What is 4K? Your one-stop guide to 4K Ultra HD
Amy Flower
STACK Senior Editor
TV technology moves so fast that it really can be hard to keep up. The biggest thing now is 4K Ultra HD, but what exactly does it mean?
Simply put, it means a picture that’s more incredibly detailed than you’ll have ever seen before, as there are many more dots – or ‘pixels’ – used to make up the image. Whereas the jump from DVD to Blu-ray saw a picture that was around six times higher resolution, the jump from Blu-ray to 4K Ultra HD sees another fourfold improvement, to a resolution of 3840 x 2160, known as 2160p. Now you can see how hairy your favourite actors are like never before!
It’s easy to bandy numbers about, but even easier to show the differences in resolutions of DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD visually, with the image below. It would take approximately 24 pictures of DVD resolution to fill a 4K screen or four of Blu-ray quality – the more dots, the better the picture that can be achieved when content is made specifically for the format.
While most 4K Ultra HD TVs and players are able to upscale DVD and Blu-ray pictures to make them look better, the result uses calculated guesswork to resize the picture, so while it is usually quite an improvement, detail is always lost compared to native 4K content.
The other huge leap with 4K Ultra HD is the addition of HDR – or ‘High Dynamic Range’. There are three main types in Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HDR10+, supported variously by different TV manufacturers, but what applies to them all is that we get whiter whites and blacker blacks, offering much more lifelike images than we’ve previously been accustomed to.
Some say that it’s an even more impressive leap than 4K Ultra HD vision itself, and when you combine the two, the effect can be truly jaw-dropping. Just look at the twinkles in those eyes and try not to be impressed!
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While vision has taken a massive step forward with 4K Ultra HD, the audio boffins haven’t been caught napping. The latest cinema audio formats are Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, both of which use different methods to create 3D sound – so everything that you hear can be precisely placed and moved around in three-dimensional space. It’s rather like being in a cool bubble of sound.
Most 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays feature either one of these audio formats, even newly created for many classic movies, and with a suitable speaker setup in place, the results they achieve really elevate the home cinema experience to new, previously only dreamed about levels.
If you’re a movie lover, you want the absolute best in home entertainment quality available. Or even if you just want to keep up with the latest tech, then 4K Ultra HD is a must-have.
The best thing is that you can enter its world without dropping too much folding stuff – or you can go nuts and immerse yourself in the latest in sound technology to go with your super new TV and get your very own cinema-like experience happening. No matter which way you go, though, you’re in for a visual treat.
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