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YouTube Adds 'Leanback,' Support For 4K Video
teh31337one writes with news that YouTube has announced support for 4K video, which runs at a resolution of 4096 x 3072. From their blog: "To give some perspective on the size of 4K, the ideal screen size for a 4K video is 25 feet; IMAX movies are projected through two 2k resolution projectors. ... Because 4K represents the highest quality of video available, there are a few limitations that you should be aware of. First off, video cameras that shoot in 4K aren't cheap, and projectors that show videos in 4K are typically the size of a small refrigerator. And, as we mentioned, watching these videos on YouTube will require super-fast broadband." They provided a small playlist of videos shot in 4K. This announcement comes a few days after YouTube debuted "Leanback," a service that attempts to find and serve videos you'll like based on past viewing habits, as well as offering a simplified method of browsing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Hi-Vision
4k video is so legacy.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
SHV is experimental tech. They are playing with it right now, but it isn't in use anywhere, even in the pro world. It is just proof of concept and early testing.
4k is the high end of cinema. 4k is normally what you scan in and process film at (it is considered to be about the same as good 35mm). You can also get monitors that are very nearly 4k, and the high end digital cinema projectors are 4k. It is a currently used and in production format. If you go to a new, spiffy, digital theater and watch a movie like Avatar, it is probably a 4k projector (though some places with smaller screens use 2k instead, which is just a bit higher than 1080p).
There's a difference between "Technology that is being developed," and "Technology that is being used."
Take Ethernet. 100gb is currently under development. There are test units that exist, and the standard was finalized last month. However it is not a deployed technology. Your network does not have 100gb Ethernet backbones. 10gb is currently the fastest Ethernet out there. It is the fastest deployed in actual networks right now (fastest Ethernet, I know there are faster POS lines and so on).
So it is accurate to say 4k video is the highest for now.
Whoever wrote this does not know anything about IMAX. IMAX is not projected digitally, let alone with a 2K digital projector.
35mm film is about equal, or a little better than, 4K digital in terms of resolution. Most all of the time when you go see a movie these days, it is still being projected on 35mm film. It's cheaper than a digital projector and looks better. When you went and saw Avatar in 3D it was being projected in 2K (for almost everyone) digital and that's why you could see the pixels on the screen. 2K is NOT good enough for anything but very small movie screens. Anyone who says it is is not a cinematographer (I am) and has never used both a 35mm film camera and the best digital cinema cameras (I have), and probably doesn't know what a cinematographer even really is. 99% of all big-budget films are still shot on 35mm film because it is simply the third-best image-capturing method out there, better than ANY digital camera in existence today. It is also much more expensive, but on large films the price of film is a drop in the bucket compared to everything else.
The second best cinema image-capturing method out there is 65/70mm film.
The best is IMAX.
IMAX is 65/70mm film travelling through the camera horizontally; each frame is about 2.75 by 2 inches. That is enormous. It's like a medium-format still camera...except 24 times a second. Here's a comparison of IMAX to regular 35mm film (most digital cinema cameras have sensors, by the way, about exactly the same size as a 35mm film camera): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Imaxcomparison.png
IMAX is NOT projected on 2K. "Digital IMAX" is. Digital IMAX is pretty much useless and is not even as good as standard 35mm film projection; it uses two 2K projectors overlapping each other to give a slightly higher than 2K theoretical resolution to the image; for those of you with still cameras, 2K is about equal in resolution to a 6- or 7-megapixel camera. Congratulations. Your $1000 SLR has way more resolution than a digital cinema projector that costs a half million dollars.
Real IMAX, i.e. horizontal 65/70mm film, has an estimated resolution of about 104 million pixels; you would need a 12K x 9K digital sensor to even come close to the resolution of IMAX. No one makes those and no one will for a long time, if ever. The highest-resolution digital photographic sensors outside of the military are probably Hasselblad digital medium format backs; they are about 60 megapixels, or half the resolution of IMAX film, and they are still cameras capable of only about one frame a second.
IMAX is not 2K. Digital IMAX is not IMAX.
IMAX is film. Film is incredible.