I’ve got a 75" Samsung TV I do most of my watching on with a Shield TV as the client. I can also run Orca’s Plex client directly on the TV.
I sit about 10 to 12 foot across the room and can with 95% certainty tell you the source resolution of anything played. 4K content when encoding properly can really stand out above 1080p. This is especially true in scenes with a lot of action and high contracting colors or heavy whites and blacks.
BTW, I love 3D movies as well on this TV (active) and hate the fact the industry is moving away from 3D.
What I do on my system is have a library just for hi resolution files. I only share this library with others who can direct stream these files. If they can’t direct stream them then they have to watch the 1080 version in the normal movie library.
@cayars said:
I sit about 10 to 12 foot across the room and can with 95% certainty tell you the source resolution of anything played. 4K content when encoding properly can really stand out above 1080p.
At that distance and at that screen size the difference you can tell between 4K and 1080p is mostly due to the bad upscaling of 1080p stuff and/or poor encoding of the 1080p source. Or your eyesight is much better than mine
But I’m very keen on what to look for as well. It’s kind of like being able to listen to a full orchestra playing while being able to blank out everything but one instrument type thing. It’s not just the increase in “dots” but the Contrast ratio and color improvements delivered in the stream.
As something of an example, you could be 25 foot from the screen watching something like transformers. If you were to see two scenes back to back (4K vs 1080p) of the robots transforming you would tell me exactly which version was playing. A quality 4K encode just has a lot more information in the stream that can be used to give a better picture. That’s not to say you can always tell the difference in every scene as that would be a foolish comment.
OH BTW, something I meant to say earlier but forgot was that I recommend the Shield TV to my friends/family who can afford it over the Roku’s and other devices because it can play 4K content even when connected to a 1080p TV. It does a fantastic job of down sampling and allows friends/family to use the Hi-Res library even without a 4K TV. Even when down sampled the 4K version will almost always look better than the 1080p version (on this client).
BTW. Why would you have ANY 4k media just to transcode it??
That is completely contrary to the main purpose of 4K
The only way to truly enjoy the 4K experience is for it to Direct Play (No Transcoding)
Disk space is cheap,
It IS best to maintain both 4K and 1080p… et. al.
Only let 4K capable users access to the 4K content.
But do not forget that if they are remote users, most folks do not have the Bandwidth to play 4k over the net even though they might have 4k capable devices, causing Plex to transcode anyway.
I only allow access to 4K within my local network thus preventing any unnecessary transcoding since I encode all 4k to direct play.
HDR will give a much bigger improvement than 4K, which at most viewing distances is a placebo effect and people trying to convince themselves that it was worth the $500, $1000 or more they overpaid for their TV.
@sremick said:
HDR will give a much bigger improvement than 4K, which at most viewing distances is a placebo effect and people trying to convince themselves that it was worth the $500, $1000 or more they overpaid for their TV.
HDR and the deep OLED blacks are what is pulling me to a 4k tv. Couldn’t care less about 4K, I’m happy with compressed 1080p anyway.
It’s not really about the dots per say but the better technologies that come with it! The color space from pure white to pure black (or as close as we get) along with the color space between is much easier represented in HDR and 4K. The “extra” dots do come into play even at distance in quick action scenes with more detail (as mentioned a transformer changing from robot to car).
It’s kind of like going from a 5 to 7 speaker surround sound system (all else being equal). It’s not a night and day difference but it can be noticeable better on some movies (not all of course).
I wouldn’t run out to buy it just to have it but when your in the market for a new TV I’d definitely consider it. Throw a few different quality rips on thumb drives and take them to a Best Buy or similar and play back your own material on the different TVs. Make up 2 or 3 of the same thumb drive so you can compare TVs side by side with the same rip. Check the TVs from different angles and check for selectivity if that’s a problem in your living room, etc
@sremick said:
HDR will give a much bigger improvement than 4K, which at most viewing distances is a placebo effect and people trying to convince themselves that it was worth the $500, $1000 or more they overpaid for their TV.
HDR ans the deep OLED blacks are what is pulling me to a 4k tv. Couldn’t care less about 4K, I’m happy with compressed 1080p anyway.
Spot on. The problem is that with the falling prices of 1080p TV’s and the marketing trying to push 4K, most 1080p TV’s are not being built with OLED or HDR; and those that have it, are significantly more expensive. Of course the lower end (cost) 4Ks don’t have it either. So when you look at them (high-end 1080p vs low-end 4K) side by side in the store (2 feet away) the 4Ks look better. At home, it may very well be the other way around.
Check out the end of the below article. It has a great little calculator that shows the max distance you need to be from the screen at a given resolution.
I can say that Led 4k hdr movies do not look realistic. However, there is an increase in contrast, better light, better dark, but it is still far from realistic. Oled is even less realistic, and even more cartoon a like. The color spectrum is just awful.
