When does 4k become mainstream? I'm looking for a new TV and can't decide if I need 4k. Will you hel

Ricochet J · 19 Sep 2015 at 14:43

I'm looking for a new TV. I budgeted £500/£600 for the best TV & largest size I can get at that price point.

But then 4k TVs are in that £1000s price bracket. I can go up to that price as long as it's justified.

Our TV habits tend to be Netflix, Amazon Prime and online streaming content. Very, very little Freeview, and No DVDs/Blurays etc

What do you think?

Quartz · 19 Sep 2015 at 15:02

Unless you have access to 4K content, don't bother.

FloppyPoppy · 19 Sep 2015 at 15:19

Sony KDL-50W805C

In your price range 1080p and absolutly stunning. I dont see 4k being mainstream for many years. Get a great 1080p screen opposed to a poor quality 4k screen that will make 99% of content in the coming years look worse

Ps my main use of this tv is netflix and simply in awe everytime i put it on. The hobit and OITNB just blow people away

Westie · 19 Sep 2015 at 15:50

i have same TV above... brilliant piece of kit.. i also have it setup via HDMI to my PC and optical to my amp for 7.1 and its a brilliant TV for sofa and controller games... zero input lag and looks fantastic when setup..

only 4k content is netflix and ULTRAHD sports channel on BT afaik.. maybe sky doing it soon too?

MissChief · 19 Sep 2015 at 17:26

4k is here already but content is limited although improving. Netflix, Amazon Prime video, BT and Sky next year (I believe, not heard anything more than rumours) along with UHD Blu-Rays in the next 6-9 months mean that if you really wanted to, yes you can watch 4k content but at a decent expense.

Psycho Sonny · 19 Sep 2015 at 18:40

I don't understand why anyone would buy 4K if they really knew anything about picture quality.

1080P is where it's at and likely will be for the next 5 years.

And oh btw to everyone who bought a 4K tv like I said 8K will be what everyone is buying by the time it's mainstream. 8K tv's launching this year already.

Personally I'll wait for OLED to mature. I don't care what the res is so long as it's OLED.

TALON1973 · 19 Sep 2015 at 18:55

Well I picked up a Samsung UE40JU6550 4k tv for £418 .. factor in selling in my old tv for £150 , and i'm paying £268 for 4k . Whiel its a little earlier than I was looking at getting one , its a nice picture and I wont have a problem buying another in say 18 months time if I want to replace it as things take off further .

Alpherah · 19 Sep 2015 at 18:55

Its amazing to think we're talking about 4k and you can't even get every channel available in uncompressed SD, let alone HD or 4k!

FloppyPoppy · 19 Sep 2015 at 19:04

Psycho Sonny said:
I don't understand why anyone would buy 4K if they really knew anything about picture quality.

1080P is where it's at and likely will be for the next 5 years.

And oh btw to everyone who bought a 4K tv like I said 8K will be what everyone is buying by the time it's mainstream. 8K tv's launching this year already.

Personally I'll wait for OLED to mature. I don't care what the res is so long as it's OLED.

OLED is life

TheVoice · 19 Sep 2015 at 19:11

TALON1973 said:
Well I picked up a Samsung UE40JU6550 4k tv for £418 .. factor in selling in my old tv for £150 , and i'm paying £268 for 4k . Whiel its a little earlier than I was looking at getting one , its a nice picture and I wont have a problem buying another in say 18 months time if I want to replace it as things take off further .

Can't see any point in a 40" 4K set myself, for the same money you could've had a 50" 1080p one.

nicktay2605 · 19 Sep 2015 at 19:55

I recently bought a Panasonic TX-50CX700B 4k TV. It's had excellent reviews across the board and upscales HD content really well. Plus, while it is more than the W829 that someone mentioned above, it's not a lot more. I'd argue that if you are looking to buy a TV at the moment, why bother limiting yourself in terms of picture quality? Sure, there isn't much 4k content out there, but things are improving. Netflix and Amazon are doing a good job of pushing 4k and by next year physical 4k content will become more commonplace.

If you're looking to spend anywhere up to £1000 then I'd either suggest going fairly cheap on a 1080p screen (I certainly wouldn't spend more than £500-600 on a 1080p screen), or I'd take a look at the CX700 or the Sony X85C that's available for under £1000. The Sony is particularly tempting because it will be receiving HDR support so it's quite future-proofed, though the Android OS on it is supposed to be a bit buggy.

FloppyPoppy · 19 Sep 2015 at 20:44

nicktay2605 said:
I recently bought a Panasonic TX-50CX700B 4k TV. It's had excellent reviews across the board and upscales HD content really well. Plus, while it is more than the W829 that someone mentioned above, it's not a lot more. I'd argue that if you are looking to buy a TV at the moment, why bother limiting yourself in terms of picture quality?

Problem being a £600-£800 4K Tv simply wont look as good as a £600- £800 1080p display with most available content. Plus you have how it was rendered - what camera it was shot with making a mahoosive difference a clip shot in 4k and rendered in 1080p and 4k side by side will be "indistinguishable" <--- yes i stole that word

There is a video knocking around called "4k is it worth it" by LTT Worth a watch.

gothic_hobbit · 19 Sep 2015 at 20:51

Alpherah said:
Its amazing to think we're talking about 4k and you can't even get every channel available in uncompressed SD, let alone HD or 4k!

True.

Standard definition channels look like VHS quality.

spoffle · 19 Sep 2015 at 20:51

"4K" will become mainstream when it becomes 4K. UHD is on its way to becoming mainstream however.

FloppyPoppy · 19 Sep 2015 at 20:54

Edit posted twice

spoffle · 19 Sep 2015 at 21:12

gothic_hobbit said:
True.

Standard definition channels look like VHS quality.

That isn't a fair representation of standard definition. A DVD should be the benchmark for standard definition, not some really crappy low bit rate broadcast TV. I'm convinced they reduce the bit rate (in addition to make room) to exaggerate the difference between SD and HD.

TALON1973 · 19 Sep 2015 at 21:17

TheVoice said:
Can't see any point in a 40" 4K set myself, for the same money you could've had a 50" 1080p one.

For me the simple answer is I cant have any bigger . I had a 49" lg plasma before I had to move out of previous house. it was an awesome tv .... and I bought a bad £400 panny lcd 39" ( in comparison ) . My new 40" 4k Samsung reminds me of that 49" lg in many ways for picture .... and to my eyes beats it for certain things . The motion frequency isn't the best tho, so that's my compromise atm

TALON1973 · 19 Sep 2015 at 21:18

spoffle said:
That isn't a fair representation of standard definition. A DVD should be the benchmark for standard definition, not some really crappy low bit rate broadcast TV. I'm convinced they reduce the bit rate (in addition to make room) to exaggerate the difference between SD and HD.

I think they dropped the quality of HD broadcasts as well to make room

spoffle · 19 Sep 2015 at 21:20

TALON1973 said:
I think they dropped the quality of HD broadcasts as well to make room

Yeah I know, that's what I mean. So they've reduced the bandwidth significantly of the SD broadcasts to make the HD look much better.

squired · 20 Sep 2015 at 00:09

As and when 4k content does become available you will pay a pretty lumpy premium for it in the next few years. Unless I'm mistaken some of the current Sky packages still require you to pay a premium for HD. As it is, the quality of HD has deteriorated over recent years. As they start properly adding 4k channels they will see similar drops in quality from where they start.

Personally I'd only bother with a 1080p TV for now. My brother was desperate to drop a small fortune on 4k, but I've managed to talk him out of it for now.

On a related matter, given the premium for Bluray over DVD and the premium they added for 3D, what premium are people expecting for the new 4K disks when they launch?

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