Hello everyone,
Apologies on asking this question as i have been looking for an answer on this sub but it seems that some of the answers are abit outdated.
So basically our 10 year old tv that was given to us just gave up on us. And me/ my wife are absolutely confused on how to buy a new one(tech illiterate)
My problem is we have been seeing alot of places for tv but they keep on saying that bs/cs (4k:1/2)
And the salesman told us to check the landlord if our apartment has those things before purchasing the 4k tvs
My question is how do you say that in japanese (my wife is japanese btw)
or can i check that by myself inside our apartment?
7 comments
Most apartments (even recent built ones) do not support wide band BS/CS antenna which gives you a couple extra (paid) 4K channels. But don’t worry, you’re not missing much. The paid stuff is WOWOW 4K and .. wait I think that’s it.
The 4K stuff you can receive with a normal antenna is NHK 4K and 3-4 other stations (free).
If you already have a BS/CS TV now and were able to receive NHK stuff over satellite, you don’t need to do anything else just plug the new one in.
If you don’t care about satellite at all, you can continue watching terrestrial TV just the same as before and ignore any 4K features of the new TV, or use it as a media player/online streaming etc.
tl;dr you don’t need to tell those salesmen anything just get the TV you want.
The BS/CS 4K TV will work regardless of the setup.
What I think the salesman is trying to say is, if your house doesn’t support 4K BS/CS, you won’t need it and can go for a cheaper TV.
But you may still want 4K for gaming or movies. It’s up to you.
As the other post mentioned, the 4K BS/CS channel variety is quite limited anyway.
The content on the 4k broadcast channels are quite meh anyway. Most of the 4K content you’d probably end up consuming would probably be from prime/Netflix/Disney if you got any subscription.
So it’s just a matter of if you would like the extra quality of life points for owning a 4K TV (it’s actually quite worth it)
Also, I wouldn’t buy TVs from the Japanese electronic stores, they’re always so terribly overpriced, probably because they expect you to haggle and whatnots. Save yourself the trouble and buy it on Amazon during a sale if you’re price conscious.
Is your question about compatibility? You can buy a 4k TV and it will downsample to whatever resolution you plug it into. So even if your apartment is 1080p, the TV will still work. Japan is pretty good about standardized connectors for BS.
Do you watch BS often though? My wife rarely tunes in, she mostly watches channels 2-11 (non-BS) which are broadcast in awful 1080i, which is 720p upscaled. 4x smaller than 4k.
If your question is concerning getting the best quality picture, 4k only refers to the physical dimension of the video. There are different technologies for the display, such as OLED and LED, which have pros and cons. An OLED picture gives you deeper blacks but may not last as long as an LED, and then there are fancier versions of OLED and LED now, but that’s the basics. A 10 year old TV can look better than a 4K tv, depending on what content it’s plugged into. High end 4Ks also have graphics processors in them to alter/enhance the image.
Here’s the trick though – TV stores often play media from sample DVDs that make the TVS look ideal. If you’re not watching 4k Netflix or DVDs, tune into the stations you see the most and use that to compare. A lot of people buy way more TV than they need to future proof for a future that never comes, like early 3DTV and 8k adopters. Japanese TV in 4K is barely here.
Do you watch a lot of TV? If it’s mostly streaming services and the like, or gaming, then what the apartment supports is kind of irrelevant. I only say this because of all the things I could imagine buying a TV for, watching Japanese TV channels isn’t really… on that list.
You don’t need to check that stuff, it *will* work. Trust the collective internet. We know.
Honestly just go on Amazon, search “4K TV” and buy the cheapest Hisense one you can find. I find Hisense to be the best cheap but reliable TV brand. Their other home appliances (particularly refrigerators) are absolute garbage but their TVs are good.
I can see on Amazon right now you can get a 43 inch 4K TV for about 46,000 yen delivery included. Alternatively, you could get a 32 inch regular HD (ie not 4K) Hisense TV for 23,000 yen.
It’s really up to you. I would get the 4K option but if you don’t want/need it just get the cheaper one.
Check kakaku.com so you don’t overpay