Getting new TV - should I go 4K HDR?

um7y1h83ge06nx

My current gaming TV is a 1080p 32 inch LED Panasonic.

Recently we decided to put a TV in the bedroom, a 32 inch as well. This got me thinking, I could put my current gaming TV in the bedroom and buy a new one for myself, maybe a 4K HDR for the next round of consoles.

The Panasonic currently sits in piece of fitted furniture where it is an ideal size for the alcove. A 40 inch would just barely fit with very little clearance on each size (at most 1-2 cm). The smallest 4K TVs seems to start at 40.

So should I just buy a reasonable 32 inch for the bedroom or buy a 40inch 4K HDR for myself?

I was looking at this as an example - link

K.O.Kiki

I can pretty much guarantee that the next consoles from Sony & Microsoft won't have native 4k gameplay on new titles.

Eurogamer did a review of some 4k HDR sets here.

TudorIce12

Can you even get 4k HDR as small as 40 inches? I mean if you can then that's great but I don't expect them to be cheap. And it seems only the Playstation Neo or the Xbox One Scorpio will be able to run 4k games and even then I highly doubt it would be native 4k.

Retr0gamer

The Neo and Scorpio are never going to be pushing 4K native games with those specs. They will however play 4K video content so if that's important to you get a 4K screen.

kunst nugget

If it helps in your decision, Netflix is producing a lot of 4k content now - all their originals are 4k now. Tbh, that's the only place where I'm getting the full benefit of the TV we got at the moment. That said, I only have a PS3 at the moment but the upscaling really makes the games zing compared to the 1080 TV we had.

EoinHef

Thinking people may be making the assumption about the upcoming consoles and 4k a bit too early,while most games are not gonna be running 4k on the new consoles,id expect the odd title to run at 4k natively,especially on the scorpio.

K.O.Kiki

EoinHef wrote: »

Thinking people may be making the assumption about the upcoming consoles and 4k a bit too early,while most games are not gonna be running 4k on the new consoles,id expect the odd title to run at 4k natively,especially on the scorpio.

Digital Foundry's Scorpio spec analysis

This was debated to death a few weeks ago, but essentially: we are assuming the Scorpio is just a bit more powerful than an R9 390x, which struggles to deliver 4k30 in demanding PC titles.

Retr0gamer

There'll be less demanding indie titles in 4K, but you can forget it for Triple A releases.

K.O.Kiki

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There'll be less demanding indie titles in 4K, but you can forget it for Triple A releases.

Unless they turn settings to PC-medium.

TudorIce12

It could be some inbetween resolution then upscaled to 4k

Retr0gamer

TudorIce12 wrote: »

It could be some inbetween resolution then upscaled to 4k

It will definitely be upscaled but then upscaling looks arse.

TudorIce12

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It will definitely be upscaled but then upscaling looks arse.

Yeah I mean they lied through their teeth when they promised all games would run 1080p60fps on the original PS4 and Xbox One. And the PS4 Neo oes not look like it will be as powerful as the Xbox One Scorpio, from what I have seen from leaks.

kunst nugget

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It will definitely be upscaled but then upscaling looks arse.

Probably if you're sitting 6 inches from a monitor. I don't think it's going to be as big an issue when you're sitting 6-10 feet from a screen. I suppose it'll depend on how much upscaling is involved, whether it's the TV or the console doing the upscaling and how neurotic you are.

Retr0gamer

kunst nugget wrote: »

Probably if you're sitting 6 inches from a monitor. I don't think it's going to be as big an issue when you're sitting 6-10 feet from a screen. I suppose it'll depend on how much upscaling is involved, whether it's the TV or the console doing the upscaling and how neurotic you are.

Nothing to do with being Neurotic, I'm not one of those people that would normally notice the stuff they bring up on the likes of digital foundry. However from playing old games consoles on HD TV's you can really notice awful upscaling on them.

Even that is an extreme example but I got a 3440x 1440 monitor a while ago and my GTX 970 wasn't good enough to push that many pixels so I was upscaling from 1080p to 1440p and the results were very noticeably blurrier, so much so I ended up dropping settings way down so I could play a 1440p and get sharper image quality.

If digital foundry are to be believed there's going to be some severe upscaling needed.

um7y1h83ge06nx

OP here again. Thanks for all the replies.

I think people may be right - 4K will probably still be a pipedream for the new consoles.

I wouldn't have any 4K content to throw at it. I live in a rural area so I can rarely get Netflix to 1080p (most of the time it's at 720p) so 4K streaming is out of the question.

With the way console generations are going I might be better off to switch to PC.

Varik

Also the issue that no standard is set yet for DTT, which personally isn't an issue as **** RTE and secondly a lot of these TVs are 4k VOD with Netflix and such.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Nothing to do with being Neurotic, I'm not one of those people that would normally notice the stuff they bring up on the likes of digital foundry. However from playing old games consoles on HD TV's you can really notice awful upscaling on them.

Even that is an extreme example but I got a 3440x 1440 monitor a while ago and my GTX 970 wasn't good enough to push that many pixels so I was upscaling from 1080p to 1440p and the results were very noticeably blurrier, so much so I ended up dropping settings way down so I could play a 1440p and get sharper image quality.

If digital foundry are to be believed there's going to be some severe upscaling needed.

There's a huge difference between upscaling between varying resolution on fixed-grid displays and going from CRT. Even low resolution screens like handhelds (PS1 on PSP/vita, NES/SNES on DS) or the first LCD tv looks worse.



Aspect Ratios, Scanlines and Modern Displays

marcbrophy

OP, the new consoles will also be UHD Blu-Ray players.
If you think that's something that might interest you, then it might be worth considering too

Varik

Besides 4k is a 4x exactly full HD, now if you using the current "HD" console you're upscaling an upscaled image but a full 1080 res image should look the same on a 40" 1080 as it does upscaled on a 4k display, and at 4k you shouldn't be able to see individual pixels or spacings.

marcbrophy wrote: »

OP, the new consoles will also be UHD Blu-Ray players.
If you think that's something that might interest you, then it might be worth considering too

The PS4 slim apparently isn't only the One S and assumedly the scorpio.

Safe enough to assume the Neo would be too.

Icyseanfitz

new consoles wont play games nativly at 4k, no way, a gtx 1080 (which just came out) barely gets 60fps in new games at 4k

um7y1h83ge06nx

Thanks for the responses. I was heading towards a 1080p screen until the PS4 Pro announcement.

From an Eurogamer Digital Foundry article that is up today (can't link on this machine as site if blocked) they seem to believe that 4K HDR screens seem to make a noticeable difference.

So I think I'm just going to grab a nice comfy cushion and sit on the fence for a bit - stall buying the new TV until I know a bit more on if there are any perceptible advantages for the next batch of consoles.

Captain Chaos

Delilah Low Ink wrote: »

Thanks for the responses. I was heading towards a 1080p screen until the PS4 Pro announcement.

From an Eurogamer Digital Foundry article that is up today (can't link on this machine as site if blocked) they seem to believe that 4K HDR screens seem to make a noticeable difference.

So I think I'm just going to grab a nice comfy cushion and sit on the fence for a bit - stall buying the new TV until I know a bit more on if there are any perceptible advantages for the next batch of consoles.

The PS4 is getting HDR ability from next week with a firmware update so anyone with a 4K HDR TV will be able to see for them self then. HDR makes a bigger difference to image quality than the jump 1080p to 4K alone.