I don't think you need a brain surgeon to tell you that 1080 into 4k doesn't work without some kind of visual compromise.

Flappo wrote:

I don't think you need a brain surgeon to tell you that 1080 into 4k doesn't work without some kind of visual compromise.

You just replace each pixel with a group of four identical pixels - done. Completely transparent. Of course, in practice upscalers will do better than that.

If that's the case why so many issues with 4k ?

Its a resolution too far. Completely OTT.

Even apples mac book pro retinas don't go that far , nobody in the real world does.

Paul W wrote:

100Hz for the Avant is the lowest spec 4K on the market. Everyone is doing 600, 1000 with Panasonic doing 2000Hz. Was offering 100Hz is HUGE cost saving for B&O whilst allowing them to make a huge profit? The minute I checked the specs, it just didn't sound right to me!

It is often just marketing talk. My old led had 800 hz (which was just marketing bullshit). The Panasonic for example has a scanning backlight that flashes quickly to make it look like it updates quicker than the panel actually does. So the panel is not 2000 hz, the leds are. And a dimmed led is always flashing by the way. 

If it's any consolation, I just saw the Samsung S9 (4K 84-inch, CHF 40K) and I was not impressed with upscaling at all (I have the feeling that the panel is the same on the upcoming B&O). Signal is coming from digital cable.

Even watching from a distance does not hide artifacts (especially the logo watermark).

This the kind of problems all TV sets have been suffering from whenever a new technology was introduced. The only difference is that now B&O jumps on the bandwagon earlier than before, exposing themselves to the kind of critique we are discussing.. I would imagine that they pondered extensively the issue..

link 

Flappo wrote:

If that's the case why so many issues with 4k ?

Its a resolution too far. Completely OTT.

Even apples mac book pro retinas don't go that far , nobody in the real world does.

I already told you that MacBook Pro retina has a way higher pixel density than a 4K 55" screen. So yes, a lot of things do have higher resolution. iPhone, iPads etc even higher. 

Don't be so annoyed by the screen resolution. It has many advantages. One is the possibility to actually have a computer connected to the TV and use it properly in a retina mode!

The problems with the halo effects etc is not about the panel but software. The software is even running in full hd today so it is not a 4k issue. It might be more obvious since it shows the faults that is not otherwise that easy to spot.

If you have good speakers - then MP3 sound bad because you can hear the loss of detail. It is the same with a good screen.  

Michael wrote:

If you have good speakers - then MP3 sound bad because you can hear the loss of detail. It is the same with a good screen.  

I don't think that analogy applies exactly. It's more like if you had a CD player that played standard Redbook 44.1/16 and sounded great, then you put your CD in a player that upconverted it to 96/24, and it sounded odd with all sorts of artifacts. Would you accept the 2nd player as your prime source of music? With these 4k TVs and their upconversion algorithms, that's more what you have, you can't go back to the old resolution. And it's a lot easier to live with two CD players, one for standard, one for a HD CD, than it is to live with two large televisions.

Interesting reading about 4K and picture quality...

4K vs. 1080p from a distance of 9 feet, a public "blind" survey:
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/4k-1080p-201311153442.htm

The results:
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/4k-resolution-201312153517.htm

I agree with the results: a proper 4K video looks better from the rather usual 9-feet viewing distance even on a small(ish) 55" TV.

HDTVtest also has quite recent in-depth reviews of Sony's and Samsung's latest UHD offerings (I would expect Avant to be on par with both):

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/kd55x9005b-201405123771.htm

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/ue55hu8200-201406123803.htm

Universal points that I took from these tests: 

High-quality 1080p content can look better on a 4K display than on a Full HD display. This depends of course on how good the picture processing and panel are.

However, compressed broadcast video (720p, 1080i/p) can have more pronounced compression artifacts on a 4K display than on a Full HD display, due to the higher pixel count (sharper display) and because the artifacts themselves are upscaled & enhanced. It can be reasoned that this can result in artifacts in the compression artifacts! 

This goes to say that 4K is a very "unforgiving" display. 

There were similar "poor picture quality" comments about the BV11 on this forum when the TV was launched. BV11 with "only" a FHD resolution was considered unforgiving with a SD / poor HD signal, which could look horrible. 

Whereas a FHD display such as BV11 brings out and magnifies the errors & low quality of SD, it makes sense that a UHD display such as Avant brings out errors & quality issues even from HD signals – especially compressed HD signals (and basically all broadcast HD content is compressed). So anything unwanted you see on HD broadcasts often originates from the source and is not a fault of the TV, but it can be pronounced by a 4K panel.

In the reviews there were mentions of the occasional motion quirks, so they are not unique to Avant. Processing power / good software is essential in getting a good picture out of 4K displays. There are a lot of pixels to drive.

In my opinion, the picture quality of BV11 has improved with software updates over the past year and a half. The picture processing software on Avant will surely improve with updates as well, which is good news for people who are not satisfied with Avant's performance out of the box.

I highly recommend eliminating excess picture processing by turning down Sharpness, Noise reduction and Contrast enhancement on the Avant, and most importantly switching Judder cancel off. These "picture enhancements" often produce a picture that is over-processed, which results in a detoriated (as opposed to enhanced) picture.

EDIT: If you have a normal Blu-ray player (that is to say not for example OPPO's top-of-the-line models) or you are using a set-top-box for TV broadcasts, it's often best to have all picture enhancement settings disabled in the player or set-top-box. Otherwise you are watching a picture that has been enhanced first by the player / set-top-box and then again by the Beovision, which very likely results in "enhancements of enhancements" and equals a picture that is anything but natural. Feeding unprocessed picture is usually the best option, so only the Beovision will do the necessary processing. For example a raw, pass-through 1080p video from my Sony blu-ray player looks best on BV 11. If I select any picture mode from the player's setup that adds processing to the picture on the player, it looks worse – not better – on the BV.

It would be great to have a review of HDTVtest caliber and scrutiny about the Avant: its panel & processing power, so hopefully B&O sends out test units to various professional testers.

And finally, the ever-important conclusion on new tech on TVs:
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/tv-buyer-201406233824.htm

While I applaud Richer Sounds intentions, I'm afraid there were far too many variables to attribute the better picture to pixel count. I don't doubt it was universally selected as better, just that the pixel density was the overwhelming contributory factor.

KMA wrote:

This goes to say that 4K is a very "unforgiving" display. 

I think this is the key item from your excellent post.

And the fact that the major providers of digital content (Apple and Netflix for example) compress heavily the video because of bandwidth reasons means that we are going to have to wait for a while to fully appreciate 4K. Just to give you an idea, The Dark Knight Rises blu-ray has a video bitrate of ~28 Mbps. The average 1080p iTunes video file is ~4 Mbps.