chicagoskycam
Land of #1 Overall Picks
Didn't realize Direct TV is showing Norte Dame games in 4K, I'll have to check it out this weekend.
4K Televisions: Are they worth it?
- Thread starter I Eat Crow
- Start date
Kestrel
Registered User
- Jan 30, 2005
- 5,814
- 129
Man the price difference on TVs from Canada to the US seems ridiculous. Looking at some of the samsungs and even without the sale prices on right now the Canadian prices seem to be near double to the US prices.
I'm gonna keep plugging it as an option for the price conscious Canadian... check out Costco, and look for the Haier 65" 4k TV. Some people have complained about things like vertical banding, but Costco has a very liberal return and exchange policy. The TV is $750 before tax - buying from Costco automatically gets you a 2 year warranty - extending to 5 years was something like $50.
It won't get you HDR - but nobody will at that price at a TV anywhere near that size. If HDR is a must, this option isn't for you. If 120 Hz is a must, this option isn't for you.
I have been thrilled with mine, especially at the price. I was looking for a cheap TV to match with a radio-computer project of mine (I gutted a 1930's standup radio, and am retrofitting it with its own sound system and computer) and was planning on a 46 to 50 inch 1080p TV, but when this came along, I made the jump.
TLDR - the Haier 65" 4K TV at Costco is a dirt cheap way to get a large, 4K TV in Canada. It's not for everyone, but if it matches what you're after, it's a great deal.
chicagoskycam
Land of #1 Overall Picks
Danko
You have no marbles
- Jul 28, 2004
- 10,958
- 10,896
I've been keeping an eye on the Vizion M Series 65 and The Haier 65 which is currently $600 USD at HHGregg.
From what i gather about the Haier, the sound quality and lack of smart features are the only complaints. Its 60hz but i dunno if that would really make a difference.
Im not sure if it's HDR/Dolby Vision compat, however a 65 inch 4k tv for under 1,000 bucks sounds good to me.
From what i gather about the Haier, the sound quality and lack of smart features are the only complaints. Its 60hz but i dunno if that would really make a difference.
Im not sure if it's HDR/Dolby Vision compat, however a 65 inch 4k tv for under 1,000 bucks sounds good to me.
- Dec 2, 2007
- 17,268
- 2,213
You're on a hockey forum, I can only assume you're part of the demographic which should never ever consider a sub 120hz TV. While there is not a HUGE difference, if you notice it you'll hate the TV forever.
I've been using Plasmas for most of my lifetime and tend to notice the 60Hz floor models for the less than perfect frame by frame transition when watching sports.
Danko
You have no marbles
- Jul 28, 2004
- 10,958
- 10,896
I've been using a Sony Bravia KDL 40V3000 40 inch LCD for the last 10 years and love it, it's still working fine but have been looking for an upgrade. I believe this TV is 60hz and i watch most games on it and haven't noticed.
Kestrel
Registered User
- Jan 30, 2005
- 5,814
- 129
The sound on the Haier isn't as horrible as some people make it out to be - it's liveable... but if you have a sound bar or a stereo to hook up, it will definitely sound far better. I don't notice a problem with the 60Hz... I haven't watched any hockey - but most of your blu-rays I believe will be 60Hz anyway.
Smart features - I avoid smart TV's anyway - most companies tend not to be good at updating them, so I'd rather get my smart features from the blu-ray player, or a smart stick (ie roku) or a computer. If you absolutely do want a smart TV though, the Haier won't be the way to go. Otherwise, I think it's a fantastic price.
guinness
Not Ingrid for now
Most TVs are smart anymore, Vizio in particular is putting Googlecast (Home) into their sets, and the Smartcast app handles the content formats and advanced TV controls.
Another way I look at, is that if they bake in a Chromecast, it saves buying a separate device, the one in their 4k sets does support 2160p for example, and depending on the service, you can get HDR as well (eg Vudu, Netflix), and it frees up an HDMI input, and one of those inputs is going to be taken up my an external tuner if you want OTA channels anyhow.
chicagoskycam
Land of #1 Overall Picks
I had a Sony in that range but a 50inch, I think it was 120hz, edit it was 8 years old so maybe not.
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So I'm just not super impressed with 720p/1080p cable on my 4k Samsung. I feel like it looks worse than a 1080p TV. I know it could make sense in theory, since it's blowing up every pixel, but from what I had heard, it sounded like it should at least look equal. Thinking about taking it back and just waiting on 4k in that case. Prices on 1080 TVs are really cheap these days... so I don't know.
The problem is that most of the 4k content out there right now doesn't interest me. X1 only does up to 1080, and most of my TV watching is sports.
The problem is that most of the 4k content out there right now doesn't interest me. X1 only does up to 1080, and most of my TV watching is sports.
chicagoskycam
Land of #1 Overall Picks
Have you tried checking the thread for your model on AVS forums and seeing if there are similar issues. If you can return or exchange it for something else.
If you are watching basically the same content at the same distance on a larger screen, it could look worse but the upscale should make up for this. Maybe it's the display. I know it sounds silly but make sure you are actually getting 1080P or 4k. The display should tell you.
Yeah I'm just kinda confused. The cable box I'm currently using is only 720p, but I switched to one yesterday that was 1080p and didn't notice a huge difference. For example, right now I'm watching football and the ball looks sort of pixelated when moving through the air. I was less than impressed watching hockey the past two days as well. It says I'm getting 720p (and earlier 1080p), so maybe it's just the source I'm watching from. Xbox certainly looks great on it, so no complaints there.
It just feels like I'm missing something. I've tried changing settings to some recommended setups, and I think it's in Sports mode right now, but neither made much of a difference.
I've gone to Youtube to watch some 4K, and it definitely looks good. But I'm not as "wowed" as I expected coming from a 32" 720p TV. I want to find something with HDR vs. the same video without HDR to compare how that looks.
I'm going to do some more research into it to see what other people are experiencing, but given that I will end up watching most of my sports in 1080p, I want that to look pretty clear on my TV.
The sound even seems off by a fraction of a second. Tried both cable and Youtube there as well.
chicagoskycam
Land of #1 Overall Picks
Try avsfourms and then play with it until you are close to having to return it.
Like when I 1st got mine I had to set my direct tv box to auto detect the different signals or else it was using 720P. If the Xbox looks great it may be the source. Have you tried Netflix or Amazon 4k content.
Like when I 1st got mine I had to set my direct tv box to auto detect the different signals or else it was using 720P. If the Xbox looks great it may be the source. Have you tried Netflix or Amazon 4k content.
Most sports content is in 720p, since 720p is 60fps and fast-moving action looks much better at 60fps. In comparison, 1080i (because most networks don't broadcast in 1080p yet) is really only 30fps (technically, it's 60 fields per second, but every 2 fields is only one frame). So, if sports is mostly what you're watching, that's why you're not noticing much of a difference from your old TV.
Even 1080i isn't that much nicer than 720p. You're not going to really see the benefits of a new TV unless you're watching content from Blu-Ray discs or Netflix/YouTube/Amazon, since that content is of higher quality than 1080i; it's 1080p up to 4K (and with HDR). If all that you're watching is typical cable/satellite programming, you're not going to notice much difference between a $500 TV and a $5000 one.
Was gonna buy a 4k tv buy my brother had a 270 dollar insignia sitting around in his house so it would've been unconscionable to waste money on a TV just for myself
I'm off the bandwagon folks
I'm off the bandwagon folks
chicagoskycam
Land of #1 Overall Picks
This and your provider could be compressing the **** out of your feed. NBC, Fox and CBS are pretty much 1080i for sports now, ABC and ESPN are 720P. NBC is doing some 4k. Watching the Norte Dame game on Directtv, channel 106 in 4K. Pretty amazing. Kinda brings back to the days of HDNET with one channel playing 24/7 content.
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Actually, none of the over-the-air networks broadcast in 1080p, and that's not likely to change any time soon. Older HDTV tuners and ATSC converter boxes don't even support over-the-air 1080p. I'm not even 100% sure newer TV tuners support it, since there's nothing to try it out on. And with as much fretting by the public over the transition from NTSC to ATSC several years ago, there's no way the FCC would allow a broadcaster to use 1080p and potentially cut millions out. Also, 1080p likely would look pretty bad on an ATSC channel.
The biggest problem with local stations is how they bit-starve their channels. An ATSC channel has ~19 Mbit of bandwidth, and a 1080i channel at a full 19 Mbit looks pretty good. Unfortunately, most broadcasters in decent-sized markets cram 2 or more subchannels into their allocated bandwidth. To do that, they have to heavily compress the main HD channel to make room for them. One broadcaster where I'm at has 5(!) subchannels, and their main HD feed looks terrible because of it.
FLYLine27*
BUCH
It's official..I purchased a 4K TV
http://www.pcrichard.com/Samsung/Sa...-4K-HDR-Ultra-HD-LED-Smart-TV/UN65KU6300.pcrp
http://www.pcrichard.com/Samsung/Sa...-4K-HDR-Ultra-HD-LED-Smart-TV/UN65KU6300.pcrp
chicagoskycam
Land of #1 Overall Picks
It's a good point, I doubt they ever do OTA 4k. It will be up to the providers and then specific sports to film in it, NFL, ect. Most of the content will come from streaming services, DVD, Xbox, ect.
chicagoskycam
Land of #1 Overall Picks
I think if you stick with one of the big three, Samsung, Sony or LG you can't go wrong. Some people on here are having luck of other brands. Be weary of cheap displays. I have no idea what displays go for over there.
guinness
Not Ingrid for now
So I added the 4k option to my Netflix plan, and found out that seeing the differences with HDR is super duper dependent on the picture mode - when I had my Vizio on calibrated mode, it was just too dark to catch the subtle differences in dynamic range, but switching over standard, and tweaking the picture was like night and day. Additionally, did find out that the Vizio's built-in Chromecast does 4k and HDR just fine, so saves a bit of money buying a new upgraded Roku.
Room lighting plays a part too, I have somewhat strong side lighting coming in from my doorwall, and it can cause reflections.
And on the plus side, HDR video isn't as fake looking as most HDR pictures I've seen online that people create in PS or LR.
Unfortunately, the content is lacking, so while something like Marco Polo looks good, it's a rather boring series, and even though Prime was $80 the other day, I can just never find Prime compelling enough to purchase, and I don't think Amazon has great exclusives either, and the rest of the added content isn't good enough for me to drop Netflix or GPM.
Room lighting plays a part too, I have somewhat strong side lighting coming in from my doorwall, and it can cause reflections.
And on the plus side, HDR video isn't as fake looking as most HDR pictures I've seen online that people create in PS or LR.
Unfortunately, the content is lacking, so while something like Marco Polo looks good, it's a rather boring series, and even though Prime was $80 the other day, I can just never find Prime compelling enough to purchase, and I don't think Amazon has great exclusives either, and the rest of the added content isn't good enough for me to drop Netflix or GPM.
Yeah, 4K is going to be primarily limited to streaming services and hard-copy media like Blu-ray, with some limited channels from satellite providers. Even cable is going down the route of IP-based streams for their 4K content, as QAM channels are stretched thin enough as it is.
Keep in mind that while Netflix (and Amazon/YouTube/Vudu/etc.) 4K looks good, it's still heavily compressed. It's nowhere near what actual, true lossless 4K HDR should look like. For that, people are going to have to adopt 4K Blu-ray.
guinness
Not Ingrid for now
True, but UHD BR players are still expensive, disc prices, and the selection of movies are hot garbage ATM.
While I generally prefer physical media for my movies, right now everything reminds me of mostly tech demos and loud action movies to show off pretty explosions and surround sound systems.
Meanwhile, 4k Netflix is only an extra $2/month, and I get most of my BR movies for less than $10-15.
