4K Television Incompetence :/

[Dominik Muench]

Hey Everyone,


so after being on vacation for the last 4 weeks, I went to my local home electronics place last saturday to check out the first 4K displays on sale there and have a bit of a chat with the sales guys.
HOLY CRAP what an eye opener. I almost ended up getting kicked out of the store for making the salesperson cry and now understand why 4K will be a bit of a struggle for people to accept with THIS much misinformation out there.

The story went pretty much like this:

Rocked up at the shop, stood in front of the new LG 65" 4K TV for a minute until the first sales guy showed up. I asked him if he could tell me more about the TV to which he said he's got no clue about them but he would get me the specially trained "store expert on 4K".

Another minute later sales guy number 2 shows up and gives me the whole sales pitch which basically consisted of just the one sentence: "Its an amazing picture isn't it ? Better than anything out on the market so far, for 17.000$ its a real steal".

My reply was: "yeah westinghouse is releasing 60" 4K panels soon for less than 5 grand"

Salesguy deeply offended:" You must be wrong, Westinghouse doesn't sell TV's"

Me: "Oh...must have read that wrong then"

Salesguy: "Yeah especially the price, these displays wont get into that price range for at least another 3 years, this is brand new technology, the first of its kind"

Me: "Huhu...I've got a question though...where do you get the 4K content from and how do you play it back ? This is obviously only uprezzed BlueRay footage you are playing right now".
(Underneath the TV was a blueray player which played the smurfes movie....the TV btw. was horribly calibrated. right next to the 4K display stood a regular 65" LG LED display and the image on that panel was much more vibrant and pleasing...Fail right there.

The sales guy seemed a bit offended by this and replied "Well yes obviously, currently there are only around 8 movies out that are in 4K resolution"...WoW....now I know these guys aren't rocket scientists and usually only get short training sessions on all the hundreds of products they have to sell....but seriously ????
Obviously I couldn't leave this uncorrected to which I asked him if he had heard of RED and their technologies....He said he never heard of it.
I then went on to show him on my phone a list of features that have been shot on 4K and mentioned that there actually is quite a lot of footage in true 4K out there.

My next question was, since he hasn't heard of the company RED and no clue about the RedRay, how they actually play back 4K footage on the TV....to which the sales guy replied "Oh you really cant yet, LG isn't delivering the necessary 500$ HDMI cable yet...but we will get it next week"

My reply: "Hmmm ok....so when you have the cable...I can just connect my computer, download 4K footage online and play it back on the TV with my computer as media player for example ?"

Salesguy: "no not exactly your computer cant output a 4K signal via HDMI or other connection"

Me: :Ah...ok...so you cant show me any true 4K footage on your display right now ?"

Salesguy: "Oh sure, one second". He walked to the TV, gets the remote, fumbles around a bit in the LG TV's menu guide and ON pops a nice demo of crisp looking demo footage in 4K.

Me: "Oh nice...looks great"

Salesguy: "Its an amazing picture isnt it ? Better than anything out on the market so far" He actually repeated that exact sentence multiple times, must be some Jedi Mind Sales technique.

Me: "ok but how do you play back this 4K footage now ?"

Salesguy: "Oh, were running a computer with windows 8 as media server underneath and outputting it through HDMI"

Me: Speechless, didn't he just say nobody can output 4K from a computer, especially not without the magical HDMI cable which LG is not delivering yet ?


I could keep going on with this conversation for another 15 minutes but you'll get the point. At the end, he never heard of RED.

He didn't want me to tell him AT ALL about the RedRay, its capabilities and refused to believe that its the best way to actually get real 4K footage on your display.
When I told him that a lot of customers will come into the shop in the future to ask about these products and mention even Red and that this info would really benefit his customers he replied "If we cant sell it, I dont want to know about it".

He also didn't want to believe that there is actually a ton of 4K footage out there and being shot every day.

He never heard of TimeScapes or the fact that its available in 4K, he didn't even know that Youtube supports 4K upload and playback since last year !!

Salesguy: "No only that new peter jackson movie is one of the first to originate and finish in 4k"....I didn't even dignify that with a response anymore and walked away.



The demo footage on the LG display was no footage coming from a RED or actual motion footage at all, it was all just time-lapse footage made up of stills images from a high megapixel DSLR camera.

This happened at one of the major australian electronic retail chains.

I guess these guys really aren't being trained on knowing about these TV's or the technology behind it, but literally just focus on selling them to rich, clueless gizmolovers who just want the best and newest to make the neighbours jealous.
I doubt that this will help showing 4K in a true light and giving it the recognition it deserves.

 

[Martin Weiss]

He's a sales person, his job is not to give you the best quality product. His job is to sell the product that will give him the biggest bonus. As he said it himself:

"If we cant sell it, I dont want to know about it".

 

[Bob Gundu]

I can't remember the last time any salesman in an electronics shop actually know more than me. It does bother me when I see these guys make up bullshit to try and sell something. One time I did step in and correct the sales guys as I felt really bad for the elderly couple. I still get dirty looks from the staff when I go to that shop.

 

[Marc Dunham]

I spent an hour the other night teaching some of my buddies who work at best buy about 4k and RED, hopefully they'll use that info. Although I use to work retail for 6 years and its pretty awful sometimes, so I understand sometimes when they just don't even want to bother, no excuse I guess though.

 

[Simon Knight]

In the UK we call this place Currys...

 

[Björn Benckert]

Playing 4k as Youtube streaming / download trough "smart TV" is probably the way things will go. And ofcourse playback directly on pad/phone/computer screens. I find it very unlikely that people will buy into redray as long as it's not built into a screen or computer. Panasonic allready have their 4k pad, and I think the rest will follow quite quickly.

 

[Bill Sepaniak]

... I went to my local home electronics place last saturday to check out the first 4K displays on sale there and have a bit of a chat with the sales guys.

About 2 weeks ago I had an opportunity to see the 84" LG LM96000 at Audio Video Center in Torrance, California. (It is a super high-end home theater store.) They did have demo motion footage playing from a media server, and honestly, it looked quite good.

My discussions with both the sales guy and the store manager were just the opposite of what you experienced. In the course of about 10 minutes I explained what (little) I knew about REDRAY and Odemax to them, and they were quite excited to learn about what was "in-the-works." As a matter of fact, we immediately went on this site and on the Odemax site, and they both started to become acquainted with what is "coming-down-the pike" in terms of the availability of 4K content. Once they wrapped their heads around it, they were amazed, and actually, they thanked me for sharing what I knew with them. They went on to indicate that while they had actually sold a decent number of the 84" LG panels, the biggest questions they were getting from customers are, "where is the new 4K content going to come from - and when will it be available for me to see on my TV." Now, they said, we have something "real" to tell our customers ...

__________________________________
Scarlet X # 1859 “Bettie Page”
“… preparing to ‘whip’ the competition …”

Zeiss Lenses:

CY 21/2.8
ZF 28/2.0
CY 35-70/3.4
CY 50/1.4
ZF100/2.0

Nikon Lenses:
G 14-24/2.8
G 24-70/2.8
D 80-200/2.8

Tokina Lenses:

11-16/2.8

 

[Peter Moretti]

Introducing the world to 4K, one crying salesman and pissed off store manager at a time. Viva la revolucion.

 

[Dominik Muench]

Playing 4k as Youtube streaming / download trough "smart TV" is probably the way things will go. And ofcourse playback directly on pad/phone/computer screens. I find it very unlikely that people will buy into redray as long as it's not built into a screen or computer. Panasonic allready have their 4k pad, and I think the rest will follow quite quickly.

I initially thought about youtube straight away as well and asked if the TV is hooked up to the Wifi and if we can give it a try....but unfortunately you currently only access youtube through LG's own application....which....surprise surprise....does not support the 4K playback as of yet :/

 

[Dominik Muench]

About 2 weeks ago I had an opportunity to see the 84" LG LM96000 at Audio Video Center in Torrance, California. (It is a super high-end home theater store.) They did have demo motion footage playing from a media server, and honestly, it looked quite good.

My discussions with both the sales guy and the store manager were just the opposite of what you experienced. In the course of about 10 minutes I explained what (little) I knew about REDRAY and Odemax to them, and they were quite excited to learn about what was "in-the-works." As a matter of fact, we immediately went on this site and on the Odemax site, and they both started to become acquainted with what is "coming-down-the pike" in terms of the availability of 4K content. Once they wrapped their heads around it, they were amazed, and actually, they thanked me for sharing what I knew with them. They went on to indicate that while they had actually sold a decent number of the 84" LG panels, the biggest questions they were getting from customers are, "where is the new 4K content going to come from - and when will it be available for me to see on my TV." Now, they said, we have something "real" to tell our customers ...

__________________________________
Scarlet X # 1859 “Bettie Page”
“… preparing to ‘whip’ the competition …”

Zeiss Lenses:

CY 21/2.8
ZF 28/2.0
CY 35-70/3.4
CY 50/1.4
ZF100/2.0

Nikon Lenses:
G 14-24/2.8
G 24-70/2.8
D 80-200/2.8

Tokina Lenses:

11-16/2.8

Bill thats exactly the experience anyone should get who's seriously interested in spending 17K on a TV...after all when someone is prepared to spend 300K on a ferrari, they expect the salesperson to know a little more about the car too than just "its got four wheels and takes regular unleaded...oh and its italian...I think".

 

[Mark Pavy]

Hey Dominik, my local stores (Hardly Normal etc) don't have a 4K TV yet......a really great test would be to walk back into that store with a USB stick with a 3840 x 2160 h.264 (level 5.1) mp4 file of your own, jam it into the back of the TV and show that guy what 4K looks like.

 

[Dominik Muench]

Mark: this happened at Harvey I am soo tempted to do that actually ^^

 

[Phil Holland]

Misinformation is common surrounding new technology. This sounds like a rough experience though. I emailed a reporter at BBC after hearing a bit of a report on 4K/CES. Lots of missing info or weird info that went into that. I imagine that this 4K stuff is pretty difficult to understand at the moment for those who are new to subject. The overall CES coverage has been hit and miss. It'll clear up soon though.

 

[Mike Garrick]

Given Harvey's performance & dis-information on the 4 x 3 to 16 x 9 screen farce a few years ago this wouldn't surprise me.

However the whole conversation about 4K is mute given we are still in SD land & given multi-channelling trends & bandwidth issues this will continue for a long time to come in Australia :/ !

Our only hope is 4K movie hire or download...... roll on the NBN.

 

[Dominik Muench]

However the whole conversation about 4K is mute given we are still in SD land & given multi-channelling trends & bandwidth issues this will continue for a long time to come in Australia :/ !

Our only hope is 4K movie hire or download roll on the NBN.

Oh I hear you there....the situation is ridiculous really.

 

[Justin Kirchhoff]

Hey Dominik, my local stores (Hardly Normal etc) don't have a 4K TV yet......a really great test would be to walk back into that store with a USB stick with a 3840 x 2160 h.264 (level 5.1) mp4 file of your own, jam it into the back of the TV and show that guy what 4K looks like.

I've tried to output h.264 files to anything above 2048x1152. It wouldn't let me. I guess level 5.1 is what I need to do...

But yes, if anybody wants to test out the 4K capabilities of a 4K tv, bring your own RED footage...show them how it's done!

 

[Mark Pavy]

Yes, profile 5.1 supports that frame size, there was a really good chart floating around on wikipedia about the different profiles but I can't find it sorry. Have a mess around with target bitrates, you'll be surprised how low a bitrate can yield satisfactory results.

 

[Gary Paul Walker]

In the UK we call this place Currys...

I would've said the same of PC World, ironic they're the same company.

In most cases, I sort of feel for the sales person - places like this don't really give full and complete training on new tech, and although you'd hope they'd be interested enough to be 'in the know' the reality is that for some people it is 'just a job' and they're to sell as best as they can what is currently in their store.

Typically I get in arguments when I catch salespeople in outright lies when trying to sell their products, but more often than not 'misinformation' is commonplace.

In my own 4k story, I was told (by a Currys assistant manager) that 4k will never catch on because people only really care about 3d, and "4k can't do 3d", he also told my about some mystic-sauce-type algorythm that can perfectly upscale 1080p to 4K. I chuckled - these are the people who should be taken to task.

But please lets be kind to the salespeople trying to make a living and don't want / need a long debate on the shopfloor about their failing training schemes. Because ultimately it might have repercussions on their employment and thats never nice

 

[Scott Crawley]

I can't remember the last time any salesman in an electronics shop actually know more than me. It does bother me when I see these guys make up bullshit to try and sell something. One time I did step in and correct the sales guys as I felt really bad for the elderly couple. I still get dirty looks from the staff when I go to that shop.

Hehe, if a tv salesman knew more about 4k than any of us I would question our competence... Not the salesman's.

Salesguy: "Its an amazing picture isnt it ? Better than anything out on the market so far" He actually repeated that exact sentence multiple times, must be some Jedi Mind Sales technique.

Jedi sales technique... That's pretty funny. Dominik, spare the silly sales people the humiliation for your own amusement. There's no need to be a bully.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Guys...

You need to learn to do as I do...

When I enter an electronic store to purchase A TV, Monitor, Computer, Hard Drive, or what ever we use on a daily basis in our Business...

When I am approached by the Sale people with their... Can I help you? I simply reply... "No thanks, You can't"...