Is 4K worth it?
 

I have a 49" HD TV and I'm considering upgrading to a 55" 4K. Is the improvement in picture quality worth it? I rarely watch stuff in SD these days, I tend to stick to HD, Blu Ray and PC gaming. I use my PC for all my media except Blu Ray and I currently have an Nvidia GTX 970 GPU which I believe can put out HDMI 2.0

I'd like some opinions from you guys who have gone 4K.

Thanks.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

I saw a 55" 4K panel in the Reading Richer Sound's shop and the picture quality and definition was superb, so I think a 55" 4K would suit you fine.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

I suppose it depends on what 4K sources you have?

I've seen 4K on demo in a Panasonic store and it was incredible with a custom made 4k source. But around the corner was one being fed by a BluRay that just looked washed out.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

Quite.

By the time 4K content is widely available the prices will have come down too.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

4K is well worth the money, upscales HD picture and mine looks great when playing Blu-ray Discs - I have a Sony 43"

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

So you're proposing to ditch a perfectly working 49" telly, just to get the ability to watch 4k, when you watch HD & BluRay mostly?

Why not just keep what you've got, unless you're sitting about 12" away you won't see the difference anyway.

Before the 4k fanboys jump in, simple laws of physics...

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

Not denying the laws of Physics, but I replaced my old Samsung 40inch 1080P LED TV with an LG 4K 43 inch LED TV. The picture on the LG is far superior, even for 1080P content. It looks absolutely stunning showing 4K HDR content from Netflix and Prime Video (although be aware you do have to upgrade your Netflix subscription to the Premium one to get 4k HDR).

That said, I bought mine when the previous Samsung died. Would I have bought it had the Samsung carried on working (or had the repairs not cost nearly as much as my new TV)? No.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

For the size of most living rooms in the UK, 1080p is more than enough

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

You may find this helpful.

https://www.tekrevue.com/tv-screen-size-calculator/

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

I was CONSIDERING upgrading if the PICTURE QUALITY is WORTH it.

---------- Post added at 19:04 ---------- Previous post was at 19:01 ----------

Thanks for your responses, I think I'll be sticking with the 49" LG.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

I'd hold fire, we saw what happened with 3D that was going to be "the" thing, which was really a vehicle for techno companies to try and sell us more product.

Let's see if it really is viable. HD was a dramatic improvement over SD but as for 4K or even 8K in the average front room?

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

Still think HD is the 'emperor's new clothes' ...

4k will soon become 8k when samsung, sony et al need a profit boost.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

Seriously?

Do you have a 32" TV?

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

I've read that HDR is a bigger jump than 4K. Also OLED.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

I'll buy a new TV set when our 7 year old Sony 40" HD packs up, not before. I have an inbuilt resistance to buying the 'latest version' of anything but each to his/her own.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

it'll be worth it - when there's serious content available (not just software upscaled shenanigans)

I can remember circa 2004 when SKY was promoting HD as the next and greatest thing, yet here we are 13 years later and there's still SD channels around.

My advice?

Leave it another 5 years or so.

Why?

Prices will be a lot lower, tech will be better, and most importantly there may be a lot more 'genuine' 4k content available.

Buuut it's your money and your choice.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

Early adopters beware...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38778244

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

HD will eventually become the norm and 4K will be were HD is. As for 3D this will probably die a death.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

We've had our 4k for 2 years now. SD upscaled looks washed out, 720p upscaled looks pretty damm good, 1080p upscaled is superb & 4k is awesome. I watch as much UHD content as I can get inc Netflix & other sources.
At the time of purchase, our TV was top of the range 50" 4k 3D Panny & cost a few quid shy of £1.5k. Looking back I would have spent the same amount on a larger but non-3D tv by Panasonic. 3D is good in 4k but more of a gimmick, watching terrestrial tv in 3D lasted about a whole day & we've watched around a dozen 3D films & that's it. Quite a lot of the major manufacturers are no longer producing or adding 3D going forward.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

Waste of money then.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

I'll probably upgrade to 4k if or when it becomes the norm. I can't see myself paying extra for something that doesn't really interest me at this point then having to pay out more just for content. It's the same with 3D, unless it's a rare film such as Gravity, Avatar or the odd animation but after about 10 minutes I forget it's 3D as it is the film that I'm interested in, so it'll be the same with 4k. It's not going to make a film any better or worse.

I'm happy with my 42" 1080p with a decent full on surround system which does make a better overall experience. The picture is great and for my room anything larger would look stupid. So I much prefer a better sound system more than I would over 4k.

Re: Is 4K worth it?
 

SD is going to be around for a while yet. There are a couple of reasons. One being that not every channel and production house can afford to chuck out old equipment every time the resolution goes up. You and I might have set top boxes, TVs and DVRs to replace. A productions house will have multiple cameras, studio equipment and editing suites to replace. One suite can cost upward of £100,000 to upgrade. That's ignoring the thousands of pounds of network and power upgrades they may need.

Incidentally, this was one of the primary reasons the BBC moved out of White City. It would be naive to assume that property value didn't cross the BBC's mind (after all, the site would be worth at least tens of millions), but one of the reasons was that Television Centre needed millions of pounds of upgrades to cope with the power and data requirements of the latest hardware and software upgrades that the BBC needed to make to enable HD on more channels..

The other reason is that HD (even with more advanced compression systems) takes a lot more bandwidth on any given transmission system (every system has a finite amount of capacity for channels, this is commonly known as the bandwidth). The likes of Virgin and Sky would have to cut the amount of channels they carry by a lot to make them all HD. When one of your selling points is the amount of channels you offer (even if 75% of them are crap) you'd be stupid to switch off the SD ones.