Q. I tried watching the Bears and Buccaneers game in 4K on the Fox app on Thursday night. It was a glitchy mess with the sound going off and the picture sometimes freezing and not looking very great when it wasn’t glitching. What’s the deal?!! Isn’t 4K supposed to be the next big damn thing?!! — Tony, Las Vegas.
Tony, welcome to the unbearable madness of being a 4K TV owner.
Yes, 4K TV is supposed to be the next big thing, even the next big damn thing, if you will. But anyone who has tried to watch 4K on a consistent basis knows that it’s anything but consistent. Sometimes the picture looks great. Sometimes it looks awful. And sometimes it’s in between so you’re not really sure if it’s HD or 4K.
The reasons for the consistent inconsistency of a live 4K broadcast could fill a book. But they include whether you have calibrated your set; whether the broadcast is produced in 4K, or produced in high-def and ‘upscaled’ to 4K (Fox does that with Thursday Night Football.), the pay TV service or app you are using (some are better than others), whether you are watching over the Internet (a poor connection can cause technical problems), whether the broadcast team is having infrastructure issues, and so on and so on.
Bottom line: Unlike High-Definition, which usually delivers a consistent live picture, 4K’s picture quality varies dramatically. Two people in the same household could have totally different takes on how the 4K images look depending upon which device and set they are using, and whether the Internet connection is better in one room over the other.
The lack of a consistent standard is a major reason why 4K TV has not become the next big damn thing. It’s difficult to gin up any positive word-of-mouth when you can’t say that 4K looks great all the time.
The Thursday Night Football airing of the Bears-Buccaneers game on October 8 provided more evidence of the fickleness of live 4K. (The game was the first 4K TNF game of the season; Fox is doing 11.)
Fox did the broadcast which means they produced it in HD and ‘upscaled’ it to 4K for home delivery. Upscaling is when you take a picture in one format and transfer it to another, allegedly a better one. As you can imagine, that can be complicated and the transfer doesn’t always translate to quality. It also sometimes causes unexpected technical issues such as audio loss or picture freezing.
Just look at these complaints from Thursday night. (Social media on Thursday night overflowed with angry messages from 4K TV owners.)
@fuboTV fox 4k is a black screen with no audio
— Russell Hudnall (@HudnallRussell) October 9, 2020
Yeah my game was glitching on the 4K airing the sound eventually cut out and it looks like fox cut the broadcast It was just frustrating since the quality is noticeably lower on fox and NFL network
— Aidan (@aidanlansburgh) October 9, 2020
Same here on my TCL, I was able to download the fox sports app on my TV and sign in with Google credentials but the quality that look terrible in 4K
— Steve (@dasteve003) October 9, 2020
@fuboTV the Fox 4k channel is very muted color-wise, and dark.
— The Cuck of Amontillado (@smurfee_mcgee) October 9, 2020
Can Ya'll Fix The Fox Sports App. The 4K Feed Isn't Working Properly @NFLonFOX @FOXSports
— DJ CLYDE GARNER (@DJCLYDEGARNER) October 9, 2020
@hulu_support well here we are again, year 2 of fox sports app having 4k football, and My local fox channel still not working for some reason. Never has. The fox sports app says Hulu is to blame. FS1,2,big ten net all work on the app with my Hulu login.just not my local fox Chan pic.twitter.com/eZoDRGopvG
— LionsFan24 (@DetLionsFan24) October 9, 2020
But if you told some other 4K TV owners that the picture looked anything but sensational, they would look at you like you wanted to bring back Jay Cutler to quarterback the Bears.
FYI to the nerds: The Fox Sports app is broadcasting the game in 4k, looks great!
— Nathan Drake (@nastynateff) October 9, 2020
This is a noticeably better picture in 4K compared to my local FOX channel.
— Chris Rendall (@chrisrendall) October 9, 2020
U should watch it on the fox sports app. All Thursday night games are in 4K. Looks beautiful
— MotorCityP (@PLJones0212) October 9, 2020
@CBSSportsHQ @CBSSports You guys need to step your game up. I am watching this game on @NFLonFOX in 4K and I never want to watch another game again in standard HD now. Please, especially with COVID & not being able to go to a game live this has to be a permanent thing. #NFL4K
— Johnny Mac (@Johnny_Mac_Atac) October 9, 2020
So, Tony, and all 4K TV owners, all I can tell you is that 4K TV, particularly live 4K sports, can be a wonderous thing. But it can also be an exercise in futility and frustration.
Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvpredictions.com. Please include your first name and hometown in your message.
— Phillip Swann
I remember problems like this when I purchased my first HDTV and upgraded my Warner cable set top to watch the very few HD channels. Sometimes great and sometimes not so much. It took awhile before everything became consistent and dependable. It was interesting to watch the development and finally the complete takeover of HD and digital broadcasting. 4K will keep getting better.
Being my “second season” of Direct and 4K there has been a marked improvement. That said, it is still not something one might recommend a friend to rush out and buy a new 4K set.I watched a significant portion of all the games in 4K Saturday and Fox was the most inconsistent. Two sets of signals available in my home (Direct and Spectrum) the standard Spectrum on a 75 Z9d did well as it usually does. Both 4K and standard HD on Direct was a mixed bag. As I stated previously last years Super bowl broadcast was so bad we all watched Direct HD broadcast for better color and brightness and the HOA Spectrum channel which was better than either.(mostly on a 77 LG OLED)
Keep trying guys….and THX for the effort. However I am 83 so work thru this a quickly as possible.
Sorry but upconverted HD should not be called 4K.
I agree. It is not 4k unless produced in 4k.
Lions Fan 24..it takes guts to watch a Lions game HD much less 4k lol
Ain’t that the truth……
I live in the dark ages, just a plain old HD, on Comcast. Tried to watch last night’s bucs-saints game. Unwatchable, had to give up. The video kept freezing for a second or two, audio continued just fine. This only happens on Fox, always during games, often during other programming.
Could this upconversion be the cause of this problem on an HD set?