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Official Black Friday TVs (HDTV & 4K) Discussion Thread

Brad

By Brad
in 2015

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muffycat

muffycat

Posted
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I'll be shopping for a 60 inch. Just started looking, actually hope I could get a good deal right before Black Friday.

A few years ago  I did at  Walmart for a smaller TV a week before Black Friday. ( Our Walmart is terrible that day)

Edited by muffycat
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Pnambic

Pnambic

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I am going to be looking for a 24 inch tv on Black Friday. What do you guys think price wise for Black Friday? I priced them today while I was at Walmart and they run anywhere from the 130's to the 170's right now price wise.

 

Last year, the 24" HDTV's were advertised between $120 and $150.

But there were a few door busters for 32" HDTV's for $100.

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Tigger97498

Tigger97498

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Last year, the 24" HDTV's were advertised between $120 and $150.

But there were a few door busters for 32" HDTV's for $100.

Well I saw this week in HH Gregg's comlumbus day ad they had a 24 for $98 so hoping for something around that price point for Black Friday since $120- $150 is regular price. I would do bigger but it's or a space here bigger won't fit. If worse comes to worse I will get a 24 inch computer monitor since I know from experience they are cheap on Black Friday. It won't be hooked up to cable anyway just firetv and a Bluray player..

Edited by Tigger97498
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Spotted1

Spotted1

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My DS who works in tv production tells me that nothing is filmed in 4K and so at this point they are a big waste of money.

Not all 4Ks are expensive. The Hisense 50 inch 4K smart TVs are only $598. Pretty reasonable, even if they weren't 4k, really.  

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len_mullen

len_mullen

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My DS who works in tv production tells me that nothing is filmed in 4K and so at this point they are a big waste of money.

 

Just because someone works outside doesn't make them an expert on the weather.  Go look at the sets and see what you think.  

 

The first commercially available 4K camera for cinematographic purposes was the Dalsa Origin, released in 2003.[20] YouTube began supporting 4K for video uploads in 2010 as a result of leading manufacturers producing 4K cameras.[21][22] Users could view 4K video by selecting "Original" from the quality settings until December 2013, when the 2160p option appeared in the quality menu.[23] In November 2013, YouTube started to use the VP9 video compression standard, saying that it was more suitable for 4K than High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC); VP9 is being developed by Google, which owns YouTube.[22]
 
The projection of movies at 4K resolution at cinemas began in 2011.[24] Sony was offering 4K projectors as early as 2004.[25] The first 4K home theater projector was released by Sony in 2012.[26]

 

 

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Pnambic

Pnambic

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Sure Len, but for all practical purposes 4K should not be a deciding factor for anyone shopping for TV's this year. 

 

If you look really really hard, you might be able to find someone's home movies that were recorded in 4K to watch, but that's pretty much it right now.  And even then, you're probably getting it compressed anyway, so is compressed 4K better than uncompressed 1080P (from BluRay)?  Heck, even 1080P is compressed if it's via satellite or cable.  We'd have to look to see, but that most likely hinges on many other non-standardized dependencies at this point to say with any certainty. 

 

Uncompressed 4K requires what, 25MBit/s bandwidth?  The infrastructure is barely there right now.  If you're the only person in your household streaming it, then you might be OK, but if you have a couple kids, you can forget about it. 

 

This goes back to that realization back when HD first came out that SD (standard definition) media looks worse on an HDTV than it does on an old regular SDTV.  I would expect the same to hold true (to a lesser degree probably) with 1080P material on a 4K TV.  You're introducing unnecessary complexity to the process of displaying the pixels (up-converting/scaling) with very little if any upside.

 

I still don't think it's worth spending an extra dime on at this point.

 

If you can get a 120Hz (or better) 1080P HDTV for the same price as a 60Hz 4K TV, I'd go 1080P all day long.

(Of course there are other deciding factors here like contrast and darkness and so forth...but you get my point, right?)

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len_mullen

len_mullen

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Sure Len, but for all practical purposes 4K should not be a deciding factor for anyone shopping for TV's this year.

 

You are preaching to the choir, Pnambic! The only way to shop for a television is in person. I watch enough SD that a high definition set that did not render SD well would not be in my home. I watch enough sports that a television that suffered motion blur would not be in my home. BUT, some of these 4k sets do everything very well and are worthy of consideration even if you will not be watching 4k.

 

If you look really really hard, you might be able to find someone's home movies that were recorded in 4K to watch, but that's pretty much it right now.  And even then, you're probably getting it compressed anyway, so is compressed 4K better than uncompressed 1080P (from BluRay)?  Heck, even 1080P is compressed if it's via satellite or cable.  We'd have to look to see, but that most likely hinges on many other non-standardized dependencies at this point to say with any certainty.

 

That's not true. Plus upconverting 4k disc players will do for BD what upconverting BD players did for DVDs.

 

Uncompressed 4K requires what, 25MBit/s bandwidth?  The infrastructure is barely there right now.  If you're the only person in your household streaming it, then you might be OK, but if you have a couple kids, you can forget about it.

Streaming 4k will not be fun. They are testing 4k OTA. Het a 4k disc player to be amazed. Just go into stores and look at the difference. It's real.

 

This goes back to that realization back when HD first came out that SD (standard definition) media looks worse on an HDTV than it does on an old regular SDTV.  I would expect the same to hold true (to a lesser degree probably) with 1080P material on a 4K TV.  You're introducing unnecessary complexity to the process of displaying the pixels (up-converting/scaling) with very little if any upside.

 

That's not the case with 4k.  It's the same geometry.  Worst case, one pixel is rendered 4x.  

 

I still don't think it's worth spending an extra dime on at this point.

 

I'm not getting one either (unless something 70" or better drops into my lap for over the pool table), but there is NO DENYING how good they look. People looking to upgrade an older set or buy something new should AT LEAST look at these sets.

 

If you can get a 120Hz (or better) 1080P HDTV for the same price as a 60Hz 4K TV, I'd go 1080P all day long.

(Of course there are other deciding factors here like contrast and darkness and so forth...but you get my point, right?)

 

If you wanted to compare a PLASMA to a 4k set, I'd listen, but, even then, I would encourage you to visit a store. Specs are nice, but seeing is believing.  

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Rnoski

Rnoski

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I love how they come out with all these fancy names and abbreviation for screen resolution..... To each their own....I'm simple... I want the biggest screen for my buck.... Don't get me wrong I love the "hd" channels.... But anything else I could care less about.... I don't sit close enough to the tv to even see artifacts n such things though....my living room tv is 55 inch element $398 ... After few years I throw it in garbage or sell it at garage sale for $100 bucks and go buy another one hopefully 60+ inches by then

I do like my sound though but my Bose system from 10 years ago still sounds just fine..... My tv sound goes through that.... Most of tvs have cheap speakers

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Pnambic

Pnambic

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Hey Len, you're a glass-half-full kinda guy, aren't you?

You know I love you, right?  :gdinlove:  Hahaha

 

But maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

I stand by my comments.  If you can find a 4K TV that can do everything a 120/240hz 1080P TV can do, at least as well, or even better, for the same price or less, please post a link, as I would be interested in the TV for all NON-4K reasons.  But spending more on a 4K at this point just doesn't make any sense to me.

 

Even if the geometry is more friendly in upconverting from 1080P to 4K, you are by necessity introducing at least one more layer of complexity.  And for what?  So you can have 4 identical pixels instead of the one from before?  Where's the benefit?  Don't get me wrong, I love Rube Goldberg machines, but not for my TV.

 

But the real crux here is that you still would have to be viewing the TV from a silly-close distance to see any difference.

 - Even if 4K upcoversion was perfect and didn't cause any other motion blur issues

 - Even if 4K was more than 60hz (which its not)

 - Even if 4K material was all over the place

 - Even if all of your existing tech could support 4K without you upgrading them as well

 

--> You'd still need to be sitting ridiculously close to the set to be able to actually tell the difference.  If I stuck a 4K sticker on the side of a 1080P TV (maybe even a 720P set), I bet more than 90% of people would say it was the better image.  The power of suggestion is powerful indeed.

 

 

By the way, I'm not a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty guy.  I'm a glass-is-twice-as-big-as-it-needs-to-be guy.  :)

(...and a terribly disappointed that Plasma is gone guy too...)

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Pnambic

Pnambic

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How many HDMI ports are coming on 32 inch tvs now? My Samsung only has 2 so I need a new one for more HDMI ports. No more room at the inn lol. 

 

A very good question that depend on each TV out there.

I've seen as few on 1, I've seen as many as 4.

 

Many people who set up home theaters, will use a separate home theater receiver that all of their components plug in to and then one HMDI cable goes to the TV.  So many TV manufacturers don't worry about putting that many ports on the TV's directly anymore.  I wonder if it would make sense adding this to the HDTV comparison charts this year...  Or was it already there last year?

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gatorburg

gatorburg

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A very good question that depend on each TV out there.

I've seen as few on 1, I've seen as many as 4.

 

Many people who set up home theaters, will use a separate home theater receiver that all of their components plug in to and then one HMDI cable goes to the TV.  So many TV manufacturers don't worry about putting that many ports on the TV's directly anymore.  I wonder if it would make sense adding this to the HDTV comparison charts this year...  Or was it already there last year?

 

Thanks the 32 inch is in the computer room. I have a roku, cable box, dvd player and now a playstation tv so the tv is all filled up on all the different ports it has.  So first time I will be probly be buying a tv during black friday. 

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Pnambic

Pnambic

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By the way, you can still use regular old HDMI cables with a 4K TV, but it just won't be able to transmit 4K signals to the 4K TV.

But since there pretty much ARE NO 4K signals to send really, you'll most likely never notice - not for a while anyway.

 

I know that 99% of people shopping for TV's will eat up the marketing junk like it's the best stuff ever.  People are so amazingly easy to manipulate.

But for the 1% who prefer logic and reason to marketing bs, I have seen zero valid reasons presented to me to buy a 4K TV.

 

We have all seen how the prices of TV's drop every year, right?  Why not wait until there actually IS 4K media available (if ever) before buying that 4K TV?  All of these 4K TV's will be a couple hundred dollars cheaper to buy next year, and a couple hundred dollars cheaper still the year after that.

 

There, I've said my piece.  I promise not to comment on it any more.  If you want to waste your money, then by all means, it is your money to waste.  You earned it, do with it what you will.

 

But if that money is burning a hole in your pocket so much, could I persuade you to consider buying the 1080P TV instead, save a couple hundred bucks and donate it to a charity of your choice?  There are so many great ones out there.  Then every time you watch TV, you'll get that warm fuzzy feeling in your heart that you actually made a positive difference in someone's life.  How awesome would that be?

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Kanyon71

Kanyon71

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By the way, you can still use regular old HDMI cables with a 4K TV, but it just won't be able to transmit 4K signals to the 4K TV.

But since there pretty much ARE NO 4K signals to send really, you'll most likely never notice - not for a while anyway.

 

I know that 99% of people shopping for TV's will eat up the marketing junk like it's the best stuff ever.  People are so amazingly easy to manipulate.

But for the 1% who prefer logic and reason to marketing bs, I have seen zero valid reasons presented to me to buy a 4K TV.

 

We have all seen how the prices of TV's drop every year, right?  Why not wait until there actually IS 4K media available (if ever) before buying that 4K TV?  All of these 4K TV's will be a couple hundred dollars cheaper to buy next year, and a couple hundred dollars cheaper still the year after that.

 

There, I've said my piece.  I promise not to comment on it any more.  If you want to waste your money, then by all means, it is your money to waste.  You earned it, do with it what you will.

 

But if that money is burning a hole in your pocket so much, could I persuade you to consider buying the 1080P TV instead, save a couple hundred bucks and donate it to a charity of your choice?  There are so many great ones out there.  Then every time you watch TV, you'll get that warm fuzzy feeling in your heart that you actually made a positive difference in someone's life.  How awesome would that be?

So just to play devils advocate as time passes over the next months to years 4K will start to come in to play more and more will it not? So by going 4K now you're really planning for what is coming where as if you buy a 1080P right now you may save that $200 (just using your math) but in 18 months when you do want the 4K thats now more prominent you will have to replace that TV entirely thus the $200 savings is now gone as is the rest of the purchase price.

 

For what it's worth all our TV's are 1080P and when we buy one this year for the office/gym area it will most likely be 1080P but if all was fairly close in price I could see going 4K with it coming to bare over the next months.

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Pnambic

Pnambic

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So just to play devils advocate as time passes over the next months to years 4K will start to come in to play more and more will it not? So by going 4K now you're really planning for what is coming where as if you buy a 1080P right now you may save that $200 (just using your math) but in 18 months when you do want the 4K thats now more prominent you will have to replace that TV entirely thus the $200 savings is now gone as is the rest of the purchase price.

 

For what it's worth all our TV's are 1080P and when we buy one this year for the office/gym area it will most likely be 1080P but if all was fairly close in price I could see going 4K with it coming to bare over the next months.

 

OK, since you asked...  :)

 

Do you know how many channels are broadcast in 1080P right now?  None.  Not one.  Not ABC or CBS or NBC or FOX or HBO or CNN or, or, or...  None.  Not over the air or via DirecTV or cable.

And 1080P has been the de-facto standard of choice for how long now?  At least 6 years, right?  True, you can get some PPV at 1080P, but most if not all reports indicate that even that 1080P PPV has been compressed, lowering the quality below native 1080P.  The only widely available 1080P media is BluRay and some games and some streaming.

 

So while we may expect 4K to be the HD standard of the future, it will likely not be widely adopted for broadcast, at least not for quite a while, because of the biggest strike against it - you have to be viewing a 50 inch screen from closer than 5 feet away to even begin to tell the difference between 1080P and 4K.  Heck, you can tell the difference between 1080P and 720P from 6 - 8 feet away and still, the broadcasters didn't think that was good enough to upgrade all their equipment.  Why on earth would they do it for an even smaller distance?  Only if it makes them money.  And right now, there doesn't appear to be any way to make money by upgrading to 4K broadcasting equipment - certainly not enough to make up for the cost of upgrading all the cameras at all their stations - so no one will do it.  Ten years ago, they were already using 30 year old camera technology, and the difference from ANY seating distance was pretty shocking, so it was a no-brainer.  These days, not so much.

 

And as I mentioned in one of my first posts, 4K isn't even a hard standard yet.  There are several competing HDR technologies in play at the moment, just like the BluRay/HD-DVD fight years ago.  How do you think all those people that bought HD-DVD players and HD-DVD disks felt when Toshiba raised the white flag and surrendered to Sony and BluRay?  They were trying to be future-proof.  Didn't work out so well.  Remember VHS and BETA?  Fact is, until there's an overwhelming majority of media being produced in a particular format, trying to be future proof in media if very risky.

 

So to answer your question, no, by going to 4K now, you're not necessarily preparing yourself for what's coming in the future - you're taking a risk and likely not a very good one - that you'll be able to enjoy 4K media in the future.  Maybe you will, maybe you won't.  But even if you can, it's likely that you won't be able to "fully" enjoy it as the 4K that media finally settles on is unlikely to be what we have available to us right now.

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Kanyon71

Kanyon71

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OK, since you asked...  :)

 

Do you know how many channels are broadcast in 1080P right now?  None.  Not one.  Not ABC or CBS or NBC or FOX or HBO or CNN or, or, or...  None.  Not over the air or via DirecTV or cable.

And 1080P has been the de-facto standard of choice for how long now?  At least 6 years, right?  True, you can get some PPV at 1080P, but most if not all reports indicate that even that 1080P PPV has been compressed, lowering the quality below native 1080P.  The only widely available 1080P media is BluRay and some games and some streaming.

 

So while we may expect 4K to be the HD standard of the future, it will likely not be widely adopted for broadcast, at least not for quite a while, because of the biggest strike against it - you have to be viewing a 50 inch screen from closer than 5 feet away to even begin to tell the difference between 1080P and 4K.  Heck, you can tell the difference between 1080P and 720P from 6 - 8 feet away and still, the broadcasters didn't think that was good enough to upgrade all their equipment.  Why on earth would they do it for an even smaller distance?  Only if it makes them money.  And right now, there doesn't appear to be any way to make money by upgrading to 4K broadcasting equipment - certainly not enough to make up for the cost of upgrading all the cameras at all their stations - so no one will do it.  Ten years ago, they were already using 30 year old camera technology, and the difference from ANY seating distance was pretty shocking, so it was a no-brainer.  These days, not so much.

 

And as I mentioned in one of my first posts, 4K isn't even a hard standard yet.  There are several competing HDR technologies in play at the moment, just like the BluRay/HD-DVD fight years ago.  How do you think all those people that bought HD-DVD players and HD-DVD disks felt when Toshiba raised the white flag and surrendered to Sony and BluRay?  They were trying to be future-proof.  Didn't work out so well.  Remember VHS and BETA?  Fact is, until there's an overwhelming majority of media being produced in a particular format, trying to be future proof in media if very risky.

 

So to answer your question, no, by going to 4K now, you're not necessarily preparing yourself for what's coming in the future - you're taking a risk and likely not a very good one - that you'll be able to enjoy 4K media in the future.  Maybe you will, maybe you won't.  But even if you can, it's likely that you won't be able to "fully" enjoy it as the 4K that media finally settles on is unlikely to be what we have available to us right now.

To be honest I don't really think about broadcast when I'm thinking quality, I'm more along the lines of streaming and disc based technology for higher quality. As for the format wars yes they are always going to be there and I'm sure some of the different sides will hope they win, so I have to ask what standard are most of the TV sets coming out today supporting? Are they supporting the same standards?

 

I have had all the formats and still to this day use HD DVD for some of the movies that we got on it, I was ok when they lost since we then got a ton of free or cheap movies to watch. :)

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len_mullen

len_mullen

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So just to play devils advocate as time passes over the next months to years 4K will start to come in to play more and more will it not? So by going 4K now you're really planning for what is coming where as if you buy a 1080P right now you may save that $200 (just using your math) but in 18 months when you do want the 4K thats now more prominent you will have to replace that TV entirely thus the $200 savings is now gone as is the rest of the purchase price.

 

For what it's worth all our TV's are 1080P and when we buy one this year for the office/gym area it will most likely be 1080P but if all was fairly close in price I could see going 4K with it coming to bare over the next months.

 

This would be the worst reason to spend on a 4k television.  Going forward, sets will be better and less expensive.  I would also argue that it costs more than $200 to move from comparable 1080p to 4k sets.

 

When you go to buy your television, set a budget and buy the one that looks best with the features you want at that price.  If that set happens to be 1080p, don't fret.

 

When you are looking at sets, watch television not the demos they are running.  I used to bring a couple BDs with me.  The guys in the Magnolia room knew me by name.  A few times, I have purchased two televisions because I was not sure which I liked better.  I always have my wife and kids independently rate the sets side by side after I fine tune everything.  It sounds crazy, but I have a house full of fantastic televisions at all price points. 

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