Question about AVRs and 4K

h4rm0ny · 17 Jan 2017 at 21:58

I'm thinking of buying my partner a 4K TV for his birthday. We have an Xbox One S for the 4K source. Currently it runs through a Yamaha AVR box (RX-V573).

This actually says "4K pass-through", though I had never recalled it having 4K support before. However, it's pretty old and I see no mention of HDCP 2.2, HDR for example. I really just want to make sure that I can still use it as I like the 5.1 sound I get from it. Can I continue to feed the signal through it from the XBox? Alternately, is there a way of feeding the sound back out from the TV to it if the former is problematic?

Any other gotchas I should look out for?

h4rm0ny · 18 Jan 2017 at 09:03

hyperseven said:
or

XBox -> TV -> AVAmp using ARC

Thanks. The TV I'm looking at does have ARC so as long as this works okay, I guess I can continue to use my existing AVR.

I'm in two minds about getting the TV. I can and I'm sure it would be a significant improvement over my current TV (a 1080P LCD bought about seven years ago) but I have this feeling we're about to see another bump up in TV performance and maybe the same money would get something much better in six months time.

h4rm0ny · 18 Jan 2017 at 19:03

Well, I could get a new AVR. It would add a few hundred to the total cost though and I'm not sure I like my partner quite that much.

It's an option but I honestly don't know that I'd hear any difference - it's not exactly a dedicated home cinema room. It's just my living room with speakers artfully position. I do hear people raving about Dolby Atmos but then I'm on the slippery slope to buying more speakers and so on...

The TV I was considering isn't high end. It's a Hisense 55" HDR. That's honestly larger than I'd like. The current TV is a 38" Panasonic Viera from way back which has always been fine for me. We sit about nine feet away from it. However, 4K TVs don't come in smaller sizes. Which would make sense except that what I think would be really good would be the HDR which really doesn't matter what size it is. There's a Panasonic 4K TV with HDR which I have considered. I like the fact that it has Firefox OS. I really dislike the idea of having some increasingly out of date Android device plugged in at home all the time which is an annoyance with the Sony ones.

h4rm0ny · 19 Jan 2017 at 23:13

Having done some more comparison shopping on TVs, the Hisense one is still probably the one I shall go for, but I'm considering going up a little on the budget (given I will be watching this too!

) and going for a slightly more expensive LG one (Link). The reason being they have Dolby Vision HDR which seems to be better and other manufacturers are starting to support it so it might actually take off as a standard now.

However, does anyone know if the Xbox One S supports Dolby Vision? I'm uncertain whether this is something the player needs to support or if it's just the TV that will need to.

h4rm0ny · 20 Jan 2017 at 10:15

VincentHanna said:
No, it only supports HDR 10.

That's a shame. Well, it would still be a plus on the TV for future proofing, I guess.

h4rm0ny · 24 Jan 2017 at 20:20

dacads said:
I'd go with the UH850V instead Available in both 49" or 55"

Thanks! I've read some reviews and this does look a better buy. Some people say there' a noticeable jump in quality up to the UH950V and that looks appealing, but is only available in 55". I know 4K doesn't have so much value at 49", but the HDR seems like it would. Though I guess it's a present so I shouldn't invest so much of my own values into it.

h4rm0ny · 24 Jan 2017 at 21:00

The one thing that worries me with the UH850V is every review I read and every other comment from a purchaser on Amazon goes on about the local dimming and light bleed and how it spoils things for them.

h4rm0ny · 28 Jan 2017 at 16:27

Thanks for the help, everybody. I've decided against getting the TV. It was just spiralling out of control. For example I found that whilst I could use ARC to feed the sound back to my current AVR, it apparently doesn't handle the digital sound formats and will just give stereo (so speaks the man in the shop). So then to keep my current sound set up, I'd also need to get a new disc player with two HDMI outputs. Then I was getting frustrated with the amount of extra crap in all these devices that I don't want and don't trust. I'm fussy about what I connect to my home network. Android devices that I have very low expectations that TV companies will properly maintain with inbuilt microphones for voice control, disc players that have app support for everything under the Sun... Honestly, when I connect up a disc player to an AVR to a TV and every single one of those items in the chain has an OS and apps for iPlayer running on them, something has gone fundamentally wrong with the plan. Do they really not get that advertising their TV as "IoT ready" is a negative to nearly anyone who knows what it is?

None of this is really show-stopping, but I just got tired of how many things I'll have to fiddle around with and keep updated.

He's getting snowboarding stuff and he will like it. Thanks again. At least I learned a lot about TV technology.