Reply With QuoteI guess that all depends on how much 4K content you have to play on it.
Just ordered one.
Are they worth the extra cash?
I guess that all depends on how much 4K content you have to play on it.
Good for future proofing, if you are like me and you only by a TV every 10 years or more!
I got one, not seen any programmes in it yet though
It'll be 5k next year and 6k a couple of years after that.Originally Posted by .olli.
A friend has just purchased a 4k Samsung. A test blu ray did look very good but then so did the curve design!
Thinking about pulling the trigger on one of these bad boys for the family room at home
http://www.richersounds.com/product/...0v/lg-42ub820v
I guess there is no such thing as future proofing for more than a few months nowadays in this domain...
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I think the general perception is that to really get the benefit of the 4K 'ness you should be 50 inch plus and be sitting quite some distance away i.e. 3-4m.
If you Google it you will find a useful graph / calculator which shows the optimum distance for HD/4K viewing per screen size.
Also with such limited 4K content you will be watching HD and in some cases SD broadcasts through many many more pixels which actually makes the picture worse in some cases.
I plumped for a top of the range, multi-award winning Sony 55 incher last May which had been £2400 on release and bought it for £1200 with 5 year Guarantee. Smart TV functions are limited but sufficient but picture is great.
Having said all that I do think the 4K Samsung 48 inch 7500 model looks a great all round buy at around £1000.
Like watches, its a minefield. Just make a decision and enjoy the content.
Please don't, please just purchase this nice television if you like it!
Regarding 4K, I was looking at TVs recently and ended up going for the 48" Samsung 6400. We thought about going 4K but the general consensus seemed to be it was better to go for a good 1080p than a cheap 4K. The current crop of 4K's may not even be future proog either.......something about new content needing a 10 bit chip and the current ones having 8 bit (didn't read too much into it as by that point I'd decided not to go 4K)
My mates just got one of these. I've set the picture up on it for him, and although not as good as my Pana plasma the picture is very good. If my plasma had to be replaced I would be very tempted.
I tend to stay away from the Sony TV ( odd playback formats )and we normally go straight for Samsung but the LG caught my eye , its a second TV for us so I think its a sound choice
Saw one of these in the flesh at the weekend, very impressive detail and colourwise but it all depends on how much 4k content you have.
Impressive yes for larger screen sizes, but future proof? As 8k sets were being demonstrated at CES last month, I think not. How do you get 4k content into these TVs; is Sky the only option?
That's us to a tee!
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That's what I've ordered but through John Lewis - it's the same deal.
That's my next question. So how do you get 4k content?
You might like to read this article before deciding on that new 4K TV:
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/everybo...-one-just-yet/
If you only buy a new TV every 10 years, it's too soon to go for 4k as future-proofing is the one thing you won't get. As the article says. it's not just about the screens, it's about the delivery services & not all of them are available on all sets. This is important because it's one of the very few ways you can get actual 4K material. It will be a very long time before the main channels will be in 4K, although Sky may punt up a few channels to see how much extra they can charge people for it.
If you need a new set now a nice 1080p model is probably your best bet & then write it off if 3 or 4 years time.
Netflix have a 4K service for an increased monthly fee; you best have a good internet connection though.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444
The set manufacturers are desperate to keep people buying sets, even if they are going to be superseded in a couple of year's time. They were behind the great 3D con which helped them sell a lot of sets but eventually got found out when the public gave up on wearing glasses & sitting in one spot on the sofa. The next liferaft is 'standard' 4K which the set manufacturers are pumping out as fast as they can.
The broadcasters are much more circumspect as it will cost them a lot of money to make the next change & there is a strong movement to improve the picture in more ways than just pixel count. The two major improvements are High Dynamic Range (that's the 8/10 bit technology) & High Frame Rate. Either of these is much more impressive than 4k & if the public could see these demonstrated they would realise 4K is a con for most situations. HDR+HFR pictures are absolutely stunning but sadly you won't see them outside of trade shows yet. Even 1080p HDR/HFR pictures are much better than 4k because they improve the picture at every screen size, not just for massive 55" & over. Don't forget that many claim that for a 55" screen if you more than 5 feet away you cannot tell the difference over 1080p - the eye just cannot resolve it.
http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter/
Of course what the set manufactures want is these technologies to come out sequentially so they can sell you three sets.
I've just bought an 8500 Samsung curved TV after looking into it quite a bit. Ruled out OLED even though in-laws purchased one. Built in upscaler makes standard 1080p look really clear
Worth the money - I bought my last living room TV in 2006! £2200 over 8-9 years is nothing!
If you have some high bitrate 4K material and you plan to pull your chair up to three or four feet from the telly to watch it, then - absolutely.
I got a gopro hero 4 black for xmas of the wife, can't view the 4k footage until I get a 4k tv.
That's probably enough of an excuse to buy one I suppose :)
Unless you sit 6" away from your TV or are actually an eagle, no.
With uncompressed footage you'd have a hard time telling the difference between 720p and 1080p on a 60" screen at a comfortable distance. The main difference people notice is the quality of compression used by different formats and misattribute that to the higher resolution. 4k content is unlikely to ever look better than 1080p Blu Ray. In fact, since most of that 4k content will be streamed and thus, highly compressed, in many cases it will look worse.
Thanks guy's. I really appreciate the effort put into these replies.
So the big question is then, for a max of £500, which TV should I buy? (Exact model would be really helpful to this technophobe!)
My requirements are: 42". Smart. Netflix.
Many thanks in advance!
Stick with the LG you ordered, it's very good. When I set up my mates, the 'black' levels were pretty decent, and for such a thin set, the sound was good and above average.
Rod
I don't know the specific set (also, the LG was Andy not Stuart, but it seems to meet the criteria), but I think this general principle is good: buy the colour definition and sound quality (ignore sound if your going to use a sound bar or 5.1 setup) and don't care too much if it's 4k or not. You may find that the better screens are now 4k whether you like it or not (this is also why I have a 3D Smart TV even though I think both ideas are stupid), in which case they will certainly be better than a budget 1080. OTOH, if you can get a really good 1080 for the same sort of price the chances are it will be better, overall, assuming that a decent chunk of the cost goes into the 4k panel (prices are coming down significantly but they still aren't cheap).
FWIW, I like LG a lot. They are one of those highly underrated manufacturers who make really good OEM stuff for other companies but are seen as a "budget" brand, so you quite often get a ridiculous amount of bang for your buck. When I got my TV a couple of years ago their LCD panels just weren't in the same league as Samsung though, and that may still be true. I wouldn't buy an LG without at least checking out a similarly-priced Samsung 1080.
I will shortly be buying a 42" smart TV and I have done a lot of research and the one I will buy is the Sony Bravia KDL42W705B it isn't 4k but it gets great reviews and I looked at LG but from their reviews I just get the impression that the picture quality isn't as good as the Sony and they do seem to have quality issues maybe that's why for a 4k TV it is quite cheap.
In my last post I mentioned in passing that Smart TVs are stupid and I note that this is a requested feature, so I should probably qualify that. Why are Smart TVs a bad idea?
Well, to make a normal TV "smart" you can buy something like a Roku, an Apple TV or even a PlayStation or Xbox. This maybe costs a bit more (although you are paying for the smartness of any TV, it's just that the cost is generally hidden because you can't avoid it at the high end). You may also have to contend with an extra remote, but it's a lot better.
The reason is, if you buy, say, a Roku, it doesn't do anything else. The software will be updated continually. Today you have Netflix, but if some new service launches, you can get that too. If you can't, you can always replace the STB for a lot less than the cost of a new TV. With a Smart TV, the manufacturer has absolutely no incentive to do this. It's basically just a scam: they would much rather people bought a new TV every 3 years instead of every 10 years and smart TVs are one way to encourage that.
Companies like Samsung are envious of Apple-style walled-garden app stores and would very much like to establish vendor lock-in, so that when you buy a new TV in 3 years, you have to buy one of theirs if you want to keep all your content. This isn't happening so much yet, but that's where it's heading.
Also, all hardware companies that aren't Apple are absolutely terrible at writing software. Did you know that Smart TVs can get viruses? That has already happened to some Samsung models. This is one reason why I will never connect my TV to my network. And because it's not a user-controlled computer, if someone does manage to take control of it via a virus, it's possible they could permanently lock you out of you own TV. I foresee a few interesting warranty claims on 10-year-old Smart TVs in the future (think about the number of security holes in a 10-year old copy of Windows, written by arguably the worlds most competent software company; now ask yourself if Samsung is likely to be providing security updates for out-of-warranty TVs).
Sony Bravia KDL42W705B and the Sony Bravia KDL42W7?
Because the specs look the same to me.
Can't say for sure on this one but a lot of TV model numbers are store-specific to major retailers. E.g., Currys and John Lewis will each have their own model number, but it's actually the same set. It's supposed to make it harder for people to compare prices online. The 05B part tacked on the end sounds like that's what this is, or it's just a variation code (the B probably means it's black, the 05 could be the retailer, the country, or anything else really).
Thanks for your help - it's very much appreciated.
Cheers pal. I'll keep you posted.
I agree. I still think they offer the best overall picture quality, which is about more than just resolution. Considering that none of the broadcasters is yet to show full 1080p nearly 10 years after launch, it's doubtful we'll see 4k in the immediate future.
As far as upscaling, I've yet to see an upscaled 4k picture but for me even 720p to 1080i is pretty bad.
I also wonder how much detail the human eye can actually see, as at some point the level of resolution will exceed it.
Last edited by bonzo697; 7th February 2015 at 10:23.
Any 4K tv will need HDMI 2.0 to support "proper" 4K so I rather suspect there will be some very annoyed people with HDMI 1.4 only 4K tvs in the near future.
Appreciate the comments about limited 4k content but with the sonys I have been looking at, the 4k sets "upscale" all content to 4k or thereabouts. I'm very very fortunate that my neighbour works for sony and has given me his account details to log in and order from the main sony website with HUGE discount. I'm toying with a 65 inch 4k set which is £2399 on their site and £2299 on the high street/online. With discount I can get it for £1484. Model (kd65x8505bbu) I'm just worried that when the new sets get released this month il wish I had waited but I know the new equivalent set will be about £3k so even if I can still use the discount il be looking at at least £2k.....decisions decisions.
As a footnote sonys flagship 4k set is £19998 (kd-85x9505b) 85" screen, with my neighbours discount I can purchase it (not that I would) for £12378 which has got to be a bloody good staff discount whichever way you look at it!
Yes, but another word for "upscale" is "blur". For the most part, 1080 content on a 1080 screen will look just as good if not better. Partly depends on the quality of the upscaling algorithm as there are variances, but nobody is using CSI-style image enhancements (because such techniques don't exist; at least not in the way they exist in CSI). Again, the quality of colour reproduction is way more important, but if that's all equal then a 4k screen won't look worse, it's just unlikely to look equally good at the same price point. Obviously a £2,000 4k TV will look better than a £500 1080 TV, but that has nothing to do with the resolution.
I prefer our two 4K models to our two FullHD sets when viewing digital photos. For video content there is little difference. Will not buy sub-UHD from now.
These are very adroitly observed points!
I don't like the way that smart tvs phone home with gok what sort of info. (Not that STBs are any less likely to do this).
As someone who is mildly toying with the idea of 4K, I have found the comments in this thread extremely interesting, thanks guys!
True, but it's much easier to have fair competition between STBs so there is some market pressure on them not to do anything too terrible, and it's much cheaper to switch. OTOH a TV is a major purchase and there are only 4 big manufacturers of panels IIRC (Samsung, Sony, Sharp and LG) so there will never be much competition in that market. Plus Samsung has a history of being incompetent while Sony has a history of being monopolist and trying to make everything proprietary (and their recent security record isn't exactly shining either).
In an ideal world there would be fully open STBs, but due to the insistence on DRM (by, among others, Sony) there can never be a 100% open platform capable of running Netflix. However, it is currently possible in theory to build your own STB with Linux and only the DRM module needs a binary install. This would at least provide a route to prevent any manufacturer-installed parasitic software. I believe manufactuer-specific stuff can also be blocked at the firewall without affecting other functionality, but it would most likely break security updates and of course, neither of these is an option for the average home user that just wants a TV that isn't spying on them. Still, the threat that someone could launch a Kickstarter and have a consumer-ready device on the market in a few months should help keep the STB makers honest.
I have had two 65" Samsung 4k TV's I didn't get on with the curved model so revert back to a flat screen.
I got the 4k film pack with mine, a load of pants really given the RRP is £145 (came free with mine) it has Life of Pi and World War Z on it in 4k and must admit it is good! Flesh texture is outstanding, animals in Life of Pi looked epic and poor old Brad Pitt look pretty weathered in WWZ
Have had an ongoing Netflix issue, all my samsungs upstairs are fine on Netflix but my 2 Samsungs downstairs just won't connect to it so can't check out the 4k stuff on there (not sure if it's fully up and running yet)
^^^ (referring to robt's post) Once again, very good points.
Too true!
Samsung's DLNA implementation seems bizarrely flaky in my experience. I.e. Sometimes it works, then just stops.
Well, less dishonest at least. ;-)
I'd love to see privacy legislation that required manufacturers of any device or software to specify clearly and explicitly what it communicated, when, why, and with whom, complete with precise data formats.
Last edited by markrlondon; 7th February 2015 at 12:22.
Agreed, and it should always be possible to opt out by blocking/disabling each individual feature: the current approach of e.g., "don't use Facebook if you don't like their T&Cs" would work only if Facebook didn't have a de-facto global monopoly. When that becomes "don't buy that TV" it fails similarly due to oligopoly, since all the device makers will be doing more or less the same thing.
It's a shame politicians (and to large extent the electorate) are completely out of touch with technology issues and generally fail to take a long term view of this stuff. Because the privacy erosion happens a little bit at a time, the popular reaction is that to complain is to overreact. Before you know it, incidents like Uber blackmailing journalists becomes commonplace and it's too late to do anything meaningful about it.
Last edited by robt; 7th February 2015 at 13:26.
I totally agree. As you say, lack of technological literacy and the crowd-think that causes people who speak out to be ignored or even ridiculed are causing serious long term damage.
Samsung make it very clear what they might be phoning home with....
Lovely!Samsung make it very clear what they might be phoning home with....
Apparently GCHQ/NSA have access to BT Homehubs. So if I was paranoid, worrying about someone taking over my Smart TV would be the least of my concerns.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardwar...bt-back-door/1
A lot of routers have some sort of back door (either intentional or accidental due to bugs or poor design or poor default config) or remote admin API. It's not just BT Homehubs. Locking down (or at least knowing what is going on with) all Internet-connected devices is part of good security, not paranoia.
If anyone is local to Milton Keynes and wants to have a proper trial of a 4k Samsung TV give me a shout, I have had the TV picture setup as well.
Or as long as it's returned I'm more then happy to post out the Samsung 4k film pack (only works on Samsung 4k TV's)
I'm just about to pull the trigger on the 55 inch version of that TV, break my heart and tell me how much it is with the staff discount
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