4K TVs

David is seeing "banding" when he's watching his HDTV. What is that? Leo says that banding usually indicates compression and comes from the source material. If he wants to test it, he should hook up his TV to a Blu-Ray player and play a Blu-ray DVD. He won't see any banding because there's no compression there. But when he watches on satellite or streaming Netflix, he'll see it because the signal is compressed.

Derek wants to know if the QLED is as good as an OLED or Plasma. Leo says that the QLED isn't an OLED or a plasma. It's an LED LCD screen. Plasma is dead now because nobody makes them anymore and OLED is king now. If he wants something similar, then OLED is where he'll want to be. Additionally, he'll want to get 4K and HDR. It looks far better than plasma. Leo recommends checking out the 2017 Value Electronics TV Shootout.

Kevin wants to upgrade his TV and is wondering if HDR is important. Leo says it is. He won't see a lot of HDR content just now, but moving forward everything will come out mastered for HDR. So he'll be on the right side of that by getting an HDR compatible TV. He won't really see 4K broadcast for the next few years, though. He'll get it from streaming sites like Netflix and Amazon. He'll also want to get a UHD-HDR BluRay player. Leo likes the Xbox One S.

Aaron Vizio has been rebooting frequently. Is this an ongoing problem with Vizio? Rich says no, he still recommends Vizio because it offers a lot of bang for the buck, and for $1200, Aaron can get a great one.

Jim wants to get a 4K UHD TV that offers split screen or picture-in-picture support. Scott says most TV manufacturers have dropped that option as TVs have gotten thinner, and other features like HDR have gotten more popular. No TV can really support split screen anymore. Computer monitors can do it. An external device may be able to do it, but that's an additional cost. He should also consider that split screens will clip or crop the image so he wouldn't see the entire screen.

Tom can't seem to connect his Nintendo Switch to his 4K TV. Leo says that he hasn't heard of any outstanding issues, but it could be a bad HDMI connection. He should try another cable. The chatroom suggests turning off CEC, which switches the HDMI ports on and off. It may be called something else. It could also be a resolution mismatch, so Tom should check and see if there's another lower resolution port that it will connect to. He can also try another TV and verify that the dock works. If it does, then try the cable.

Karen is a teacher who travels from school to school and wants to know if there's a portable projector? Leo says what she's looking for a pico projector. The wireless connection solution may vary depending on support. They're usually DLNA format. Go to ProjectorCentral.com. Search for pico projectors. Motorola's Moto Z has an add on mod for a projector that attaches to the back of the phone.

Jeff is looking at an LG 43" 4K TV with WebOS. Leo says that LG makes excellent TVs. 43" is kind of small for watching, though, especially for sports. If he can afford to go larger, Leo says he should. It all comes down to the "spousal acceptance factor." Would it be better in a dark room or lighter room? Leo says that LCDs are better in rooms where he can't control the lighting.