4K televisions are a waste of money

Discussion in 'Blazers OT Forum' started by Draco, Nov 5, 2014.

  1. EL PRESIDENTE

    EL PRESIDENTE Username Retired in Honor of Lanny.

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    You don't want that much detail.
     
  2. SlyPokerDog

    SlyPokerDog Woof! Staff Member Administrator

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    Why didn't you wait until Black Friday or Cyber Monday to buy it?
     
  3. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Seiki sells a 39" UHD TV for ~$400
     
  4. Draco

    Draco Well-Known Member

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    Because I moved to a new city with an empty apartment and needed a TV that day to watch Blazers games.
     
  5. Draco

    Draco Well-Known Member

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    Yeah this is what I'm agreeing with. If I was using a big projector that was 100" or more then 1080p starts to look choppy. So those sizes would have a huge benefit to 4K.

    But at 65" there isn't much of a benefit. 4K for a TV 50" or smaller is a total joke.
     
  6. santeesioux

    santeesioux Just keep on scrolling by

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    I'm not even crazy enough to buy a 4k monitor for PC gaming yet...
     
  7. Draco

    Draco Well-Known Member

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    Theater screens are measured in feet not inches so they need much higher resolutions to have the same sharpness.

    That picture is very misleading as it has the 1080p side zoomed in and only at a resolution of a couple hundred pixels. Thats a fraction of what a full high quality 1080p image would actually look like. Not at all applicable to a consumer TV either.

    I take pictures with a 20megapixel DSLR camera which has 10x the resolution of 1080p, and over double the resolution of 4K. Those extra pixels can be useful with the right lens and in the right situation; such as cropping a photo. But TV is never cropped. Even with professional quality photos very often there is zero benefit to the extra pixels.
     
  8. PDXFonz

    PDXFonz I’m listening

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    I saw one of the 4k curved Samsung tvs at Costco today. I didnt really feel a huge impact from the curved TV. I wonder how many people buy it and say "oh yeah I've got one of those 4k curved tvs", only to be left speechless when asked why.
     
  9. BrianFromWA

    BrianFromWA Editor in Chief Staff Member Editor in Chief

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    I went with Black Friday pricing on Amazon. When it came down to it (and after spending hours on AVS Forum) I figured I'd go with the Samsung 55" 8700 model, which is curved but also has some of the upgrades between the 8550 ("flat") and the 9000 (flagship-ish) and looks to be more "future-proof" than the 8550 (or less). But I have until Jan 31 to send it back if it doesn't blow me away.

    In the perusal, though, I came across TONS of people who were saying that the Oppo 103D blue-ray player (amongst other things) really helped to get better quality upscaled content to the TV, whether Sony, Samsung, etc. I'm pretty interested in it, and wondering if the $500 it'll take to get that is worth dropping a couple of hundred off the TV and getting a lower-rated one and adding the oppo-driven content to it.

    Thoughts?
     
  10. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    How often do you watch blu ray disks?

    Also, I notice that the player only has HDMI 1.4a, which doesn't do 60Hz.

    [​IMG]
     
  11. GriLtCheeZ

    GriLtCheeZ "Well, I'm not lookin' for trouble."

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    [video=youtube;XZo0FX6uBnQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZo0FX6uBnQ[/video]
     
  12. BrianFromWA

    BrianFromWA Editor in Chief Staff Member Editor in Chief

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    thanks for this...I talked to the video mgr at Magnolia today about it. I don't watch a ton of blu-rays/dvds, but the ones I do are generally ones where I want high-quality video (and to a lesser extent, sound). I've already had to give up a bit of the audio stuff, b/c it, uh, "does not fit in with the décor aesthetic that we're going for". But for our apartment arrangement now we're only about 8' from the TV and going with the 55" and I want to futureproof as much as we can. So I'm waiting for the Oppo version to come out in the spring (once they've codified 4k Blu-Ray and added the HDMI 2.0/2.2).

    Additionally, I think I want to use the Oppo as a sort of "video receiver" where I bring in my Netflix/appletv/cable into one middleware to pump output to the TV.
     
  13. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    The tv upscale, so you may not need a DVDs player that does too.
     
  14. BrianFromWA

    BrianFromWA Editor in Chief Staff Member Editor in Chief

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    from everything I've read, though, the upscaling algorithms/firmware are better on the Oppo than on a panel, especially if I'm not getting "flagship" quality. Could be wrong, though--which is why I'm posting here. :)
     
  15. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Depends on the TV. You absolutely want to use the Netflix app in the TV. Then hdmi is irrelevant. The TVs come with the decider/decompressor chip built in.

    They may end up doing a 4K DVD standard. I'd wait for this.
     
  16. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    I'd also wait for a 4K compatible audio receiver. The hdmi standard isn't final, last I checked. One you get today may become obsolete within months.
     
  17. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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  18. bodyman5000 and 1

    bodyman5000 and 1 Lions, Tigers, Me, Bears

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    I am waiting this tech out like I am waiting on solar for my roof here. I figure in a few years both will be much better.
     
  19. blue32

    blue32 Who wants a mustache ride?

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    i saw 4k at best buy........... it looks fucking amazing. but heres the deal, there is not 4k programming on tv. so who cares. wait for it. by then, u get 10k programming.
     
  20. Elton

    Elton Well-Known Member

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    I love good 4K. It's overkill in a lot of scenarios, but the kind that doesn't hurt unless you are one of the early adopters. The pioneers are always the ones with the arrows in the back. They get the thrill of discovery but the agony of overpaying for first-gen mistakes and false promises.

    I shoot 4K a lot and watching it on a good calibrated 4K TV (sometimes with true 10-bit panels) can be almost a revelation. You don't know how bad the HD we are all currently used to is until you see footage and display all rendered in the ideal setting.

    It's absured that people are paying $4-6K for ridiculous 80" 1080p TV's.
     

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