4K TVs are the talk of the town in the technological world. What is 4K? How does it work? What is all the hype about? This article will answer all such questions in detail. The 4K revolution is not just limited to TVs, it is taking over smart phones, camera, computer screens, tablets, and cinema; basically everything that has a display screen.

Let’s start with an explanation of what is a 4K TV resolution. 4K literally mean four times the picture quality and detail than any normal 1080p HD TV. That means instead of two million pixels it uses eight million pixels. In terms of picture clarity, this means the ultimate viewing experience that we have seen ever before with immaculate detail and excellent smoothness.

4K viewing is just like watching something in real-time. As for now all the 4K UHD TVs are available in screen sizes of 50-inches or more. This is due to the reason that a pixel density such as of this technology allows the viewer to watch anything on a huge screen without any pixelating effects. Pixelating is when small the picture breaks into small square boxes. Additionally, this means you can watch anything on a bigger screen from the same viewing position. Although the technology is great, there is one flaw; it is not backward compatible. This means you will have to replace all external devices such as your TV box with 4K compatible ones.

When talking about the 4K technology, we must shed some light on the content availability and signals. After the introduction of 4K in the market, it has taken the place of 1080p Full HD resolution and now there are 4 standards being used for home TV signal: UHD (Ultra High Definition) – 2160p, Full HD (Full High Definition) – 1080p, HD (High Definition) – 720p, and SD (Standard Definition) – 480p/540p. Before gaining popularity as 4K, this technology was named Quad HD mainly due to the fact that it uses a screen resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels, this makes two 1080p Full HD screens in width and height.

It’s not just about TV screens; it is about any display screen that you know of. Apart from the highly attractive 4x pixels, there are many other things that have changed with this new technology and these changes might not be very prominent or noticeable to a normal user. Everything has its advantages and disadvantages, so does 4K technology. One of the biggest changes that this revolution in the display screen market has brought about is that now all types of content will be delivered to your devices via IP. Why is this an advantage? Content streaming via IP enables the content to be available on not just a TV screen but any device that can connect to the IP and has a display screen. It is obvious that this change will not be very visible until our devices adapt to it and adapting means replacing our old devices with new 4K compatible ones. To be able to view this content on your device, it must have a 4K display and built-in decoders such as VP9 and HEVC. We should not get into the details of these decoders for now.

What is the guarantee that this technology will remain in the market for long? Quite honestly, there are no guarantees in the technological world; there might be something next month or there might be nothing new for the next couple of years. Expert analysis says that the 4K technology will lead this market for quite some time and it is the future of display screens. Almost all minor and major manufacturers have adapted the technology and have committed to introducing more and more 4K displays in this year. These new arrivals range from ultra-huge 105-inch curved screens from market giants (Samsung and LG) to entry-level 50-inch screens.

If you are looking for an upgrade to your TV, you should definitely go for a 4K screen, although you might not be able to enjoy the 4K perks as soon as you buy the TV because currently there is less 4K content available. Will 4K improve your movies? This depends on the originally recorded resolution of that movie. As we explained earlier that this technology is not just limited to displays, the final output resolution depends on the camera that was used for shooting the film. A movie that was originally recorded using a 4K camera will obviously seem extra ordinarily better than the one recorded on Standard Resolution.

The final word: Be it HD, Full HD, Ultra HD or Super HD, these manufacturers will never run out of fresh marketing tactics and tools to grab the customer’s attention. The question is always does it cater your requirement and does it fit your budget? If you can answer this, you can make an informed decision.