UHD tellies

You realise that once you've invested in a 4K TV, they'll bring out 5K?

Apples new iMac has a 5K screen.

https://www.apple.com/uk/imac-with-retina/

 

The iMac is a different aspect ratio so to fit the pixels it ends up being 5k which wouldn't work on a 16:9 widescreen

 

I wasnt suggesting that the iMac was better, it was that the tech is already moving to 5K.

LG are producing a 105" 5K screen with a 21:8 CinemaScope curved screen. Although this will set you back £68K. But you can bet that the TVs companies are already looking at putting this resolution into home screens.

But like 4K, where's the content going to come from?

http://beta.techradar.com/news/tele...-this-year-for-a-wince-inducing-price-1259447

 

Thanks for that mate. I guess at the moment it's all down to whether you believe the manufacturers claims that they upscale normal HD content to "near UHD" quality. Probably worth getting the shop to demonstrate this, rather than rely on the full UHD images they put thro the tellies in the showroom. Samsung & Sony claim remarkable upscaling capabilities, jury is still out.

 

Upscaling is basically just expanding. They make the picture bigger. You can't get detail in there that wasn't recorded in the first place.

Digital TV images are captured in pixels, just like digital photos. Upscaling involves duplicating these pixels. UHD has 4X as many pixels as HD. So when the image is upscaled, three more pixels are added around each one that is actually recorded. If a pure black pixel is recorded upscaling adds three more pure black pixels. It does this for every pixel in the image. It's actually a bit more complicated than that, it averages the colour of the pixel it is duplicating with the colour of the adjacent pixels and adds that averaged pixel. This produces a blurry image. So, they sharpen it. But it's not an advanced sharpening technique like that you can get in the latest photo manipulation software and plug-ins - they take time. Upscaling has to do its job 25 times a second - once for every single frame. So, it puts black and white lines around areas of high contrast in the image. This actually degrades the picture. It also amplifies noise. What you end up with is a bigger picture with no more detail but less quality than the original.

Anyone who tells you upscaling produces more detail and is if of better quality than the originally broadcast picture is lying to you.

That's not the whole story like. These new curved screens look well cool. Sat on your sofa across the room the picture will look great. However, you will be paying for summat you can't get and if your reason to buy is solely based on image quality then you'll get better on a HD screen than UHD until you can get UHD content that was recorded and is broadcast in that format.

 

Saw some World Cup football in 8K in the summer - 80-summat inch screen. Very impressive, but can't see it filtering down to the Finn lounge anytime soon.