4K TV and which or just a HDTV?

[meerkat11]

I am stuck on which 55" TV to buy. I have spent countless hours reading reviews and comments and, while I have limited my choices, am hopelessly deadlocked on which direction to go.

First off......should I buy a 4k or go with just a HDTV?

General concerns/information:
- The room this TV goes in is usually dark
- Don't own a BluRay player and get movies through Netfilx (on my computer currently)
- Don't use my TV for gaming or watching sports and don't care about 3D
- I sit normally 7' away so I am at the threshold for seeing 4k with a 55" TV.

If I bought a 4k TV my choice is between:

- Samsung UN55HU8550
- Sony XBR-55850B

I know current content is low atm but my main concerns with 4k are:

- Will normal network/cable TV upscale fine or will it look horrible?
- Is 4k worth the price if my main use is network/cable/Netflix or is this just overkill? (even a few years out)
- 4k TVs have better performance/components but again, worth the price?

Pros/Cons:

- Sony 850B generally suffers from uniformity and some edgelight bleed (which is fine for normally lit rooms but not good for dark rooms)
- Sony has better color but not the best blacks.

- Samsung 8550 has excellent blacks but not the best color.
- Better for darker rooms.
- Samsung also has better features and is generally more user friendly.


OR should I save 600 bucks and just buy a HTDV now and then a 4k down the line?

If I did so my choices would be between:

- Samsung UN55H7150
- Sony KDLW 800B (or 700)


And last......- When should I buy? Should I buy now or wait a couple months for the superbowl sales and 2014 model clearances?


thanks for any all help!

 

[-Lone-]

4k TVs certainly does help with better quality with the upscaling, but if you're only going to use it to watch movies and stuff, I'm not sure if it will be worth it. Maybe get a FHD plasma TV. To stream Netflix's 4k contents, you'll need at least 25 mbps of internet connection I think.

 

[-Lone-]

If you use like a blue-ray player to play movies, the actual disc itself instead of streaming, then it might be worth it. I watched Transformers: Age of Extinction on my TV and it definitely looks better than the trailers I saw before seeing it. Plus 4k displays have more colors than a normal FHD display, 4k has 1.07 billion colors while FHD only has 16.7 million, so that's definitely a good thing.

 

[americanaudiophile]

Noneof the 4k TVs currently made actually support the wider color gamut that is in the specifications of UHD so that improvement, which is more important than the extra pixels, will have to wait until they do (not an upgradable thing to my knowledge). The TV would also have to support HDCP 2.0 which will be implemented for 4K sources (also a hardware upgrade). The larger number of pixels makes the upscaling and other video processing much more expensive so an affordable UHD-TV will probably make compromises in this area.
Given your situation I would suggest trying to snag one of the last Samsung 8500 series plasma TVs. Still the best picture quality. Waiting for UHD to develop a bit makes sense.
Get a 1080p and enjoy until 4k OLED comes down in price.

 

[-Lone-]

Oh really, so you're saying I'm blind when I saw it myself of the color changes from a 1080p display to a UHD display?