete with 3D glasses that used to plug in to the back of the video card.

And in Nov 2010 :

- Samsung have sold 270,000 3D TVs worldwide - 90% of the global 3D TV market
- LG began to sell its 3D range April and since have sold 5,000 units, as of the end of May
- Sony launched their range of 3D TVs in time for the World Cup, on June 10th

The original estimate of 5% has been revised down to 2% and that fits in with the actual sales of 3.3 million 3DTVs which represents fewer than 2% of televisions worldwide.

So even with the tri££ions spent by the worlds movie / TV / sky / sports / and manufacturing industry sales are doing nowt! I always thought it was a top down rather than bottom up led initiative, they always were and always will be. Mind you we [ the population ] never wanted colour / multichannel sound / high def / etc. However none of the above innovations required us to wear electric goggles in our own home which would explain why the estimate of 3 pairs per household is currently running at less than 1 pair sold per 3D TV set in most Western European countries. Compulsory 3D eyewear will I think kill the initiative, and of itself may be the spur the research side of manufacturing needs to develop a non eyewear 3D tv at a reasonable cost.

For the foreseeable future I think most people :

- will not buy 3D
- those who do will pay the extra for: -
- - - bragging rights
- - - future proofing
- - - because they were conned for commission by the PC World salesperson
- - - will use it infrequently for the odd DVD / sports event transmission / pron
- use it for non 3D purposes

Its just an opinion - tarra !

And in end of Dec 2015

Contrast sales / over / time 2010 3D with 2016 4K and you may find by the time the 4K takes off we will have 16K and both 4K and 8K are left behind ............... place your bets folks.

tony6403

Some interesting views in this article
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/why-ultra-hd-4k-tvs-are-still-stupid/

kah22

I've been reading carefully all your comments, and opinion would suggest a thumbs down for 3D and a cautious Yes to 4K HD. The consensus been that for maximum satisfaction size matters.

My own circumstances will not allow for anything bigger than 42 inches. So I'm now going to see if I can find a 36 to 40 inch Full HD television failing that a 40 inch 4K HD set. As I mentioned in my original post my viewing distance will be 3.04 meters

To a certain extent I will be searching with one eye closed as I'm confining myself to Samsung and LG televisions and my preferred retailer would be John Lewis as I have £100 credit with them and they do offer a five year guarantee. But as a money saver I will consider other offers

Fightsback

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Contrast sales / over / time 2010 3D with 2016 4K and you may find by the time the 4K takes off we will have 16K and both 4K and 8K are left behind ............... place your bets folks.

Spotty bottoms in ever finer detail

Sharon87

Technology moves fast, too fast sometimes I think! We've barely had HD and now 4k is the new thing after a short lived 3D fad.

4K content won't be frequent for a while, there may be some new channels now and in the near future, but a lot of UK based shows won't be shooting in 4k for a while!

If I were you I would just buy the best TV for your money regardless of whether it's 4k, 3D. What constitutes a good TV is brand, inputs; how many HDMI slots for example, USB slots to play from a hard drive, Smart TV software and how reliable/quick is to use. I think in this day and age Smart TVs are more useful than having 4K. We all love our Netflix it seems and if the software on your TV is painfully slow or has a weird wifi connection then your enjoyment is ruined by buffering or waiting a few minutes to load the app (I should know I tried to load Netflix on my brother's TV and it kept failing).

4K will probably be standard in 5 years time, call me cynical, but TVs aren't designed to last long these days, especially if you buy cheaply. So buying a cheap 4k TV now it might stop working by the time 4k really becomes standard. I bought a cheap Bush TV once, within a year it went dodgy. I opted for a refund and bought a Samsung instead, 3 years on it's still fine.

letsbehonest

I have been watching Netflix with 4k rated program's on my daughters. New Sumsung TV and I must say the quality is outstanding. That said it is a 75 inch set and she does have the room to place it in.

Daz2009

kah22 wrote: »

I've been reading carefully all your comments, and opinion would suggest a thumbs down for 3D and a cautious Yes to 4K HD. The consensus been that for maximum satisfaction size matters.

My own circumstances will not allow for anything bigger than 42 inches. So I'm now going to see if I can find a 36 to 40 inch Full HD television failing that a 40 inch 4K HD set. As I mentioned in my original post my viewing distance will be 3.04 meters

To a certain extent I will be searching with one eye closed as I'm confining myself to Samsung and LG televisions and my preferred retailer would be John Lewis as I have £100 credit with them and they do offer a five year guarantee. But as a money saver I will consider other offers

Do you have any 4k sources or do you plan to have any time soon ? If the answer is no 4k is pointless. Upscaling HD will not give you a 4k picture