Would you buy a non-4K TV?

the things you had stated are all uhd. uhd is not 4k

Eh?

UHD is just a marketing term. It means 4K and above (well, 38– something), 8K UHD exists (if anyone is thinking of building their own IMAX).

LCDs work best at their native resolution. Anything else is scaled.

So 1080 TV if most the stuff you watch is 1080 source, which is 99% of HD material out there for consumers.

4K is largely pointless to me. Extremely minimal content and I would need a TV the size of the entire wall to actually benefit from it. On my humble 46″ TV with the distance I sit from it, it’s not blindingly obvious the difference between 720 and 1080.

Cougar – Moderator 
Eh?
UHD is just a marketing term. It means 4K and above (well, 38– something), 8K UHD exists (if anyone is thinking of building their own IMAX).

To the consumer the two terms are the same, but 4K is a production standard and a different resolution to what some consumer TVs label as 4K which is really UHD or 4K UHD.

4K = 4096 x 2160 (4k refers to 4096 horizontal pixels)
4K UHD = 3840 x 2160 (4 times the pixels of 1920 x 1080)

I think the BBC and NHK filmed some of the 2012 olympics in 8k, tis the future 😮

4k is not the be all and end all. I personally would not buy a TV on the strengths or not of the resolution. As always look at the reviews and if it’s at the right price then it’s a good set. I’ve been browsing at 4k TVs over the past few days as I’ve been Christmas shopping and I’ve not seen anything that makes me want to ditch my 1080 Plasma set just yet – in fact just the opposite. The standard def image of my Plasma set is in a whole other different league to any 4k LCD picture I’ve seen.

What’s the point of having the perfect picture/image when a huge amount of the content is shite anyway? 😛

To the consumer the two terms are the same, but 4K is a production standard and a different resolution to what some consumer TVs label as 4K which is really UHD or 4K UHD.

4K = 4096 x 2160 (4k refers to 4096 horizontal pixels)
4K UHD = 3840 x 2160 (4 times the pixels of 1920 x 1080)

Yup but TV manufacturers either use the name 4K or 4K UHD but they are just a name they both have the same resolution output.

Samsung UE60J6240.

What’s the point of having the perfect picture/image when a huge amount of the content is shite anyway?

Because some of it’s not. And we also play games and watch films.

Sole reason to upgrade here was size. New couch meant we were further back, which prompted us (actually my wife) to think about larger sets and so it eventually happened.

To the consumer the two terms are the same, but 4K is a production standard and a different resolution to what some consumer TVs label as 4K which is really UHD or 4K UHD.

4K = 4096 x 2160 (4k refers to 4096 horizontal pixels)
4K UHD = 3840 x 2160 (4 times the pixels of 1920 x 1080)

Ah yes, good point. I hadn’t thought that through.

@thisisnotaspoon Grass Valley you say? Do you work for them or with them?

My OH works for them, I just get roped in to do some heavy lifting once in a while.

What’s the point of having the perfect picture/image when a huge amount of the content is shite anyway?

We’re living in the golden age of TV.

Golden age of TV was Blackadder and the like. Only need an SD telly for that 😀

Golden age of TV was Blackadder and the like. Only need an SD telly for that

It wasn’t it was a rare diamond is a sea of dross and tedium.

Check out the BBC 1 listing for the debut of Blackadder II, they didn;t even have shows from lunchtime TV kids progs to afternoon kids progs and Question of Sport and Tomorrrows World was prime time TV

Ulysses 31 though

Edit: Although Yes Prime Minister was on BBC2

Now to try and figure out how to stop films looking like crap studio lit productions….

Argh. Who the hell came up with Auto Motion Plus and why the hell is it on by default? Star wars looks great now it’s switched off.

Samsung UE60J6240.

Do you have iPlayer on that? I’ve heard of problems getting catch-up apps on Samsung sets.

It’s on the list, have not yet tried it.

What’s the point of having the perfect picture/image when a huge amount of the content is shite anyway?

By your assessment; the discerning among us can find plenty of programming that comes up to our exacting standards, without going anywhere near the dreck that passes for prime time showing.
Although there are things like Dr Who and Sherlock that are prime time.
I was down at the Avalon Marshes a year or two back, and there was a bloke down there from Devizes with a really serious bit of camera kit, a RED, with a storage array using multiple 128Gb SDXC cards, and he was shooting 4K, in fact I believe he was shooting 8K, just because he could, and he said it was as easy to do that, with the final film then scaled down to 4K, with 8k available for the future if needed.
He was filming starling murmurations.

We are also looking at buying a new TV. Requirements are 43″ and needs to be a smart Tv. Been looking at LG. Is it worth waiting till Boxing Day to get a better price?

I really don’t understand how some folks can’t tell the difference between SD & HD. Mrs STR can’t and frequently puts channels on in SD. I don’t even have to flick between them to know, I can see as soon as I sit down. Oh and the sound is poorer in SD too

I really don’t understand how some folks can’t tell the difference between SD & HD

My theory goes like this:

Many moons ago – before HD was a thing – people started buying flat screen LCD TVs and plugged their Sky boxes into them. Some people (me) stuck with a big (in those days) CRT, watching very limited analogue terrestrial TV. The quality on my TV was much better than those friends of mine who had moved to these “new and improved” TVs.

As people started getting bigger and bigger TVs, the crap picture quality became more and more of a problem, so someone brought HD into the picture (pun, as always, intended). In the meantime the quality of my TV picture had got no worse. These new, big HD TVs were a big leap in quality for some people, but they forget that they had actually gone down in quality before going back up. For those – me – who did not make that backwards evolutionary step, the improvement in quality of a HD TV was not that remarkable.

I’ve had a 42″ plasma TV for 6ish years now. I can watch BBC1 in SD quite happily, but will switch to HD when prompted. I can tell the difference, but It’s not a “wow” difference. I would be very interested if someone who thinks SD and HD are like chalk and cheese came to my house to see if the difference was as marked on my TV with my source signal.

For those – me – who did not make that backwards evolutionary step, the improvement in quality of a HD TV was not that remarkable.

Depends on the size, as always. There’s absolutely no comparison between the CRT experience and that on this 60″ HD. But for my parents’ 28″ HD viewed from 4m away, there’s no difference of course.

I can tell the difference, but It’s not a “wow” difference. I would be very interested if someone who thinks SD and HD are like chalk and cheese came to my house to see if the difference was as marked on my TV with my source signal.

As we’ve always said – it depends on many factors, so not everyone will notice or care.

it depends on many factors, so not everyone will notice or care.

I get it, hence my open door to you and STR 🙂 I’m genuinely interested to know whether “other factors” mean that the difference is genuinely not that great on our TV, or whether it is just that I don’t care that much (or whether my eyes are just poor!)

Well how far away are you from that tv?

TV now looks normal, as predicted.

Interesting thinking about HDR though. When messing with the settings, I realised that I had to leave the brightness relatively low, around the middle somewhere, to keep the blacks black. Not a big deal for us as it’s usually pretty dim in the room when we are watching, but a higher dynamic range would’ve been useful. Assming the source material allows it of course.

Well how far away are you from that tv?

Anywhere from 2 – 4m at a guess

SD vs HD, there’s also upscaling quality to consider.

SD on a crappy old VHS or even DVD connected by SCART to an old SD telly, yes will look terrible compared to HD.

SD on a decent upscaling DVD/HD-DVD/Blu Ray player, is another matter.

Also depends what you compare it with. a 30 year old show/film vs a modern CGI-fest and there’s a world of difference. Same 30 year old content in SD and HD and sometimes when upscaled the SD is not that huge a difference.

Depending how far away you sit from the screen or how small it is.

My parents have a small by todays standards TV (28″ I think) and while it’s HD they just have a DVD player connected by SCART to it and to be honest the DVDs look fine on it. Wouldn’t even bother with Blu Ray for them.

Sky – I find an actual SD channel is noticeably lower quality compared to an HD channel showing SD content.

Well, I bought a Samsung 55″ KS9000 SUHD tv yesterday, had a play with settings and it’s simply stunning – watching Attack Of The Clones on Sky HD and I’d say the displayed PQ is equivalent to watching Blu-ray on my old 1080 set, but with massive improvements in dark scenes.

The Martian in 4k UHD BD is simply fabulous

£1600-ish ?

Yeah, 4k BD player chucked in for nowt and 7 day price match if reduced

Just as a follow up – Mrs STR, who normally struggles to tell the difference between SD/HD, is blown away by the picture on this set, just being fed a Sky HD source

SD on a decent upscaling DVD/HD-DVD/Blu Ray player,

Really doesn’t make that much difference – the TV upscaling is likely to be equally as good as that in a player. We watched some of Gogglebox last night on C4 HD then looped back to watch the start of it C4+1 in SD. The difference was night and day – the footage from Planet Earth with he snakes on the beach was just a blur in SD. (Yes, I know C4+1 is at low bitrate as well – an upscaled DVD would look a lot better).

SD on a crappy old VHS or even DVD connected by SCART to an old SD telly, yes will look terrible compared to HD.

Dropped by our neighbours to fed the fish yesterday. They’ve got a new 65″ Samsung 4k set. It’s hooked up to a DVD player with…..a composite cable.

They’ve got a new 65″ Samsung 4k set. It’s hooked up to a DVD player with…..a composite cable.

Having a good nose round ? How was the master bedroom ? 😉

Surprise them by switching to an HDMI

I struggle a bit with the sticker price although I think my wife paid more for her 50-ish in 2009, still a great tv but these new 4k ones are a step forward

The curtains Katie made for the master bedroom need a press.

Good mates 🙂 they were using our Tv And shower while we were on holiday and theirs were out of action.