# 4K HD and Tivo



## ljknight (Sep 6, 2013)

What are the chances that these new Roamio's will be easily upgradable to support 4K HD?
I have read several articles recently, stating that 4K content is not that far down the road in 2014.

With the cost of getting to 4K viewing, I would hate to buy 2 Roamio's now, only to need to buy more in 18-24months.
That is assuming Tivo can have product out that quickly.

Thoughts?


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## anthonymoody (Apr 29, 2008)

I'd put my money on zero before anything else.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Viable 4K TV content (fps of 60 or higher) is going to require HDMI 2.0 connectors, which nothing has right now and why the Samsung 4K TVs broke out the HDMI ports (they are not in the TV, instead you have an add on board with all the ports) that way you will be able to buy a replacement board when 2.0 HDMI is available. 

So no, I do not believe TiVo or anything else using the current 1.4a HDMI has the ability to deliver viable native 4K content to a 4K TV (I believe the current HDMI standard tops out at 30 fps with 4k content which is really not acceptable). 

Also Native 4K content is likely to only be available using a new compression standard (h.265 I believe is what it is called) and who knows what can support that, again my guess is nothing out there now).


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

You'll need specialized chips to support h.265 which the TiVo of course does not have.

HEck I wouldn't even want most of the 4K sets that are for sale right now because they do not have HDMI 2.0 and AFAIK most of them cannot be upgraded.


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## Itproman (Dec 31, 2012)

Either way,a lot of TV Broadcasters have only just gone digital,meaning 720p,or 1080i in the last few years and 2 of them here in Ontario,Canada,only just this year.

This is a considerable expense,when(so they claim),less than 6%(some of them say 1%)of the poplulation watches TV via antenna,and believe it was an unnecessary expense,or they were forced by the FCC and CRTC into upgrading.

They're certainly not going to cough up dough to go 4K just like that.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Itproman said:


> Either way,a lot of TV Broadcasters have only just gone digital,meaning 720p,or 1080i in the last few years and 2 of them here in Ontario,Canada,only just this year.
> 
> This is a considerable expense,when(so they claim),less than 6%(some of them say 1%)of the poplulation watches TV via antenna,and believe it was an unnecessary expense,or they were forced by the FCC and CRTC into upgrading.
> 
> They're certainly not going to cough up dough to go 4K just like that.


I don't expect OTA broadcasts to be 4K for decades, if ever. In fact I would say the chances of OTA being dropped all together are as great as it is that OTA will go 4K.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

I've been following 4K monitors for computers for a while, and it is still quite difficult to drive a 4K monitor at 60Hz even with high end video cards, mostly because the monitors have very weird configurations. The Sharp monitor, for instance looks like two separate monitors, each with 1920x2160 resolution - a resolution most video cards don't know how to support without firmware upgrades, etc. It is impossible to believe that the hardware which has to exist today in a TiVo could be adapted in any way to drive a 4K display when even computer interface standards haven't been really finalized.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

tomhorsley said:


> I've been following 4K monitors for computers for a while, and it is still quite difficult to drive a 4K monitor at 60Hz even with high end video cards, mostly because the monitors have very weird configurations. The Sharp monitor, for instance looks like two separate monitors, each with 1920x2160 resolution - a resolution most video cards don't know how to support without firmware upgrades, etc. It is impossible to believe that the hardware which has to exist today in a TiVo could be adapted in any way to drive a 4K display when even computer interface standards haven't been really finalized.


For 4K to make any difference, assuming you had some type of 4K source, would you not need a big screen like over 65", and the number of people that have a HDTV over 65" and can fit in a screen over 65" is a small % of US households. Of all the people I know only 1 has a screen over 65" (I have a 80" and the picture is so great that I would not spend the money on 4K for that size screen)


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

lessd said:


> For 4K to make any difference, assuming you had some type of 4K source, would you not need a big screen like over 65", and the number of people that have a HDTV over 65" and can fit in a screen over 65" is a small % of US households. Of all the people I know only 1 has a screen over 65" (I have a 80" and the picture is so great that I would not spend the money on 4K for that size screen)


I agree and even at 65" you would have to sit within a few feet to be able to see the increased resolution even if the content was available, in fact many people don't sit close enough to their TVs to be able to see the difference between 720p & 1080p (including me as I am 14ft from a 50" TV).


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

ljknight said:


> What are the chances that these new Roamio's will be easily upgradable to support 4K HD?


Zero



> I have read several articles recently, stating that 4K content is not that far down the road in 2014.


It is all marketing, just trying to get people to throw away equipment and buy new again and justify even higher prices. I think I read that more than half the population can't tell the difference between 480P and 720P with much more than half not being able to tell between 720P and 1080P. I suspect very few can really tell the difference between 1080P and 4K, especially if the TV is not over 70" and they are not sitting a few feet from it.

OTA doesn't even support 1080P.
Few cable companies even offer all their stations in HD yet.
Almost no cable companies support 4K. 
No consumer discs support 4K and won't for a long while.

My guess is 4K is going to go nowhere for many years except maybe in a very tiny niche market for videophiles with huge 80+" displays.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

The BD association is planning on having a finalized BD spec sometime late this year or early next year for 4K with the hope to have the first 4K disc based players out in the second half of 2014. I read it's supposed to be 3 layer 100GB discs that they plan to use.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> The BD association is planning on having a finalized BD spec sometime late this year or early next year for 4K with the hope to have the first 4K disc based players out in the second half of 2014. I read it's supposed to be 3 layer 100GB discs that they plan to use.


I bet 4K will more like SVHS was in its time, a consumer flop for the most part.


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## anthonymoody (Apr 29, 2008)

lessd said:


> I bet 4K will more like SVHS was in its time, a consumer flop for the most part.


I'll take that bet. Why? Because 4K will become the norm just like 1080 is today (it's essentially impossible to find a 720 set nowadays). They'll just release 4K discs which will downconvert to 1080 if that's what your set handles.


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## anthonymoody (Apr 29, 2008)

lessd said:


> For 4K to make any difference, assuming you had some type of 4K source, would you not need a big screen like over 65", and the number of people that have a HDTV over 65" and can fit in a screen over 65" is a small % of US households. Of all the people I know only 1 has a screen over 65" (I have a 80" and the picture is so great that I would not spend the money on 4K for that size screen)


Until you see native 4K content on an 84" screen


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

lessd said:


> I bet 4K will more like SVHS was in its time, a consumer flop for the most part.





anthonymoody said:


> I'll take that bet. Why? Because 4K will become the norm just like 1080 is today (it's essentially impossible to find a 720 set nowadays). They'll just release 4K discs which will downconvert to 1080 if that's what your set handles.


I believe TV manufactures will likely keep moving towards more 4K TVs as away to demand a premium price. But until HDMI 2.0 and blu-ray disks are available that can provide a native 4K movie; people are wasting their money buying into 4k at all. The issue with people not being able to see the difference on smaller sets (like anything less than 65") will remain forever so the tech will have to get real cheap for the masses to want anything to do with it. I don't know what band width will be needed to stream 4K but I am guessing it will be years and maybe decades before the Satellite and Cable companies will be willing to upgrade all their equipment to handle h.265 and like I said above I don't believe it will ever come to OTA broadcasts.

So from where I sit the market where 4K makes or will make any sense is very small. Basically people with large (65"+) sets, with great high speed Internet that comes with unlimited band width, or who want to buy 4K blu-ray disks.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

4K, like 3D, is another TV tech pushed by marketing and not by consumer interest. It's just another in a long line of features that are far ahead of what most folks care about, much less whether any source material takes advantage of it.

The good thing is that we'll all get it for cheap eventually since it will just be another feature on every set you can buy.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

anthonymoody said:


> Until you see native 4K content on an 84" screen


84" is bigger than 65" but how many people will have HDTV that big, it's a space and money problem, and space may be more of a problem than money for big TVs. Most of my friends have 45" to 55" size HDTVs so they can avoid a divorce from the wife.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

anthonymoody said:


> I'll take that bet. Why? Because 4K will become the norm just like 1080 is today (it's essentially impossible to find a 720 set nowadays). They'll just release 4K discs which will downconvert to 1080 if that's what your set handles.


Best buy sells over 100 720p sets. Something over 20% of the sets they have available for sale online are 720p. iF I remember correctly. If not then it is even more that they sell. Although the largest size they sell is around 55".

Edit: also I've read that the big push for h.265 use will be in cell phones. Once the chips are available they plan on incorporating it into new cell phones. But this is mainly a bandwidth saving measure, not anything to do with 4k.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

There's a good chance 4K will quickly go the way of betamax. There's just no content for it and none of the current major content distribution channels are planning for it. From what I've heard/read the next big thing in consumer televisions will probably be OLED.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

series5orpremier said:


> There's a good chance 4K will quickly go the way of betamax. There's just no content for it and none of the current major content distribution channels are planning for it. From what I've heard/read the next big thing in consumer televisions will probably be OLED.


I agree that OLED is likely the actual next big thing in TVs - at least for anyone who actually cares about picture quality. The issues appear to be that OLED is actually much harder and more costly tech than just pushing a LCD to 4K, so my guess is, as with most things, it's all about the money, manufactures are pushing 4K LCD TVs because they think they will be able to make more money.

Regarding content, there actually is plenty of 4K content as most new movies are shot in 8K and I don't think any are shot in less than 4K. The problem is finding an affordable away to deliver the 4k content to a 4k TV - which is just about impossible now.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

atmuscarella said:


> I agree that OLED is likely the actual next big thing in TVs - at least for anyone who actually cares about picture quality. The issues appear to be that OLED is actually much harder and more costly tech than just pushing a LCD to 4K,


Agreed.

When LED TV's come out, it will be interesting, but I think they are much further away than most people expect. And when they finally arrive, they are likely to be very, very expensive, and very small.

Meanwhile, LCD technology keeps getting better and better with each generation. The replacement of florescent with LED backlighting allowed them to use even less power, become more reliable (in theory) and get even thinner.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> I agree that OLED is likely the actual next big thing in TVs - at least for anyone who actually cares about picture quality. The issues appear to be that OLED is actually much harder and more costly tech than just pushing a LCD to 4K, so my guess is, as with most things, it's all about the money, manufactures are pushing 4K LCD TVs because they think they will be able to make more money.
> 
> Regarding content, there actually is plenty of 4K content as most new movies are shot in 8K and I don't think any are shot in less than 4K. The problem is finding an affordable away to deliver the 4k content to a 4k TV - which is just about impossible now.


I would take the 4k sets I saw at magnolia over the OLED set they had. The oled set did look nice, but it was very expensive for the size. Plus native 4k content blew away anything I saw on the oled set. Native 4k content seemed truly like looking through a window.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

H.265 isn't even ready yet. When were at NAB back in April all the H.265 encoders were "experimental" and could only encode with basic settings at ~7fps. We're still years away from H.265 becoming mainstream, and without H.265 4K is not even possible. I'm betting 5 years minimum before 4K content is available, and even then it will be severely limited.


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## Davelnlr_ (Jan 13, 2011)

I would be happy if the content was delivered in 1080p before worrying about 4K. Only DirecTv and maybe DISH will have the bandwidth to even consider more than maybe one or two 4K channels anyway. Im waiting for an affordable 60" OLED that isnt curved. I would be much more interested in spending my cash on that.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> H.265 isn't even ready yet. When were at NAB back in April all the H.265 encoders were "experimental" and could only encode with basic settings at ~7fps. We're still years away from H.265 becoming mainstream, and without H.265 4K is not even possible. I'm betting 5 years minimum before 4K content is available, and even then it will be severely limited.


They already plan on having disc based 4K content out by the 3rd or 4th quarter of 2014. (They currently have hard drive based 4K content available for Sony 4K TVs)Of course there will certainly be much more 4K content available at the end of 2018 then there will be at the end of 2014. Just like there was much more HD content in 2010 than there was in 2006. Although I bought much more HD content in 2006 than I did in 2010

I know personally I'm in no rush to get a 4K TiVo since I doubt I will get a 4K TV anytime soon. My main 1080P set is 82" so there is no way I could go to a smaller set. And right now the 84" 4K sets are way too expensive. I would be surprised to see them down to a decent level anytime soon. Although the smaller 4K sets have been coming down, but I already sit 9 feet away from my 82" DLP set. I would need sit very close to one of the new small 4K sets to even get the benefit.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Maybe, but there is a LOT of new tech involved here that has to fall inline. A brand new codec, a new 3 layer BD disc, players capable of playing the discs, HDMI 2.0, 4K TVs with HDMI 2.0 ports, A/V receivers with HDMI 2.0 ports and support for whatever audio codecs they decide to add to these discs. I'm just not sure it's all going to fall in line by the end of next year.


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## bobrt6676 (Dec 31, 2007)

Davelnlr_ said:


> I would be happy if the content was delivered in 1080p before worrying about 4K. Only DirecTv and maybe DISH will have the bandwidth to even consider more than maybe one or two 4K channels anyway. Im waiting for an affordable 60" OLED that isnt curved. I would be much more interested in spending my cash on that.


+1


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Davelnlr_ said:


> Im waiting for an affordable 60" OLED that isnt curved. I would be much more interested in spending my cash on that.


Well, think of the bright side... You will have many years to save for it while waiting !


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## DigitalDawn (Apr 26, 2009)

I think LG has a 77-inch 4K OLED coming out. Don't remember f it's curved or not. 

BTW, as stated here, there's a 4K disc format in the works, and the ATSC is working on a future (2017-2018) 4K standard. It's my understanding that H.265 can fit two 4K broadcasts in the same space as a single 1080i MPEG2 broadcast channel.

So by no means is 4K a dead end.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> Regarding content, there actually is plenty of 4K content as most new movies are shot in 8K and I don't think any are shot in less than 4K. The problem is finding an affordable away to deliver the 4k content to a 4k TV - which is just about impossible now.


Indeed, considering that the file size of a single movie shot in 4K can be up to 250GB (maybe even larger than that).
I don't think they make a hard drive big enough to make a 4K DVR worth owning.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

DigitalDawn said:


> I think LG has a 77-inch 4K OLED coming out. Don't remember f it's curved or not.
> 
> BTW, as stated here, there's a 4K disc format in the works, and the ATSC is working on a future (2017-2018) 4K standard. It's my understanding that H.265 can fit two 4K broadcasts in the same space as a single 1080i MPEG2 broadcast channel.
> 
> So by no means is 4K a dead end.


I don't think 4K is dead but I don't think it is going to be main stream anytime soon. All we have right now are some TVs that don't really have (& likely never will have) a viable way to access native 4K content.

Think about what has to happen. First they have to finish developing the tech (h.265, HDMI 2.0, at a minimum) and then basically _*everything*_ has to be replaced. For the consumer every device they have TV, blu-ray player, receiver, etc., for the OTA broadcaster most or all of their broadcast equipment, for the cable & Satellite provider all their equipment.

So no 4K certainly isn't dead but the only play anyone has now to "future proof" themselves is to buy nothing.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

steve614 said:


> Indeed, considering that the file size of a single movie shot in 4K can be up to 250GB (maybe even larger than that).
> I don't think they make a hard drive big enough to make a 4K DVR worth owning.


That's why they need H.265. H.265 is suppose to offer 50% more compression compared to H.264. 4K has 4x the number of pixels if 1080p. A typical 1080p BD movie encoded in H.264 requires about 35GB if space. So they're hoping that H.265 will allow them to compress the same movie at 4K resolution in the 70-100GB range.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

ljknight said:


> What are the chances that these new Roamio's will be easily upgradable to support 4K HD?
> I have read several articles recently, stating that 4K content is not that far down the road in 2014.
> 
> With the cost of getting to 4K viewing, I would hate to buy 2 Roamio's now, only to need to buy more in 18-24months.
> ...


So just buy your Roamios now, use them for five years, then reevaluate 4k. By then you may have forgotten about 4k, or will need to wait at least another five years before widespread mainstream content becomes available.


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## DigitalDawn (Apr 26, 2009)

atmuscarella said:


> I don't think 4K is dead but I don't think it is going to be main stream anytime soon. All we have right now are some TVs that don't really have (& likely never will have) a viable way to access native 4K content.
> 
> Think about what has to happen. First they have to finish developing the tech (h.265, HDMI 2.0, at a minimum) and then basically _*everything*_ has to be replaced. For the consumer every device they have TV, blu-ray player, receiver, etc., for the OTA broadcaster most or all of their broadcast equipment, for the cable & Satellite provider all their equipment.
> 
> So no 4K certainly isn't dead but the only play anyone has now to "future proof" themselves is to buy nothing.


Rewind to 1999-2000.


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## anthonymoody (Apr 29, 2008)

4K is a when question, not an if question. 

Netflix will stream 4K in 2014. A 4K bd standard will be finalized in 2014. The hdmi 2.0 spec was recently finalized and you can expect just about every product category to be announced with hdmi 2.0 at CES in January. (And btw both Sony and Samsung are providing an upgrade path to hdmi 2.0 for their existing sets).


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

anthonymoody said:


> 4K is a when question, not an if question.
> 
> Netflix will stream 4K in 2014. A 4K bd standard will be finalized in 2014. The hdmi 2.0 spec was recently finalized and you can expect just about every product category to be announced with hdmi 2.0 at CES in January. (And btw both Sony and Samsung are providing an upgrade path to hdmi 2.0 for their existing sets).


That statement was also made about SVHS VCRs and it happened but few went to the party, unless 4K is the only option IMHO it will never make it as it is not needed, except for big home movie systems. (I don't predict past 10 years) HDTV was a big step up for almost any screen size.


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## DigitalDawn (Apr 26, 2009)

Les,

I would normally agree with you -- just look at 3D. But when you get the ATSC planning on a new standard to supplant the current TV system, one would assume that it's more than a fad. This one has teeth.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

anthonymoody said:


> 4K is a when question, not an if question.


I agree with this.



anthonymoody said:


> Netflix will stream 4K in 2014. A 4K bd standard will be finalized in 2014.


It will be interesting to see how low of a bit rate people will find acceptable when they have spent 1000s of $$s on a 65" or large 4K TV.



DigitalDawn said:


> Les,
> 
> I would normally agree with you -- just look at 3D. But when you get the ATSC planning on a new standard to supplant the current TV system, one would assume that it's more than a fad. This one has teeth.


I wouldn't get to excited. They will finish ATSC 2.0 first (which is backward compatible and has nothing to do with 4K). The earliest anyone is going to see ATSC 3.0 (needed for 4K) is maybe 2017 and because it is not backwards compatible, it will be interesting to see how fast it is implemented without the Gov. forcing the issue.

The reality is that TV Manufactures will want a premium for 4K for as long as possible. Which means most people buying smaller sets (under 60") will not touch it. At some point the cost may be lowered enough for it to become main stream but I am guessing we are 5-10 years out from that happening.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

anthonymoody said:


> Netflix will stream 4K in 2014..


I'll bet most people's "high-speed" internet connections would get exposed as not being fast enough to handle it.


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## Andrewp75 (Aug 4, 2004)

Does anyone know what video processing chip the roamio uses?


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

DigitalDawn said:


> Les,
> 
> I would normally agree with you -- just look at 3D. But when you get the ATSC planning on a new standard to supplant the current TV system, one would assume that it's more than a fad. This one has teeth.


I did not know this (about ATSC planning 4K as a new standard for all TVs, a change in 10 years, hard to see that happing but what do I know as the old standard lasted over 60 years).
I can't believe I will have to change all my home TVs again in the next 10 years, I just dumped the last of my tube type TVs about 6 months ago.


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

The reason we all had to switch to digital TV sets was because Congress mandated the switch to digital TV.

I very much doubt Congress will mandate a switch to 4K TV standards, so show carriers (over-the-air, cable, and satellite) will be very slow to adopt 4K resolution transmissions until 4K-capable TV sets have clearly taken over the market.

If we get to the point where 4K consumer equipment has taken over, I expect prices will be reasonable at that point.


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## Tanquen (Jun 1, 2002)

Some things could change but I just don&#8217;t see it happening anytime soon. Bandwidth is still too precious. Cable and satellite got the standard lowered so they could cram in more channels. If you what the 4k like experience right now watch a good quality Blu-ray. Everything else is really pretty bad. Find that same movie recorded on your TiVo and it will look bad&#8230; If you are just a few feet from the TV. If you are at the 8-9 Ft recommended for a 60&#8221;-ish 1080p TV, you won&#8217;t notice as much but get up next to the TV and it&#8217;s bad. I&#8217;m moving shows from my HD TiVo&#8217;s as I&#8217;ve got a Roamio now and the bit rate ranges from 8 Mbps (yes 8!)to 18 Mbps with most show at 12 to 14 Mbps. At 12 to 14 Mbps that&#8217;s like 5GB an hour. The Blu-ray movies I moved to the NAS are like 10-15GB an hour or more and are in many cases much better transfers. It&#8217;s not as bad as with music but MP3s have kind of killed the idea of good quality or what is acceptable. Over compressed cable and satellite along with streaming through Netfix or Amazon and others along with pirating have really lowered the bar and I don&#8217;t know if the 4k TV and hardware manufactures can drum up enough buyers to really push the tech. I just get the feeling that 4k TV at 8 or 9 Ft would look the same as 1080p that&#8217;s not over compressed. Even if you get true 4k video from Disc you&#8217;ll need a 120&#8221; display or have to set 3Ft from your 70&#8221; 4k TV to see the extra detail.


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## wwu123 (May 15, 2008)

Was in Japan a few weeks ago and they're already talking about commercial broadcast of 8K by 2020. I think 4K and 8K will happen just because the costs of manufacturing will keep dropping to make them affordable, and the content will follow when it can.

Look, 10 years ago my brother -in-law bought a high-end Sony Trinitron 32" tube HDTV. Was fairly expensive, doesn't even have HDMI! Couldn't even imagine that we'd have 70" LED's for $1500 a decade later. Or higher resolution than that Sony on a 4" phone. What seems improbable now will be mundane 10 years from now....


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

wwu123 said:


> that we'd have 70" LED's for $1500 a decade later.


We don't. We have 70" LCD.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

crxssi said:


> We don't. We have 70" LCD.


But they do have LED backlighting...


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

crxssi said:


> We don't. We have 70" LCD.





steve614 said:


> But they do have LED backlighting...


Why confuse life with facts & details


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

The Sharp 4K computer monitor just came out a few months ago and has already dropped in price from about $5K to about $3K. That's without the Viewsonic monitor even being released yet to compete with it. Heck in a couple of years, the price might drop all the way down to reasonable .


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## anthonymoody (Apr 29, 2008)

There were also BF deals on the various 55" 4K sets for $3k, down from the recent regular pricing of $3500. The 65" sets were in the low $4s down from $5k. This trend will only continue, and viciously. 

Hell, the 84" LG 4K set can already be had for around $9k, down from the high teens.

Also, never bet against compression algorithms. They get better all the time. 

You may not like what this means for your wallet, but it's coming.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

anthonymoody said:


> 4K is a when question, not an if question.


Except for the vast majority of video out there that people actually watch (i.e. broadcast HDTV) for the forseeable future, sure.


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## anthonymoody (Apr 29, 2008)

slowbiscuit said:


> Except for the vast majority of video out there that people actually watch (i.e. broadcast HDTV) for the forseeable future, sure.


Lulz. That could've been said about everything from silent pictures to b&w television to SD. You do know that all studios now master in at least 4K (with many at 8K) and have done so for years now, right?

Tell you what. Bookmark this and let's revisit in a couple years to see how much 4K is out there.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Yep, let's. Notice I did say *broadcast TV*, which isn't going to be delivered to the consumer as 4k in, like forever.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I agree. 4K in broadcast TV is going to be difficult because of bandwidth. Even with H.265 a 4K stream will need about 50Mbps. ATSC has a max of 19.2Mbps and QAM-64 only has about 26.9Mbps. So it's not even currently possible to broadcast a 4K signal.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

Dan203 said:


> I agree. 4K in broadcast TV is going to be difficult because of bandwidth. Even with H.265 a 4K stream will need about 50Mbps. ATSC has a max of 19.2Mbps and QAM-64 only has about 26.9Mbps. So it's not even currently possible to broadcast a 4K signal.


Sure it is - you just need to use two channels for one broadcast (an opportunity to get rid of half the channels no one watches anyway .


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

tomhorsley said:


> Sure it is - you just need to use two channels for one broadcast (an opportunity to get rid of half the channels no one watches anyway .


I don't know about other markets, but here there are TONS of unused channels/bandwidth for OTA (and it is a pretty major market- almost 2 million people). We just have NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, WGNT, FOX, and ION (some of which have sub-channels, but those don't really count in the bandwidth since they are all SD). I haven't dived into the frequencies and such, but I would guess not even 1/3 is taken.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

crxssi said:


> I don't know about other markets, but here there are TONS of unused channels/bandwidth for OTA (and it is a pretty major market- almost 2 million people). We just have NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, WGNT, FOX, and ION (some of which have sub-channels, but those don't really count in the bandwidth since they are all SD). I haven't dived into the frequencies and such, but I would guess not even 1/3 is taken.


When Dan stated "ATSC has a max of 19.2Mbps" he is talking about each frequency, currently the broadcaster can use it all for one channel or break parts of it it out for sub-channels, I do not believe there currently is away to combine the bandwidth from 2 or more frequencies to be used for one channel, so the 19.2 Mbps is a fixed max.

ATSC 3.0, if it ever happens, it is supposed to support video with a resolution of 3840×2160 at 60 fps within the 19.2 Mbps limitation. If broadcasters decided to support that I am sure they would be broadcasting on 2 frequencies one that supports the current standards that older devices could receive and another that supports the ATSC 3.0 standards for the new devices, the same as when they broadcasted an analog signal on one frequency and a digital on another for several years.

It is my understanding that the current ATSC standard was updated in 7/2008 to including support for h.264 1080p broadcasts at up to 60 fps and as far as I know it does not appear to be being used by anyone. So why would I believe that even if ATSC 3.0 shows up in 5+/- years, that the broadcasters will use it?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

For OTA each station is only allocated enough frequency for 19.2Mbps using ATSC. There is no way to use multiple channels. They'd need a new modulation standard that allows them to get more bandwidth from the frequencies they have.

For cable they could use bonding, like DOCSIS, but that's not currently part of the spec. They'd more likely upgrade to QAM-128 or QAM-256 to get more bandwidth per QAM. However those are much less tolerant to noise and interference, so they may not work all that great on aging infrastructure.

In the short term the only 4K we're going to see is from BD discs.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Agreed and we don't have the net cap now to sustain 4k streaming with current protocols, and I seriously doubt that will change substantially in the next couple of years. Not to mention providers reintroducing data caps (Comcast just put a 300GB/mo. cap on us in the ATL).

Discs are going to be it for the near future.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I agree. 4K in broadcast TV is going to be difficult because of bandwidth. Even with H.265 a 4K stream will need about 50Mbps. ATSC has a max of 19.2Mbps and QAM-64 only has about 26.9Mbps. So it's not even currently possible to broadcast a 4K signal.


Aren't you thinking about H.264? Some of the stuff I read about 4K said that broadcast 4K with H.264 would need around 50Mb/s of bandwidth, while when using H.265 it would need 20Mb/s to 30Mb/s of bandwidth. Of course that is still higher than the current allotted amount.

Besides if 1080P content can be delivered at 4.3 Mb/s with H.264(like Netflix), I can see 4K video with H.265 easily being at 20Mb/s. Of course I'm not saying the quality will be the best, but it can certainly be done. And broadcasters have rarely been concerned with quality.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Dan203 said:


> In the short term the only 4K we're going to see is from BD discs.


I think we will also see streaming, but as with 1080p streaming it will be at a substantially lower bit rate than BD discs.


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## anthonymoody (Apr 29, 2008)

atmuscarella said:


> I think we will also see streaming, but as with 1080p streaming it will be at a substantially lower bit rate than BD discs.


Precisely.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> I think we will also see streaming, but as with 1080p streaming it will be at a substantially lower bit rate than BD discs.


Most people don't understand resolution (like 4K) and bit rate, you can provide high stated resolution at a low bit rates and most people will not know, OTA could be 1080I at 19Mb/s and so could cable but you can also get 1080i at much lower bit rates and the picture quality will suffer even if your HDTV tells you your resolution is 1080i.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

lessd said:


> Most people don't understand resolution (like 4K) and bit rate, you can provide high stated resolution at a low bit rates and most people will not know, OTA could be 1080I at 19Mb/s and so could cable but you can also get 1080i at much lower bit rates and the picture quality will suffer even if your HDTV tells you your resolution is 1080i.


Exactly.

In Rochester NY the local Fox station broadcasts in 720p and a 1 hr prime time show is almost 2X as large as 1 hr prime time show from my local ABC & CW stations which are also both broadcast in 720p. The reason is because the ABC station (13.1) has the local CW station as a sub-channel (13.2) and equal splits the band width between the 2 and the fox station (31.1) has no sub-channels. The ABC & CW shows look ok but I would say they are clearly not as sharp as the shows from stations that are using more bandwidth (have a higher bit rate). Which gets back to my point of not believing the OTA broadcasters will be willing to spend money to broadcast in 4K (or even 1080p), as it is clear my local ABC & CW broadcaster is willing to cut quality down substantially to avoid any increased costs broadcasting on 2 frequencies would incur.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

crxssi said:


> I don't know about other markets, but here there are TONS of unused channels/bandwidth for OTA (and it is a pretty major market- almost 2 million people). We just have NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, WGNT, FOX, and ION (some of which have sub-channels, but those don't really count in the bandwidth since they are all SD). I haven't dived into the frequencies and such, but I would guess not even 1/3 is taken.


They also take into account the adjacent markets and the possibility of interference, so that's usually the reason for the holes in your channel lineup.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

aaronwt said:


> Aren't you thinking about H.264? Some of the stuff I read about 4K said that broadcast 4K with H.264 would need around 50Mb/s of bandwidth, while when using H.265 it would need 20Mb/s to 30Mb/s of bandwidth.


Let's assume that broadcast 1080i is 15Mbps with MPEG-2 compression. If we assume H.264 results in a 50% compression advantage over MPEG-2 and H.265 has another 50% compression advantage over H.264 then a 4K stream would still require 30Mbps. (that's 4k/60fps) The problem is that 50% compression advantage is not really obtainable with realtime encoding they use in broadcasting. So expect more like a 35-40% compression advantage, which lands the bitrate between 45-50Mbps.

Now Netflix can pre-encode with multi-pass encoders and get the max compression advantage. Plus they can also use 24/30fps. Which means they could get their 4k streams down to 12-15Mbps which is actually feasible for streaming.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> Aren't you thinking about H.264? Some of the stuff I read about 4K said that broadcast 4K with H.264 would need around 50Mb/s of bandwidth, while when using H.265 it would need 20Mb/s to 30Mb/s of bandwidth. Of course that is still higher than the current allotted amount.
> 
> Besides if 1080P content can be delivered at 4.3 Mb/s with H.264(like Netflix), I can see 4K video with H.265 easily being at 20Mb/s. Of course I'm not saying the quality will be the best, but it can certainly be done. And broadcasters have rarely been concerned with quality.


Everything is relative.

You can deliver 1080P at 5Mb/s and 720P at 40Mb/s. The bitrate is not set in stone on any system. There are set units for resolution and frame rate, but bitrate can be anywhere on the [allowed] map. To make matters worse, the quality of the mastering and encoding can vary too, making a certain bitrate OK in one case look yucky in another.

Another thing to consider is that as resolution goes up, the bitrate increase is not relative. 4K video might be 4 times the resolution, but might need only 50% more bandwidth to achieve the same quality. It gives me a headache


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

crxssi said:


> Another thing to consider is that as resolution goes up, the bitrate increase is not relative. 4K video might be 4 times the resolution, but might need only 50% more bandwidth to achieve the same quality. It gives me a headache


All other factors being equal (i.e. codec, frame rate, GOP length, etc...) bitrate should scale proportionally with resolution. Although there is a floor for MPEG-2, so if you try to go too low, even if you scale the video accordingly, the results will look like crap. H.264 is much better at handling very low bitrates.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Dan203 said:


> All other factors being equal (i.e. codec, frame rate, GOP length, etc...) bitrate should scale proportionally with resolution.


That should not be the case for all lossy types of compression. At least, that is not my understanding. I thought some significant gains in modern codec bandwidth are achieved by "re-using" pre-encoded parts of the screen. And in such a case, a zillion more pixels of similar info can be encoded at not much penalty. Of course, this doesn't work for really complex scenes. My stupid 50% example could be way off, of course.

Am I missing something? Maybe I am crazy.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Technically that's true, if you were able to do a multi-pass encode, but in broadcasting there is a lot of reatime encoding going on so they have standardized on a much simpler set of parameters that don't tend to benefit much from the fancier stuff the codecs are capable of. This is especially true for MPEG-2 which has been in use since the mid 90s back when the hardware was a lot less capable and HD didn't exist yet.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Let's assume that broadcast 1080i is 15Mbps with MPEG-2 compression. If we assume H.264 results in a 50% compression advantage over MPEG-2 and H.265 has another 50% compression advantage over H.264 then a 4K stream would still require 30Mbps. (that's 4k/60fps) The problem is that 50% compression advantage is not really obtainable with realtime encoding they use in broadcasting. So expect more like a 35-40% compression advantage, which lands the bitrate between 45-50Mbps.
> 
> Now Netflix can pre-encode with multi-pass encoders and get the max compression advantage. Plus they can also use 24/30fps. Which means they could get their 4k streams down to 12-15Mbps which is actually feasible for streaming.


Problem is, 1080i broadcast MPEG2 has been much lower than 15Mb/s. More like 10Mb/s or even lower. Most Broadcasters don't care about quality. Many will stuff multiple sub-channels in, and sometimes one of those sub-channels is also in HD. So all the channels are bit starved and look like crap. I would expect things to be no different if they ever tried to broadcast 4K. I would fully expect it to be bitstarved as well.

EDIT: I just looked at some of the bitrates of my recent OTA recordings from 1080i networks in my area(NBC, CBS, and the CW)
The bitrates ranged from 11.4Mb/s to 13.65 Mb/s. Then if I look at the two 720P networks, FOx and ABC I see bitrates of 9.4 Mb/s for ABC and 14.4Mb/s for Fox. The only network in my area that doesn't have any sub-channels is Fox. And they have the highest bitrate.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> Problem is, 1080i broadcast MPEG2 has been much lower than 15Mb/s. More like 10Mb/s or even lower. Most Broadcasters don't care about quality. Many will stuff multiple sub-channels in, and sometimes one of those sub-channels is also in HD. So all the channels are bit starved and look like crap. I would expect things to be no different if they ever tried to broadcast 4K. I would fully expect it to be bitstarved as well.
> 
> EDIT: I just looked at some of the bitrates of my recent OTA recordings from 1080i networks in my area(NBC, CBS, and the CW)
> The bitrates ranged from 11.4Mb/s to 13.65 Mb/s. Then if I look at the two 720P networks, FOx and ABC I see bitrates of 9.4 Mb/s for ABC and 14.4Mb/s for Fox. The only network in my area that doesn't have any sub-channels is Fox. And they have the highest bitrate.


This bit rate bull is the fly in the ointment as people can be given information on resolution etc but the spec on the bit rate is an unknown for most people so ones picture on a less costly HDTV may be better then a high cost HDTV that has a lower bit rate signal. That the biggest scam now going on in HDTV


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

lessd said:


> This bit rate bull is the fly in the ointment as people can be given information on resolution etc but the spec on the bit rate is an unknown for most people so ones picture on a less costly HDTV may be better then a high cost HDTV that has a lower bit rate signal. That the biggest scam now going on in HDTV


There are a lot of scams. Like them being "LED TV" when they are not (THAT is the biggest scam). Or built-in smart stuff that will be abandonware after a few years. Or the "viewable" vs. "advertised" size stuff which is coming back again. Or the total lack of control with the "smoothing" and frame rate interpolation (which can be extremely irritating when you want to turn it off or down). USB ports that don't supply appropriate power. Documentation that doesn't explain anything. Default settings that so overblow color and brightness it is insane. Lack of ability to turn the TV's speakers into a center channel for external amplifiers. 3D that is so bad it is like an instant eye/headache hyper-flicker machine. Lack of useful specs info ANYWHERE, like viewing angles, HDMI spec, MTBF, input restrictions, even full dimensions.

Not that I am picky or anything....


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

crxssi said:


> Or built-in smart stuff that will be abandonware after a few years


I'm a bit bummed about the smart stuff in my Samsung TV. They have newer apps with added features but only release them for the newest model TVs. They have some $300 module you can buy that replaces the entire "brain" of older TVs so they can run the new apps, but it only works for the two most expensive models. I bought the 3rd tier one, which was still $2K, and it can not be upgraded.  I still use it for VUDU and HBOGo, but I've converted to using my Roamio for Netflix now that the app is actually usable. (unlike the Premiere)


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Dan203 said:


> I'm a bit bummed about the smart stuff in my Samsung TV. They have newer apps with added features but only release them for the newest model TVs. They have some $300 module you can buy that replaces the entire "brain" of older TVs so they can run the new apps, but it only works for the two most expensive models.


Exactly. And they burn through models quickly. Every year or two it is "obsolete" and pretty much useless. They have absolutely no incentive to support the "old" models. This is why a TV should be just a monitor.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

crxssi said:


> This is why a TV should be just a monitor.


I agree. Maybe there is a case for lower cost TVs being a "TV" but the high end stuff should just be a monitor and focus on providing an exceptional picture only, nothing else. Anyone buying a $2000+ "TV" is likely going to have a full home theater setup and not need or use anything but the monitor part of a TV.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

crxssi said:


> There are a lot of scams. Like them being "LED TV" when they are not (THAT is the biggest scam). Or built-in smart stuff that will be abandonware after a few years. Or the "viewable" vs. "advertised" size stuff which is coming back again. Or the total lack of control with the "smoothing" and frame rate interpolation (which can be extremely irritating when you want to turn it off or down). USB ports that don't supply appropriate power. Documentation that doesn't explain anything. Default settings that so overblow color and brightness it is insane. Lack of ability to turn the TV's speakers into a center channel for external amplifiers. 3D that is so bad it is like an instant eye/headache hyper-flicker machine. Lack of useful specs info ANYWHERE, like viewing angles, HDMI spec, MTBF, input restrictions, even full dimensions.
> 
> Not that I am picky or anything....


It's not really a scam. It is an LED LCD TV. You average person doesn't know about any of this stuff. It's just that many people are ignorant and don't realize that the LED is just the back lighting of the LCD set. I run into this at work all the time when we install an LCD set. All the ones we use now are LED backlit and most people we run into have no clue. Which is typical for A/V related stuff. Your average consumer doesn't have much of a clue with audio and video devices. I see it on a weekly basis.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> I agree. Maybe there is a case for lower cost TVs being a "TV" but the high end stuff should just be a monitor and focus on providing an exceptional picture only, nothing else. Anyone buying a $2000+ "TV" is likely going to have a full home theater setup and not need or use anything but the monitor part of a TV.


I can't count the number of people I've run into that spent a ton of money on a TV and don't have full home theater setup. They have big LCD and just use the TV speakers with a few components connected to it. Or even worse they have some kind of cheap speaker bar type audio system connected to this expensive TV. And then on top of that the picture will look like crap, over saturated etc,


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> I can't count the number of people I've run into that spent a ton of money on a TV and don't have full home theater setup. They have big LCD and just use the TV speakers with a few components connected to it. Or even worse they have some kind of cheap speaker bar type audio system connected to this expensive TV. And then on top of that the picture will look like crap, over saturated etc,


In past years it was easy to spend lots on a so so TV - 5 years ago I spent $2200 on mine and it was not the top of the line. But I find it hard to believe people are spending $2000+ plus now and not getting great TVs. You can get the Panasonic TC-P60ST60 60-Inch TV, which CNET rated as having the 4th best picture of all TVs this year for under $1500 and a Panasonic TC-P65ZT60 65" which is CNets highest rated TV ever for under $3000.

Of course if people insist on buying LCD TVs they will end up spending more and not get as good picture quality. But you can still get a great 60in LCD (Samsung UN60F8000 60") for around $2000.

I guess there are people who will buy these top of the Line TVs and just use them without a home theater setup, but is sure seems like a waste. Frankly if someone wants to do that they should just buy something like a Panasonic TC-PS60 which you can get for $1150, they will still have a great picture in a no frills TV. What blows my mind is that the 50" Version is now $700 and likely better than the TV I bought 5 years ago for $2200.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I'm not saying that their Tvs were not good, only that their settings were not. Your average person has no idea how to adjust the picture properly on their TV. Whether they paid $4k or $400. Of course your average person seems to also like overstaurated colors, which is another thing that makes the picture look really bad on some of the sets I've seen. I don't expect people to do an involved calibration but at least the basics of adjusting color, tint, contrast, and brightness goes a very long ways to having a better looking picture.

I gave up ajdusting the settings on TVs at work, because when I would usually come back to the set, someone will have messed with settings, oversaturating the colors and also making the picture too bright. So I don't even mess with them any more.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> It's not really a scam. It is an LED LCD TV.


No it isn't. It is an LCD TV. We didn't call LCD with fluorescent backlights "fluorescent TV" or "fluorescent LCD TV" did we? It would be like switching the battery in an internal combustion engine car from lead acid to lithium and calling it a "lithium car". Absurd!



> You average person doesn't know about any of this stuff.


I know. And they fall for the marketing crap.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> I can't count the number of people I've run into that spent a ton of money on a TV and don't have full home theater setup. They have big LCD and just use the TV speakers with a few components connected to it. Or even worse they have some kind of cheap speaker bar type audio system connected to this expensive TV. And then on top of that the picture will look like crap, over saturated etc,


Yep.

And our two 75" Samsung *LCD* TVs just arrived at work today (will be used for presentations) and I started configuring them. Yep.... just as I have always seen. All the default/"normal" settings are positively HORRIBLE. So bright the lighter scenes are washed out completely. So over-saturated it looks like someone used hyper crayons to color everything. So over-smoothed and interpolated, it actually causes the display to LAG by hundreds of milliseconds, which is extraordinarily annoying when connected to a computer and you are trying to move the mouse. All the settings crap is impossible to understand because it has been dumbed down into marketing drivel and, of course, not explained properly at all. It took 40 minutes of experimentation to get a reasonable picture.

And this is on one of their highest end sets!


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

crxssi said:


> No it isn't. It is an LCD TV. We didn't call LCD with fluorescent backlights "fluorescent TV" or "fluorescent LED TV" did we? It would be like switching the battery in an internal combustion engine car from lead acid to lithium and calling it a "lithium car". Absurd!


But LEDs have a few major benefits that are worth marketing. They have a longer lifespan then the old fluorescent back lights, they are noticeably thinner and some can do local dimming. And since LCD TVs with fluorescent back lighting are still being sold I think it makes since to try an differentiate them. In most cases an LCD TV with LED back lighting is better and listing them as "LED TVs" makes it easier for customers to quickly pick them out. I really don't think this is a bad thing. There will always be uninformed customers that fall for marketing gimmicks, but that's on them not the manufacturers.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Dan203 said:


> But LEDs have a few major benefits that are worth marketing. They have a longer lifespan then the old fluorescent back lights, they are noticeably thinner and some can do local dimming. And since LCD TVs with fluorescent back lighting are still being sold I think it makes since to try an differentiate them. In most cases an LCD TV with LED back lighting is better and listing them as "LED TVs" makes it easier for customers to quickly pick them out. I really don't think this is a bad thing. There will always be uninformed customers that fall for marketing gimmicks, but that's on them not the manufacturers.


How about just calling them what they are? Like LED back lit LCDs.

However if the manufactures just provide a full set of specs why does it matter if it is LED back lit LCD, Florescent back lit LCD, Plasma, or even OLEAD? If the consumer was given honest complete specifications and review sites did honest reviews the consumer could buy TVs that met their requirements. If thin matters you buy thin, if using less energy matters you buy one that uses less energy, if picture quality matter you buy one with a better picture, etc. etc., the TV that comes closets to providing what you want (at your price point) is what you buy, the technology being used to achieve what you want should be fairly irrelevant.

What rubs me wrong about this type of marketing is they act like being LED back lit is what matters, when in fact it is not. How the TV performs is what matters.


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## Devx (Jun 1, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> I can't count the number of people I've run into that spent a ton of money on a TV and don't have full home theater setup. They have big LCD and just use the TV speakers with a few components connected to it. Or even worse they have some kind of cheap speaker bar type audio system connected to this expensive TV. And then on top of that the picture will look like crap, over saturated etc,





crxssi said:


> Yep.
> 
> And our two 75" Samsung *LCD* TVs just arrived at work today (will be used for presentations) and I started configuring them. Yep.... just as I have always seen. All the default/"normal" settings are positively HORRIBLE. So bright the lighter scenes are washed out completely. So over-saturated it looks like someone used hyper crayons to color everything. So over-smoothed and interpolated, it actually causes the display to LAG by hundreds of milliseconds, which is extraordinarily annoying when connected to a computer and you are trying to move the mouse. All the settings crap is impossible to understand because it has been dumbed down into marketing drivel and, of course, not explained properly at all. It took 40 minutes of experimentation to get a reasonable picture.
> 
> And this is on one of their highest end sets!


It's a race to move sets. When visiting the big box stores with their bright lights, those TVs with overly bright settings and oversaturated 'vibrant' colors catch peoples attention. Manufacturers are going with what works to compete and sell TVs. Nevermind that those settings won't look great when the TV is at the consumers home. The problem there is that if they did a good job calibrating at the factory for realistic tones and color accuracy, their sets would look downright dull compared to the competition with their oversaturation.

I think I can top the story about those that have nice expensive sets without a full theater setup or poor calibration. There are still those that have a nice, newer midrange? (42-46") HD LED-LCD sets with only SD sources. Let's put aside enhanced audio for a moment, calibration could probably help but only to an extent. There is no HD channel as part of their lineup. I should add, their cable provider has HD channels but they have chosen not to subscribe. These TVs have only SD over coax and DVD sources. Before we move to 4k, can we update everyone to at least 720p? Obviously my experience isn't indicative of the larger population but I know 3 households like this. Those people don't need a higher resolution TV, they need their sources to receive an upgrade first.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Devx said:


> It's a race to move sets. When visiting the big box stores with their bright lights, those TVs with overly bright settings and oversaturated 'vibrant' colors catch peoples attention. Manufacturers are going with what works to compete and sell TVs. Nevermind that those settings won't look great when the TV is at the consumers home. The problem there is that if they did a good job calibrating at the factory for realistic tones and color accuracy, their sets would look downright dull compared to the competition with their oversaturation.
> 
> I think I can top the story about those that have nice expensive sets without a full theater setup or poor calibration. There are still those that have a nice, newer midrange? (42-46") HD LED-LCD sets with only SD sources. Let's put aside enhanced audio for a moment, calibration could probably help but only to an extent. There is no HD channel as part of their lineup. I should add, their cable provider has HD channels but they have chosen not to subscribe. These TVs have only SD over coax and DVD sources. Before we move to 4k, can we update everyone to at least 720p? Obviously my experience isn't indicative of the larger population but I know 3 households like this. Those people don't need a higher resolution TV, they need their sources to receive an upgrade first.


A lot of people I know are watching SD on a nice HDTV, it not my problem, but some of these people also stretch the SD picture to fill the screen UG!!


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## tim1724 (Jul 3, 2007)

lessd said:


> A lot of people I know are watching SD on a nice HDTV, it not my problem, but some of these people also stretch the SD picture to fill the screen UG!!


The worst is if they use one of those non-linear scaling modes that stretches the edges more than the middle. Whenever the camera pans horizontally I get seasick.

I find myself looking for someplace to sit where the TV is out of sight whenever I'm at the house of someone who does that.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

lessd said:


> A lot of people I know are watching SD on a nice HDTV, it not my problem, but some of these people also stretch the SD picture to fill the screen UG!!


My Sister does this. She leaves her TiVo set to "full" at all times, even though I've showed her multiple times how to adjust it. What's really bad is she'll watch SD movies that are letterboxed and still leave it on "full" so it's stretched AND has the black bars on the top/bottom.

I'm an HD snob and refuse to watch anything that's not HD unless I absolutely have to. And now that Charter finally added all channels I watch in HD I should never have to watch SD again.

My Mom and Sister will continue to watch SD because they refuse to learn the new channel numbers for the HD equivalents.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Dan203 said:


> My Sister does this. She leaves her TiVo set to "full" at all times, even though I've showed her multiple times how to adjust it. What's really bad is she'll watch SD movies that are letterboxed and still leave it on "full" so it's stretched AND has the black bars on the top/bottom.
> 
> I'm an HD snob and refuse to watch anything that's not HD unless I absolutely have to. And now that Charter finally added all channels I watch in HD I should never have to watch SD again.
> 
> My Mom and Sister will continue to watch SD because they refuse to learn the new channel numbers for the HD equivalents.


OK I will admit besides some friends my wife also likes SD because of the almost unlimited storage, she records only the SD channels so she does not have to deal with running out of space, with over 3000 hours of SD storage she only watches about 10% of what she records, but happy wife happy husband. (she does watch with bars on the TV as she wants no picture distortion)


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Well at least she's watching it right. But with a min of 2TB (based on your sig) she would be able to record about 300 hours of HD. I can't imagine that wouldn't be enough unless she's a hoarder.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Dan203 said:


> Well at least she's watching it right. But with a min of 2TB (based on your sig) she would be able to record about 300 hours of HD. I can't imagine that wouldn't be enough unless she's a hoarder.


She has the* 3Tb *and yes she is a hoarder, as she may record say 100 Dr OZes and look and see if any have anything that she has interest in. 
She will record the full series of anything she thinks may be good, if after the season is over if her friends say it was NG she will just delete the folder, if they say it was good she watches the full season without the one week wait between each episode.
It is her HDTV so it does interfere with my 80" HDTV in another room.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Man women watch stupid TV! My wife almost exclusively watches reality TV and talk shows. We watch a few network shows together, like CSI, Criminal Minds and The Mentalist, but for the most part she spends her TV time watching Real Housewives, Teen Mom, Dance Moms, etc... I can't even stand listening to that crap when I'm in the other room playing on my iPad let alone actually watching it.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Dan203 said:


> Man women watch stupid TV! My wife almost exclusively watches reality TV and talk shows. We watch a few network shows together, like CSI, Criminal Minds and The Mentalist, but for the most part she spends her TV time watching Real Housewives, Teen Mom, Dance Moms, etc... I can't even stand listening to that crap when I'm in the other room playing on my iPad let alone actually watching it.


A lot of men watch stupid reality drama TV too. I hate it.

As for the video incorrect scaling, I am 100% with you. I can tolerate SD on occasion, but it better be at the native aspect ratio or *BARF*.


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## anthonymoody (Apr 29, 2008)

I literally never watching anything SD except industry screeners which are beginning to pour in as always this time of year. And even that annoys me!! I mean hell you're trying to impress me with your product, the least you can do is deliver it on bluray.


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## DCIFRTHS (Jan 6, 2000)

Davelnlr_ said:


> I would be happy if the content was delivered in 1080p before worrying about 4K. Only DirecTv and maybe DISH will have the bandwidth to even consider more than maybe one or two 4K channels anyway. Im waiting for an affordable 60" OLED that isnt curved. I would be much more interested in spending my cash on that.


The curved sets are just horrible. It serves no purpose other than to make the set look "cool".


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I read an article that specifically quoted LG and Samsung as saying that the current price points on OLED are so high that they went with the curved screen specifically to make them look cool and appeal to the type of people that can actually afford them. If they made them flat they wouldn't look much different then LCD TVs but with a much higher price.

As the technology improves and becomes more reasonable then it will eventually replace LCD for high end flat TVs.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Dan203 said:


> [...]If they made them flat they wouldn't look much different then LCD TVs but with a much higher price.
> 
> As the technology improves and becomes more reasonable then it will eventually replace LCD for high end flat TVs.


I wouldn't be too sure. Remember, LCD today is not LCD of 20 years ago or 10 years ago or even a few years ago. That technology is improving continuously also. At this point, the gap between LCD and LED is closing more and more. At the point LED sets are actually affordable, there might be little to no advantage of LED anymore...

Look at LCD vs. LED displays on phones. Personally, I find the LCD ones to be much sharper and pleasant to look at. The LED ones have a little bit blacker blacks and a little better viewing angle. But they also wash out a lot easier.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I think the big advantage of OLED is that they're capable of being paper thin (hence the ability to have a curved screen) and super light. They'll eventually be able to make huge TVs that are light enough to be hung on the wall like a painting without special mounts. This would also significantly cut the costs of shipping and reduce storage space in warehouses. It's been a while since I read about it but I think that they are also easier to manufacturer. I know they have yield problems right now, and that's what's driving up costs, but I believe that they make OLED screens by basically printing them on a giant inkjet. As the materials improve, yields will improve, and OLEDs should eventually be cheaper then LCDs to make. But who knows. They've been improving LCD so fast that all the advantages of OLED may become irrelevant by the time they come to fruition.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

lessd said:


> A lot of people I know are watching SD on a nice HDTV, it not my problem, but some of these people also stretch the SD picture to fill the screen UG!!


My GFs mom does this. WHen they got DirecTV they only got STBs. I told them to get the DVRs and make sure they could get HD but didn't listen. So for no extra cost they could have had HD DVRs for their TVs. Instead, they only are SD capable on their HD sets. Although she is in her late 80's so I guess I can give her some slack.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

tim1724 said:


> The worst is if they use one of those non-linear scaling modes that stretches the edges more than the middle. Whenever the camera pans horizontally I get seasick.
> 
> I find myself looking for someplace to sit where the TV is out of sight whenever I'm at the house of someone who does that.


I used to use that mode back in 2001. I thought it was better than the linear stretch. But sometime in 2002 I stopped stretching anything and viewing it in the normal aspect ratio. Since then I can't stand any type of stretching of 4:3 content.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I read an article that specifically quoted LG and Samsung as saying that the current price points on OLED are so high that they went with the curved screen specifically to make them look cool and appeal to the type of people that can actually afford them. If they made them flat they wouldn't look much different then LCD TVs but with a much higher price.
> 
> As the technology improves and becomes more reasonable then it will eventually replace LCD for high end flat TVs.


I couldn't stand the curved OLED that BestBuy had. And several feet away was the Sony 84" 4K set. Which was much better looking than the OLED.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Dan203 said:


> I think the big advantage of OLED is that they're capable of being paper thin (hence the ability to have a curved screen) and super light. They'll eventually be able to make huge TVs that are light enough to be hung on the wall like a painting without special mounts. This would also significantly cut the costs of shipping and reduce storage space in warehouses.


Yeah, I don't think LCD will be getting all THAT much lighter or thinner than what the best offered now is. Then they would offer *MONITORS* instead- no speakers, no tuners, no "smart" crap, then an LED TV could theoretically be extremely thin... like just a few mm or less. They will have more problems just trying to keep them from "curling"


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## DCIFRTHS (Jan 6, 2000)

DCIFRTHS said:


> The curved sets are just horrible. It serves no purpose other than to make the set look "cool".





Dan203 said:


> I read an article that specifically quoted LG and Samsung as saying that the current price points on OLED are so high that they went with the curved screen specifically to make them look cool and appeal to the type of people that can actually afford them. If they made them flat they wouldn't look much different then LCD TVs but with a much higher price..


I read the same article


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## DCIFRTHS (Jan 6, 2000)

Dan203 said:


> I think the big advantage of OLED is that they're capable of being paper thin (hence the ability to have a curved screen) and super light. They'll eventually be able to make huge TVs that are light enough to be hung on the wall like a painting without special mounts. This would also significantly cut the costs of shipping and reduce storage space in warehouses. It's been a while since I read about it but I think that they are also easier to manufacturer. I know they have yield problems right now, and that's what's driving up costs, but I believe that they make OLED screens by basically printing them on a giant inkjet. As the materials improve, yields will improve, and OLEDs should eventually be cheaper then LCDs to make. But who knows. They've been improving LCD so fast that all the advantages of OLED may become irrelevant by the time they come to fruition.


OLED's picture quality is their best feature. There is no backlight on an OLED TV, and they have excellent black levels. Also, better contrast than LED or LCD backlit TV's, and no "blooming" to contend with.

It will take years, but I believe that once OLED matures, and becomes more affordable, it will be the high end display of choice with LED being the mainstream (lower end) offering. For the record, I have a local dimming LED TV, so I have nothing against LED. I just believe that OLED is going to be the future.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

DCIFRTHS said:


> OLED's picture quality is their best feature. There is no backlight on an OLED TV, and they have excellent black levels. Also, better contrast than LED or LCD backlit TV's, and no "blooming" to contend with.
> 
> It will take years, but I believe that once OLED matures, and becomes more affordable, it will be the high end display of choice with LED being the mainstream (lower end) offering. For the record, I have a local dimming LED TV, so I have nothing against LED. I just believe that OLED is going to be the future.


In about 5 to 10 years you may be correct, OLED has been out, what about 8 years now ? and we are just starting to OLED HDTV with big screens and big prices.


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## ohmark (May 22, 2007)

Any recent opinions, in view of developments, as to updating from a Premiere to a Roamio now or waiting for a 4k Tivo (with the assumption that I'd be upgrading to a 4k tv in the next year or two.)?


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

ohmark said:


> Any recent opinions, in view of developments, as to updating from a Premiere to a Roamio now or waiting for a 4k Tivo (with the assumption that I'd be upgrading to a 4k tv in the next year or two.)?


And where would get real 4K resolution from that would use any TiVo even if TiVo had 4K resolution. BD + is the only way I can see full 4K delivery, and that does not involve TiVo.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

ohmark said:


> Any recent opinions, in view of developments, as to updating from a Premiere to a Roamio now or waiting for a 4k Tivo (with the assumption that I'd be upgrading to a 4k tv in the next year or two.)?


You will be waiting a very, very long time if you think you are going to see a 4K TiVo. You might want to just update now.


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## Worf (Sep 15, 2000)

Yeah, 4K adoption is probably even slower than 3D TVs. Because at least a 3D TV can use existing standards (if you can do 1080p, you can do 3D with *zero* changes to your infrastructure - you'll just use one of the half-resolution modes). It's how TV stations and all that could quickly transmit a 3D signal.

4K, well, it requires a total overhaul of the infrastructure. Today, a 4K TV using HDMI 1.4a (needed for full resolution 3D) also gives you only 24, 25 or 30fps. And HDMI 2.0 is just starting to come out (yay, after all the early adopters pick up 4K, a year later they get screwed). 

And since 4K is about quality, you need a higher bandwidth source. Not likely through broadcast TV (3D was easy since very little needed changing).

Plus, people are realizing they sit too damn far away from the TV most of the time, so a plain old 1080p set is "retina" to them. Going 4K means sitting even closer to the set to get the benefits, to the point of being uncomfortable. So you also need either a wife who will let you go from that 50" to 100", or a wife who complains the living room is too spread out and the furniture needs to move closer in.

4K for computers though makes some sense, but you're not going to need TiVo for that. 

So get a Roamio, enjoy that, because if 4K makes it to where you need TiVo, your Roamio is probably collected an inch of dust in the garage as you'd have upgraded long before then.


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## ohmark (May 22, 2007)

If you access Netflix through Tivo and watch Netflix 4k using a 4k tv (equipped for Netflix 4k), will you have an actual 4k picture (as you would if you accessed Netflix through, say, an Apple TV)?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

ohmark said:


> If you access Netflix through Tivo and watch Netflix 4k using a 4k tv (equipped for Netflix 4k), will you have an actual 4k picture (as you would if you accessed Netflix through, say, an Apple TV)?


Not sure I 100% understand your question, but my understanding is that right now the only way to get 4K Netflix is by using the Netflix app on a 4K TV. Other existing streaming devices (Roku, Apple TV, TiVo etc.) can not stream Netflix in 4K.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

atmuscarella said:


> Not sure I 100% understand your question, but my understanding is that right now the only way to get 4K Netflix is by using the Netflix app on a 4K TV. Other existing streaming devices (Roku, Apple TV, TiVo etc.) can not stream Netflix in 4K.


I'd be willing to bet that the next generation Roku will be capable of 4K. It's just the next logical step.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

tarheelblue32 said:


> I'd be willing to bet that the next generation Roku will be capable of 4K. It's just the next logical step.


I had figured 3D was the next step. But when the Roku 3 was released it didn't support 3D. People with 4K TVs is still a very, very minor number of people. But then 3D is also. Although there are many, many times the amount of 3D TVS out there than 4K TVs.


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## ohmark (May 22, 2007)

atmuscarella said:


> Not sure I 100% understand your question, but my understanding is that right now the only way to get 4K Netflix is by using the Netflix app on a 4K TV. Other existing streaming devices (Roku, Apple TV, TiVo etc.) can not stream Netflix in 4K.


Oh. So, could the upgrading/updating of the Tivo Netflix app result in 4K so that it could pass through to a 4k tv or would the Tivo software itself have to be updated so as to provide a 4k signal to a tv? In other words, even if there is no 4k cable and even if Tivo does not/cannot currently record 4k television, could a Netflix app software update allow current Roamios to provide 4k programming from Netflix? Apologize in advance for my lack of knowledge.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

HDMI 1.4 allows for UHD. But the TiVo chipset would also need to be capable outputting Ultra HD.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

ohmark said:


> Oh. So, could the upgrading/updating of the Tivo Netflix app result in 4K so that it could pass through to a 4k tv or would the Tivo software itself have to be updated so as to provide a 4k signal to a tv? In other words, even if there is no 4k cable and even if Tivo does not/cannot currently record 4k television, could a Netflix app software update allow current Roamios to provide 4k programming from Netflix? Apologize in advance for my lack of knowledge.


Why would this be needed as all 4K HDTV will have their own Netflix 4k app built in, now many HDVT do not have any Netflix app built in so the Netflix/Roamio app makes sense, pushing the Roamio to pass through 4k will gain you (or TiVo) nothing.


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## Philmatic (Sep 17, 2003)

*The Roamio does not, can not, and will not support 4k video, either OTT through Netflix, or through VoD, or through broadcast signals.*

Can we please lock this annoyingly persistent topic?


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## ohmark (May 22, 2007)

Philmatic said:


> *Can we please lock this annoyingly persistent topic?*


*
Sorry to annoy you. Hope the impact on your life has not been severe.*


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

ohmark said:


> ... could a Netflix app software update allow current Roamios to provide 4k programming from Netflix? ...


The general conscious is no - there will also need to be a hardware update. This is believed to be the same for pretty much all existing streaming devices (Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Blu-ray players etc.), the only possible (likely?) exception might be new Blu-ray players that indicate they are 4K/UHD ready.

If 4K/UHD TVs sell well and other sources (Vudu?, YouTube?, HBO to go? Amazon?) of 4K/UHD content start to so up we might start to see hardware updates for some of these devices. But I am guessing that the 4K/UHD TVs will be the streaming devices them selves for at least the next few years. If TiVo is ever going to build DVRs that supports 4K/UHD or not is really an unknown but I find it unlikely to be anytime soon.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

I do like the 4K (or to be nit-picky UHD) monitor I just got for my computer though .


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## Philmatic (Sep 17, 2003)

ohmark said:


> Sorry to annoy you. Hope the impact on your life has not been severe.


It's been hard, but I am persevering. 

It's just that it's a simple question, with a simple answer. It seems like no one is happy with the simple answer so they then ask, *Well, what if this, or that.*

No what ifs, it's not happening, it's not possible.


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## BradfordD (Aug 3, 2013)

Philmatic said:


> It's been hard, but I am persevering.
> 
> It's just that it's a simple question, with a simple answer. It seems like no one is happy with the simple answer so they then ask, *Well, what if this, or that.*
> 
> No what ifs, it's not happening, it's not possible.


Okay... I don't have the Roamio - just the Premier XL4 Elite and a mini for the bedroom... If I do get a 65" 4K LED TV (drooling over the XBR-65x900B), should I just connect it to another TiVo Mini and not blow additional money on a Roamio upgrade??


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

BradfordD said:


> Okay... I don't have the Roamio - just the Premier XL4 Elite and a mini for the bedroom... If I do get a 65" 4K LED TV


(It is an LCD TV, not LED)



> (drooling over the XBR-65x900B), should I just connect it to another TiVo Mini and not blow additional money on a Roamio upgrade??


It depends on what you want to do. If you are talking about picture quality, it probably won't matter if it is a mini or Premier or Roamio. The big with the the Roamio is speed. In which case, upgrade the Premiere to a Roamio and use the Premier as a "mini" somewhere else. To me, the speed is worth the upgrade. (It is also actually meaningful, unlike 2K vs 4k)


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

Actually, with the last update that got rid of flash, my old Premiere is much faster now, so the speed difference between the Roamio and Premiere is no longer as great.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

tomhorsley said:


> Actually, with the last update that got rid of flash, my old Premiere is much faster now, so the speed difference between the Roamio and Premiere is no longer as great.


Hmm, that is interesting. I didn't know that the Premiere gained a lot of speed recently. I banished my Premiere to the spare bedroom and haven't used it in several months (I used it on and off for the several months after the Roamio). I might have to mess with it to see what difference there is now.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

crxssi said:


> Hmm, that is interesting. I didn't know that the Premiere gained a lot of speed recently. I banished my Premiere to the spare bedroom and haven't used it in several months (I used it on and off for the several months after the Roamio). I might have to mess with it to see what difference there is now.


I agree with Tom, it isn't Roamio fast - but it is significantly improved.


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## Captainbob (Sep 1, 2014)

atmuscarella said:


> I agree and even at 65" you would have to sit within a few feet to be able to see the increased resolution even if the content was available, in fact many people don't sit close enough to their TVs to be able to see the difference between 720p & 1080p (including me as I am 14ft from a 50" TV).


You are exactly right. I currently work with 4K displays and UHD, and unless you are sitting on top of the monitor or TV, you can't see the difference between standard HD and 4K. Then factor in the lack of available content in 4K, and I wouldn't buy one right now.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

I bought a UHD monitor for my computer because I always need more pixels (and the Samsung UHD monitor was a price I couldn't resist). Can't see any advantage for TV and Movies though. (unless maybe you had a picture in picture setup and wanted to see 4 HD broadcasts at once).


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

crxssi said:


> (It is an LCD TV, not LED)
> 
> It depends on what you want to do. If you are talking about picture quality, it probably won't matter if it is a mini or Premier or Roamio. The big with the the Roamio is speed. In which case, upgrade the Premiere to a Roamio and use the Premier as a "mini" somewhere else. To me, the speed is worth the upgrade. (It is also actually meaningful, unlike 2K vs 4k)


It's one of those crazy marketing terms. Like "Full HD" which make no sense. But they are calling the LCD TV with LED backlighting, LED TVs now. We just got a dozen of the LG TVs in at work in various sizes with the Pro:Idiom decryption. On all the boxes they say in big letters "LED TV". I just shake my head like with "Full HD".


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## Captainbob (Sep 1, 2014)

aaronwt said:


> It's one of those crazy marketing terms. Like "Full HD" which make no sense. But they are calling the LCD TV with LED backlighting, LED TVs now. We just got a dozen of the LG TVs in at work in various sizes with the Pro:Idiom decryption. On all the boxes they say in big letters "LED TV". I just shake my head like with "Full HD".


"LED" TVs always refers to the backlighting. What differentiates the LED TV's today is if the LEDs are lighting the entire screen all at once from the edge of the screen, or are lighting the screen from behind the LCD panel which is more expensive but produces a more even light across the screen. Then there is local dimming, which is the most expensive way to make an LCD-LED TV, where the LED's are dimmed down in areas where the pixels in that area are going to produce black or a darker picture, which gives a better black level to the picture and better contrast ratio.

By the way, fluorescent lamps, which were used in LCD TV's years ago, have been totally phased out.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Captainbob said:


> "LED" TVs always refers to the backlighting. What differentiates the LED TV's today is if the LEDs are lighting the entire screen all at once from the edge of the screen, or are lighting the screen from behind the LCD panel which is more expensive but produces a more even light across the screen. Then there is local dimming, which is the most expensive way to make an LCD-LED TV, where the LED's are dimmed down in areas where the pixels in that area are going to produce black or a darker picture, which gives a better black level to the picture and better contrast ratio.
> 
> By the way, fluorescent lamps, which were used in LCD TV's years ago, have been totally phased out.


They still have some for sale at the stores with fluorescent lighting. My GF just got a Vizio refurb replacement with fluorescent lighting. But she had bought it new about 1.5 years ago. Of course the refurb is screwed up too. They are supposed to give her money for the TV now. But it's about time the fluorescent backlighting gets phased out.


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## Captainbob (Sep 1, 2014)

aaronwt said:


> They still have some for sale at the stores with flourescent lighting.


Have to be some old stock, or very low quality LCD TV's.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Captainbob said:


> "LED" TVs always refers to the backlighting.


In marketing terms yes. In reality no. We didn't call LCD TV's with fluorescent backlighting "fluorescent TVs". An LCD display with LED backlighting is an LCD display. It is intentionally misleading consumers, especially when there really ARE such a thing as LED displays, they are just still rare and very expensive. I guess my 3.7 liter V6 car is now an "electric car" because it has a battery in it?

I hate marketing- the same dweeds that starting calling storage "memory", which it is not, and has created great confusion. "Memory" has always meant RAM with computers. Look, my phone has 64GB of "memory" now. Yeesh <grumble grumble>.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

crxssi said:


> I hate marketing- the same dweeds that starting calling storage "memory", which it is not, and has created great confusion. "Memory" has always meant RAM with computers. Look, my phone has 64GB of "memory" now. Yeesh <grumble grumble>.


That's not entirely accurate. "Computer memory" can mean either "volatile memory" like RAM, or "non-volatile memory" like hard disks or flash drives.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

tarheelblue32 said:


> That's not entirely accurate. "Computer memory" can mean either "volatile memory" like RAM, or "non-volatile memory" like hard disks or flash drives.


In very generic terms, yes. But when one asks how much memory is in a computer, that ALWAYS means RAM, not hard drive or flash drive storage space.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

crxssi said:


> In very generic terms, yes. But when one asks how much memory is in a computer, that ALWAYS means RAM, not hard drive or flash drive storage space.


It should but with SS drives and flash the word RAM gets confusing for some people.


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## Captainbob (Sep 1, 2014)

crxssi said:


> In very generic terms, yes. But when one asks how much memory is in a computer, that ALWAYS means RAM, not hard drive or flash drive storage space.


You are incorrect, as was already pointed out. There are two types of memory, volatile RAM memory and non-volatile memory-hard drive, flash, SSD, etc.... When you ask about memory, you have to specify which memory you are asking about.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Captainbob said:


> You are incorrect, as was already pointed out. There are two types of memory, volatile RAM memory and non-volatile memory-hard drive, flash, SSD, etc.... When you ask about memory, you have to specify which memory you are asking about.


When flash memory becomes as fast as non static RAM is now (for about the same price), non static RAM will be phased out. You computer will not need sleep mode.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

Captainbob said:


> You are incorrect, as was already pointed out.


In your opinion, perhaps. But not in mine.

I don't need a lesson in computer terminology... I am a degreed IT Director with 30 years of experience in computers. Since microcomputers have been on the scene, almost everyone has used the term "memory" as short for "random access memory" and almost never refer to long-term (non-volatile) storage as just "memory". It is not ambiguous. If one wants to call flash storage "flash memory", even that is OK, because it is not ambiguous.

What *IS* ambiguous is listing specifications on a phone with only one capacity metric such as:

* 4.7" LCD screen
* 2GB memory
* Android 4.1

And I have seen that relatively recent type of thing many times. Now, we tech people know when they are saying something like "16GB memory" they really mean "16GB storage" because portable devices don't have 16GB of memory... yet. But on forums people ask questions like "how much memory is free", or "am I running out of memory" and really mean "storage", it can get annoying, quickly. Not a huge big deal, just annoying to watch marketing terminology take over.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

crxssi said:


> In marketing terms yes. In reality no. We didn't call LCD TV's with fluorescent backlighting "fluorescent TVs". An LCD display with LED backlighting is an LCD display.


Oh, also, there are DLP TVs with halogen bulbs- they are not called "Halogen TVs". And DLP TVs with LED bulbs- they are not called "LED TVs".

But back to 4K- I find it amusing that the marketing moguls have decided to skip right over:

extended
extra
very
super
mega
hyper
stellar

and all other superlatives and jump right to "ultra" HD, leaving pretty much no future room for anything better for their inevitable next unnecessary jump in resolution  Wait- is "hyper" better than "ultra"? Maybe they can just tack on combinations for "super ultra" or "mega ultra" like they do for VGA.... "extended super mega ultra HD plus"- that's the ticket! TiVo has the right idea to just give non-superlative names for their improving models (imagine having TiVo, Super TiVo, Mega TiVo, Ultra TiVo...).


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Everyone needs to relax and have a cupcake, ok?


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Does TiVo work with 8k? 

http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-t...rce=o1&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=o1#!bQpvVE


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

bradleys said:


> Does TiVo work with 8k?
> 
> http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-t...rce=o1&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=o1#!bQpvVE


How ridiculous.

In any case, I just realized the other marketing term fiasco (since I haven't been paying attention to the stuff). 4K is not 4 megapixels nor is 4000 vertical (like 1080P is roughly 1K). It is 4 times the resolution of HDTV (1080P). And 8K is 16 times the resolution of HDTV.

We have been calling TV resolution by the vertical resolution forever. 480, 720, 1080. They just suddenly decided to totally trash that and use an approximation of the HORIZONTAL resolution for UHD. If they had any logic, they would have just continued to call it by the vertical resolution so we would have 480, 720P 1080P, 2160P, and 4320P. Leave it to marketing to provide unnecessary confusion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_high_definition_television


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

crxssi said:


> How ridiculous.
> 
> In any case, I just realized the other marketing term fiasco (since I haven't been paying attention to the stuff). 4K is not 4 megapixels nor is 4000 vertical (like 1080P is roughly 1K). It is 4 times the resolution of HDTV (1080P). And 8K is 16 times the resolution of HDTV.
> 
> ...


I would usually agree with you about the marketing gimmicks, but I have to say that "4K" is much easier to remember than "2160P". And honestly, 90% of consumers probably have no idea what the "1080" or the "P" in "1080p" even stands for. And they won't know what "4K" really stands for either, so it doesn't really matter very much. The best you can hope for is that they will remember that "4K" is 4x the resolution of 1080P because they both just happen to have the number "4" in them.


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## Philmatic (Sep 17, 2003)

crxssi said:


> In any case, I just realized the other marketing term fiasco (since I haven't been paying attention to the stuff). 4K is not 4 megapixels nor is 4000 vertical (like 1080P is roughly 1K). It is 4 times the resolution of HDTV (1080P). And 8K is 16 times the resolution of HDTV.
> 
> We have been calling TV resolution by the vertical resolution forever. 480, 720, 1080. They just suddenly decided to totally trash that and use an approximation of the HORIZONTAL resolution for UHD. If they had any logic, they would have just continued to call it by the vertical resolution so we would have 480, 720P 1080P, 2160P, and 4320P. Leave it to marketing to provide unnecessary confusion.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_high_definition_television


The switch to 4k is actually to align the consumer side more closely with the industry, who has always used the horizontal resolution, since that makes more sense. Movie and TV shows all have the same width, it's the height that is determined by the aspect ratio.

It's not identical, but it's closer. With the TV standard being slightly less horizontally but the same height (Because of the ratio differences).

2k: 2048x1080 for Film or 1920x1080 for TV (2k/HDTV 1080p)
4k: 4096x2160 for Film or 3840x2160 for TV (4k/UHDTV 2160p)
8k: 8192x4320 for Film or 7680x4320 for TV (8k/UHDTV 4320p)


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## Series3Sub (Mar 14, 2010)

We should just skip the whole 4K thing and plan for 8K because the moment the tipping point has been reached for 4K, 8K will be technically and economically for the MVPD's to provide. Tech changes too fast these days.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

crxssi said:


> If you are talking about picture quality, it probably won't matter if it is a mini or Premier or Roamio.


There is at least one difference -- the Premiere maxes out at 1080i60 or 1080p24. The Roamio can do 1080p60.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

tarheelblue32 said:


> I would usually agree with you about the marketing gimmicks, but I have to say that "4K" is much easier to remember than "2160P".


Oh, I agree. But you know they will want to change it again. Plus, you know they are not going to relabel 1080P TVs as 2K and 720P TVs as 1K.



> The best you can hope for is that they will remember that "4K" is 4x the resolution of 1080P because they both just happen to have the number "4" in them.


Exactly- and when "8K" is on the scene it is 16 times the resolution, not 8 times. So confusion continues  Oh well.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

wmcbrine said:


> There is at least one difference -- the Premiere maxes out at 1080i60 or 1080p24. The Roamio can do 1080p60.


Good point. Not sure how many people would use it (I don't) and/or notice it, though.


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## Captainbob (Sep 1, 2014)

Series3Sub said:


> We should just skip the whole 4K thing and plan for 8K because the moment the tipping point has been reached for 4K, 8K will be technically and economically for the MVPD's to provide. Tech changes too fast these days.


8K would need extraordinary amounts of bandwidth, so for that reason alone, I don't think we will see 8K for a long time.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Series3Sub said:


> We should just skip the whole 4K thing and plan for 8K because the moment the tipping point has been reached for 4K, 8K will be technically and economically for the MVPD's to provide. Tech changes too fast these days.


I think the Japanese initially wanted to do that, but the rest of the world thought it was too big of a leap and wanted an intermediate step.


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## Captainbob (Sep 1, 2014)

crxssi said:


> In marketing terms yes. In reality no. We didn't call LCD TV's with fluorescent backlighting "fluorescent TVs". An LCD display with LED backlighting is an LCD display. It is intentionally misleading consumers, especially when there really ARE such a thing as LED displays, they are just still rare and very expensive. I guess my 3.7 liter V6 car is now an "electric car" because it has a battery in it?
> 
> I hate marketing- the same dweeds that starting calling storage "memory", which it is not, and has created great confusion. "Memory" has always meant RAM with computers. Look, my phone has 64GB of "memory" now. Yeesh <grumble grumble>.


The industry simply wanted to differentiate the two systems of backlight, the LED being far superior to the fluorescent, so the consumer would look for the improved model. If that really irks you, I supposed you could get some sharpies, and go in the stores, cross out the LED and write LCD


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

tarheelblue32 said:


> I would usually agree with you about the marketing gimmicks, but I have to say that "4K" is much easier to remember than "2160P". And honestly, 90% of consumers probably have no idea what the "1080" or the "P" in "1080p" even stands for. And they won't know what "4K" really stands for either, so it doesn't really matter very much. The best you can hope for is that they will remember that "4K" is 4x the resolution of 1080P because they both just happen to have the number "4" in them.


Well, the pedantic language lawyers would actually point out that 3840 x 2160 is really called UHD, and the technical usage of the 4K name is for 4096 x 2160 used mainly in digital cinema.

Then there is the new LG phone which is calling itself Quad HD, but that isn't enough pixels to display 4 1920x1080 HD images, instead it is enough to display 4 720x1280 images (2560x1440).


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

crxssi said:


> Oh, also, there are DLP TVs with halogen bulbs- they are not called "Halogen TVs". And DLP TVs with LED bulbs- they are not called "LED TVs".
> 
> But back to 4K- I find it amusing that the marketing moguls have decided to skip right over:
> 
> ...


UltraHD is NOT a marketing term. It is the official name for the format. It is called Ultra High Definition TV(UHD TV) and not 4KTV.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

tomhorsley said:


> ....................
> 
> Then there is the new LG phone which is calling itself Quad HD, but that isn't enough pixels to display 4 1920x1080 HD images, instead it is enough to display 4 720x1280 images (2560x1440).


AT least that makes some sense. HD can be 720 or 1080 since "Full HD" is a marketing term and not an official term. It is either HD or it isn't. But "Quad HD" is still a marketing term.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

wmcbrine said:


> There is at least one difference -- the Premiere maxes out at 1080i60 or 1080p24. The Roamio can do 1080p60.


Which doesn't really mean anything in terms of picture quality unless your down stream devices (display, receiver, video processor, etc) have an inferior deinterlacer compared to the Roamio. No networks are broadcast in 1080p but there are a few streaming services who do, so the only thing that's happening to that 1080i signal is deinterlacing and where that occurs. Is it within the source device (TiVo sending 1080p) or your downstream device (display, receiver, scaler, etc. taking 1080i from your TiVo and deinterlacing to 1080p)? The resolution is the same, 1920x1080. The deinterlacing has to happen somewhere and I doubt TiVo's is "State of the Art".


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> AT least that makes some sense. HD can be 720 or 1080 since "Full HD" is a marketing term and not an official term. It is either HD or it isn't. But "Quad HD" is still a marketing term.


The Full HD moniker came about when manufacturers started making HDTVs that supported 1080p input and the entire "Full HD" resolutions and specs. Prior to that the TVs only supported up to 720p or 1080i on their various video inputs. So it has some merit as an easy way to see that a particular display can take in any of the compliant HD signals thrown at it.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

HarperVision said:


> The Full HD moniker came about when manufacturers started making HDTVs that supported 1080p input and the entire "Full HD" resolutions and specs. Prior to that the TVs only supported up to 720p or 1080i on their various video inputs. So it has some merit as an easy way to see that a particular display can take in any of the compliant HD signals thrown at it.


IN 2005 when I got my first 1080P set, they were just calling them 1080P DLP sets. They hadn't started the Full HD stuff. 1080P made more sense and of course was more accurate.


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## celtic pride (Nov 8, 2005)

unbelievebal! I just got an email from sears to buy an UHD 4K tv for $400.00 0ff ,and to enjoy the football season! NONE of the networks even give you 1080p much less 4K signals!!. And i bet some people grab this deal thinking they'll be able to watch NFL games in 4K!!.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

celtic pride said:


> unbelievebal! I just got an email from sears to buy an UHD 4K tv for $400.00 0ff ,and to enjoy the football season! NONE of the networks even give you 1080p much less 4K signals!!. And i bet some people grab this deal thinking they'll be able to watch NFL games in 4K!!.


No different than when HD started in the late 90's. Or people who had their cable company hook up their HD cable box to their HD TV. So they think they are watching HD, And when I look at their setup I realize they used a composite cable for the video. Or at work where we have HD sets with SD signals. I can't count the number of people that say, "that is a nice HD picture" And I'm thinking to myself it looks like crap. Of course they are surprised when I tell them it's only SD. But most people have no clue about HD and SD. SO I would think they know even less about Ultra HD.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

celtic pride said:


> unbelievebal! I just got an email from sears to buy an UHD 4K tv for $400.00 0ff ,and to enjoy the football season! NONE of the networks even give you 1080p much less 4K signals!!. And i bet some people grab this deal thinking they'll be able to watch NFL games in 4K!!.


Well technically a 4K set will be scaling what ever signal it gets to the TV's native 4K resolution so the user will be always be watching a 4K picture regardless if the game is broadcast in 720p or 1080i. The big question is if 720p or 1080i show will looking any better when up-scaled to 4K on a 4k TV than it does scaled to 1080p on a 1080p TV.

My guess is that football displayed on any of the 2013/2014 top plasma TVs produced by Panasonic or Samsung will look better than any of the current same size 4k LCD TVs.


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## Captainbob (Sep 1, 2014)

atmuscarella said:


> Well technically a 4K set will be scaling what ever signal it gets to the TV's native 4K resolution so the user will be always be watching a 4K picture regardless if the game is broadcast in 720p or 1080i. The big question is if 720p or 1080i show will looking any better when up-scaled to 4K on a 4k TV than it does scaled to 1080p on a 1080p TV.
> 
> My guess is that football displayed on any of the 2013/2014 top plasma TVs produced by Panasonic or Samsung will look better than any of the current same size 4k LCD TVs.


Depends on the internal scaler how it looks on the 4K set. Right now in the shop where I work we have 6 4K monitors-TV's of different sizes, with various sources that we test with through our equipment. They all look good with 4K content, when we feed that to the 4K displays, but don't look better than a good HD monitor when fed HD that is scaled up by the 4K display. Since here is very little 4K content, I don't think buying a 4K set makes any sense at the present time unless one has money to burn.


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