With some streaming services, like Apple TV Plus, you’ll get 4k content with your subscription. With others, like YouTube TV, HBO Max, and Netflix, you’ll have to pay an add-on fee. Even though advising anyone to increase their spending in the current economic climate is not something I typically do, investing in a streaming service’s 4K upgrade fee is a justifiable expense for a few reasons. Those reasons may not always be obvious, so I’m going to walk you through them below and help you determine whether your own use case is reason enough to shell out a few dollars more a month for that premium video and audio experience.

4k UHD Blu-ray is still better in many cases than a 4k stream from your favorite content provider, like YouTube TV, but if getting your favorite films and TV shows into your home via Wi-Fi is your “go-to” path for entertainment, and you’ve been sitting on the fence, after reading this, my hope is that you’ll be empowered to make a decision and jump down. Let’s get into it!

You already have the setup for it

Without this in place, 4k won’t matter much

Your seating distance, the size of your TV, and the quality of your home theater sound system all matter when deciding if paying the upgrade fee for 4k streaming is actually worth it. For 55-inch or smaller TVs, the benefit from that upgrade won’t “pop” as it does on a larger TV. Add a TV that is 65 inches or larger to your living room, and you’ll be singing “A whole new world like Aladdin and Princess Jasmine. If you’re sitting roughly six or seven feet from your 65-inch 4 K TV, you’ll be sitting close enough for your eyes to pick up four times more pixels on your screen than what 1080p streams deliver.

According to some experts, the formula for figuring this out is that your seating distance from a TV should be one to one and a half times the screen diagonal. So, again, looking at a 65-inch TV and using that formula, roughly five feet (65*1=65 or 5.42 feet) is the closest you should be sitting, but no farther than just under nine feet (65*1.5=97 or 8.13 feet), if you can help it.

After distance, your TV’s technology matters. If your TV doesn’t support HDR, HDR10+, or Dolby Vision, don’t bother. Although more pixels is a big deal, high dynamic range is what really makes all of those pixels look their best. You get deeper blacks, better color accuracy for skin tones, and better reproduction of the effort film colorists put into using color to create mood and tension. One of my first encounters with high-quality HDR was watching Daredevil on Netflix. There was an episode where ninjas hid in the shadows, wearing red uniforms. On TVs without HDR, that red was swallowed up by the blackness in the shadows, but with HDR, the shadows were actually blacker, and you could see a subtle pop of red in them as the ninjas were hiding, waiting to pounce.

The other components in your system matter just as much! If you’re using a streaming box like a newer Apple TV, you’ll get 4k and Dolby Atmos support. If your streaming box doesn’t support either, the upgrade isn’t worth it. Paying for the 4k upgrade often means your streaming service pushes content to you with higher bitrates. What does that mean in English? More data per show or movie, which is what allows for better picture and sound.

For sports, video games, and action and fantasy movies that have large amounts of CGI, a 4k tier is the superior choice. Those higher bitrates, high frame rates, better contrast, and better sound make those genres a wonderful 4k experience in your living room.

Take the sound to surround town

Premium tiers unlock premium sound

You may not know this, but the lower HD tiers often don’t deliver theatrical sound! With lower tiers, often you’re getting either stereo or Dolby Digital Plus 5.1. That isn’t the Atmos you’re used to hearing when you go out to a movie. We’ve written about that in detail, but the short of it is that you’re missing some surround elements when you’re listening to Digital Plus and not Atmos. The difference is that the former is a 5.1 mix, while the latter is a 5.1.2. The last digit in the latter is the height channel, which increases the feeling of immersion in a movie like Spider-Man: Homecoming’s ferry scene or pretty much all of Dune: Part Two.If you have a soundbar and home theater surround speakers that support Atmos but aren’t paying for the premium tier, you’re leaving sound system performance on the table. You spent the extra for that premium system that supports those height channels, so you may as well pay a few dollars more for your favorite streaming service to get all of that sound out of your speakers.

4k tiers will be loved by your entire household

Yes, even the kids

Ok, so the kids probably won’t care about 4k in and of itself. What you will care about is that, with premium tiers, you generally also get the ability to play more streams simultaneously. For example, with Netflix, you can stream on two devices at a time with their HD tier, without paying any add-on fees for additional streams. Pay for 4k and they up your streams to four, like many other streamers, except Fubo, which gives you unlimited streams at home. You know, in case you’re wealthy and have 12 kids in a 15-bedroom mansion, and they all have their own TVs and like to watch sports and movies in their own rooms.

4/5

Dimensions

4.9 x 5.0 x 1.0 inches

Connective Technology

Bluetooth® streaming, 802.11ax dual-band MIMO Wi-Fi 6 (2.4 GHz / 5 GHz), 10/100 Base-T Ethernet

Brand

Roku