Buying an HDTV vs 4k TV
Super_Steve
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Currently in process of selecting a new TV to buy - aside from the technological differences (i.e. 4k offers a much better picture than HD) - is it really worth th extra dough?
Moving house at the moment so trying to be sensible with outgoings. I've seen a 43" HD TV and a 40" 4k, but the latter is around £150-200 more.
Is it really worth it getting a smaller TV for a sharper pic?
Moving house at the moment so trying to be sensible with outgoings. I've seen a 43" HD TV and a 40" 4k, but the latter is around £150-200 more.
Is it really worth it getting a smaller TV for a sharper pic?
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means that you need to sit 1.5 picture height from a uhd1 screen to see the pixels ..
Work it out for yourself .....
And or measure the distance you do view at home and repeat in the shop ....
So you can judge weather you can see .
The UHD 1pmhase 2 feature high dynamic range, higher frame rate and wider colour gamut .. When transmitted . Can be seen from much larger distances,
I think if I saw the HDTV in isolation it would look fantastic, but you always get dazzled by the larger 4k TVs next to it showing the New York skyline!
Netflix have been streaming 4k for over a year, Amazon also stream 4k, there is also 4k content online to download and 4k from YouTube.
UHD bluray will be available within a few months.
4k tv's are comparible in price with current HD TV's.
If it was my money, at the moment I would buy either a top end 4K set - one that's going to make a decent job of scaling up 1080p, 1080i and 576 standard def which makes up probably 98% of what we'll all be still watching for the next couple of years; but the set would have to be big enough to show the benefit of the extra screen res when 4K content becomes more common - or I would buy a decent smaller 1080p TV knowing that it will be related to another room in a few years when 4K is properly established.
What I would avoid is a cheap 4K set just because it's 4K. There are too many other compromises made to shoehorn in an expensive 4K panel in to a crappy chassis. IMO it's not worth it to buy rubbish just to have bragging rights.
Entirely different thing. Because of the limited exposure range of digital camera sensors compared to film it's not possible to capture the full range in a single exposure. HDR processing cameras take two photographs with one exposure based on the highlights (this will produce very little detail in the darker area of the image) and one based on the darker areas (this will burn out images in the highlight areas). The two images are combined to produce a single photograph. An enthusiast woukd take two camera raw images and combine them manually in a good photo editing package like Photoshop. The resulting image can be superb.
Some HD Video cameras can do the same thing on the fly.
Scroll to the HDR Video demo
http://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/cameras-camcorders/camcorders/hd-camcorders/hc-vx870.html
This is a function of almost every flatscreen TV. Some are better at it than others because some TVs have better de-interlace processing (recognising and dealing appropriately with either video or film based signals) and do a better job of remapping the image to a new vector space. Taking a 576i 16:9 image and processing it so that it maps correctly (or at least as benignly as possible) to a 3840x2160 pixel display panel requires a little bit more processing horse power than going to a full HD display, particularly when there's noise in the original signal, or bad edits, or incorrect flagging etc etc.
The problem with HDR is that most of the time the resulting image is being viewed on a screen that can still only render 256 shades of grey, or fewer in the case of a TV with proper video setup. That's why they often look odd.
It's much easier for PVR tuners to downscale to your TV's native resolution than to upscale to it, the results are much better. So if I get a 4K box I'll use it to output 4K at 1080p to my HD TV, I should get a better HD picture for it, and I won't have to shove my nose up against the screen to see any 4K detail.
Then, in a few years time when they have upped the colour gamut, dynamic range and frame rates, and have produced some decent material like that, I will invest in a big and good 4K set that can actually handle UHD1 phase 2 - when the standard has eventually been agreed!
Whilst it's true that downscaling is easier provided that the source signal is of a higher native resolution than the display device, none of what you say makes sense in terms of the broadcast and video signals available either now or for the foreseeable future.
Bearing in mind we are talking about 4K TVs here, in order for what you've written to make sense and for downscaling to play its part then all TV broadcast, and streaming, and video source signals would have to be 4K or higher. That's clearly nonsense because it doesn't reflect reality. So whilst the theory of what you're saying is sound, in practical terms your suggestion makes no sense.
It's not clear what you mean by "4K box", but "PVR Tuner" is a known quantity. Can you can show me which widely available UK TV broadcasters (terrestrial, cable or satellite) is or are broadcasting all their channels in 4K or higher resolution? If you have a PVR that is outputting 4K, then it's doing so by upscaling 576i and 1080i TV signals to a 4K resolution. In terms of the start-to-finish processing chain, there's no difference whether a TV takes the native signal and does all of the scaling compared to some intermediary box pre-scaling the image first. In reality though putting the signal through multiple scaling steps is often worse than simply scaling the once in the device with the best scaling performance.
As far as it's possible to predict, UK TV will always have to deal with legacy video resolutions. The current state of the terrestrial broadcast network will not support a mass migration to 1080i or better TV broadcast for all TV channels. There just isn't the available bandwidth to accommodate it. Then there's the issue of consumer equipment: Millions of households have TVs that are not fully HD capable. Finally, much of what exists in TV archives was shot and edited at SD resolution. So if you're going to buy a 4K TV, make sure it does a decent job of scaling up SD because it will be with us for a very very long time.
The dynamic range on slide film is way larger than you can get on a digital camera. Do you think they look artificial. When you look at a scene do you lose the ability to see details in the shadows and see all whites as just plain white. It's a limitation of the photo process and current 24 bit screens that restrict the variations in grey level to just 256 variations from pure black to pure white. Increasing the panels capability to handle 30 bits ( 10 bits for red, green and blue instead of 8) increases the grey level permutations massively.
Your experience with hdr processed photographs has absolutely no relevance, the content will be produced by cameras with inbuilt 30 bit capability, and bring the images we watch much closer to reality (your TV will look more like a window looking at a real view).
So you would invest in a 4K box, most likely have to pay a 4K subscription, just to view a downscaled 4k image in 1080 in the hope it should give you a better picture?
Whilst it is easier to downscale, the scaling from 1080 to 2160 on a good 4K set can make good source HD (bluray) look even better, it's not all down to the scaling, the extra pixels make it look sharper and depending on the sets colour management, ie studio master drive as seen on some Panasonics which deliver a wider colour gamut, where the picture looks so damn natural.
So out of the two scaling functions for overall quality there's no contest, 1080 upscaled to 4K on a decent 4k set is a clear winner, while 4k downscaled to 1080 on full HD gives a slightly better image, it is not imediately apparrent, you have to look hard for it ie. dark/dimly lit scenes, in those instances I'd have to say that improvement is down to the higher bitrate of 4k, not a higher resolution downscaled.
Ignoring any financial implications, it WILL give a considerably better picture than HD - giving you the quality that HD is capable of, but which is ruined by the massively excessive compression used.
In the same way now that if you watch HD channels on a non-HD set it's considerably better quality, again quality as SD should be and not crippled.
However, the small amount of 4K material available, and lack of broadcasts, means it's going to be in a very small minority for a considerable time yet.
I was referring only to 4K broadcasts being downscaled and viewed on an HD TV. The rest of the broadcast material would obviously look much the same as now, on an HD set.
Yes, the bulk of the improvement (of UHD broadcast being downscaled and viewed on an HD TV) would be due to the higher bitrate - and better encoding algorithms - compared to viewing the same material if broadcast in HD (especially 1080i). My original comment though was just about what someone said regarding upscaling, I wanted to mention that downscaling is easier, sorry if that wasn't clear.
I agree with Nigel's comments! But if the price is right, I still might subscribe to the forthcoming BT TV UHD channel (without buying a 4K set). We shall see.
As we do not know.
How large the TV is
How far away it's viewed from
What Super-Steve main viewing habits are (Does he have a Netflix subscription ? )
Which of the models is proposed to be purchased
How would we know. The pros and cons have been discussed, in the end it's the posters decision.
His choice - but as long as he buys a decent quality set then he should be fine, no point buying a cheap crappy 4K set when it won't be as good as a better quality HD one.
If he wants it then get it. If it is for 'future proofing' then let us know how you know the future, because no one else does...
Have to say, from my point of use, I would not worry about just yet....,as no 4k content yet and as I don't have sky or other subscription service the chance of 4k on free channels is some way off. 4k blu Ray on the other hand isn't far away....would def look at making sure next blu Ray player is 4k ready.
There is the internet for 4k but I would need to upgrade from broadband to fibre to make that work (broadband is only just about fast enough for full HD streaming).
http://www.johnlewis.com/lg-55eg960v-curved-4k-ultra-hd-oled-3d-smart-tv-55-with-freeview-hd-built-in-wi-fi-harman-kardon-audio-2x-3d-glasses/p1921663?sku=234313102&kpid=234313102&s_kenid=1b9c26fd-302a-4425-a643-95a33257241a&s_kwcid=402x30320&tmad=c&tmcampid=73&kpid=234313102
Course, you've got to pay the thick end of £4000 for them. :eek:
manufacturers thought stereo broadcasting was going to take off so manufacturers like Ferguson etc launched stereo televisions, but this was only a partial victory, there were never any UK wide analogue stereo tv broadcasts BUT linear stereo video recorders enabled you, with suitable AV leads connecting the video to the set, to enjoy slightly better picture quality and (hissy) fair quality stereo sound from the new linear stereo videocassettes that were coming out,
later on in the mid 80's non-NICAM hifi stereo vcr's started coming out and these shot up in popularity over poorer linear stereo decks as the sound quality was better BUT still NO stereophonic television sound was broadcast;although the stereo NON-NICAM sets made perfect use of HiFi VHS Stereo video releases flooding the market when they were played on HiFi VHS Stereo video recorders connected via AV leads to stereo TV's for better quality and stereo sound.
Late 80's Astra stereo satellite broadcasts from Astra 1A using the Wegener Panda 1 noise reduction system and NICAM Stereo TV's/VCR came onto the market albeit NICAM was only available in the London & Yorkshire areas;to listen to stereo broadcasts from Astra you needed stereo AV leads to connect to your stereo TV and to record in stereo, you also needed stereo AV leads to connect the satellite receiver to your video recorder,
In the 90's NICAM spread round the country and more and more NICAM sets and vcr's became available to the public so everyone could enjoy stereo TV sound at an affordable price as the prices steadily dropped, also one or two manufacturers jumped into widescreen 16:9 sets early thinking this would take off (but it never did truly take off till BSB D-MAC revolutionised things and Granada/Channel 4 tried a shot at 16:9 PALplus transmissions, which didn't really last very long).