Can I watch a UHD disc on a non UHD tv?

Mallers · 10 Jan 2018 at 07:40

Hi,
Currently I have an old HD TV (Sony kdl40X2000) and a PS3 for some games and mostly BD. For Christmas I was bought a UHD disc (Kong Skull Island - not opened cellophane yet but by comparing the sleeve with other UHD offerings I assume my one doesn't come with a bundled BD version, UHD only)
I realise I wont be able to put UHD into my PS3 to watch, and I cant yet afford both a new spinner and a new TV.
To the question - if I buy a new UHD player but leave the TV alone until I can afford a newer one, can I output a UHD to my current TV? I was hoping something along the lines of I wont get the UHD picture, but it will be watchable, and I can upgrade the TV later. If not, is the same true of standard BDs, ie would a new player output anything to my current TV for those? Also, would I need new HDMI cables (either upgrading spinner first then TV or saving for a while and doing both)? Current ones between 5 and 10 yrs old now!
many thanks!
Mallers

brakeinup · 10 Jan 2018 at 08:24

http://www.uhdbdinnumbers.com/

Scroll to the bottom.

Mallers · 10 Jan 2018 at 08:26

brakeinup said:
http://www.uhdbdinnumbers.com/

Scroll to the bottom.

Absolutely perfect! Many thanks for that, I can upgrade piece meal (not ideal but what I can afford)! Thanks for coming back so quickly as well!

lucid · 10 Jan 2018 at 08:30

As long as you set the player to match the screen resolution then yes, it will play.

The player will down convert the resolution, but also convert from High Dynamic Range (HDR) to Standard Dynamic Range (SDR). If there's going to be an issue then this is where it's likely to show up as slightly odd effects on the picture quality.

jpaul · 10 Jan 2018 at 15:44

jpaul said:
Ironically the new Pan UB400 have HDR->SDR converstors

Perhaps the most interesting new features on the Panasonic UB400, UB310 and UB300 are optimised HDR-to-SDR conversion and bright-room HDR presentation. With the former advancement, the Japanese brand aims to extract the extra detail found on Ultra HD Blu-ray discs, and provide a user-adjustable tone-mapping function to display them on an SDR TV with a final picture that surpasses 1080p Blu-rays in brightness and beauty.

Click to expand...

Annoying thing is, that many/all of the players will nonetheless not play hevc with local media.