TV antennas and 4k UHD TV's

[9wood]

Any channels I get in my house come via a roof top antenna. Normally I can draw in 38 -42 channels using my antenna with a 1080p Flat screen TV. However I decided to upgrade and buy one of those new 4k UHD (ultra high definition) TV's. The first one I bought was a Vizio, and it would scan or draw in most of those 38 or so channels, but it wouldn't hold reception all the time so I took the Vizio back for a refund and got a Samsung 4k UHD TV which I brought home and went through the set up and scan process. The Samsung would only recognize 16 of the 40 or so channels which I normally get with a regular 1080p TV. So I took the Samsung back and got my money back on that as well. This time I simply bought a regular new Samsung 1080p TV and set it up at home and it recognized all 42 of my channels when I ran it through a scan. Now I'm wondering if 4k UHD TV's don't like receiving a signal from a roof top antenna

Any techies out there have an answer for this?

[rkim291968]

Hmm, I have no problem with my Samsung 4k UHD TV.   Perhaps, you ended up with a lemon.  I don't believe there is a technical reason why the 4K would not receive the channels compare to its 1080 counterpart.

[Club Rat]

42 minutes ago, 9wood said:

4k UHD TV's don't like receiving a signal from a roof top antenna

Found this info - Not really sure why you have a signal loss of the other channels?

I have good news and bad news for you. The good news... any antenna should work for 4K over-the-air broadcasting, even the really old one that was on the roof when you got the house. The bad news...

There probably will never be any 4K over-the-air broadcasting. Ever.

Broadcasters aren't required to put out a 4K signal and that means that they probably won't. The only reason you see HD today is because a move to digital broadcasting was mandated by the FCC back in the 2000s and while that didn't technically require a move to HD, it did make sense to put in HD equipment in most stations when they were switching over to digital.

There is actually a broadcast standard for 4K that would allow broadcasters to put out a 4K signal using the same 6MHz channel that they currently use for broadcasting HD. There's some question as to whether the quality would be any good, but there's nothing technical that would prevent them. The ATSC, the group that designed today's TV standards for North America, has created the ATSC 3.0 standard which includes 4K. Unfortunately the standard hasn't been approved or even considered for US broadcasting as of yet, and it likely won't be.

Transitioning from analog to digital was a pretty massive undertaking, the sort of thing that comes about once in a generation or so. It's not likely that already cash-strapped broadcasters are going to pitch all their HD equipment to move to 4K so quickly. This is especially true when you consider that there just isn't a demand for 4K content like there was for HD content, and when you further consider that most people consider the future of television to rely just as much on streaming as it does on broadcasting.

Getting back to the question at hand, though, since there is a technical standard for putting 4K on the same channels as HD, and since there is plenty of channel space out there in the UHF and VHF bands (too much in fact, since the FCC is considering taking spectrum away from broadcasters to give it to mobile users) there is no reason to think you'd need a different antenna. After all, an antenna doesn't know and doesn't care what kind of signal it receives as long as it's within the frequency range that it's designed for. So bring on the 4K, your antenna can take it... but don't hold your breath waiting for it.

[9wood]

8 hours ago, rkim291968 said:

Hmm, I have no problem with my Samsung 4k UHD TV.   Perhaps, you ended up with a lemon.  I don't believe there is a technical reason why the 4K would not receive the channels compare to its 1080 counterpart.

But I bought two different 4k TV's, a Vizio and a Samsung. What are the chance they were both lemons?

8 hours ago, Club Rat said:

There probably will never be any 4K over-the-air broadcasting. Ever.

 

That very well may be true. However, 4k videos currently are available and can be obtained from YouTube, Amazon, and Yahoo. Roku has come out with their new Roku 4 which allows you to receive 4k content. And finally, even if there will never be any over the air 4k broadcasting, 4k TV's currently do noticably sharpen 1080p broadcasts.

[rkim291968]

4 hours ago, 9wood said:

That very well may be true. However, 4k videos currently are available and can be obtained from YouTube, Amazon, and Yahoo. Roku has come out with their new Roku 4 which allows you to receive 4k content. And finally, even if there will never be any over the air 4k broadcasting, 4k TV's currently do noticably sharpen 1080p broadcasts.

+1.   I subscribe to Netflix which has a small collection of 4k content.   More importantly, we have a couple of 4k video/cameras (Panasonic for my wife, gopro for me)  which we make our own 4k content.   Highest resolution photos displayed on 4k UHD is really good.

[Patch]

I would like to know which attenna is the best for a weak signal area. The broadcast towers are about 30 miles away as the crow flies. I can elevate the attenna 20' off the ground easy enough. 

[nevets88]

8 minutes ago, Patch said:

I would like to know which attenna is the best for a weak signal area. The broadcast towers are about 30 miles away as the crow flies. I can elevate the attenna 20' off the ground easy enough. 

Did you try experimenting w/pointing your antenna via tvfool or antenna web?

[Patch]

8 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

Did you try experimenting w/pointing your antenna via tvfool or antenna web?

Yeah, I know which way to point the antenna. I have an antenna on our RV, but it's reception is very poor. I am just trying get some idea of what brand/model would give the best results. 20' is the limit the NPS will let us go in height. Maybe a few feet more. .

[9wood]

On 12/24/2015 at 1:16 PM, Patch said:

Yeah, I know which way to point the antenna. I have an antenna on our RV, but it's reception is very poor. I am just trying get some idea of what brand/model would give the best results. 20' is the limit the NPS will let us go in height. Maybe a few feet more. .

I would suggest you check out the Winegard multi-directional antenna which has a built in pre-amplifier. It costs 51.49 and that includes the shipping costs. This antenna should be capable of reaching the distances you mentioned and beyond. The beauty of this antenna is that you don't have to worry about pointing it. See link below.

https://jet.com/product/detail/4dca0003c081429cb4f1bd7a0f0ab896?jcmp=pla:ggl:cwin_electronics_a2:electronics_accessories_antennas_a2_other:na:na:na:na:na:2&code=PLA15&k_clickid=14032264-0f58-4b01-8713-f7fb3933dd47&gclid=CjwKEAiA7_OzBRDA8OfT3orp51oSJACVqslIw_rCKd59zWBywnSUjiLfhFo-9xESIZnv9DSvsbLEWhoCg4_w_wcB