Technology
What is a 4K TV and are they worth the money?
EVERYONE’S talking about 4K TVs, but what are they?
We’ve put together a simple guide to 4K and Ultra HD (UHD) televisions to demystify the whole ruddy thing.
What does 4K mean?
4K refers to the number of pixels on your TV screen – or the “image resolution”.
The pixels are the tiny dots of colour that make up the image you see on your telly.
A pixellated image is one where the pixels are really obvious, because there aren’t many.
But images with lots of pixels – like a 4K movie – generally look sharper and clearer.
A true 4K screen has 4096 x 2160 pixels. That means on your TV screen there are 3840 pixels across, and 2160 pixels vertically. That’s roughly 8.3 million pixels on the display in total.
4K gets it’s name because it’s got four times the number of pixels as a standard Full HD TV.
Full HD (or 1080p) screens have 1920 pixels across, and 1080 pixels going upwards – for around two million pixels in total.
So 4K just means your TV has many more pixels on the screen compared to a more common Full HD display.
Is there a difference between 4K and Ultra HD?
Ultra HD, or UHD, is basically the same as 4K.
If you buy a UHD telly in a shop, you’ll be able to watch 4K content on it with no bother.
But there is a small difference.
Almost every TV you ever buy has an aspect ratio of 16:9. That means for every 16 pixels horizontally, there are 9 vertically.
True 4K footage doesn’t quite fit in with that ratio, so you won’t often find TVs with 4096 x 2160 pixels.
Instead, to fit with the 16:9 ratio, most 4K TVs will have 3840 x 2160 pixels instead.
If it doesn’t make sense, grab a calculator and divide 2160 by 9. Then multiply it by 16, and you’ll get 3840. That’s the aspect ratio working its magic!
So when you see an Ultra HD TV, it just means it’s a 4K image with slightly fewer vertical pixels.
Do I need a 4K TV to watch 4K videos?
Sort of.
If you try watching a 4K video on a non-4K TV, the video will still play – but it won’t be in 4K quality.
To watch a 4K video in 4K quality, you’ll need to fork out for a 4K TV.
Similarly, if you’re watching standard or HD footage on a 4K TV, it won’t magically become 4K quality.
Some TVs promise “4K upscaling”, which converts your standard or HD footage to near-4K quality.
This works by using software to guess what colours would fill the extra empty pixels missing in HD footage, and then filling them in.
This creates a 4K-like effect, but it’s not true 4K.
Where can I find 4K TV shows and movies?
It used to be the case that there was a real shortage of 4K content, but that’s ancient history.
These days, you can find loads of great 4K TV shows and movies on both Netflix and Amazon Video.
You can also track down high-quality 4K videos on YouTube to watch, too.
And if you’ve got a 4K Blu-ray player (or an Xbox One) you can also buy 4K discs to play on your TV.
Is 4K worth the money?
4K televisions aren’t really that expensive any more, so you’ll be hard-pressed to find a decent TV that isn’t 4K.
Generally, we’d advise investing in a 4K TV now, because they’re cheap enough and there’s plenty of 4K content available online.
You can even bag very low-end 4K TVs for a couple of hundred quid.
Picking up a slightly-outdated Full HD TV in 2018 is a bad move in terms of future-proofing – although you could bag a bargain, especially if you’re looking for a telly for your spare room.
If you want to spend a little more, you should invest in a 4K OLED TV.
OLED screens are generally better than conventional LED-backlit LCD displays.
For a start, they’re much more power-efficient. That’s because you’re not paying to power a huge backlight that sucks up loads of energy.
The Sun’s TV testing unit
The Sun uses a Panasonic 65HZ1000 to test PS5 and Xbox games, new streaming apps and devices, and new types of content:
- Panasonic 65HZ1000 TV
- OLED screen
- HDR
- Dolby Vision / HDR10+
- Dolby Vision IQ
- 4K / HD
Panasonic 65HZ1000 at Richer Sounds – buy here
But the lack of backlight also means that OLED screens can be much thinner.
The big advantage of OLED is the picture quality improvement.
On a normal TV, you’re never really seeing true black, because there’s a backlight.
On OLED screens, individual pixels can be turned off completely, or dimmed significantly, so you’ll see much more accurate blacks during dark TV or movie scenes.
Generally, this means OLED screens offer a wider range of lights, darks, and colours overall.
You can get great OLED TVs from the likes of LG and Panasonic, or a similarly high-quality QLED screen from Samsung.
We’ve been testing 4K OLED with the shockingly good Panasonic 65HZ1000.
It’s a cracking display that really shows off the depth of blacks in a dark scene.
In fact, it’s so good you’ll end up re-watching movies you’ve seen already to pick up the new visual details.
If you’ve got more money to spend, 4K OLED is definitely the way to go.
The bad news is that you’ll generally pay north of £1,000 for OLED, though that price will come down quickly.
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