How do 1080p consoles look on 4K displays?

[Outrunner]

Theoretically it should be a perfect scale and look indistinguishable from a native display but is that the case or do you get the same blurry mess like when you connected your PS2 via Composite to your new HDTV?

 

[Jordan]

The answer is... it depends.

The image has to be upscaled at some point in the process (either by the source — a console, Bluray/DVD player, etc. — or by the TV itself) and the quality of that upscaling can vary between devices. This is one area where cheaper 4K TVs generally underperform. Different upscaling techniques and algorithms can make educated guesses in terms of what color those three extra pixels need to be, and some do better than others.

In some cases 1080p content might look slightly worse on a 4K screen than it would on a native 1080p screen, but I think the 4K screen would need to be pretty bad/old for that to happen. The good news is that it won't look nearly as bad as SD content ever did on HD screens.

Realistically, I don't think it's something you need to worry about too much and I certainly wouldn't let that discourage me from getting a 4K TV.

 

[Grayfox]

As Jordan said it depends.

If the upscaling is done correctly 1 pixel on the of signal will become 4 pixels on the TV/monitor as 4k is just 2x wider and 2x taller, so do the same with the pixels.
make them 2x wider and 2x taller for the upscaling

I have my 58" 4k TV connected to my computers GPU via the HDMI connector.
I have maximized Firefox and set the resolution for the TV to 1080(FHD) from the GPU
Notice how the File portion of the menu is cut off
The upscaling on this display is kinda crap, as it starts scanning before the start of the panel(backporches and front porches should be blank)

Same area, but the TV is now being given a 4k(native) signal.
The File is not only visible, but so is the window border.

But my TV is a Chiq brand which is cheaper.

 

[sesselpupser]

The upscaling on this display is kinda crap, as it starts scanning before the start of the panel

Are you sure you don't have overscan enabled? Actually on more modern TVs that's not a separate setting anymore and is instead a "picture size".

@Outrunner I think any TV from a "decent" brand will upscale fine. I've got what was a cheap (£300 for a 40" 4K was pretty cheap back then) Samsung TV from 2017, it can even upscale 1440p to 4K and looks perfectly fine doing so. Rtings includes upscaling performance at 480p, 720p and 1080p in its reviews too so I'd check there before you buy just to be sure.

 

[Grayfox]

Are you sure you don't have overscan enabled? Actually on more modern TVs that's not a separate setting anymore and is instead a "picture size".

@Outrunner I think any TV from a "decent" brand will upscale fine. I've got what was a cheap (£300 for a 40" 4K was pretty cheap back then) Samsung TV from 2017, it can even upscale 1440p to 4K and looks perfectly fine doing so. Rtings includes upscaling performance at 480p, 720p and 1080p in its reviews too so I'd check there before you buy just to be sure.

These are the default settings.

Cant find "Overscan"
Being a cheaper android TV the setting may be there under some other name.

 

[sesselpupser]

@Grayfox I'd put money on it being a setting, but googling "Chiq android TV" isn't returning any results for me so I can't look it up.

 

[Grayfox]

@Grayfox I'd put money on it being a setting, but googling "Chiq android TV" isn't returning any results for me so I can't look it up.

Found the model number.
U55G7H
Its running Android 9.

U55G7H

CHiQ

www.chiq.com.au

Chiq is just a rebrand of Changhong.
I got this as it was cheap and offered a damn good warranty.
My Previous Samsung died after 1 year of seldom use.

 

[Tornado]

Theoretically it should be a perfect scale and look indistinguishable from a native display but is that the case or do you get the same blurry mess like when you connected your PS2 via Composite to your new HDTV?

The reason that PS2 via composite looks bad is because the PS2 already had a kind of messy video signal, frequently displayed in non-standard resolutions with visual tricks and most TVs made in the past decade are atrocious at analog conversion in the first place (nevermind upscaling it) since it's barely included as an afterthought if it's included at all (and even in the 00s it was rather rare to find a non-CRT HDTV that was any good at it. Plasmas were usually much better at it than LCDs, but they usually had their own significant problems).




In comparison, a 1080p console on a 4K TV (excepting crappy Wal-Mart brand TVs and the like) shouldn't look terribly much different from feeding it 4K content unless you're specifically pixel hunting; and will probably look better than it did on a PS4-era 1080p set just because the picture quality of new 4K TV is probably inherently better than a TV that old could achieve regardless of the content it was playing.

 

[Daz555]

Theoretically it should be a perfect scale and look indistinguishable from a native display but is that the case or do you get the same blurry mess like when you connected your PS2 via Composite to your new HDTV?

TVs do vary quite a bit when it comes to displaying 1080P content @ 4K so there is always that aspect to consider.

In terms of the consoles then there is also some variability because of how different games render their graphics. For example some might have an unwavering fixed 1080P resolution and some might employ some form of dynamic resolution scaling where the engine might only be rendering at 800P at times.

However, regardless of this, it is many many times better however than connecting older consoles with analogue outputs to modern TVs.

 

[wfooshee]

I have no issues with my PS4 on my 4K TV. It's still digital and quite sharp. The comparison you made with composite video actually isn't even relevant, as that's analog-to-digital, besides upscaling.