My coworker insisted I watch "The Expanse" in 4K and now my TV is the problem

So my buddy Dave at the warehouse kept telling me I had to watch The Expanse on a 4K setup or I was missing half the show. I finally borrowed his old 4K player and popped in season one. The spaceship scenes looked amazing, no doubt, but then I realized my TV is a 10 year old 1080p model I got at a garage sale for 40 bucks. The color was all washed out and the dark scenes were just a black blob. I spent more time tweaking the brightness settings than actually watching the show. Now Dave says I need a new TV and probably soundbar too. Has anyone else had someone guilt them into upgrading their whole setup just for one show?

3 comments

3 Comments

faith_thomas6d ago

Oh man I've been exactly where you are. My brother tried to get me to watch Game of Thrones on his setup and I went home and just sat there squinting at my old Insignia like it personally offended me. Look before you blow your whole paycheck just get yourself a halfway decent 4k TV from like two years ago on Facebook Marketplace, I found a TCL for 150 bucks that works great. Your old TV is probably fine for regular shows and news but yeah those dark sci-fi scenes are brutal on old panels. And don't let Dave sell you on the soundbar either unless you actually can't hear the dialogue, because half the time the audio mixing on those streaming versions is trash anyway.

the_thea6d ago

Did Dave maybe forget that some of us bought our TVs when they were already a decade old (like me, proudly rocking that garage sale find)? I swear half the show is just characters standing in dimly lit corridors looking worried, and you're telling me I need a 4K OLED to fully appreciate that? Now you've got me wondering if I need to budget for a whole new entertainment center just to see what happens to the Rocinante crew in season three.

dianaanderson6d ago

Dude, my TV is from 2012 and I still watched the whole thing just fine. You're not missing much with the dim corridors, half the drama is in the audio anyway.