And now Best Buy has decided, after helping to put stores like that out of business, that they aren't interested in media sales themselves anymore. Thanks, Best Buy!

Yeah, that's a shame since their selection is the pits, and the pricing is awful as well. And since I just got into Blu-ray. I'm not even going to bother with 4K. I think I'll be pretty content with blu-ray itself.

Well, my Best Buy now has 4K demo displays. I saw 60" and 55" sets.

They look nice, but I have to say, the difference between HD and 4K material is subtle, especially when you're standing 8 feet away. It's certainly not the discernible leap in quality from SD to HD, so I think J6P is going to have a hard time telling the difference. Or, it'll have to be 80+ inch screens to showcase the difference.

We had trouble with J6P over WS on DVD's and he has little interest in BR over DVD. I wasn't anticipating any interest in the next generation at this point.

To my surprise my parents are upgrading to BR. My sister has them interested in the streaming options that the new players allow. With their 32" HDTV, I doubt they'll see a huge difference in quality

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0JVRxsYYY0Y?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Not exactly a glowing recommendation.

I'm slowing down my BD purchases because I bought too many to begin with, but now with 4k seemingly in the not too distant future, it gives me an additional pause to consider whether a title I'm interested in might come out in 4k in a few years and so might be worth the wait.

For example the Sony mastered in 4k is reminiscent of the mastered in HD DVDs of 10 years ago, most all of which eventually did come out on BD. So it kinda puts the brakes on me getting titles that are 4k candidates, especially when I have such a backlog of stuff to watch.

To be fair, that's a budget 4K TV, priced at only $1500. It's MSRP is cheaper than some 1080p 50" TVs:
http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-Digital-.../dp/B00BXF7I9M

This preview article was much more positive on the image quality:
http://gizmodo.com/5994765/seiki-50+...tiful-so-cheap

Makes sense now. I was assuming it was an expensive set

The 4k titles are 11.99 as part of Barnes and Noble's 40% off sale.

Consumer Reports, who I trust more than Gizmodo, disliked it and compared it to a "below-average LCD TV."

Went and saw the 4K Demo HDTV at BestBuy yesterday and I was impressed but underwhelmed at the same time. Did not look to see what brand of 4k HDTV it was, but I think it was a 60 inch screen.

The Demo movie I saw was the new "Total Recall". Was during the dark rainy scene which did look VERY clean and clear, but the demo did not "Totally" blow me away. It reminded me off when I have my Samsung 55 inch "Smooth" turned on.

If and when I ever have to replace my LED HDTV, I would LOVE to replace it with a 4k HDTV. The problem is I do not see that happening for a good while.

To me it is like when your DVD player went out, you did not go buy another DVD player, you go out a pick up a Blu-Ray player. After awhile BR players will be the only thing available to play DVD/BR on.

The same will be true in about 3, 4 or 5 years...4k HDTV will be the only thing around when our awesome Samsung 55 inch 3D HDTV goes on the blink.

I don't know about that. I think 1080p sets will be around for a good long while. My guess is even in 15 - 20 years a person will be able to buy one brand new. I think 4k sets will be rather a dud / the next LD niche home theater format, a plaything for the rich.

Like 3D sets?

I think 4K sets will drop significantly in price within the next five years, just like 3D sets did, but the problem still lies with little-to-no content being available in 4K. Unless the 4K restoration and remastering process becomes dirt cheap for distributors and studios to master their libraries in 4K, the format will not take off.

It also doesn't help that in most homes, based upon the size of the television and the viewing distance, the differences between 1080p and 4K will be unnoticeable.

So, something I learned recently that should give anyone considering buying a current 4K set pause, is that under the current HDMI spec (1.4a), you can only do 2160p video at 30 Hz, 8-bit color.

You'll have to wait for HDMI 2.0 until it can do 2160p60, 10-bit color. Even then, it might not be able to do 120 Hz, and you'd have to have something like HDMI 2.1, maybe, to do that.

http://www.audioholics.com/education...-specification

I really don't see a need to ever push 120 Hz through HDMI. That's the refresh rate of the TV, not the source material, which should be 24p, 25p, 30p, 48p, 50i/p, or 60i/p. I highly doubt we'll see 120i/p source material anytime soon.

really - cool! thanks for the info

Well, 4K sets will be relatively affordable eventually (just like HDTVs were; $~2500), but the real cost is with the media. And typically, what consumers deal with in the electronics industry, is a lack of software content to enjoy their overly-hyped hardware.

This is the major problem the electronics industry has never been willing to solve (and probably never will), so I let the younger, more naive consumer, buy all the expensive hardware.

By the time 4K gets rolling, we'll already have Sony pushing 8K televisions, with a handful of movies (out of hundreds of thousands) to show for it, and with a straight face, tell the consumer that's the way to go.

^ 8mm pre-recorded movies, D-VHS, quadraphonic, all examples of short lived formats

I'll hold out for 40K. Hopefully, it won't cost that much.

OK, good point, but 60 Hz definitely.

You still can't get all channels in HD yet plus Panasonic and Samsung will make better 4K TVs compared to Sony though the first to do it though the inferior brand when it comes to TVs.

Unless you want to get a new 80" + screen what is the point?

It's much like the jump from DVD to Blu-ray. If you have a 32" or smaller TV and sit 6' away with all things being equal (ie. the DVD transfer comes from the same master source as the Blu), you can't really tell the difference.

According to the charts and calculator on this link, if you're 6' away from a 32" HDTV, you should be able to get the full benefit of a 720p image, and possibly some benefit from a 1080p image:
http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter/

Besides, Blu-ray provided more improvements than just increased resolution. The better compression and higher bitrates, as well as increased color range, reduced artifacts like macroblocking and color banding.