To 4K or not to 4K
With black Friday and the holiday season approaching you may be considering the question “should I get a 4K or UHD TV?” This is a very common question. First let’s consider what the difference is just in case you are not familiar.
A 4K or UHD TV compared to a 1080p HD TV has 4 times the pixels just over 2 million compared to just over 4 million, and twice the resolution 1080 vs 2160. What does that mean? Well if you think about when you blow up a picture how it loses resolution quality, this is the same concept.eagle-4K-ex As we get bigger TV’s we are blowing up the picture and losing quality. Here is an exaggerated example. Notice how the larger picture is more pixelated, which means you see the grainy pixels. Now there are fancy charts that tell you when this makes a difference relative to screen size and seating distance. But I recommend seeing it for yourself. Go to your local big box electronics store and check it out. The difference is night and day even to a person who is not real concerned about picture quality. So based on this we would naturally assume get the 4K its better. But some would argue this.
The reason some argue this is because, currently there is very little 4K content. It is mostly online and soon to be some through DirectTV, due to bandwidth issues cable companies will be slow to adopt. Therefore some say there is no benefit to getting a 4K TV. But let’s consider a few points. First the same argument was made when HD TV’s came out, but now HD is everywhere and you wouldn’t think of getting something not HD. So it’s just a matter of time before content catches up, and then you’d be buying another TV anyway. Second there is very little price difference between 4K and 1080p, you would not go to a new car showroom and buy an obsolete model just to save $200. Third a large portion of our TV viewing is now being done online and this is the fastest growing viewing market. Online content lends itself well to 4K content and online libraries will continue to improve. Forth 4K TV’s include upscaling abilities to improve current content, granted this is not as good as content filmed in 4K but the visual difference is impressive.
Based on this my recommendation would be to go 4K or UHD. But don’t take my word for it, go see it yourself.
