Do you need to get your telly via Mr Branson or Mr Murdoch to take advantage of having a 4K telly? Ive honestly no idea 
For a start, you need 20:20 vision, a 50" TV and you need to sit about 3' from the screen. 
IMHO, it's another one of those "features" like 3D and "SMART" TVs that, whilst being pointless, is used to convince us all that we need to buy new TVs. I doubt broadcast TV will ever do it justice, as the broadcast offerings from Sky, freeview, etc. don't currently do a full HD TV. Just compare a supposedly HD broadcast with a blueray.
About the only application where I can see a 4k TV being worthwhile currently is if using it for gaming or as a PC monitor. It would be rather nice for a flight simulator, I reckon.
That’s the point I made earlier, about compression- although it’s significantly better than SD which is also compressed. I do disagree about it being worthwhile- we will have to agree to disagree on that. The delivery mechanism is broadband and unfortunately the UK seems to be lagging behind in that respect. I’m away from home at the minute and although the internet access is perfectly good for browsing etc, it certainly upto the level needed for viewing 4K.
Yes, agreed that the internet is the only hope for "broadcast" 4K, since the spectrum available to terrestrial broadcasters is constantly being squeezed and Sky, etc. will likely just put a 4K logo on it and use really objectionable levels of compression, while lowering the quality of their SD and HD offerings to free up the bandwidth and make it look better.
Then again, I'm not aware of any internet streaming services that give you anything worth investing in a 4K TV for today, and the infrastructure costs involved in providing that sort of streaming bandwidth might well make it prohibitive for some time yet. Yet alone finding enough punters with an internet link that can actually deliver it in practice and supporting all the customers who'll try to make it work over wireless LAN and end up very disappointed.
None of this would make me avoid buying a 4K TV, but it wouldn't compel me to do so either, if I could pay less for a HD model that does just as good a job playing a blueray.
It's worth remembering that the TVs in the shop are playing back very high bit-rate demo material the like of which there is currently no practical way of delivering to the home.
.. and then there's the issue of how close you have to sit to the screen for your eye to resolve all the detail.
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Topic: 4K tellys (Read 3226 times)