Topic: My thoughts on 4K...

[biggus_dickus]

I just bought an LG 55UF680T last weekend.  It's a 55-inch 4K LED TV (non-3D), with full 4K playback capabilities. I got it at great price, and it's even cheaper than the 47" LED TV I bought 3 years ago.

Some thoughts:
-   You need at least 50-55" to appreciate the video quality difference from 1080p.  Anything smaller and the video quality improvement will be virtually imperceptible compared to a Full HD set.

-  The video quality is incredible, IF YOU HAVE 4K CONTENT.  I cannot stress that enough. If you only have 1080p or less (which is what everyone has at this point), then it will look soft and muddy.  I tried a number of HD movies and TV series of varying bitrates, and they all look a bit worse now when viewed in a 4K TV.  You have to understand that 4k has 4x the resolution of 1080p, so the TV will upscale the 1080p stream to fit into 4K, leading to smoothing of edges which will make it look less sharp.  Think of it like viewing DVD's on a 1080p screen.  So if it's like that with 1080p content, just imagine how bad your DVD's will look on a 4k TV.

-  At the time of writing, there are close to no 4K content available, and no input sources yet.  Most sources are still on 1080p.  True 4K requires either DisplayPort/Thunderbolt inputs or HDMI 2.0 inputs to deliver 4K @ 60 hz.  No 4K TV has DisplayPort and most input sources like BluRay players, laptops, NMT, PCs, Apple TV, PS4, or Xbox one only have HDMI 1.4 or lower.  The only way you can output a 4K signal to a TV would be from a PC with a Graphics card like Nvidia 960 which has an HDMI 2.0 output, or get a new set top box like an Nvidia Shield TV.  Right now, not many people have a graphics card like that, and the Nvidia Shield TV is not even locally available.

-  I downloaded about a 4k demo clip of a little over 1 min of footage, which was around 250MB!  Extrapolating that to a 2-hour length movie, that will be around 30GB!  I don't know about you, but I don't have the space, bandwidth, or patience to download something that big for just 1 movie.  It's just not practical.  I'd rather buy a 4k BluRay player when it comes out.

In summary, I don't regret my purchase, since the price was still pretty affordable considering what you get, and you have a bit of a future-proof setup.  That being said, I think I would have been completely happy with a 55" Full HD setup.

I think we've reached a saturation point with Full HD.  I believe it will be quite a while before 4K becomes the norm.  It will take at least another 5 years.  I think it will only become the norm if they completely phase out the 1080p sets.  Although the jump in video quality is close to DVD to HD, that is only evident in bigger sets from 50" and up.  Very few households have space for that big a TV.  Unlike before, we're talking about 27-32" CRTs, which were not that big, and so people wanted to have bigger screens.  But now, few people would have space for anything bigger than a 47", and at these sizes, people would not see a distinct improvement of 4k over full HD.

So my advice is, especially if you have a ton of HD content, and you only have space for a TV 55" and below, to just stick with Full HD.  Save your money or use the leftover to buy a good surround setup.

But that's just me. Cheers! :-)

[Conan]

Thank you for this review! 

[stevesonk]

Just purchased LG 55UG8700 last two weeks,until now it wow's me on the PQ it produce for upscalling my 1080p movies on hdd, without a.media player,I transfer my movies from hdd to usb via laptop,then I directly connect usb to uhd-tv,so easy to setup.. 

[toys4geeks]

So my advice is, especially if you have a ton of HD content, and you only have space for a TV 55" and below, to just stick with Full HD.  Save your money or use the leftover to buy a good surround setup.

But that's just me. Cheers! :-)

Kung dikit ang presyo ng fullhd vs 4k, 4k ang binilin.  Pero pag sobrang layo, 1080p

Di kaya upscaling ng tv ang isang factor. 
Nmt 4ks are out na naman, have you tried playing 1080p using an hdmi 2.0 cable sa 4k player?

Thanks for this. Kung ako yan since i spent too much sa 4k kakatayin ko si 1080p, kesa aminin na walang nagbago maliban sa model na binili ko.

 Your honesty is refreshing.

[biggus_dickus]

Kung dikit ang presyo ng fullhd vs 4k, 4k ang binilin.  Pero pag sobrang layo, 1080p

Di kaya upscaling ng tv ang isang factor. 
Nmt 4ks are out na naman, have you tried playing 1080p using an hdmi 2.0 cable sa 4k player?

Thanks for this. Kung ako yan since i spent too much sa 4k kakatayin ko si 1080p, kesa aminin na walang nagbago maliban sa model na binili ko.

 Your honesty is refreshing.

Thanks.  :-)  I try to keep my reviews and comments as objective as possible, kasi para rin the readers don't fall for the hype.  Even though prices are going down, it's still a lot of money for most people, so we have to be careful what we spend it on.

As far as I know, there are no "real" 4K NMT's out there yet.  Yes, the Minix NEO-X8 Plus technically is 4k, but only at 30 Hz, as it's still using HDMI 1.4.  This may be fine for videos but the refresh rate for all other UI will be laggy.  Smooth 4K at 60 Hz will require HDMI 2.0.  IMO, the only one really worth buying at this point is Nvidia Shield TV.  I'll be getting that one and I'll be asking my officemates to bring it over from the US. :-)

Another problem with 4K is it will be better to have a 4k AV receiver also with HDMI 2.0 inputs.  Otherwise, when you plug in your 4k source to a typical HDMI receiver, the output will again be limited to 1080p only!  Argghh!!!

I'm telling you.. this 4k crap is really great in terms of PQ, but it will require you to upgrade EVERYTHING in order to maximize the benefit.

[toys4geeks]

Thanks.  :-)  I try to keep my reviews and comments as objective as possible, kasi para rin the readers don't fall for the hype.  Even though prices are going down, it's still a lot of money for most people, so we have to be careful what we spend it on.

As far as I know, there are no "real" 4K NMT's out there yet.  Yes, the Minix NEO-X8 Plus technically is 4k, but only at 30 Hz, as it's still using HDMI 1.4.  This may be fine for videos but the refresh rate for all other UI will be laggy.  Smooth 4K at 60 Hz will require HDMI 2.0.  IMO, the only one really worth buying at this point is Nvidia Shield TV.  I'll be getting that one and I'll be asking my officemates to bring it over from the US. :-)

Another problem with 4K is it will be better to have a 4k AV receiver also with HDMI 2.0 inputs.  Otherwise, when you plug in your 4k source to a typical HDMI receiver, the output will again be limited to 1080p only!  Argghh!!!

I'm telling you.. this 4k crap is really great in terms of PQ, but it will require you to upgrade EVERYTHING in order to maximize the benefit.

May thread for nvidia nmt and it's available locally. Hope to see you review that too.

[biggus_dickus]

Thanks toys4geeks! :-D  I just checked it out and good to know na locally available na din pala ang NVidia Shield TV.  I called up Benstore and it was a bit more expensive sa kanila, pero if you factor in the shipping cost and exchange rate, nde naman pala ganun kalayo yun price.  Tas me local warranty pa, and I could get it immediately.

Thanks for the tip! :-)

[DTNS]

good review sir!

[shoktongxxx]

nice review chief! thanks.

[gl168]

I just bought an LG 55UF680T last weekend.  It's a 55-inch 4K LED TV (non-3D), with full 4K playback capabilities. I got it at great price, and it's even cheaper than the 47" LED TV I bought 3 years ago.

Some thoughts:
-   You need at least 50-55" to appreciate the video quality difference from 1080p.  Anything smaller and the video quality improvement will be virtually imperceptible compared to a Full HD set.

-  The video quality is incredible, IF YOU HAVE 4K CONTENT.  I cannot stress that enough. If you only have 1080p or less (which is what everyone has at this point), then it will look soft and muddy.  I tried a number of HD movies and TV series of varying bitrates, and they all look a bit worse now when viewed in a 4K TV.  You have to understand that 4k has 4x the resolution of 1080p, so the TV will upscale the 1080p stream to fit into 4K, leading to smoothing of edges which will make it look less sharp.  Think of it like viewing DVD's on a 1080p screen.  So if it's like that with 1080p content, just imagine how bad your DVD's will look on a 4k TV.

-  At the time of writing, there are close to no 4K content available, and no input sources yet.  Most sources are still on 1080p.  True 4K requires either DisplayPort/Thunderbolt inputs or HDMI 2.0 inputs to deliver 4K @ 60 hz.  No 4K TV has DisplayPort and most input sources like BluRay players, laptops, NMT, PCs, Apple TV, PS4, or Xbox one only have HDMI 1.4 or lower.  The only way you can output a 4K signal to a TV would be from a PC with a Graphics card like Nvidia 960 which has an HDMI 2.0 output, or get a new set top box like an Nvidia Shield TV.  Right now, not many people have a graphics card like that, and the Nvidia Shield TV is not even locally available.

-  I downloaded about a 4k demo clip of a little over 1 min of footage, which was around 250MB!  Extrapolating that to a 2-hour length movie, that will be around 30GB!  I don't know about you, but I don't have the space, bandwidth, or patience to download something that big for just 1 movie.  It's just not practical.  I'd rather buy a 4k BluRay player when it comes out.

In summary, I don't regret my purchase, since the price was still pretty affordable considering what you get, and you have a bit of a future-proof setup.  That being said, I think I would have been completely happy with a 55" Full HD setup.

I think we've reached a saturation point with Full HD.  I believe it will be quite a while before 4K becomes the norm.  It will take at least another 5 years.  I think it will only become the norm if they completely phase out the 1080p sets.  Although the jump in video quality is close to DVD to HD, that is only evident in bigger sets from 50" and up.  Very few households have space for that big a TV.  Unlike before, we're talking about 27-32" CRTs, which were not that big, and so people wanted to have bigger screens.  But now, few people would have space for anything bigger than a 47", and at these sizes, people would not see a distinct improvement of 4k over full HD.

So my advice is, especially if you have a ton of HD content, and you only have space for a TV 55" and below, to just stick with Full HD.  Save your money or use the leftover to buy a good surround setup.

But that's just me. Cheers! :-)

Sir,

do you mean that if I should play a downloaded 720p video of Game of Thrones on a 4k set, the PQ is not very nice ?

On several instances, I've seen a Samsung 4k tv set close to a Sony or Sharp 1080p screen, and from a distance of about 10-12 feet, I could not tell the difference in the PQ

The problem now I think they're phasing out the 1080p sets, and there are few good FHD large screens available, aside from Sharp, which has terrible reviews at Amazon etc.

[Toslink]

-  The video quality is incredible, IF YOU HAVE 4K CONTENT.  I cannot stress that enough. If you only have 1080p or less (which is what everyone has at this point), then it will look soft and muddy.  I tried a number of HD movies and TV series of varying bitrates, and they all look a bit worse now when viewed in a 4K TV.  You have to understand that 4k has 4x the resolution of 1080p, so the TV will upscale the 1080p stream to fit into 4K, leading to smoothing of edges which will make it look less sharp.  Think of it like viewing DVD's on a 1080p screen.  So if it's like that with 1080p content, just imagine how bad your DVD's will look on a 4k TV.

no offense sir but ive seen LG 4K tv in action (got one before but exchanged it with samsung ), played all sorts of videos - dvd (480p), mkv (480p-1080p, remux, iso), blu ray, -  and the PQ was amazing!!! talagang detailed and very sharp!! ... siguro sir depende din sa features on a certain model kung equipped sya ng latest LG tech like tru-4k engine, tru-4k upscaler, etc para mas detailed and sharp ang output in all sources?..

[biggus_dickus]

Sir,

do you mean that if I should play a downloaded 720p video of Game of Thrones on a 4k set, the PQ is not very nice ?

In a word, yes.  It's okay.  It's not the best.  If you play it in a good 1080p screen, it will look better.  I'm not saying you won't like how it looks on 4K, but that if you have other points of comparison, you will immediately see the difference, and you will notice how soft it looks.  4k has 400% more pixels than 1080p, so it will have around 900% pixels more than 720p.  You wouldn't see much difference when you view 720p on a 1080p screen because the resolution difference isn't that much.  As much as possible, it's always better to view videos at their native resolution.  I'm not a big fan of upscaling.  I have yet to see an upscaler that can rival native resolutions.

[biggus_dickus]

no offense sir but ive seen LG 4K tv in action (got one before but exchanged it with samsung ), played all sorts of videos - dvd (480p), mkv (480p-1080p, remux, iso), blu ray, -  and the PQ was amazing!!! talagang detailed and very sharp!! ... siguro sir depende din sa features on a certain model kung equipped sya ng latest LG tech like tru-4k engine, tru-4k upscaler, etc para mas detailed and sharp ang output in all sources?..

No offense taken.  Glad that you're happy with your purchase, as I am happy with mine.  I'm just saying that from what I've seen with my unit, I IMMEDIATELY saw the difference.  I still have an LG LED 1080p set, and a Samsung Plasma 1080p set, so I still have a point of comparison.  Everytime I watch something on my 4k TV, whether it's a 720p or 1080p video, there is a noticeable softness compared to my 1080p sets.  I guess my years of downloading HD videos made me picky about the PQ of videos.  Again, I'm not saying it's BAD per se.  I'm just saying it's not as good as watching it on its native resolution.  Just try setting your computer monitor to a lower resolution than native.  Let's say now you're at 1920x1080 and you set it to 1024x768.  Everything looks very soft, right?  That's similar to what I see when I watch a 720p/1080p movie on 4k.  Is it watchable?  Sure.  Is it better than or as good as watching it on its native resolution?  Afraid not.

[Stagea]

In a word, yes.  It's okay.  It's not the best.  If you play it in a good 1080p screen, it will look better.  I'm not saying you won't like how it looks on 4K, but that if you have other points of comparison, you will immediately see the difference, and you will notice how soft it looks.  4k has 400% more pixels than 1080p, so it will have around 600% pixels more than 720p.  You wouldn't see much difference when you view 720p on a 1080p screen because the resolution difference isn't that much.  As much as possible, it's always better to view videos at their native resolution.  I'm not a big fan of upscaling.  I have yet to see an upscaler that can rival native resolutions.

Scaling is dependent on how it is done and how much processing is applied to the image aside from the physical change in dimension. 720p on a 1080p screen will always cause losses as it's not an integer upscale. every square of 4 pixels gets expanded to 9 pixels (2 to 3 horizontally and vertically). The scaler can fade the middle pixels based on data from the end pixels, but what will it do to blend the adjacent squares? Most good scalers will try to correct for that too, which results in a soft but close to correct or sharp but incorrect rendition.

2160p provides enough physical pixels for integer scaling of both 720p and 1080p material without resulting in losses. The end result will just be dependent on the quality of the screen and the processing applied. Without processing, you can actually run a 2160p panel at 720p or 1080p by just clumping pixels together (though most makers do not do this because it is a waste of panel resolution). This is the same reason why laptops and desktops with UHD panels can run at 1080p/720p and remain sharp (or those with 2560x1440 displays can run at 720p and remain sharp).

You probably prefer the image on your Samsung Plasma because of other reasons (processing, contrast ratio, etc.) and not because of panel resolution.

[biggus_dickus]

Scaling is dependent on how it is done and how much processing is applied to the image aside from the physical change in dimension. 720p on a 1080p screen will always cause losses as it's not an integer upscale. every square of 4 pixels gets expanded to 9 pixels (2 to 3 horizontally and vertically). The scaler can fade the middle pixels based on data from the end pixels, but what will it do to blend the adjacent squares? Most good scalers will try to correct for that too, which results in a soft but close to correct or sharp but incorrect rendition.

2160p provides enough physical pixels for integer scaling of both 720p and 1080p material without resulting in losses. The end result will just be dependent on the quality of the screen and the processing applied. Without processing, you can actually run a 2160p panel at 720p or 1080p by just clumping pixels together (though most makers do not do this because it is a waste of panel resolution). This is the same reason why laptops and desktops with UHD panels can run at 1080p/720p and remain sharp (or those with 2560x1440 displays can run at 720p and remain sharp).

You probably prefer the image on your Samsung Plasma because of other reasons (processing, contrast ratio, etc.) and not because of panel resolution.

I don't discount the fact that there are good upscalers out there, but upscalers that can make 1080p videos look as sharp as native 4k content?  I don't think so.  Every upscaler is adding content that isn't there.  It's extrapolating on what is currently available.  To me it's impossible to make a smaller file look as sharp as the additional details are not there.

Anyway, in as much as I also understand the math behind upscaling, all upscaling equipment I've had in the past (DVD upscalers, built-in upscalers, etc) pales in comparison to native viewing.  I can only comment about what I see, and what I see is there is a distinguishable softness in HD movies under 4K.  It's not a matter of preference.  It's a fact, at least to my eyes.  If others see it differently, I can't really decide for them.  But to my eyes, given a choice, I will always pick to watch HD movies on HD panels.

[Stagea]

I don't discount the fact that there are good upscalers out there, but upscalers that can make 1080p videos look as sharp as native 4k content?  I don't think so.  Every upscaler is adding content that isn't there.  It's extrapolating on what is currently available.  To me it's impossible to make a smaller file look as sharp as the additional details are not there.

Anyway, in as much as I also understand the math behind upscaling, all upscaling equipment I've had in the past (DVD upscalers, built-in upscalers, etc) pales in comparison to native viewing.  I can only comment about what I see, and what I see is there is a distinguishable softness in HD movies under 4K.  It's not a matter of preference.  It's a fact, at least to my eyes.  If others see it differently, I can't really decide for them.  But to my eyes, given a choice, I will always pick to watch HD movies on HD panels.

There is no argument that scaling 1080p to UHD will never equal native UHD content. Detail cannot be created out of nothing; what good scalers do is to "connect the dots" as good as possible.

I am just saying that scaled 1080p to UHD quality can at least equal (and possibly or exceed) 1080p quality on a 1080p panel, depending on the processing (granted that the image quality per pixel in terms of contrast ratio, color space, etc. is the same). The best scalers use inter frame data to create the best estimates in filling the missing data (these things can be quite aggressive in prediction while remaining largely accurate since it compares the data with patterns from adjacent frames); this is not cheap to implement however (and normally only appears on flagship devices). Here's a crop of an upscaled image without and with inter frame processing, for example:



All good TVs can display native content well. Those that scale lower resolution content well is a relatively premium feature. When Full HD TVs were new to the market they all displayed HD content well, but those that scaled SD content well were generally higher end models. The same is true now; scaling from HD to UHD is an even more processing-intensive task because of the sheer data to be crunched.

When HD content became common, people cared less and less about scaling quality from SD (a lot of value-oriented HD TVs have terrible scaling from SD). I expect the same to happen for UHD TV buyers/owners. Once UHD content becomes commonplace, the value of scaling quality as a purchase determinant will be reduced.

As for now, the Panasonic TX-65CZ950 might be the winner in terms of image quality for both scaled and native content. Its native performance is buoyed by its LG-sourced OLED panel (native performance is comparable to LG's offering), whilst it bettered on LG's product by integrating a more capable image processor (providing better scaling).

[biggus_dickus]

All good TVs can display native content well. Those that scale lower resolution content well is a relatively premium feature. When Full HD TVs were new to the market they all displayed HD content well, but those that scaled SD content well were generally higher end models. The same is true now; scaling from HD to UHD is an even more processing-intensive task because of the sheer data to be crunched.

When HD content became common, people cared less and less about scaling quality from SD (a lot of value-oriented HD TVs have terrible scaling from SD). I expect the same to happen for UHD TV buyers/owners. Once UHD content becomes commonplace, the value of scaling quality as a purchase determinant will be reduced.

This, I totally agree with.  Upscalers may be more important now given that there's little native UHD content available out there.  It's a shame that good processors are not commonplace in most sets.  The crop of the image that you showed is indeed incredible.  I think what I see right now is similar to what's on the left side.  If good upscalers can do what's on the right, then that may be worth the extra cost.

[nerveblocker]

Have you tried playing bluray videos? How is it?

[biggus_dickus]

Have you tried playing bluray videos? How is it?

Nope.  I don't have a Bluray player.  Most of my sources are downloaded high bitrate HD videos.

[Arnel E.]

Though I agree with many points said here, what I agree with the most is that for smaller TVs, it is very likely that the 4K resolution is pointless, unless you really sit too close to the TV to notice any difference.  Even for a 55" panel (where you still need to be less than 6 feet away to appreciate 1080p vs. 4K), I would rather choose the best 1080p panel the budget can buy (e.g. those with best colors, deep blacks, local dimming, etc.) rather than spending the premium on the extra resolution.

The big win for 4K is if it is projected onto a big screen, or maybe on those (expensive) TVs that are huge (70" and above).  The ideal screen size seems to be 2/3 to 1x the viewing distance to fully appreciate 4K.

For me, the true test for a great TV is when there is excellent perceived depth to the picture that it is almost 3D. This can be a combination of many PQ factors, but certainly being 4K resolution is the least of them for a 55" (or below) screen.

[jrcrunch]

what your screen size and viewing distance for 4k? parang sobra lapit needed kasi

[Toslink]

what your screen size and viewing distance for 4k? parang sobra lapit needed kasi

screen size 78"uhdtv, approx viewing distance 9ft same viewing distance with my 1080p PJ (100" screen)

[♡ lvcdg23™ ✌]

Using Samsung 65js9000 with viewing distance of 8ft...
Using Sony vw500es projected to 140" screen with viewing distance of 14ft...

[noah727]

I just bought an LG 55UF680T last weekend.  It's a 55-inch 4K LED TV (non-3D), with full 4K playback capabilities. I got it at great price, and it's even cheaper than the 47" LED TV I bought 3 years ago.

Some thoughts:
-   You need at least 50-55" to appreciate the video quality difference from 1080p.  Anything smaller and the video quality improvement will be virtually imperceptible compared to a Full HD set.

-  The video quality is incredible, IF YOU HAVE 4K CONTENT.  I cannot stress that enough. If you only have 1080p or less (which is what everyone has at this point), then it will look soft and muddy.  I tried a number of HD movies and TV series of varying bitrates, and they all look a bit worse now when viewed in a 4K TV.  You have to understand that 4k has 4x the resolution of 1080p, so the TV will upscale the 1080p stream to fit into 4K, leading to smoothing of edges which will make it look less sharp.  Think of it like viewing DVD's on a 1080p screen.  So if it's like that with 1080p content, just imagine how bad your DVD's will look on a 4k TV.

-  At the time of writing, there are close to no 4K content available, and no input sources yet.  Most sources are still on 1080p.  True 4K requires either DisplayPort/Thunderbolt inputs or HDMI 2.0 inputs to deliver 4K @ 60 hz.  No 4K TV has DisplayPort and most input sources like BluRay players, laptops, NMT, PCs, Apple TV, PS4, or Xbox one only have HDMI 1.4 or lower.  The only way you can output a 4K signal to a TV would be from a PC with a Graphics card like Nvidia 960 which has an HDMI 2.0 output, or get a new set top box like an Nvidia Shield TV.  Right now, not many people have a graphics card like that, and the Nvidia Shield TV is not even locally available.

-  I downloaded about a 4k demo clip of a little over 1 min of footage, which was around 250MB!  Extrapolating that to a 2-hour length movie, that will be around 30GB!  I don't know about you, but I don't have the space, bandwidth, or patience to download something that big for just 1 movie.  It's just not practical.  I'd rather buy a 4k BluRay player when it comes out.

In summary, I don't regret my purchase, since the price was still pretty affordable considering what you get, and you have a bit of a future-proof setup.  That being said, I think I would have been completely happy with a 55" Full HD setup.

I think we've reached a saturation point with Full HD.  I believe it will be quite a while before 4K becomes the norm.  It will take at least another 5 years.  I think it will only become the norm if they completely phase out the 1080p sets.  Although the jump in video quality is close to DVD to HD, that is only evident in bigger sets from 50" and up.  Very few households have space for that big a TV.  Unlike before, we're talking about 27-32" CRTs, which were not that big, and so people wanted to have bigger screens.  But now, few people would have space for anything bigger than a 47", and at these sizes, people would not see a distinct improvement of 4k over full HD.

So my advice is, especially if you have a ton of HD content, and you only have space for a TV 55" and below, to just stick with Full HD.  Save your money or use the leftover to buy a good surround setup.

But that's just me. Cheers! :-)

Bro, how much did you get your LG 55UF680T? And from which dealer?

Is it 120Hz refresh rate?

Thanks.

[biggus_dickus]

Bro, how much did you get your LG 55UF680T? And from which dealer?

Is it 120Hz refresh rate?

Thanks.

No, just 60Hz.  No TruMotion on this model.