Quasar 42" 4K 60hz with HDMI 2

Just to make sure I answered your [killerbobjr] question, I figured I would download the image you linked to, as it was orientated a little differently. Went over to the PC that's connected to the Quasar (got it set up as a stand-up desk), and the Quasar had apparently gone to sleep. Picked up the remote to turn it back on and...
:confused: :confused: :confused:

The ENTIRE screen was back (BACK, not black) 100% visible again. I didn't touch anything since troubleshooting it 2 days ago...except changing the Hz from 30Hz (where I left off in my last troubleshooting effort) to the 59Hz From the screen resolution->advance settings->monitor-tab dialogue. It was still 1/2 messed up when I made that change about an hour ago. As I detailed in the post above.

Anyway, I have your 4:4:4 image as well as the rest of the screen. (see pics)

I'm clearly baffled by whats going on with this. It many respects this event makes things worse, as I don't know what the actual problem is, whereas before I assumed it was el-cheapo internal components...which may still be the case. I would rather have cheap and works for a couple of years and dies, than complete unreliability that comes and goes like a ghost.

Now that I have the right half of the screen back, I now notice the monitor itself reports Resolution and Hz in a window top right. (this appears after a monitor resolution reset, then disappears in about 5 seconds)

I will now say the 4:4:4 @60Hz ISN'T what I thought based on my earlier post today. The resolution->advance settings->monitor-tab dialogue AND the Nvida G-Force app **May not be reporting the correct refresh rate**

I can see the 4:4:4 in 60Hz as reported by the monitor itself, but it isn't hardly as sharp as the 30Hz. Moreover, the last 2 lines of the 'quick fox' text test are unreadable in 60Hz as reported by the monitor. I am very open to interpretation of this. Remember, I am not a gamer, so perhaps someone would be kind enough to inform me if I would be missing anything using the Quasar as a non-gaming rig at 30Hz? These pics should help:

60hz:
5c8384dd89c10b6af0951592d30fc0c6.jpg

30hz:
36ccfaae59f5a5d21c3fc3175d3b829e.jpg


30hz HiRez: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/36/cc/fa/36ccfaae59f5a5d21c3fc3175d3b829e.jpg
60Hz HiRez: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/5c/83/84/5c8384dd89c10b6af0951592d30fc0c6.jpg
 
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Yeah, I agree, that's not 4:4:4. If you had true 4:4:4 color at 60Hz, you would be able to see the "4:4:4" clearly and barely see the "4:2:2", like this:

AETwwiD.png
 
Wow, I just installed the latest Nvidia drivers and the image quality improved greatly. I can now clearly see the cursor on a white background. Text is way sharper now.
 
Just a FYI -- at Frys, the Silo SL-42V1 is the exact same TV as the Quasar/Polaroid. If you have Fry's Sunday promo code, you can pick this up for $350 out-the-door with no tax, through the 13th.

I grabbed one in my never ending quest for a bang-for-the-buck 4k monitor and am trying to see if I can live with it for now (at least until 40"+ 4k monitors w/displayport become available domestically).
 
A heads up for anyone considering this monitor, Fry's is having a one-day promo code sale for $330/no tax on the Silo for Thursday.

After using this for several days as a monitor, I can give you my initial impressions:

  • It does NOT do 4:4:4 color at any 4k resolution or sync rate. 4K @ 30Hz looks like some sort of buggy 4:2:2 chroma reduction on R,B with full 4:4:4 on G (or full 4:4:4 on G if in combination with R and/or B -- yah, I know, weird).
  • 4K @ 60Hz looks like it is doing 4:2:0 chroma reduction on the R & B channels and 4:2:2 on the G channel. (I realize that none of this is correct in terms of actual chroma reduction processing -- I'm just reporting the visual interpretation of what I see).
  • The selection of Video or Graphics in the menu seems to do nothing and sharpness has no effect as well.
  • Upscaling 1920x1080p seems to be direct 1:4 with no additional upscale processing. This resolution does proper 4:4:4 at 60Hz.
  • Lag is not great at 4K 60Hz. I haven't had a chance to set up the scope and phototransistor yet, but my estimated amount is somewhere around 3-5 frames. Lag seems to be frame dependent, so at 30Hz lag is pretty bad at at around an estimated 200ms (1 frame for accumulation, 3-5 frames for processing).
  • Running a signal into HDMI 4 (2.0 port) will cause random blanking resets on HDMI 1-3. If you want an uninterrupted signal on HDMI 1-3, you have to turn any video signal into HDMI 4 off.
I wish there was a firmware update that fixed the chroma issues because I mostly use this for work and the huge desktop space is awesome. I can live with the lag for the minimal amount of gaming I do.

I will probably be returning this monitor though and I may take a chance on the new Wasabi Mango UHD420 w/HDMI 2.0.
 
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Wanted to thank everyone here, and on other boards regarding using 4K UHD's as desktop monitors. The info here swayed me to get the Quasar 42" as well as a new vid card. The big bonus was that I was able to eBay my 5 year old 30" Dell (U3011) as well as the 5450 video card for a value equal to the purchase of a new 42" Quasar (sale at Overstock.com) AND a new GTX970 card (Newegg). No extra $$ out of pocket. Sweet. The card came in Saturday, and the Quasar came in yesterday. I got it all set up and connected very quickly, then carefully studied the tweaking recipes found in this thread. Was able to get the 3840x2160/60hz, the 4:4:4 test image to render, as well as the test text image where I was able to read the bottom two lines (don't really know if this is a objective test of true 4:4:4). Played a full screen 4K YouTube video, absolutely stunning. The downside is the screen font/text quality. Slightly jagged no matter what I did (including scaling text up)...but workable considering. I am NOT a gamer. My objective was massive desktop pixel real estate, which it more than reasonably provided (I would have no problems going even larger now)

Everything was coming along swimmingly! I kept thinking how the person that bought my eBay'ed stuff obviously wasn't aware of the 4K options. Downloaded Firefox to see if it rendered better than Chrome, walked away during the install, came back about 20 minutes later...and... UUUuuugh!!! Half the screen was all static (exactly half). reconnected, rebooted, changed HDMI ports... went to the menu on the remote, and even the menu was half gone behind the static. Monitor hard power cycle produced the same thing with the Quasar splash screen. So I new it BRICKED. Already placed the RMA with Overstock for a replacement, will try once more (although this is a minimum 2-week turnaround) Soooo close. (tried to link images directly here, but just broken icons)

c5e6e848bef81aba644b5c789bd5a741.jpg
f4c551dbb11633207f3853f2d02ea535.jpg
...seen this once on my TV. I turn the TV off and back on haven't seen it since.. this was two months ago.
 
I thought I would dump a bunch of pictures and info about the Silo version. As mentioned it was dirt cheap a few weeks ago at Frys. I got it for $340 out the door.


















I took it to the office and unboxed it to make sure everything looked good. I hooked it up to my work computer which runs a 660ti. I could not get 4k@60hz to work, but at 30hz no signs of dead pixels or anything weird. I knew the home computer would be better with it's GTX970.

The single 970 seems very up to task. I haven't tried any AAA titles from 2014/2015 but every game I've thrown at it from 2010-2013 runs great at 4k/60hz. I will probably get another 970 and SLI soon. I can't justify getting a 980ti when I already have a 970.



at first I had some issues, but my setup was a little different than most. I was using a 1080p TV. My PC and all my consoles hooked to an HDMI switching Denon reciever. I could not get the Silo to respond at all to this setup.

After updating my drivers and going direct from PC to HDMI 2.0/port 4 with a basic HDMI cable I got a very nice display. I set text scaling to 150% to help read things because at 100% it's just to small. This set does not do 4:4:4, so I didn't bother taking pictures of the testing. However my eyes are dumb enough that it still looks good and is useable. Really only been a couple of times I've noticed the fuzzy text and it's really more dependent on the site I'm looking at. I've been using the display for about 2 weeks with no faults or issues.

I do game and in game it's a great looking display. I took some pictures of the display while gaming with my Note 3, sorry if it's not clear enough.

Fallout 3 - no mods



Dishounered



Asseto Corsa



Wide shot of it on desk, watching WWE Network



4K Youtube video looks great



All and all I'm very happy with this display. I have not tried the other inputs, so I can't speak to the flickering display issues.

For under $350 I got a 42 inch display that has massive pixels.
 
Mines been going strong now for quite a while. Im completely happy with it.
 
Did you notice any lag with the Silo for gaming? I'm thinking about picking one up since it is on sale here too, but the 9.5ms response time seems kind of high for gaming.
 
I think some people are more sensitive to lag than I am. I love this monitor, and can't tell any noticeable lag. I'm sure it's there though.

Also, I don't play competitive fps games. My solo runs of Fallout and Borderlands look great to me.
 
tboo, How's the input lag with your quasar? My desktop, I usually do web browsing and photoshop. I generally every now and then play call of duty.
 
tboo, How's the input lag with your quasar? My desktop, I usually do web browsing and photoshop. I generally every now and then play call of duty.

Youre asking the wrong guy. All I know is I game on it with no issues. I did have to buy a second 980 though to push the extra pixels
 
What are you playing that needed two 980's? I've been very happy with my single 970, but I've been playing Fallout 3 and New Vegas again.
 
What are you playing that needed two 980's? I've been very happy with my single 970, but I've been playing Fallout 3 and New Vegas again.

Titanfall, Colonial Marines, Max Payne 3, Splinter Cell Blacklist to name a few. With 2 980s I can play at native res with all graphics options maxed.
 
I've been running out of ram on my two 970s.. hopefully DX12 will fix this with ram stacking because 3.5GB will not cut it for 4k gaming.
 
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Hi everyone, I just created an account here to chime in. I recently just purchased a Seiki 42" 4k TV with HDMI 2.0. It was a terrible disappointment, and is unusable with the amount of input lag. It feels like it's a quarter of a second before I see any movement on the screen when I move the mouse. Is this a "one off" experience I'm having, or are most 4k TVs used as monitors susceptible to large amounts of input lag?

EDIT: I have 1 GTX970, and a i5 2400K CPU. Windows 7 64-bit.

EDIT2: I live near a Fry's also, and they have the SILO in stock. If this is even usable in Windows and works for some games (I do mostly Flight simulations) I would prefer it over the Seiki I have now.

EDIT3: Sorry! I just realized there is an instant rebate this week from July 12 through the 18th. $150 off. I can pick this up in store for $299. Again, I'm just slightly worried about the input lag because of the $300 Seiki that I still have.
 
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Hi everyone, I just created an account here to chime in. I recently just purchased a Seiki 42" 4k TV with HDMI 2.0. It was a terrible disappointment, and is unusable with the amount of input lag. It feels like it's a quarter of a second before I see any movement on the screen when I move the mouse. Is this a "one off" experience I'm having, or are most 4k TVs used as monitors susceptible to large amounts of input lag?

EDIT: I have 1 GTX970, and a i5 2400K CPU. Windows 7 64-bit.

EDIT2: I live near a Fry's also, and they have the SILO in stock. If this is even usable in Windows and works for some games (I do mostly Flight simulations) I would prefer it over the Seiki I have now.

EDIT3: Sorry! I just realized there is an instant rebate this week from July 12 through the 18th. $150 off. I can pick this up in store for $299. Again, I'm just slightly worried about the input lag because of the $300 Seiki that I still have.

Try it! if you don't like it take it back.
 
I've been working on a monitor lag measuring setup that others would be able to utilize without having specialized equipment. With a custom written program that uses an OpenGL window and a low-latency audio interface with a plain old green LED in reverse connection as a photodetector, you can get a generally accurate reading of the entire chain of game->video card->monitor lag.

Before anyone asks: no, it's barely in an alpha state and not anywhere near ready for public consumption. However I did some preliminary measurements on my Silo using this setup. The bad news, measured from the middle of the screen:

4k @ 60Hz with the default 4:2:0 horizontal;4:2:2 vertical color, best run was about 115ms lag (worst was about 130ms)
4k @ 30Hz with the default 4:2:2 horizontal;4:4:4 vertical color, best run was about 175ms lag (worst was about 185ms)


I haven't checked against an oscilloscope yet, and there's probably a small amount of introduced lag because I haven't optimized the recording chain (as you can see from the margin between best and worst measurements), but this should give you a pretty good estimate of the lag you'll encounter in actual use.
 
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4k @ 60Hz with the default 4:2:0 horizontal;4:2:2 vertical color, best run was about 115ms lag (worst was about 130ms)
4k @ 30Hz with the default 4:2:2 horizontal;4:4:4 vertical color, best run was about 175ms lag (worst was about 185ms)[/B]

That's what I was afraid of. I really can't stand the feeling of input lag. While that's not quite as bad as the TV I have now (>250ms) It still makes me want to wait for these things to be ironed out.

Or I can always go with Philips BDM4065UC 40" Monitor. Display Port, 3ms response time advertised. Price may still be the limiting factor though.
 
I bought the Silo at Fry's for $299 a couple of days ago. I think it's pretty good. The lag isn't that bad. At 4k 60hz, the input lag is really hard to tell from a normal monitor. Even at 30hz, there is a slight input lag, but it's almost like a normal monitor too. Like if you aren't looking for it, you won't notice it. I don't have any test number, but you can compare killerbobjr number with other tv here http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/ .

I also turned off hdmi audio. Maybe free up a little bandwidth since I'm not using the hdmi audio anyways. I really like the black level on this tv though.

My first Silo had a couple of black dust speck behind the screen. My second one has just one, but it's like at the edge of the tv and I can live with that. Since I don't have a GTX 9 series yet, my desktop is 4k 30hz. It is not 4:2:0 at 30hz. Text looks normal. I think it's either 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 because I can read all the text on that 4:4:4 chroma test. For gaming, I use that Nvidia 4k 60hz 4:2:0 over hdmi 1.4. All my games that I tried looks amazing. I play mostly MMO and Diablo 3 and I don't notice any lag really.

Overall, I love this TV, especially for the price. BTW, hdmi 2.0 is only on hdmi 4 for the Silo.
 
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Thanks for the response. I hate to say it but after some researching, I'm now leaning towards the Samsung 40" curved display. UN40JU6700. Not really what I was expecting to pay but, it's hard to read about a nice, curved display that puts out 4k@60hz with 4:4:4. Plus I have a 970 so I'll get the benefits of that. Oh boy... decisions. ;)

Thanks everyone for all the feedback, I've learned a lot since visiting these forums!
 
Since I don't have a GTX 9 series yet, my desktop is 4k 30hz. It is not 4:2:0 at 30hz. Text looks normal. I think it's either 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 because I can read all the text on that 4:4:4 chroma test.

TongFang (manufacturers of this TV) use a little cheat, which is quite clever really, to increase the color rendered without using up too much processing power on the weak Allwinner cpu core. For 60Hz, instead of going with a straight 4:2:0 color, they futz the software to render at 4:2:2: vertically and 4:2:0 horizontally.

4k 60Hz horizontal image. Notice the vertical lines under the red and blue text, every other line is skipped, and the ones that are not skipped are smeared across. That's 4:2:0 processing.

4k 60Hz vertical image. Notice the now horizontal lines to the left of the red and blue text, every one is shown, but every two are smeared across. That's 4:2:2 processing.

At 30Hz, the software renders the images as 4:2:2 horizontal and 4:4:4 vertical.

4k 30Hz horizontal image. For the vertical lines under the red and blue text, every one is shown but every two are smeared across. That's 4:2:2 processing.

4k 30Hz vertical image. For the now horizontal lines to the left of the red and blue text, every one is shown. That's 4:4:4 processing.

The Seiki TVs (direct subsidiary of TangFong) with the ~300ms lag do 4:4:4 horizontally and vertically. My guess is that it's the extra processing time needed which causes the lag.

My first Silo had a couple of black dust speck behind the screen. My second one has just one, but it's like at the edge of the tv and I can live with that.

My first Silo had a smudge in the top center that was very noticeable and two dead pixels on the left and right sides of the panel. It also had a flaky HDMI 1 port that often failed, a similar problem on HDMI 4 to which shotel had where the left side of the screen turned to garbage when I changed modes, plus a backlight bleed on the left middle bottom of the screen. I finally exchanged it last Saturday (my 30th day) and this panel seems pretty good with only one dead pixel right top center. One is pretty much playing the panel lottery buying these cheap 4k TVs.

All my games that I tried looks amazing. I play mostly MMO and Diablo 3 and I don't notice any lag really.

Overall, I love this TV, especially for the price.

I see my Silo as a cheap enough stop-gap measure until my ideal 4k monitor comes along. The Korean import UHD420 comes close, but there are a few too many niggling problems that bug me (gap between backlight and screen, unknown lag, unknown quality control, from a foreign seller so warranty and returns are a PITA, rather expensive for a perfect pixel model).

I can live with Silo's faults for now (lag, no backlight dimming, 180Hz PWM backlight, single HDMI 2.0 port, no displayport) and wait and see what comes with next year's 4k models.
 
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If you are signed up for Fry's promo codes, the UN40JU6700 is going for $500 tomorrow, Saturday. Same TV as in the ad three weeks ago that user basically11 bought for $600 (I can verify -- I also called that Saturday morning and Fry's stated it was the 40JU6700). Looks like Fry's is having a hard time unloading those 40" curved screens. Too bad 40" is just a tad too small for my gradually worsening vision.

I just called my Frys this morning in Downers Grove, IL and they are sold out already for those that still wanted it.
 
Fry's promo codes for the week include a Polaroid 55" for $450 (manufactured by TongFang -- same processing core as the Silo) for anyone that's been wanting a larger sized screen but don't want to spend a whole lot of cash.

If 55" is too big for you, Fry's also has the Samsung 48" JU6500 for $650. It's definitely a better TV/monitor and this price is the lowest it's been anywhere.
 
MAJOR UPDATE ON MY SILO.

I'm not ready to call it true 4:4:4 yet, but I made a very interesting find last night.

I did a dual boot install of Ubuntu 15.04 last night with the newest nVidia Linux drivers. Video and text quality was vastly improved over Windows.

Some 4:4:4 test images passed, but others did not. I can say that picture and text was night and day better.

However, refresh is locked at 30hz. The EDID from the monitor conflicts with the drivers refresh setting.

It was getting late but I'm getting back to it tonight. If I can get 4K@60hz and the text is still this sharp, I'm scrapping Windows and switching over.
 
I've been working on a monitor lag measuring setup that others would be able to utilize without having specialized equipment. With a custom written program that uses an OpenGL window and a low-latency audio interface with a plain old green LED in reverse connection as a photodetector, you can get a generally accurate reading of the entire chain of game->video card->monitor lag.

Before anyone asks: no, it's barely in an alpha state and not anywhere near ready for public consumption. However I did some preliminary measurements on my Silo using this setup. The bad news, measured from the middle of the screen:

4k @ 60Hz with the default 4:2:0 horizontal;4:2:2 vertical color, best run was about 115ms lag (worst was about 130ms)
4k @ 30Hz with the default 4:2:2 horizontal;4:4:4 vertical color, best run was about 175ms lag (worst was about 185ms)


I haven't checked against an oscilloscope yet, and there's probably a small amount of introduced lag because I haven't optimized the recording chain (as you can see from the margin between best and worst measurements), but this should give you a pretty good estimate of the lag you'll encounter in actual use.

My Polaroid has a mode called Graphic for HDMI. Also known as Gaming Mode on a lot of TV's..

Basically by changing the HDMI mode to graphic, the HDMI output (be it gaming console, pc, or cable) bypasses "extra" processing features of the TV that
make the game and TV broadcasts look crappy and also causes lag.
 
In my tests, there was no difference between "Graphic" and "Video" modes @ 4k. The only thing this seemed to have any effect on was when the signal was 1080p. Only then did it do any processing.
 
In my tests, there was no difference between "Graphic" and "Video" modes @ 4k. The only thing this seemed to have any effect on was when the signal was 1080p. Only then did it do any processing.

It does feel a tad more responsive. I don't have any equipment to test this on however.

Perhaps the Silo is different in that regard.. although they all use the same 4k panel do you also believe they share the same chipset as well?
 
TongFang manufactures these TVs. Seiki is their house brand. They also are an OEM for Silo, Polaroid, Sansui, Magnavox, Element, Westinghouse, and probably many others. Their chips are based on Allwinner ARM/Mali cores which are a quite a bit weaker than the cpus you find in top tier TV manufacturers, so I doubt you would be able to find any difference in latency amongst the various brands.
 
TongFang manufactures these TVs. Seiki is their house brand. They also are an OEM for Silo, Polaroid, Sansui, Magnavox, Element, Westinghouse, and probably many others. Their chips are based on Allwinner ARM/Mali cores which are a quite a bit weaker than the cpus you find in top tier TV manufacturers, so I doubt you would be able to find any difference in latency amongst the various brands.

Would you say this Vizio Model: M43-C1 is a better buy? I read it has a 4:2:2 4k panel as well. If anything does it have a faster chipset?
 
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