Ghost Towns Is the First 8K Video Posted To YouTube -- But Can You Watch It?

Iddo Genuth writes: 4K videos and movies are still far from common and now 8K seems to start making its appearance online. A few days ago, what might be the first 8K video entitled "Ghost Towns" was published on Youtube and you can now watch it for yourself in its full 7680 × 4320 pixel glory — that is if you happen to have access to a 8K display (or projector).

The video was created by cinematographer Luke Neumann who used a 6K EPIC DRAGON camera using some advanced and complex techniques such as shooting in portrait orientation and then stitched the video together in Adobe After Effects. Some shots simply scaled up by 125% from 6.1K to meet the 7.6K standard and handheld stuff was 6K scaled up by 125% and sharpened up.

Youtube is now offering an 8K option and according to Google: "8K video has been supported since 2010, but that labeling for 8K video (the 4320p/8K quality setting like pictured above) was added "earlier this year — but presumably there was noting to view — until now...

Comments

Slashdotters

[ckatko]

I love that Slashdotters are all about VR, but "nobody can see 4K" and "there's no point in going above that."

Meanwhile, their 1080p 5" phone has a dot pitch 10 times their 1080p TV and they don't go "man, I wish the screen was lower resolution."

They sure have a fickle love of new technology.

Re:Slashdotters

[AmiMoJo]

It's worth noting that this video is only 8k resolution, but it's not what the eventual 8k broadcast standard will be. That requires a higher frame rate and higher colour depth as well. Same with 4k, it's more than just a resolution bump and most cheap 4k equipment is only HD with more resolution.

Re:Slashdotters

[ArsonSmith]

Yes, 8k VR headsets are going to be almost removing the 'V' from VR. As it is the GearVR 2650x1440 shows how much a little resolution goes compared to the DK2. The new Vive and CV1 should be similar with higher density pixels which will be awesome too.

Re:Slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you hold your TV 2 feet away away from your face?

Re:Slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

If it increased the battery life, hell yes I'd take a lower resolution phone.

Plus, yeah, the phone has 10x the dot pitch. But on the other hand, it's rarely more than 1.5-3 feet away from my face. My 50' TV is generally at least 12 feet away.

Re:Slashdotters

[zerosomething]

Ugh that makes my network hurt.

Re:Slashdotters

[dotancohen]

It's worth noting that this video is only 8k resolution, but it's not what the eventual 8k broadcast standard will be.

And if you want to see the actual video, then here's the URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You can watch it while the linked article _about it_ times out after 30 seconds or so of trying to load.

Re:Slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

a 50' TV located 12' away from you would be exceedingly difficult to watch.

Re:Slashdotters

[David_Hart]

It's worth noting that this video is only 8k resolution, but it's not what the eventual 8k broadcast standard will be. That requires a higher frame rate and higher colour depth as well. Same with 4k, it's more than just a resolution bump and most cheap 4k equipment is only HD with more resolution.

Not only that, but the majority of the content is upscaled from 6K (whether using upscaling or stitching). It's cool and all that he spent the time and effort to do this, but, in my opinion, it's not true 8K until it's native video. Red has a 6K camera that can be upgraded with an 8K sensor.

Re:Slashdotters

[oldmac31310]

If he has a 50 foot TV then, well he should build a model of Stonehenge to house the behemoth - just make sure to write down the instructions correctly on the paper napkin.

Re:Slashdotters

[rwa2]

If he has a 50 foot TV then, well he should build a model of Stonehenge to house the behemoth - just make sure to write down the instructions correctly on the paper napkin.

Obligatory Weird Al:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Slashdotters

[Khyber]

"That requires a higher frame rate and higher colour depth as well."

Show me any LCD that is an actual 32-bit panel and capable of handling that kind of gamut.

You won't. And RGB LED screens won't, either.

Re:Slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

You can watch it while the linked article _about it_ times out after 30 seconds or so of trying to load.

Well, I can watch it in 144p... that's about it. I'm on 2G right now, you insensitive clod!

Re:Slashdotters

[jimbolauski]

FYI cellphone resolution is at 1080p so you can hook your phone up to you 1080p television and keep it in it's native resolution. The reason there is no point in going above 4k is consumer electronics are not large enough to justify the huge files and large bandwidth usage. When 200" screens start becoming normal in homes 8k will have a place but that is not going to happen in the near future, most people don't have a place to put an eight foot by 14 foot TV in their homes.

Re:Slashdotters

[Bengie]

I don't care about current monitors, I only care that future monitor could take advantage of the higher color depth without a chicken-and-egg issue.

Re:Slashdotters

[Bengie]

Diagonal lines on 1080p still have "steps". The resolution is not high enough until those go away without anti-aliasing.

Re:Slashdotters

[Khyber]

Current monitors can't even take advantage of CURRENT color depth (old CRTs can!)

Unless they make a monitor where each pixel is capable of emitting each wavelength in the visible spectrum and combining those wavelengths for perfect color reproduction, you won't ever see even 24-bit color depth.

Re: Slashdotters

[jd2112]

....and then turn up the volume to 11.

Re:Slashdotters

[UnknownSoldier]

> I love that Slashdotters are all about VR,

You don't speak for all of /. -- wake me up when they can run @ 120 Hz for _both_ eyes because there is a world of difference between crappy 30 Hz, OK 60 Hz, and silky smooth 120 Hz. Right now they are barely able to 72+ Hz which is still too low for everyone.

The movie industry still doesn't have a clue between 24 fps and 60 fps

* OWE my eyes @ 24 fps !
http://red.cachefly.net/learn/...

* Not bad @ 60 fps !
http://red.cachefly.net/learn/...

Re:Slashdotters

[antdude]

Just download it with youtube-dl command:

$ youtube-dl -f bestvideo+bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Slashdotters

[Bengie]

Quantum dot displays can, but they're a bit further out. Too bad there are colors that have no wave length because they're an artifact of our perception caused by combining real colors. 3 color pixels with N combinations is good enough for now, until we find something better.

Re:Slashdotters

[mrchaotica]

Meanwhile, their 1080p 5" phone has a dot pitch 10 times their 1080p TV and they don't go "man, I wish the screen was lower resolution."

That depends. Would having less resolution get me better battery life? If so, I'll take it!

Re:Slashdotters

[mrchaotica]

Old CRTs were great: I had one that did something like 2048x1536 with real 24-bit color 15 years ago! Sure, it took up my whole desk, weighed a ton and sucked power, but it had a better picture than most of the flat panel monitors I've had since (and way better than the average shitty monitor that comes with people's Dells!).

Re:Slashdotters

[Alioth]

The TV is across the other side of the room, though. It doesn't matter that the TV screen has a lower dot pitch than the phone, I don't use the TV 18 inches from my face. All that matters is can I see jaggies or individual pixels on the TV from across the room? The answer is no. Anything more than 1080p on a TV screen is rapidly going into diminishing returns.

Now a computer monitor on the other hand is a different story altogether. So is VR due to the apparent size of the screen in a VR headset.

Re:Slashdotters

[AmiMoJo]

8k Ultra HD is specified at 12 bits per channel for colour. 12 bit LCD panels are widely available, although more expensive than 8 bit panels.

Re:Slashdotters

[Bengie]

All mater in the Universe is made out of quantised elements, but we don't see steps because the elements are small enough. Increase the resolution and get rid of it.

Re:Slashdotters

[jimbolauski]

Diagonal lines on 1080p still have "steps". The resolution is not high enough until those go away without anti-aliasing.

A 256k resolution tv will have steps in a diagonal line the question is how close do you need to get to see them. A 100" television is going to be the upper end of TV size no matter how cheap they get just due to the size. 3' away is as close as you can get to a 100" television without the screen being outside your field of view, but that includes peripheral vision where you can't focus,see color, or track movement very well. 30 degrees is about the max you can focus on so 5' is as close as you can get and keep the whole screen in your near peripheral vision. On a 100" 8k TV the pixel size would be 0.01" at 5' you can't see those edges and you won't be able to see a 0.02" pixel on a 4k TV at 5' either.

The issue with 8k televisions is that you can't get close enough to see aliasing effects without getting so close you can't see all the screen, 4k televisions are just on the other side of that ratio too so there is no need to get a larger resolution. The only use for 8k televisions is immersive experiences where you are not meant to see everything at once but that is not typical home entertainment experience.

Re:Slashdotters

[Khyber]

"12 bits per channel for colour"

YAWN. My CRT can display 64-bit color depths. LCDs and LEDs are so physically limited that neither can reach that kind of color depth, EVER. 12-bit panel? So, shit 36-bit Deep Color LCD, versus 64-bit color depth CRT?

YYYYYYAAAAWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNN.

Re:Slashdotters

[im_thatoneguy]

While we are on the subject, "8k" broadcast isn't 8k it's 7.5k. 7680/1024=7.5.

I would disagree though to say that stitched plates aren't actually 8k. Panoramas are actually higher resolution, a pain to do, but are no less "real".

Diminishing returns

[spiritplumber]

I can only see the difference between 720p and 1080p if I squint... but I blame TV sizes for monitors for taking away my precious vertical resolution.

Re:Diminishing returns

[ArsonSmith]

I'm much more excited about 4k 21-24" computer monitors than I am TV, but then I don't watch TV as much as I once did.

Re:Diminishing returns

[JazzLad]

This changed my life (only slight exaggeration). Roughly 150DPI, it is amazing for Photoshop & Fallout NV never looked better (yeah, there's better games visually, but I'm a FO junkie - FO4 later this year, woot!). I don't even use anti-aliasing in games anymore (in part because when you quadruple the pixels, 16x AA takes a LOT of GPU), it's dense enough I don't feel like I need it.

Re:Diminishing returns

[gstoddart]

Do you think a 4K 21-24" monitor will add much for you?

Unless you set it for jumbo fonts, or have super vision, for many tasks it seems like that would be too small to add much benefit -- at least to me.

I've currently got two 1080p displays on my desk (well, 3 if you count my laptop) ... and I'd not want my fonts or windows any smaller.

Now, give me a 40" 4K monitor, and that would be cool. But it seems like a 21-24" 4K monitor is just going to have pixels way too damned small for many of the things I can imagine using them for.

I'm not interested in 4K for TV at all, but for monitors I'd want significantly larger screens before I could see it adding utility. I'd just be squinting at it, which would defeat the purpose.

Re:Diminishing returns

[ColdWetDog]

For photography it has it's uses. Not enough to make most people bump up (the better gamut is more of a draw). My next monitors will be 4K, but I'm not tossing out my two year old screens just yet.

Re:Diminishing returns

[ArsonSmith]

I kind of settled and went with 3x27" HD res monitors. After going to 3 monitors I don't understand how I lived with tunnel vision for so long.

Re:Diminishing returns

[I4ko]

I can't see the difference, because my mind is busy seeing all the deblocking artifacts in the crappy low bandwidth steams. But definitely 1080 does have better color repro in shadows.

Re:Diminishing returns

[dj245]

Unless you set it for jumbo fonts, or have super vision, for many tasks it seems like that would be too small to add much benefit -- at least to me.

That's a side effect of operating systems which don't scale properly. Windows doesn't do it properly and most other operating systems screw it up in various ways too.

Re:Diminishing returns

[I4ko]

What are you talking about.. scale it so one page of letter size is same on screen as physically. 24" can fit two side by side, if it is 16x10 or 4x3, and not the pesky 16x9

Re:Diminishing returns

[omnichad]

Windows scales fairly well (especially Vista and up). Legacy programs that don't rely on pixels for element positioning do fine even in the compatibility high DPI mode. Programs that ignored resolution-independent guidelines that Microsoft had been providing for years, don't work well.

Re:Diminishing returns

[EvilSS]

I have two 4K monitors on my desk right now, both 28", as well as a 15" 4K laptop. On thing it adds (besides amazingly smooth looking fonts and GUI elements) is screen real estate. Even with the DPI turned up so text and icons look "normal" size there is a ton more screen space than you have on a 1080p screen. After using these for about 6 months now I have no plans to ever go back to 1080p if I can help it.

Re:Diminishing returns

[DanielRavenNest]

The human eye has a resolution of 1 arc-minute (1/60th of a degree), and so on a display that fills 90 degrees horizontally you can resolve 5400 pixels. The retina and brain do some fancy processing so that you can detect narrow linear features smaller than that. It's a kind of image sharpening, but it goes beyond the light sensing cells in the eye. For non-linear features like a checkerboard, 1 arc-minute is the limit.

So unless we are talking surround-screen, there isn't much reason to go past 4K, and no reason to go past 8K. In fact, you only see a small part of your field of view at full resolution. Stare at some icon or symbol on this page, and try to read anything else without moving your eyes. You can't. Your eyes have variable resolution away from the fovea, and make up for it by moving around.

Re:Diminishing returns

[eepok]

Personally, I can't be bothered to see the difference. I'm serious. It may have been being raised in the golden age of CD-burnable movies (degrade a 2-hour movie sufficiently to burn it to a 700MB disc), but I don't see the point in 1080p let alone anything more than that. How much detail is required to convey that someone is crying, that the ball hit the ground before the receiver took possession, or that the explosion went BOOOOM? Certainly not 8k or 4k. And I doubt 1080p.

Re: Diminishing returns

[bill_mcgonigle]

yeah, I've been wanting a "view-screen" sized 8K display since the 1980's. I did the math back then and it's never changed.

When an 8K comes out in the 40-50" range I'm dropping an ass-ton of money on one. I've been behind the buying curve since the early 90's because I always knew it was just a step. Finally at 8K I'll be done upgrading, so the time will be "right away". Apparently I lived long enough to see it and my eyes are still good. Now as long as I keep eating leafy greens until a low-powered 2D GPU can handle it, I might just be happy as a clam.

Re:Diminishing returns

[Jeremy Erwin]

Don't underestimate the value of jumbo fonts. Now, I've got the 5K imac, so even with "pixel-doubling", I'm not at a loss for vertical space. But everything looks clearer. What little antialiasing the mac uses can't be seen.

Re:Diminishing returns

[mrchaotica]

Ditto. I just bought a 42" 4K TV to use as a monitor ($300 at Brandsmart USA, by the way), and it's going to be great. (I use future tense because I'm still waiting on Newegg to deliver my new video card capable of driving it, so it's running at 1080p until Thursday... and even then, it'll temporarily be 30FPS until somebody comes out with a DisplayPort 1.2 -> HDMI 2.0 converter in a few months).

Anyway, for those who don't understand why 4K is great, the key is not to think of it as a sharper "regular monitor," but rather as four freaking monitors in an array, but without the bezels getting in the way. I couldn't care less about gaming in 4K, but I do care about (for example) being able to see my IDE, the interface of the appplication I'm developing, and a couple of browser windows at the same time without overlapping. Or four 1920x1080 VM or remote desktop windows. Or a 1920x1080 video, 1920x1080 game, and a couple of web browsers.

Re:Diminishing returns

[Ed Avis]

I use a couple of 24" 4k monitors. Just set 200% font scaling and you have things appearing the same size by default as they would on a 1920x1080 monitor with normal font scaling. But they look much better rendered, and if you want you can zoom out to smaller text sizes while remaining legible.

Re:Diminishing returns

[Ed Avis]

In my experience 200% font scaling has worked fine since Windows XP. There are very few apps which don't handle it right - although a few things such as the command prompt remain unscaled. It probably helps to turn off the Aero crap though.

Re:Diminishing returns

[prefect42]

But the argument you're making is for screen real estate there. A pair of Dell 27" 110dpi 2560x1440 IPS monitors for £800 for me is probably of more interest than a 4k 32" screen. 50% more area, at a DPI that's adequate, for slightly less than a decent 32" 4k screen costs. Having used the Dell 32" 4k screen, I couldn't convince myself that the DPI was doing me any favours in normal work.

Re:Diminishing returns

[EvilSS]

But the argument you're making is for screen real estate there. A pair of Dell 27" 110dpi 2560x1440 IPS monitors for £800 for me is probably of more interest than a 4k 32" screen. 50% more area, at a DPI that's adequate, for slightly less than a decent 32" 4k screen costs. Having used the Dell 32" 4k screen, I couldn't convince myself that the DPI was doing me any favours in normal work.

Plenty of horizontal space, yes. But you are still stuck with pretty crappy vertical space. Also who said anything about 32"? You can get a pair of Dell 28" 4K IPS 60Hz screens for $200 more (+$100 each) than a pair of Dell 27" 1440p monitors, without coupons or sales.

They have their downsides (some applications don't yet play nice with DPI scaling in Windows for example) but for work they are great. A bit hard to push for gaming, but that's changing quickly as well.

Re:Diminishing returns

[prefect42]

Sure, but the smaller you go, the higher the ppi, and I'm just not feeling the benefit for most of the work I do. You're at 160ppi with a 28" screen, so end up scaling things up to make them a better size to use. At that point, yet you've got slightly nicer looking visuals, but not more lines of text. That said, the 28" you point to is a very attractive price, so you end up not having to argue for paying for 4k, as they're just a pair of reasonably priced 28" screens.

8K Porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking forward to 8K porn, although it may shorten porn careers. Good thing there are new 18 year olds every year!

Re:8K Porn

[zerosomething]

Looking forward to 8K porn, although it may shorten porn careers. Good thing there are new 18 year olds every year!

I might should buy a laser depilatory and skin care shop in LA someplace.

Getting Ridiculous

[avandesande]

My razor has only four blades now I need eight.

Re:Getting Ridiculous

[omnichad]

Once upon a time, five blades was satire:
http://www.theonion.com/blogpo...

Re:Getting Ridiculous

[avandesande]

Glad somebody caught it ;-)

Re:Getting Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a safety razor. One is enough.

Not only is it enough, it is far superior to the twin-blade/triple-blade nonsense. Several weeks back I switched to Dad's old safety razor. I'm not going back. That twin-blade/triple-blade stuff is pure marketing shtick. Pass the good word on to all your friends and neighbors.

Support since 2010

[Anonymous Coward]

8K video has been supported since 2010

2010 was when I clicked on the play button. It's still buffering.

Re:Support since 2010

[Stele]

I clicked on it and it's working for me (300Mps fiber helps).

But the video quality looks like crap on my 2010 MacBook Pro. Clearly 8K technology is not quite ready for prime time.

Re:Support since 2010

[Just Some Guy]

But the video quality looks like crap on my 2010 MacBook Pro.

That's because your MBP has a hard disk drive that adds a lot of harsh harmonics to the signal. People who actually care about their video viewing use SSDs, which have straighter 1's and rounder, more organic 0's that improve depth of field and staging.

Re:Support since 2010

[Bengie]

Monster Cable SATA cables, power cables, video cables, nothing but the best!

I predict ...

[gstoddart]

I predict zero consumer demand for this.

HD was a moving target for years, and early adopters eventually got screwed as their gear no longer worked.

The movie studios dickered over the HD replacement for DVD.

If they think we're going to buy new TVs and the like every time someone makes it bigger, they're sorely mistaken.

I'm sure it will be beautiful and wonderful, and people with lots of money will rush to run out and drop thousands of dollars on new gear so they can brag to their friends.

And the overwhelming majority of household consumers will yawn, scratch their asses, and wonder what the hell is in it for them.

I find myself with zero motivation to replace any of my TV/stereo stuff just because someone has said "fuck it, we're going to 8K".

But suddenly it seems like every 2-3 years people believe we'll all swap out our existing stuff just because some filmmaker decided to use it.

This will be mostly a non-existent technology for most people.

Re:I predict ...

[omnichad]

And the overwhelming majority of household consumers will yawn, scratch their asses, and wonder what the hell is in it for them.....This will be mostly a non-existent technology for most people.

Honestly, I think that's fine. But there's been a bit of a screen size war and consumers do actually want bigger screens. And it's true,about half wouldn't even realize they were only getting 480p from the RCA cables on their cable box. The downside to larger screens is that 1080p isn't much when you are close to the screen and most movies (and some Netflix series) are already shot in 4K. Might as well make it available to the early adopters that want it. For everyone else, it's just something to consider when you pick the size of your next TV. And producing 8K large panels is the same process as shrinking 4K panel sizes for monitors (albeit more expensive, since it's 4-times the size of error-free pixels).

The only use case for 8K in the absence of 8K content is passive 4K 3D at full resolution.

Re:I predict ...

[zlives]

"passive 4K 3D" if that is true then shouldn't passive 1080p 3d be available on 4K screens?

Re:I predict ...

[omnichad]

Yes. Unfortunately, a lot of manufacturers gave up on passive 3D too soon. I already have several dirt cheap passive glasses (from the theater), but I'm waiting on the right 4K TV with passive 3D. It might be a couple years yet, if it happens at all. Active just doesn't seem to block enough light compared to the polarizing filters of passive 3D and I don't like it.

I'm only saying that there's a potential use case and content for 8K already in existence (4K for each eye), even if it isn't native 8K video.

Re:I predict ...

[SpiceWare]

early adopters eventually got screwed as their gear no longer worked.

Not true, my gear from 2001 still works just fine. Sure it predates HDMI by a couple years, but that is easily solved with an HDMI->Component Video adaptor

Re:I predict ...

[Kjella]

i just checked my local price guide and out of 631 TV models on sale there's exactly zero SD sets available and less than 10% are 720p. You can get a 58" UHD set today for less than I paid for my 60" 1080p TV about 4 years ago. Sure I'm not going to run out to get one, but in 10 years I expect 720p to be gone, 1080p the cheap option and 4K the norm. There's not really any downsides and the prices are coming down quickly, even 4K downscaled will look better because it's 4:4:4 @ 1080p. Better colors, HDR will probably all come as part of 4K rather than be "backported" to 1080p TVs, even though it's technically possible. Of course 8K is yet another step and maybe into nonsense land, but I'd say the switch towards 4K is progressing just fine.

Re:I predict ...

[schlachter]

Sure, most people won't swap out their TVs for 4k or 8k just because it's available...but enough people will so that in 5 years when I do upgrade....I'll be getting 4k for less than I paid for my current 1080p TVs. So let's be happy about it all...

Re:I predict ...

[Just Some Guy]

The downside to larger screens is that 1080p isn't much when you are close to the screen

I'm not sure about that. My couch isn't all that far away from our 60" 1080p screen and don't notice individual pixels even in things like the on-screen channel guide. There's an enormous quality leap from 480 to 1080, but not as much of a visible difference after that. You'd hear a big difference between 22KHz audio and CD-quality 44.1KHz recordings, but few people except trained experts using special equipment could hear the difference between 44.1KHz and 96KHz. Well, same with video: the current standards are pretty close to the limits of most peoples' perception, and comes at a significant component price, storage, and bandwidth cost.

Re:I predict ...

[omnichad]

I'm sitting right around what I'd consider the Nyquist distance from my 42" TV now. The screen is about 2-3 feet in front of a couch (cheaper than buying a bigger screen and this isn't our living room). If I wanted a bigger screen, I'd prefer a little more - especially considering the resolution loss of passive 3D (which I prefer).

Don't gauge it by not being able to see lines between each pixel (they're a hair's width compared to the width of a pixel), and don't gauge it by not seeing obvious stair-stepping (most digital graphics content is anti-aliased anyway).

Re:I predict ...

[guacamole]

Not every consumer is a nerd who gets his news from sites like Slashdot or Arstechnica. A typical consumer is a stereotypical family guy, possibly with children, who wants to buy a 4k TV because he saw those beautiful screens at Sams Club or Costco, playing a stunning looking content (that was specially recorded to be demod at the stores).

Still, I agree.. I can't see people tripping over their HDMI cable running to an electronics store to buy even a 4k TV. Realistically, buying a 4k TV would start making sense 2-3 years down the road, once we have gigabit broadband in every big city and ultrahd content on Netflix, Blueray, and possibly on cable tv.

Re:I predict ...

[AmiMoJo]

It will mostly happen as a consequence of people replacing their TVs as they fail, rather than wanting specifically to upgrade. These days in the west it's impossible to buy a non-HD large screen TV, and in Japan most of the ones over about 45" are going 4k by default.

We should welcome this. Aside from anything else, it means better LCD panels at lower prices for computer monitor. On the desktop 4k really does make a worthwhile upgrade.

Can I even stream?

[_xeno_]

No, of course I can't watch it, I don't own an 8K TV or let alone a 4K TV.

But what I'm more curious is: can I even stream it? Because I'm stuck with Comcast, so I'm limited to something like 20Mbps download speed. ("Something like" because that's the maximum, not the guaranteed, which is 0Mbps. Yay monopolies!) 4K video on YouTube apparently requires more than that!

So forget watching it, I can't even stream it in real time.

And I live in an area where there "is" competition. I could also get the same 20Mbps speed from RCN, plus Verizon offers FiOS in the area! But not to me, despite it literally running down the street I live on.

Re:Can I even stream?

[_xeno_]

That's all I can get without doing the "Triple Play" bullshit where I'd have to get TV and home phone service too, as well as install their own router and in-home wifi Xfinity thing.

So, yes, it's effectively all they'd offer me. Getting a faster speed would require me to rent a cable modem from them despite the fact I already own a DOCSIS 3 capable modem and have a working wifi router.

Re:Can I even stream?

[GTRacer]

Of course Xeno needs us to call the ambulance - Comcast's phone service being what it is!

Re:Can I even stream?

[Coren22]

Yay monopolies!

And I live in an area where there "is" competition.

Do you have some kind of split personality? You just typed two entirely conflicting statements. Either there is a monopoly, or there is competition. It is impossible to have both.

I have FiOS. There are cable providers in my area as well, plus DSL, so I have 75/75Mbit. Yay competition.

Re:Can I even stream?

[_xeno_]

Odd, that's what the Comcast rep told me that last time I looked into getting faster Internet. Are you telling me that Comcast lied directly to me? Because as far as I can tell through their website, it's true, the only way I can get the faster tier is to upgrade to "Triple Play," it's just not offered any other way. And in order to use "Triple Play" you have to use their Xfinity box. I specifically asked if I could keep my cable modem and they flat-out told me "no."

Re:Can I even stream?

[Cantankerous Cur]

It's not like Comcast is a wealth of accurate information. According to their own website, there are 6 devices that can support 250 mbps that you can buy off amazon. http://mydeviceinfo.comcast.ne...

On the hand, the packages for any given area are highly dependent on how much Comcast has neglected their network in that area.

Re:Can I even stream?

[Bengie]

Generally when I run speedtest.net, it comes in between 100 and 125 down.

25% variation? What kind of crap is that? Above what you're supposed to get or not, they obviously can't control their network.

Re:Can I even stream?

[AmiMoJo]

Did you read what he wrote? The quote marks suggest that there isn't really competition, because as he explains the only other option is basically the same crap 20Mb. FiOS isn't available to his property, he stated that explicitly.

Captured in 6k

[captaindomon]

So it was actually captured in 6k, and then was scaled to 8k. I don't think it should count unless it is captured in 8k. I mean, I could take a normal DVD and upscale it to 8k, but that doesn't mean much.

Gonna bypass this one

[fustakrakich]

I'm waiting for life size 3D holograms to be projected into the middle of the room.

Re:Gonna bypass this one

[requerdanos]

> I'm waiting for life size 3D holograms to be projected into the middle of the room.

Wow, we might wait a long time... Even R2D2 was only shooting about a 10cm hologram of Leia saying "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope." And that was a long time ago, far far away from here, where they had (will have had?) technology arguably greater than ours...

Re:Gonna bypass this one

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Ah, so you like going to plays?

Re:Gonna bypass this one

[Whiteox]

Really? Blaster energy weapons where the bolt of destruction travels at 50m/s? Same with Star Trek phaser fire, Jaffa fire from SG. The only accurate depiction was in Babylon 5. Why so slow?

Re:Gonna bypass this one

[mrchaotica]

That's because R2D2 is a portable device. Fixed holographic projectors in Star Wars were shown to have a much larger projection area (e.g. the star map in the Jedi academy, the communications devices on starship bridges in The Clone Wars animated series, etc.).

Of course, Star Wars projectors' resolution and color depth sucks, and WTF is up with the analog-looking static?!

"advanced and complex techniques"

[jolyonr]

Such as "shooting in portrait"

Well.. sorry to say this but this particular advanced and complex technique has been used by every idiot with a smartphone recording videos for years.

Also... 6k video scaled up isn't 8k. it's 6k video with some random pixels thrown in for marketing reasons.

Re:"advanced and complex techniques"

[coofercat]

Yes, but unlike every idiot with a smartphone, he doesn't suffer from Vertical Video Syndrome (VVS) https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

4k downsampled to 1080p is AWESOME

[BrookHarty]

I was always wondering why a 4k video playing on a 1080p looks so awesome compared to same 1080P video. Well, the 4K and 1080P uses 4 pixels in a square with the same chroma. When you downsample the 4k on a 1080p, it goes to a 1/1 pixel matching, so no more 4 square pixels. You get a more detailed video with more vibrant colors and detail. Its crazy how better it looks. So the true visual quality is lost in the encoding on 1080p!

We are being robbed of visual quality, so more pixels is a selling point. (mostly)

Re:4k downsampled to 1080p is AWESOME

[ndavis]

I was always wondering why a 4k video playing on a 1080p looks so awesome compared to same 1080P video. Well, the 4K and 1080P uses 4 pixels in a square with the same chroma. When you downsample the 4k on a 1080p, it goes to a 1/1 pixel matching, so no more 4 square pixels. You get a more detailed video with more vibrant colors and detail. Its crazy how better it looks. So the true visual quality is lost in the encoding on 1080p!

We are being robbed of visual quality, so more pixels is a selling point. (mostly)

I have been hearing this and just purchased a 4k video camera thinking that I can downsample it if necessary or I can keep it 4K for Youtube and in the future my kids/grandkids will be able to enjoy the high quality video I took.

Re:4k downsampled to 1080p is AWESOME

[omnichad]

You could get that with a higher bitrate, too. Chances are that their 4K scaled down to 1080p would be very close in visual quality to your average Blu-Ray encode.

Re:4k downsampled to 1080p is AWESOME

[amaurea]

It's possible to turn off chroma subsampling in h264, avoiding the need to encode the video at twice the target resolution. But for a while that wasn't as well-supported.

For youtube in particular, there is another issue that makes video encoded at high resolution look better when downsampled than something encoded for the target resolution. Youtube assumes that low-resolution videos are low quality, and hence can be compressed more aggressively. This is why things like TASVideos encode their console gameplay videos, which are inherently 256x224 or similar in resolution, at at least 1080p. Simply doubling the resolution to avoid chroma subsampling still leads to youtube compressing the video too much.

It would not surprise me if other encoders than youtube's behave the same way. That could also be part of the explanation for why the downsampled video looks better.

Re:4k downsampled to 1080p is AWESOME

[dwywit]

Yep. People overlook bitrate when talking about resolution, colour depth, etc.

That's one reason why a blu-ray and a DCP look different, even though they're both 2K.

Re:4k downsampled to 1080p is AWESOME

[omnichad]

There's that reason, and also that the dot pitch of a DLP DCP is practically zero due to overlap. That makes a much smoother image.

Also, most theaters have moved on to 4K.

Re:4k downsampled to 1080p is AWESOME

[dwywit]

Maybe, but not mine. We've only had a 2K projector for 2 years....

Re:4k downsampled to 1080p is AWESOME

[omnichad]

Since we moved our couch up close to the TV, it's really only the fact that I don't have proper curtains yet that make us even want to go to the theater. Our theater's screens are too small for 4K to be enough difference, truthfully, and it's over an hour's drive for the "Mega Screen" (50' x 70') that guarantees that your field of view is covered pretty well and that you can even turn your head a bit and still see only screen.

Once I get proper light-blocking, I won't really want to go to the theater very often.

Re:4k downsampled to 1080p is AWESOME

[AmiMoJo]

What happened to that Pied Piper thing? Weren't those guys doing lossless 4k streaming?

Why the switch in nomenclature?

[jfengel]

I know I'm way behind the times when it comes to consumer electronics, but the last time I bought a TV I wanted a 1040p, and kind of assumed that 4k and 8k would have 4x and 8x the vertical density of that. Apparently not; Wikipedia sayeth that it switched from vertical to horizontal resolution.

Now that I know this, it's not difficult to understand. But I'm curious as to why they'd change naming conventions. Is there any particular reason?

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[vux984]

But I'm curious as to why they'd change naming conventions. Is there any particular reason?

Short answer:

Because people in marketing are catastrophic idiots.

Longer answer:

This is the graphic to look at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

4K UHD has nothing to do with horizontal resoution. 4K is because its exactly 4 x 1080p tiled 2 by 2. (see how the FHD fits exactly 4x into UHD).

So 4K UHD is 4x1080p =~> 4K

By sheer coincidence 4K UHD at 3840x2160 which is sort of close to 4k horizontally 3840 ~= 4000 so lots of people thought it meant horizontal resolution rather than 4 x 1080p. To further confuse the issue there actually is a DCI 4K resolution 4096x2160 which *IS* named 4K for the horizontal resolution, which is actually 4K (4096 is 4k in binary of course).

Then when it came time to make the next standard, they did the samething as the did to make 4K. They just tiled a 4K screen 2x2. (Again see how 8K UHD is exaclty one quadrant of 8K... )... so 8K is 4 x 4K tiled 2x2 or 16 x 1080p tiled 4x4... but by then most people including the dipshits in marketing thought the 4K was the approximate horizontal resolution, so they called it 8K UHD. because 7860 is ~= 8000.

There are some other resolution standards in the 8K family that are derived from the DCI 4K... so they actually have 8192 pixels horizontally... well most of them anyway. 8K "21:9" keeps the vertical fixed and expands the horizontal out to 10,240... because why not. (I mean, I get it... but then 16:10 should have just varied the vertical and kept the horitontal... but that's 8192x5120... which isn't really consistent with anything.

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[TeknoHog]

The last time I bought a display, I wanted to know both the horizontal and the vertical resolution. If you rely on lossy naming conventions that assume a typical ratio that may or may not be typical the next/last year, chances are you won't really care about the actual resolution.

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[omnichad]

Because 4K is a film term. Digital movie projection was always measured in vertical resolution. And for that matter, it was used in the analog TV days. Back in the CRT days, you would see the marketing say that a particular TV or camera has "500 lines of resolution"

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[jfengel]

Oh, for the love of Pete... thanks for the headache. Now I know. (And wish I hadn't asked ;-)

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[diamondmagic]

In my experience, it's because digital cinema projectors are measured in horizontal resolution; and a 2k projector is 2048x1080 pixels.

In digital cinema, resolutions are represented by the horizontal pixel count, usually 2K (2048×1080 or 2.2 megapixels) or 4K (4096×2160 or 8.8 megapixels).

Movies are shipped inside this frame; 1.85:1 is 1998x1080; 2.40:1 is 1920x800.

4k is double the above heights and widths, 8k is quadruple.

For general consumer TVs, they're always 16:9 so you get 1920x1080.

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[diamondmagic]

Bad memory: widescreen (2.40:1) 2k cinema is 2048x852

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[amaurea]

I am not convinced this forest of confusing display size name standards is better than simply writing down the dimensions explicitly. 1920x1080 is not that much longer than 1080p, and makes it explicit which dimension is how long.

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[Whiteox]

So now I have to learn that a video K is different from a base 2 K?
1K = 1024
1 video K = 1080
1 HD K = 1000

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[Whiteox]

Mine had 625 lines. Nothing wrong with my 19" analog except it doesn't work anymore.

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[Lost Race]

4K UHD has nothing to do with horizontal resoution. 4K is because its exactly 4 x 1080p tiled 2 by 2. (see how the FHD fits exactly 4x into UHD).

That makes no sense whatsoever, and is also wrong. Following the first link in the wikipedia article you cited, we find this: "4K resolution, also called 4K, refers to a display device or content having horizontal resolution on the order of 4,000 pixels."

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[Bo'Bob'O]

"4K" was pretty widely used in the cinema world well before it really started to become something that came into the consumer market. So for once I don't really think this is some hidden marketing agenda

Personally, I think it's close enough to 4000 for 4k (and 8k by extension) to be a perfectly acceptable short hand. I'll take having to say "4k" any day over something like "WQUXGA". Particularly since these goofy names don't give you a lot of other information that can be just as important (Color depth, chroma sub-sampling, color space, refresh rate, etc). If you want to be specific, it's much more clear to just write out the resolution, aspect, etc. If you don't need to know all those details, saying '4k' is probably good enough.

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[vux984]

Following the first link in the wikipedia article you cited

Lol, well if you read it wikipedia... :)

Here's the thing, 4K as a professional term means that.
4K as a consumer term originated from it being 4x1080p.

A good link to read would actually be the one on 2K
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Here you see the DCI 2K resolutions spelled out. 1080p in particular is not included and they even go on to say that it is officially not recognized as a 2K resolution by the DCI and in industry standards.

The same is sort of true for 4K. The DCI 4K is 4096x2160.
The consumer 4K UHD is 4 x 1080p.
However since they are both called 4K they are no thoroughly and inseparably conflated now.

For example, go back to the 4K link you provided:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The image there labels 1080p as 2K, despite it being explicitly excluded from being 2K on the 2K page.

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[vux984]

"4K" was pretty widely used in the cinema world well before it really started to become something that came into the consumer market.

Yes. DCI 4K.

DCI 2K is also widely used in the cinema world. And 1080p is often conflated with 2K even though it is officially not recognized as a DCI 2K resolution; so its wrong to call 1080p 2K (even though the wikipedia page on 4K has it labelled as such... while the wikipedia page on 2K makes it explicit that its not considered 2K.)

So when marketing named UHD "4K" it was justified as 4x1080p -- the DCI still didn't recognize it; but naming it 4K UHD served to permanently conflate the consumer 4K UHD with the previously existing DCI 4K resolution. Despite it being well short of 4K horizontally.

Re:Why the switch in nomenclature?

[UnknownSoldier]

> But I'm curious as to why they'd change naming conventions. Is there any particular reason?

Two words: Marketing shenanigans.

They switched from using vertical for 720p, and 1080p, to horiztonal 4K (sic.) when it should be called 2K since it is 3840x2160.

Time to rerender Big Buck Bunny

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Looks like it is time to re-render Big Buck Bunny.

Re:Time to rerender Big Buck Bunny

[ckatko]

You're joking but THEY ALREADY DID IT.... in 2013! High frame rate, stereo, and 4K editions. Talk about planning ahead!

Enough is enough

[WaffleMonster]

When I hear 4K or 8K all I think of is a Spishak Mach 20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Even 4k at highest possible FOV in full VR is overkill with a working eye tracker and clever photon source. 15 degrees of arc is all cones of human eyes can see.. /w rest requiring an irrelevant number of pixels.

There will be excuses like VR that will push legitimate uses of high density yet relatively low DPD (Dots-Per-Degree) displays for a number of years yet this is only a passing state of affairs.

EPIC DRAGON

[Fear the Clam]

That's nerd cred right there. Drop the mic and walk.

Sheesh, 4K isn't obsolete yet!

[m.dillon]

I mean, come on... just when the graphics performance starts to get good, people all want bigger displays which halves the performance and then want to go even BIGGER and halve it again.

My perfectly good Sandybridge i7 can't drive this shit. Time to rotate in another workstation. Again.

Grumble.

-Matt

Re:Sheesh, 4K isn't obsolete yet!

[Whiteox]

That's not half of it. Torrents are starting to appear in 4k. Even Bluray stuff takes ages. An 8k download will burn my modem up.

what happened to 3D TV?

[tekrat]

Wasn't that supposed to be the great next home entertainment technology??? That disappeared fast.

Now we're talking 4k/8k resolutions, good luck trying to get Netflix to stream something like that through our existing crappy internet infrastructure.

Comcast will throttle it no doubt, so what you'll end up with is choppy/low res pixelated crap.

It's a great idea, but too bad that the USA is a third-world country as far as broadband is concerned. Every Asian country has bigger pipes than us. But we're the ones being hacked by the Chinese.... go figure.

Re:what happened to 3D TV?

[guacamole]

100Mbps is all you need to stream UltraHD (much less actually). Plenty of households have access to this sort of bandwidth, but it's still rare.

Realistically, 2-3 years down the road, there should be affordable gigabit broadband in every big city, and there will be more UltraHD content on Netflix and maybe Blueray discs. So then it will be a good time to start thinking about buying a 4k TV. Prices will hopefully come down by then.

Only 8k?

[jimmydigital]

Wake me up when it goes to 11k and the black levels can be none more black.

Re:Only 8k?

[thegarbz]

Black levels can be none more black right now if you buy the right TV.

Re:i come with dire warning from the future.

[kencurry]

Good post. How did you solve the time dilation issue where dates in posts are stretched and reflect relative time of the reader not the actual time of the poster?

Re:8K ought to be enough for anybody.

[0123456]

Now, where have I heard that before?

I'm waiting for 640K TVs before I upgrade.

No Porn No Market. Fact

[zacherynuk]

They need to have this shit on 180 cameras
Porn drives Tech, always has always will - VR Porn will see a massive boost of innovation - resolution is key to this. ( and FOV)

Re:YAMBT

[zacherynuk]

RIS ?

Of course I can!

[afranke]

Yes I can watch it, I just hit play and it plays!
Oh you meant watch at its actual 8k resolution? Well for starters Firefox won't offer anything else but 360p even when 720p or 1080p is available (pretty common these days), or even a more modest 480p when using HTML5, so fat chance.

Can you actually Watch this at 8K resolution?

[leonbev]

I tried watching this at 8K resolution on my quad core i7 laptop, and it turned into a slide show. It looks like Chrome was using maxing out 4 processor cores and was using 5 GB of memory at the time. Wow.

Running the video at 4K worked fine, though.

I downloaded & tried to play it...

[antdude]

... But my old desktops couldn't play them in both Windows (MPC-HC and VLC) and Linux/Debian oldstable's (c too)VLC and Mplayer. :( VLC worked on my king ant's MacBook Pro (2012), but it was choppy. :(

Re:144p ought to be enough for anybody

[mrchaotica]

With 4K, I can watch 225 144p cat videos at the same time!!!!

I can haz a beowulf cluster of cheezburger!

Re:Good luck with that

[Malc]

Interesting... it's labelled incorrectly as "2160p" on Keepvid, but it does appear to be 7680x4320.

http://keepvid.com/?url=https%...

 Download MP4  - (Max 480p)
 Download MP4  - 720p
 Download MP4  - 144p (Video Only) - 1.5 MB
 Download MP4  - 240p (Video Only) - 3.6 MB
 Download MP4  - 360p (Video Only) - 4.4 MB
 Download MP4  - 480p (Video Only) - 9.5 MB
 Download MP4  - 720p (Video Only) - 18.4 MB
 Download MP4  - 1080p (Video Only) - 35.3 MB
 Download MP4  - 1440p (Video Only) - 81.9 MB
 Download MP4  - 2160p (Video Only) - 316 MB
 Download MP4  - 2160p-2304p (Video Only) - 158.9 MB
 Download M4A  - 128 kbps (Audio Only) - 1.9 MB
 Download FLV  - 240p
 Download 3GP  - 144p
 Download 3GP  - 240p
 Download WEBM  - 360p
 Download WEBM  - 144p (Video Only) - 1 MB
 Download WEBM  - 240p (Video Only) - 1.6 MB
 Download WEBM  - 360p (Video Only) - 3.2 MB
 Download WEBM  - 480p (Video Only) - 5.7 MB
 Download WEBM  - 720p (Video Only) - 11.9 MB
 Download WEBM  - 1080p (Video Only) - 21.4 MB
 Download WEBM  - 1440p (Video Only) - 66 MB
 Download WEBM  - 2160p (Video Only) - 198.6 MB
 Download WEBM  - 128 kbps (Audio Only) - 1.8 MB
*NEW* Â Download MP3 Â - 64/128 kbps

Lies! All lies!

[wonkey_monkey]

A few days ago, what might be the first 8K video entitled "Ghost Towns" was published on Youtube and you can now watch it for yourself in its full 7680 × 4320 pixel glory.

The video was created by cinematographer Luke Neumann who used a 6K EPIC DRAGON camera using some advanced and complex techniques such as shooting in portrait orientation and then stitched the video together in Adobe After Effects. Some shots simply scaled up by 125% from 6.1K to meet the 7.6K standard and handheld stuff was 6K scaled up by 125% and sharpened up.

Why must you turn Slashdot into a house of LIES?!

Where are my 8K Video Bytes?

[gatzke]

Seriously, how the heck do we get those stupid Video Bytes out of the feed? Do not want.

Moving the polls from the sidebar and sticking stupid video bytes in that I cannot get rid of are both "Bad Ideas."

Sarcasm in post

[AAWood]

"advanced and complex techniques such as shooting in portrait orientation and then stitched the video together in Adobe After Effects"

Was that sarcasm? 'cause it read like sarcasm.

Re:I predict ... PORN

[wasteoid]

To really get 8K video to become mainstream, the first 8K video should have been an incredibly detailed porn video.

Re:Youtube is going to get me screwed.

[Trax3001BBS]

Maybe start making your own work, rather than stealing that created by others and claiming it as your own.

Couldn't figure out what you were posting about, stealing someone elses work as my own.

The fav uploaded right, Nope, not only was it properly attributed to Pita Ten and Shia Chan; the start of the video has an intro by Shia Chan, their Yahoo.com email address, and a hope you'll enjoy the video; then the best rendition of "Send me an Angel" I've heard begins.

The intro is separate from the music and easily removable. In a way posting the video I felt a hat tip to Shia Chan, as it was no longer found on Youtube.