Is getting the 4K upgrade worth it?

well what's the budget for a t.v. as OLEDS will look a hell of alot better than LED sets even though LED'S look great to but OLED sets are just breath taking in 4k. yes you'll need an hdmi with 2.2 i forget what it is now and you will also need a set with atleast HDR 10 built in it also. i would borrow a friends set just to get it hooked up and rolling how will they know your only borrowing the set. i don't know if the dtv boxes will have handshake issues with the t.v. as well but that's a firmware update to. what do you mean as far as cheap t.v.s brands like hisence and tcl??? i have an OLED sony that i spent an eye watering price for 10k but it's worth every penny to as it has an awsome processer to upconvert!!! and how big of a set are you looking to buy anything under 55 inches is just a marketing ploy.

 

I would say more precisely - it must have HLG support (HDR type) if it will used with DTV UHD client [C61k]

 

Yes, If you can borrow a friends 4k tv do it.
It doesn't matter if it's a good one or not.
Just make sure it is located where your new 4k set will be placed.
Neither the Genie 2 or HR54 have direct output of 4k.
Your will need a C61k placed at the location of the 4k tv.

 

If you don't mind very limited 4k programming from D* and random signal dropouts on the 4k channels, go for it. I did the 4k upgrade late last winter....took some time to get them to do it for free, but I perservered and finally got D* to agree to a free 4k upgrade. Being a 20 year D* sub helped a bit.

 

I like it, especially for live sports. It's the only US provider with a 4K HDR sports feed today.

Next up - Xavier @ Villanova

 

I have to admit that after about a month of 4K I am getting very tired of Ch 104.
It was great at first but now all I ever seem to catch is Bicycle stunt riders and surfing shows.
Also The cooking stuff is kind of insane, I wonder where they get these people from. The house buying stuff is pretty repetitive. Oddly enough the first week I got 4K they had some pretty good science and history based shows but I don't see them listed anymore.

Do they cycle this stuff monthly like Smithsonian channel use to do?

 

Mine did the same thing. After 24 plus hours 104 and the rest started to work.
I also went online after 24 hours and rehit the HR54. I don’t know if that made a difference.

 

This was my suspicion based on the rest of this thread. Without the need for 4K sports, it sounds like there's one "demo" channel with a bunch of random stuff and a PPV channel that I'd probably never watch. Seems very similar to the HD transition, and a good reason to wait for another hardware generation before jumping in.

 

Get a good 4k capable streaming device. Their is lots of 4k content on Amazon Prime, NetFlix, and VUDU. VUDU has most new movie releases available in 4k for $5.99, many with ATMOS sound track if you have the equipment for it.

 

I am talking about Channel 104. Is there some other 4K channel that broadcast shows? Ch. 105 is PPV and 106 is only occasional sports.

 

nope

in Europe, you can watch NASA in UHD PQ from HotBird @13E and a few other UHD channels; see Lyngsat site

 

I do believe that's the first time I've seen someone admit that. Kudos! Yet another reason...

Rich

 

Two admissions of this in one thread...honest folks abound!

Rich

 

There are plenty of streaming sources for 4K but unfortunately none of them have very good PQ.
There is just not enough home owners with the BW to make proper 4K streaming a reality in the USA or most of the world. What you end up with instead is the Netflix looking 4K which IMHO looks almost the same as 1080P.

If you follow these crazy hardware manufactures you will start to believe in the tooth fairy.

Examples like this: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46403539

So we have a true 8K channel with one movie and probably a bunch of demo rolls and then you can look forward to the next movie in March 2019 which wait for it, wait for it,,is "My Fair Lady"

One thing I learned a long time ago while working with a bunch of other Electronic Engineers. Either Management has us under strict control or the company will go bankrupt Sony is a perfect example of what happens when the engineers are running the company.

Just my 2 cents but true high bandwidth 4K content from Networks and general channels is probably about 8 years away and 8K is just never going to happen except as a novelty item. Don't get me wrong the Hardware for all of this as we know is already there. The problem is that 1080P is good enough for most people and 4K is a bit of overkill. Our eyes can only have enough receptors to see a little over 3K so anything above that depends on colors and lighting tricks to make things pop out on the screen.

 

Oh, I'm all bought-in on 4K equipment and content, but this thread was started about DirecTV's offering, and it sounds pretty limited even if it's free.

 

Remember the first HD? I had the HD Tivo for Directv.
We had HBO and Discovery and maybe a few more.

This was went it all started.
What I am saying is once we see an HBO or Discovery or Sports full time channel, 4K wont really start everyone converting. There are people out there with 4K TVs lots of them where sold last quarter. Just no need to upgrade till there is one or two good full time channels, I think.
Maybe one will be added this year, looks like Directv is save the reverse band for it? Is that true?