$1299 Seiki UHDTV 50" SE50UY04 - Bought it today

[Janis P.]

A bit weird. Somehow expected pcb board / scaler / all the rest but screen itself 100% same (also on future 65")
I wonder if firmware version is same on 39"?

 

[houkouonchi]

Very disappointing new (for me). I know this probably wont matter much to many of you.

Although the 39 inch model accepts 120 and 240Hz modes just like the 50 inch unlike the 50 inch I found that at 1920x1080 @120hz and 1280x720@240Hz the panel is only updating at 60 Hz where as the 50 inch updates at 120Hz at both of those modes. Really hoping that a firmware update fixes this as not being able to do 120Hz natively is a big disappointment for me. Due to this it seemed like quite a bit more input lag due to the fact that frames are getting dropped.

 

[Manfred Lopez]

Anyone using UltraStudio 4K Thunderbolt Capture & Playback with Seiki?

In reading through this thread I didn't see if this was answered. Has anyone tried using a Mac Book Pro with Final Cut X to Black Magic UltraStudio 4K hooked up to either the 39" or 50" Seiki?

 

[luc renambot]

Got my 39" today. It works great. Plugged in a $800 "hackintosh" with a Nvidia 650. After applying 'Tom Horvath' patch, the display was recognized right away at 3840x2160@30. Beautiful.

The kicker was after that to enable 'HiDPI' mode, now I have a 1080p 'retina' display (the TV still runs at 4K). The icons and text are incredibly sharp at a pleasing scale.
I'm not sure if I continue in HiDPI mode, since it depends on application support.
But running Lightroom and editing D800 pictures (7360x4912 pixels) is great so far.
I have to calibrate the display now (I have a simple Spyder sensor), since it's very contrasty for now.

Does anybody have a list of preferred settings for the 39" or 50" models, using the standard or the secret menu ?

thanks,

Luc

 

[Ron Lagerlof]

In reading through this thread I didn't see if this was answered. Has anyone tried using a Mac Book Pro with Final Cut X to Black Magic UltraStudio 4K hooked up to either the 39" or 50" Seiki?

Random results depending on setup. I saw Resolve working with my US4K off another guy's MBPro Retina, but my MBPro17 glitches out when running Premier Pro. Haven't tried FCPX... Not quite out of the soup yet.

 

[Tom Horvath]

Got my 39" today. It works great. Plugged in a $800 "hackintosh" with a Nvidia 650. After applying 'Tom Horvath' patch, the display was recognized right away at 3840x2160@30. Beautiful.

The kicker was after that to enable 'HiDPI' mode, now I have a 1080p 'retina' display (the TV still runs at 4K). The icons and text are incredibly sharp at a pleasing scale.
I'm not sure if I continue in HiDPI mode, since it depends on application support.
But running Lightroom and editing D800 pictures (7360x4912 pixels) is great so far.
I have to calibrate the display now (I have a simple Spyder sensor), since it's very contrasty for now.

Does anybody have a list of preferred settings for the 39" or 50" models, using the standard or the secret menu ?

thanks,

Luc

Did you try overclocking your 39" to see if it can go above 31 Hz?

 

[Filip Vandoorne]

In reading through this thread I didn't see if this was answered. Has anyone tried using a Mac Book Pro with Final Cut X to Black Magic UltraStudio 4K hooked up to either the 39" or 50" Seiki?

The ultrastudio 4k doenst het work with fcpx for 4k output. It does work for fcp7 and resolve

 

[James Sielaff]

Saw this today...

 

[Janis P.]

It feels a bit weird, when most of new stuff now appears in Asia's once thought as 3rd world countries, long before in "leading" countries in America/Europe, but this is not the first year for such state of things. They struggle, innovate, advance, grow, while we have run out of steam for already long time and now are stepping behind 'poor' countries.

 

[luc renambot]

Did you try overclocking your 39" to see if it can go above 31 Hz?

Hi Tom,

sorry for the delay. 31Hz seems stable and the max. At 32Hz and above, the screen stays black (instead of flickering and failing in the 50" model).

Luc

 

[L. Langer]

It feels a bit weird, when most of new stuff now appears in Asia's once thought as 3rd world countries, long before in "leading" countries in America/Europe, but this is not the first year for such state of things. They struggle, innovate, advance, grow, while we have run out of steam for already long time and now are stepping behind 'poor' countries.

All of that is due to the fact that manufacturing of electronics is now largely concentrated in China/Taiwan/Vietnam/Thailand and South Korea, so those countries get tech before US/UK/Europe. The Japanese factories are shuttered and won't be opening again and America hasn't gotten any large-scale manufacturing for electronics up and running aside from computer assembly.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

...And the majority of the people in these Asian countries, where the new tech is first available, can't afford to buy it anyway. Sure, we see billboards and ads in city areas and the items are available in various shops, but the actual sales volumes are rather low. At least they're low compared to what happens in the western markets. OTOH, it works out in favor of these Asian manufacturers as they have smaller initial markets with smaller production runs to jumpstart these products. Lack of regulations in the form of FCC / UL certifications, etc.. they can be manufacturing and selling in their markets while products are pending approval overseas.

We're slowly seeing a rebirth of manufacturing here in north america... But it's going to be a slow process and we have stiff competition from other new and emerging markets. Eventually the Chinese and Korean economies will grow enough where it will become cheaper to manufacture things elsewhere, just as it did here in the USA and Japan and is now happening in Mexico and south America to some extent. The Chinese economy and consumer culture is evolving at an incredible rate and has huge inertia at the moment. Hard to say when and where it will end, but they're rapidly approaching that point of becoming the largest consumer of their own product.

 

[Janis P.]

I mentioned all that just because i often see new products that would certainly find demand in US/EU, but for some reasons often never gets sold here. For example cheap 4K TVs .. seiki is almost like exception that proves rule. And it's not available in EU. Do they really think that everybody in EU will buy only premium overpriced $4-15K priced ones, especially if they of 1st gen share many limitations with these cheap ones (eg. no HEVC decoder, no 60Hz refresh) despite costing that much more.
Imho with all seiki's drawbacks it would be sold 5:1 to those "premium" ones. And there are premium but still reasonably priced ones in China domestic market too. Skyworth, HiSense and so on .. they are far from bare-bones .. but if there would be demand, where a heck is supply?

 

[David Kuhn]

...And the majority of the people in these Asian countries, where the new tech is first available, can't afford to buy it anyway. Sure, we see billboards and ads in city areas and the items are available in various shops, but the actual sales volumes are rather low. At least they're low compared to what happens in the western markets. OTOH, it works out in favor of these Asian manufacturers as they have smaller initial markets with smaller production runs to jumpstart these products. Lack of regulations in the form of FCC / UL certifications, etc.. they can be manufacturing and selling in their markets while products are pending approval overseas.

We're slowly seeing a rebirth of manufacturing here in north america... But it's going to be a slow process and we have stiff competition from other new and emerging markets. Eventually the Chinese and Korean economies will grow enough where it will become cheaper to manufacture things elsewhere, just as it did here in the USA and Japan and is now happening in Mexico and south America to some extent. The Chinese economy and consumer culture is evolving at an incredible rate and has huge inertia at the moment. Hard to say when and where it will end, but they're rapidly approaching that point of becoming the largest consumer of their own product.

The coastal cities of China along with Japan, Taiwan, urban South Korea, Hong Kong, etc... are not really '3rd world' anymore... and standards of living in those areas are not significantly different than in the West (at least in the cities I've spent time in over there). While it's true that a relatively small percentage of the population of Asia can afford gadgets like this... even a small percentage of a couple billion people is a big number. Add to that the fact that Asians tend to be gear hounds and you get a lot of sales for high tech. The downside (for Asia) of attaining first world standards of living is that you no longer have structural cost advantages to lean on for luring business. If you build a plant in China today you're looking at substantially higher energy costs relative to the US and a rapidly shrinking labor cost advantage (especially among desirable coastal locations). As mentioned in this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...cturing-set-for-a-comeback-or-is-it-all-hype/, if the market for your goods is in the US or Europe... the numbers may no longer point to manufacturing in Asia and shipping.

 

[houkouonchi]

Good news about the 39 inch seiki. I stopped by seiki today because my email about the 120Hz issue had gone unanswered for 2 weeks. Anyway It talked to the same guy I did like 3-4 weeks ago when I wanted to demo a 39 inch unit.

He actually said that he received an email about the 120hz issue just today (I wonder if it took that long for my email to trickle down the ladder as I sent it on 7/20) and he said they are aware of the issue and will fix it probably with a firmware update.

I wasn't sure if the fact it did 120Hz was just an added bonus or they actually meant for that to happen which is why I wanted some answers. He told me they expected it to do 120Hz and that is a problem (and it had some other bugs too that they are working on). So hopefully there will be a fix soon for that.

I also asked if they had looked into or were at all interested in adding display port to their displays. Not sure if he was just giving me a line but he said they are actually doing some active R&D on possible display port connectivity for better use as a monitor/higher refresh rate. Sounded good.

I am really happy to hear the 120Hz issue should eventually get fixed. That's the only thing bugging me about the display right now.

 

[Elsie N]

Display Port and these guys jump to the head of the line in my book.

 

[Janis P.]

Hmm, Seiki implementing DP by themselves sounds more realistic then developing board independently in time before 2nd gen UHD TVs in 2014. I'm guessing though that it will be as separate TV models with a bit higher cost, not as upgrade boards for current sold models.

 

[houkouonchi]

Assuming they do it. He said they were in R&D on it but that doesn't mean they will actually do it. We shall see. I just want them to fix the 120Hz issue and then I will be happy =).

 

[James Sielaff]

Don't know really how to quantify it as Asia, since India has a very different buying trends than China, not just in what they want, but in how they buy. And China is different from Japan and Korea in many ways too.

This poster in the pic is from China, and while the average citizen may not be able to afford it right now, as long as it becomes a social status thing, they will buy them up quickly. Every one has an HD TV, but TV is still SD and 720p. BR disc are plentiful, so they are not really lacking in 'cheap' (wink wink) content. $1k is not a lot of money for many in the cities.

The whole 4k or UHD seems confusing to most consumers in the world today. Megapixels, people get, but relative terms like HD and UHD, they do not. Will be interesting to see how things go, and how marketing conquers persuasion. Maybe that illusive "more-er, better-er" will get people, but usually takes something more clear. In my feeling, computer based users seem more enthusiastic about 4k, than cinema-files. Most people don't even seem to quite understand what HD is, so when I say ultra high def, they nod and space out, and then say something about HD, which lets me know they are still enjoying marketing terms from HD. HD was marketed as "here it is... the HD!" so most don't get that it was an interim, a stepping stone. But they quickly choose a 12Mp camera over a 10Mp camera, and when you say 30Mp, they p--p a bit in their pants.

Anyways, just think there will be millions with UHD in their homes very very soon, if there isn't already.

 

[Janis P.]

Content? When i was searching for chinese UHD TVs on taobao, for few extra $ many had option of 500G HDD full of movies to ship with them.
Of course, of highly doubtful legality for those movies, but i've seen that rather commonly for many offerings.