$1299 Seiki UHDTV 50" SE50UY04 - Bought it today

[houkouonchi]

Just proceeded to buy it from amazon and the price literally switched back to $699 right as I clicked to order.

I wonder if it was a price mistake. I hope my order doesn't get canceled.

 

[Kevin Wild]

Is there any possible way to get a 4K image out of the Epic so that these monitors will work in the field?

I think not, but just want to make sure.

Kevin

 

[Elsie N]

I wonder if it was a price mistake. I hope my order doesn't get canceled.

I think they'll honor it. I've seen this happen before with the 50 inch. They started getting a lot of orders (probably from Reduser '-) and jumped the price. On the 50 inch they gradually lowered the price so that it's back under $1,000 again.

 

[luc renambot]

I think they'll honor it. I've seen this happen before with the 50 inch. They started getting a lot of orders (probably from Reduser '-) and jumped the price. On the 50 inch they gradually lowered the price so that it's back under $1,000 again.

Yes, Amazon changes their prices often, sometimes several times a day.
You can track with camelcamelcamel:
http://camelcamelcamel.com/Seiki-Digital-SE50UY04-50-Inch-120Hz/product/B00BXF7I9M


L.

 

[Janis P.]

Imho not worth to wait for/get 65", as it might be priced a bit above 'cheap enough to ignore faults and to be replaced later on with full hdm2/60hz & better quality tv'.
39" imho also is not best investment now, when prices for 50" again have dropped to 965$ (that's -$534/36% off) on amazon and seiki even listed few used ones for $860.70, while 39" still has same price since day one with no deal to it. +$200 in my eyes is more then worth for such screen size jump.
Meanwhile i'm still trying to get as cheap as possible skyworth 50E780U via taobao agents with slight hope for it to show similar overclocking results as Martin's skyworth 39" (40-45Hz@UHD) shown using same 1.4hdmi, and also having better quality scaler/lower resolution handling and 3d. There also apeared 42" 42E780U in that Skyworth 4K line. Unfortunately while 39" is priced similar to Seiki's bare bone, bigger size Skyworths seem to cost +$200 on average, probably more expensive scaler/3d/android media playback capabilities don't come for very cheap even in China. Also probably for those in US extra shipping price and no warranty also may be deal breaker, not so for those in EU, where we have to pay extra and loose warranty in both cases, be it shipping from US or from China.

 

[Jarred Land]

Imho not worth to wait for/get 65", as it might be priced a bit above 'cheap enough to ignore faults and to be replaced later on with full hdm2/60hz & better quality tv'.
39" imho also is not best investment now, when prices for 50" again have dropped to 965$ (that's -$534/36% off) on amazon and seiki even listed few used ones for $860.70, while 39" still has same price since day one with no deal to it. +$200 in my eyes is more then worth for such screen size jump.
Meanwhile i'm still trying to get as cheap as possible skyworth 50E780U via taobao agents with slight hope for it to show similar overclocking results as Martin's skyworth 39" (40-45Hz@UHD) shown using same 1.4hdmi, and also having better quality scaler/lower resolution handling and 3d. There also apeared 42" 42E780U in that Skyworth 4K line. Unfortunately while 39" is priced similar to Seiki's bare bone, bigger size Skyworths seem to cost +$200 on average, probably more expensive scaler/3d/android media playback capabilities don't come for very cheap even in China. Also probably for those in US extra shipping price and no warranty also may be deal breaker, not so for those in EU, where we have to pay extra and loose warranty in both cases, be it shipping from US or from China.

It is pretty awesome when we are complaining about a $600 4K TV costing too much

 

[Eric Santiago]

It is pretty awesome when we are complaining about a $600 4K TV costing too much

It wasnt too long ago when we bought our first 40" Panny widescreen flat display for 18K.

It wasnt even 1080 period

 

[Elsie N]

It is pretty awesome when we are complaining about a $600 4K TV costing too much

All those who said 4k was YEARS away from adoption have seemingly gone meekly into the night. '-)

 

[L. Langer]

All those who said 4k was YEARS away from adoption have seemingly gone meekly into the night. '-)

Well, this is just one of those instances where a part of the mechanism - UHDTVs - is more or less ready whereas the rest is not. It will be several years before 4K catches on in the mass market as everything just works perfectly at HD resolution right now. Every single broadband ISP in the US of A now has monthly data allotment limits for ALL consumer accounts ranging from 5GB-400 GB, so downloading massive 4K movie files with high bitrates is out of the question for many in addition to their regular Internet usage. Video codecs with great compression rates - cue RED RAY infomercial - that are friendly for the average consumer's connection capabilities and inexpensive 4K players to go along with those codecs are key and it remains to be seen what we will have there as nobody has a suitable option for the average consumer at this point and I suspect we won't have anything on the inexpensive side for another year at the least, assuming 4K Blu-Ray doesn't show up in the next two years and steal the thunder.

 

[Elsie N]

Well, this is just one of those instances where a part of the mechanism - UHDTVs - is more or less ready whereas the rest is not. It will be several years before 4K catches on in the mass market as everything just works perfectly at HD resolution right now. Every single broadband ISP in the US of A now has monthly data allotment limits for ALL consumer accounts ranging from 5GB-400 GB, so downloading massive 4K movie files with high bitrates is out of the question for many in addition to their regular Internet usage. Video codecs with great compression rates - cue RED RAY infomercial - that are friendly for the average consumer's connection capabilities and inexpensive 4K players to go along with those codecs are key and it remains to be seen what we will have there as nobody has a suitable option for the average consumer at this point and I suspect we won't have anything on the inexpensive side for another year at the least, assuming 4K Blu-Ray doesn't show up in the next two years and steal the thunder.

My thinking is that the TV doesn't serve the same purpose as it once did. Nowadays it has become a TV monitor, an Internet display, add-on content player... all the things that allows a household to justify moving up to 4k. A household on a budget may decide to cut out the weekly dinner and a movie, choosing to replace that at home with the better display that they can enjoy every day.

And the justification for that display being 4k is evident in the comments section on Amazon where I read time after time how a buyer of the 50" Seiki would growl and moan about this and that problem with the display and then come back later and update their review saying how amazing it was after they got it going right. Pretty soon these TVs will work right out of the box and people who use the TVs for things like graphic art, CAD work, video or stills work, and oh, as plain old TVs as well, will spread the word how awesome 4k really is and the floodgates will open. It's not all about being content ready. At first it will be about the picture... then the content will chase those customers.

 

[Jason Extraordinary]

hey hows it going folks, just got the 39" today but still need a video card to push 4k lol

anywho, somewhere in this thread mentions a budget card enough to run desktop at 4k, i believe a radeon hd5450?

 

[houkouonchi]

I personally would go with some low end geforce 600 series card that has an HDMI port. From my experience so far things seem a lot more finicky on ATI cards. Also doing custom resolutions like 1080p@120hz is a lot easier on nvidia.

 

[Jason Extraordinary]

I personally would go with some low end geforce 600 series card that has an HDMI port. From my experience so far things seem a lot more finicky on ATI cards. Also doing custom resolutions like 1080p@120hz is a lot easier on nvidia.

thank you sir, yes ive got my eyes on any 600 series with 2gb.

also, im glad youve mentioned custom resolutions like 1080p @ 120hz using nvidia cards, i just cant figure out how to create custom resolutions on ati cards?

one thing ive tested which is pretty cool coming from triple monitor/eyefinity/nv surround setup - at 1080p 120hz, ive create and set my games resolution to width- 1920 height-400 and still get the triple monitor aspect ratio but on 1 single monitor

also, being that its a 120hz panel - are we just limited via hdmi cable? perhaps hdmi cable and firmware update to run 60/120hz? on that note, i hope seiki suprises us with an easy update though 30hz isnt bad since i primarily bought this tv/monitor for workstation use, im loving the thin bezels overall, thanks guys!

 

[Jason Extraordinary]

folks,

would you guys mind sharing your color calibration specs?? the menu with four 0000 following right after, ive yet to calibrate this lovely 4k tv/monitor - thanks in advance guys

 

[houkouonchi]

thank you sir, yes ive got my eyes on any 600 series with 2gb.

also, im glad youve mentioned custom resolutions like 1080p @ 120hz using nvidia cards, i just cant figure out how to create custom resolutions on ati cards?

one thing ive tested which is pretty cool coming from triple monitor/eyefinity/nv surround setup - at 1080p 120hz, ive create and set my games resolution to width- 1920 height-400 and still get the triple monitor aspect ratio but on 1 single monitor

also, being that its a 120hz panel - are we just limited via hdmi cable? perhaps hdmi cable and firmware update to run 60/120hz? on that note, i hope seiki suprises us with an easy update though 30hz isnt bad since i primarily bought this tv/monitor for workstation use, im loving the thin bezels overall, thanks guys!

You can do it on ATI too but its kind of finicky and a lot more of a PITA. Generally on ATI it requires modifying the EDID and creating a custom .inf driver for the monitor with the modes in it where as ATI you can just use their utiltity to create the custom resolutions. I had a hell of a time on ATI getting it to work at 3840x2160@30Hz *AND* 1920x1080 @ 120Hz mainly due to the stupid ATI driver thinking it was a TV and outputing an HDTV standard modeline (that has crappy overscan) when set at 1080p instead of using the mode I gave it.

 

[houkouonchi]

My 39 inch seiki order off amazon I got for $498 ($550 with tax/shiping) just changed its status to 'shipping' with an ETA of jul 23rd to 25th. W00t =)

 

[Elsie N]

My 39 inch seiki order off amazon I got for $498 ($550 with tax/shiping) just changed its status to 'shipping' with an ETA of jul 23rd to 25th. W00t =)

Me too. Then got another email saying it would arrive on the 19th. Anyone tried using the PowerColor HD 7950 3GB Boost Edition card with any version of the 4k Seiki? Says it is made to work with 4k.

...With full support for 3GHz HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2 HBR2, the AMD Radeon HD 7950 is set to drive next generation displays at up to 4K resolution. ...

 

[houkouonchi]

Me too. Then got another email saying it would arrive on the 19th. Anyone tried using the PowerColor HD 7950 3GB Boost Edition card with any version of the 4k Seiki? Says it is made to work with 4k.

...With full support for 3GHz HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2 HBR2, the AMD Radeon HD 7950 is set to drive next generation displays at up to 4K resolution. ...

Mine also got an email saying it shipped with a tracking number and also said the ETA is tomorrow the 19th but I don't know if I buy it yet as UPS still doesn't show any shipping information so I don't think it shipped yesterday especially as I got the email at 10 PM. My dad also got one and he is in the same situation.

That video card should work fine but I really recommend against AMD if you want to be able to run non-standard modes. IE: 3840x2160@31Hz (if you want to get a little more Hz out of it) or 1080p @ 120hz or 720p @ 240hz which probably only matters if your a gamer.

 

[Elsie N]

Mine also got an email saying it shipped with a tracking number and also said the ETA is tomorrow the 19th but I don't know if I buy it yet as UPS still doesn't show any shipping information so I don't think it shipped yesterday especially as I got the email at 10 PM. My dad also got one and he is in the same situation.

That video card should work fine but I really recommend against AMD if you want to be able to run non-standard modes. IE: 3840x2160@31Hz (if you want to get a little more Hz out of it) or 1080p @ 120hz or 720p @ 240hz which probably only matters if your a gamer.

Yeah, not a gamer so standard modes o.k if 4k works. OBTW, I saw where you were linked to on the Amazon boards. The post was:

"The "30" applies to vsync, not hsync.
The TV is able to support a higher hsync. You don't need to live with a vsync of 13.80Hz -- I know another Linux user who got vsync of 30.00Hz (with a hsync above 60).

There may need to be a driver patching operation you need to do, because the graphics drivers have an artificial dot clock limit built into it. Google "houkouonchi SEIKI 4K Linux" and read his posts. Or keep an eye on the thread at hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1756171 -- subsequent pages."

 

[houkouonchi]

My 39 inch seiki arrived. Anyway it acts differently than the 50 inch. It will take 31Hz @3840x2160 and 120hz @ 1080p and 240hz @ 720p just like the 50 inch display but when I give it > 31 hz unlike the 50 inch which activates its scaler and generates a really crappy looking picture the display appears to just turn off the panel.

I can't even access the OSD/menu/input selection when its getting a >31 Hz signal it just goes totally blank until I reset the display or I switch to a lower refresh rate mode.