I recently got a Vizio 65" 4K TV (Best Buy, last year's floor model, $850) and have yet to watch any 4K content on it. The TV purchase was a quantum leap for me. I upgraded from a 32" 720P TV and a DVD player. I don't own a blu-ray player.
I went back to Best Buy today thinking I'd pick up a blu-ray player and a 4k blu-ray movie for tonight's entertainment. I've seen blu-ray players on sale for <$60. I picked the blu-ray movie first, making sure to get one that said "mastered in 4K." Then I went to the blu-ray players and immediately noticed that not all blu-ray players claim to be 4K-capable. The **broken link removed**which claimed 4K capability was $400.
They had less expensive ones with the 4K logo on them, but they all said "4K upscaling." (**broken link removed** for example, $109). When I google this upscaling thing, I find a bunch of explanations about how a TV or a blu-ray player will take a non-4k video and blow it up to fit a 4k screen. I get that; it's self explanatory, and a waste of time reading it.
But what I don't understand is why a blu-ray player capable of upscaling a non-4k video to 4k resolution, is not capable of reading a blu-ray movie whose native resolution is actually 4K? It seems to me that simply reading a 4k native format would be a much easier feat, requiring much less video processing grunt work. Or am I misunderstanding something?
What would happen if I put a 4k blu-ray into one of these upscaling players? Would it read a lower resolution (ex: 1080p) file which is already stored on the disk separate from the 4k file, and then upscale that to 4k? Or would it read the 4K file, downscale 4k to 1080p, and then upscale back to 4k? Would it simply not play at all? Do I really need to pay $400 to make use of my TV's 4k capability?
I went back to Best Buy today thinking I'd pick up a blu-ray player and a 4k blu-ray movie for tonight's entertainment. I've seen blu-ray players on sale for <$60. I picked the blu-ray movie first, making sure to get one that said "mastered in 4K." Then I went to the blu-ray players and immediately noticed that not all blu-ray players claim to be 4K-capable. The **broken link removed**which claimed 4K capability was $400.
They had less expensive ones with the 4K logo on them, but they all said "4K upscaling." (**broken link removed** for example, $109). When I google this upscaling thing, I find a bunch of explanations about how a TV or a blu-ray player will take a non-4k video and blow it up to fit a 4k screen. I get that; it's self explanatory, and a waste of time reading it.
But what I don't understand is why a blu-ray player capable of upscaling a non-4k video to 4k resolution, is not capable of reading a blu-ray movie whose native resolution is actually 4K? It seems to me that simply reading a 4k native format would be a much easier feat, requiring much less video processing grunt work. Or am I misunderstanding something?
What would happen if I put a 4k blu-ray into one of these upscaling players? Would it read a lower resolution (ex: 1080p) file which is already stored on the disk separate from the 4k file, and then upscale that to 4k? Or would it read the 4K file, downscale 4k to 1080p, and then upscale back to 4k? Would it simply not play at all? Do I really need to pay $400 to make use of my TV's 4k capability?