HawthorneVillager.com

My TV is about 5 years now, I actually leaped in the flat panels late in the game so I have a Pana 50" Plasma. It's a good TV but now considered an energy hog to todays standards. So I started researching my next TV. Of course I came across the new "Ultra HD", or "4K" TVs. I wanted to look into this new technology because I did not want to get burned like so many people did in the 2000s.

Remembers, 6-7 years ago, there were new flat screens 720p and SUPER expensive 1080p TVs available. Everyone jumped on board 720p because there is no 1080p content out there... why bother buying 1080p... that was my advice on this very board actually. But an interesting thing happened along the way. The consumer market stopped buying 720p TVs for a short time. They held on to their large CRTs till the price of 1080p TV came down. Not only did that, it pushed the broadcasters, DVD makers and manufacturers to quickly get 1080p content out there. It brought the price of 1080p TVs to a reasonable price fast!

Back to the present..

I was so happy to see, the monitor industry, movie industry learned from their mistakes of the past. Skipped the 2K and went straight to 4K. But to my astonishment, the marketed 4K TVs are actually 2K !!?!!!! An illustration below to prove my point.



Someone started promoting the Horizontal resolution and not the Vertical as before with 1080p. Make it appear as if they have skipped a step! ARG! This just burns me. Does industry think we have just short memories? I get the fact that manufactures have to release new products incrementally to maximize profit. I guess that is why I like Kickstarter so much. incredible innovation without the overhead of business.

I guess everyone making consumer TVs got together and decided to start marketing the way Hollywood defines their movies resolutions.
2K Digital Cinema (2048x1080)
4K Digital Cinema (4096x2160)
8K Digital Cinema (8192x4608) (Hollywood has already started producing movies in this res)

Sure the standard has been set now... But please do your research, and if you do buy a "4K" TV today, make sure you tell anyone; everyone you know the real truth... It's a 2K monitor!!!

I might just have to purchase a cheap 1080p to hold me over.... what to do, what to do?

_________________
Pain is Temporary Pride is forever

I have a hard time getting worked up about that. They pulled a fast one with the marketing. Big surprise. It's still the next generation, and still twice as good.

Personally, I don't get why anyone would consider jumping to 4K when cable and satellite barely have half their channels broadcast in 720, let alone 1080. It's just one more thing for me to have so I can get pissed off at the lack of content for it. I can't even guess when you will ever see them broadcast in 4K.

The leaders in 4K content will be Netflix, Hulu and all the other streaming services in less than 2 years. It will be the way they can separate themselves from broadcasters. They will also start producing their own content as well in 4K.


3840/2 = 1920 only twice better?

_________________
Pain is Temporary Pride is forever

Twice the res in each direction equals four times the total number of pixels. Besides that, it's more correctly called UHD. The guys pushing it as "4K" are probably the same guys who decided to call the new LCD TV's "LED" just to make it sound high tech. Big deal.

I do agree that Netflix and the other streaming guys will be first ones with content. House Of Cards season 2 has already been announced to be streamable in 4K. But you may need to buy more bandwidth from your ISP to stream it.

I wouldn't bother with this tech right now. The guys making these TV's are trying to keep the costs down so they are using cheaper parts and crap components. In a couple of years there will be more content options and much better hardware, for less money. Hopefully the price of OLED's is going to come down to the point where LCD/LED gets tossed in the dumpster where it belongs, and we'll be able to see true blacks and accurate colour reproduction again (and this time in 4K).

It's the number of pixels that need to be compared.

Full HD: 1920x1080=2073600 pixels
UHD 4K: 3840x2160=8294400 pixels
2073600 x 4 = 8294400

So 4K has exactly 4 times the pixels FHD 1080p has. There's no scam here.

Can't help but laugh at this one!

Netflix USA just started the super HD broadcasts in USA, not here yet (even if using a VPN trick) as it depends on your ISP & receiving hardware

Talk your neighbour into buying one and watch it there for free. Than when the price drops to where you can afford it you can decide if it is worth it. Flat screens a few years ago went for $3-$4K (yes I got suckered into one) and the same one today would be less than $1K. Or go read some good books.

Do I get a 4K TV or just a lowly 1080p TV?

First world problems lol.

Either you guys are missing something or im tired

Your chart shows VHS(480p), 1080p, 4k, not 720p?

720p is dvd resolution, 1280x720. 1080p is 'HD' which is what blu ray is i think.

Edit: schooled below

480p is DVD. VHS is like 20p.

Why would you pay a premium on a 4k TV and then end up watching 98% of you content in 720p/1080p over the next 5 years?

Count me as "unconvinced" Re: the importance of this as well.

Side note, a friend emailed me this Amazon review a few weeks ago:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-rev ... GHQE5PBV74

Customer Review

21,016 of 21,371 people found the following review helpful
Very satisfied, November 25, 2013
By James O. Thach "@JamesOtisThach"
This review is from:
Samsung UN85S9 85-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Smart LED UHDTV (Black)
Price: $39,997.99

"My wife and I bought this after selling our daughter Amanda into white slavery. We actually got a refurbished. It's missing the remote, but oh well-- for $10K off, I can afford a universal, right? The picture is amazing. I've never seen the world with such clarity.

Amanda, if you're reading this, hang in there, honey! We'll see you in a year.

*****

I just wanted to add an addendum to my review. Since posting it, we have received a flood of responses. People have said some pretty hurtful things--even questioning our values. Let me assure you, this was not an easy decision to make, and we made it as a family. Obviously, it's very personal. But in light of all the second-guessing, I wanted to explain our thinking.

First and foremost, screen size. I really think you can't go too big. 85" may seem huge, but you get used to it fast. Second, resolution. Is 4K overkill? Please, that's what they said about 1080P! More dots = better. Period. And as far as this being a $40,000 "dumb" TV, people need to re-read my initial post: WE BOUGHT IT REFURBISHED. It was only $30,000.

Some of you may think I'm avoiding the "elephant in the room"-the real reason why this was such a heart-wrenching choice. So let's just get it out there. Yes, the 120 Hz refresh rate is a disappointment, especially on a 4K. But life is full of compromises. And frankly, we hardly notice. All in all, no regrets.

P.S., as for our daughter, NO ONE has the right to question our parenting. Totally out of bounds. Amanda was going into 7th grade, so it was going to be a transitional year anyway. Now she gets to see the world. How many kids her age get to go to Bahrain? I sure as heck didn't, but you don't hear me screaming "child abuse." Bottom line: MYOB! Seriously.

*****

Has it been a year already? Wow! I guess that's what 8 hours a day of immersive TV will do for you! Many of you have expressed your eagerness for an update. Well, here goes.

Generally, the Samsung has held up beautifully. We have noticed a little bit of lag, mostly in multi-player gaming--but not enough to cost us any firefights. There have been some issues up-imaging low rez content, but that's to be expected when you early-adopt--we're still "waiting on the world to change," as John Mayer would say (gosh he's talented.) On the plus side, we feel like we are now officially part of the cast of GOT. The other night Peg almost had to open a window to let Daenerys' dragons fly out!

And you'll all be happy to know our darling Amanda is back with us, safe and sound. She has changed a little. She's less talkative than before (though she had some choice words for me when I asked her to clean her room). And she's started wearing eye make-up, which has Peg a bit concerned. But welcome to thirteen, I guess. We're just glad to have her home. And she loves the TV. That's the main thing. In fact, she spends so much time in front of it lately, you'd swear she owns it. "

Also, read this reviewer's take on Kleenex 36-packs, and her take on o.b. Tampons Multi-Pack, Variety Pack, 40 Count (Pack of 3). Just about died laughing.

_________________
This one thing probably never goes away
I think this one thing is always supposed to stay
This one thing doesn't have to go away

It's one thing to offer 4K downloads, but a totally different thing to be able to deliver it. The horse trading that goes on between Netflix, YouTube and the ISP's is the most complex arrangement imaginable. ISP's are always fighting with them over money (trying to bill both the customer AND Netflix/YouTube for content delivery), or in some cases refusing to deliver content reliably because they offer competing streaming services. It's a problem that's only going to get worse, especially in the US where most people have horrendous download speeds and tiny download caps. ISP's have little incentive to bother making this a reality for people.

We're about to go way off topic here. But now that net neutrality has been killed in the US, who will be able to afford to download 4k content down there once internet triers are introduced? What speed is needed for 4k content? (that should get things going)

I saw a 4k tv being demo'd on Boxing day with 4k content. I have to admit, it was pretty darn awesome, but at the same time, my HD tv's seem to deliver pretty darn good content too. Even as the prices come down, I think I'm basically married to 1080 for the foreseeable future.

_________________

They say you need 10Mbs for 1080 downloads, and 15 for 4K, but I think those are for highly compressed and low quality videos (most people don't notice the difference).

I think idealy, you would want double those numbers. In Canada, we're more or less ready for 4K over the internet. Bandwidth caps are an issue, but thats about it. Most people can get 30 or even 50Mbs download speeds at a reasonable cost.

The US is a completley different story. Most people lucky are if they can get more than 10Mbs, and many areas are stuck with 5Mbs. It's a huge country with only a handfull of providers who are reluctant to spend the billions needed to upgrade the infrastructure, especialy when many of them are in monopoly positions in the counties they controll. If they can't deliver it en mass in the US, Netflix isn't going to offer it en mass anywhere.

I'm not really sure how Net Neutrality will impact this. I have a feeling it dosen't matter much. Even with it, ISP's still managed to degrade streaming services in favor of their own. The internet is a complex system, these guys will work around any laws you create to milk money out of the system.