What Hi-Fi?’s TV and AV Editor, Tom Parsons, thinks the new Samsung QN900D makes a compelling case that there
“Is there anypoint in buying an 8K TV?” is a question that I’m asked regularly. And with very good reason: we have been reviewing 8K TVs since 2018 (the first was the 85in Samsung Q900R, if you’re interested) and yet, seven years on, there is still essentially no native 8K content available.
Sure, you can watch some lovely 8K demo content on YouTube (though watch out for the videos that play in 8K but are really just upscaled 4K), and there is a dedicated 8K TV channel in Japan, but those aside, there’s essentially nothing to watch in native 8K. What’s more, there is still no sign of a current or new streaming service going 8K, nor any hint of an 8K disc format ever appearing. While the worthwhile introduction of 8K one day seems inevitable, it barely seems closer now than it did in 2018.
So, is there any point in buying an 8K TV now? Very many people say ‘no’, including some of my colleagues here at What Hi-Fi?. TV and AV staff writer Lewis Empson has told me that he has no interest until proper 8K streams or discs materialise, and our esteemed editor in chief, Alastair Stevenson, has cited that same issue, as well as a couple more (including a lack of David Attenborough), as barriers to him going 8K.
My personal take on all of this is a little less definite. I have flip-flopped slightly in my opinion on 8K over the years, but the new Samsung QN900D is comfortably the strongest case yet for buying an 8K TV in a non-8K world. Does that mean I would buy one? Probably not, but let’s come back to that.
It might not be true 8K, but it is better 4K
Samsung knows that the way to convince people to buy an 8K TV when there is no 8K content of note is by making everything they watch now look better than before. That is why it has been so focused on upscaling.
Upscaling is simply the process of converting a lower-resolution signal so that it is displayed correctly on the native resolution of the display. If you have a 4K TV and watch a 576p DVD or broadcast TV show, or a 1080p stream or Blu-ray, it is being upscaled, either by the TV or the source device (the Blu-ray player or Sky box, for example).
But, really, there is nothing ‘simple’ about upscaling. It is a hugely complex process that is working exceptionally well if it doesn’t make the source materi
