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Gizmo135

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Technophobe deciding to buy an Oled TV 4k Smart TV. Detailed Layman advice welcome please. I currently have a LED TV fed via Coxial Cable. Do I need to install a HD Cable , digi box of some kind ( note I cannot get fibre to my house ) . ? Question has arose whilst shopping in Currys and impressed by the OLED picture quality. Salesman said however we would need a Sky box to get the full benefit.?? Left disappointed.. Just like buying a Toy without the batteries, it's never simple is it just to Plug and Play.
 
The TV has built in freeview, however this will not be in 4K resolution.

Sky offer 4K via their Sky Q box. However, that isn't the only choice for 4K - netflix and amazon apps (both of which are installed on the TV) will give you 4K. You could also look at a Apple 4K TV Player box. Buy whichever of these has the content you like and keep in mind (AFAIK that not absolutely everything will be in 4K. These apps and the Apple box will need a half decent internet connection and will use data to provide the content (so if you are on a limited package be aware it will eat data pretty quickly).

For films you can also buy a 4K UHD Blue Ray player and then buy 4K UHD disks.

Note that you don't actually have to have 4K sources at all - the TV will do a great job of displaying HD sources (720/1080i/1080p) - this includes freeview. Your existing co-axial cable will work just fine - Most likely the aerial will be fine too. If you have freeview reception issues it may be best to consult a local specialist who can check the condition of the aerial and cable.
 
Think of the 4K functionality as future proofing, you absolutely do not "need" a 4k source. Look at how many suckers/people still happily buy DVDs and yet you haven't been able to buy a non-HD TV for best part of a decade.
 
I never like to use the words 'future proofing' when it comes to technology, however the 2017 models certainly do support virtually everything that's out so far.
Get a good 4k UHD Bluray player such as the oppo 203 since it supports dolby vision and you're all ready to go because the TV has lots of built in streaming apps.
 
Bear in mind Gizmo can’t get fibre broadband so unless (s)he’s right on top of the exchange ADSL isn’t likely to deliver 4k on amazon or Netflix but HD might be fine and will look good.

SkyQ 4k content (which has no HDR* support yet) is limited to football, F1 and a paltry selection of movies. It’s good but not enough content yet. At least SkyQ is a much better system overall so I don’t feel too ripped off.

FreeviewHD isn’t quite as nice as SkyHD - lower bandwidth - but it will still look good on one of these screens.

A 4k Blu-ray player (I use an Xbox one S because it was the cheapest option) will bring out the best.

And the demos in the shops are sometimes run off USB sticks delivering quality you can’t even get from a 4K UHD Blu-ray. They do look great though.

* HDR is the broader contrast and colour spectrum that really gets the best out of these screens. Blu-ray UHD, Amazon, Netflix and appleTV 4K support it but sky and freeview don’t yet. iPlayer just has Blue planet2 for about another 3 weeks but that needs at least 24Mb of broadband action. Dolby Vision mentioned above is an even better version of HDR. Not all players, disks and TVs support it.
 
Display Hardware has currently raced ahead of broadcasting technologies, so the new technologies like HDR are supported on TVs but not on most programmes yet. And it may be that when broadcasts do start the current models won't be able to receive them because the terrestrial/satellite tuner standards are still under development.

Unless you're a follower of fashion then you need to ignore the showy tech demos on what the TV is capable of and view the TVs in a shop that'll let you see the sort of content you watch on a day to day basis. If you watch a lot of SD TV channels you may find none of the TVs are particularly impressive and you'd prefer to hold off for a few years.
 

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