4k with lower res media

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xpd

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#261461 29-Nov-2019 08:19

Wife is making noises about getting LED TV for the lounge to replace our 10 year old Panasonic plasma.... I'm all for it, but looking around, FullHD (1080) options are very limited now and at a premium price.

I know 4K is what I should be looking at, but I have no (as in zero, nada, zilch, nein) 4k media and not interested in replacing my existing media with 4k copies.

1080 material isn't so bad on 4k, but anything under 1080, looks absolutely shocking to me. Can see compression artifacts and pixelation badly on lower res media. Streaming options I use dont offer 4k.

So to me at this stage 4K is not the standard for me..... yet finding anything around 50" FullHD looks to be a mission.

Do I just have to get a 4K screen and done with it..........

XPD / Gavin

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chevrolux

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#2362542 29-Nov-2019 08:34

Yep, get a 4K TV and be done with it haha!

But I fully agree, anything lower than 1080 looks absolutely terrible. But to be fair, what do you watch these days that isn't a minimum of 1080?

xpd

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#2362547 29-Nov-2019 08:49

chevrolux:

Yep, get a 4K TV and be done with it haha!

But I fully agree, anything lower than 1080 looks absolutely terrible. But to be fair, what do you watch these days that isn't a minimum of 1080?

A lot of stuff actually :)

Movies and TV shows that never had a HD release. Stack of DVDs that never had BR release. Quite a bit of stuff :)

Anything newer, then yeah, obviously will be 720+.

XPD / Gavin

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#2362617 29-Nov-2019 09:13

Most TVs do pretty good 1080p upscaling these days. A lot of streaming services still only offer content in 1080p; TVNZ, lightbox, neon, hell even a good bit of Netflix's catalog is still FullHD, but with a good TV it doesn't look as bad as DVDs used to look on 1080p screens.

And 4k media is only growing in market saturation, so just because you don't have it, doesn't mean you won't get it in the next 10 years. Not to mention the growing streaming 4k content offered, which sits somewhere in between BR 1080p and 4k content in quality.

Don't fight it, just go with it. Future @xpd will thank you for your foresight.

Edit: Just read about the DVD library, yeah... ain't no up-scaling powerful enough to make that look pretty.

Probably the bigger win you may not have thought about is HDR content. I will admit on more than one occasion I have failed to notice the difference between UHD BR and upscaled 4k, but you will notice a difference in SDR and HDR.

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#2362642 29-Nov-2019 09:18

You say you will watch zero 4K content, but are you sure?

Do you not use any streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Disney+? These services are getting more and more 4K HDR content and will continue to do so.

Many older movies are being released to blu-ray in 4K HDR. I understand you don't want to replace your media, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the streaming services replace the 1080p versions they are currently streaming with the new 4K HDR versions.

Even if your eyes can't tell the difference between 1080p and 4k (on a 50-55 inch you probably can't), going 4K is still worth it for HDR.

On another note, if you are going from a Panasonic plasma you may find the black levels on an LED disappointing if you watch in a dimly lit room. Former plasma owners tend to go OLED.