I personally can't see the difference, but my vision's not great.

Stinand wrote:

In theory, it is, but it's shit in shit out. If it's a bad HD coming in, it will look like bad HD on a 4k TV. What 4k sources do you have ?

There's some 4k programming on Amazon Prime.

Stinand wrote:

I was asking RA if he was watching 4k source, if he was not, he would see no difference. There is 4k on Amazon Prime as long as you have bandwidth, otherwise drops it to 1080 or 720..

Should be good, I have 1gb Beanfield.

By itself, 4K is slightly sharper over 1080p FHD, but the real advantage is support of HDR content. To my eye HDR does punch up the overall picture quality.

Good 1080p is almost as good as 4K. 4K is better if the program has HDR. I get ATSC 3.0 from Buffalo none of the channels have 4K. From what I have read there is no 4K over the air broadcasts in the US. Not enough bandwidth with the subchannels they are carrying. With Buffalo 2 1080i channels and 3 720p channels. Maybe 4K in the future if the FCC allows ATSC 1.0 stations to convert to 3.0 which would free up bandwidth since some of the subchannels would go back to their old 1.0 frequencies.

Last edited by canam2021 (July 25, 2023 2:59 pm)

If you have a good 4k source (i.e a 4k Blu-Ray player with a 4k disc, there is a definite improvement.  But the ability to distinguish the difference depends on the viewing distance. See https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship
I am totally suspicious of any claims of 4k resolution by the BDUs. In the early days of HD, most networks were purist and transmitted a single 1920 x 1080 HD picture in the 19.34 Mbits/sec bit stream, and Rogers carried them intact.  Bell Satellite downrated to 720p at 12 Mbits. .  Enter the bean counters, and the "mezzanine" levels used for transport from network to affiliate got reduced, and multiplexing or over-the-air signals took the bit rate down to who knows what (maybe 5 MBits/sec per stream?)  It's also entirely possible to upscale 1920 x 1080 to 4K, and give an ersatz result. Some of it can look very convincing.
The bottom line is we don't know what we're really getting, and short of being able to analyze the transport stream, you can't. It doesn't matter what the original signal quality is that is delivered by the program service.  Once it arrives at a broadcast distributor, it can be "trans-rated" and statistically multiplexed to squeeze in more channels into the available bandwidth. If you get up close to your HD set, you can see that the resolution suffers in chroma detail, and edges aren't really sharp.
So I wouldn't hold my breath about getting true 4k resolution over-the-air, but rather expect just more quasi hi-res channels.

 

Jody Thornton wrote:

With broadcast television on the downward trajectory that it is, you have to wonder why the investment is being made for 4K transmission.  I can understand streaming options being improved, but for linear models, the thought puzzles me.
 

I would concur with your statement Jody

4K (or higher) has its place in gaming, movies and (maybe) sports

Newscasts & Jeopardy!    Not so much