55" OLED or 65" LED TV...

[legzr1]

Posterisation is almost always a sign of compression on the source file.

Compare a downloaded film from Sky cinema 'HD' with the same movie on BR disc.
Unfortunately, as a good hifi will show up faults in a low bitrate MP3 file, an OLED rips a poor source file to pieces.

I'm fairly sure different onboard apps allow different picture settings (mine all use the same setting).

[FurtiveFreddy]

legzr1 said:

Posterisation is almost always a sign of compression on the source file.

Compare a downloaded film from Sky cinema 'HD' with the same movie on BR disc.
Unfortunately, as a good hifi will show up faults in a low bitrate MP3 file, an OLED rips a poor source file to pieces.

I'm fairly sure different onboard apps allow different picture settings (mine all use the same setting).

This is what I was thinking...

I need to search Netflix for a film I have on BR. Trouble is, my BR collection is, ahem, modest...

And yes it does seem each app can have it's own settings, which is nice but I need to spend more time checking each one now.

[chris watton]

A downloaded film on SKY hd is only around 3.5gb max. This is the same, perhaps slightly less than a DVD file. A BR file size is between 20-40gb, uncompressed.

We don't have fast broadband where we are (in the sticks, so still phone line BB), but Amazon and Netflix seen to stream really well, with decent picture quality. BR discs are much better, though.

I know that I will need to by that 4k HDR BR player to get the best possible picture from the TV...

[legzr1]

chris watton said:

A downloaded film on SKY hd is only around 3.5gb max. This is the same, perhaps slightly less than a DVD file. A BR file size is between 20-40gb, uncompressed.

We don't have fast broadband where we are (in the sticks, so still phone line BB), but Amazon and Netflix seen to stream really well, with decent picture quality. BR discs are much better, though.

I know that I will need to by that 4k HDR BR player to get the best possible picture from the TV...

Probably not what you want to hear but 4K streamed using Netflix/on board apps is as good as amt of the best mastered BR's in my collection.
HD (at 1080P) streamed on the same services beats anything put out by Sky (with the exception of 4K from Q naturally).

There's a store online doing the Samsung 8500 UHD player together with three free UHD discs for £270 at the moment - I'll hunt the link out if it's of interest.

[chris watton]

legzr1 said:

Probably not what you want to hear but 4K streamed using Netflix/on board apps is as good as amt of the best mastered BR's in my collection.
HD (at 1080P) streamed on the same services beats anything put out by Sky (with the exception of 4K from Q naturally).

There's a store online doing the Samsung 8500 UHD player together with three free UHD discs for £270 at the moment - I'll hunt the link out if it's of interest.

I can believe 4k streaming is as good - as long as you have the requisite bandwidth available.

I did look at that Samsung player, and there are quite a few unhappy customers (Amazon). They say it's fine for blu ray discs, but 4k HDR BR discs aren't so good. I think I would rather pay a little more for one that doesn't seem to have problems playing 4k discs.

[Digitalize]

Netflix especially have worked very hard on their compression algorithms, and are always looking at ways to improve quality.

For their own shows they also use tricks such as more static shots which lowers the bitrate for those scenes.

[chris watton]

Digitalize said:

Netflix especially have worked very hard on their compression algorithms, and are always looking at ways to improve quality.

For their own shows they also use tricks such as more static shots which lowers the bitrate for those scenes.

The picture on Netflix is very good, I have to admit.

I am almost ready to buy a new 4k HDR BR player, but then I thought about HDMI leads. Will something like this do, as the one Curry's suggest is £80, and I'm not paying that!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01CVQKZS2/ref...

[jmorgan]

I am just holding back on the player, hoping a better one will come out soon.

[jmorgan]

chris watton said:

Curry's suggest is £80, and I'm not paying that!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01CVQKZS2/ref...

Cobblers. Mine running on a £5 lead.

Try to find the link to the site, got the link from av forum.

Edit. Try existing ones first.

Edited by jmorgan on Thursday 3rd November 20:28

[gizlaroc]

£10 HDMI is fine.

If you start getting to 7m+ you may need to spend more.

[legzr1]

Probably best to stick to a 'high speed' HDMI cable for transmission of 4K - some leads previously working fine with BR/1080p have caused issues with the higher bitrate

[jmorgan]

http://www.aclasstechnology.com

Mine are high speed I think. They run 4K from the BT box ok.

[chris watton]

legzr1 said:

Probably best to stick to a 'high speed' HDMI cable for transmission of 4K - some leads previously working fine with BR/1080p have caused issues with the higher bitrate

Cheers. the one I linked to states it is the higher speed type. I certainly am not prepared to pay £80 for a 2 metre cable! I order a metre long one for sound, and the 2 metre to connect directly to the TV, with that HDMI port in HDR mode - or something like that.

[jmorgan]

Reading somewhere that the designation should be high speed? I checked mine with the BT UHD box and a footy match in full swing was flawless. I don't have access to any proper stress testing to see how close it is (and measurement of course) but there is a lot in a football match picture to show up issues. Interestingly the cat5 (router to UHD box) I that came with the earlier box would not cut it on UHD, HD was OK. Fitted the one that was supplied with the UHD box and all was good in the world.

Edited by jmorgan on Friday 4th November 06:47

[legzr1]

chris watton said:

Cheers. the one I linked to states it is the higher speed type. I certainly am not prepared to pay £80 for a 2 metre cable! I order a metre long one for sound, and the 2 metre to connect directly to the TV, with that HDMI port in HDR mode - or something like that.

If your AV amp cannot deal with 4K or HDR then a player with dual outputs and the leads you suggest is the way to go. Most UHD players have one output at 2.0a for picture and sound and one at 1.4 for sound only especially for situations like this.

I 'negotiated' when I bought the TV and managed to get three X 3M HDMI leads thrown in - stupid rrp and no difference in sound/vision to a £7 lead I already had.

[chris watton]

legzr1 said:

If your AV amp cannot deal with 4K or HDR then a player with dual outputs and the leads you suggest is the way to go. Most UHD players have one output at 2.0a for picture and sound and one at 1.4 for sound only especially for situations like this.

I 'negotiated' when I bought the TV and managed to get three X 3M HDMI leads thrown in - stupid rrp and no difference in sound/vision to a £7 lead I already had.

My amp if fairly new, a Denon AVR X2200W, and can handle 4k Ultra HDR stuff. I thought the reason for the separate audio and video was to give a more stable picture and better sound - or doesn't it work like that?

[legzr1]

chris watton said:

My amp if fairly new, a Denon AVR X2200W, and can handle 4k Ultra HDR stuff. I thought the reason for the separate audio and video was to give a more stable picture and better sound - or doesn't it work like that?

Some AV amps can cause 'handshake' issues between source and TV but that Denon with HDCP2.2 should be absolutely fine - it should only be passing through picture and taking the audio signal to process - sounds like you don't need the direct to TV lead

[chris watton]

legzr1 said:

Some AV amps can cause 'handshake' issues between source and TV but that Denon with HDCP2.2 should be absolutely fine - it should only be passing through picture and taking the audio signal to process - sounds like you don't need the direct to TV lead

Ah, OK, thank you. And I thought there were separate leads/inputs just to free up the digital traffic!

[Digitalize]

No, a high speed cable has more than enough bandwidth.

It's purely so you can get uncompressed audio to your amp if it doesnt support 4K Passthrough, the other way you'd do it would be via Digital Optical but it's not uncompressed.

[varsas]

chris watton said:

I did look at that Samsung player, and there are quite a few unhappy customers (Amazon). They say it's fine for blu ray discs, but 4k HDR BR discs aren't so good. I think I would rather pay a little more for one that doesn't seem to have problems playing 4k discs.

I have the Samsung and it's fine, I own around 5 UHD films which I have watched a couple of times each. The problems I had were caused my me looking at forums after I'd started using it and switching to the recommended settings (instead of just leaving it all on auto), also I did find my older HDMI cables didn't work correctly (picture would blank out every now and again), luckily I had an amazon basics 'Hi-speed' one which fixed that.

2 people gave it 1 star, one because it did not include the Martian, and one because their player was DOA. The two star review had the same issues I was having (banding, blocks of colours etc), with the same TV I have, fixed in my case by leaving the settings on default instead of playing with them(!)

Not trying to say it's the best player ever, or that people have not had issues, but if you just want to watch 4k blu-ray's it's fine. You'll find something cheaper and better in 6 months time.

Edited by varsas on Friday 4th November 14:07