Is 4k worth it?

[272BHP]

brman said:

Sorry but that is just cutting your nose off to spite your face.

I think less than 20% of the channels on my virgin feed are HD. To suggest I should not watch the other 40+ channels just because they are SD is a bit bizarre. plus none of them are 4k so a 4k TV would have absolutely no advantage (just disadvantages) on anything broadcast.

So my point still stands, it is a choice between better quality on 4k sources, if you actually have them, vs worse quality on SD (and, if you are lucky, equal quality on HD). Only the OP can decide what is right for him.

But is there anything worth watching in SD? practically every channel I can think of thats worth watching is in HD on my Sky box.

Just to clarify, I don't have a 4K TV I chose a 1080P OLED about 15 months ago and I am extremely happy with my choice.

[Tycho]

IMO 4K isn't worth getting yet. The standards haven't been finalised and the better features of 4K like HDR will not be on anything but high end tvs for a long time yet, certainly not in sub £500 sets.

[Moily]

Tycho said:

IMO 4K isn't worth getting yet. The standards haven't been finalised and the better features of 4K like HDR will not be on anything but high end tvs for a long time yet, certainly not in sub £500 sets.

The standards were finalised a few months ago - google 'ultrahd premium' or have a read of this:

http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/what-is-uhd-alliance-p...

Also there are HDR sets in the shops now and most manufacturers are announcing HDR sets as part of their 2016 range.

[Moily]

Also, HiSense are going to include HDR and they are very reasonably priced for the spec. Their 2016 range is rolling out in the next couple of months, before Euro 2016 (which they're sponsoring)

[Tycho]

Moily said:

Tycho said:

IMO 4K isn't worth getting yet. The standards haven't been finalised and the better features of 4K like HDR will not be on anything but high end tvs for a long time yet, certainly not in sub £500 sets.

The standards were finalised a few months ago - google 'ultrahd premium' or have a read of this:

http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/what-is-uhd-alliance-p...

Also there are HDR sets in the shops now and most manufacturers are announcing HDR sets as part of their 2016 range.

I stand corrected although I still wait to be convinced by budget screens compared to premium makes.

[T1berious]

Now that they've finally (well at CES) announced the 4K "standard" that the big manufacturers will using (apart from Sony as they felt it was confusing with the rest of their 4K products?) "Ultra HD Premium", it should be easier to get a TV that supports the following:

10-Bit panel
HDR colour gamut
Rec. 2020 (New colour and brightness standard)
HDMI 2.0a
Sufficient brightness \ contrast minimum nit count (think it's 1000?)

Pretty much all the top tier 2016 models support it and that's good news as its the standard that will be used in 4K Blu ray.

I believe a fair amount of mid range units from 2014 / 2015 won't support the UHD Premium standard.

2016 Mid range units seem better specked this time around.

Cheers,

T1b

[Mikeyjae]

If you are planning on keeping your TV for a long time or watch streaming services such as Netflix then 4k is probably a worthwhile investment, don't expect Sky/Virgin etc to be turning their broadcast to 4K any time soon though. Its far to much bandwidth to broadcast at the moment without huge investments. Online streaming seem to be offering a few 4k streams now. The BBC don't even broadcast the local news in HD yet so I expect a good few years before SD gets turned off in favour of a full HD service let alone 4k.

I was in the same situation as you OP and just brought the best HD TV with the best processing rate I could afford. This happened to be 3D but in all fairness I have watched 3D once and probably wont again.

[anonymous-user]

Interesting what you say about 3D. The new Samsung Ultra HD Premium TV (KS9000) drops 3D support as they feel it's not turned out to be the big thing that some expected.

[Chris Stott]

Mikeyjae said:

If you are planning on keeping your TV for a long time or watch streaming services such as Netflix then 4k is probably a worthwhile investment, don't expect Sky/Virgin etc to be turning their broadcast to 4K any time soon though. Its far to much bandwidth to broadcast at the moment without huge investments.

Sky will start broadcasting 4k this year.

Like Netflix, won't be uncompressed, but will be a step up from 1080i - tests comparing Netflix 4k (compressed) and 1080p Bluerays come out pretty even.

[Mikeyjae]

3D never took off with broadcasters (which again is down to bandwidth) which I suppose is the biggest audience of normal TV viewers. 3D was quite big a few years ago with many films being released, which to be fair, films in 3D are quite good at cinemas with huge screens.

For normal TV viewing though? I wont watch normal TV with 3D glasses and the public seem to also agree to the point manufactures seem to have dropped the development of 3D TV's without glasses, in favour of 4K and curved screens.

Sky launched football in 3D a few seasons back and dropped it quite quickly. The broadcasters seem to know what will and wont sell.

[Mikeyjae]

Chris Stott said:

Sky will start broadcasting 4k this year.

Like Netflix, won't be uncompressed, but will be a step up from 1080i - tests comparing Netflix 4k (compressed) and 1080p Bluerays come out pretty even.

I agree Pay TV channels such as Sky Movies and Sky sports will become 4K soon but I think the BBC, ITV, Discovery etc will be a few years away.

[Digitalize]

Your budget is too small for a decent Full HD TV, let alone a good 4k one.

Just get the best Full HD model you can afford, it will still be a pretty dire LCD panel, but that's the market now.

[BigsimonY]

I have a John Lewis JL9100 55" on order. I'm told its a re-branded LG 55UF850V, but the John Lewis version is only £650 and has a 5 year warranty.

[Ken Figenus]

Do the higher end panels mess about with the input signal too? My 42" UHD Samsung is such a disappointment as, no matter how manual a mode I put it in, with auto everything OFF, its always tinkering with the input. It adjusts brightness down based on image content and even switches off the screen when it gets very dark - but then and then taking a few frames to recover when the picture brightens up. If I'm spotting all these cheats and shenanigans every time then its a total FAIL Samsung! Thanks for the >rant<

[anonymous-user]

Ken Figenus said:

Do the higher end panels mess about with the input signal too? My 42" UHD Samsung is such a disappointment as, no matter how manual a mode I put it in, with auto everything OFF, its always tinkering with the input. It adjusts brightness down based on image content and even switches off the screen when it gets very dark - but then and then taking a few frames to recover when the picture brightens up. If I'm spotting all these cheats and shenanigans every time then its a total FAIL Samsung! Thanks for the >rant<

I'm pretty sure you can turn the 'auto' settings to 'off' to avoid such shenanigans.

[Chris Stott]

Ken Figenus said:

Do the higher end panels mess about with the input signal too? My 42" UHD Samsung is such a disappointment as, no matter how manual a mode I put it in, with auto everything OFF, its always tinkering with the input. It adjusts brightness down based on image content and even switches off the screen when it gets very dark - but then and then taking a few frames to recover when the picture brightens up. If I'm spotting all these cheats and shenanigans every time then its a total FAIL Samsung! Thanks for the >rant<

Off means off with my Samsung.

[anonymous-user]

Chris Stott said:

Off means off with my Samsung.

This is what I meant above

[Ken Figenus]

garyhun said:

This is what I meant above

Do you get the full range of options on a HDMI input with a 'standard' user adjustable picture mode? I dont. It greys out the HDNI Black level control - which is what it keeps messing about with on the fly ruining the whole set.

Edited by Ken Figenus on Monday 4th April 17:04

[karma mechanic]

The HDMI black level setting is to set the range for different sources, it won't be mucking about with anything on the fly.

http://www.samsung.com/ph/support/skp/faq/1010641

Auto makes perfect sense here.

If you are seeing brightness being adapted on the fly then it is something else doing it. Probably an Eco mode set elsewhere.

[Ken Figenus]

karma mechanic said:

The HDMI black level setting is to set the range for different sources, it won't be mucking about with anything on the fly.

http://www.samsung.com/ph/support/skp/faq/1010641

Auto makes perfect sense here.

If you are seeing brightness being adapted on the fly then it is something else doing it. Probably an Eco mode set elsewhere.

Thanks for the link. Its deep! I guess it is to do with scaling a 16-235 REC 709 TV source to give a more RGB style 0 - 255 level display - basically it crushes black by 16 IRE if it is different to its expected native HDMI sRGB protocol? Now where is that bloody eco button that I swear is off!!