Regular Blu-ray on 4K TV

[bobbyh64]

Does a regular 1080p Blu-ray look worse on a 4K TV than on a 1080p TV? I thought maybe it would be similar to playing a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD on a 16:9 TV and zooming in but I have no idea if this correct.

[admiral_akbar]

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

Does a regular 1080p Blu-ray look worse on a 4K TV than on a 1080p TV? I thought maybe it would be similar to playing a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD on a 16:9 TV and zooming in but I have no idea if this correct.

From my experience, not at all. In fact on many occasions it can make it look even better!

I've just watched The Dark Knight & The Dark Knight Rises blu-rays this week, on my 4K player & 4K tv and they both looked amazing.

[cooney]

I'm a tad embarrassed to say I've been using a 720p plasma forever but I just upgraded to a 65" 4K and honestly I'm thrilled with how my Blu-rays look. I'm not sure if it's just the full 1080 I wasn't used to, some benefit of the 4k display, or a combo of the two. I recently watched The Pink Panther from the Shout! set and Criterion's Paris, Texas and they each looked gorgeous on this display. I had the same question when 4k started to take off but in my experience it's definitely not worse (again, with the lame 720 caveat).

[jvonl]

Originally Posted by cooney

I'm a tad embarrassed to say I've been using a 720p plasma forever but I just upgraded to a 65" 4K and honestly I'm thrilled with how my Blu-rays look. I'm not sure if it's just the full 1080 I wasn't used to, some benefit of the 4k display, or a combo of the two. I recently watched The Pink Panther from the Shout! set and Criterion's Paris, Texas and they each looked gorgeous on this display. I had the same question when 4k started to take off but in my experience it's definitely not worse (again, with the lame 720 caveat).

My Kuro 5080, also 720p, is approaching 10 years of awesome service. The picture has been, and still is, amazing! Not embarrassed at all, and no one has ever noticed that it's not 1080p. But, like you, I'm about to take the plunge. I am just waiting for Robert Zohn and his crew to finish breaking in and calibrating a shiny new 65C7. All the comments so far have me even more excited to revisit my blus. Can't wait!

[Shalashaska]

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

Does a regular 1080p Blu-ray look worse on a 4K TV than on a 1080p TV? I thought maybe it would be similar to playing a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD on a 16:9 TV and zooming in but I have no idea if this correct.

In theory, it's not anywhere near as bad.

For one, non-anamorphic DVDs are very low-res. Speaking in NTSC terms, scope films are ~720x268, so in order to fill a full 1920x1080 screen, you have to scale each pixel 10-11 times. There's just not anywhere near enough detail for it look very good on a HD TV. Even with anamorphic DVDs, the picture has to be stretched horizontally, then upscaled, and 480p's still pretty low-res compared to 1080p.

With HD content on 4K screens, you're only scaling each pixel four times, and there's no worries about aspect ratios or any of that.

And, leaving the numbers behind, there's just far less discernible difference between the jump from SD to HD and the jump from HD to 4K. HDR's the big sell here, 4K on its own probably isn't worth the upgrade.

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

I remember watching DVDs on my old 4:3 TV and some of them looked better than on a 16:9 TV. Not exactly sure why. Maybe it's because old TVs handle interlaced content better. The colors weren't as vibrant and I'd see ghosting on the 16:9 TV.

Anyway, is there a technical reason why 1080p Blu-rays look better on a 4K TV than a 1080p TV? Are the pixels on the disc being duplicated or scaled larger?

CRTs could hide some of the flaws with low-res content. They're no where near as sharp as modern LCDs, the screens are much smaller than today's digital displays, and they kind of provide a natural anti-aliasing/smoothing effect to low-res video. Not to mention CRTs were designed to display 15 kHz/480i content, so there's no scaling going on.

Colours shouldn't look "more vibrant" though. Contrast and black levels might be a bit better if you're still using a mid-late '00s LCD but colour settings might've just been cranked to the top on the CRT.

[AKORIS]

I'll second that..... blu rays look much, much better on a 4k TV. I noticed deeper blacks and stronger colors immediately....

[Ryandj]

Originally Posted by AKORIS

I'll second that..... blu rays look much, much better on a 4k TV. I noticed deeper blacks and stronger colors immediately....

noticed you have some 4k uhd's in your collection- how would you compare the PQ between the upscaled blus and the 4ks?

[Dauntless]

When we switched from SDTV to HDTV 2 things happened. We went from interlaced displays to progressive displays and most of us doubled the screen size from 25" to 50".

Interlaced images don't display properly on progressive displays and need to be deinterlaced. Deinterlacing degrades the picture quality and there is nothing that can be done about that. Interlaced images is the biggest problem with upscaling DVDs on progressive displays and why DVDs can look worse on a HDTV.

The bigger your screen the more resolution you need to fill it. DVDs looked fine on a 25" TV but not so great on a 50" TV. Blu-ray is good enough for 50" but not 100". Blu-ray will look good on a 50" 4K TV because its enough resolution for the physical display size. 4K Blu-ray's advantage for most people isn't the bump in resolution but all the other features it brings.

Blu-ray might look better on a 4KTV because it may have a better LED panel than the HDTV it is replacing. Most 4KTVs are built to stricter standards to meet the HDR specs whereas HDTV's quality varies considerably. Thus a high end OLED HDTV will beat a low end LED 4KTV for blu-ray.

Upscaling doesn't make things look better but can make things worse if not done correctly. Fortunately its much easier to upscale Bluray to 4K than it is with DVD. To convert HD 1920x1080 to 4K UHD 3840x2160 all you have to do is multiply by an even two. DVD's odd 720x480/576 anamorphic content takes more work and the interlacing issues don't help.

If all things are equal than the 50" 4KTV will likely edge out a 50" HDTV for Blu-rays because of the higher pixel density. The pixels of a 50" 4KTV (3840x2160) are packed closer together in the same physical space than a 50" HDTV (1920x1080). Think Retina displays. Apple classifies their screens as Retina if it is sharp enough for the human eye not to be able to see individual pixels at a typical usage distance. A 4KTV of the same physical size as a HDTV should have smaller pixels that are harder to individually see by the human eye.

[bobbyh64]

I remember watching DVDs on my old 4:3 TV and some of them looked better than on a 16:9 TV. Not exactly sure why. Maybe it's because old TVs handle interlaced content better. The colors weren't as vibrant and I'd see ghosting on the 16:9 TV.

Anyway, is there a technical reason why 1080p Blu-rays look better on a 4K TV than a 1080p TV? Are the pixels on the disc being duplicated or scaled larger?

[slimdude]

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

Anyway, is there a technical reason why 1080p Blu-rays look better on a 4K TV than a 1080p TV? Are the pixels on the disc being duplicated or scaled larger?

1080p blu-rays are upscaled to 2160p on an UHTV. The higher resolution is the cause of standard blu-rays to look better. On my LG -OLED, 1080p blu-ray looks absolutely gorgeous, you can tell the difference.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by slimdude

1080p blu-rays are upscaled to 2160p on an UHTV. The higher resolution is the cause of standard blu-rays to look better. On my LG -OLED, 1080p blu-ray looks absolutely gorgeous, you can tell the difference.

It's not higher resolution as the pixels are duplicated. If it looks better, it's due to better processing and the specs of the TV, like the better blacks of most OLEDs.

Think about it: Imagine an optical disc format with a resolution of 2 x 2 pixels and let's say each pixel is a different color (red, green, yellow and blue), remembering that each pixel can only contain one color value. Now you buy a TV with a resolution of 4 x 4 pixels. There will be 16 pixels, 4 of each color. Each set of 4 takes up the same space as the 1 at the lesser resolution. As such, there is no increase in resolution.

If there was increased resolution, there would be no reason to have a UHD disc format. As it is, on most movies, we're not getting any resolution benefit because the DI's are completed at 2K. When DI's are completed at 4K or higher, then maybe we'll see something. The benefit of UHD is primarily expanded color gamut and dynamic range.

[bobbyh64]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

It's not higher resolution as the pixels are duplicated. If it looks better, it's due to better processing and the specs of the TV, like the better blacks of most OLEDs.

Think about it: Imagine an optical disc format with a resolution of 2 x 2 pixels and let's say each pixel is a different color (red, green, yellow and blue), remembering that each pixel can only contain one color value. Now you buy a TV with a resolution of 4 x 4 pixels. There will be 16 pixels, 4 of each color. Each set of 4 takes up the same space as the 1 at the lesser resolution. As such, there is no increase in resolution.

If there was increased resolution, there would be no reason to have a UHD disc format. As it is, on most movies, we're not getting any benefit because the DI's are completed at 2K. When DI's are completed at 4K or higher, then maybe we'll see something.

So most movies on UHD had 2K DIs? Wouldn't that mean that in terms of resolution, UHD discs aren't any better than normal Blu-rays?

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

So most movies on UHD had 2K DIs? Wouldn't that mean that in terms of resolution, UHD discs aren't any better than normal Blu-rays?

In those cases, yes, so read reviews that you trust.

[benji888578]

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

I remember watching DVDs on my old 4:3 TV and some of them looked better than on a 16:9 TV. Not exactly sure why. Maybe it's because old TVs handle interlaced content better. The colors weren't as vibrant and I'd see ghosting on the 16:9 TV.

Anyway, is there a technical reason why 1080p Blu-rays look better on a 4K TV than a 1080p TV? Are the pixels on the disc being duplicated or scaled larger?

I'm totally with you on this, seems like some DVDs look better upscaled on my Panasonic blu-ray player, and others look worse.

I think it may have to do with the interlacing and the analog range of color that comes with CRTs. Some, if not many, CRTs have better color than many cheap HDTVs.

I've thought about hooking up a CRT to my bd-player to do a compare between displays to confirm if this is true, or if I'm not remembering things the way they really were.

[bobbyh64]

Also, do any of you have 4K TVs that have a refresh rate of 120 Hz (or any other number that can be evenly divided by 24)? Since most movies are 24 frames per second, I'm curious if the 120 Hz TVs provide a more cinematic look and smoothen out the 2:3 pull down of 60 Hz TVs.

[BONKERS]

The noise reduction of some sets of 1080p upscaling looks pretty awful imo.
MadVR does an excellent job upscaling 1080p to 4k however if you can take that route.
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/118725
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/118728
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/118726

I really wish TV manufacturers didn't abandon high quality 1080p sets though.
Nothing ultimately beats content being displayed on a native res display. And it would've been nice to see OLED mature with 1080p and then have HDR with that instead of 4k. Which will suffer from lack of real native content for a long time to come.

[steve1971]

At one time not so long ago I was one of those guys who said 4K was a fad and Blu ray looks just fine on my 1080p tv. Well after watching my Blu collection on my Samsung 4K tv for the past 3 months I can say my Blu's look 10 times better on my 4K tv then they ever did on my old Sony HDTV! So yes in my opinion 1080p Blu rays look better on a 4K tv. Just my thoughts anyway.

[Krelldog1977]

Originally Posted by steve1971

At one time not so long ago I was one of those guys who said 4K was a fad and Blu ray looks just fine on my 1080p tv. Well after watching my Blu collection on my Samsung 4K tv for the past 3 months I can say my Blu's look 10 times better on my 4K tv then they ever did on my old Sony HDTV! So yes in my opinion 1080p Blu rays look better on a 4K tv. Just my thoughts anyway.

I was one of those same guys Steve! Now I'm in awe at the Samsung I finally picked up, and mighty impressed with the 4kHDR! The blu's never looked so good and the new UHD's look incredible...

[ROSS.T.G.]

No contest for me, the BD's I've watched upscaled on my panel look noticeably better. A factor is I went from a good 1080p projector to a 65", the projector could it match the sharpness on color of the panel. The panel is also much more accurate. My BD's never looked so good but they don't compare to a UHD copy.

[Aragorn the Elfstone]

Blu-rays look absolutely amazing on my 65 inch 4K set. I expected them to look bad, ala DVDs on an HDTV, but this was not the case at all. When I first saw how great they looked, I was absolutely stunned.

I invested in a 4K UHD player for a few UHD-only remasters, but my TV has mixed results with HDR. So my format of choice is still Blu-ray, and I am constantly blown away by the quality.