Long gone are the days of grainy TV shows and pixelated movies, modern TVs for the most part have crisp picture quality that can almost blur the lines of reality thanks to developments in TV resolutions.
If you’re looking at new TVs, there are three main resolutions: High Definition (HD), Ultra High Definition (UHD) and Super Ultra High Definition (SUHD).
All of these have a native resolution which means how many pixels there are along the vertical and horizontal part of the screen. The more pixels you have, the sharper the picture quality.
It’s this native resolution that distinguishes what type of TV you have. Afterall, you can play HD-quality on a SUHD TV, but not the other way around.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve got the best 65-inch TV or a 24-inch LCD model, all modern TVs will either be HD, UHD or SUHD. To help you find what’s right for you, we’ve broken them down right here.
HD
The basic standard of modern TVs, High-Definition televisions have been around for more than 20 years and are still a popular choice because of their acceptable picture quality and affordable price tag. These TVs will allow you to enjoy Blu-ray discs and stream online content in HD.
You’ll probably have seen HD TVs described as 1080p, a reference to how many pixels a HD TV has along the vertical edge of the screen. With 1920 pixels along the horizontal edge, HD TVs feature a total of 2,073,600 pixels for an acceptable picture quality.
Several British TV channels have had a HD option since 2005 and yet the vast majority of people still watch in standard-definition. As such, if you’re just after a basic TV, there’s still a lot of life left in HD TVs.
UHD (4K)
The next step up from HD TVs are Ultra High-Definition TVs, also known as 4K TVs. The 4 comes from the fact these TVs have four times the pixels as a HD TV, bringing the total to over eight million pixels and an even sharper.
UHD TVs are perfect therefore for movie and video game buffs. The latest crop of games consoles all support 4K, the major streaming services are increasingly supporting 4K (often at an extra cost), and there are even 4K Blu-Ray players that can be used with a UHD TV.
4K is also all the rage at the moment and prices have been steadily failing. If you want something future-proofed then we say a 4K TV will be an excellent investment.
SUHD (8K)
If you thought eight million pixels would deliver excellent picture quality, try 33 million pixels. Super Ultra High-Definition TVs have eight times the number of pixels as a HD TV giving it simply amazing picture quality. These are also the most expensive TVs on the market currently, with prices starting north of £1000.
8K TVs are in their infancy and so is the supported technology. There are a handful of video games that can be played in 8K but that’s about it. 8K streaming is basically unsupported for now no TV channel currently broadcasts in 8K.
If you’re absolutely obsessed with having the absolute best and latest TV then by all means get an 8K TV, just be aware that it’ll be a while before you can regularly see the quality difference.
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