UHD TV's - 65" Toshiba or 55" Sony?

[Chris McKechnie]

Which one do you guys think? Since hearing horrible things regarding the Seiki 50" for only $769 right now, I'm now leaning towards the 65" Toshiba: http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-65L93...?ie=UTF8&qid=1385940527&sr=8-7&keywords=4K+TV

or the 55" Sony: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-XBR55X85...ie=UTF8&qid=1385940527&sr=8-10&keywords=4K+TV

Thoughts? I would love the 10" inches for only $500, but is picking up the sony a better option? I do know for sure that the Sony has HDMI 2.0 ports, not too sure if the Toshiba does.

Thanks guys!

 

[John Bellari]

you might be better off waiting till next year for Superbowl Sunday weekend sales if native HDMI 2.0 support is a concern and read up on the press releases at CES 2014 in 30 days... then you'll get clarity about who really does support all HDMI 2.0 modes and at what bit depth

 

[L. Langer]

There should be a huge number of HDMI 2.0 UHDTVs by next Fall for the holiday season.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

We'll have to be careful with the first round of HDMI 2.0 TV's. Many of the first models trickling out now, especially those that are "upgradeable" to HDMI 2.0, won't support the full bandwidth of the interface, nor will they support all necessary modes or features. Without full support of HDMI 2.0 bandwidth, we won't be able to run UHD at 60Hz. Panasonic's current 65" UHD TV has enough bandwidth as they built their interfaces to meet the spec when the final drafts were being proposed. So a firmware update will get us to v2.0 there and UHD 60Hz. Some of Sony's products will provide full bandwidth after their upgrade, some will not. In the case of the new 500ES, 600ES and 1100ES projectors, they all are shipping now and have full support for HDMI 2.0B which includes 4K/UHD packed-frame 3D and 10/12bit color. So any new TV's coming out from here forward that don't have full support for HDMI 2.0 just shows poor planning on the part of the manufacturer.

We should learn a lot at CES, but I know that Sharp, LG and Samsung all have HDMI 2.0 products that will be shipping early next year.

The Toshiba does not have HDMI 2.0 capable ports. Technically I think they could offer a firmware upgrade to gain some of the functionality, which Sony is doing. The X850 and X900 Sony displays will get HDMI 2.0 via firmware, but they will be capped at HDMI 1.4a bandwidth (no UHD 60Hz), unless Sony offers a hardware upgrade as well. Sony is providing hardware upgrades to full HDMI 2.0 for the 1000ES projector (makes it an 1100ES) and for their 84" flagship UHD TV.