42 LISTENER JUNE 1 2019
THIS LIFE
by Peter Griffin
TECHNOLOGY
I
t seemed as good a way as any to
show off a state-of-the-art TV –
an episode of Game of Thrones. I
invited my friends around, turned
out the lights and we settled down
in front of the 75-inch Samsung
“8K” QLED display to watch the
Night King’s army descend on Castle
Winterfell in GoT episode 3, The Long
Night.
But it was soon apparent something
was wrong. We could barely see any-
thing. The night-time scenery was so
dark we couldn’t make out the char-
acters’ faces. Once Daenerys’ dragons
arrived and the air filled with the
smoke of battle, the picture looked
truly awful. What should have been
perfectly crisp blacks and delicate
shades of colour turned to a blotchy,
pixelated mess. It was like watching a
pirated 1990s-vintage VHS tape.
No amount of fiddling with the
TV’s settings made a difference.
Having talked up this super new TV,
I sheepishly switched to YouTube to
show my guests some stunning drone
footage of Maui, shot in ultra-high-
definition (4K).
This wasn’t Samsung’s fault. It
turned out to be a perfect storm of
a cinematographer’s effort to pursue
a natural night-time look and a
highly compressed HD video stream
delivered by Sky TV. The Samsung’s
Quantum 8K processor is meant to
upscale high-definition video to near
8K quality, using artificial intelligence
to add millions of pixels to every
frame for a more detailed picture. Butit wasn’t able to cope with The Long Night.
And that’s the only caveat with Samsung’s ambi-
tious new top-end TV. Hardly any true 8K content
is available, so it will be years before anyone gets
the full benefit of the stunning screen. The few
made-for-8K clips I have viewed were incredible.
The colour accuracy, and detail and sharpness of
the image, even within a metre of the screen, is
remarkable.
The same holds for 4K content, of which there is
a growing selection on video-streaming platforms
Netflix and Amazon Prime, as well as on YouTube.
The bottom line is that upscaling works better
when the TV has less guesswork to do, so going
from 4K to 8K is best.
The TV can enhance the plain old HD image
most of us are currently watching, but the results
are variable. Sky’s sports channels benefit from
smoothing of the edges on high-motion shots. But
it is hard to know if the Rugby World Cup will look
substantially better on an 8K TV than a 4K or even
HD screen.S
till, Samsung’s 8K line-up undoubtedly
represents the best screen quality the company
has produced, thanks to an improved
processor, support for high dynamic range and
a better viewing angle. Design-wise, it is plain if
chunky, with black trim and a recessed mount
for flush wall fixing. The brains of the TV are in
a separate unit, which connects to the screen viaa thin cable. The intuitive and
responsive user interface is the
same as Samsung’s 4K line.
Samsung has always boasted a
generous range of apps and the new
models get Apple’s iTunes video
content in addition to Netflix and
Lightbox.The 8K TV also comes with
“ambient” mode, which allows you
to display an artwork or the texture
of the wall behind the screen when
you’re not watching a programme.
The TVs are expensive, and the
4K QLED line-up will suffice for
most, but as a statement of where
viewing is heading, they paint an
impressive picture. l
65-inch, 75-inch and 82-inch models
cost $11,000, $16,000 and $20,000
respectively.Visit tinyurl.com/NZL8kexplainer
for an explanation of 8K and TV
upscaling.Reality-plus
Samsung’s latest
TVs are so advanced
content providers
haven’t been able
to keep up.
The new TV’s only
caveat is that it will be
years before anyonegets the full benefit of
the stunning screen.See the ambience: QLED TVs can display a “wallpaper”
image of your choice.