back to article Budget UHD TVs arrive – but were the 4Kasts worth listening to?

When you can buy a 4K telly at the supermarket, along with your bangers and mash, you know Ultra HD has entered the mainstream. Retail giant Asda is now stocking the Polaroid-branded P55D600, a 55-inch Ultra HD screen for just £699. If you want to really push the boat out, you can heft the 65-inch version into your wonky-wheeled …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does that mean that large monitor screens for PCs will also become commodity items - with 2160 pixel panels the standard?

    1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      Yes, but only if you want a 40"+ monitor. I cannot imagine making the desk space for such a beast!

      1. Little Mouse

        I can't imagine it either. But I can still dream.

        1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

          @Little Mouse

          You don't have to dream. Just buy one of these TVs, and get a display adapter that will do the correct level of HDMI, and plug it in. If you don't like HDMI, the TV will probably have component video and maybe DVI as well, looking at the back of the TV under review.

          Whether it would be any good as a monitor is a moot point, but it would be an interesting exercise.

          I still say that sitting that close to a 40"+ monitor would be an uncomfortable experience, but I thought that back in the early 1980s the first time I saw a 20" black and white monitor on a Sun 2/50 after working on 12" VDUs, and look where we are now!

          1. spudmasterflex

            Re: @Little Mouse

            Be careful, I took the dive and bought a Panasonic 48" 4k for my office. Over hdmi on normal graphics cards you can only get 30hz refresh at 4k unless you have an hdmi 2 compatible graphics card.

            It worked fine at 1080p but defeats the point.

            This make everything jerky as hell even mouse movement, most TVs don't have display port that is needed.

            My only option was to stump up for a gtx 980 currently the only card with hdmi 2 out at 60hz

            Monitors and TVs are two different beasts in this respect with regard to inputs for PC.

      2. Chris Miller

        @Peter

        I'm typing this looking at a 28" 4K monitor. I can (just!) detect the difference from my previous 26" 1920x1200 display (or so I tell myself). But (of course) I'm looking at it from 0.5m, rather closer than I normally sit from my telly! So I reckon that with a 56" screen you could probably see a difference with 4K if you sat 1m away. As most of us sit at least 2m from the gogglebox, that would imply a 112" screen, which would rather dwarf most living rooms (and, at current prices, break most bank balances - or, at least, marriages).

        1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

          Re: @Peter

          The wry comment I was trying to make is that if you are relying on the manufacture of TV panels to make UHD monitors available, you would have to accept the size of the panel as well.

          I cannot really see any TV manufacturer making a UHD TV smaller than 32", and looking at the story, 40" was the smallest TV referenced. That's where 40" came from.

          This time, I was not making any comment about whether UHD was really going to increase your computer experience (although I have in the past).

      3. Christian Berger

        Desk space

        Well it probably will take up less desk space than my current 2x23 inch setup... but you get _twice_ the screen space!

        Unfortunately display makers will probably make UHD computer monitors in 23 inch and smaller. Pretty much the only use for that is when you want to make vector fonts look passable on a screen.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Just bought a 40" 4k monitor for work and play . Makes my 30" look small.

        Best buy ever.

        Very usable.

        1. Tachikoma

          I would be very interested in a good value 40" 4K TV, my main PC at home plugs into my 40" 1080p TV so for most uses I'm sat on the sofa and wouldn't get any benefit, but for photo/video editing I sit much closer so would be idea for me.

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "I cannot imagine making the desk space for such a beast!"

        We adjust to any increase in size or speed very soon - and then can't believe we ever used something as slow/small as the previous one.

        My nominal 21" CRT monitor in about 2000 cost about £700 and was very bulky and very, very heavy. Replacing it with an LCD was disappointing - not the same contrast and clarity. However - modern monitors have mostly sorted the visual problems - and weigh very little.

        I even started taking wide-screen monitors into the office as a "test" for spreadsheet work - as the 4:3 company issue ones were like looking through a keyhole.

        I currently use a 1920x1200 27" - but find it time consuming to access the overlapped multiple windows in a run I do once a week. Going to a second wide screen would not solve the problem of screen height. A screen that is larger both vertically and horizontally would do the job nicely.

        1. Sir Runcible Spoon

          Couldn't you run two widescreens in portrait mode?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "Couldn't you run two widescreens in portrait mode?"

            It would be preferable to not have a split in the middle. Even the thin frame ones are still obtrusive.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              I have a 30" 4k monitor - picture quality excellent, no ghosting. Major downside - little software is written to handle high DPI and becomes ususably small. Windows 10 is a bit better and many system apps are now high DPI ware, but the new fallback for apps which are not is little more than crappy pixel scaling and looks terribly fuzzy and worse than just running a 1080p monitor..

              For the time begin I would stick with 1440p or 2560x1600 if you want 16:10; it's a happy medium between gaining screen real-estate and not being headache inducing ....

        2. NotWorkAdmin

          Ah...CRT

          It was a black day for me when my 21" CRT gave up on me. Samsung were nice enough about it and sent me a replacement monitor but they'd pretty much ceased with CRT's by then and said it had to be a flat panel.

          Definitely agree with the premise that 27" is about right when you're sitting .5m from it. Tried sitting right up to a 40" to play PlayStation games and it doesn't work - to much of the screen is outside your peripheral vision so you keep having to look around.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Ah...CRT

            I've just measured my peripheral vision at my desk at 46" looking straight ahead with 28" monitor about 26" in front of me.

      6. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Big-Screen-Adapt_tau

        Re. "...40"+ monitor..."

        BSA Tau = Five minutes.

        From plugging it in, saying Wow!, being amazed at the huge screen size... ...to thinking it's normal. "Could be just a bit larger actually..."

        5 minutes.

        I've had this happen so many times, with formerly 'huge' TVs to formerly 'enormous' 27" monitors, that I've noticed it and timed it.

        5 minutes.

      7. Alan Brown Silver badge

        "Yes, but only if you want a 40"+ monitor"

        My currrent monitor wall is larger than that (4 x 17" 1280*1024 displays)

        Replacing that with something that has slightly fewer pixels overall is justifiable simply on the grounds of not having to mess around with Xinerama and it'll have twice the height. Yes, it'd need a pricier video card to drive at more than 30Hz but it's still a viable option overall and I can retire the 4-headed quattro that Nvidia's given up supporting.

        As for desk space: just mount it on a pole or something. I do that already - there are a few cheap-o monitor-arm suppliers kicking around so this isn't a £300 cost - more like £50

      8. TheVogon

        "Yes, but only if you want a 40"+ monitor."

        My Dell XPS 13" laptop has a UHD screen...

        These LED based screens still have an inferior picture to a decent Plasma. I'm waiting for OLED before I buy a new screen.

        1. Danhalen

          I've had a 42" Panasonic plasma for about 5 years now and have yet to see anything within the "consumer" price range that would make upgrading worth the investment.

          When this one gives up the ghost I'll probably get a second hand Series 60 to tide me over until OLED makes a dent on the scene but even then I'd be quite happy with a 1080p panel; My eyes aren't nearly good enough to make out any extra detail at all on "smaller" 4K sets from typical viewing distance.

          Maybe in a few years time seeing a demo clip of Pacific Rim 2 in the wider colour gamut afforded by 4K will change my mind but until then I think I'll stick with the Luddite position.

          1. Brad Ackerman
            Boffin

            Bought a Pioneer PDP-427XG in 2007 (yeah, the 8th-gen were out at the time, but AAFES was a bit behind). It still kicks ass, despite being only 720p, and I'm still mourning Pioneer's passing.

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          "These LED based screens still have an inferior picture to a decent Plasma."

          It's only a backlight - and plasma chews more juice than an equivalent CRT.

          OLEDs are nice but I'm not convinced that the blue will last more than few years.

          What looks very promising in terms of efficiency and gamut is mono LCD with quantum dots behind.

      9. ZootCadillac

        I have 2 37" monitors (barely) on my desk as well as a 47" TV connected as a third monitor over on my left in a corner. As a sports photographer I'd like to think that all this screen estate is absolutely essential for my work editing photos and videos. I'd like to but I'm too busy playing world of warcraft on my MASSIVE screens :)

        1. 404
          Facepalm

          Hey Zoot!

          WTF is the 1st Rule?

          Multiple screen real estate is REQUIRED to handle video/picture manipulation, do our jobs efficiently and with great purpose, to further our pointy headed bosses' careers!

          What is this gaming you speak of? Surely it's against company policy and no IT professional would EVER waste company time with such fluff....

    2. Black Betty

      Possibly, but why bother?

      Unless something's changed somewhere,it's my experience that computer monitors are considerably more expensive than comparably sized TV sets.

    3. Mikel

      Oft overlooked

      With the eye on entertainment these are aimed at, it is often overlooked that the 55" are exactly the same as four 1080p monitors. They really make your spreadsheets pop, it's enough desktop space for developers to have all their tools open, you can work on photos with a better eye for details and the big picture.

      If you will remember when we went to larger screens and higher resolutions years ago, going back felt like building a ship in a bottle, or watching a game through a knothole in the fence. So too this.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oft overlooked

        "it is often overlooked that the 55" are exactly the same as four 1080p monitors"

        Sorry, but that makes no sense.

        You're comparing physical size to resolution. You need to specify both.

        A 55" 4K TV is much smaller physically than the screen space of four 1080p 70" monitors.

        A 55" 4K TV would have the same screen space as four 27.5" 1080p monitors, is that what you meant?

      2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Oft overlooked

        it's enough desktop space for developers to have all their tools open

        What, three gvim windows and a couple of bash sessions, a browser for docs, maybe an ssh or telnet session... Hmm. I can have all that open on my laptop now.

  2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Sky and UHD

    Great, so now they'll start overcompressing the shit out of their HD channels, to make 4K look worth having, just as they did for SD when HD arrived.

    Is there anything on TV anywhere in the world where seeing it in UHD in an average living room would actually make a difference to the viewer?

    1. JetSetJim
      Mushroom

      Re: Sky and UHD

      > Is there anything on TV anywhere in the world where seeing it in UHD in an average living room would actually make a difference to the viewer?

      It's more pixels, you fool - stop talking heresy. The pixels are what counts, not whether you can tell the difference.

      Next you'll be moaning about having a 4K screen in a smartphone form factor, which is obviously even better.

    2. Ben Tasker

      Re: Sky and UHD

      Is there anything on TV anywhere in the world where seeing it in UHD in an average living room would actually make a difference to the viewer?

      Almost certainly - start overcompressing the shit out of their HD channels, to make 4K look worth having, - will be enough for 90% of their subscribers to start going with 4K instead.

      To be honest, I'm still not that convinced of the benefits of HD in some contexts. IIRC there was quite a thing about football matches being in HD, why? As long as you can see the players and the ball clearly, do you need to be able to identify individual blades of grass?

      Movies in particular benefit though, and will likely benefit all the more so from 4K, and at least (unlike 3D) it'll apply across the whole movie rather than being used for the benefit of a 2 minute scene.

      1. Chris Miller

        Re: Sky and UHD

        The only time I can really spot the difference is watching tennis, where the individual strands of the net are obvious in HD.

      2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Sky and UHD

        Movies in particular benefit though

        Meh. HD doesn't make the plot, dialogue, acting, or directing any better. Personally, I don't much care about the rest.

        We have an HD TV (couldn't really get anything else when the old one died), and maybe a hundred HD channels. We rarely watch them because the SD equivalents come earlier in the online program guide, so we never scroll as far as the HDs. When I do happen to see something in HD, the increased resolution doesn't do anything for me.

        I remember when we (my family and I) used to timeshift programs using VHS VCRs recording in EP mode. That didn't hurt our enjoyment. Indeed, I find I'm less interested in television these days, with my 500 channels and on-demand and Netflix and HD and DVR and blah blah blah.

        Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go yell at those kids.

    3. Lamont Cranston
      FAIL

      Re: Sky and UHD

      HD was pretty much a waste of time for any sensibly sized TV. HD is a little sharper and brighter, but not so much that it's worth paying the extra for. Ever notice that the Freeview EPG relegates the HD versions of channels to the hinterlands? It's almost certain that everyone is merrily watching the SD broadcasts on their HD tellies, and they don't care.

      UHD will surely be a big hit with the mugs who think their TV needs to be the size of a wall, though - I'm sure the SD Freeview signals will look great when blown up to 50 or more inches.

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon

        Re: Sky and UHD

        "As long as you can see the players and the ball clearly, do you need to be able to identify individual blades of grass?"

        If you ever watch any of the old classic games from the 70's you will notice that you actually see more of the players than you do with the current 'shot from a passing satellite' view that seems to be the norm.

        1. kraut

          Re: Sky and UHD

          Do people actually re-watch old games? Surely watching Football is boring enough even if you don't already know the results?

      2. Nigel Whitfield.

        Re: Sky and UHD

        @Lamont Cranston

        Most Freeview HD compliant kit that I've played with prompts if the same programme is available in HD.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Sky and UHD

          Most Freeview HD compliant kit that I've played with prompts if the same programme is available in HD.

          Our cable provider pushed through an over-the-wire box update a few weeks back that does this, among other things. Yet another obnoxious intrusion when I'm trying to watch something. They're just pushing me closer and closer to dropping them entirely.

          And we have WOW, which has been rated the least-despised cable company in the US by people responding to Consumer Reports surveys. I can only imagine what things would be like with, say, Comcast.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sky and UHD

        > HD was pretty much a waste of time for any sensibly sized TV. HD is a little sharper

        I did a back-to-back comparison of Earth's Natural Wonders broadcast on BBC SD & HD (1080p), watching from ~9' on a 49" screen, and it's not even remotely close - there was significantly more detail on the HD broadcast.

        > UHD will surely be a big hit with the mugs who think their TV needs to be the size of a wall

        I recently replaced my (ancient) 32" CRT TV. Given that any LCD TV was going to be further away (i.e. against the wall, rather than having a 2' deep cabinet), it would have taken a ~42" TV to occupy the same field of view when sat at the same point. I originally thought that a ~40" TV was too big and a ~50" TV was silly. I was not right.

        Ultimately, the TV industry is pushing 4K - with the exception of Sony, all of the major manufacturer's 1080p units have a noticably worse image (when displaying 1080p content) than their 4K units (IMO & IME).

        > I'm sure the SD Freeview signals will look great when blown up to 50 or more inches

        It doesn't. Watching from ~9', some channels look "OK", but some look utterly awful. DVDs fairs a bit better, although they still look a tad soft, especially when compared with Blu-Rays.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Sky and UHD

          "[Freeview] Watching from ~9', some channels look "OK", but some look utterly awful"

          Is this a surprise, given the excessive compression apparently used on some of the advert-delivery networks? 57 channels and almost nothing with a watchable picture, never mind nothing on.

          Genuine question: is UK (Freesat) satellite any better in compression terms?

    4. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Sky and UHD

      It's funny, because we're not even fully in an HD world yet. The TV broadcasts are mostly only 720, rather than 1080, and yet we're upping the ante even more. Cricket is better in HD, and so I'd imagine tennis and golf are too. I'm not sure it really matters for slower moving sports with bigger euqipment like footie.

      There's a brief mention in the article of HDR. And I think that could be a big leap forward with 4K. I've never even bothered getting a Bluray player, DVD is enough for me - I don't believe there's enough of a difference to be worth shelling out so much extra per disc.

      I've also got very poor eyesight though, so my opnion is of less value in judging what other people are seeing. Although given how poorly set up many peoples' tellies are, I think it's safe to say that they're not really caring.

      But I do struggle in those films and shows where the director wants to shoot everything in moody darkness. I've even had to resort to changing the picture settings, if turning off the lights doesn't help. And HDR might be excellent for that.

      Otherwise, it'll have to wait until my TV dies. At which point I'll get whatever's sensibly priced. If we aren't on to 16K by then...

      Although the smart stuff can bugger off. If I want smarts, I'll get something not coded by gibbons, which is what the TV companies seem to use to write their user interfaces. At the moment that's a Chromecast, so the UI is my tablet or PC.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sky and UHD

        I used to think the same as you with Blu Ray and DVD, and even when I eventually did buy a BR player I was a little disappointed that the movies didn't look too different - I certainly didn't see any great picture quality revolution like you see on the demos in-store.

        That was, until I watched a DVD after exclusively watching movies on BR for a couple of weeks. Back-to-back the difference is easily visible to me, and on the whole BR discs aren't much more expensive now than DVD was 5 years ago. DVD is cheaper still now, of course.

        I have to say though, I do enjoy a well-encoded 3D movie very much on my passive 3D screen (I'm very sensitive to flicker). I realise I'm in a minority here, but I've always had a penchant for stereoscopic 3D tricks. Jurassic Park 3D is surprisingly good, you could almost imagine it was shot for a 3D presentation. I was hoping that the new LG 4K screens (with passive 3D again) with their double resolution would be able to play 3D 1080p at full 1080p per eye instead of the half-vertical res I get right now, but apparently they don't work like that. Shame. Still, resolution is slightly less important (since your brain merges the two images) in 3D presentation than flicker or crosstalk, both of which are great on the passive system.

        Personally, I'm looking forward to a 4K screen with passive 3d that works well and allows 3D 1080p content to be displayed perfectly. In order to replace my not-very-old 1080p set, it will need to also have HDR and an upscaling option which will turn each 1080p pixel into 4 4k pixels would be nice for gaming. Fingers crossed something will appear in a year or two when the HDR specs are final.

        1. Dick Emery

          Re: Sky and UHD

          From what I understand passive 3D splits the line count per eye so is in fact only 720P. At least 4K would allow for true passive 1080P in that respect, but I think the TV itself would have to do it somehow?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Sky and UHD

            MOAR PIXELS, yeahhhhhh... I'd rather have 60 Hz minimum (120+ is nice in games that run fast enough) without messing around with expensive bleeding edge GPUs and monitors.

            Besides, you really don't want to see every little imperfection in your favorite porn film stars.

          2. druck Silver badge
            Unhappy

            Re: Sky and UHD

            Dick Emery wrote:

            From what I understand passive 3D splits the line count per eye so is in fact only 720P.

            No, it's 1080/2, so only 540 lines which is less than standard definition vertical resolution - and you can tell.

    5. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Re: Sky and UHD

      Bell Satellite TV (Canada), formerly 'ExpressVu', doesn't seem to overcompress their channels. I can watch their HD channels all day and not be annoyed even once.

      Then I drop by friends to see what the local Cable TV company offers. Horrifying.

  3. Nigel Whitfield.

    I'd still wait

    It's great that you can get something so cheap, even if you do have to put on your slippers and go to Asda. But the limitations are going to be the things that niggle. Perhaps not now, but a couple of years down the line.

    When you decide you really do want Netflix in 4k for their latest new series, for instance, and the built-in app not only doesn't do it now, but likely won't have an upgrade. And you realise that there's only the one 4k capable HDMI port, which might be fine right now when you just want to plug in the BT box, but become rather limiting once there are more sources. Just like early flat panels had the composite, and SCART and S-Video connectors which were great when they first came out, but before long the single DVI or HDMI was no longer sufficient.

    I really hope that, if we do get some sort of UHD labelling that it's a bit clearer than the old 'HD Ready' stuff, and much more future-proof.

    It would be great, for example, if people like Netflix, as well as letting their software be built into sets like this, would come up with a clear and simple branding so that you can see at a glance if it has a 'Netflix' logo or a 'Netflix4k' logo, which will tell you if it's going to give you 4K, regardless of the screen resolution.

    And a spec for UHD should probably also include things like a minimum number of 4K sockets (or a standard way of highlighting how many), and clarity on whether or not, for example, the HDMI-ARC port that most people will use to link to their AV gear is 4K compatible or not.

    So, sure, you can buy one right now. But in my view, it's still sensible to wait.

    1. Christian Berger

      Re: I'd still wait

      "I really hope that, if we do get some sort of UHD labelling that it's a bit clearer than the old 'HD Ready' stuff, and much more future-proof."

      Well the "HD-Ready" label clearly specified the things which are important for the industry, HDCP.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I'd still wait

        > Well the "HD-Ready" label clearly specified the things which are important for the industry, HDCP.

        But, as my "HD Ready" telly can testify, it didn't specify actually being HD...

        1. deadmonkey

          Re: I'd still wait

          You mean the difference between HD Ready and Full HD, or something else?

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