4K Dilemma.....

[Jonnie1266]

Hi, I have recently upgraded my 'entertainment suite' to a 55X9005 4K Television and BDV-N9100W Home Cinema system. It is the "mutts nuts" and several weeks later I am still in awe of it. I have read somewhere (in the hours of research prior to spending the kind of money that will buy a small family car) that the 4K upscaling chip within the television is far superior to the one's within the Blu-ray / Home Cinema systems and one should therefore disable the 4K upscaling feature in the player settings to allow the television to do the work. I would ask if anyone can add to this ? And, if this is true, then why bother having an upscaling feature on the players at all ? All 4K televisions must upscale to provide a picture in the first place so they must all have rather good upscaling chips that can trump the chips within the players (pause for breath). There is no point in owning a 4K upscaling player without the 4K television so is this not a 'catch 22' ? Please, has anyone got some smart answers ?

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi there

I guess this post is more comment and opinion. 

Firstly, as you are probably aware, upscaling will not increase or add quality.  Its merely blowing up a lower res image to fill the required space and any imperfections will be magnified.

Back to your question on which is better - Why not test this out?  (if possible)

In my opinion, I do not think you will actually notice a difference in "real" world viewing, but I would give preference to the newest equipment.  In your case the TV.  I would use the TV's upscaling instead, as its probably more developed.

Another factor is - How far are you sitting away from the TV.  The further the distance, the less likely you are to see the difference.

Why have both devices with upscaling? - I cannot really answer this with facts, but I guess if there are any imperfections in the upscaling from the bluray player, at least the TV can hopefully correct them.

Hope this assists anyhow.

Cheers

EDIT - A couple of links

http://hometheater.about.com/od/hometheatervideobasics/qt/dvdvidupscale.htm

http://hometheater.about.com/od/hometheaterglossary/g/4k-Resolution.htm

[Jonnie1266 · Accepted solution]

Many thanks for your opinion Quinnicus - from a technical point of view I wanted to understand which had the better upscaling so I am happy that you have answered that.
I have tried both scenarios and have noticed that when the upscaling is 'on' on the player then the 'mastered in 4K' option in picture adjustment is automatically selected to off on the television. If I deselect the 4K option on the player then the television takes over again (the player appears to have the upper hand), I suppose it is either one or the other so in this case upscaling cannot be achieved by both units at the same time.

Thanks for the links, it seems that high end televisions do have better scaling than most players, so, I will stick to playing discs with the television upscaling rather than the player. Perhaps one day we will have 4K raw discs which will not need upscaling......

[Anonymous]

Your welcome.

Many are waiting on the new higher capacity disc format too, for 'real' 4K.  However this is still a couple of years away or more, and never mind an affordable player..... However services like Netflix are coming online soon with 4K content.  I have also seen a few 4K vids on YouTube appearing too.  Lets just hope they dont reduce that bitrate too low though.