Amazon has made good on its promise to offer 4K content to Prime members at no additional cost. Available titles are limited at this time, but new movies and TV shows will be continually added to the service. Some of the best options available right now include Alpha House and Orphan Black. You can also buy 4K movies from Amazon Instant Video like American Hustle, Captain Phillips, and This Is the End.
Ultra High Definition TVs have been tumbling in cost throughout the past year. From top brands like VIZIO and LG to budget brands like Seiki, UHDTV prices are dropping across the board. And now with Netflix, Amazon, and of course, YouTube, offering 4K streaming, the perception of 4K content being nonexistent is becoming more specious.
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Of note, your smart UHDTV must have High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) to properly compress high quality streaming content. Here are the best TV sets (with HEVC) from trusted manufacturers to jump into 4K streaming without going broke:
VIZIO P-Series 50-inch to 70-inch: prices start at $800 – 50-inch model is sold out at Amazon, get it from VIZIO
Panasonic 58-inch TC-58AX800U: $1,999.98 – make sure you install the latest firmware update
LG Electronics UB8000 40-inch to 60-inch: prices start at less than $900
Samsung UN55HU6840 55-Inch: $1,199.99
Toshiba 58L8400U 58-Inch: $1,280
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This is so frustrating. I have a perfectly good Seiki TV that can perfectly output my MBP’s 4K HDMI output, and I would love nothing more than just being able to stream Netflix and Amazon using that. But they’re not letting me. WHYYYY.
My vizio p series is not getting the 4k on Amazon any suggestions?
Actually, scrap that – what they really wanted was to update the Amazon app, not the firmware.
I saw the same thing on my Samsung 4k TV. I updated Amazon app and now I can see a UHD category and can see the content. But when I play that content, it still curiously says 1080p on the bottom left of screen, even though content title says UHD. Not sure if it’s actuall streaming in 4k.
It shows up as UltraHD in the bottom left of the screen for me. But we have Verizon 75 Mbps downstream service.
Can you tell me how to update my app as opposed to the tv firmware, which is up to date?
I assume you have a Samsung TV. On mine, you go to the SmartHub and go to the apps section. It’ll show “My Apps” at the top. Highlight the Amazon app and instead of just clicking enter, hold the enter button down. You’ll get a menu that has an option to update apps. Select your Amazon app (or all of them that need updating) and it will update. Hope this helps.
Thanks! I’ll try that tonight when I get home.
I have a Samsung TV that supports 4K streaming (Netflix works great). I just logged into my Amazon app on my TV and got notification that the 4K content was now available but that I will need to update my TV’s firmware. However, when I go to update it, it says no new firmware is available. Any ideas or is anyone else experiencing this?
Yes I am having the same issue. The update must not be available yet.
Try updating the Amazon app on your TV. Mine worked after doing that. It was not the TV firmware.
Can’t figure out how to just upgrade the app, the update of tv Software def didn’t work. I see the blue up arrow next to the app but no way of updating.
Nevermind I figured it out
Nice! How’s it working?
Seems to be working good for me. Not sure I can really tell the difference between HD and Ultra HD, though. Would help if they were side by side!
Rob, same situation here. How did you update the app?