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4K Ultra HD Likely To Repeat the Failure of 3D Television
New submitter tvf_trp writes "Fox Sports VP Jerry Steinbers has just announced that the broadcaster is not looking to implement 4K broadcasting (which offers four times the resolution of today's HD), stating that 4K Ultra HD is a 'monumental task with not a lot of return.' Digital and broadcasting specialists have raised concerns about the future of 4K technology, drawing parallels with the 3D's trajectory, which despite its initial hype has failed to establish a significant market share due to high price and lack of 3D content. While offering some advantages over 3D (no need for specs, considerable improvement in video quality, etc), 4K's prospects will remain precarious until it can get broadcasters and movie makers on board."
But I don't want to pay 4K.
I can understand why 4k televisions may not take off, but 4k monitors will definitely be a big deal. Just look at how AMD and NVIDIA are gearing up their GPUs to support it.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Existing 1080p quality can't be discerned as better by someone sitting 10 feet away on a couch looking at a 42" TV. Going past 1080p has no value whatsoever unless you're talking about insanely huge screens or impractically close viewing.
To make full use of that resolution ("Retina" quality, i.e. indistinguishable pixels) at a viewing distance of 10ft you'd need a screen 150" screen. That's 8ft wide 4ft6in tall.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Cable companies have a hard enough time providing enough bandwidth for more than a couple HD channels, where are they going to find the bandwidth for 4K Ultra HD? Does Blue Ray even have the ability to take advantage of this technology? How about gaming platforms? What, exactly, would let someone be able to justify their investment?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Why the heck would I want UHD when most HD content is so compressed that the artifacts are easily discernible from across the room. At least that is my experience with every HD medium I have seen OTA, cable, satellite, and to a much lesser degree in Blu-ray.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
There's a simple reason for this ... people don't care, and don't have the money to replace their TVs just because something new and shiny comes along.
I'd need to replace my amp, my DVD player (or whatever it would be called), my TV and who knows what else. All to get me a marginally better display?
No thanks.
I'm interested in 4K for my computer monitor, but the ever changing standards around TV makes it a nuisance.
I know plenty of people who bought "HDTV" early in the game, only to find out when HD became common than their devices weren't supported because the spec had changed. Or that they wouldn't get HD because their device didn't support the copy protection scheme.
What consumers want is a stable technology, not be be on a constant upgrade treadmill (as much as the people who sell TVs would like otherwise).
NTSC was unchanged and compatible for what, 40 odd years? When things stabilize in a bunch of years I might consider thinking about 4K -- but right now it's a pointless and expensive upgrade for little or no benefit.
Unfortunately the content industry seems to think we're all going to ditch our stuff every two years as the new hotness comes out. And in the case of 3D, it's gimmicky and gives me a headache, so I never wanted that at all.
That the TV networks are thinking "why would be invest in this" makes perfect sense to me -- because there's no market for it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
We can't have 4k TV AND those broadband caps at the same time. I couldn't possibly afford digital entertainment under those conditions.
Conventional display and media delivery technologies have reached a point of diminishing returns long ago. Humans are perfectly happy at current (and even somewhat outdated) resolution and quality. Any increases from now on do not improve viewer experience in a measurable way, at least not for majority of users.
On the other hand the "total quality" of "media output" seems to be a constant, while the amount is increasing exponentially - so each individual piece is, well, you know... (Disclaimer: I do not own a TV, may be things have improved recently?)
What most of us have is more than good enough unless you suffer from techo-lust or keeping up with the Joneses. Large 1080p HDTVs can be picked up for sub $1000, they're not great, suffer from blooming, spotlighting, banding etc, but the vast majority of people don't notice or care, they just love the large image.
blu-ray can already handle 4K, later level HDMI is ready too. Players on the other hand aren't on the market, and the dearth of content will ensure that remains the case.
As it is right now, the only true 1080p content is high bitrate blu-ray disks, and PC games. There is nothing else.
None of the currently released consoles can render 1920x1080 at 60 fps : they use a lower frame rate (30 fps) and a lower rendering resolution (not even 720p internally for most games). The next gen can maybe do it, but I suspect that some games will use lower frame rates or internal resolutions so that they can put more detail into other things.
Broadcast channels, satellite channels, and HD cable channels all generally are full of lower bit-rate tradeoffs. You need about 30-50 mbps to do 1080p without compromises or visible encoding errors.
Maybe in another 10 years, when the technology is actually fully utilizing the 1080p displays we already have, will an upgrade make sense.
Note that this is for video content. For your computer or tablet PC, higher resolutions are useful, and shipping tablets are already at higher resolutions.
I still don't get 1080p over digital cable, I don't see 4k coming anytime soon. The only 1080p content I have that gets displayed on my TV is blu-ray, video games, and digital downloads.
And to add: For computers the reason is simply in readability. Higher pixel density, e.g. 27" and 4K would make the reading almost pleasure.
3D is failing not due to lack of content or price; there simply isn't a large enough demand. You can create demand with the right products and service (e.g. Apple iXxx), but in the end the success or failure lies with the consumers. I'm not sure that people are going to care about 4k until everyone has 65+" TVs and the fidelity difference becomes substantial.
Is also a movie studio and is already selling 4k content.
But do the speakers go to 11?
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
There is one major road block to the acceptance of 3D that 4K does not have. Some people don't actually like watching movies or tv in 3D. 4K is not going to have that problem. Nobody would say I would rather watch something in 1080p over 4K.
All it needs it the right marketing, but sports fans are the usually market for these things. They're willing to spend any amount of money "for the team." The fact that someone from ESPN is out there trying to convince his viewership that it's not necessary is pretty significant.
I really do. It wasn'tmuch added cost. And yes, the problem is content.Movie makes should do the year of 3D. And actually sell the 3D at the same price. People would buy more 3DTVs.
The movie studios will eventually jump on board. They need something new to sell you the old movies again. Jaws on VHS, Jaws on DVD, Jaws on Bluray, Jaws 3D. Jaws 4K--why not? 4K will also be useful for the video editing industry. Cramming 4 x 1080p streams into a monitor is a huge productivity booster, if your computer is able to handle it. Unlike 3D, 4K has some real applications.
OK, let's to the numbers here.
The resolution of the human eye for somebody with astoundingly good vision is about one arc minute. At a distance of 3 meters, that means that the smallest thing you can see is about 0.9mm across. If the width of my screen is 1.5 meters, that means there is NO FUCKING POINT in making the display more than 1667 pixels across. For a smaller screen, say 1 meter wide, the limit is 1111 pixels. Which is why I never bothered to buy more than 720p for my 32" monitor, because only Superman would be able to notice the difference of a higher resolution screen at the distance from my couch to the TV.
4K is the video equivalent of Monster Cable.
There is way too must current content that is still not transmitted in 1080p. Buying a new (expensive) TV just to display most shows in standard resolution makes no sense at all. Yes, I know live broadcasts are usually in high def, but one can only watch so must sports on TV. To be fair, I think it is actually a legacy problem. There is so much good legacy content recorded in standard definition that it is tough for new content to compete, at least from a percentage perspective. Best excuse for a good movie or TV series remake that I have heard...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Having more pixels is all well and good but I would rather have a higher frame rate so that we do not have to rely so heavily on interpolation to reduce artifacts in action shots.
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
Actual 1080p isn't even here yet for a lot of media. Most games and TV stations still only use 720p, and there are quite a few movies in that mode as well. It's no surprise that no major content provider is considering 4K at this point.
Nobody would say I would rather watch something in 1080p over 4K.
When monthly Internet usage caps are factored in, how about "I'd rather watch four movies at 1080p than one movie at 4K"?
The timing for 4K is just too soon and wrong. Firstly, we're in a delicate financial situation around the world and the biggest consumer nation is on the edge of collapse. It seems like only a few days ago we went to digital TV. People are STILL getting rid of the CRT TVs. And the marketers are trying to sell us 4K TVs??! I'm sorry but no. Just no.
3d TV's failure was most certainly not a 'lack of content' and if it's perceived that way by the media mavens, then the same mistakes will be repeated.
3d failed because:
- technologically not-ready-for-prime-time; wearing uncomfortable specs etc wasn't popular in theaters the FIRST go around with 3d.
- people recognized it for what it was: a money-grab by hardware producers trying to re-milk the public that had already been forced to go out and buy all-new digital tvs.
-Styopa
Just give it up. Broadcast TV standards don't change overnight, and 4k is going to take huge effort, to provide a small improvement.
You're talking about making all those receivers people just went out and bough, completely useless. The government would have to PAY to replace them, just like they did with digital converter boxes a few years ago.
And don't tell me about satellite/cable companies! They lag BEHIND broadcasters, they do not take the LEAD... And internet service looks to be more bandwidth constrained than the airwaves for at least another decade or two.
In short, we had no improvements to NTSC for 56 years... You can expect to to get H.269 encoded, 4k resolution TV broadcasts right around the year 2065. So please STFU and stop whining about it. Go dust off your old laserdisc player, and dream your 3D 4k dreams in peace where we can't hear you sobbing.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Mega Ultra Chuck Norris Full Effing Optimus Prime HD!
Using a Tomahawk Cruise Missile to kill an ant... just don't make any sense.
What we need is a bigger contrast range, not more pixels that go nowhere.
and just repost every complaint about going to 1080p form 10 years ago? Jest replace 1080 with 4k.
Or flat screen with 4k.
People are going to want 4k because it's stunning.
If I had time I would look at the history of the loud complainers and see if they were the people saying no one would do HD or pay for a flat screen.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why did they switch from using vertical pixels as the dominant label (720, 1080) to using horizontal pixels as the dominant label (4k)?
I could see 4K for blueray or predownloaded movies (I have a 97" projection screen & semi-dedicated theatre room) but there's no way cable, dbs or streaming will have enough bandwidth to do a sporting event justice considering how badly they butcher 1080 today...
Can a normal human even tell the difference between an HD and 4K HD screen?
With my 4 year old 1680x1050 monitor I normally find that games, at most, go up to my resolution, and most play by default at around 3/4 of it. And just because you can set a game to play in a resolution, does not mean they are not just stretching all the pixels.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
> 3D's trajectory, which despite its initial hype has failed to establish a significant market share due to high price and lack of 3D content
3D didn't fail because of price or lack of content, it failed because it sucks. In very few cases did I ever watch a 3D movie where I didn't find the 3D distracting, and essentially an annoyance that detracted from my enjoyment of the movie.
4K is a perfect medium for film. Film is already large format. Every aspect of production ground-up is based around large format, and since it's not live or real-time, you can take more time to ensure quality compression. All you need is a bluray spec and an HDMI/Component spec, and you're good to go.
Broadcast is an uphill battle, because there are bottlenecks at every point along the transmission line. 4K cameras need SMPTE fiber, and most facilities are still only wired for copper triax. The switcher upgrade isn't a huge technical problem, but digital replay is - since the bandwidth is going up orders of magnitude(1). The UHD (4K) SDI video transport spec isn't even finalized yet, but it's looking to be between 6-12Gb/s, 4-8x current HD bandwidth. Most fiber transmission lines are still only 270M/s, not even enough to fit a full HD signal at 1.5Gb/s (and most cheap networks only use 40-80Mb/s on their backhauls for cost reasons)... and you're basically ruling out satellite, since pushing that much data saturates a good portion of the bird AND leaves you even more susceptible to issues from bad weather. Then once you get it to your cable provider, most HD channels they push out are between 3-12Mb/s, meaning a 4K channel - even if it takes up the space of 4 or 5 HD channels - will have the life squeezed out of it by the time it reaches the end-user. And considering broadcasters still can't even squeeze 1080p out of OTA, there's little chance you'll see a major network adopt it.
My guess is that film will be the deciding factor as to if 4K lives or dies as a spec. If enough people see the quality improvement (read: if enough people buy new 65"+ TVs or projectors) then broadcast will make a concerted effort to fill the content void. If everyone shrugs off 4K because they're watching it on their cheap 46" 720p flatscreens, it will dissolve just as quickly as 3D. But 4K has one major advantage over 3D... the end-user isn't required to wear those stupid polarizing glasses. That in itself may give the format life where 3D failed miserably.
(1) There are some highly specialized 4K X-MO cameras out there (SNF/MNF have experimented with it, there was also a few working rigs at the Olympics) - but the rigs required to run them are pretty insane... it requires bonding 8-16 fibers to transfer the data, and trays of hard drives to store only 20-30 seconds of replay data at 240fps. They're neat "toys", just not very practical.
Perhaps because 1080p can have varying horizontal resolution (1920, 1440, possibly others), whereas now 4K has a fixed horizontal resolution, it's better marketing to use the bigger number.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
While offering some advantages over 3D (no need for specs
My car offers some advantages over my wristwatch. I don't have to lug it around strapped to my arm all day.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
How will games/movies ever hope to find the space to fit the 4 times increase in storage size?
So, movies will now have to come on multiple BR disks? And forget 12 gig games, you actually think that any publisher is going to want to release 50 gig games, that in a retail setting will require two BR disks to fit?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
My understanding is that the core target of this spec is digital cinema, where the cost is not outrageous, and where there is a (perceived) market need for quality improvements (both for a better experience, and as a way of distinguishing yourself in the market).
It's a little early to declare 4K a failure. TVs are just being released that support the new standard and, like any new feature, they are still expensive. As for content, movies are being filmed in 4K and Sony is remastering movies into 4K. Sony is also making deals with Comcast, etc., to air programming in 4K. Personally, I think that 4K has a very good chance at success. I do agree that the adoption rate will be along the lines of equipment replacement. However, this has more to do with the fact that HD is good enough. 4K just isn't the seismic change that going from a tube TV to flat panel was.
We could benefit from high resolution (4k or more) filming without a high-res broadcast. If the downconversion is done correctly, the viewer can enjoy a sharper picture. I mean if the filming and downscaling gives a flatter modulation transfer function, the details that are poorly resolved at the current filming resolution can look better without any change at the receiver end. [See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_transfer_function#Example ]
We had a long journey to get where we are now, with HDTV and large, flat screens, and surround sound in the "home theater". It was a worthwhile journey, because now we can watch the entire back catalog of movies, going back many decades, pretty close to the way they were meant to be seen. That was the destination, and we've finally arrived, and there's really nowhere else to go from here. The technology is a solved problem. 3D and 4K are answers in search of a problem.
From now on, it should all be about the content. Movie making, as an art, was largely perfected by the 1970s -- and yet, somehow a lot of bad movies (to say nothing of TV shows) still get produced. Putting them out in 3D or 4K won't make them good.
I'm not sure about 4k for home use, but I think it has applications in office environments.
The small company I work for (less than 50 ppl) just bought a 65" 4K TV for use in one of our meeting rooms for collaborative computer work. I tried outputting a desktop to a number of 1080p panels and the picture quality was quite shit (unless of course you stand far away to the point the panel seems too small and you can't read much).
I'm not sure why that is... 1080p computer monitors are fine, but for some reason it just doesn't translate to TVs.
At 4k, PC picture quality is acceptable - actually quite remarkable, and so we went this route. We just got the thing so time will tell how useful it is.
I could probably do with maybe another foot of width, at the cost of not ever being able to reach behind the TV whenever I need to fiddle with something (and that's rare after the initial setup) or to swat at the cat after a few minutes of fruitless pleading for him to come out of there. Maybe if I had a bigger TV, he wouldn't even be able to get back there.
And maybe if I had that extra foot of width, I might be able to perceive slightly increased resolution. I can just barely see the difference between 720 and 1080 on a 50" TV (it's definitely real, but it's subtle (*)) so I suppose with an extra foot, the difference between 1080 and 1440 might start to become slightly perceptible.
To be able to see 2160 as being different, though, I would need much more than just another foot. I would need to re-arrange my furniture, and dedicate a whole wall of a room to being-a-screen. All for a subtle if-you-concentrate-hard-and-alternate-between-these-two-files-you-might-spot-it effect.
In some ways, that would be cool. I'm not saying it would be all bad. And yet, on balance, I think you would have to pay me to accept the 10-foot-wide TV into the house. "Honey, how do you feel about bricking up the fireplace, and putting it there? No? Hmm. Hey, this room sure has a lot of windows. We don't really need that many windows, do we?"
I think the 4K's market is for people who have a dedicated TV-watching room, where they've set things up where the TV really is effectively one of the walls, and they rarely do anything in that room, other than watch the TV. I have seen such things .. on the Internet. The guy who made up a theater room to look like the bridge of the Enterprise, for example. I don't think I personally know any person who has spent a whole room of house on that, though.
There's always the possibility that the higher res might be commoditized anyway. I have seen people with fairly small 1080 TVs, where there really is no chance that they would be able to see the difference from 720. Why did they buy it? Because it cost about the same.
So get the price of a 50" 2160 TV down to $800 and it might be my next TV anyway, simply because while it's no better than a 1080 TV, it would also be no worse, so why shouldn't I? I don't know what incentive the manufacturers would have to do that, though.
(*) And even then, it's hard to be sure. Does the 1080 version look better because it has more pixels, or does it look better because the 720 version necessarily has some minor sub-pixel scaling artifacts (by being scaled down from the same 1080 rip that the 1080 file was encoded from) which are then being rendered on my 1080 TV anyway? And if the two files are from different release groups who used significantly different encoder settings, then there's even more variables.
I don't know if this will take off, but if it fails it won't be because it repeated the failure of 3D television. 3D television had one huge drawback that this doesn't: no special glasses needed to watch. Who wants make the centerpeice of the new entertainment system something that takes $150 per person to show off at a Super Bowl party?
I'm reluctant to say current HDTV is good enough, because there was a time I thought SDTV was good enough and HDTV was a waste of money. Now I have two HDTVs and get annoyed when a football game I want to watch is only available in SD. But seeing as most of the early adopters for this type of thing would have relatively recently dropped a lot of money upgrading to pretty good HDTVs that still work great, I'm skeptical it'll take off. But even if the 4K content is limited at first, those 4K early adopters will be able to have large gatherings to show off their purchases.
Wake me when they announce 640K.
That should be enough for anybody.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
... enjoyed by Blu-ray over DVD presages the inevitable success of 4K. Oh, wait ...
When I visit the local Sony and see the 4K 9with true 4K content) side-byside with their best regular HDTVS, the improvement is quite stunning. The get pretty close to "appearing like a real window rather a just a TV" threshhold.
$7K to $3.5K for 55". But that is still several times more than a regular HDTV of that size. Sony almost drops the high end sound system in the cheaper model.
I don't plan to upgrade my tv til 32k is here... Read an article the other day about 4k, 8k, and 16k... so it's just a matter of time... probably be a decade or so, but til then 1080 or sd is just fine.
Why did they switch from using vertical pixels as the dominant label (720, 1080) to using horizontal pixels as the dominant label (4k)?
I think it's because 4k is a cinema standard, which measures horizontally, whereas previous measures (405/525/625/720/1080) have all been from broadcast TV, that happens to measure vertically.
99% of the US doesn't have the bandwidth (or the data cap, for that matter) to watch 4K, and never will as long as telecoms run the show.
It is Jerry STEINBERG, not Steinbers
They should be focusing on HDR...it's the least gimmickey of the improvements to be made to 2 - 2.5D display technology and really leaves an impression on viewers. Once you see HDR, you can't stand the lack of HDR - stuff like that tends to sell, no?
As if we're going to just stick with 1080p for the rest of eternity?
you will see 4k pick up in monitors once the country has access to gigabit internet across the board. until then it will just be a total waste of money
I want it for coding. Much lower performance requirements.
So called "3D" (actually stereoscopic) sucks in most cases
The best it gets is in a carefully done CGI film where left and right eye views are separately rendered by someone who knows what they are doing
Unfortunately, a lot of "3D" is regular 2D films, cheaply post-processed to give a slight taste of stereoscopic-ness
A 4K monitor can use intelligent upscaling to make any existing program material look better
People want better resolutions.
I'd love to have a 48" 4K computer monitor. Put it an arm's length away and it'd be like four 1080p monitors with no space in between them.
When I bought my 55inch TV the year before last, they were all 3d for 900-1000€. ;-), so how can they say it's a failure?
There was not a single one without it in that size, so I got one.
And I downloaded each and every 3d torrent I laid my hands upon
1080p took off for the same reason macs did, marketing
The mass market 1080p monitor makes perfect sense when HDTV sales skyrocket and cheap HDTV panels become available in any size.
The brand name 1080p LED monitor is $130 at New Egg or Office Depot.
I wonder if they could make curved/angled monitors.
I would love to not have a gap between my monitors, but not if that means I could not have them at different angels.
And their are many other technical hurdled that would need to be overcome first. Right now my two monitors are the only thing that prevents every app that likes to be full screen from taking over my entire desktop.
Personally, I am starting to think that multiple monitors with no borders would be a million times better than giant single screens.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
4k has more color gamut
That's already been done at 1080p:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quattron
It actually looks pretty nice.
Because it's matching a theater standard and they came up with the terms 2K and 4K long before we had 1080p.
I saw that article awhile ago with the 1440P monitors for 350 bux coming out of korea, picked on up and its amazing. 27 inch 2560x1440.
I didnt have any 1440P content, but I could watch 4K content via youtube, which downscaled very nicely and looked really detailed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMUxpTb_wWc
Could I tell the difference, Yes, easily. Its like night and day over a 1080P on a blue ray. 4K over 1080P is a BIG step in detail with that high resolution, so no idea what they keep saying "too soon".
Also, this whole True 4K vs 4K HD is annoying, 4096×2160 vs 3840×2160 means conversation, unless 4K HD is selected, then there will be upscaling.
And 4K isnt even the end, they have 6K 6,144 × 3,160 next step.
So baby steps, lets get 4K going for now, get better monitors and tvs going, broadcast and video services delivering content, and anyone who says "too soon" can die off like the dinosaur they are. The 4K monitors are here, the 4K Ultra HD tvs are here, some 4K blue rays are here, Youtube 4K streaming is here.
I am waiting for the 8K displays :)
3D didn't fail because of price or content. 3D failed because there are a LOT of people (myself included) who not only dislike 3D, but get headaches from watching it. Heck, I won't go to a movie if it's only showing in 3D, and have gone out of my way to let movie theater operators know. I'm not trying to bag on people who like it, but it literally prevents me from attending theaters.
It'll be about streaming.
4K won't die like 3D because you don't have to wear funny glasses.
Panels will transition to 4K and then the panels will drop in price until they are the same price as 1080p panels. And then you'll buy one whether you have content for it or not.
And streaming companies will offer it, we just have to wait for H.265 decoders to become commonplace in households. I imagine the fall crop of consoles (PS4/XBOne) will be starting the wave, although it'll have to appear in $99 streamers before it really hits the big time.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Here's an important distinction EVERYONE needs to know about 4k: It doesn't indicate quality!
Satellite providers like dish network and direct tv call 1080i 1080i because it's 1080 pixels tall (by 1920 wide usually). What they fill that resolution space with is static bitrate, low quality, giant-pixeled crap that no human should ever be subjected to. One guy standing still saying something = good picture. Confettii falling at the superbowl - pixels that are literally 1x1 inches on a 52" television. So if they go up to 4k, get ready for image quality to descend into a hellish nightmare from which there is no return.
Also, given Time Warner Cable's level of compression, I doubt they have the bandwidth to carry 4K either. Oh yeah, that's right, most devices and computers can't push 4K at 120FPS either. So basically no technology in existence supports 4K except for fake half-lies by satellite companies. THAT is why it's going to fail.
3D TV failed for one reason, and one reason only- because the idiots behind the initiative did NOT insist on backward-compatible broadcast streams.
Here's the story.
1) 3D TV was happening BEFORE the conversion of most modern nation over-the-air broadcast services to total DIGITAL encoding.
2) It was (obviously) IMPOSSIBLE for any new 3D broadcast signal to be backwards compatible with traditional, analogue signal (PAL, NTSC etc).
3) Every over-the-air TV viewer needed a DIGITAL box to receive ordinary TV
4) EVERY digital box had the capability to zoom or pan the picture via inbuilt functionality in the display chip
5) If 3D broadcasts had chosen SBS (side-by-side) 1080P broadcast format, EVERY digital box manufactured after this decision (which would have occurred BEFORE nations were fully converted to digital over-the-air) could have converted the 3D broadcast to a COMPATIBLE 2D output signal by simply zooming into either the left half or right half of the 3D image.
6) Had SBS been chosen and promoted immediately by the people behind the 3D initiative, there would now be free over-the-air 3D channels, appearing as ordinary 2D channels for people with ordinary TV sets, showing 3D sitcoms, soaps, and other ordinary content.
Remember how COLOUR TV only took off as quickly as it did, because all B/W TV owners could also view the same signal? But the 3D TV initiative people were GREEDY MORONS. They actually promoted the complete obsoleting of the entire path, from production of the show to reception by the customer, as a positive thing that would boost industry profits via a need for TOTAL re-tooling. Instead of SBS, they insisted on a new CODEC for digital boxes and Bluray players, that would cost an extra 200 dollars+ to implement. This would FORCE customers to buy hyper-expensive 3D bluray players and digital boxes. SBS, on the other hand, has ZERO additional cost.
Now 4K TV has NONE of these issues. It follows the path of previous HD initiatives, where there is no choice but to set up dedicated 4K broadcast channels, using new CODECS, and requiring the customer to buy new TVs and digital boxes. Backward compatibility is NOT an issue, since 4K is a TRUE premium service for maybe the first 5+ years of adoption, after which, the usual trickle-down technology effect is in full swing, with once mega-high-end equipment now selling for modest amounts.
Indeed, the issue with 4K is NOT with the expense of processing the signal (digital box), but with the cost of 4K panels and the expense of a bandwidth that allows a decent 4K image (at least 2X the bandwidth of good 1080P ***if*** the new CODEC pans out).
The panel makers need 4K, because their business is ALWAYS a race to the bottom on established technology. Making 4K panels is cheap- the DPI is laughably low compared to, say, a retina display. Decoding and driving such a signal (mains powered) is also trivial. Both facts allow the 4K businesses to manage the usual price-drops across time very easily.
Hollywood thinks it wants 4K, although feels somewhat uncomfortable giving the consumer a copy of their films identical to those that show in the cinema.
The ordinary user (gamer, TV viewer or film fan) really doesn't need 4K. They need BETTER 1080P (most broadcast 1080P material is VERY badly encoded) or they need games rendered with better methods. Making the macro blocks MORE visible, or having sharper edges on the same old mediocre game models is not helpful at all. But the nerdy part of the consumer base THINKS 4K is a lot better, and they will drive the push to upgrade. This will please the panel makers, please the premium cable services, and everyone else will be dragged along. 4K will be well established within THREE years- mainstream within 8.
Most of the world doesn't have that kind of cap.
You'd be surprised at what's likely to happen in the near future: Top US Lobbyist Wants Broadband Data Caps
Those caps are for rural people on satellite and places like Australia.
Then what workaround for 4K's higher data rate do you recommend "for rural people on satellite and places like Australia"?
4K is unnecessary for TV due to viewing distance and lack of 4K content, but it's GREAT for certain applications as a monitor. Basically anything where large amounts of screen real estate is required.
The Seiki 50" 4K TV is only $1000 and looks very good as a monitor once sharpness is set to zero. It's basically the equivalent of having a quad rack of 25" monitors but there's no bezel in the middle and the video card requirements are easier to meet. For applications like coding and finance, that's exactly what you want and not any more expensive than an equivilent monitor rack. It's not so good for gaming or anything where you want to look at the whole screen at a single time.
The "retina" distance where the pixels disappear is about 30-40", which is just about right for a huge monitor.
I have the Seiki 50" version of their 4K monitor. The 39 inch version shares the same limitations and benefits.
The quality of the picture produced by the monitor is all that I can ask for. Having 4K of usable desktop space at home makes me hate my tiny little 1440's at work. The best part of having 2160 vertical space is the sheer amount of code that I can see in each IDE. For some reason, tilting a normal monitor to stand in portrait mode bugs me. Too little horizontal space engenders its own type of claustrophobia, I guess.
The only problem with the monitor is the poor refresh rate at 4K resolutions. I can tease 120Hz at 1080p, so its great for gaming, but at 4K I am limited to 30Hz. The 30Hz refresh rate will either result in signifigant input delay, with desktop vsync enabled, or, with vsync disabled, will result in lots of tearing every time you update a large portion of the screen (scroll the screen or move a window, etc). I can't recommend the 30Hz versions of 4K monitors, unless you know what it's like.
I'd recommend that you turn your current display into a 30Hz display for a few days, see if you can stomach it, before buying a Seiki.
I welcome our new 99% overlords.
... I have never, since the days I stopped using analog broadcast, complained about picture quality.
I have complained that the content is absolutely vapid. No, I do not need to see Real Zombies of Survivor in breathtaking resolution ...
3D is a gimmick, that just doesn't work well enough, even in a movie theater. 4K is not a gimmick, but the marketing pukes are trying to turn it in to one. 4K will be successful in the home video market, offering a great cinema experience, but as far as broadcast, it will take far too much bandwidth, cost far too much money to implement, and have far too few viewers even capable of watching it for the next 5 years to make it remotely profitable, even for the HBO's, let alone the sports networks. 4K along with 21x9 will be the ultimate viewing experience at home, allowing people at home to experience great movies in the same quality and format as at the theater. But we're just not quite there yet.
Nothing to see here but us trolls...move along...
But Japan is already getting 4k in july 2014, with 8k following in 2020. (if not earlier)
This is just another one of their excuse, using the old "our country is bigger and it would cost more to deploy it all across". You also charge more for your services, so use that extra money to upgrade your services instead of sitting on your collective asses, increasing the fees yet doing nothing.
I could see the 4k televisions popular in sports bars if the picture was a lot better.
Most people who replied to you didn't answer you and most of those people gave you the wrong answer. A number of people said that the Seiki will only run at 1080p with a computer attached, which is just flat wrong.
The 4k Seiki will run in full resolution with both the 39-inch and 50-inch models. The limiting factor on the Seiki's are the connector, which is standard HDMI. A standard HDMI cable cannot push more than 30 hz, which is a very flow refresh rate for monitors these days. Indeed, the Seiki itself supports 120hz, but because it only comes with a cable jack that allows 30hz, you need to use 30hz.
In the next year hopefully other companies or Seiki itself will come out with displays with HDMI2 or Thunderbolt ports at similar price points. This will allow higher refresh rates to be used, prevent screen tearing in 3d work and gaming and improve fast-motion scenes.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
I think the only way 4K or 3D will become standard is if Sony & Microsoft support 4K / 3D output for their gaming consoles. I suspect that lots of gamers would buy the enhanced TVs just to play games in 4K / 3D. TV manufacturers should try bribing Microsoft and Sony...
Stupid manufactures, trying to sell 4K TV's when there isn't any source material, but they could be selling 4k monitors at dell/HP with little effort. The CAD/programming/etc industries would be snapping those monitors up if they were less expensive than buying a half dozen 2560x1440 monitors. Same problem at the TV studios. One of the problems with creating 4k content is finding PC software/hardware to edit with.
Maybe if Netflix actually streamed any movies worth watching...
150" sounds perfect for downstairs in the basement tv room.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Which was ironically shot on 35mm film and would just need to be re-edited to be released in 4K. Just look at Star Trek or Seinfeld in HD.
Just because something was shot on film (which *happens to be* capable of holding far more detail than was visible on the original SD transmissions) doesn't mean it was made with HD- let alone 4K- in mind.
This matters because HD is more than just the recording medium. Sets, makeup, et al have to be of a much higher standard than for SD. For example, when the BBC switched one of their most popular programmes, EastEnders, into HD, they had to redesign the "Queen Vic" set because the flaws in the original showed up more obviously.
Now, I'm pretty sure that the original Star Trek was never made with HD in mind. Even a (relatively) big TV production like Star Trek would have had relatively tight constraints on the budget (compared to cinema movies), and I'm pretty sure they weren't going to waste money on (e.g.) set detailing and makeup that was never going to be visible on the SD transmissions of the day.
There were likely good reasons for shooting on film- primarily, I assume for the aesthetic value, since even transmitted as an SD television picture it looks very different to natively-shot video footage. But I'm sure that the fact it happened to be capable of resolving far higher levels of detail was almost certainly a side-effect.
This matters because any *anything* that wasn't done to HD standard runs the risk of showing up flaws. And it raises the question as to whether viewing Star Trek in more detail than was ever planned for by the original makers is actually doing it a disservice or is actually "faithful" to the original.
On the other hand, shows from the 90's and 2K's are shot on digital at a much lower resolution.
I don't know for sure, but AFAIK most late 80s and 90s shows were film-sourced then edited on video (analogue or otherwise). I assume that "true" digital only started becoming commonplace for source footage after the millennium or so?
It should also be noted that while some shot-on-film-but-edited-and-mastered-on-video shows (which became standard from the late 80s onwards) could be re-edited from the source footage if it's still available, some shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation created the effects at the video stage. Some- AFAIK- were built from film sources, but would still have to be re-composited, etc. and others AFAIK were done natively on video and thus never existed as anything other than craptastic SD NTSC video. The latter would look dire in HD, no matter how good the rescaling, so will have to be redone- which AFAIK is what they're doing for the HD ST:TNG.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I look at this article and I see the other article today at http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/10/23/2213237/top-us-lobbyist-wants-broadband-data-caps for broadband data caps and clearly these two things are opposed initiatives, both designed to make more money by treating the public as money pinatas.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
I have no use at all for 3D movies, and wasn't really interested in shelling out the extra for a 3D. However, if it does become a fairly standard thing in the future, I could still see a good use for it with games, etc.
A 4k monitor with 3d games support could be interesting, indeed.
4K cannot be compared directly to any success or failure of 3D. We heard the same arguments when they came out with HDTV. The major difference is that 3D, as the technology current exists, requires some type of glasses to view it. One of my friends said watching the 3D video with the glasses gave her migraines. Another friend who wears glasses says that everything looks blurry. Japan has already moved a large portion of their broadcasts over to 4K with no problems, mainly because there's no other devices required to use it. Could you imagine how much better a show like Planet Earth would look in 4K resolution?
The FOX people were the last to the table doing HD at all, and they went 720p. So maybe they're not the best broadcast guys to ask.
-Dave Haynie
If you've got panel controller chips designed for 1080p, there's a good chance they can be made to work with a laptop display or a huge tv display. There's relatively little demand for a controller chip that can do 1920x1200.
I have been out of the image processing business for a long time, but based on my old experience, it seems to me that as resolutions get higher, compression should become more effective, especially if using more advanced methods. I could see 4K only requiring 20% more bandwidth most of the time. But from what I've heard the cable folks are already downgrading 1080p prior to transmission, so IDK what they might do to screw up 4K. This might be just the thing to finally make 1G cable internet the minimum standard. The cable companies could just eliminate the broadcast channels from the cable itself, put tiny solid-state cacheing/forwarding servers every few blocks (or even use everyone's cable box as a torrent host), and use all their bandwidth to push the video as IP, then convert it to TV in the cable box. This would eliminate a big chunk of their infrastructure costs since they'd only have two support one traffic type instead of two.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
LCD/LED/OLED TV's don't "Scan". Every single LCD/LED/OLED display and television I've owned since about 6 years ago have all done "Pixel Perfect". They only crop if the input aspect ratio doesn't match the screen aspect ratio and they only do that if you ask it to. By default they scale it down to fit.
I'm using a 34 inch Sony LED TV as a monitor alongside a 22 inch Samsung LED Monitor. Both do 1080p (1920x1080) and I am able to sit back in my chair with a wireless keyboard and mouse and do my work.
It's great! I used to be able to work real good on a smaller screen without a problem. But, now that I'm getting older and my eyes have lost their accommodation it is great to use a large, high-res monitor like this.
In conclusion, it is a VERY GOOD IDEA!
Yep, One huuuuuuge advantage of 4k. Passive full hi-def 3D Finally more like the cinema. Samsung, et all's active glasses suck (own one) lg's passive 3D sets sucked as they lost half the resolution. Just waiting for the price to come down a bit....
It is not to have 4 times as many things on the screen as a 1080p monitor. It is to have a 2:1 pixel ratio (like all the apple retina displays) or somewhere in-between. Web content, thanks partly to apple pushing high dpi displays, is now often tuned for this, showing you twice as much detail in the same space while keeping the dimensions it would have on a normal dpi display.
Read what anandtech had to say about testing a 4k monitor, and about how nice it is to look at fonts that arent just anti-aliased, but hardly have aliasing to begin with, thanks to the dpi.
I run a 1440p monitor, as it was the most pixels I could reasonably afford, (4K is just too much $) and I scale everything up so it's roughly 1080p sized. I love it for the clarity and sharpness, not for the number of things I can cram on the screen. (Although I do run my font just a little small in my text editor/ide)
There are of course downsides besides the price. Most of the 1440p monitors have poor input latency, meaning your mouse might feel a tiny bit laggy or put you at a slight disadvantage if you're a gamer, compared to lower latency 1080p monitors. That's totally ignoring whether your video card can render smoothly at that resolution. With 4K I'm not sure but I suspect it's the same or worse.
"...how insanely expensive will cable/sat providers make it to watch any of this bandwidth-consuming video?"
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"I used to listen to Null Device before they sold out."
The existing for-profit private network infrastructure can barely handle 1080p to begin with and 4k ain't gonna' happen on optical media since Blu-ray is already a failure. You can kiss 4k goodbye until a majority of homes have fiber connections.
3D did not fail on TV, 4K will not fail on TV, 1080p broadcasts did not fail on TV.
Cable failed TV.
People are dumping Cable because in the 21st century paying $100/mth for ANY kind of content is absolutely retarded. Especially when the content is not even in 1080p, let alone in 3D or ever going to be in 4K. And paying $100/mth where you have 1000 channels and 90% of them are only showing reality shows about dumb hicks doing dumb ass things, this is why TV is failing.
Every Cable company in existence should be ashamed for the poor state and roll out of technology and the absurd cost to the average consumer to access this asinine content.
Hopefully Microsoft, Google or Amazon will wake the fuck up and offer a solution that allows us to 100% bypass cable subscription services. So far Apple is only looking to whore themselves to big Cable.
I mean come on, Apple, Google, Amazon and even Microsoft combined are worth more then the combination of all other Cable compaies, content creators and content distributors, it's time for these 4 companies to dictate how content is delivered in the 21st century rather then kissing Big Telco ass.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.