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4K TVs: 9 Reasons You Should Buy One -- And 9 More Why You Shouldn't
Like it or not, 4K (AKA UHD) TVs are coming. In fact, they’re already here. Recent sales data from Europe, for instance, shows that 17 per cent of all TVs sold in the UK in September carried the necessary 3840×2160 resolution, with this percentage rising to 40 per cent in the 50-59-inch category, and 57 per cent in the above 60-inch category.
The question is, should you care? Does 4K genuinely enhance your TV viewing experience? Or is it just another marketing tool designed to make you upgrade your TV again sooner than you wanted to?
Here I take a look at the many pros and cons of the current 4K/UHD TV world to help you decide if 4K is for you.
4K Pros
1. 4K pictures have more detail
The most obvious benefit of TVs with native 4K resolutions is that their pictures have more detail and sharpness. After all, their 3840×2160 pixel counts equate to four times the resolution of the full HD pictures most of us are used to. Every hair on people’s heads, every leaf on every tree, every blade of grass on a football pitch, every star in the sky… every everything, in fact, snaps into focus on a good 4K TV in a way you just can’t get with an HD set. So long, at any rate, as you’re feeding your 4K TV a good-quality native 4K source – more on this in the Cons section.
Couple 4K’s sensational detail with the way the smaller size and greater density of the pixels in the screen make it almost impossible to see visible pixel structure or jagged edges in the image and you’ve got an experience many describe as more like looking through a window than watching a TV.
2. Better image depth
4K doesn’t only improve detail and general sharpness. Another striking benefit I’ve noticed while testing 4K TVs is the way their extra pixels make pictures look deeper. So much so that some people who’ve witnessed a long-distance shot rendered in 4K have mistaken it for glasses-free 3D!
When you look at a picture of a view on a TV your sense of how far into the distance that view goes depends on where detail starts to peter out. Once a screen can no longer render more detail, the image seems to flatten off. So 4K’s ability to render finer detail means you feel like you can see further before the flattening effect happens.
3. Better colour handling
There are two sides to this – one definite, one possible! The definite one is that having so many pixels to play with can help pictures render colour blends with more subtlety. This makes it impossible – or harder, at any rate – to see striping or blocking in colour blends, adding further to the sense that you’re watching ‘real life’ and also contributing to the sense of 3Dness in 2D pictures, as objects rendered with immaculate colour blends look more solid.
Note, though, that this colour benefit is only going to happen if your native 4K source is suitably pristine, as colour ‘resolution’ is one of the first things that tends to go if a picture is heavily compressed – a point we’ll come back to in the Cons section.
Unlike most 4K TVs, Panasonic's AX902 4K TVs support full 4:4:4 chroma sub sampling for enhanced colour reproduction.
Unlike most 4K TVs, Panasonic’s AX9 series support full 4:4:4 chroma sub sampling for enhanced colour reproduction.
The other potential 4K colour benefit is that the arrival of the format has got the AV world thinking about other aspects of picture quality too, leading to discussions of new video standards that support wider colour ranges. It remains to be seen, though, how widely/effectively these standards may be supported in practice.
4. A more cinematic, immersive experience
The extra resolution in 4K images mean that pictures retain their quality better on bigger screens – or if you sit closer to your TV. This means 4K can provide a pristine picture that fills more of your field of view, better recreating the immersive experience of watching a film at the cinema.
5. 4K fits with the growing desire to own bigger TVs
The past few years have seen the size of the average TV creeping inexorably upwards. Yet the bigger TVs get, the more likely they are to expose weaknesses in source material and even their screen’s pixel structure. With 4K, though, you’d have to be talking about a TV or projected image of truly epic proportions before you started to notice visible pixel structure or flaws in high-quality 4K images.
6. 4K is the future – it’s not just a fad
As noted in the introduction to this article, 4K TVs are already selling well for such a new technology, and forecasts for the next two years suggest future growth will be explosive.
Already in Europe there’s a significant brand, Loewe, that is only offering 4K TVs across its whole 2015 TV range – including the smallest 40-inch screens.
It’s not just 4K hardware that’s growing either. More films and even TV shows are being made/mastered in the format; 4K Blu-rays are expected by Christmas 2015; a handful of streaming services – including Netflix – already offer 4K streaming; and even 4K broadcasting should start to emerge next year.
So if you don’t buy a 4K TV now, you’re likely to feel increasingly aware of what you’re missing out on as the next year or two unfold.
7. 4K TVs aren’t as expensive as you might think
Despite only being in their second year as a serious consumer technology, 4K TVs have already plummeted in price. You can in fact find 4K TVs selling on Amazon for as little as $455.
This Seiki SE39UY04 4K TV costs just $455.
This Seiki SE39UY04 4K TV costs just $455.
Obviously the cheapest TVs likely won’t give you the best 4K experience. They’re important, though, since they put pressure on the main AV brands to make their own high quality 4K TVs cheaper much faster than they would probably like. So I’m expecting the price gap between HD and 4K TVs – even decent quality 4K TVs – to get smaller with every passing month.
8. 4K makes 3D better
While this one might not interest many people, having a native 4K resolution can improve the 3D experience.
It’s particularly effective with the passive 3D format, which uses a screen filter system to create the 3D experience. Normally the passive approach leads to reduced resolution, but with 4K TVs since you have twice as many lines you can enjoy a true full HD resolution 3D picture from 3D Blu-rays while also enjoying the passive 3D benefits of minimal crosstalk (double ghosting) and no flicker.
With the active 3D system, where 3D is created by feeding a 4K image to each eye via an electronic shuttering system in the glasses, the fact that 4K TVs provide more pixel density and detail can make 3D worlds feel more convincing – provided, at least, that the ‘upscaling’ processing an active 3D TV needs to apply to HD 3D Blu-rays is good enough.
9. 4K is the lowest digital resolution at which you can recapture ‘film’.
Most films throughout history and still many now are shot on (usually 35mm) film. And as the digital remastering department at Sony’s Culver City Studios in Los Angeles explained during a visit in 2013, 4K is the lowest resolution at which digital remastering can recapture all the detail – including film grain – captured on celluloid. This is a big deal for movie fans, especially those wanting to enjoy big-screen experiences.
The Cons
1. 4K’s usefulness is debatable if you don’t want a really big TV
While I don’t share the view espoused by some that 4K delivers no visible advantages on relatively small screens, it’s a simple fact that 4K’s impact is directly related to the size of the screen it’s appearing on. Your eyes won’t see as much difference between 4K and HD on a 40-inch TV as they will on a TV of 60 inches or more.
LG's 40UB8000 4K TV features a 40-inch screen. Which won't show off 4K's benefits as well as a much bigger one.
LG’s 40UB8000 4K TV features a 40-inch screen. Which won’t show off 4K’s benefits as well as a much bigger one.
Based on the fairly cheap 40-42-inch 4K TVs I’ve seen so far (I reserve the right to have my mind changed by really high performance models!), I’d say that unless you’re wanting to buy a TV that’s at least 48-50 inches in size, 4K probably isn’t worth troubling yourself about. Unless you happen to sit extremely close to your TV…
For actually you can’t really talk about screen size without also mentioning viewing distance. As in, it’s generally advised that if you’re only going to buy a 4K TV with the same sized screen as your previous HD TV, you may want to sit closer to the screen to really feel the impact from your new TV’s higher resolution. That said, I don’t personally think you need to sit as close to a 4K TV to get at least some benefit from its resolution as some 4K critics suggest.
2. 4K costs more
As discussed in the Pros section, 4K TVs are plummeting in price. But they do still command a premium over HD TVs – and with some of the best 4K TVs this premium is still significant enough that even were 4K TV prices to halve next year, the 4K/HD TV price gap could still be big enough to present a barrier to mainstream adoption.
It’s not just 4K screens that will cost you more either. As I discussed in a previous article, Netflix recently announced that it’s putting a near 50% premium on its 4K streaming service. And although we don’t have any firm numbers yet, history suggests that 4K Blu-rays will also attract a premium.
3. Resolution isn’t everything
Although resolution is the element of picture quality that consumers most seem to ‘get’, it is in truth only one part of the full picture quality story. Colour, contrast, brightness, and motion handling also have huge roles to play. So much so that an HD TV that excels in other picture areas could potentially outgun a 4K TV that wasn’t also good with the other stuff. LG’s HD OLED TVs especially spring to mind here.
That said, it’s hard to imagine anyone arguing that a 4K OLED wouldn’t be better than an HD one!
LG's HD OLED TVs prove that resolution isn't everything.
LG’s HD OLED TVs prove that resolution isn’t everything.
Perhaps the key point here is that you shouldn’t just assume that a 4K TV – especially a very cheap one – will automatically produce a great picture just because it’s 4K.
4. 4K connectivity is a mess
So it turns out that HDMI isn’t a particularly great connection for next-gen video. Having already confused everyone with its problems handling 3D when that came along, HDMI is proving even more of a disaster where 4K is concerned.
The main issue is that the HDMI v1.4 standard you got with almost all 4K TVs last year and a disappointing number of 4K TVs this year isn’t really fit for 4K purpose, as it can’t handle 4K at faster frame rates than 30Hz. So the 60Hz/50Hz playback you’re used to with most of your viewing (bar Blu-ray movies) will be a bust.
You’ll need an HDMI 2.0 socket to handle 4K at 60Hz – though it’s not always clear which TVs have these and which don’t, or how many of a 4K TV’s HDMI ports are built to the HDMI 2.0 spec (very few TVs offer HDMI 2.0 on ALL their ports).
Another complication is that not all 4K TV connections support the HDCP 2.2 copy protection system developed for the 4K era. Also, some TVs’ HDMI 2.0 sockets can handle more colour information than others, and to top it all there’s a whole different connection option – the DisplayPort – that seems better equipped to handle 4K than HDMI. Panasonic already includes a DisplayPort socket on its top-end 4K TVs, and there are growing clamours for such ports to usurp HDMI as the AV world’s connector of choice.
The Panasonic 65AX900's connections, complete with DisplayPort interface.
The Panasonic 65AX900′s connections, complete with DisplayPort interface.
The bottom line is that 4K connectivity is currently at best a work in progress, at worst an absolute car crash.
5. 4K sources are still in short supply
A few months back I wrote an article asking where all the native 4K content was, as I was finding myself testing lots of 4K TVs but finding precious little native 4K content to test them with.
Things have started to improve, mercifully. But with 4K Bu-ray still at least 12 months away; broadband speed/capacity issues causing headaches for 4K streaming; infrastructure issues holding up 4K broadcasting; the latest games consoles stubbornly stuck with HD (see my previous The PS4 And Xbox One Are Already Out Of Date article); and many films – especially those featuring a lot of special effects – still not being made in native 4K, 4K content delivery is clearly lagging way behind 4K screen production. This is probably the single biggest issue currently putting mainstream consumers off buying a 4K TV.
6. 4K TVs can make non-4K footage look worse.
Since there’s currently precious little native 4K content around, most people who buy a 4K TV today will have to watch HD or even standard definition pictures that have been converted to 4K by the TV’s processors.
Some of these ‘upscaling’ processing systems have proved surprisingly effective this year. But with cheap 4K TVs in particular, HD and standard definition content can actually look worse after been upscaled to 4K than it would on a decent HD TV. It’s worth adding here, too, that upscaled 4K is no rival for true native 4K content.
7. 4K video standards are still in flux
As well as being late to the party, the 4K content providers still haven’t fully defined exactly what video standards they’re going to bring to the party. Yes, 4K content is set resolution wise at 3840×2180, but the details of other picture information, especially where colour is concerned, are still being debated. There’s even potential for different parts of the world to settle on different standards.
Again, the bottom line is that as with 4K connectivity, if you buy a 4K TV now you run the risk of your new TV not being able to enjoy the full capabilities of future 4K content.
8. Not all 4K TVs currently support 4K video streams from Netflix and others
With native 4K sources being pretty much limited at the time of writing to video streaming services like Netflix, Ultraflix and, at some point soon, Amazon Prime Instant Video, you’d think every 4K TV would at least be able to handle these sources. But they don’t.amazonprimelogo
No 2013 4K TVs can handle the HEVC compression format video streaming platforms currently seem set on using unless you pay to add a hardware upgrade (such as one of Samsung’s Evolution Kits, or an external decoder box). Alarmingly, even a number of 2014’s 4K TVs have shipped without the necessary HEVC decoders.
What’s more, even if a TV has an HEVC decoder, it may not carry the individual apps for all the 4K streaming services. In fact, for various technical or licensing reasons (including that bane of any new technology, brand-exclusive licensing deals), it’s actually very unusual for a TV to carry all the available 4K streaming apps.
Yet another point here is that while HEVC is currently the compression format of choice for streamed 4K, other types of more efficient compression are still being worked on. And if they catch on it could be that your TV won’t be able to handle them.
In short, if you buy a 4K TV now you could well find you have to add an external streaming decoder to it later.
9. 4K is hard to deliver without compromising quality
As you might expect of a picture format boasting four times the resolution of HD, 4K video is very data intensive. Typical 4K masters of films create files of at least 30GB – and these only use 24 frames a second.
It’s not just the overall sizes of 4K content that’s problematic either. The rate at which data needs to be passed from source to screen is a key factor in determining the final quality of the 4K picture you see.
Both these issues represent significant delivery problems for the AV industry. As just one example, Netflix recommends that you have a broadband speed of at least 25Mbps for its 4K streams (though a stable 15Mbps should actually be enough for maximum quality, and I’ve even seen a more compressed Netflix 4K stream running at only 8Mbps).netflix_web_logo
Many people around the world just can’t get broadband speeds anywhere near that fast, and there are huge issues too – including the currently high profile net neutrality debate – over how IPs handle the vast amounts of data that will be running through their networks as 4K catches on.
But that’s not all. For making 4K deliverable even at 15Mbps (never mind 8Mbps) requires the original content source to be compressed digitally to make it more manageable. And wherever there’s compression, there’s the opportunity for final picture quality to be reduced in areas like detail, colour range, motion clarity and compression artefacts.
Follow me on Twitter @bigjohnnyarcher, or read my other Forbes articles via my profile page.
4K TVs: 9 Reasons You Should Buy One -- And 9 More Why You Shouldn't
Like it or not, 4K (AKA UHD) TVs are coming. In fact, they’re already here. Recent sales data from Europe, for instance, shows that 17 per cent of all TVs sold in the UK in September carried the necessary 3840×2160 resolution, with this percentage rising to 40 per cent in the 50-59-inch category, and 57 per cent in the above 60-inch category.
The question is, should you care? Does 4K genuinely enhance your TV viewing experience? Or is it just another marketing tool designed to make you upgrade your TV again sooner than you wanted to?
Here I take a look at the many pros and cons of the current 4K/UHD TV world to help you decide if 4K is for you.
4K Pros
1. 4K pictures have more detail
The most obvious benefit of TVs with native 4K resolutions is that their pictures have more detail and sharpness. After all, their 3840×2160 pixel counts equate to four times the resolution of the full HD pictures most of us are used to. Every hair on people’s heads, every leaf on every tree, every blade of grass on a football pitch, every star in the sky… every everything, in fact, snaps into focus on a good 4K TV in a way you just can’t get with an HD set. So long, at any rate, as you’re feeding your 4K TV a good-quality native 4K source – more on this in the Cons section.
Couple 4K’s sensational detail with the way the smaller size and greater density of the pixels in the screen make it almost impossible to see visible pixel structure or jagged edges in the image and you’ve got an experience many describe as more like looking through a window than watching a TV.
2. Better image depth
4K doesn’t only improve detail and general sharpness. Another striking benefit I’ve noticed while testing 4K TVs is the way their extra pixels make pictures look deeper. So much so that some people who’ve witnessed a long-distance shot rendered in 4K have mistaken it for glasses-free 3D!
When you look at a picture of a view on a TV your sense of how far into the distance that view goes depends on where detail starts to peter out. Once a screen can no longer render more detail, the image seems to flatten off. So 4K’s ability to render finer detail means you feel like you can see further before the flattening effect happens.
3. Better colour handling
There are two sides to this – one definite, one possible! The definite one is that having so many pixels to play with can help pictures render colour blends with more subtlety. This makes it impossible – or harder, at any rate – to see striping or blocking in colour blends, adding further to the sense that you’re watching ‘real life’ and also contributing to the sense of 3Dness in 2D pictures, as objects rendered with immaculate colour blends look more solid.
Note, though, that this colour benefit is only going to happen if your native 4K source is suitably pristine, as colour ‘resolution’ is one of the first things that tends to go if a picture is heavily compressed – a point we’ll come back to in the Cons section.
Unlike most 4K TVs, Panasonic's AX902 4K TVs support full 4:4:4 chroma sub sampling for enhanced colour reproduction.
Unlike most 4K TVs, Panasonic’s AX9 series support full 4:4:4 chroma sub sampling for enhanced colour reproduction.
The other potential 4K colour benefit is that the arrival of the format has got the AV world thinking about other aspects of picture quality too, leading to discussions of new video standards that support wider colour ranges. It remains to be seen, though, how widely/effectively these standards may be supported in practice.
4. A more cinematic, immersive experience
The extra resolution in 4K images mean that pictures retain their quality better on bigger screens – or if you sit closer to your TV. This means 4K can provide a pristine picture that fills more of your field of view, better recreating the immersive experience of watching a film at the cinema.
5. 4K fits with the growing desire to own bigger TVs
The past few years have seen the size of the average TV creeping inexorably upwards. Yet the bigger TVs get, the more likely they are to expose weaknesses in source material and even their screen’s pixel structure. With 4K, though, you’d have to be talking about a TV or projected image of truly epic proportions before you started to notice visible pixel structure or flaws in high-quality 4K images.
6. 4K is the future – it’s not just a fad
As noted in the introduction to this article, 4K TVs are already selling well for such a new technology, and forecasts for the next two years suggest future growth will be explosive.
Already in Europe there’s a significant brand, Loewe, that is only offering 4K TVs across its whole 2015 TV range – including the smallest 40-inch screens.
It’s not just 4K hardware that’s growing either. More films and even TV shows are being made/mastered in the format; 4K Blu-rays are expected by Christmas 2015; a handful of streaming services – including Netflix – already offer 4K streaming; and even 4K broadcasting should start to emerge next year.
So if you don’t buy a 4K TV now, you’re likely to feel increasingly aware of what you’re missing out on as the next year or two unfold.
7. 4K TVs aren’t as expensive as you might think
Despite only being in their second year as a serious consumer technology, 4K TVs have already plummeted in price. You can in fact find 4K TVs selling on Amazon for as little as $455.
This Seiki SE39UY04 4K TV costs just $455.
This Seiki SE39UY04 4K TV costs just $455.
Obviously the cheapest TVs likely won’t give you the best 4K experience. They’re important, though, since they put pressure on the main AV brands to make their own high quality 4K TVs cheaper much faster than they would probably like. So I’m expecting the price gap between HD and 4K TVs – even decent quality 4K TVs – to get smaller with every passing month.
8. 4K makes 3D better
While this one might not interest many people, having a native 4K resolution can improve the 3D experience.
It’s particularly effective with the passive 3D format, which uses a screen filter system to create the 3D experience. Normally the passive approach leads to reduced resolution, but with 4K TVs since you have twice as many lines you can enjoy a true full HD resolution 3D picture from 3D Blu-rays while also enjoying the passive 3D benefits of minimal crosstalk (double ghosting) and no flicker.
With the active 3D system, where 3D is created by feeding a 4K image to each eye via an electronic shuttering system in the glasses, the fact that 4K TVs provide more pixel density and detail can make 3D worlds feel more convincing – provided, at least, that the ‘upscaling’ processing an active 3D TV needs to apply to HD 3D Blu-rays is good enough.
9. 4K is the lowest digital resolution at which you can recapture ‘film’.
Most films throughout history and still many now are shot on (usually 35mm) film. And as the digital remastering department at Sony’s Culver City Studios in Los Angeles explained during a visit in 2013, 4K is the lowest resolution at which digital remastering can recapture all the detail – including film grain – captured on celluloid. This is a big deal for movie fans, especially those wanting to enjoy big-screen experiences.
The Cons
1. 4K’s usefulness is debatable if you don’t want a really big TV
While I don’t share the view espoused by some that 4K delivers no visible advantages on relatively small screens, it’s a simple fact that 4K’s impact is directly related to the size of the screen it’s appearing on. Your eyes won’t see as much difference between 4K and HD on a 40-inch TV as they will on a TV of 60 inches or more.
LG's 40UB8000 4K TV features a 40-inch screen. Which won't show off 4K's benefits as well as a much bigger one.
LG’s 40UB8000 4K TV features a 40-inch screen. Which won’t show off 4K’s benefits as well as a much bigger one.
Based on the fairly cheap 40-42-inch 4K TVs I’ve seen so far (I reserve the right to have my mind changed by really high performance models!), I’d say that unless you’re wanting to buy a TV that’s at least 48-50 inches in size, 4K probably isn’t worth troubling yourself about. Unless you happen to sit extremely close to your TV…
For actually you can’t really talk about screen size without also mentioning viewing distance. As in, it’s generally advised that if you’re only going to buy a 4K TV with the same sized screen as your previous HD TV, you may want to sit closer to the screen to really feel the impact from your new TV’s higher resolution. That said, I don’t personally think you need to sit as close to a 4K TV to get at least some benefit from its resolution as some 4K critics suggest.
2. 4K costs more
As discussed in the Pros section, 4K TVs are plummeting in price. But they do still command a premium over HD TVs – and with some of the best 4K TVs this premium is still significant enough that even were 4K TV prices to halve next year, the 4K/HD TV price gap could still be big enough to present a barrier to mainstream adoption.
It’s not just 4K screens that will cost you more either. As I discussed in a previous article, Netflix recently announced that it’s putting a near 50% premium on its 4K streaming service. And although we don’t have any firm numbers yet, history suggests that 4K Blu-rays will also attract a premium.
3. Resolution isn’t everything
Although resolution is the element of picture quality that consumers most seem to ‘get’, it is in truth only one part of the full picture quality story. Colour, contrast, brightness, and motion handling also have huge roles to play. So much so that an HD TV that excels in other picture areas could potentially outgun a 4K TV that wasn’t also good with the other stuff. LG’s HD OLED TVs especially spring to mind here.
That said, it’s hard to imagine anyone arguing that a 4K OLED wouldn’t be better than an HD one!
LG's HD OLED TVs prove that resolution isn't everything.
LG’s HD OLED TVs prove that resolution isn’t everything.
Perhaps the key point here is that you shouldn’t just assume that a 4K TV – especially a very cheap one – will automatically produce a great picture just because it’s 4K.
4. 4K connectivity is a mess
So it turns out that HDMI isn’t a particularly great connection for next-gen video. Having already confused everyone with its problems handling 3D when that came along, HDMI is proving even more of a disaster where 4K is concerned.
The main issue is that the HDMI v1.4 standard you got with almost all 4K TVs last year and a disappointing number of 4K TVs this year isn’t really fit for 4K purpose, as it can’t handle 4K at faster frame rates than 30Hz. So the 60Hz/50Hz playback you’re used to with most of your viewing (bar Blu-ray movies) will be a bust.
You’ll need an HDMI 2.0 socket to handle 4K at 60Hz – though it’s not always clear which TVs have these and which don’t, or how many of a 4K TV’s HDMI ports are built to the HDMI 2.0 spec (very few TVs offer HDMI 2.0 on ALL their ports).
Another complication is that not all 4K TV connections support the HDCP 2.2 copy protection system developed for the 4K era. Also, some TVs’ HDMI 2.0 sockets can handle more colour information than others, and to top it all there’s a whole different connection option – the DisplayPort – that seems better equipped to handle 4K than HDMI. Panasonic already includes a DisplayPort socket on its top-end 4K TVs, and there are growing clamours for such ports to usurp HDMI as the AV world’s connector of choice.
The Panasonic 65AX900's connections, complete with DisplayPort interface.
The Panasonic 65AX900′s connections, complete with DisplayPort interface.
The bottom line is that 4K connectivity is currently at best a work in progress, at worst an absolute car crash.
5. 4K sources are still in short supply
A few months back I wrote an article asking where all the native 4K content was, as I was finding myself testing lots of 4K TVs but finding precious little native 4K content to test them with.
Things have started to improve, mercifully. But with 4K Bu-ray still at least 12 months away; broadband speed/capacity issues causing headaches for 4K streaming; infrastructure issues holding up 4K broadcasting; the latest games consoles stubbornly stuck with HD (see my previous The PS4 And Xbox One Are Already Out Of Date article); and many films – especially those featuring a lot of special effects – still not being made in native 4K, 4K content delivery is clearly lagging way behind 4K screen production. This is probably the single biggest issue currently putting mainstream consumers off buying a 4K TV.
6. 4K TVs can make non-4K footage look worse.
Since there’s currently precious little native 4K content around, most people who buy a 4K TV today will have to watch HD or even standard definition pictures that have been converted to 4K by the TV’s processors.
Some of these ‘upscaling’ processing systems have proved surprisingly effective this year. But with cheap 4K TVs in particular, HD and standard definition content can actually look worse after been upscaled to 4K than it would on a decent HD TV. It’s worth adding here, too, that upscaled 4K is no rival for true native 4K content.
7. 4K video standards are still in flux
As well as being late to the party, the 4K content providers still haven’t fully defined exactly what video standards they’re going to bring to the party. Yes, 4K content is set resolution wise at 3840×2180, but the details of other picture information, especially where colour is concerned, are still being debated. There’s even potential for different parts of the world to settle on different standards.
Again, the bottom line is that as with 4K connectivity, if you buy a 4K TV now you run the risk of your new TV not being able to enjoy the full capabilities of future 4K content.
8. Not all 4K TVs currently support 4K video streams from Netflix and others
With native 4K sources being pretty much limited at the time of writing to video streaming services like Netflix, Ultraflix and, at some point soon, Amazon Prime Instant Video, you’d think every 4K TV would at least be able to handle these sources. But they don’t.amazonprimelogo
No 2013 4K TVs can handle the HEVC compression format video streaming platforms currently seem set on using unless you pay to add a hardware upgrade (such as one of Samsung’s Evolution Kits, or an external decoder box). Alarmingly, even a number of 2014’s 4K TVs have shipped without the necessary HEVC decoders.
What’s more, even if a TV has an HEVC decoder, it may not carry the individual apps for all the 4K streaming services. In fact, for various technical or licensing reasons (including that bane of any new technology, brand-exclusive licensing deals), it’s actually very unusual for a TV to carry all the available 4K streaming apps.
Yet another point here is that while HEVC is currently the compression format of choice for streamed 4K, other types of more efficient compression are still being worked on. And if they catch on it could be that your TV won’t be able to handle them.
In short, if you buy a 4K TV now you could well find you have to add an external streaming decoder to it later.
9. 4K is hard to deliver without compromising quality
As you might expect of a picture format boasting four times the resolution of HD, 4K video is very data intensive. Typical 4K masters of films create files of at least 30GB – and these only use 24 frames a second.
It’s not just the overall sizes of 4K content that’s problematic either. The rate at which data needs to be passed from source to screen is a key factor in determining the final quality of the 4K picture you see.
Both these issues represent significant delivery problems for the AV industry. As just one example, Netflix recommends that you have a broadband speed of at least 25Mbps for its 4K streams (though a stable 15Mbps should actually be enough for maximum quality, and I’ve even seen a more compressed Netflix 4K stream running at only 8Mbps).netflix_web_logo
Many people around the world just can’t get broadband speeds anywhere near that fast, and there are huge issues too – including the currently high profile net neutrality debate – over how IPs handle the vast amounts of data that will be running through their networks as 4K catches on.
But that’s not all. For making 4K deliverable even at 15Mbps (never mind 8Mbps) requires the original content source to be compressed digitally to make it more manageable. And wherever there’s compression, there’s the opportunity for final picture quality to be reduced in areas like detail, colour range, motion clarity and compression artefacts.
Follow me on Twitter @bigjohnnyarcher, or read my other Forbes articles via my profile page.