How to get 4K Netflix in the UK: 4K Blu-ray, PS4 Pro, Sky Q, Amazon Fire TV, Roku and more

Ultra HD TVs are quickly moving from expensive outliers to everyday living room hubs. These new machines sport quantum dots and fancy acronyms such as HDR (high-dynamic range) and SUHD. 4K Netflix and Sky Q is becoming commonplace. 

READ NEXT: 4K TV technology explained

So how do you get your 4K fix? We’ve put together a range of ways you use every one of those 8.2 million pixels on your 4K screen, to help you justify that dent in your overdraft. 

How to stream 4K video on Netflix

For starters, you’ll need an Ultra HD (UHD) compatible TV. That really doesn’t mean spending a fortune these days, either, as several big-brand 4K TVs are now available from as little as £400. Factor in an £9.99-a-month Netflix subscription and 4K entertainment doesn’t have to cost big bucks.

You’ll be able to find a list of UHD-compatible TVs here, although not all first-generation UHD TVs which have Netflix built-in can handle the Netflix 4K codec and quietly downgrade it to 1080p. You can also use a heap of other devices when paired with a UHD TV, including Nvidia Shield, Roku 4, TiVo Bolt and the new version of Amazon Fire TV.

Buy a 4K TV now from Amazon

Next, you’ll need a plan that supports UHD – namely the ‘premium’ tier that costs £9.99 per month. For this, you can sign into four devices, or screens, download content to each of these devices and watch all four at the same time. This gets you HD and UHD content.

Perhaps most importantly, Netflix recommends you have an internet connection of at least 25 Mbps. You’ll also need to make sure you’re streaming either in Auto mode, or High mode.

If you’re used to Full HD, Netflix’s 4K content will be a big improvement. If your broadband connection isn’t up to it, however, it may prove a frustrating experience; the compression artefacts, dropouts and buffering will quickly make you wish you were watching a proper 4K Blu-ray disc instead. The final moan? It doesn’t help that Netflix pads out its 4K library with upscaled nature documentaries. 

The good news is that headline shows on Netflix such as House of Cards and Marco Polo really do look spectacular in UHD. Okay, it’s not the same leap in quality we saw from SD to Full HD, but on a big 2160p TV, or a projector, you’ll appreciate the extra pixels. (Note: 4K-skeptics may insist that they can’t see the difference – in truth, unless your screen is big enough and/or your eyesight keen enough, then you might not get the full benefit.)

How to find 4K Movies on Netflix?

Once you’ve set up everything you need to stream 4K content, finding the 4K movies on Netflix is easy. Simply go to the Ultra HD Movies and TV category.

Netflix is stepping up its 4K offering in the face of competition from Amazon Instant Video, a tempting alternative for those who don’t mind signing up to Amazon’s Prime delivery service.

Amazon has recently given the Fire TV a boost with 4K support thanks to High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). As the name suggests, HEVC is a highly efficient way of compressing and storing video. It’s so efficient, in fact, that it halves the amount of storage required compared with H.264, which is the current standard for HD video compression.

Apple additionally joined the 4K game with the launch of Apple TV 4K. Granted, it’s a little late to the party, but to soften this blow, it added a whole host of 4K movies to the iTunes store and promised to keep 4K prices the same as HD. Apple will also, automatically, upgrade relevant iTunes purchases to 4K for free as and when the higher-resolution shows go live. 

Audio buffs should take note, however, that both the Netflix and Amazon 4K streams are so data hungry that there’s no room for a high-res DTS Master Audio soundtrack to go with your UHD video. Dolby Digital 5.1 is the best you can hope for with the current streaming 4K formats.

Watch 4K Blu-ray on your TV

You might have already seen the somewhat confusing “Mastered in 4K” Blu-ray releases floating around. They’re not native 4K films, but regular 1080p Blu-rays with one crucial difference: the film was shot on 4K cameras and then mastered, compressed and transferred onto disc in such a way that it (allegedly) upscales again more readily onto a 4K panel.

It sounds like an opportunistic marketing ploy, but take a look at Total Recall and you’ll be surprised at how well a regular Blu-ray player with 4K upscaling ability can perform. It’s not 4K, but it’s something very much like it. True 4K Blu-rays aren’t far behind, however.

Shop for 4K Bluray movies now at Amazon

The real 4K Blu-ray format, or UHD Blu-ray, is gathering pace in – and so starts the cycle of hardware and software upgrades on which the electronics industry has come to rely. Those who said Blu-ray would be the last optical disc format forgot that broadband speed doesn’t evolve as fast as data or memory, so be prepared to buy that Lord of the Rings boxset for a second time.

It may have taken a while for the film studios to catch up with the technology, but 4K HDR Blu-rays are now almost commonplace in stores. 

You do need to shell out for a new Blu-ray player if you want to play back the latest 4K discs in their full, pixel-perfect resolution, though. There are many exisiting players out there which claim to do ‘4K upscaling’ but this doesn’t mean they are actually capable of playing 4K discs – you’ll need to read the specifications very carefully. If it’s a player costing around £200 or less, then you can be sure it won’t be a genuine 4K player.

Shop for 4K Blu-ray players now at Amazon

The new Blu-ray discs also add support for HDR content, and this stands to seriously improve the colour reproduction and dynamic range of the images we’ll see on-screen – brighter whites, darker shadows and a wider palette of colour will help make the absolute most of the display technology inside the new breed of 4K HDR-compatible TVs and projectors. That’s not all, however: the addition of support for 60fps frame rates will ensure that some Blu-rays look smoother than UHD streamed over a broadband connection – although the 60fps standard is more likely to be used for sports and documentaries than widely adopted for movies. 

And although the Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Atmos and DTS HD Master Audio soundtracks are already lossless, or uncompressed, they’ll be joined by support for DTS:X, which is a rival to Dolby’s top-flight Atmos surround sound tech. For those willing to upgrade to the latest Dolby Atmos and DTS:X home cinema receivers, and who have room for even more speakers in their living room, this is very good news indeed.

Shop for 4K Blu-ray movies now at Amazon

Sony PlayStation 4: Sony brings 4K to PS4 Pro

One of the PS4 Pro’s main selling points is its 4K UHD capabilities, which look brilliant in a game like Horizon: Zero Dawn.

To make sure 4K is working, go into Settings (the toolbox icon on the main dashboard), then System, then make sure the ‘enable HDCP’ option is checked. In the Video Output settings, make sure the resolution is set to Automatic. Simple.

Want to find out more about PS4 Pro? Click here to read our in-depth guide

What about 4K on broadcast TV? Sky Q is the answer

Sorry to disappoint, but there’s no 4K terrestrial channel in the UK and no definite sign there will be any time soon.

But there is hope, or at least there is if you’re willing to consider a subscription to the new Sky Q service. You can read Alphr’s review of Sky’s all-singing, all-dancing, 12-tuner Sky Q TV box, but suffice to say that it’s the most advanced home entertainment system currently going. 

Yes, that’s right – Sky has leapt aboard the 4K bandwagon. Fibre broadband combines with multi-room, multi-device TV streaming and the ability to record four shows simultaneously while watching a fifth. Factor in the ability to add further Sky Q Mini boxes to provide multi-room and Wi-Fi boosting capabilities, and it’s a tantalising package for movie, sports and TV addicts.

As Sky has secured the broadcast rights to Sony’s entire 4K film catalogue, you can expect a pretty decent selection of Ultra HD movies. It’s not cheap but it’ll be a worthwhile investment for those of you with 4K-starved TVs sitting in your living room. Fancy seeing how much it would cost to upgrade to a Sky Q package? Click the link below and check it out for yourself.

Build your perfect Sky Q package now

4K gaming on your TV: Time for a graphics card upgrade

PC gamers are ahead of the herd as usual: it doesn’t ridiculous amounts to build a rig that can provide smooth 4K gameplay right now.

Be warned, though, that we’re talking about a lot of heavy data processing. Although Tomb Raider and GTA V look pretty impressive in UHD on a PC, you’ll need a potent graphics card to run top-tier games at 4K without struggling. If your PC struggles at Full HD resolutions with the detail settings maxed out, then 4K gaming will be enough to push it over the edge. 

In reality, you probably need to have at least an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 – or AMD’s potent new Radeon RX480 – if you want to even dabble with gaming in 4K. And bear in mind that this won’t be enough to run games with all the visual eye candy cranked up to the max. If you want the best 4K gaming experience on PC, then you’ll need a high-end processor, oodles of RAM and a graphics card that costs north of £300 – or ideally a pair of graphics cards in SLI or CrossFire for the best results. 

Then again, you could just shell out £600 on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080. If you’ve got the cash, it’d be rude not to. 

Buy a 4K-capable graphics card now from Amazon

The last recourse for watching 4K on your TV: Film it yourself

Capturing 3,840 x 2,160-resolution images turns out to be quite easy, with plenty of camcorders, still cameras and even smartphones recording in 4K.

It’s the action-cam market that’s really running with this one, though. Or should that be skateboarding, skydiving and free running? Just look at all the 4K footage appearing on YouTube and GoPro’s own channel. So my answer is to go out there and make your own 4K films until Hollywood and the hardware manufacturers are ready to release UHD Blu-ray.

READ NEXT: Here’s our guide to screen mirroring your phone, tablet or laptop with a TV