topic Re: SKY UHD 4K in Sky Q

SKY UHD 4K

jjjkiuj — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 08:29:36 GMT

Had my new 2tb box installed yesterday with the UHD upgrade. Very disappointed with the difference between HD and UHD. I have looked at an Attenborough documentary, films and Sky Sports Main Event and can hardly tell the difference between HD and UHD. I have a Samsung 48" tv that cost me around £1000. Is this normal?

Re: SKY UHD 4K

stereohaven — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 08:42:49 GMT

@jjjkiuj wrote:
Had my new 2tb box installed yesterday with the UHD upgrade. Very disappointed with the difference between HD and UHD. I have looked at an Attenborough documentary, films and Sky Sports Main Event and can hardly tell the difference between HD and UHD. I have a Samsung 48" tv that cost me around £1000. Is this normal?

It depends.

Number of factors including:

The state of your eyesight
If you have correctly enabled UHD HDR in your TV (you sometimes have to go into settings to enable "deep colour" or similar
If the TV is bright enough (nits) to show a decent 4K picture (price paid does not guarantee this)
If the TV has a 10 bit panel, then HLG HDR content can be quite dark on many TVs without decent brightness
If the TV is only 8 bit, then you won't get HDR and the difference between HD and UHD is narrowed for many
Some content is just HD upscaled to UHD anyway
Picture quality, whatever the format, is subjective

Re: SKY UHD 4K

PandJ2020 — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 08:50:47 GMT

Are your display settings set to 2160P?

Re: SKY UHD 4K

jjjkiuj — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 08:53:12 GMT

Yes they are on the sky box. the engineer made sure this before he left.

Re: SKY UHD 4K

nigea99 — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 08:54:09 GMT

@jjjkiuj wrote:

Had my new 2tb box installed yesterday with the UHD upgrade. Very disappointed with the difference between HD and UHD. I have looked at an Attenborough documentary, films and Sky Sports Main Event and can hardly tell the difference between HD and UHD. I have a Samsung 48" tv that cost me around £1000. Is this normal?

hi @jjjkiuj

As @stereohaven says UHD 8 bit is often very similar to HD, there is a slight increase in definition

The big difference is when using HDR, so make sure that the box is set to 10 bit & make sure your TV is set to accept this.

I think more modern TVs may allow this by default but most did not & still may not so check the settings for the HDMI - I can;t remember the specific setting for Samsung but look for settings such as Deep Color, enhanced, Signal Plus (AI suggested this for Samsung)

Also check that the box you received is capable of HDR :

Home - Settings - System Info - Hardware Version

(If it is 32Cxxx then you have an older 1TB non-UHD Box - should not be relevant after an upgrade)
If it is 32B0xxx then you have a (V1) UHD but non HDR 2TB Box
If it is 32B1xxx then you have a (V2) UHD HDR 2TB Box (which has a separate Power supply)
If it is 32B2xxx then you have a (V3) UHD HDR 1TB or 2TB Box

Re: SKY UHD 4K

jjjkiuj — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 08:57:18 GMT

When the Euros were on last time, I watched the football in their HDR on the Iplayer and that was a huge difference in quality. Just doesnt seem to be much better through Sky. I will check the TV settings when I get home. Thanks!

Re: SKY UHD 4K

PandJ2020 — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 08:58:02 GMT

Personally, most HD upscaled by a modern TV is pretty damn good.

Pre-encoded material (esp. downloads) in HD are likely to be more than adequate for a 48" TV.

There's always some feedback in the forum that live Sports events can be noticeably better in UHD.

But as noted HDR tends to enhance the picture more than the resolution bump alone.

I have a 65" LG OLED and the picture never ceases to amaze me, even in HD. UHD is marginally sharper.

Re: SKY UHD 4K

GD1 — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 09:08:43 GMT

@jjjkiuj On a screen that size the distance between you and the TV will be a factor as per the link attached

https://www.samsung.com/uk/tvs/tv-buying-guide/what-size-tv-should-i-get/

Re: SKY UHD 4K

Chodley — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 11:44:28 GMT

which model TV is it?

Re: SKY UHD 4K

TimmyBGood — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 12:13:59 GMT

@jjjkiuj wrote:

Very disappointed with the difference between HD and UHD.

Worth remembering that if you had a UHD television then you were already watching UHD, otherwise the television screen would have been 3/4 empty. The difference between native UHD and HD upscaled to UHD is far smaller than, for example the difference between SD and HD.

Re: SKY UHD 4K

jjjkiuj — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 08:07:22 GMT

Thanks for all the help yesterday. I now have more info:

Samsung QN90 CA 50" tv

32b106 SKY BOX

On the TV, I have gone into picture settings and set picture mode to dynmaic, HDR Tone mapping to active and AUTO HDR Remastering is greyed out.

Sky engineer set screen at 2160 (8 bit) but I have changed this to 2160 (10 bit)

I am sat about 3 mtrs away as the standard 1.2 x the size of the TV screen feels far too close.

I have watched the US Open Tennis on 401 and Sky FI reruns.

Picture is better and colours are more vibrant but I am still not blown away.

I am guessing I need to lower expectations.

Re: SKY UHD 4K

TimmyBGood — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 09:23:16 GMT

@jjjkiuj wrote:

I have watched the US Open Tennis on 401 and Sky FI reruns. Picture is better and colours are more vibrant but I am still not blown away.

I am guessing I need to lower expectations.

Probably, yes: remember live Sports capture and instantaneous transmission cannot have the precision and post-production refinement of good cinematography played from a high bit-rate storage medium.

Re: SKY UHD 4K

Chodley — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 08:41:59 GMT

"Dynamic" mode is usually unrealistically vibrant

Re: SKY UHD 4K

stereohaven — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 09:03:58 GMT

@jjjkiuj wrote:
Picture is better and colours are more vibrant but I am still not blown away.

I do mean this in the politest possible sense, but you bought the wrong TV and are using inadequate source material if you want to be "blown away".

Go and have a look at a Sony OLED running a title from BRAVIA Core or an LG or Panasonic OLED running a 4K Ultra HD blu-ray, then you will understand how important the type of screen is and how throttled the bit rate is on HLG HDR satellite delivered content.

Re: SKY UHD 4K

jjjkiuj — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 09:07:47 GMT

Thanks for your honesty. As long as I know I am getting the best I can with the equipment!

Re: SKY UHD 4K

stereohaven — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 09:13:50 GMT

And it will grow on you! The more you watch the more you start to notice stuff in HD that you think is sub-par (fast moving sport).

You wait until you have been watching UHD content for a while then see something in SD! 🤣

It may not be "the best", but it does enhance viewing, it just sometimes takes a while to adjust.

Re: SKY UHD 4K

BenJoBanjo — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 09:35:22 GMT

@jjjkiuj wrote:
Thanks for your honesty. As long as I know I am getting the best I can with the equipment!

I have an older model of Samsung TV and it can still produce a pretty decent UHD HDR image. Use the iPlayer app on the TV itself and try playing some UHD natural history content such as Asia, Planet Earth III, Parenthood, Blue Planet II and such like. Look for the versions with the UHD tag at the top left of the thumbnails on the app. These will play in UHD with HLG HDR, and looks sensational even on my older Samsung which isn't as bright as your newer model.

Also worth checking that you do a good HDMI handshake between the Sky Q box and your TV so that it properly detects the peak brightness of your TV. Once you have this then the Q box should output as good a UHD HDR signal as possible, to take full advantage of your TV. Make sure that you HDMI UHD Color turned on under the External Device Manager (if you have that on the TV settings) for the HDMI port you have the Q box attached to. Also make sure the Q box is set to 2160P 10bit. Once you have both devices connected well together then you should get a decent UHD HDR image out of it.

Re: SKY UHD 4K

Chodley — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 10:29:49 GMT

Agreed. Modern LCDs are pretty decent. But yeah OLED colour accuracy and contrast is another level, especially with HDR. And my Panasonic OLED is a couple of significant tech generations old now.

And also you do need maybe 65" to pick up the benefit of 4k resolution at a typical viewing distance.

Re: SKY UHD 4K

Bluestraw — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 12:34:53 GMT

Aside from the viewing distance which has been mentioned, the other thing here is that you are already having quite an artificial picture by using Vivid settings on your TV. Suggest you use Movie picture mode, and then try watching some things in HD and UHD HDR via a platform like Prime, Netflix, Disney+ etc and see what you think. That will give you a much more natural picture and will let you see differences. Vivid is more something to use in a showroom by over-emphasising the picture in a super bright place.

Re: SKY UHD 4K

BenJoBanjo — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 13:15:58 GMT

@Bluestraw wrote:
Aside from the viewing distance which has been mentioned, the other thing here is that you are already having quite an artificial picture by using Vivid settings on your TV. Suggest you use Movie picture mode, and then try watching some things in HD and UHD HDR via a platform like Prime, Netflix, Disney+ etc and see what you think. That will give you a much more natural picture and will let you see differences. Vivid is more something to use in a showroom by over-emphasising the picture in a super bright place.

Would absolutely agree with this.

Using the Movie picture mode on my old Samsung when playing UHD HLG HDR from the TV's iPlayer app provides a spectacular, bright, dynamic yet natural looking image. An HDR signal should automatically push the backlight on the TV to maximum but then you can still play with the colour and contrast to get a look which works best for your eyes.