A Budget Home Theater & PC Setup: 4K, HDR, UHD Blu-ray, and More
by Ganesh T S on December 26, 2017 8:30 AM ESTThe Display: TCL 55P607
In the early days of 4K, we had cautioned consumers against hasty purchases related to the upcoming technology. As a recap and update, consumers looking for a relatively future-proof home theater display component need to have the following checklist in hand:
- 4Kp60 capabilities with RGB 4:4:4 support
- HDR support (preferably with Dolby Vision)
- HDMI 2.0 ports with HDCP 2.2 support
- Audio Return Channel (ARC) support
Thanks to the rapid adoption of 4K, the technology has come down in price. There are a wide variety of TVs and projectors fulfilling the above criteria. The budget often decides the size class as well as the TV panel technology (OLED vs. LCD/LED). The OLED vs. LCD/LED debate is beyond the scope of this piece, but, suffice to say that if the budget allows, one should go for an OLED television. Based on my particular installation location and budget considerations, I narrowed down my options to a LCD/LED TV in the 46 to 55" class. Available options included the Vizio M-Series, the Sony X800E, the Samsung MU8000 and MU7000 series, the TCL P- and S- series TVs, and the LG 55UH7700. Readers interested in the technical analysis of the above displays can refer to reviews on sites dedicated to analyzing TVs. From a specification viewpoint, the Samsung TVs were ruled out because of their lack of support for Dolby Vision. HDR10+ (the competing open HDR standard with features comparable to Dolby Vision) is yet to take off in a big way with respect to content and hardware support. In the meanwhile, there is a lot of content in OTT services that are encoded with Dolby Vision HDR. UHD Blu-rays with Dolby Vision have also started appearing inthe market. The TCL S- series was also ruled out for its 'fake' HDR nature (covered in the next section).
In the end, we decided upon the TCL 55P607 as an upgrade from the Sony KDL46EX720 in our test setup. The TV has been well-reviewed. For all practical purposes, 3D is dead, and we were not worried about the absence of 3D capabilities in the TCL model.
The TCL 55P607 is also an impressive smart TV platform, thanks to the integrated Roku features. It also enables network control of the unit. As a power user, I am not a big fan of Roku beyond its ease of use for premium OTT streaming services. In our previous evaluations, its local media playback capabilities turned out to be abysmal. In its recent iterations, the excessive advertising push has also been a bit disconcerting. In any case, it essentially comes for free with the 55P607, and for its price, it is a welcome option. Further down in this review, we will also look at how the built-in Roku platform performs for typical modern HTPC usage.
In the course of usage, I found that the TCL 55P607 delivered good value for money. However, it was not without its share of problems. One minor issue was the relatively rare flashing while playing back certain scenes (also brought out in the RTINGS review of the set). It is related to the local dimming algorithm used in the TV.
The other aspect was its high power consumption when the display was switched off. Admittedly, I do not have other comparison points, but, 24.65W in standby mode (just being able to turn it on over the network using the Roku app) seems a bit high. Finally, we found that the firmware originally on the TV when I purchased it (v7.7) had a compatibility issue with certain HDR sources that was later silently resolved in a firmware update (v8.0). That particular issue is covered in detail in the UHD Blu-ray playback section.
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pjcamp - Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - link
The one thing you didn't mention is what keyboard you are using. I haven't been happy with any of the ones I've used so a little help would be, well, helpful.DIE_BETA_SOY_BOYS - Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - link
"budget"What a useless article
watersb - Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - link
I, for one, enjoyed this write-up very much. I have been out of the AV Zone for a decade, but as a musician and PC enthusiast I was curious to see how this played out.A write-up like this: I have done similar tests for audio-only gear, and it took 50 hours of work. Maybe I'm too slow.
And finally, this may be a dumb question, but for a Home Theater setup, what keyboard/pointing device work best for you? I need to get something. My ten-year-old Gyration Mouse/keyboard has died. Not kidding. It was great. Backlit keyboard that can see duty as primary PC keyboard preferred.
What are you all using?
Shaan1969 - Thursday, December 28, 2017 - link
watersb, Logitech K830 (~$50) is the best one with long lasting rechargeable battery with back-lit option. I have been using it for the last few years without any issues.watersb - Tuesday, January 2, 2018 - link
Thanks! Was on my list, at $50 the price has come down a bit since last I looked.Shaan1969 - Thursday, December 28, 2017 - link
Ganesh, thank you for taking time to write up a great article. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and planning to upgrade my HTPC accordingly this weekend.Everyone's definition of budget is different and I wish readers focus on the content of the article rather than accusing the writer.
milkod2001 - Thursday, December 28, 2017 - link
good read, you might want to also upgrade those curtains granny bought and insisted to use when on last visit while you are in this upgrading process.UtilityMax - Friday, December 29, 2017 - link
This situation with the high cost and pain-in-the-butt involved in 4K HTPC setup compared to buying Playstation 4, Xbox, or Roku reminds me of a similar situation that happened with home routers in the late 1990s. As the Internet connections started becoming more affordable (be it dialup or broadband) a whole lot of geeks wanted to come up with solutions so that their entire home network could connect to the internet with just one IP address. A whole lot of them turned to setting up a dedicated PC running Linux to act as their gateway to the internet for the purpose of firewalling and network address translation (NAT). This made even people originally not interested in using Linux start exploring the Linux systems because back in the 1990s Linux distributions were way better than Windows or Macs at advanced networking stuff.Then an interesting thing happened. A cheap Taiwanese-made router with firewall, NAT, and a 4-5 port 100Mbps switch became available for something like 50 bucks around year 1999-2000. This has near instantly killed the concept of setting up manually a dedicated PC to act as your router gateway. Today you don't even have to buy a dedicated router, because your broadband cable modem probably already comes integrated with wifi, router, NAT, firewall, switch, and all that (mine does).
The same way we are observing the situation where various set top boxes or "sticks" costing under a couple of hundred bucks, gaming consoles, and even smart TVs have pretty much near eliminated the whole point of building a dedicated HTPC. HTPC is basically a dinosaur.
Combine that with the fact that most people out there still don't give a damn about 4K content, don't have 4K TVs, don't have access to 4K cable (duh!), and don't want to pay for either 4K BD discs or for high speed internet conections required for 4K streaming, and you see why building your own HTPC is going to be just like banging your head against a wall.
rapster - Friday, December 29, 2017 - link
Totally agree. The NVIDIA Shield has - for me - made the PC moot. This time around I based my system on a Shield that streams from the internet and Synology disk array, a “budget” receiver, a BD player, some great speakers, and an old 1080p TV. Not even sure what use a PC would serve.mikato - Thursday, January 18, 2018 - link
Sounds good. I’ll have to check out the Shield. But you can’t bring this to a friend’s house and plug into their TV or home theater. I want that too :)