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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

$1299 Seiki UHDTV 50" SE50UY04 - Bought it today

I get so infuriated when I see people bring up that stupid chart that everybody seems to act like its the bible on HDTV resolution. I laugh when it says you n eed to be 2.5 feet away to see 4k @ 50 inches. What a joke. I can read super small fonts on my 22 inch 4k display from 2.5 feet away so that means I could do the same from atleast 10 feet away on a 50 inch display. I get very annoyed by that. All these people who spout crap who have never actually used or seen a 4k display. The 1080p viewing distances are BS too though..

The same type of charts and theories circulated online when HD was about to come out. I remember many professionals online saying no one will notice a difference with SD because of the viewing distance, etc. Eventually once they actually see a 4k TV the talk will end. That is until 8k arrives in the home...
 
Mine is on a freight truck somewhere...

Friends of mine in Phoenix have theirs. Seems their report echoes what Stephen says. When it all boils down to it, it's a crap LED TV like one would buy at WalMart, Costco, Sam's, etc.. But it does UHD/4K resolution for only about $350 more than what a crap 50" 1080p costs right now. So on that it's a WIN! As long as I don't set it right next to the new 55" 4K Sony, I think it will look just fine. ;)

Anyone buying one of these for color-critical viewing or correction work is making a huge mistake. From the few snippets I'm picking up online as well as my friends' report, best calibration practice seems to be just eyeballing it with a WOW disc or similar reference. Make it look good for your space, but if you're trying to match REC709 or specific gamma targets, you're just jerking off. I doubt my opinion on that will change after receiving it.

Hi Jeff,

I think this set works very well in a dual monitor setup with a trusted normal sized reference monitor,
as Jarred recommended.

We contacted FSI about a REC. 2020 or OLED display and they said they don't have one yet.

Do you know of or have any recommendations for a REC. 2020 compatible reference monitor?

Thanks for any feedback...
 
FYI:

For those not happy with current Macbook Pro Retina HDMI compatibility with 4K (aside from thunderbolt options)...

Nvidia just released a new mobile GPU based on the Kepler architecture, the GT 750M , which is currently in new Lenovo laptops and I suspect to be in the next Macbook Pro Retina update.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce-gt-750m/specifications

The specs on this GPU support 4K, so I suspect the next Macbook Pro to support 4K output
in one way or another.

http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/tech-specs/laptop/ideapad/y-series/y500/

Also of interest, Lenovo actually now also sells this laptop GPU with Dual SLI setup for $220 more.

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...&category_id=5B0116E237099FA0FCA012D9B20ED2FB


nVidia tech support told me today that even though the GT 750M GPU supports 4K output, it is wholly up to hardware manufacturers to support it in hardware, so YMMV depending on the manufacturer- check first is best policy, always.
 
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[*]4K in Windows 7 works with GTX 660 card - did not work with GTX 460 likely due to driver issue with older Pureview support
Nothing to do with drivers: GTX 460 simply lacks the necessary hardware for 4K output.
 
Walking the 4K walk.

Walking the 4K walk.

IMO the orthodoxy on viewing distances and the theoretical resolving power of the human eye as culled from ophthalmology studies is seriously flawed. I don't dispute the notion that viewing distance and screen size are factors, 50' away from a 27" screen you probably can't tell - fair enough. That said, variances from person to person can be greater than one might imagine - most of us just assume that everyone else sees things exactly the way we do, that's a big assumption.

So many factors influence real world perception of moving mages that I consider virtually all published metrics as little more than estimates full of variables. In my personal experience, small ad hoc groups of viewers exposed to UHD/4K material easily recognize the greater resolution even when outside of the theoretical limits. I'll stipulate that if one sits more than 12' away from a 40" screen viewing heavily compressed signals in high ambient light the difference may be subtle between HD and UHD, especially if the material and/or the display has limited contrast. However, I will also theorize that over 90% of viewers under 80 (assuming decent visual correction via glasses/contacts if needed) looking at a 50" screen from inside of 12' with decent signal/contrast/light levels can consistently differentiate between HD and UHD in a "which is sharper, 1 or 2?" test akin to an eye exam.

The question of whether the general public is hungry for more resolution in their home entertainment experience, and willing to pay a premium for it, is a whole other issue ;-)

Cheers - #19
 
Nothing for REC 2020 yet. I think the Sony OLED will support it, their guy at NAB was under the impression that 2020 was on the table for that monitor. But it's still a year away from production, maybe more. This is all stuff to look forward to with HDMI 2.0 and other upcoming interfaces. And the pro monitors will support that as well as quad 3G-SDI, possibly dual or quad 6G-SDI. That one is a funky BlackMagic thing at the moment, but it's getting a lot of interest from others -- they're willing to openly license it and it's a simple DDR style take on SDI signaling to double bandwidth. As usual, the paper specifications for new standards precede the hardware.

According to what RED has had to say about the .RED codec and REDRAY -- especially integration directly with the projectors -- their projectors should be able to exceed REC2020. I would expect the REDRAY projector to support 2020 on release or if not I'm positive it will have an upgrade path to allow it. I'm willing to bet some of the delay on the projector goes beyond simply not being ready. I'm betting RED is also waiting for appropriate interfaces to come available. We cant run everything through the REDRAY portion, some of us need other ways to feed it.
 
So many factors influence real world perception of moving mages that I consider virtually all published metrics as little more than estimates full of variables.

One factor I rarely see mentioned is screen/scene contrast. Meaning the higher contrast the screen displays, the more noticeable individual pixels become. I notice this on the new 27" iMac: the display is SO good each individual pixel jumps right out at you.
 
DEAD PIXEL

DEAD PIXEL

I just noticed a dead pixel on mine. Seems to be more of a 1.5 pixel dark smudge rather that a sharply defined dead pixel. Perhaps it's a dirt speck under the cover glass. Not going to worry about it much as it's in the upper left. But I'll see it every time, now that I noticed I can't clean it off !
 
......

Anyone buying one of these for color-critical viewing or correction work is making a huge mistake. From the few snippets I'm picking up online as well as my friends' report, best calibration practice seems to be just eyeballing it with a WOW disc or similar reference. Make it look good for your space, but if you're trying to match REC709 or specific gamma targets, you're just jerking off. I doubt my opinion on that will change after receiving it.

Don't think anyone would ever dream of doing that .... but it will be good to dial it in so that when you put it next to a calibrated plasma or EIZO monitor it doesn't look totally wanky .... there's already enough confusion out there with people making disparaging value judgments on the relative merits of UHD TV resolution based on a poor understanding of chroma sampling, color space and gamma variables.

Not everyone is a smart as you, Jeff ... let's try and make it as easy as possible for peeps to assess resolution as an independent variable.

Neil
 
I just entered the 4 hour delivery window for mine. I am working from home today.

I will be testing to see if I can get 60Hz via 1920x2160 over HDMI1/2 as well as attempting to get >30Hz over HDMI via over-clocking. I will also report on how it works under linux. Talking to someone who knows about HDMI I found out HDMI is not like dual link DVI in that it changes the output at >165Mhz and is basically like a higher clocked single-link DVI so I am hoping it will work under linux if I just force it even though linux says there is a 165 Mhz on my HDMI port.
 
4K with your own eyes ...

4K with your own eyes ...

IMO the orthodoxy on viewing distances and the theoretical resolving power of the human eye as culled from ophthalmology studies is seriously flawed. I don't dispute the notion that viewing distance and screen size are factors, 50' away from a 27" screen you probably can't tell - fair enough. That said, variances from person to person can be greater than one might imagine - most of us just assume that everyone else sees things exactly the way we do, that's a big assumption.

So many factors influence real world perception of moving mages that I consider virtually all published metrics as little more than estimates full of variables. In my personal experience, small ad hoc groups of viewers exposed to UHD/4K material easily recognize the greater resolution even when outside of the theoretical limits. I'll stipulate that if one sits more than 12' away from a 40" screen viewing heavily compressed signals in high ambient light the difference may be subtle between HD and UHD, especially if the material and/or the display has limited contrast. However, I will also theorize that over 90% of viewers under 80 (assuming decent visual correction via glasses/contacts if needed) looking at a 50" screen from inside of 12' with decent signal/contrast/light levels can consistently differentiate between HD and UHD in a "which is sharper, 1 or 2?" test akin to an eye exam.

The question of whether the general public is hungry for more resolution in their home entertainment experience, and willing to pay a premium for it, is a whole other issue ;-)

Cheers - #19

Agree wholeheartedly, Blair ... be interested in your reactions on Saturday at the 4K training event ... should have the UHD TV dialed in by then ... hopefully, we'll also have our 4K projector there to compare the difference in transmissive 4K versus reflected 4K compared to tightly calibrated HD monitors and the 2K DLP Barco.

Should be a fun day!

Neil
 
The information is conflicting about this online and from nVidia. But I did not expect it to work so I had another card ready to pop in.

I have a gtx 470 in my computer so I will be able to report on whether that works.

Also I have a laptop (retina macbook pro) which has a GT650M which should be able to run it.
 
(snip) Also I have a laptop (retina macbook pro) which has a GT650M which should be able to run it.

Curious about whether the GT650M is up to the task, I thought it topped out at 2560x1600. Also curious whether the HDMI port is 1.4a compliant. AFAIK it will be a fail, but I'd love to be wrong...

Cheers - #19
 
It has a GTX 680MX...I doubt that can handle Ultra HD?
GTX 680MX is based on Kepler architecture and supports 4K output over HDMI and DisplayPort.
 
The information is conflicting about this online and from nVidia. But I did not expect it to work so I had another card ready to pop in.
Nvidia cards built on the Fermi architecture, like the GTX 460, cannot output 4K over HDMI. The card may have HDMI 1.4 but it's not the 3GHz version which is required for 4K output.
 
Just got mine yesterday, and here are my thoughts. I looked at it from simple terms as a playback monitor nothing else. I found that at 1920x1080 there was a weird upscaling going on, when looking at a text document at some lines it would be fuzzy and some lines it would be sharp as a tack. I then fed it a 2048x1080 signal and it disabled the upscaling, this is what i'm guessing, and everything was as sharp as my LG 50" 1080p. I noticed if using it for a playback monitor, 8' was about as far as i'd risk sitting if watching 1080p content. I then fed it a 3840x2160 out of my macbook air using switchresx. This is where this panel shines, everything, as far as clarity was phenomenal. I couldn't output at the full 30Hz, but I got some Epic footage I shot in Utah on there and I was literally blown away watching it playback in 4k. It was like seeing it on the theater screen. Sitting 6' away from the screen. For being the first time actually seeing 4k besides the theater, It is a great experience and I can't wait to have my clients sit and watch their content with the clarity it was meant to be displayed. It was probably my computer, but I was getting a 6bit color space for the gui, but when I played back video and would stop on a frame of the sky there was no banding at all, looked like my 10bit color monitor.

My 2cents
 
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