The Biggest Picture
IT’S ALL TOO easy to get sold into the 4K dream. The latest 4K TVs on display at electronics shops play content that’s deliberately filmed to maximise the detail and colour, and yet when you go home and try to replicate it, you realise that free-to-air TV – which maxes out at 720p on the HD channels – offers nowhere near the same experience.
Alas, all is not lost. To make the most of your new television, you just need to get your hands on 4K content, and there’s plenty of that if you know where to look. Whether it’s streaming 4K movies over the Internet, loading up 4K Blu-ray discs, or playing 4K videos you’ve created or acquired, there’s a tonne of options that’ll justify the new investment in your living room.
To watch movies and TV shows in 4K, everything in your home entertainment setup needs to support it: your TV, your media player (unnecessary if you’re streaming from your TV’s built-in apps), the content, and even the HDMI cable (again, a moot point if you’re streaming through your TV’s built-in apps). If one of the required elements doesn’t support 4K, then video quality will downscale to the highest standard that element supports – which is likely to be 1080p.
Content is most likely going to be your weakest link. Platforms like
