re: Official state of 4K thread

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wait what? No grandfathering?

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Yeah - you have to go with the "4 screens" plan to get 4k/UHD.

It's pretty solid so far, though. I get distracted by the color depth and detail in Breaking Bad on my rewatch for example.

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are you doing this wirelessly?

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I run a wire to my primary streaming device - and in this case, my Roku 4 is hardwired.

UPDATE: laptop will play 2160p youtube but it hiccups. will try downloading a 4k MP4 and play from both laptop and usb stick and see if either works.

bump. will add this to top thread.

First - UHD (TV 4K format) is not equal to cinema 4K

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cinema = 4096 x 2160 4K resolution, the new Ultra HD consumer format has a slightly lower resolution of 3840 X 2160. This is one reason why some brands prefer not to use the 4K label at all, sticking with Ultra HD or UHD instead.

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awesome. let's release a new standard without even getting the number of pixels straight.

this means the infamous black bars if the content is say 3840 x 1660 or some nonsense but *WORSE* it means you literally cannot view a cinema 4K at native resolution without it being stretched or part of the image will be cut off.

again, awesome.

well done guys.

Second - UHD has new audio & video compression (and non compression) standards. What used to make up most torrents was H.264. The new hotness in UHD is H.265 (why? because its better by 1). This standard when used to compress UHD content will likely play on more TVs that are out there.

The competing standard to this is Google's VP9. Youtube UHD uses VP9 and some sets don't support this hardware standard so be aware these 2 standards are fighting for world domination.

Third - This brings me to the meat of the discussion. How do you show off that glorious new panel? Streaming Netflix? Streaming YouTube? Nah. You want the best, source it with the best.

Currently I've found using the *FREE* Vidcoder utility (for UNIX, PC and Mac) is the best and easiest way to take free UHD torrents and tranmogrify them to play natively, locally on your TV. Download the tool (google it) and then you can be confident all the showy UHD stuff (and torrents) can be converted to work well on your TV.

Fourth - I highly recommend skipping WiFi for UHD playback and just hardwire your TV to save yourself the hassle. I run into enough hiccups with 6 people at my house using the WiFi to risk the annoyance of even a 1/2 second hiccup for UHD. Just go to monoprice and get you a nice 50ft cat5e cable for $4 and get off your lazy arse and run that thing into the wall, through your attic (if necessary) and out the wall behind the TV.

Even better, buy a $15 switch and then hardwire your Xbox, BD player, AVR, Amazon Fire or Roku while you're at it since they're probably all sitting next to the TV anyway. Just head off the problems before they start.

More on UHD conversion tips next....

I bought an Xbox One S last night along with the 4K Blurays of The Revenant, Life of Pi, and Deadpool.

I am quite excited to finally watch some native 4K BR's with HDR10.

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First - UHD (TV 4K format) is not equal to cinema 4K quote: cinema = 4096 x 2160 4K resolution, the new Ultra HD consumer format has a slightly lower resolution of 3840 X 2160. This is one reason why some brands prefer not to use the 4K label at all, sticking with Ultra HD or UHD instead. awesome. let's release a new standard without even getting the number of pixels straight. this means the infamous black bars if the content is say 3840 x 1660 or some nonsense but *WORSE* it means you literally cannot view a cinema 4K at native resolution without it being stretched or part of the image will be cut off. again, awesome. well done guys.

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Well, they would have to start making tvs in different aspect ratio, 1.89:1 or 2.39:1 instead of 16:9

And im confused about the video having to be stretched or cut off? The reason the black bars are there are so you can view then entire normal picture. They just remaster it down the tv 4K resolution. We never could view cinema 2k content either as that native res is 2048 X 1080. In order for that to be fixed they would have to start producing models in different aspect ratios, and watching normal tv on it would be all screwed up

Hijacking this thread some for 2 questions:
1) I have a Pioneer Elite VSX-50 (circa 2008) and I'm assuming I can't pass through 4k TV through that specific receiver can I?

2) For those of us that are 100% cord cutters, I'm limited to 1000 gigs of data a month. There's no way I can stream 4k with this, is there? I'm basically limited to just buying 4k CDs in which case I'll need a 4k DVD player too right?

So my options are (1) Buy a new receiver to stream 4k TV and/or (2) Buy an Xbox One S or something to play 4k DVDs, correct?

This sucks.
ETA: Oh, I'd also need a 4k tv too. I was thinking about upgrading to a new 4k TV within the next year but it sounds like I'll also need 2 additional purchases of a new receiver and a dvd player.

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Pioneer Elite VSX-50

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Not gonna do the faux k

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how are you going to display 4096 lines on a tv that only supports 3840 without some type of stretching?

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You're not

They remaster it into a tv version, meaning they will just take the original resolution and downgrade it to the tv resolution, just like how movies/shows that are in 4k are downgraded to 2k for people without a 4k tv, like House of Cards, Stranger Things, etc. They still fit the entire image on a TV screen by using the black bars if needed, its just downgraded in resolution. Its not like this is something new with just 4k

However, some tv networks do zoom in on the pictures in order it to fill the entire tv screen. When they do that we are definitely missing a good chunk of the picture. I blame idiots who care more about not having black bars than seeing the whole picture for this