Question Best under 50''

finty1

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Hello to all
I am about to buy a new tv with a size under 50''. I am going to be using it as a pc monitor, so it doesn't need to be a smart tv, but since better quality ones have it, I don't mind.
I will be watching it from less than a meter away.
My room is quite bright but I can darken it.
I plan to play pc games on it, watch movies, maybe some shows and watch football regularly. So kinda all-around tv.
Is 4K UHD HDR noticeable on a such a small screen? I can't watch anything in 4K on tv, but I guess I can do that with my pc connected.
I know sound quality is bad so that is pretty much irrelevant since I will have additional speakers connected.
Please write down some suggestionts
Also you can say what is the best tv regardless of what am I going to use it for. I rather have a separate computer monitor and a better tv, than to settle with a worse tv because of a low input lag or something like that.
Once again, restriction is that it must not exceed 49''.
Thanks in advance
 
That is actually a very good distance for a 50" 4K TV, as sit too far away and the details won't be so detailed anymore.

Do you have any budget in mind?
 
Sometimes I will probably watch it from a greater distance but if I use it as a pc monitor then I will be that close.
I didn't mention the budget because price may vary from country to country. Maybe let's say max 750£.
 
Samsung KS7000>Panasonic DX-750> DX-700

Are Hisense available there?

I am really sorry for such a late reply. Samsung KS7000 costs more than 850£, which is over my budget. Hisense are available only in online stores, so I can't buy those. Panasonic's DX-750 smallest is 50" which is too big for me, and here are no DX-700 of the size that I'm looking for.

I also want to ask how good actually upscaling is on 4K TV's? We don't have any content at such a high resolution and majority is still displayed at SD. So my question is, will the picture look any worse than it would on a FHD TV?

And the same thing with a monitor. My computer is currently not that powerful (going to buy a new one soon), so will I have problems running anything? Again, if I watch something at a lower resolution or play games, will that look any worse than on a FHD TV?

Many thanks
 
SD upscaled is poor to UHD whilst HD looks okay. So if you plan on lots of SD content an UHD TV isn't the best idea. For your computer it's likely not so much of a problem since it will be at least HD.
 
Is 4K UHD HDR noticeable on a such a small screen?

HDR is independent of screen size, that technology is all about contrast and colours. Software support for the wider colour gamuts and perceptual quantisation that make up HDR is next to non-existent right now so you'd have to use other sources if you wanted to watch any HDR content (such as the TV's tuner or smart system).

4k is 3840x2160 resolution. For computer use it's the same pixel density as 1920x1080 on a 24-25" screen. A 1920x1080 48" TV would be the same as 960x600 on a 24" screen so it's very definitely noticeable. Most people even find an immediately noticeable difference running 3840x2160 at 24" (see iMac retina reviews and so on) which would be an 8K TV.

One consideration is that TVs require the not very common HDMI 2.0 to receive a 4K signal and generally don't support the much more common DisplayPort so if you don't have a recent graphics card then you may be limited to either 30fps or 1920x1080.

Game performance is resolution dependant but other than that and HDMI 2.0 the only other common issue is playing back video in HEVC format which is demanding and a lot of 4K sources use. Make sure your new PC has a Kaby Lake (or probably Ryzen) CPU for best performance, but most recent CPUs (<5 years old) can handle streaming-quality bit rates.
 
When watching tv, is SD the only resolution that would look worse on a 4K than on a FHD TV?
I'm sorry but as you can see I'm not that good with this.
Can I have a more simple answer about computer, will anything look worse on a 4K TV than it would on a FHD TV?
I am researching and trying to decide for a long time now, but I am still at the beginning. Don't even know whether to go with a 4K or FHD. I would buy a 4K TV if there are no downsides that affect my usage.
This is really painful, I just want to purchase something already.

Make sure your new PC has a Kaby Lake (or probably Ryzen) CPU for best performance, but most recent CPUs (<5 years old) can handle streaming-quality bit rates.

I will make sure to come back and read this after choosing a TV first.
 
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When watching tv, is SD the only resolution that would look worse on a 4K than on a FHD TV?
I'm sorry but as you can see I'm not that good with this.
Can I have a more simple answer about computer, will anything look worse on a 4K TV than it would on a FHD TV?

For computer use 3840x2160 is far better on a ~49" display at <1m than 1920x1080. A 48" 4K TV is the standard pixel density for computer monitors, no monitor uses such large and coarse pixels as a 49" FHD screen has.

The only thing that may look worse is pre-recorded stuff that displays on the same percentage of screen regardless of screen size, which is mainly full screen video.

And I suspect that's primarily a case of the scaling being more polished for Full HD than 4K because it's been around longer. If you're watching videos through the computer then the scaling is done by the playback software, so expect it to become more polished over time.

I am researching and trying to decide for a long time now, but I am still at the beginning. Don't even know whether to go with a 4K or FHD. I would buy a 4K TV if there are no downsides that affect my usage.

It's hard to say without knowing what your sources are. A Full HD screen is primarily of benefit if you're using it's own tuners or other external boxes, if it's all coming out of your computer than I wouldn't even consider it.
 
The only thing that may look worse is pre-recorded stuff that displays on the same percentage of screen regardless of screen size, which is mainly full screen video.

Do you mean like if I record something on a computer and then connect a TV to watch that?

And for my sources, I could watch Netflix (or anything like it) at UHD and the rest of it, over my computer.
 
When you play a video, be it on your computer or anywhere else for that matter it has differences in quality. You can play video on your computer that is HD, that isn't. You can play heavily compressed HD and less compressed SD.

Basically, the lower quality videos will look bad upscaled to UHD regardless of your source.

If you are just using HD sources then there is no real reason to worry with UHD.

eg online sports streams/on demand video=badly compressed SD quality usually (these will look awful at UHD)
HD video streams such as Netflix, amazon etc will be fine
 
Do you mean like if I record something on a computer and then connect a TV to watch that?

No. The image output by a computer is generally created on that computer to be the best quality that the display can handle.

For example this text is not transmitted to your web browser as the pixels that make it up, but as the words and the font and size to render them at. The fonts are stored as shapes and the computer projects those shapes onto your screens's pixel grid so the lines of the characters are as close to perfect as your screen can handle.

That's why you can make your browser thinner or wider and stuff will change position or proportions on many websites. For example on this web page the sidebar stays the same width but the lines of the thread text get longer.

Games are a lot more complicated but work in a broadly similar way. The picture is built up from a lot of elements by the computer for the resolution it's running at.

But things like image and video files are purely recorded pixels to be output as is. There's no content information in them. If the area you want to display it on has a different number of pixels then a scaler generally tries to guess from the nearest pixel of the original which is a rather crude method and results in the softness typical of upscaled pictures. Going from DVD resolution to 4K requires it to wring around 20 pixels of information from each pixel of the original.
 
So to sum it all up, UHD is better as long as I watch at atleast HD quality, no SD or bad recordings?

What approximate resolution should games be able to display at, to not look worse? Because I might play some older games.

I appologize for so many questions and appreciate all of your guys help.
 
Ok I am ready, you can throw at me some more suggestions. None of the above mentioned are available to me. You can check my first post to see what am I looking for.
I might watch some SD content at times but not that much. Uhd on Netflix alike and a computer, but probably not for games (definitely not yet). And everything else at HD.
So you can recommend me either 4K or FHD TVs, whatever do you think would be the right choise for me.
 
Sorry for bumping it up, but just to make it clear again, that I only want few recommendations, no more uhd/fhd confusion and I won't ask any additional questions. Any other TV than those mentioned and I will check the review of it here.
Is Philips PUS6501 a good choise?
 
At 50" I would look at Panasonic DX-750/Hisense M5500 before the Philips. Philips 6501 is fine but uses IPS panel.
 
Then you probably can't get a high contrast VA panel unless you look at the more expensive Samsung KS7000/7500.

The Phillips you mention is a good tv.well reviewed here on avforums.
 
Then you probably can't get a high contrast VA panel unless you look at the more expensive Samsung KS7000/7500.

The Phillips you mention is a good tv.well reviewed here on avforums.

I wish I could but I can't. So to just go for Philips?
 


I read the review before creating this thread, but wasn't sure because noone is recommanding Philips TVs anywhere. And some of those that do buy them, report about various problems that occur.

Anyway I'm not buying it yet and I will notify you when I do buy it, so if someone recommends a better tv until then, I can still change it.
 

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