Anyone have Xbox One connected to 2k or 4k TV?

[MorganX]

If so, how does the 900-1080p look on the screen? Better, worse, same? I'm considering upgrading my TVs but with little 4k streaming content, I don't want to take a step backwards in visual quality.

[LUTZIFER]

I do, and it looks fine to me.

My 4K TV is 55 inches, so right up close it is a tad pixelated,

and I haven't tried my xbox on a 1080p, so I'm not sure about the difference.

[+Asmodai MVC]

If you have say a 60" TV that is 1080p and a 60" TV that is 4k with all other things being equal the picture should look exactly the same on both when displaying 1080p output.

You're just using a 2x2 grid of pixels on the 4k TV to show the same color as a single pixel on the 1080p TV.  That 2x2 grid takes the same amount of space as the single pixel though so it makes no difference.  4k is an exactly even multiple resolution of 1080p so there is no interpolation or anything that needs to be done.  Odds are though that all other things are not equal between a 1080p and 4k TV and so things like brightness, color space, etc. are likely superior on the 4k TV which will result in a better image quality.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

i know you are asking about the Xbox, but i recently hooked up my PS3 to my Samsung JS8500. It looks brilliant. The upscaling on that tv is insanely good.

[MorganX]

Thanks for the feedback!

[tim_s]

I have an LG 65" 4K with an Xbox One hooked up and I got compliments on both Destiny and Star Wars Battle Front.

[philcruicks]

So couple of key things to note here.

You'll actually notice no difference assuming you set your TV up properly (except some improvement as a 4K panel is probably of a higher quality than a 1080p panel).

 

The reason being that as soon as you put a 4K TV in gaming mode it will turn off all the 4K upscaling and quality enhancements as this produces too much input lag to actually play games.

Thus you'll still be running at 1080p, so like for like there is going to be 0 difference (other than as I said innate panel quality).

 

Now that panel quality may be a decent difference depending on your old TV, but you're never going to want to run the xbone at 4K the lag will be way too bad so quality improvements are limited in that sense.

[LaP]

On 2016-01-07 at 2:58 PM, MorganX said:

If so, how does the 900-1080p look on the screen? Better, worse, same? I'm considering upgrading my TVs but with little 4k streaming content, I don't want to take a step backwards in visual quality.

Technically speaking 1080p content should look exactly the same on a 1080p TV and 4k TV providing both TV are the same size and quality.

[philcruicks]

11 minutes ago, LaP said:

Technically speaking 1080p content should look exactly the same on a 1080p TV and 4k TV providing both TV are the same size and quality.

No because normal 1080p content on a 4K TV will be upscaled, modern upscaling is pretty good quality wise and you will see a difference, it's only in gaming mode that it all gets switched off.

[+Asmodai MVC]

On 1/25/2016 at 3:31 PM, philcruicks said:

No because normal 1080p content on a 4K TV will be upscaled, modern upscaling is pretty good quality wise and you will see a difference, it's only in gaming mode that it all gets switched off.

Nope.

4k is EXACTLY 1080p in a 2x2 grid.  So when it "upscales" a 4k TV just displays every single pixel of data from a 1080p source with exactly four 4k pixels (again, 2 wide and 2 high).

On the same size panel those 4 pixels on a 4k panel are the same size as a single pixel on a 1080p panel and so with all other things being equal the picture would look EXACTLY the same.  The quality of the upscaler doesn't matter here because it doesn't have to do anything other than repeat each pixel in a 2x2 grid.

 

The quality of the upscaler comes into play when the source data doesn't evenly divide into the number of pixels on the screen.  For example if a 720p or 900p source needs to display on a 1080p screen.  The upscaler has to do some sort of algorithm to make the picture fill the screen that is more complex then just doubling every pixel.  The quality of those algorithms varies greatly.   That being said the Xbox One has it's own upscaler that's quite good and so it's always outputting 1080p to the TV and so the quality of your TVs upscaler shouldn't matter for Xbox One games.

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

Like Asmodai said, it looks great, but it's exactly the same picture as a 1080p TV of the same size beyond any special features your 4K set has.

 

Unfortunately, neither console outputs anything to 4K. You can't stream 4K Amazon or Netflix videos, for instance (also don't forget Netflix requires a special subscription for that), but many (most, I'd bet) 4K TVs have built-in apps for those that will let you.

[+Asmodai MVC]

6 minutes ago, Anthony Tosie said:

Unfortunately, neither console outputs anything to 4K. You can't stream 4K Amazon or Netflix videos, for instance (also don't forget Netflix requires a special subscription for that), but many (most, I'd bet) 4K TVs have built-in apps for those that will let you.

Both consoles claim they are capable of 4k video but I don't believe it's currently implemented in either.

Both consoles only HDMI 1.4 I believe so top out at 4k@30fps and thus 4k@60fps (which requires HDMI 2.0) will not be possible this console generation. (Despite Roku 4 and nVidia Shield Android TV being able to do it now on significantly cheaper devices).

Both consoles lack hardware HEVC decoders.  HEVC is required for 4k content. Both consoles however have more than enough CPU/GPU power to implement a HEVC decoder in software, possibly with some GPU compute shader assist.  This would be much more hot/power hungry/etc. than having the dedicated hardware but is technically possible and really their only option unless they add some sort of hardware add-on.  I believe this is what Netflix, Amazon, etc. are waiting for the console holders to provide to enable 4k in their console apps.

[Jub]

19 hours ago, Asmodai said:

Nope.

4k is EXACTLY 1080p in a 2x2 grid.  So when it "upscales" a 4k TV just displays every single pixel of data from a 1080p source with exactly four 4k pixels (again, 2 wide and 2 high).

You're both right and wrong. While 4K is exactly 1080p in a 2x2 grid, 4K (4096 x 2160 pixels) TV's aren't actually 4K but rather UHDTV (3840 x 2160 pixels).

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

1 hour ago, Asmodai said:

Both consoles claim they are capable of 4k video but I don't believe it's currently implemented in either.

Both consoles only HDMI 1.4 I believe so top out at 4k@30fps and thus 4k@60fps (which requires HDMI 2.0) will not be possible this console generation. (Despite Roku 4 and nVidia Shield Android TV being able to do it now on significantly cheaper devices).

Both consoles lack hardware HEVC decoders.  HEVC is required for 4k content. Both consoles however have more than enough CPU/GPU power to implement a HEVC decoder in software, possibly with some GPU compute shader assist.  This would be much more hot/power hungry/etc. than having the dedicated hardware but is technically possible and really their only option unless they add some sort of hardware add-on.  I believe this is what Netflix, Amazon, etc. are waiting for the console holders to provide to enable 4k in their console apps.

Yeah, sorry, thought I said that but forgot to mention it. Technically they're capable, but I honestly don't know if we'll ever see it implemented. And, yes, it tops out at 30fps. They could also release revised consoles with HDMI 2.0 (like how the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 got thinner), but there wouldn't be much point. Most video content is already less than 30fps, and neither console is powerful enough for 4K gaming at 60fps unless it's a game that's not demanding in almost any way.

[+Asmodai MVC]

31 minutes ago, Anthony Tosie said:

Yeah, sorry, thought I said that but forgot to mention it. Technically they're capable, but I honestly don't know if we'll ever see it implemented. And, yes, it tops out at 30fps. They could also release revised consoles with HDMI 2.0 (like how the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 got thinner), but there wouldn't be much point. Most video content is already less than 30fps, and neither console is powerful enough for 4K gaming at 60fps unless it's a game that's not demanding in almost any way.

No need to apologize, I wasn't trying to correct you.  I was just adding to what you said to provide more information for people reading this thread that might not already know it.

 

Both consoles holders do note that future 4k support is for video only so 4k gaming isn't even being considered.  They can barely hit 1080p/60fps gaming they aren't going to even try 4k gaming this generation.  That said both boxes are still pretty capable streaming boxes and you shouldn't have to buy a Roku in addition to your Xbox One/PS4 in theory so they likely will add 4k@30fps support at some point for Netflix, Amazon, etc.  Again though that will require a HEVC DEcoder which will have to be in software since they lack the hardware. They likely won't even bother with an HEVC ENcoder because it would take so much CPU/GPU to encode on the fly that you won't be able to do it while you're playing a game or anything.

 

What would be interesting is if you could stream games from your PC to the Xbox One using HEVC.  Since the PC is actually running the game and ENcoding the HEVC the Xbox One would be able to just use it CPU/GPU to DEcode the HEVC audio/video stream and relay the gamepad commands.  In theory then, with a beefy enough PC, the Xbox One could allow you to play 4k@30fps games (you're still limited to 30fps no matter how powerful the PC because of the HDMI 1.4 port limitation).