New TV - plasma or lcd?

[igloo 3]

So the 5.1 or 7.1 systems don't improve on them?

[Alexander L 80]

Hard to say without test driving. And hard to say even after test driving I'd imagine.

 

And if all the peripheral clutter can be eliminated, then go for it I say.

[grungy-gonads 54]

That's one sexy looking piece of kit.

 

I agree if additional clutter can be eliminated that is a good thing.

[NoFakie 45]

I reckon OLED will be a bigger upgrade than 4k.

Get both if you can, of course!

[tokabochi 9]

Never heard of that.... when are large OLEDs coming out then?

[klingon 10]

Soon.

 

The unknown problem with OLEDs is how long they will last. Brightness said to get worse fairly quickly.... 50% in less than 4 years quickly.

 

Seems OLED needs more time and a bigger risk ------> at the moment.

[Alexander L 80]

So many things we want now, so little time we have.

[merryJim 1]

Always best to get top of the line just under the totally new stuff I reckon.

By the time you need a new one, it'll be up and running proper.

[miller 1]

Cost aside, there is close to zero 4D/Ultra HD content now.

Rather than spend cash on that, I'd get the best non 4D one myself and then in a few years things might give 4D more meaning.

[Alexander L 80]

erm 4K.

[Alexander L 80]

How Long Before A 4K TV Becomes A Realistic Purchase? Give It Two Weeks

 

April 21st will mark a turning point in the emergence of 4K: the availability of a 55-inch UltraHD TV that costs just $5,000. Sony revealed the pricing of its new Bravia X900 model this week at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, while also announcing that a 65-inch version would cost $7,000.

 

These are significant sums, of course, but they’re also the sorts of figures that will make many people frown and weigh things up rather than just laugh the idea off — especially if they’re looking for a new TV right now and want something future-proof. Put simply, Sony has suddenly succeeded in making 4K look far, far more feasible than it once did.

 

As recently as the Consumer Electronics Show in January, manufacturers were reluctant to even put a price tag on 4K TVs with a diagonal length of 65 inches or less. Instead, the only concrete prices that achieved publicity related to monster 84-inch sets costing upwards of $20,000 — inevitably leaving four zeroes burned into the minds of consumers and hurting the whole notion of 4K as a sensible option.

 

Not only will Sony’s new “attainable” models (the XBR-55X900A and XBR-65X900A) repair some of that damage in a fortnight’s time, but the company’s other NAB announcements should go some way to answering other valid concerns about 4K — namely where native UltraHD content is going to come from to feed these panels, and why anyone would even bother with 4K when 1080p looks perfectly fine from the sofa anyway.

 

Dealing with the content issue first, we now know that Sony is planning to ship a 4K media player, the FMP-X1, in the summer. It’ll cost $699 and come preloaded with ten movies (including Battle: Los Angeles and Taxi Driver) in native 4K resolution. More importantly, though, the web-connected box will hook up with Sony’s new 4K movie download service when it launches in the fall, offering a library of content to anyone who has unlimited fiber broadband and unused capacity on their credit card.

 

Finally, what about the niggling issue of pointlessness that still pervades the 4K scene? The worry that a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 (four times that of 1,920 x 1,080 Full HD) is not only an extravagance, but an invisibleextravagance to anyone with regular visual acuity?

Strangely enough, Sony has a retort for that too. The electronics giant, which has seemed so ungainly and confused during its transition to the era of mobile devices and ecosystems, is finally back in its element. It has a trick up its sleeve, coming at the end of the year, and it’s called the PlayStation 4.

 

Gaming and other interactive activities are the reason a 4K TV will make sense, even it’s only a relatively “small” 55-inch model. The more interactive the pursuit, the more likely it is that a user will leave the sofa and come within six feet of their TV set. As soon as that happens, regular 1080p HD content on this size of panel stops delivering the kind of pixelation-free experience that we’re accustomed to on modern devices. 4K, meanwhile, can deliver pixel-free viewing from as close as four feet even on a 65-inch panel — and it’ll look plain gorgeous.

The PS4 will be the very definition of interactive, and it’ll be 4K compatible. It’ll have access to Sony’s 4K movie library while also likely costing less than the dedicated FMP-X1 media box. And although it won’t officially support 4K gaming at launch, it seems very likely that such a feature will eventually be added — since the hardware will readily be capable of it.

 

In the meantime, a powerful PC with a good graphics card (like the AMDRadeon HD 7970) will be perfectly capable of 4K gaming on Sony’s new 55-inch TV as soon as it gets here in 12 days time, which means people will be able to enjoy and make use of the resolution from day one. The TV will cost at least twice as much as a top-end 1080p set of the same size, and it’s always sensible to wait for prices to drop a bit, but those who are in urgent need of the ultimate display for gaming as well as watching may find that the pixels are just about starting to add up.

[Alexander L 80]

$5000 was about the price I paid for my first large screen plasma.

 

We're now on that curve for 4K. So I'll wait 'til a 55" 4K drops to $3000 before considering.

[miller 1]

How Long Before A 4K TV Becomes A Realistic Purchase? Give It Two Weeks

 

That goes pretty much no way to convincing me there's not a considerable wait for any real content.

[Alexander L 80]

It's saying there is a wait for real content. For normal viewers.

 

For cashed-up nutjob geek gamers, that's a different story.

[muikabochi 208]

Do big Japanese tellys usually get released in the US before Japan? That surprises me.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

how much is $5000 in yen?

[klingon 10]

Well, the 55 inch is going for just under 500,000 yen in Japan.

[scouser 4]

I'll have two please!

[Alexander L 80]

right now, $5000 is 498,937 Yen

 

and 500,000 Yen is $5,010

[big-will 7]

Kakaku has some shops selling it for just over 450,000 yen.

[BagOfCrisps 24]

Well, the 55 inch is going for just under 500,000 yen in Japan.

 

Wonder how quickly that will come down a lot.

 

Some of the TVs now are just so huge.

[Alexander L 80]

When I was just a nipper, we had 1 TV and it was 21 inches with 4 buttons for the channels. Seems crazy backward now.

[grungy-gonads 54]

I remember not too long ago getting a 32 inch massive bulk of a tv, when widescreen first came out.

It looked huge and took up a very large amount of space.

Of course, would look tiny screen and ridiculously large bulk now.

[Alexander L 80]

When my brother in law went to uni, before he was my brother in law, he had this poxey 12 inch B/W TV with a loop aerial and a knob tuner. You had to turn the knob to tune to a station. What a piece of shit. And he kept it for a few more years after graduation and earning some money.

[1 4]

I see some of the giant TVs now are Plasmas. I though Plasmas were out for the count. Not so?