Mass Media & Technology

What you do when setting up a TV

(July 2017)

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BA
Bail Moderator
Whitnall posted:
Despite my best efforts, I've not be able to replicate the clear and vibrant image I can get on my 2009 LCD Samsung TV on my new one. Despite the fact that my new Samsung which is 4k LED and cost double the price, it just won't do the picture as good. Even 4K stuff does not have the same clarity as my cheap 2009 set.

What source are you feeding it? An HD image will generally look better on a HD screen over a 4K one, as the 4K as to upsample/stretch the picture to fill the screen.

That said if you're saying 4K material doesn't look good either then perhaps there is an issue, what make/model is it, there are lots of AV sites and forums with "optimum" calibrations that you can find on What Hi-Fi etc?
DA
davidhorman
Ne1L C posted:
With me its the sound. I have a samsung 32inch tv and I sometimes have to cycle through the various audio modes. "clear voice" is a completer misnomer


Is it by any chance a series 9 or similar LED from about 10 years ago? I stuck it out with the built-in speakers for about two weeks before taking the back off and wiring in some real ones. The default equalisation was absolutely awful - presumably because the built-in speakers couldn't handle any more - but that can be disabled in the engineering menu (not that I'd recommend that on the built-in speakers, as they would probably die from having real sound sent to them).
BA
bilky asko
"Shall I just connect some speakers via the audio outputs? Nah, let's whip the back off and wire some in!"
BA
bilky asko
Bail posted:
Whitnall posted:
Despite my best efforts, I've not be able to replicate the clear and vibrant image I can get on my 2009 LCD Samsung TV on my new one. Despite the fact that my new Samsung which is 4k LED and cost double the price, it just won't do the picture as good. Even 4K stuff does not have the same clarity as my cheap 2009 set.

What source are you feeding it? An HD image will generally look better on a HD screen over a 4K one, as the 4K as to upsample/stretch the picture to fill the screen.

That said if you're saying 4K material doesn't look good either then perhaps there is an issue, what make/model is it, there are lots of AV sites and forums with "optimum" calibrations that you can find on What Hi-Fi etc?


Surely as 4K is precisely double the resolution in both directions, there should be no degradation in quality? (For 1080)
DO
dosxuk
Depends on your definition of 4K...
BA
bilky asko
dosxuk posted:
Depends on your definition of 4K...


Ah yes, I should have said 3840 x 2160 UHD.
NG
noggin Founding member
Bail posted:
An HD image will generally look better on a HD screen over a 4K one, as the 4K as to upsample/stretch the picture to fill the screen.


Actually that was the opposite of my experience when trying to find a decent TV a couple of years ago. I spent a good amount of time in John Lewis with test material auditioning Full HD and UHD TVs, removing all the digital processing, sharpness processing, 'contrast enhancement' etc. I ended up with a UHD display precisely because it did a better job with HD sources (1080p Blu-ray, 1080i Blu-ray and Freeview HD) than every 1080p display I could find.
ukpetey and bilky asko gave kudos
NG
noggin Founding member
bilky asko posted:
Bail posted:
Whitnall posted:
Despite my best efforts, I've not be able to replicate the clear and vibrant image I can get on my 2009 LCD Samsung TV on my new one. Despite the fact that my new Samsung which is 4k LED and cost double the price, it just won't do the picture as good. Even 4K stuff does not have the same clarity as my cheap 2009 set.

What source are you feeding it? An HD image will generally look better on a HD screen over a 4K one, as the 4K as to upsample/stretch the picture to fill the screen.

That said if you're saying 4K material doesn't look good either then perhaps there is an issue, what make/model is it, there are lots of AV sites and forums with "optimum" calibrations that you can find on What Hi-Fi etc?


Surely as 4K is precisely double the resolution in both directions, there should be no degradation in quality? (For 1080)


Given that most upscalers do a reasonably filtered re-sample, there is potentially some processing quality loss introduced. Any processing - particularly spatial resampling - can introduce degradation if not handled well enough.

As the maths for 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 scaling are nice and linked, the scaling should be relatively easy to implement well (and in my experience it IS implemented well) - but to assume a 2:1 raster ratio means no degradation - not sure I'd make that jump.
LL
London Lite Founding member
SD at 544x576 always looks better on my old Sanyo CRT set than on my LG flat screen LED FHD set. 704x576 and 720x576 resolution look fine on my LG mind.
DA
davidhorman
bilky asko posted:
"Shall I just connect some speakers via the audio outputs? Nah, let's whip the back off and wire some in!"


It didn't have any speaker terminals and I didn't want to have an amp running all the time when there was no need.
BA
Bail Moderator
noggin posted:
bilky asko posted:
Bail posted:
What source are you feeding it? An HD image will generally look better on a HD screen over a 4K one, as the 4K as to upsample/stretch the picture to fill the screen.

That said if you're saying 4K material doesn't look good either then perhaps there is an issue, what make/model is it, there are lots of AV sites and forums with "optimum" calibrations that you can find on What Hi-Fi etc?


Surely as 4K is precisely double the resolution in both directions, there should be no degradation in quality? (For 1080)


Given that most upscalers do a reasonably filtered re-sample, there is potentially some processing quality loss introduced. Any processing - particularly spatial resampling - can introduce degradation if not handled well enough.

As the maths for 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 scaling are nice and linked, the scaling should be relatively easy to implement well (and in my experience it IS implemented well) - but to assume a 2:1 raster ratio means no degradation - not sure I'd make that jump.

Yes, to be fair panels have come along a long long way recently (since I last brought a set), and it's no leap of logic that the processing behind has too. But 4K material on a 4K source will always look it's best.

A client of ours is actually doing some compression testing this weekend with true 4K HDR (RAW S-Log) which is rather interesting, obviously looking at Rec 2020 as a mainstream deliverable in the not to distant future. But we were talking about the "good old days of HD" when the bitrate was pretty decent, now... not so much, but now I'm off topic...
NG
noggin Founding member
Bail posted:

A client of ours is actually doing some compression testing this weekend with true 4K HDR (RAW S-Log) which is rather interesting, obviously looking at Rec 2020 as a mainstream deliverable in the not to distant future. But we were talking about the "good old days of HD" when the bitrate was pretty decent, now... not so much, but now I'm off topic...


Yep - though Rec 2020 on its own is SDR isn't it? You need to use BT.2100 to add an HDR OETF - either a PQ system like HDR10 or Dolby Vision, or a scene-referenced system like HLG - for final delivery?

Obviously you can shoot HDR and then grade out to SDR as well - and Rec 2020 makes sense for that with the Rec 2020 SDR OETF?

I've seen some nice Sony S-Log stuff displayed on their HDR OLED broadcast screens - stunningly good quality.

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