Samsung’s newest TV technology found in the Samsung Q900R 8K QLED TV is 8K resolution. It has four times more pixels than even the breathtakingly sharp and realistic 4K TVs that are on the market now. This TV is designed to give you way more detail in the video; better and more realistic textures, like individual hairs, grains of sand and no colour banding. I recently had this television in my home and did a full review of its many great features. The best part? It uses AI or machine learning to automatically and instantly improve the look of the video.
Samsung 8K QLED Q900R TV
Samsung QLED 8K is the first in the market to offer 33 million pixels of viewing experience. But naturally you might be wondering about what kind of content is available in 8K, to justify getting this fancy new TV? Great question, and the honest answer is, pretty much nothing.
So why would you invest in an 8K TV then? There are a few reasons you might want to adopt 8K now. (Click here to read the full review of the Samsung Q900R 8K TV.)
What can I watch in 8K now?
For one, consumers are buying consistently larger and larger TVs as prices come down and technology improves. We’re now using them to fill our spaces, to become full entertainment portals for TV viewing, movie night and immersive gaming.
As TVs get bigger, the resolution has to improve, or else you are getting a mediocre quality video picture that would look more pixel-ey the closer you sit. While 4K has brought that viewing experience a long way, 8K takes it to another level. Even up close on an 8K TV—literally inches away—you can’t see the pixels. That means you can sit closer than your mother ever wanted you to sit to the TV and still enjoy super clarity. Whether you want to feel like the screen is filling your field of view, or that you’re right in there with that video game, you can get up close with your content with an 8K TV.
Is Samsung 8K good for gamers?
By the way, if you’re wondering if this TV is good for gamers, the answer is a definite yes. The TV will upscale your video game content too. Plus it’s got two other features built with gamers in mind. One of these is Freesync 2.0 which eliminates that well-known annoyance called screen tearing. The TV will automatically match the frame rate of the game console to eliminate tearing.
The second feature is Dynamic Black Equalizer. This feature handles another pet peeve of gamers—the need to manually adjust their TV’s brightness when they head into very dark areas. Dynamic Black Equalizer automatically adjusts and improves the brightness of extremely dark areas for better viewing of darker scenes.
How Samsung AI upscaling works
Another reason for adopting 8K now is that Samsung has created the 2019 Samsung Q900R 8K QLED TV to automatically improve the quality of any kind of video you watch, from HD to 4K; it’s going to use Artificial Intelligence Upscaling technology to make it look like 8K quality.
Samsung uses AI or machine learning built into the TV and it automatically and instantly improves the look of the video. On the inside, what it’s going to do is compare low resolution images to high resolution images and start to classify that information and fill in the blanks digitally. It all happens automatically, in seconds.
The TV in essence learns images, and colours over time, so it’s able to quickly dig into its memory bank for the correct way to change lower resolution content into 8K content. While some TVs get delivered to you with a chip that has it’s upscaling capabilities set for good, the Q900 is constantly being updated, so as machine learning improves, the TV too will improve.
How’s the video quality when watching upscaled video?
I tested out this feature by watching a 1980’s movie on the 8K TV. While I initially feared Beverly Hills Cop would look to grainy or pixelated to enjoy on my 75” Samsung Q900R 8K QLED TV, it was actually really great. The TV made it look much clearer, and sharper than I would have imagined.
In fact, watching anything on this TV was amazing; whether it was HD content, 4K videos and movies or YouTube or Netflix, the ability of this TV to deliver a consistently great video picture was surprising and impressive.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be shot in 8K so if you’re a sports fan, you might want to start thinking about this TV. More recently CBS used 8K cameras to shoot the 2019 Superbowl and a network in Japan has been experimenting with shooting baseball games, including the Yankees in 8K too. So in short, while getting native 8K content easily and plentifully might be a ways off, the Samsung Q900R 8K QLED TV can fill in the blanks for you until it becomes more common, And when it does, you’ll be ready.
Upscaling does seem appealing, but before finding out what can all be watched in 8K I think an important discussion needs to be had about infrastructure. Do we have the infrastructure in place here in Canada for 8K streaming on a wide scale?
When I searched google I found that 50 Mbps is the minimum required. There are probably several parts of the country that don’t have that speed available at an affordable price.
I do, however, really like the idea of upscaling for video games. Thanks for letting me know about this!
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