XBox 4S with 1080P TV

[Pacfanweb]

Our XBone has gotten to where it won't play an entire Blu Ray without freezing or skipping.
Already sent it in under warranty a year or so ago and they replaced it, now has same issue.

Thinking about moving it to another room and getting a 4S.

Now, I know the 4S can play 4K Blu Rays, but doesn't do HDR....which I don't care about since I have a 1080P Panny VT60 Plasma anyway.

However, let's say I buy the 4S, then buy a 4K movie disc. Is is going to suck? Look slightly better? Same?

 

[purbeast0]

My recommendation is to buy a standalone player instead of using a console for blurays. It's just a better experience overall and doesn't require stupid "apps" on the console to be ran/updated to play stuff.

And this is coming from someone with a (broken) standalone, a PS4, and an Xbox One.

My bluray player died a while ago and I still have yet to get a new one and am using PS4 right now to hold me over, which still sucks compared to a standalone, but is a lot better of a player than the Xbox One is.

EDIT:

But don't buy a Sony player. I've had 2 of them die on me in the past 3 years. I can't recommend them.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Each individual will have their own unique experiences, pur. I still have a first generation Sony entry-level player that I just used on Saturday to watch two movies with the wife.

I do, however, agree with buying a standalone player. About 4-5 years ago I bought Best Buy house brand off of eBay as refurbished units because I could roll back the firmware and have region free playback (I've got BD's from Japan, UK, France, Germany and Italy). I paid something like $60 delivered/each, but I got three of them. I imagine the cheapest BD player out there will get the job done these days.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Points taken and appreciated, but they don't address the question.

Let's assume I already am going to buy a 4S....or any other 4k player. And then I get some 4k movies and hook the player to my 1080P Plasma.

How's it going to look? Better? Worse? Same?

 

[WhiteNoise]

The xbox one S will have to scale down the 4k movie to 1080p. I think only you can determine if it looks as good, better or worse.

For the record both the xbox One and PS4 have shitty bluray playback. Just buy a standalone player and be done. They are so much cheaper than a console anyway and the video quality is so much better.

Unlike purebeast0 I have had and continue to have only great things to say about Sony bluray players. I currently own two of them and my older Sony is ...old. Like one of the first br players and it still looks better than anything from the xbox one and ps4 outputs. I think they skimped on the players in these consoles.


I'm sorry I can't give you a better answer to your question but to be fair you need to judge something like this for yourself. I say the Xbox has a shitty bluray player. That other guy (generally speaking) thinks its the best...see my point?

 

[giantpandaman2]

The xbox one S will have to scale down the 4k movie to 1080p. I think only you can determine if it looks as good, better or worse.

For the record both the xbox One and PS4 have shitty bluray playback. Just buy a standalone player and be done. They are so much cheaper than a console anyway and the video quality is so much better.

Unlike purebeast0 I have had and continue to have only great things to say about Sony bluray players. I currently own two of them and my older Sony is ...old. Like one of the first br players and it still looks better than anything from the xbox one and ps4 outputs. I think they skimped on the players in these consoles.


I'm sorry I can't give you a better answer to your question but to be fair you need to judge something like this for yourself. I say the Xbox has a shitty bluray player. That other guy (generally speaking) thinks its the best...see my point?

Eh? All Blu-Ray players just unpack the video and send the digital bits over to the TV via HDMI. There is NO difference in video quality if no upscaling/downscaling is done on the player. (Most of the time it's done on the TV.)
Xbox One S does both HDR and soon will do Atmos bitstreaming. For about the same money as the 4k native BR player from Samsung.

The interface is probably the only thing where the actual BD player has an advantage. On everything else...you're quite wrong.

 

[WhiteNoise]

Eh? All Blu-Ray players just unpack the video and send the digital bits over to the TV via HDMI. There is NO difference in video quality if no upscaling/downscaling is done on the player. (Most of the time it's done on the TV.)
Xbox One S does both HDR and soon will do Atmos bitstreaming. For about the same money as the 4k native BR player from Samsung.

The interface is probably the only thing where the actual BD player has an advantage. On everything else...you're quite wrong.

You are wrong about the picture quality. There is a difference. I wouldn't use bluray players if my xbox one and ps4 didn't offer up a worse picture. A player can do a better job than another player. I have a external br player for my PC and it's PQ is even worse than the one and ps4. Xbox one and ps4 gets the job done but hook up a quality stand alone br player and the PQ difference is very noticeable.

 

[RearAdmiral]

You are wrong about the picture quality. There is a difference. I wouldn't use bluray players if my xbox one and ps4 didn't offer up a worse picture. A player can do a better job than another player. I have a external br player for my PC and it's PQ is even worse than the one and ps4. Xbox one and ps4 gets the job done but hook up a quality stand alone br player and the PQ difference is very noticeable.

I'd love to see some proof on this. I can't find much in a few minutes of research.

 

[mdram]

something to think about
a 4k bluray used hdcp2.2
if its still passing that when its scaled down, you will have issues

 

[Kartajan]

Eh? All Blu-Ray players just unpack the video and send the digital bits over to the TV via HDMI. There is NO difference in video quality if no upscaling/downscaling is done on the player. (Most of the time it's done on the TV.)
Xbox One S does both HDR and soon will do Atmos bitstreaming. For about the same money as the 4k native BR player from Samsung.

The interface is probably the only thing where the actual BD player has an advantage. On everything else...you're quite wrong.

ALL Players decode audio and video. Most have no distinguishable differences in video quality when played in native resolution. The biggest differences are in up/ down scaling- both with video and audio- which is why the more native your output devices can be the better your quality tends to be. This is why the audio enthusiasts get so annoyed when device X won't do pass-through of audio, SD Video looks like crap on most 4k displays, and 4K looks off when device Y has to downscale it to 1080p resolution.

With that said, given a 1080p display with 4k content and players, you are not likely to see the difference between 4k and 1080p content. I consider 4k capability "a waste" in this context until a 4k/HDR display becomes available to you, just as an HD Lossless surround soundtrack is a waste if you only have stereo output.

 

[WhiteNoise]

I'd love to see some proof on this. I can't find much in a few minutes of research.

All the proof I need is with my eyes. When I went from my ps3 br (which was very good) to the ps4 and xboxone I noticed a difference immediately. I then grabbed my br player from my living room and again noticed a better looking picture. That is all the proof I needed.

You can ask for proof. I don't think I need to prove anything. I can see the difference and if I can see it then I can have an opinion on it. No one has to agree with me but I have seen many others that do agree.

That said I will leave off here as I don't want to argue with anyone. I see what I see.

 

[RearAdmiral]

All the proof I need is with my eyes. When I went from my ps3 br (which was very good) to the ps4 and xboxone I noticed a difference immediately. I then grabbed my br player from my living room and again noticed a better looking picture. That is all the proof I needed.

You can ask for proof. I don't think I need to prove anything. I can see the difference and if I can see it then I can have an opinion on it. No one has to agree with me but I have seen many others that do agree.

That said I will leave off here as I don't want to argue with anyone. I see what I see.

Jeez man, I just want to read something about it. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing. I just wanna see. Do you have any scenes in mind so that I can test if I buy a ps4? I currently use a ps3 as my player.

 

[giantpandaman2]

However, let's say I buy the 4S, then buy a 4K movie disc. Is is going to suck? Look slightly better? Same?

You do realize that almost all 4k movies come with a 1080p disc too, right? (I'd say all, actually, but there's bound to be an exception somewhere that I haven't seen.) It's up to you whether you want to plop down the extra $5 to get the 4k version in addition to the HD version.

 

[WhiteNoise]

There is plenty info online about PQ with bluray players. The bottom line is they all provide a superior picture a base line as soundandvision puts it.

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/do-all-blu-ray-players-perform-same#go6cEi1uEsxY1Uj1.97

I think this sums it up nicely for me. I found that within 5 seconds of searching and I'm sure I can find plenty more. All I know is I can see a difference. Some sort of bluray voodoo magic? beats me but my movies look better, less noisy is actually a good way to put it.

You should keep in mind also that my testing is done on a 1080P projector throwing on to a 120" screen. That is where I discovered the xbox one and ps4 did not match the video quality I was used to.

 

[RearAdmiral]

There is plenty info online about PQ with bluray players. The bottom line is they all provide a superior picture a base line as soundandvision puts it.

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/do-all-blu-ray-players-perform-same#go6cEi1uEsxY1Uj1.97

I think this sums it up nicely for me. I found that within 5 seconds of searching and I'm sure I can find plenty more. All I know is I can see a difference. Some sort of bluray voodoo magic? beats me but my movies look better, less noisy is actually a good way to put it.

You should keep in mind also that my testing is done on a 1080P projector throwing on to a 120" screen. That is where I discovered the xbox one and ps4 did not match the video quality I was used to.

Thanks for the link. That specific one wasn't super informative but I'm going to dig into their referenced reviews. Now that you mentioned noise, do the NR settings on the PS3 apply to BD?

 

[WhiteNoise]

Yeah that wasn't very informative but got my gist across a little. Reading through the chat helps too. Also I'm sure there are people in both camps that will argue this all day long. I never even thought of it until I played a bluray movie on my xbox one. I remember sitting there thinking...wtf is wrong? I've watched this movie many times and it doesn't look as good as I'm used to. I actually thought something was wrong with my projector. That is when for giggles I pulled my old Sony br player out of my living room and hooked it up in the theater. I immediately noticed an improvement over the xboxOne. I then tossed the PS4 into the theater and again it had very similar pq as the xbox one. So I bought a newer Sony br player for the theater. I would say pq is the same between both my sony standalone players. I would even say they are no better than my old ps3 player.

I have since played br movies through both the ps4 and xbox one hooked up to a 40" Sony LCD and again I was disappointed but not on the same scale as I was with my projector.

I'm not sure about the question you have on the PS3. The bottom line is I have not really dug into all of this. I just noticed it in my experience and once I discovered how to get the pq back I just stuck with the standalone players. For me the xbox one and ps4 handle a single task I ask of them which is to play games. I do not use the multimedia part of these consoles. I started off trying to but in the end I wasn't happy so I went to a standalone.I had used the PS3 as a br player for years and I was very happy with it.

 

[giantpandaman2]

Sound and Vision makes their bread and butter on high end players. As such, they have a reason to "push" higher end gear.

Let's go through what they said, though.

Deinterlacing and DVD content - Unneeded on new Blu Rays. I can't remember the last time I bought interlaced content. Are we back in the 90s????
Upconversion - talked about already.
"Enhancement" - again, not done on a typical 1080p disc->1080p tv. Even within the reviews that are actually seen, this is clear. Those that can do this are $600+. Even then, most people wouldn't notice the difference on a modern transfer.

Sound and Vision's actual tests are simply pass fail. Compared to back when DVD players had to do digital-->analog conversion the tests are actually ridiculously few. Even among those that they do, half are for converting the signal to different formats/resolution. Almost any modern player will pass. It's not that difficult.

 

[WhiteNoise]

I suppose I'm one of the few that can notice a difference. Shame on me. I almost feel like you all think I'm making this up. Funny that.

 

[Kartajan]

I suppose I'm one of the few that can notice a difference. Shame on me. I almost feel like you all think I'm making this up. Funny that.

I have no doubt that you see differences, but the question is the source of said differences.

After scaling is considered, image processing also has an effect on perceived quality (decoder, de- interlace, motion compensation, and the like), but this is very subjective. Some see minimal to no differences where others call it "night and day".

As far as the OP's question he should see no difference between HD and 4k with a display limited to <<HD without HDR>> on a given player.

 

[RearAdmiral]

I suppose I'm one of the few that can notice a difference. Shame on me. I almost feel like you all think I'm making this up. Funny that.

No, I'm just looking for more information. There are noise reduction settings on the PS3 and I'm curious if they have an effect on BD. It sounds like you prefer less noise so that made me think of the noise settings.

 

[darkswordsman17]

OP, the simple answer is, I wouldn't think so. Without the proper HDMI version it likely won't send a 4K signal over anyway, so it'll either downscale it which shouldn't make things look worse but likely won't make them really look much if any better either, or it'll just output the 1080p version if its on there or say it needs the 1080p disc if there is one. I don't have one so I can't say for sure what will happen, and it might depend on the specific transfer as well.

I suppose I'm one of the few that can notice a difference. Shame on me. I almost feel like you all think I'm making this up. Funny that.

There are possible explanations for your experience. Are you using those consoles with a "game" setting to reduce input lag by any chance? That generally will disable processing done by the TV and thus is a simple explanation on why you could easily see a difference. On some TVs even using different HDMI ports can present issues (some default to certain settings, often there's one that defaults to "PC"). Add in another device (A/V receiver) and that adds to the possible things that could be causing different , hence why you saying that you can see a difference doesn't mean much without accounting for the possible things that could be processing the output. Now you can argue that a standalone player having options like those and preferring those outputs, but that's a very different thing than saying one is outputting a higher quality signal.

That's why without real analysis and controlling for other factors (or even just taking them into account) is necessary to have a real discussion on this. You feeling like that is your own fault because of the attitude you're taking about this, as you're taking it as people attacking you while you simply dismiss them pointing out the flaws in what little you've used to support your claim because they want objective evidence and not just "your eyes" as that is not reliably objective (in case you need to be reminded of how our visual system is hardly objective, remember the controversy over the colors of that dress last year?).

 

[WhiteNoise]

Well the only deciding factor for me was literally swapping out the one, the ps4 and a standalone player. Thats it.

I do have a pretty good HT system which includes DarbeeVision. But this was always there.

 

[purbeast0]

I watched my first 3D movie last night (Finding Dory) using the PS4 as the bluray player, and the 3D was noticeably better than it was on both of my Sony standalone bluray players that shit the bed. It just had much less ghosting than previous movies I've watched. I found that interesting.

 

[cmdrdredd]

3D is something that each player will do differently and in some cases there are user adjustments that can be made to the 3D effect. The pop-out and such can be adjusted. The base settings for each player are not the same so one can look better or worse than another. I don't do a lot of 3D though.

Many stand alone players have image settings and the standard mode for a Samsung player may be different in color tone and sharpness to using standard on a Panasonic player. The output is not always untouched. You can usually find a setting that is close to untouched with no processing of the picture. Some devices call this standard they may also have a vivid or dynamic mode etc. Some players require you to set it for user mode and set all the values to 0.

 

[poofyhairguy]

There is plenty info online about PQ with bluray players. The bottom line is they all provide a superior picture a base line as soundandvision puts it.

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/do-all-blu-ray-players-perform-same#go6cEi1uEsxY1Uj1.97

I think this sums it up nicely for me. I found that within 5 seconds of searching and I'm sure I can find plenty more. All I know is I can see a difference. Some sort of bluray voodoo magic? beats me but my movies look better, less noisy is actually a good way to put it.

That link doesn't say what you think it does. It says picture quality between Blu Ray players is the same for the most part, with the exceptions being interlaced content (which is rare) or if you pay hundreds of dollars for an Oppo player (which isn't anything like your average players at Best Buy). There isn't anything that says a dedicated Blu Ray player does better than a console, in fact it basically says the differences between Blu Ray players doesn't matter for the most part and it didn't exclude consoles from that statement.

As to why your Blu Ray player looks better it could be a number of things- improper settings on the console (Blu Ray players often do 24p automatically which would look less noisy), the fact that many TVs run consoles in a game mode (with no post-processing for lag purposes) but do extra post-processing if it knows it's taking to a Blu Ray player, or even the use of AV receiver upscaler if it's a higher end model and it's setup in a certain way. Unless you paid big bucks to buy an Oppo your Blu Ray player isn't magic and most aren't.

At the end of the day there really isn't any magic one way or another, just various levels of post-processing. If all someone is chasing is the best post-processed image my HTPC with a $200 GPU blows even the Oppos out of the water. Sometimes convenience wins.