Topic: Is 4K Worth It?

I have a perfectly good 1080p 60” TV. I’ve been techno-lusting after a 4k TV for years tho, mostly because of the HDR, moreso than than the resolution. I’m doubting myself though and wondering if it is really worth upgrading to 4k/hdr at all. I mean, no doubt it is better but is it better enough to care? FWIW I’m sitting like 9’ away from the TV.

@Mega-Gazz I sit about 8' away from a 55" TV and the difference is very noticeable in games - much more so than TV/Movies. Games have many more fine line details and a lot more 'mid' range too where higher resolution really makes a difference.

A lot of TV has close camera (head and shoulders) focus and the difference is perhaps not as significant - although you can see individual hairs on stubble or whiskers on cats for example that doesn't break and looks sharper but if you play third person games for example, the character is a lot smaller so benefits a lot more from 4x the pixels count for the same size character. Its not so much the foreground that benefits but the mid ground area and that's where a LOT of action and your main focus is in gaming. You are also paying a lot more attention to things in the distance than you tend to do in movies/TV. I do notice that things like Sand or lawns in the mid ground still have 'texture' instead of being a 'blur' of yellow or green that because of context, we know what it is in movies.

Of course add in HDR and its on a whole different level altogether. Snow for example can actually sparkle with individual flakes reflecting bright lights thanks to 4k and HDR. Fire really seems to glow with more of the intensity of a real fire. Sparks, really do 'spark' and Lightning really does seem more intense. Colours are 'richer' too and when you go back to SDR, things seem flat and muted. I don't know if you have taken a Photo of something so vibrant and rich and then looked at the photo and thought it looks flat and lifeless but that's what I feel HDR and SDR is like.

Games like Infamous First Light, H:ZD etc are fantastic in HDR - lots of Neon bright lights that really benefit from HDR - especially at night as Neon does in real life.

I have a PS4 Pro and Xbox One X as well as a HDR Premium 55" 4k TV and the difference the resolution boost games have on the X is blatantly obvious to me and I wouldn't go back now. Its a shame its so difficult to show 4k HDR vs 1080 SDR and often they show some 'cut scene' where you have a close up on a character when you really want to see the details that having 4x the pixels make in the mid ground. If you think about what 4x the pixels would make on a full character if you were doing pixel art, you get the idea of what 4k brings to games....

I upgraded to a ps4 pro and a 4k HDR tv over a year ago and it's been definitely worth it to me. As you said, for gaming HDR is the real key, a lot of games really pop with it, even older games such as The Witcher 3. It's definitely not a necessity to enjoying games or even as big a change as SD to HD was but if you can afford it, you won't regret it. Even for sewing media it's great, movies look awesome in 4k and sports too. As always though, the brand of tv would be a key requirement, although I picked up a cheap Bush 4k HDR tv before the lockdown here in Ireland and it's been great.

Even my 40” shows a big difference. It’s more noticeable on bigger screens but I do see a clearer and more detailed picture.

Thanks all.

I do not think its worth it for gaming. But for movies and nature documentaries they really shine with 4k its almost like the picture is coming out of the TV.

I was a bit of a doubter with 4K before I actually experienced it in my home. Whenever I saw it before I didn't think there was that great of an improvement. But now I've upgraded, it almost feels like I've got new eyes. I've only got a base PS4 so no 4K for games and did find HDR on its own a bit mixed. Same with some content say on Netflix with some pictures appearing too 'soft'. But recently maybe as developers have become more accustomed to it, some of the recent results have been phenomenal. If anyones doubts it just look at Ghost of Tsushima and tell me your not impressed.

Watching 4K HDR film and TV content on either streaming or on disk, I have been very happy with the results. Everything looks sharper and clearer. HDR makes the blacks look deeper and the colours richer. I had to mess around a fair bit with the settings on the TV to get the picture just right for me though.

@JohnnyShoulder You’re right about finding the right settings, I spent about half an hour tweaking the HDR on Assassin’s Creed III to find a setting that didn’t give me a blinding headache. Something about the settings and frame rate combined really gave me eye strain, same as Control did.

@nessisonett I only ever notice frame rate when it suddenly changes, I know some people are more prone to notice it than others. Like in TLOU Remastered when you can change the frame rate from 30 fps to 60 fps, I could never notice any difference.

With TV settings I always start by turning off most of the processing effects and turn them on to max to see what difference they make to the picture. I did make myself a bit queasy at one point when mucking around with the settings and playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider, as it made things go blurry whenever there was fast movement.

Motion blur specifically makes me sick to the stomach, and that has nothing to do with 4k. I literally puked once at a LAN party playing counterstrike back in the day.

@Mega-Gazz Wasn't say it had anything to with 4K really, just the general mucking round with the TV settings to get the picture right for me. It wouldn't have have been in 4K anyway as I do not have a pro.

@BAMozzy since you seem to know all the details on this stuff... small wrinkle with sound. Seems like my current amp (Marantz NR1604) only supports HDMI switching up to 4k/30 without HDR, based on HDMI 1.4. Since I have a 12” subwoofer and in-ceiling speakers that I’d like to keep, I need to sort this out. Looking quickly it seems like replacing the amp with one that does pass through could cost more than the TV itself, and potentially be limiting in future capability in terms of what it supports (e.g. no 4k/120 support if I cheap out with a $700 amp).

I see references to the TVs (I’m looking at the samsung Q80T 65”) supporting both optical out and HDMI passthrough. Do you know if that works as advertised or are there any gotchas there?

@Mega-Gazz Yes, 4k is worth it but only if (1) you are somewhat picky about image quality and (2) you get a good enough tv that actually can do good HDR, show the expanded color palettes, has decent viewing angles, etc. So many tvs are designed to be marketable, but are not designed to be good.

I have my LG tv pass the game signal back to my receiver (currently using an optical cable, but at some point I might do eArc over HDMI). It’s fine. My receiver can only do HDMI 1.4, but the new 2.1 spec is better because it allows better audio over eArc. And... I think with all the pass throughs the question is always: will it introduce lag? And that’s going to depend on what you have.

@Mega-Gazz The preferred way of a set-up has been to pass the picture through an amp because that gives a lossless audio but eARC means that you can pass lossless audio through the TV into an amp.

@BAMozzy Thanks again.

Looks like my amp supports ARC not eARC, so I could go that route or the optical cable. Will work while I figure out the amp situation. Thanks.

@Mega-Gazz It will still take a uncompressed lossless sound through eARC - you just miss out on some of the other features like autosync.

The point is that the uncompressed audio will pass through the TV so you still get lossless audio and all the video features from HDMI 2.1 and going direct to the TV first

@BAMozzy I’ll let you know how it goes. I took the plunge, so TV should come Friday and the install on Nov 7th. Thanks again for being a great fountain of information

Cool - enjoy!

I am in the same predicament, I have a decent 1080p tv but no HDR etc. I have been trying to convince myself to upgrade my tv before my PS5 arrives. I've been looking at the OLED TVs. They really look amazing but my current tv is only about 4 years old.