Bit of a noob question regarding UHD

NorthstaNder · 11 Jul 2018 at 22:58

Hi,

Just upgraded from an HD (1080p) set to a 4k UHD set etc and I cannot help but be a bit underwhelmed by the HD picture.

The 4k picture is corking, but my old HD set has the better 1080p picture. Is this purely down to the picture being upscaled? Anything I can tweak to improve it?

Thanks in advance.
Jonathan

lucid · 12 Jul 2018 at 00:51

Bigger TV at all?

NorthstaNder · 12 Jul 2018 at 08:01

Yes, gone from 43 to 49 so that probably doesn't help either.

Armageus · 12 Jul 2018 at 08:10

Are you definitely viewing a 1080P source (i.e. not a DVD or SD quality channel)?

Does the TV have a specific 1080P mode? (e.g. the Panasonic EX700B i just bought calls it "1080P Pixel by 4pixels"), this bypasses any scaling/interpolation and just displays each 1080P pixel as 4 Pixels at 4k (rather than any softness/artifcating caused by antialiased scaling)

I've gone from a 42" 1080P to 50" 4K, and 1080P still looks great.

NorthstaNder · 12 Jul 2018 at 08:40

I'll have to check. I'm just watching a blu ray and it looks really good. Its the HD TV channels I'm a bit underwhelmed with (BBC, ITV etc)

I'll have a look at the settings on my virgin media V6 box as well.

Kyle009 · 12 Jul 2018 at 15:33

Make sure your V6 box is set to 1080 mode in picture settings otherwise it'll be responsible for upscaling the HD/SD content and the scaler in the v6 box will be a lot worse than the one in your TV.

NorthstaNder · 19 Jul 2018 at 00:20

So if I set the V6 box to output in 1080p will the TV then upscale that to 2160?

xs2man · 19 Jul 2018 at 12:54

That's pretty much how it works. You decide what part of the signal chain likely has the better upscaler, and set all other devices to pass through to let that device do its thing. It may not be your TV that has the best results from upscaling (it may be your amp for example), but it usually is the TV to be fair.

NorthstaNder · 19 Jul 2018 at 15:59

Ok thank you. I'm sure I tried setting the V6 to 1080p and the TV then reverted to 1080p as well.
There must a setting I'm missing somewhere.
TV is a.Sony KD49XE8004

Randomface74 · 19 Jul 2018 at 16:07

following

NorthstaNder · 19 Jul 2018 at 16:34

Am I right in thinking...

Set V6 box to 2160p and it will do the upscaling?

Set V6 to 1080p and the TV will upscale to 2160p bit still report the resolution as 1080p when the info button is pressed?

Armageus · 19 Jul 2018 at 16:51

NorthstaNder said:
Am I right in thinking...

Set V6 box to 2160p and it will do the upscaling?

Set V6 to 1080p and the TV will upscale to 2160p bit still report the resolution as 1080p when the info button is pressed?

Yep

NorthstaNder · 19 Jul 2018 at 18:12

And the second option is the way to go?

VincentHanna · 19 Jul 2018 at 18:17

Depends on the TV, but I'd trust my £2400 OLED to have better upscaling than a cheap virgin media box.

NorthstaNder · 19 Jul 2018 at 18:39

VincentHanna said:
Depends on the TV, but I'd trust my £2400 OLED to have better upscaling than a cheap virgin media box.

Sony KD49XE8004. But only £645

Armageus · 19 Jul 2018 at 18:52

NorthstaNder said:
Sony KD49XE8004. But only £645

Should definitely be better, and hopefully there will be options for either an image processed scaling (X-Reality or Reality Creation on Sony I think?), and a "direct"/"pure" 1->4 pixel mode (where each pixel is doubled both directions, with no software processing).

On my Panasonic I've not noticed any issue leaving the software scaling turned on (despite "direct" scaling normally being a "sharper" picture), generally it will come down to personal preference and different source material.

NorthstaNder · 19 Jul 2018 at 21:13

I've found the option I needed on the V6 box. Basically I selected every resolution which means the V6 will let the TV do the scaling so illI see how that looks

NorthstaNder · 19 Jul 2018 at 21:18

5 mins later and it already looks better!

Thanks all for pointing me in the right direction

Bigpig · 19 Jul 2018 at 21:28

NorthstaNder said:
5 mins later and it already looks better!

Thanks all for pointing me in the right direction

If am not mistaken Sony TVs have the best upscalers.