4K tv's, looking good... in the store

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LoneRanger

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Okay, so noticed some 4K tv's going in the store yesterday when helping my gf get a 1080p. Looked awesome, but are there any providers broadcasting in 4K....Time Warner, Comcast, DirectTV, etc.? What use is it if there is not content?
 
There has been no change to the over the air HDTV format since it was introduced. Don't hold your breath. 4K won't do much for old "I Love Lucy" reruns. I may be behind a bit retro in my thinking, I still have two BIG speakers for stereo, not a half dozen little Chinese boxes spread around the room.
 
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Any 4K content is going to take substantial more bandwidth than normal HD. I am thinking DirectTV, Dish and FIOS could do it, not sure the cable companies would want to use that much of their bandwidth for 4K content.
 
Somehow I imagine pornos driving this technology. They helped VHS beat Betamax in the early 1980's.
wink.gif
 
The NVIDIA Shield is the best device for 4K content right now.

http://shield.nvidia.com/android-tv

Netflix is rapidly increasing its 4K catalog, as are other providers. But it's a relatively small portion of the catalogs.

With the right video decoder you'll see a (slight to modest) improvement with lower resolution content on a 4K panel vs lower resolutions. Most video encoding tries to match patterns and shapes, and does motion tracking. A smart decoder can use that information to do a good job of estimating the intermediate pixels.

The Shield also offer 4K gaming, which might appeal to you.

I've decided to wait until the before-Christmas sales to buy a 4K panel, and buy a Shield at the same time. I expect most of the new Netflix shows will be available in 4K by then, and well as much more online content. I don't expect any cable (and certainly not over-the-air) content by then.
 
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Originally Posted By: eljefino
Somehow I imagine pornos driving this technology. They helped VHS beat Betamax in the early 1980's.
wink.gif



There's quite a bit of 4k adult entertainment already. You know, so I've been told...
45.gif
 
I think the reviewers comment that a plain bluray disc looks better than 4k stream options on a properly calibrated system right now.


The biggest content right now would be playing pc games on it, or direct pc connection.

but tech changes fast. 2 years ago 4k was only for the superrich and 3dtvs were the rage, and people thought netflix making their own shows was stupid.

the best picture quality and product that's currently available is only on the flagship 4k tvs even though you are only using it for
Blurays or broadcast.
If a cheaper 1080p tv is good enough for you and you can't tell and is priced to save enough money get the 1080 tv.

So its about picture quality and not necessarily about 4k. You're buying the screen of a particular quality and it happens to be 4k. (It happens to support 3d too, but nobody cares about thst anymore)
 
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YouTube has some higher quality picture that looks incredible on my sell 30" 2560x1440 monitor. I wonder if they support the 4k format too if different.
 
Originally Posted By: Cujet
I'm 51. While my eyes can tell the difference objectively. I just don't care. 1080P is just fine to me.

Me too. My 8-9 years old Sharp 52" is perfectly fine with me. I don't have any plan to replace it with anything in a near future.
 
If you have a standard resolution DVD collection, resolution is only 720x480 pixels. How more or less poorly this gets upscaled to a higher resolution screen depends on the hi def TV in question. Watch a standard DVD in actual pixel for pixel resolution. You will be surprised how small the image is. Maybe 7 inches wide on a normal computer monitor, much smaller on a high-res screen. They do want us to replace our movie collections every few years.
 
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: Cujet
I'm 51. While my eyes can tell the difference objectively. I just don't care. 1080P is just fine to me.

Me too. My 8-9 years old Sharp 52" is perfectly fine with me. I don't have any plan to replace it with anything in a near future.


Looking at 4K material in the store, it is pretty compellingly good.

1080 is good, but there is a marked difference. Ive also never been satisfied with 1080p and less in terms of artifacts under fast motion, even with the 120 and 240Hz type screens. I suspect that the resolution makes these artifacts small enough on a 4k TV that they just cant be easily seen, because Ive not picked up on their presence.

Not that Ive really looked seriously. But when our CRT TV goes, I will buy 4k (or higher if prices come down), because despite the very limited watching of TV and movies that we do, it really is that good...
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: Cujet
I'm 51. While my eyes can tell the difference objectively. I just don't care. 1080P is just fine to me.

Me too. My 8-9 years old Sharp 52" is perfectly fine with me. I don't have any plan to replace it with anything in a near future.

Looking at 4K material in the store, it is pretty compellingly good.

1080 is good, but there is a marked difference. Ive also never been satisfied with 1080p and less in terms of artifacts under fast motion, even with the 120 and 240Hz type screens. I suspect that the resolution makes these artifacts small enough on a 4k TV that they just cant be easily seen, because Ive not picked up on their presence.

Not that Ive really looked seriously. But when our CRT TV goes, I will buy 4k (or higher if prices come down), because despite the very limited watching of TV and movies that we do, it really is that good...

I agree with you, if your current TV goes kaput someday then either 4k or higher is the one, not the 1080P.

But all my three 1080 TV's are working good and we don't watch much TV anyway, even movies on standard DVD is okay with our eyes(we rent 1 redbox movies one or twice a month), I don't have a compelling reason to discard a perfectly working 1080P for 4k.

We don't even see a need for a bluray player, as of now we can buy a bluray player for less than $50.
 
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