More Than Meets The Eye

Samsung UBD-M9500 Ultra HD Blu-ray Player

- David Vaughn

I’M IN MY 13TH YEAR OF reviewing consumer electronics, and I’m continually amazed at the industry’s pace of innovation. In the span of about 20 years, we’ve gone from bulky, backbreaking CRT displays to flat-panel TVs that hang on the wall, as well as projectors that are smaller than the base of a vacuum cleaner—all at prices that the middle class can easily afford.

Some might argue that progress is occurring too fast and that keeping on the cutting edge is nearly impossible, and I wouldn’t disagree. After all, 3D has come and gone in a few short years, and one could make a pretty strong argument that the 1080p delivered from Blu-ray has all the resolution we need for the foreseeable future, given how far the average consumer sits from their display. But 1080p is so yesterday, and the electronics manufacturers need a new hook to get you to upgrade.

Their latest push is with 4K, which in its consumer Ultra HD version is actually 3840 x 2160—four times the resolution of 1080p. Granted, these displays have been on the market for a few years, with one caveat: It was a standard in motion. Thankfully, those days are largely behind us now, and most midline-and-up 2017 models will support the other key features that UHD has to offer—namely, WCG (wide color gamut) and HDR (high dynamic range). If you want to have all your bases covered, though, be sure your new TV takes advantage of both leading versions of HDR: not just HDR10 but Dolby Vision as well.