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Which 4K TV should I get from the following:
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FIFA1966
07-07-2015
I've already said a similar thing about 3D TV before because I had no idea that 3D was going to be a partial flop.


So, the TV's are:

1. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...29491-pdt.html


2. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...24788-pdt.html

3. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...24845-pdt.html

4. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...27115-pdt.html

5. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...22470-pdt.html

6. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...31878-pdt.html

7. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...27110-pdt.html
White-Knight
07-07-2015
Just a couple of opinions:

Quote:
“BBC head: "I haven’t bought a UHD TV - they’re not ready yet"”

http://ertonline.co.uk/ERT%20Latest%...ot%20ready.htm

Quote:
“Chris Johns, chief engineer of broadcast strategy at Sky, said: "If you bought a set in 2013 and early 2014, then sorry, it won't do sport. It'll only go up to 25 frames per second (fps). If you bought a set last year, even a set in the sales this summer, this spring, then I'm sorry - it won't do High Dynamic Range, which gives you better, brighter pictures."”

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/sky-4k-tv-e...st-uhd-1504433


I can't comment on those specific models, only to say the spec is still evolving and even if a TV meets the current spec, the current agreed spec is said to be an interim spec only and not the final spec.
AlanO
07-07-2015
Originally Posted by FIFA1966:
“I've already said a similar thing about 3D TV before because I had no idea that 3D was going to be a partial flop.


So, the TV's are:

1. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...29491-pdt.html


2. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...24788-pdt.html

3. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...24845-pdt.html

4. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...27115-pdt.html

5. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...22470-pdt.html

6. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...31878-pdt.html

7. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...27110-pdt.html”

I'd hold fire on 4k until the standards are settled - and the prices have dropped a bit.

If, however, you're buying because you need a new TV, the I'd go Panasonic ahead of the others. But with all the brands there's a risk that when 4k standards are settled these sets won't meet those standards.
Deacon1972
07-07-2015
Originally Posted by FIFA1966:
“I've already said a similar thing about 3D TV before because I had no idea that 3D was going to be a partial flop.


So, the TV's are:

1. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...29491-pdt.html


2. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...24788-pdt.html

3. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...24845-pdt.html

4. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...27115-pdt.html

5. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...22470-pdt.html

6. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...31878-pdt.html

7. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...27110-pdt.html”

Because you will be upscaling SD/HD the majority of the time, you really need a set that has excellent upscaling, all the models listed will give you good 4K but will more than likely only give average upscaling quality.

IMO you would be better off buying a Full HD TV with the budget you look to have.
d'@ve
07-07-2015
Originally Posted by Deacon1972:
“Because you will be upscaling SD/HD the majority of the time, you really need a set that has excellent upscaling, all the models listed will give you good 4K but will more than likely only give average upscaling quality.

IMO you would be better off buying a Full HD TV with the budget you look to have.”

I wonder if the latest full HD sets will be able to handle 1080/50p and HDR? Because that would in many cases produce a much better picture than standard HD, on UHD broadcasts downscaled by the box or TV.

Most people will not need the higher resolution on screen, on 42/50 inch sets from where they sit, but would benefit on UHD broadcasts using a UHD box, from the other features I mentioned.
anthony david
07-07-2015
Curry's seem to have a very poor reputation on these forums, John Lewis (free 5 year warranty) and Richer Sounds (cheap 5 year warranty) are better thought of. You may also have a well regarded local dealer as well.
Anthony_UK
07-07-2015
4K UHD capable tv's are a waste of money at present. There's very little out there in broadcasts to support this format to make the purchase of such sets worthwhile. I think it is better to wait a while and see what new services become available and on what platforms before making a purchase of one until the broadcasts become very widely;freeview/satellite/cable and iptv etc.

Thing is, by early adoption of such a set, technical standards for 4k UHD broadcasts could well change again if the broadcasters indeed have anything to do with it.

To me there is nothing wrong with a good quality Freeview HD/Freesat HD twin tuner set with Full HD 1080p pictures, a good amount of HDMI and conventional AV socketry, the facility to translate the Freeview HD multichannel HE-AAC component to Dolby Digital Plus and digital optical audio outputs for a home cinema AV receiver and separate 5.1 speaker set-up.

Better off with this sort of set than than taking a early plunge into expensive UHD 4k television purchases and then finding out the broadcasters have changed the goalposts for technical standards in UHD 4k rendering such sets high-tech junk you needn't have spent the money on.
Winston_1
07-07-2015
Originally Posted by Deacon1972:
“Because you will be upscaling SD/HD the majority of the time, you really need a set that has excellent upscaling, all the models listed will give you good 4K but will more than likely only give average upscaling quality.

IMO you would be better off buying a Full HD TV with the budget you look to have.”

No up scaling is excellent. You cannot generate what is not there.
Nigel Goodwin
07-07-2015
Originally Posted by Winston_1:
“No up scaling is excellent. You cannot generate what is not there.”

That's not what up-scaling does - it merely makes it fit the higher resolution screen.

However, cheaper scalers make a FAR worse job than better ones do, which is why it's important to have a decent quality scaler.

An excellent scaler will make it fit the screen with less objectionable artefacts created.
FIFA1966
08-07-2015
What about the PS4 and Xbox One, they have 4K capability.
Deacon1972
08-07-2015
Originally Posted by d'@ve:
“I wonder if the latest full HD sets will be able to handle 1080/50p and HDR? Because that would in many cases produce a much better picture than standard HD, on UHD broadcasts downscaled by the box or TV.

Most people will not need the higher resolution on screen, on 42/50 inch sets from where they sit, but would benefit on UHD broadcasts using a UHD box, from the other features I mentioned.”

I've only seen one reference to 1080p and HDR, that was for Netflix, where customers with slower speeds will see content default to 1080p and HDR not normal 4k, so that suggests there is some benefit for HD to adopt HDR.

Will manufacturers fit their versions of HDR to full HD TV's, I wouldn't have thought so because it's prominently 4k tech, though saying that, there are 4k cameras that do 4k and 1080p HDR. It would certainly give HD quality a welcome boost.
Deacon1972
08-07-2015
Originally Posted by Winston_1:
“No up scaling is excellent. You cannot generate what is not there.”

There won't be anymore detail than in the original image, but using a quality scaler can retain the original quality, in some cases improve it.
Winston_1
08-07-2015
Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin:
“That's not what up-scaling does - it merely makes it fit the higher resolution screen.
”

I don't follow that. Modern screens are 16:9 as are modern broadcasts. What "fitting" is there to do?
Deacon1972
08-07-2015
Originally Posted by Winston_1:
“I don't follow that. Modern screens are 16:9 as are modern broadcasts. What "fitting" is there to do?”

16x9 SD comes in various resolutions, for example 720x576, 546x576, to get these to fit a 16x9 TV with a resolution of 1366x768 or 1920x1080 it needs to upscale it, if it didn't you would end up with a small picture in the middle of the screen.

High end 4k tv's have excellent scalers, they can take HD resolution 1920x1080 and upscale to 4k with remarkable results, especially bluray material.
Anthony_UK
09-07-2015
Originally Posted by FIFA1966:
“What about the PS4 and Xbox One, they have 4K capability.”

They do BUT why would you buy a television set with UHD 4K capability just for use on a games console? It seems a silly early adopters' investment and a waste of money. I would wait until the broadcasts in UHD 4K become widely available across ALL platforms and Freesat UHD 4K sets and Freeview UHD 4K sets become available so it can be enjoyed to the full in all it's beautiful pinsharp detail, vividly colourful glory along with full 7.1 channels of cinematic DD+ surround sound to match.
d'@ve
09-07-2015
Originally Posted by Deacon1972:
“16x9 SD comes in various resolutions, for example 720x576, 546x576, to get these to fit a 16x9 TV with a resolution of 1366x768 or 1920x1080 it needs to upscale it, if it didn't you would end up with a small picture in the middle of the screen.

High end 4k tv's have excellent scalers, they can take HD resolution 1920x1080 and upscale to 4k with remarkable results, especially bluray material.”

Upscaled HD will look no better than a high end 1080p TV of the same size, upscalers cannot do magic. And there is always the risk of them producing an inferior picture (on HD broadcasts) because no upscaler is 100% perfect.

As affordable HDR 4K TVs won't be in the shops until the end of the year and HDR is one of the main benefits of UHD, it's frankly a bit daft to buy one now. Even dafter if the 4k set can't handle 2160/60p.
Nigel Goodwin
09-07-2015
Originally Posted by Winston_1:
“I don't follow that. Modern screens are 16:9 as are modern broadcasts. What "fitting" is there to do?”

What has the aspect ratio got to do with screen resolution?, or are you been deliberately obtuse?.
Deacon1972
09-07-2015
Originally Posted by d'@ve:
“Upscaled HD will look no better than a high end 1080p TV of the same size, upscalers cannot do magic. And there is always the risk of them producing an inferior picture (on HD broadcasts) because no upscaler is 100% perfect.

As affordable HDR 4K TVs won't be in the shops until the end of the year and HDR is one of the main benefits of UHD, it's frankly a bit daft to buy one now. Even dafter if the 4k set can't handle 2160/60p.”

Have you actually seen any good sourced HD or bluray on a high end 4K tv, or is this just an assumption?

UHD scalers used are more advanced than those used on full HD, they use top chips that dynamically address image databases to interpolate data, rather than relying on linear scaling.

But it's not all down to upscaling, better dynamic contrast, extended colours, the higher resolution/smoother images all help too.

All 4k tv's manufactured after Sept 2013 will almost certainly have HDMI 2 4k@60hz, only first gen sets had HDMI 1.4 4k@30hz.

Daft in your opinion, I've been enjoying 4k content in its current state for months, when phase2 is ready in a few years I'll be ready for an upgrade.
Mythica
09-07-2015
Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin:
“That's not what up-scaling does - it merely makes it fit the higher resolution screen.

However, cheaper scalers make a FAR worse job than better ones do, which is why it's important to have a decent quality scaler.

An excellent scaler will make it fit the screen with less objectionable artefacts created.”


That's stretching, not upscaling.
Mythica
09-07-2015
Originally Posted by FIFA1966:
“What about the PS4 and Xbox One, they have 4K capability.”

For Blu-rays I'm not sure but they certainly won't be any 4k games on the consoles. No big games anyway like FIFA, COD or Battlefield.
anthony david
09-07-2015
Up-scaling is similar to re-sizing in Photoshop. Cheap TV's use the equivalent of Photoshop's Nearest neighbour or Bilinear modes, Up-market TV,s use something closer to Bicubic. As anyone who uses Photoshop knows, you can't have something that wasn't there in the original but you can give the impression that it was. Consequently it is possible that good HD may look marginally better on a high end 4K TV, however it is possible that SD may look worse as that may be asking too much of the up-scaling process. Despite all this I think that buying a 4K TV is a bad idea at the present time for all the reasons given above.
Deacon1972
09-07-2015
Originally Posted by Mythica:
“That's stretching, not upscaling.”

Stretching is altering an image that already fits natively, ie. 4x3 to 16x9 or zooming a scope movie to full screen. Manually altering the aspect ratio.......
Nigel Goodwin
09-07-2015
Originally Posted by Mythica:
“That's stretching, not upscaling.”

Nope, that's what upscaling does.
Mythica
09-07-2015
Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin:
“Nope, that's what upscaling does.”

Upscaling is not stretching the image. That would distort the image.
Nigel Goodwin
09-07-2015
Originally Posted by Mythica:
“Upscaling is not stretching the image. That would distort the image.”

I never said it was - upscaling is making the image fit the screen, NOT stretching - it uses an 'intelligent' algorithm (in fact probably a number of them?) to do this, creating pixels in between the existing ones. This process however creates artefacts, which are objectionable, and the better the scaler, the lower the number of artefacts.

However, on a purely technical level - it IS distorting the picture, because it's not the same as it was

Because of the extensive processing required, the better the set the more delayed the picture is likely to be - this is obvious if you put different sets on side by side, and turn the sound up one them (the sets automatically delay the sound to match the picture).
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