SIGNALS

Angels on My Shoulders: To 4K or Not to 4K

Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Mar 31, 2015

I’m shopping for a new TV. Should I buy an older technology that performs well and costs very little, or a newer technology that is better but costs more? Specifically, I’m trying to decide which LCD to buy—HD or 4K? Two angels have landed on my shoulders. As you might expect, they have very different points of view...

Do the Right Thing
The angel on my right shoulder is gently coaxing me to buy a 4K TV. She recites all the advantages of 4K. Most significantly, 4K resolution is clearly superior to any HDTV. Do the math: 3840 x 2160 versus 1920 x 1080—that’s four times the resolution! Just look at the detail in that picture! Imagine what a huge, theatrical size screen you could get! Don’t forget that manufacturers usually put their best technologies in their 4K TVs; it isn’t just the number of pixels—4K TVs are often the best all around.

Buying a 4K is also smart because you future-proof yourself. You should never buy older technology; you’re just hastening obsolescence. It’s best to get ahead of the curve. Why spend money on an HDTV that you’ll most likely replace in a few years? Go ahead and get a 4K—that will be a wise investment for many years to come. Short-term, its upscaling will make lower-res content look great, and as 4K content ramps up, everything will just get better and better.

Beyond the technical advantages of 4K, she reminds me of the ethical imperatives. Every fledgling technology needs nurturing by early adopters to help it leave its nest. Turning your back on a new technology is tantamount to killing it. Conversely, the more people who buy 4K TVs, the more 4K content will appear, and that will spur sales of 4K TVs—chickens and eggs! Last, she reminds me that I am a tech guy; if I don’t support 4K, how can I expect anyone else to? I didn’t buy 3D, and look what happened to that. I am morally obligated.

Don’t Be Stupid
The angel on my left shoulder has other opinions. She argues that it would be a serious mistake to buy a 4K TV. Whenever a new technology comes along, manufacturers and retailers start hyping it. HDTV is inadequate, you must have 4K, blah, blah, blah. If you believe that load of bull, you deserve a 4K. Ouch.

For starters, 4K is a solution in search of a problem. That kind of resolution may be OK on a phone that’s a foot from your eyes, but unless your screen is gargantuan (say, 80 inches), it’s useless on a TV at a normal viewing distance. Your eyes simply cannot resolve that extra resolution. Besides, pixel count is irrelevant; a 12-MP camera is certainly not inherently better than an 8-MP camera; only suckers buy cameras based on the number of pixels.

4K is evil! It killed plasma and in comparison, 4K’s contrast ratio, off-axis viewing, and motion resolution are all mediocre. Don’t forget that 4K doesn’t magically appear. It requires fatter pipes or, more likely, even greater compression. In the real world, because of artifacts from increased compression, your 4K could look absolutely terrible.

Speaking of 4K content—there isn’t any. By the time native 4K content ramps up, your 4K TV will be old; new 4K TVs will be better and cost less. Why take the financial hit now on a 4K TV when you can’t utilize its benefits for years to come? Someday, 4K will be ubiquitous, but for now, it doesn’t make any sense.

Finally, in a clever bit of psychology, she argues that worrying about TVs is a first-world problem that I should be ashamed of. I shouldn’t buy a new TV. But if I must buy something, I should humbly get HD.

Wow. Their incessant chatter is driving me nuts. Now I am just totally confused. I guess that means I should get a curved 4K 80-inch OLED?

COMMENTS
Old Ben's picture
Submitted by Old Ben on March 31, 2015 - 5:28am

You may be buying the latest and greatest resolution, but that doesn't mean you have future proofed yourself. Aren't the connection standards for 4K still somewhat undetermined?

I'm glad we waited to get an HDTV until 2008. Yes, 1080P was around before then, but the resolutions/refresh rates standards weren't really resolved yet. My memory may be a little rusty, but I think 2008 is around when a lot of HDTVs started to provide native 24 fps and variants thereof. Considering how many blu ray movies output 24 fps, I would probably be seriously annoyed by the artifacts caused by a 60 Hz HDTV interpolating a 24 fps source.

Rich67's picture
Submitted by Rich67 on March 31, 2015 - 6:43am

The real advances are to come with wider color gamut and 10 bit color, not increased pixel count. Any set you buy now should have HDCP 2.2 inputs and should support the as yet not defined Rec. 2020. If the set doesn't you'll have a very obsolete expensive TV. In my opinion, for now, 4K is just a selling tool. It gets you very little, but bragging rights, for a lot more money.

jnemesh's picture
Submitted by jnemesh on March 31, 2015 - 3:27pm

Seriously, get over it. 4k (or at least UHD) is the future. Problems or not...you are probably going to own one, and sooner than you imagine!

Have you LOOKED at Samsung's 2015 lineup? It's ALL UHD, from the mid 6000 series on up! Want 1080p? Hope you like an entry level product! If you want anything REMOTELY decent, you are going to buy a UHD set this year...even if it's only to watch upscaled content at the moment. Retail price on an entry level UHD 55" set? Only $1299. At that kind of price, why WOULDN'T you buy a 4k set?

Speaking of content...there IS quite a lot out there...if you know where to look! Netflix is offering their original series, "House of Cards" and "Marco Polo" in UHD, plus "Breaking Bad" and several Hollywood movies. Amazon also has UHD content, again, mainly with their original programming, including "Transparent" and "Mozart in the Jungle". Samsung TV users can also stream and even download UHD content from M-Go.

Additionally, you can buy a $200 Nvidia Shield AndroidTV device which will natively decode Google's VP9 codec, which is used for YouTube in 4k. YouTube has TONS of UHD content to soak up, including the latest movie trailers and full length documentaries.

As for the fear of obsolescence...Samsung has you covered there too. All of their UHD sets are HARDWARE upgradable. The current sets offer HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2, but if the industry moves to DisplayPort HDMI 2.1 or something else, you spend a few hundred for a new box with all of the new connections and you are done!

So don't fear change, embrace it!

(full disclosure, I don't work for Samsung, but I do work for a distributor that sells them)

utopianemo's picture
Submitted by utopianemo on April 1, 2015 - 6:00am

It seems the comments echo those of the cherub/succub on your shoulder. As Rich67 mentioned, current 4K is not the 4K you should care too much about. More importantly than even color Gamut to me is high dynamic range. Color Gamut, HDR, HDCP 2.2 and so on are what you should be looking for before being willing to shell out the big bucks.

dommyluc's picture
Submitted by dommyluc on April 2, 2015 - 9:56am

Why is this different than any other new technology? When HDTVs were first introduced, there was barely any content whatsoever, and for years all you had was 720P resolution. And I remember that the 42" Pioneer plasmas around 2000 were a helluva lot more pricey than the 4K TVs are today (I saw one up in Chicago at the time that was over $9K, and had a picture that seemed like you were looking through a screen door). It looked cool on the wall, but a Woodstock poster would be a lot cheaper if you wanted something cool to hang on a wall.
And in the era of 4K HDTVs, why are we still using those outdated seating distance recommendations per screen size? I can see sitting 15 feet away from a 70" screen when you had transmission scan lines that would look like they were a half-inch high in the days of analog TV (unless you had a line doubler/interpolator that might run you between $2K t0 $15K - or more). I have to get within 12" of my 47" 1080P TV to see a pixel structure. I may only have a 12" x 21" living room, but I would be quite happy to put a brand spanking new 70" 4K LED-backlit TV in it. Seating distances be damned!

dommyluc's picture
Submitted by dommyluc on April 2, 2015 - 9:58am

I have a 12 ft. by 21 ft. living room, not 12 inch by 21 inch. I may be short but I am not THAT short. LOL!

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