4k TVs and Monitors

Handruin

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I've got a few samples, looking forward to 4k BluRay for a good source of 4k content.

I'm looking forward to it also. I don't have any other content than samples and youtube stuff but as you've probably seen most youtube 4K is very compressed.

I've tried a good variety of games so far and most tolerate the 4096x2160 pretty well. A few that don't get black bars put on the sides when running at 3840x2160. The performance hasn't been bad either.
 

ddrueding

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Everything is playing well with my 3840x2160, though earlier betas of Prison Architect gave the humorous error message "unreasonable resolution".

My biggest complaint is that I'm limited to 60fps. Not sure if there are any better video protocols coming up that would allow 100Hz+ refresh.
 

Mercutio

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Netflix has some 4k content if you're on a streaming plan that says you're capable of using 4k, as do Youtube and Vimeo (if you pay for Vimeo). There's also a very small number of 2160p movie titles floating around pirate sites, though I don't know where those originate. Most humorously to me, there are a handful of porn sites that are probably the largest source of 4k content on the internet at the moment. Because the perfect test for your 70" screen isn't somebody's 2 hour HDR timelapse of Yosemite but instead a 20 minutes of some teenager getting double-teamed in resolutions high enough to diagnose melanoma.
 

Handruin

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I do have Netflix but I don't recall paying for their specific 4K streaming plan. I'll take a look and try their house of cards or one of the others that might be in 4K streaming. Many of the YouTube 4K are nice to have increased size and resolution but they all appear to lack a serious amount of visual clarity and depth to them which I think must be the result of reduced bitrate and compression. After viewing the same linked below I've found nothing else yet which offers quite that amount of clarity and visual detail. If you know of specific porn sites that might have some good sampling material I'm interesting to demo what they have if you think it's worthy of testing out a 4K monitor.

I found this small 4K Chimei inn (60mbps) 4K sample to really show off some incredible detail on this LG monitor.
 

Mercutio

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Apparently Netflix 4k streaming only works if you have a compatible SmartTV or either a Roku 4 or an nVidia Shield at the moment, and you need to be on the $8/month plan.
 

LunarMist

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Is this 4K monitor any good?
What would I need for a video card in a Windows 7 5930K machine or is that too old to support the new displays?
 

Mercutio

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With regard to the second point, you'd almost certainly want some kind of up to date discrete GPU but you do have one of the few machines out there that could probably brute force respectable 4k. ;)
 

LunarMist

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"Eizo ColorEdge CG318-4K 31.1" Widescreen LED Backlit IPS Monitor (Black) 4096 x 2160 Resolution"

It better be OUTSTANDING for that $5739 price tag. Definitely wait for some reviews.

Hmmm. I may have misread the first digit as a 3.
 

Handruin

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I'm really not getting this.

My aging Vizio TV/Monitor 120 hz does some really incredible stuff with a surf video promo, in 4k.

http://www.surfline.com/surflinetv/trailers/view-from-a-blue-moon-official-trailer_132983

WHY?

Plus I haven't upgrade the video driver for my card, since I'm not a 3D guy.
HELP!.

So you think we're mind readers? Why what?

Yeah I'm puzzled at what you're asking also. Watching 4K content on a 1080P panel will just be down sampled. It may still look incredible if it's filmed well and has a nice high bitrate from the source material. I can assure you that it will not even compare to the detail you can get out of a 4K panel.
 

Santilli

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I actually have looked at Davids, so I have some idea what they are capable of.
I'm just a bit shocked at the increase in quality, considering my TV's specs.
 

Handruin

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I actually have looked at Davids, so I have some idea what they are capable of.
I'm just a bit shocked at the increase in quality, considering my TV's specs.

The inverse may just be that you're all too familiar with sub-par content and now with good quality content you can see what your TV is capable of. :) I watched your video in 4K on YouTube and it's still no where near the quality of a really well-done 4K video strictly speaking from a resolution and detail perspective. I'm not commenting on the filming but rather the recompressed 4K sub-par content that YouTube offers. If you want to actually see something that offers very high detail through better equipment and bit rates, check out this sample I posted earlier. This demo looks amazing in 4K.

http://4ksamples.com/4k-chimei-inn-60mbps/
 

Mercutio

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I saw a 60" Vizio M-series display at my local Sam's club for $979 this morning. I'd definitely call that within the threshold of active affordability for a large screen.
I can't find a store that stocks both Vizio and LG 4k panels. I'd love to see them side by side.
 

Pradeep

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Apparently Netflix 4k streaming only works if you have a compatible SmartTV or either a Roku 4 or an nVidia Shield at the moment, and you need to be on the $8/month plan.

A friend of mine recently got a 65" curved Samsung 4k tv, I was watching The man in the high castle series on Amazon on it (the 4k version). Honestly at about 8 feet away I really couldn't see much if any difference to the 1080p version. Need a bigger screen or closer viewing distance I think.
 

Handruin

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Samsung/Amazon has some price reductions on a few of their 4K TVs for the holiday week coming up.

Samsung JS7000 Series 4K SUHD Nano Crystal LED Smart HDTV: 50" for $797.99, 55" for $997.99, 60" for $1297.99
Samsung JS8500 Series 4K SUHD Nano Crystal LED Smart HDTV 3D Smart HDTV: 55" for $1497.99, 60" for $1997.99
 

mubs

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Vizio has been in the news a lot lately for spying on the people that use its TVs. I think I read about this on either ARS or News.com
 

Mercutio

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Given how lousy the feature set is on any SmartTV, I don't know why I'd bother to give one an IP in the first place.
 

Mercutio

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Actually, I do think I'd give an IP to a TV if it supported Miracast, like the LG 4k TVs do.

Pradeep said:
A friend of mine recently got a 65" curved Samsung 4k tv, I was watching The man in the high castle series on Amazon on it (the 4k version). Honestly at about 8 feet away I really couldn't see much if any difference to the 1080p version. Need a bigger screen or closer viewing distance I think.

Can you tell from moment to moment if the 4k stream is actually being delivered? I realize the the difference for a lot of content is going to be inconsequential, but I'm guessing that it doesn't take a whole lot of network congestion to get Amazon or Netflix to drop down to plain old 1080p.
 

Pradeep

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Actually, I do think I'd give an IP to a TV if it supported Miracast, like the LG 4k TVs do.



Can you tell from moment to moment if the 4k stream is actually being delivered? I realize the the difference for a lot of content is going to be inconsequential, but I'm guessing that it doesn't take a whole lot of network congestion to get Amazon or Netflix to drop down to plain old 1080p.

Pretty sure it was in 4k as he has a 50mbit download speed and this was on a Saturday morning with nothing else going on at the time. After the initial buffering I didnt see any change in clarity. There's no way to see what it's delivering at any one moment thru any menus that I can find. Also not sure if the TV does any upscaling of 1080p Amazon content. He's ordered the Samsung HDD with a bunch of high bitrate movies, will see how those look.

I think at this point if you are going to get an HDTV a 4k capable model is the way to go, the price delta is marginal. I'd love to see these 4k shows on a projector at 120-150"+ to really revel in the extra detail.
 

Mercutio

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It's a matter of bit rate more than anything. I've seen "1080p" content off cable TV that barely looked DVD quality to me. I don't actually know what Amazon is delivering with 4k. Maybe that's a thing to investigate next.
 

Bozo

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I've talked to two people from Comcast and both said they were not delivering 4K content. Both said they would have to do some hardware upgrades just like I would have to purchase a new TV to receive and view 4K. After getting burned with the '3D- the next big thing' they are taking a wait and see position.
Both of the satellite companies that I could get said they are not delivering 4K.

So how are you getting 4K? Maybe only the larger markets are getting it?
 

Pradeep

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I haven't seen anything look good on Time Warner cable, just horrible macroblocking with high motion due to insufficient bitrate.

Reading around looks like Amazon uhd streams are 16mbit/sec using h.265, and in general a 1080p blu-ray disc will look better. Which makes sense as blu-ray can deliver over 40mbit/sec for 1080p using h.264, even giving h.265 a 2:1 improvement in compression efficiency that leaves 16*2=32mbit of h.264 equivalent bitrate for four times the pixels....it's not going to cut it.

Edited to add Amazon 4k review:

http://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-starts-4k-uhd-streams/

http://www.cnet.com/news/4k-content-guide-what-to-watch-in-4k-today/

I think we will end up seeing more visible improvements with the HDR capabilities of 4k blu-ray versus the actual 4k resolution itself, though looks like "Dolby Vision" certification is yet to hit actual end products, should see it in 2016 displays. Apparently Amazon supports HDR streaming for some displays though my friends Samsung isn't a sufficiently high end model to support it - need to have one of the "SUHD" branded models for HDR support with Samsung.
 

ddrueding

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Looks like I pulled the trigger on 4k just a bit early, my first 4k monitor (Dell UP3214Q) has a well documented issue with 4k@60 via DP1.2. My Acer B326HK units are working fine.

Shopping for a replacement for the Dell. 4k IPS is critical, at least 32" (34"-36" ideal), at least 60Hz.
 

Handruin

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I'm waiting for the release and adoption of the 4K Blu-ray more than anything else. Even most 1080P streaming content today is sub-par for my personal tastes when it comes to enjoying clarity/resolution. Some streaming content offerings aren't bad but compared to actual Blu-ray or well-converted video file, they're typically inferior. Hopefully my current TV survives until mid 2016 when there may be more 4K offerings and better content availability released.
 

Stereodude

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I'm waiting for the release and adoption of the 4K Blu-ray more than anything else.
Then there will be a dearth of actual true UHD content since the DIs of nearly all major movies are 2K, not 4K. So the studios are going to upscale the video before encoding it. I hope HDR and the wider color gamut are enough to sell the format.
 

LunarMist

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I suppose they will re-release the popular stiff in full 4K someday.
 

Mercutio

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Weren't you pretty disappointed with your previous Seiki purchase?

Bozo said:
So how are you getting 4K? Maybe only the larger markets are getting it?

It's all delivered over the internet. Samsung and Sony have proprietary delivery services and Netflix, Youtube, Vimeo and Amazon have a certain amount. I don't expect it to come out of Cable/Satellite TV boxes for some time and there's no OTA standard. Probably the easiest way to get anything in 4k is to shoot it with your own (video)camera. If you've got a source, it's definitely worth it to show it off.
 

ddrueding

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Weren't you pretty disappointed with your previous Seiki purchase?

I'm marking some of that up to early adopter stuff...that was pretty early in the whole 4k thing.

I'd rather it be made by Dell, HP, Samsung, ASUS, or just about anyone else and would happily pay a premium. But I don't see them in that space.
 

Stereodude

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If you can get a Displayport 1.2 to HDMI2.0 adapter you should be able to use any UHD TV (as long as it has the full 18gbit/sec on at least one HDMI 2.0 port).
 

ddrueding

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5k @ 60hz is lovely, but 27" is way too small for that many pixels in normal desktop use. 36" would be perfect for me. That bezel is also about twice as big as it should be.
 
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