4K TV - is it worth it?

[TonyM]

I'm not sure why you would upgrade your current TV if you are not going to be watching anything but SD terrestrial TV, most of which is low bitrate SD unless you are watching BBC or Channel 4.

My wife and the kids used to watch Netflix via the TV box supplied by our ISP, but that device is no longer supported by Netflix. The app disappeared from the menu last week. I'm trying to find a fix for them. One option is a 'smart' TV with Netflix support, and at 14 years old our Panasonic plasma is probably nearing the end of its life.

Personally I record F1 on Channel 4 HD and occasionally something on BBC1 HD. Sometimes the F1 recording fails due to a poor signal and I end up watching catch-up on my phone, but then I will use 4G for significantly better speeds than my landline.

 

[Augustus]

I think that is plenty for normal iPlayer in SD (The other main channels all have equivalents), if you want to watch in FHD then you may need to download first, then you have great quality compared to normal TV. YouTube may not provide 4K at that speed, but it will stream fine, as long as the bitrate is consistent. You can try these out on a computer/phone, not quite the same to use as a TV box with remote control, but you can check if they will work.

I'm not sure why you would upgrade your current TV if you are not going to be watching anything but SD terrestrial TV, most of which is low bitrate SD unless you are watching BBC or Channel 4. Except maybe for power consumption reasons.

4K dashcam footage looks fine on an FHD monitor, although it is good to have a video player with a zoom function.

If you want a larger screen, and are going to sit close enough to it to be able to see the extra detail of 4K, then you will want to find a way to source 4K video, but FHD resolution was chosen because that is the amount of detail that most people can see. For most people, a 4K TV doesn't make much difference unless they have a screen that is too big for the room.



Most HDR should be displayed at 1000 nits to be accurate, 400 nits is not real HDR, and 3000 is not needed for indoor viewing. Although remember that nits are measured linearly, while our eyes are logarithmic, so 3000 nits is nowhere near twice as bright as 1000 nits!

Yes 400 is not real HDR but do you have a HDR TV yourself? Everything else like colour space, 10 bit is satisfied by my TV. 400 is plenty enough for me that has my TV facing away from the sun and curtains in my living room.

 

[Nigel]

Personally I record F1 on Channel 4 HD

BBC Sport website for live audio/text coverage / BBC Sounds for recorded / BBC Radio 5 Sports on the radio.

Radio coverage is different to the TV coverage, some people prefer it, occasionally I will listen to it live and then watch the highlights, always seems like a different race!

My wife and the kids used to watch Netflix via the TV box supplied by our ISP, but that device is no longer supported by Netflix.

I don't use Netflix, but I would be looking for an alternative TV box, and upgrade the screen separately when you need/want a screen upgrade. The apps built in to a TV are always going to be inferior and less well supported than what is available in a good TV box. Netflix appears to still be available on my Apple TV box,

 

[Augustus]

BBC Sport website for live audio/text coverage / BBC Sounds for recorded / BBC Radio 5 Sports on the radio.

Radio coverage is different to the TV coverage, some people prefer it, occasionally I will listen to it live and then watch the highlights, always seems like a different race!


I don't use Netflix, but I would be looking for an alternative TV box, and upgrade the screen separately when you need/want a screen upgrade. The apps built in to a TV are always going to be inferior and less well supported than what is available in a good TV box. Netflix appears to still be available on my Apple TV box,

Lol depends what TV you get. A lot of TVs are Google Android which is updated via the Store and the same as what you would get on an equivalent streaming device that runs Android.

Do your own research basically.

 

[Nigel]

Yes 400 is not real HDR but do you have a HDR TV yourself? Everything else like colour space, 10 bit is satisfied by my TV. 400 is plenty enough for me that has my TV facing away from the sun and curtains in my living room.

I have a 400 nit screen and a 1000 nit screen, and my phone appears to be 2000 nits when used outdoors. I'm not very impressed by the 400 nit screen, better than nothing, but the 1000 is much better.

You are right, if you watch at night with the lights turned off, then even a standard 100 nit screen is adequate brightness, although it is not going to display in 10 bit detail. For testing dashcams, you should definitely compare detail in the dark so that you can see all the detail, trying to see fine dynamic range detail in sunlight does not work well.

 

[Nigel]

A lot of TVs are Google Android which is updated via the Store and the same as what you would get on an equivalent streaming device that runs Android.

That is OK to start with, but in 10 years time the TV will have an out of date OS which can't be upgraded, and you will have to replace the whole TV, screen and all, when all you need is an OS update!

 

[Augustus]

That is OK to start with, but in 10 years time the TV will have an out of date OS which can't be upgraded, and you will have to replace the whole TV, screen and all, when all you need is an OS update!

Potentially not. I've followed android TV since version 5.0 all the way back in 2015 with the nexus player, and surprisingly it caught on and now it's on streaming devices, set top boxes and most importantly, TVs out of the box.

I honestly don't think anyone is going to disrupt the market at this point. Google, Apple, Amazon, netflix have the market saturated enough. Sure the OS might be out of date, but apart from security updates it should all keep working.

Bear in mind that Android has been increasingly modularised so it's updatable via the play store (outside of OS versions) and Google play services. So OS versions are really starting to mean nothing at this point, when the OS is already mature.

 

[Augustus]

I have a 400 nit screen and a 1000 nit screen, and my phone appears to be 2000 nits when used outdoors. I'm not very impressed by the 400 nit screen, better than nothing, but the 1000 is much better.

You are right, if you watch at night with the lights turned off, then even a standard 100 nit screen is adequate brightness, although it is not going to display in 10 bit detail. For testing dashcams, you should definitely compare detail in the dark so that you can see all the detail, trying to see fine dynamic range detail in sunlight does not work well.

2000 nits is useful when outdoors but it's a pissing contest between phone manufacturers now and a lot of them on the android side at least don't even get close to that advertised figure. 1000 nits is plenty enough unless the sun is smack bang on your screen.

 

[kamkar]

My PC, while 12 / 24 core / 48 Gb ram and generally high specs, it can not run ( according to Microsoft ) windows 11.
So win 10 loose support in 1 year, pretty much forcing me to upgrade,,,, and granted even if sticking to same beefy specs a new CPU will use a feaction of the watts my current one use ( 170 - 180 watts idling on desktop,,,, and no funny stuff running on my PC )

I would not mind very much a TV not able to get updates anymore as long as the APPs i would be using on the damn thing was still working.

 

[Augustus]

My PC, while 12 / 24 core / 48 Gb ram and generally high specs, it can not run ( according to Microsoft ) windows 11.
So win 10 loose support in 1 year, pretty much forcing me to upgrade,,,, and granted even if sticking to same beefy specs a new CPU will use a feaction of the watts my current one use ( 170 - 180 watts idling on desktop,,,, and no funny stuff running on my PC )

I would not mind very much a TV not able to get updates anymore as long as the APPs i would be using on the damn thing was still working.

My TV stopped getting security updates last year after seven years of being on the market. Pretty good.

Like I was saying earlier, it's irrelevant because Google has android TV for devices running android TV 9.0 and earlier, and newer devices running the newer Google TV. Which apps are supported thru the play store and through Google play services.

So there are millions of TVs, set top boxes and streaming devices (Google, Nvidia, Xiaomi etc) that are still supported to this very day. I have a set top box from Vodafone that is on android 9.0 but still runs apple TV+, YouTube, netflix without issues and in HDR (not 4k though).

 

[Nigel]

I would not mind very much a TV not able to get updates anymore as long as the APPs i would be using on the damn thing was still working.

Hardware for running Apps is never supported for more then 10 years, then you are forced to replace, but there is no reason why you can't use a 20 year old monitor, as long as it is just a monitor, and not something that runs Apps. HDMI is over 20 years old, so it can still be plugged into a modern TV box.

My TV stopped getting security updates last year after seven years of being on the market. Pretty good.

I doubt that Tony's TV has stopped getting security updates!

 

[TonyM]

I doubt that Tony's TV has stopped getting security updates!

Never had one. Although there might have been an OTA FW update.

But yes, my TV has no ethernet or wifi. It still functions the same as it did on day 1. I have no intention of scrapping it, though we don't have any need for a 2nd TV in the house.

 

[Augustus]

Hardware for running Apps is never supported for more then 10 years, then you are forced to replace, but there is no reason why you can't use a 20 year old monitor, as long as it is just a monitor, and not something that runs Apps. HDMI is over 20 years old, so it can still be plugged into a modern TV box.


I doubt that Tony's TV has stopped getting security updates!

Nice, seems on surveys that most people keep their TVs five to ten years before getting a new one. Makes sense. So not really an issue to be honest. There's going to be outliers always, where people might hold onto it for years longer but they'd be in the minority.

Even so, if they're happy with the TV then they could buy a new streaming device or operator box. Not a big issue.

 

[kamkar]

My TV, my first TV i got at the age of 40, it lasted over a decade, actually it still work CUZ i gave it to my friend that used it to display his CCTV cameras.
The,,,,,, i call them Apple people, that will throw out a working piece of equipment just CUZ there is a new model,,,,,, i dont get those kind of people.
Or the buy 50 kilos of clothe every year, and throw out another 50 kilos of clothe every year people,,,, do not compute. I throw out clothe when i can no longer fit it, or it have broken in some way, or probably most often can no longer be washed clean.
And i dont think i ever owned 30 kilos of clothe.

But there is a lot of things humans do i do not understand, i sort of feel like another animal.

 

[TonyM]

I think I've found my temporary solution. A £99 Google TV Streamer. Much more cost-effective than a new TV. I'd get the £35 Chromecast with Google TV if I could find it in stock anywhere.

 

[Nigel]

I think I've found my temporary solution. A £99 Google TV Streamer. Much more cost-effective than a new TV. I'd get the £35 Chromecast with Google TV if I could find it in stock anywhere.

A quick search for that suggested:
HDR - Dolby Vision

I'm guessing our future dashcams will have HDR10, not Dolby Vision HDR. Not sure if that is relevant or if it doesn't matter because a Google TV will play HDR10 files to the monitor in Dolby Vision format, assuming the monitor can understand Dolby Vision.

Obviously that is not currently an issue for you, since you don't have an HDR screen, but I'm wondering if anyone can comment on possible future compatibility issues...

 

[TheSpanishInq]

Future compatibility issues are garanteed, but should you worry about that for £99?

 

[Augustus]

I think I've found my temporary solution. A £99 Google TV Streamer. Much more cost-effective than a new TV. I'd get the £35 Chromecast with Google TV if I could find it in stock anywhere.

Nice, I have the Chromecast with Google TV already but yeah they pulled it from sale pretty much straight away when the Streamer went on sale which is highway robbery considering it isn't that much better than the CC w/ GTV

 

[Augustus]

A quick search for that suggested:
HDR - Dolby Vision

I'm guessing our future dashcams will have HDR10, not Dolby Vision HDR. Not sure if that is relevant or if it doesn't matter because a Google TV will play HDR10 files to the monitor in Dolby Vision format, assuming the monitor can understand Dolby Vision.

Obviously that is not currently an issue for you, since you don't have an HDR screen, but I'm wondering if anyone can comment on possible future compatibility issues...

Since I have one, here are some screens: