4K UHD TVs Are Being Adopted Faster Than HDTVs (venturebeat.com)

Now this may surprise some: 4K Ultra HD televisions are expected to double sales to 15 million units in the U.S. in 2016, and the next-generation TVs are now being adopted at a faster rate than predecessor high-definition TVs. 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray players are also selling at a fast rate, according to Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, the big tech lobbying group, VentureBeat reports. From the report: At a press event in San Francisco, Shapiro said that 62 percent of consumers plan to buy a consumer electronics viewing device in the next 12 months; 33 percent plan to buy a smartphone, and 29 percent plan to buy a TV. "Consumers are showing a strong preference for 4K," which has four times as many on-screen pixels as HDTVs, Shapiro said. "It's faster and more robust than HDTV." By 2017, 4K UHD TV sales will hit 20 million a year in the U.S. That number will grow to 23 million in 2018, and 26 million by 2019, Shapiro said. The 2016 growth rate is 105 percent above the units sold for 2015.

Comments

Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

TV is still 720. Movies are 1080. What's the point of 4K again?

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[bobbied]

If you build it, they will come....

As I understand this. 4K is what you get at many small theaters which use digital projection these days. There is some 4K material available, including streaming sources that actually have noticeable quality differences.

Will folks notice the difference? Unlikely... Or, as was the case when I saw my first 1080p resolution movie, I got very distracted by the background set and costume issues that now became oh so visible... Made the movie, an action adventure flick, almost unwatchable for me.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Carewolf]

TV is still 720. Movies are 1080. What's the point of 4K again?

Future proofing. And pretty cheap at that, with a FHD 50" TV selling at €350, and the 4K at €400, it is not that more to pay something that might come in handy in a year or two.

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is irrelevant. Manifacturers arent offering many non-4k options aside from low end stuff, so of course people are buying lots of 4k.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

Future proofing? WTF? 4k TV would be only cheaper in the future....

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[sdguero]

The upscaling is pretty impressive. A good 4k upscaler looks significantly better on the same 1080 source. That said, 1080p give a pretty sharp picture in it's won right. I don't think 4k is very noticeable in typical size family room (i.e. viewing from 10-14 ft away) unless you have a 75" or larger TV. Similarly, if you have 42" or smaller TV 720p is probably OK unless you are sitting 6 ft away from it.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Carewolf]

Future proofing? WTF? 4k TV would be only cheaper in the future....

I don't need a TV in the near future, I needed a new one now, and therefor bought the 4K screen, since my TVs last somewhere from 5 to 10 years.

I think a lot of people are in that situation, they need a new, or want a bigger TV. 4K sales are exploding because they have become very competively priced in the last year.

And even without the 4K content, the onscreen menus have much sharper rendered text. It is actually a bit painfull to look at TV text menus at 1080p after using them in 4K.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[fustakrakich]

What's the point of 4K again?

It's the "gateway drug" to 8K, which should hit the market about the same time 4K content becomes ubiquitous.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I'm thinking about upgrading from a 37" set to a 50", and frankly it's harder to justify buying a1080p set than a 4k one. To buy a 1080p set now, when 4k is there and there isn't even a huge price difference just seems short-sighted.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Sique]

Here around, TV is partly 1080p already.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[jcr]

Gaming.

-jcr

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you see 720p content on a 4K where it's an integer scaling instead of a fractional scaling, that 720p content looks a LOT better.

4K is a 'sweet spot' where 720p is perfectly tripled, and 1080p is perfectly doubled, so the scalers are a LOT better in general since they don't need to deal with 'fractional' scaling.

That's the main reason 1080p TVs don't have the "punch" claimed: There's sooo much content that's 720p, and it looks fairly rubbish due to the 1.5x upscaling.

720p content on a 4K UHD TV looks crisp and sharp, 1080p content looks crisper and sharper, native 4K content (which NetFlix and Amazon both offer quite a bit of actually) looks and in fact is better than most digital IMAX theatres right now. :)

- WolfWings, still too lazy to login

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

1080i, perhaps?

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[aristotle-dude]

The upscaling is pretty impressive. A good 4k upscaler looks significantly better on the same 1080 source. That said, 1080p give a pretty sharp picture in it's won right. I don't think 4k is very noticeable in typical size family room (i.e. viewing from 10-14 ft away) unless you have a 75" or larger TV. Similarly, if you have 42" or smaller TV 720p is probably OK unless you are sitting 6 ft away from it.

Not this again? Listen, not everyone lives in the burbs in a huge house with a "family room". Many live in condos downtown where a TV cannot be 10-14 feet away so a 55" 4k TV is noticeable.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[cayenne8]

There's some 4K content from Amazon Prime and Netflix.

I recently got one of the LG OLED 2016 TV's and man..that thing is spectacular!!

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[jaa101]

As I understand this. 4K is what you get at many small theaters which use digital projection these days

As I understand it, most digital cinema projectors are only 2K, i.e., essentially the same as "Full HD".

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[bobstreo]

There's some 4K content from Amazon Prime and Netflix.

I recently got one of the LG OLED 2016 TV's and man..that thing is spectacular!!

I'm pretty sure there is 4k content on youtube and vimeo as well.

Although there is a ton of 360p which looks crappy even on my HDTV.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Moheeheeko]

PC gaming

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[GrumpySteen]

8K would require actual improvements in technology. TV manufacturers will try to sucker people into paying extra for 3D, curved screens and other nearly useless features long before they actually improve anything.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Kjella]

As I understand this. 4K is what you get at many small theaters which use digital projection these days.

Yes, but cinema 4K is not the same as TV 4K. They use DCI 4K, either 4096x1716 for 2.39:1 or 3996x2160 for 1.85:1, while UHD 4K is 3840x2160 for 16:9. For extra confusion most 4K cameras capture at 4096x2160 and there's some speciality monitors in the 17:9 format too, but usually you'd crop down to one of the three above for delivery. Most of them frame/master for the DCI release, so what you get on TV is mostly an adaptation/rescale for UHD.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a 4k TV to use as my computer monitor (for PC gaming). I'm a huge graphics whore. 4x the pixels of 1080p? Sold. I've already been downsampling for years on a 1080p monitor.

What about 4k really knocked my socks off? Plain ass text.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[bobbied]

Wow, I'm not sure that's true. Standard 35mm film even in Cinemascope has a lot more resolution than that.

I'm a old projectionist from three decades ago and I can tell you that in my judgment, today's digital theater is roughly about the same quality as the pictures I used to see from the 35mm films (there is no comparison to 70mm, which was *clearly* better image quality at 24fps). Now in my day, screens where much bigger and a house sat 400 or more, which is twice the size I'm seeing today in places, but I'm pretty sure that 2K is a bit on the low side.

I suppose it's possible I'm just getting old and my eyes are giving out on me so much I cannot tell the difference anymore, or I'm mistaking the lack of grain and the higher frame rates for quality.... But do you have a reference for this 2K claim?

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[bobbied]

I so miss the 70mm film days.... Talk about resolution..... Audio wasn't bad considering it was 6 channels of magnetic with Dolby A encoding, though today's audio is MUCH better... But who wants to lug around 400 lbs of film for a 2 hour show any more, even if the visible detail was something to behold.

Interesting that cinema cameras and production didn't get matched by consumer equipment specs, but you are right, they never have matched. You'd think the consumer market would gravitate towards the film industry standard or vice versa, just for cost reasons.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Kjella]

I don't need a TV in the near future, I needed a new one now, and therefor bought the 4K screen, since my TVs last somewhere from 5 to 10 years.

And also with UHD TV and 4K BluRay comes Rec.2020 color space, 10 bit video and HDR, none of which is strictly related to resolution but better colors, less banding and more intense highlights/contrasts improve the total experience. Some of this like "deep color" existed on BluRays too, but now it's standard from the beginning. Though despite all the other improvements, movies have to run at 24p for that "filmic" look. At least everything else is moving to 60p...

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[immortalcrab]

Why not buy it in a year or two then? when they become even cheaper.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[jaa101]

Nobody seems to be telling, which I think means there are way more 2K projectors out there than the industry would like you to know about. According to Wikipedia, all DLP projectors were 2K until early 2012 when 4K became available, and 2K projectors are still available. This graph of digital adoption in cinemas shows that almost half of the projectors were installed by the end of 2011 and so must have been only 2K (apart from Sony SXRD units). Maybe some have upgraded to 4K since then, but you can bet there are plenty of 2K venues out there today. I'd say that 99% of people are never going to notice the difference. As for those that say a 35mm print can beat 4K, yes that's true in the same way that vinyl can beat a CD.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[shess]

Gaming.

Wait, not coding?

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Plus1Entropy]

The content is coming. The Playstation 4 Pro, which comes out on November 10, has 4k and HDR capability.

Eventually, either the content or the medium has to move, otherwise both sides will sit around forever waiting for the other.

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[stevedog]

8K is going to be a really hard sell. I can only really appreciate my 65" 4k set because I sit about 7ft away from it. You would have to almost literally have your nose on a 65" 8k screen to tell any difference. I actually wonder if it is literally possible to be close enough to tell a difference vs. 4k, yet also far enough to have the entire screen in your FOV at once.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Type44Q]

...since my TVs last somewhere from 5 to 10 years

You're in for a disappointment; these aren't plasmas...

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

Porn too.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[AHuxley]

The list of ready content is growing. http://www.blu-ray.com/4k/

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[QuantumLeaper]

That's what I use my TV for currently, also a couple friends use their TV for PC or console gaming move than watching a TV shows...

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

With 4K resolution you can now really see how crappy 360p really is. No more guessing!

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[rockout]

Also, only ABC/ESPN and Fox are 720. Almost everyone else is 1080. Minor point, I know, but still true.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

That is much less of a problem in quality flicks. You should try watching good movies.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[ShooterNeo]

If you notice, one of the resolutions is a subset of the UHD 4k. The other one is only slightly sharper and it should be possible to downsample to UHD 4k with no loss of quality.

Not that most people would be able to tell the difference between a 1080p bluray and a 4k bluray...

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

Inability to figure out how to not manually make a copy of my username in the body of my post, every single time I post. It's really really difficult for those of us on the oblivious spectrum, guys.

-jcr

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[swb]

We used to have a theater nearby that was a palace to early 1960s filmgoing and featured a super wide screen and 70mm projection. It's been torn down 20 years now but that's where you went for big deal movies.

Anyway, the problem with 70mm was how little was shot in 70mm. Most of the 70mm projection was 35mm blown up. It made for a dramatic picture on that wide screen, but it wasn't true 70mm resolution.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[nnull]

I've been using a 4k OLED for over a year now as a PC monitor. Works great. Plenty of 4k content, like games and Netflix.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[donaldm]

If you notice, one of the resolutions is a subset of the UHD 4k. The other one is only slightly sharper and it should be possible to downsample to UHD 4k with no loss of quality.

Not that most people would be able to tell the difference between a 1080p bluray and a 4k bluray...

Simply put it all depends on the viewer and the distance they like to view from as well as the screen size. The following information goes into much more detail and is well worth the read. As an example say you as the viewer have a preference for a 55" TV (I am not going to make a comparison just yet) and you prefer sitting at 2.4m (8ft) distance then providing you have reasonably good eyes you probably won' be able to tell the difference between a picture at 1080p on a HDTV to one at 2160p on a UHDTV (assuming identical quality). Obviously, as you sit closer the differences do become apparent.

Other factors also come into play as well. There is "High Dynamic Range" (HDR) that all newer UHDTV's support which does add to the crispness of the picture at the expense of latency (gamers take note), however you also have to consider there is a format war going on at the moment. Two HDR formats are on offer the first is HDR10 (open format, licence free) and Dolby Vision HDR (proprietary, requires licence fee) and if you are in the market for a UHDTV then you should be aware of this.

Currently 4K or UHDTV's (there are differences) appear to to be the next big thing in TV's, however there is also another display which will effectively sideline 4k to the equivalent of 720p compared to 1080p and that is 8K TV's which are only just now making an appearance and while they are very expensive they will rapidly come down in price (say 3 to 5 years). Of course, the distance to screen size calculation as per the URL is not going to change so to appreciate an 8K screen it would have to be bigger again and you would have to sit closer. Maybe a curved screen would help since you can sit closer but that may not be all that comfortable for some viewers.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[donaldm]

Why not buy it in a year or two then? when they become even cheaper.

True but you also have to consider that 8K TV's are now making an appearance and will effectively sideline 4K TV's in about three to five years. Assuming my crystal ball is doing its job properly. After all, who would want a low-resolution 4K display when an 8K display with four times the resolution again will be better. :-)

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital theatre projectors use the actual 4K standard, featuring 4096 × 2160 pixels. But "4K" TVs/monitors/blueray are a completely different aspect ratio. They use the UHD standard featuring 3840 x 2160 pixels. For these screens "4K" is just another meaningless marketing term.

So yeah, there is some 4K content out there. But there is very little "4K" content out there.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[donaldm]

The upscaling is pretty impressive. A good 4k upscaler looks significantly better on the same 1080 source. That said, 1080p give a pretty sharp picture in it's won right. I don't think 4k is very noticeable in typical size family room (i.e. viewing from 10-14 ft away) unless you have a 75" or larger TV. Similarly, if you have 42" or smaller TV 720p is probably OK unless you are sitting 6 ft away from it.

Not this again? Listen, not everyone lives in the burbs in a huge house with a "family room". Many live in condos downtown where a TV cannot be 10-14 feet away so a 55" 4k TV is noticeable.

Rather than rant please take a look at this which is a distance to size calculator and the average size family room may allow a 1.2m (4ft) to 3m (10ft) distance from face to screen, unless you are living in a cardboard box and if this is the case I think you have more to worry about than the purchase of a 4K TV.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

Not yet it's not. Graphics hardware capable of pushing 4K at 60fps with all the fruit turned on still doesn't exist. And then there's the question of what does it actually improve? I'd focus on more polys, nicer lighting and higher framerates before bothering with resolution. Resolution isn't holding anything back.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[cheesybagel]

It's called the Olympics. And they are over. TVs always sell more in the Olympics.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[ArmoredDragon]

It's up to the cableco, and with most cablecos it's usually 720p unless it's pay per view or local channels. Even premium channels like HBO are usually 720p with most cablecos. Why? Because cable typically lacks the bandwidth for it, and industry standard still considers 720p to be "HD". The interesting thing about 4k though is that there's only one resolution that the industry actually defines as 4k, so they can't even do like what DirecTV does where they have 1440x810 upscaled to 1080p by your IRD and then just label it as "HD" (since it's above 720p, they can get away with that.) 4k is just fucking 4k; broadcasting at any lower resolution while claiming otherwise would be blatant false advertising.

But who cares, cable sucks anyways; it's all about torrents and netflix these days.

Anyways, it's not surprising that 4k is being adopted faster than 1080p, because 4k TVs are a LOT cheaper than HDTVs were when they first came out, while also being bigger and higher quality (i.e. more accurate colors, sharper pixels, etc) while likely lasting longer (LCD ages much slower than the phosphors found in CRT/Plasma displays of yore, in addition to consuming less power and producing less heat for your AC to deal with in the summer.) So much for the "race to the bottom" that Luddites often claim were in.

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[ChrisMaple]

8k is useful for text and extremely good static images being carefully examined. For anything that moves I think that the human vision system would have trouble distinguishing 4k from 8k. 8k is at or just beyond the limits of human visual acuity.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[donaldm]

The content is coming. The Playstation 4 Pro, which comes out on November 10, has 4k and HDR capability.

Eventually, either the content or the medium has to move, otherwise both sides will sit around forever waiting for the other.

True although you did forget to mention that all PS4's support HDR10 (as per update 4.0) so you can display a 1080p movie to a 4K TV that supports HDR10. As for games, no PS4 will output a 4K game although the PS4pro will upscale. Upscaling for the PS4 will be done by the TV which in turn depends on the upscaling features of the TV.

4K Bluray is not supported by any PS4 however, all PS4's are capable of displaying 4K HDR content from streaming services like Netflix. Of course, this assumes you have a decent internet connection and a good plan (eg. no caps). For the majority of people who have this streaming 1080p and 4K (assuming they have a 4KTV) is the better option rather than purchase a 4K Bluray player. Videophiles will disagree and this is fair but they are in the minority since most people want to watch their favorite show and move on to the next rather than purchase a physical disk and for many 1080p especially if it upscaled properly is good enough.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Hadlock]

Yep, exactly this. 4K is a $50-70 premium on a $400 purchase. You get access to 4K netflix content now, plus access to 4K other content down the road with no upgrades needed. And all your 1080p content from Amazon and Netflix looks amazing at high bit rates, upscaled slightly. Or at the very least looks the same. For a device that's going to last you between 5 and 10 years, that small premium is definitely worth it. My first TV was a second generation hand-me-down and is in my second cousin's dorm room now after changing hands three more times. THey last forever, and as long as you can play mario kart on them in some capacity, are still useful. High resolution TVs are one of the few "future-proofs" that pay off.
 
We're definitely nearing the end of the road in terms of useful resolution bumps, though; at 8K you need a wall-scale TV to take advantage of the resolution at 10' (average) viewing distance.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

It's up to the cableco, and with most cablecos it's usually 720p unless it's pay per view or local channels. Even premium channels like HBO are usually 720p with most cablecos. Why? Because cable typically lacks the bandwidth for it, and industry standard still considers 720p to be "HD".

I do OTA and yes, according to my "specs bug", ABC and Fox are both 720p. The CW is 720p in my neck of the woods, but it is probably up to the main (xx.1) sister station; it used to be 480i here.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Jesus_666]

Still, UHD is awesome for gaming if your GPU can hack it. I just dropped 650 bucks on a 27" UHD monitor with FreeSync and the quality increase is worth the money. Just being able to run the game at a resolution where you have built-in AA because some of the jaggies are too small to make out with the human eye is very nice. (Of course it helps that the old one has much worse dynamic contrast and no FreeSync. Still, the resolution makes a difference.)

Unfortunately, Windows doesn't support UHD very well. You can use display scaling but it completely hoses windowed fullscreen mode in games because Windows cheerfully applies its scaling to those as well, telling them that your desktop resolution is something like 1706x960. Also, some programs simply won't scale. In some cases the programs scale but certain dialogs won't. Or the text scales but the button icons won't. It's a mess. You'd think that Windows would just report a different resolution to those programs and then upscale with a shader but apparently that didn't work out very well because Redmond obviously took a different approach.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

No you do not. A TV is a want, not a need.

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Brazil the digital standard is 1080p, including free over the air broadcast TV.

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

People said the same about 480, 720... ðY

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Barsteward]

i don't get why anyone wants uhd tvs. why do i want to have blown up views of a persons zits?

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, Windows doesn't support UHD very well. You can use display scaling but it completely hoses windowed fullscreen mode in games because Windows cheerfully applies its scaling to those as well, telling them that your desktop resolution is something like 1706x960. Also, some programs simply won't scale. In some cases the programs scale but certain dialogs won't. Or the text scales but the button icons won't. It's a mess. You'd think that Windows would just report a different resolution to those programs and then upscale with a shader but apparently that didn't work out very well because Redmond obviously took a different approach.

That's why I switched from a 28" to a 42" 3840x2160 monitor. Same DPI as a 21" 1920x1080 makes 1:1 scaling quite usable at desktop viewing distances.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[jcr]

Your obsession with my signature is not healthy. Seek professional help.

-jcr

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[jcr]

That too, but my 5K iMac has that pretty well covered for me.

-jcr

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Plus1Entropy]

no PS4 will output a 4K game although the PS4pro will upscale

The PS4 Pro isn't just going to upscale. If the games are developed for native 4K then the Pro is "supposed" to have the capability to display them. That being said, Sony is not making it a requirement on developers. Some older games are only getting an upgrade to 1440p, some are just getting higher framerates at 1080p, some are getting other non-resolution enhancements, and some are not getting any upgrades at all.

Gamespot has a list tracking the titles that are getting an upgrade (or not).

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[arglebargle_xiv]

TV is still 720. Movies are 1080. What's the point of 4K again?

To persuade everyone who's bought an HD TV to spend again? The market for HD TVs is pretty much saturated so they need some new gimmick to get people to keep buying.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[houghi]

I have a 55" at the end of my bed. I do not notice any difference between 720p and 1080p. when I run them next to each other. I do see some difference when I run 480p, but not all that much.
I have a 4K 28" monitor and I do not see any difference in running 4K and 1080p and even 720 is not really noticable, unless I run it at the same time.
The reason I have the 55" 1080p is because it was cheap when I bought it. 500EUR including all taxes. The 4K screens I bought because I needed to replace my 2 1920x1200 VGA screens and buying 1920x1200 again would be about the same price.

There is a difference between computer usage and e.g. movies. For a computer I really like the minor difference in sharpness. With a movie I do not care that much as it all moves all the time anyway.

A great way to compare resolutions is Tears of Steal where you can download several versions. Bonus point if you make a script that plays things at random AND you are looking if the quality bothers you or not, not if you are looking if you know the quality.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Bengie]

Fiber ISP uses IPTV to send me 20Mb/s 1080p. I did a side-by-side of ABC's Harry Potter weekend against my Blueray on the same monitor and I could not tell a difference. The TV was distinctly better than my DVD version, even my wife chimed in on the quality differences. My STB does not support 4k. It will be a bit before they start moving in that direction, but bandwidth is not an issue.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[DuckDodgers]

I think the critical difference has less to do with the advantages of 4k over 2k and more to do with the fact that 4k prices are dropping rapidly. I waited a long time to get a 37 inch 1080p television because for a long time it cost more than twice as much as a 37 inch 480p television. Today the price premium for 4K is already only 30-40%, sometimes less.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[donaldm]

no PS4 will output a 4K game although the PS4pro will upscale

The PS4 Pro isn't just going to upscale. If the games are developed for native 4K then the Pro is "supposed" to have the capability to display them. That being said, Sony is not making it a requirement on developers. Some older games are only getting an upgrade to 1440p, some are just getting higher framerates at 1080p, some are getting other non-resolution enhancements, and some are not getting any upgrades at all.

Gamespot has a list tracking the titles that are getting an upgrade (or not).

In principle, I do agree but you do have to remember that commercial game development is a business so the developers target the platform that will give them the most return. In the case of the PS4 and PS4pro (out 10th Nov 2016) a developer would have to be arrogant or have a poor business sense to produce a game that would only run well on a PS4pro. What most developers would do is develop a PS4 game that would run well and allow for PS4pro enhancements.

I have played the Doom demo and while I am no fan of FPS games I actually enjoyed playing this game especially since it runs at 1080p and 60fps. What was important here was the 60fps part since you are moving very quickly and while the graphics are really nice you don't really have the time to enjoy the scenery.

I also play Bloodborne and while the framerate is supposed to be about 30fps on occasion you do get slowdown especially with multiple enemies on screen at once, however this game can be played at a much slower pace than Doom (except for encounters which normally have one to four enemies) and you can enjoy the scenery. Another game that is only 30fps is The Witcher 3 and IMHO it's the scenery that is more important as well as the story than the frame rate although like I have said before many dips in frame rate can be offputting although this does not happen that often in the TW3.

I won't deny having a solid frame rate is very important and preferably 60fps or higher or at the least a locked 30fps but you also have to consider your display device as well and then you have to consider refresh rates (in Hertz), screen resolution and latency it's all a question of integration.

Personally, I would like a larger 4K screen for my PC and PS4 setup. As a compromise, my wife gets the HDTV although if she is not using it I can move my PS4 and connect in less than a minute. What is interesting is I have an IPS monitor and the colors are incredibly vivid and it will display 1080p at 60ftps quite nicely so I am taking my time deciding on when I will get a 4K monitor. Actually, if I leave it too long (3 to 5 years) I may end up getting an 8K monitor instead and by that time the PS5 will be making its appearance.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Malc]

TV is still 720

Really? I thought they were all 1080i these days.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

There's another significant difference with digital projection: the digital frames are perfectly registered. An analog film can physically shift around a little bit on the mechanical guides that move the film. A particular detail in the scene, even if well focused and sharp in each frame, will jitter and appear slightly blurry as the eye averages photons arriving from adjacent frames. This physical registration error compounds with each pass of the film from original photographic exposure through mastering and transfer. An important step of digital restoration is to detect this jitter and reregister each frame so that the details appear stable and sharp.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[wbo]

Unfortunately, Windows doesn't support UHD very well. You can use display scaling but it completely hoses windowed fullscreen mode in games because Windows cheerfully applies its scaling to those as well, telling them that your desktop resolution is something like 1706x960

This is primary the fault of lazy game developers and not Windows. Windows only lies about display resolution to applications if the application doesn't signal that it understands how to render to displays that are greater than 96 dpi. This allows older applications that always assume a display is running at 96 dpi to still be at least somewhat usable on a very high DPI display.
If an application (or game) signals it is DPI-aware then Windows will report the true resolution and DPI of the display so the application can render itself appropriately.
You can also manually disable the high DPI detection for an individual application or game by modifying the Compatibility properties on the shortcut for the application and checking the box labeled "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". This causes Windows to treat the application as being high DPI-aware even if it isn't.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[sixsixtysix]

4k is just fucking 4k.

Well, kind of: there is DCI 4K, which is 4096x2160, and there is 4K UHD, which is 3840x2160.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Plus1Entropy]

Absolutely agreed. Developers will be taking a risk investing time into developing for PS4Pro. In fact, CD Projekt RED have already come out and said they won't be making any enhancements to The Witcher 3. Overall, developers will base their decision heavily on the rate of adoption of the Pro.

The thing is, Sony may be in a tight spot if developers don't get behind this in a big way. If you shell out for a PS4Pro, you aren't going to be too happy if there isn't a big enough difference in graphical performance between the two. On the other hand, I think now it's only a matter of time until we see that first game that run fine on PS4Pro and have huge issues on PS4.

The best situation to be in right now, as a consumer, is to not have bought a PS4 yet at all. I've been wanting to get one due to some great exclusives, both released and upcoming (Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, The Last Guardian, Final Fantasy XV), but now I'm glad I waited. The price difference isn't so huge that I'll feel cheated if there isn't a major difference, and I don't have the feeling of having already sunk a few hundred bucks into a vanilla PS4.

Negative feelings towards Sony are mostly going to come from people who already bought PS4's, and either feel compelled to upgrade to avoid missing out, or feel left behind. It will be interesting to see how things turn out.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[DrXym]

If you let some idiot build it they will still come.

I suppose if you were buying a TV any way then it might be worth the future proofing. But buying a 4K without that reason doesn't seem very smart. 4K is still somewhat early adopter and the price of TVs will drop and the capabilities will increase. By the time there is 4K content to speak of they might be hundreds cheaper.

The difference between 4K and 1080p is also far less pronounced than between 1080p and 480/576. You'd have to have a massive TV be sat extremely close to see the difference.

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[Sique]

Prosieben/Sat.1 sends in 1080p via DVB-T2, others are using 1080i (ServusTV).

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

The super-high-end of PC gaming is having three monitors at 4K resolutions. Monitors and LCD TV screens have converged. You can buy a 48" LCD TV at the supermarket that also doubles as a PC monitor all thanks to HDMI connectors. That PC monitor will also become a TV if plugged into a satellite or cable TV box.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[NotAPK]

Not if the 4K screen is only 4" across.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[ezelkow1]

Nope, abc and fox still broadcast in 720p. Also I believe any disney owned channel (which includes abc) is also 720. Im sure there's others out there as well but those are the big ones. Fox does it for sports though, thats their reasoning

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Actually, I do RTFA]

What's the point of 4K again?

Unlike with HD, you pay a very small premium for 4K in the 40-50 inch range. So, when you buy a new TV (that should last many years), you pay a bit extra to futureproof yourself.

That's why this article was dumb. It wasn't the uprezing that caused things to go slowly. It was the switch from CRTs to plasmas and LCDs... things that hadn't hit "cheap because of quantity" status. Now that LCDs/LEDs are everywhere, they're far cheaper, and you can up the pixel count for not nearly as much money.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Immerman]

I don't see that there's much cost to be saved: consumer products are a completely different market than digital theater projectors and cameras, to the point that I doubt there's any significant components shared between the two. As for the recordings - I would guess that most studios do their editing at much higher resolutions and then down-sample to the final distribution resolution. As such there would be minimal saving for having them be the same, and some minor DRM-ish benefit to having them be slightly different: leaked theatrical releases would inherently require either cropping the image or performing a highly lossy slight downsampling for consumer distribution.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Immerman]

Actually, resampling for a a slight change in resolution generally causes massive data loss - the reason being that essentially none of the pixels in the source image line up with the pixels in the target image, meaning that basically all the target pixels are the result of inherently lossy interpolation between the source pixels, effectively applying an irreversible blur filter to the entire result. You'd generally be better off simply cropping away the extra pixels and hoping they weren't terribly important to the result.

I wouldn't be surprised if the difference in consumer and theatrical resolutions was chosen, at least in part, in order to ensure that piracy of theatrical leaks would be of inherently lower quality than legitimate consumer content.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Immerman]

I disagree.

You are correct that the average human eye is incapable of resolving detail below roughly those limits, but that neglects an important detail: The human eye can perceive the *presence* of detail at far higher resolutions than it can actually resolve what exactly the detail is. So for example when looking at tall grass in the distance, you can see the vertically-orientation "texture" from much further away than you can make out individual blades of grass.

You can see the effect for yourself by comparing various "50% gray" patterns of black and white side by side - one with a checkerboard with one-pixel squares, one of vertical lines 1 pixel wide, and one of horizontal lines one pixel tall. Divide your screen into four quadrants with one texture in each, and solid 50% gray in the last. Then view it from a distance - you'll see that you can still notice a definite difference in the "feel" of the four from far further than you can actually see the individual lines or pixels.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Immerman]

Most dramatically, the higher resolution help eliminate aliased "pixel jaggies" on edges and in fine detail. In general you'd probably notice much less of a difference when viewing images on a curved-mirror DLP projection screen, where the adjacent pixels are blended smoothly into each other to approximate analog film. Similar to how text looks far smoother on e-ink displays than LCD screens, despite generally being a lower resolution.

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[Immerman]

No they really didn't. At least not once screens above 6" became available. If they had, computer monitors wouldn't have gotten continuously higher resolutions as sufficient video processing power to drive them became available. 480 and 720 were both cost-cutting and resource-saving mechanisms due to technological limits.

Much like the traditional interlaced TV broadcast formats - it wasn't used because people couldn't tell the difference, it was used because it provided computationally free moving image compression that allowed the bandwidth to be cut in half while still being mostly "good enough" in moving scenes, and still allowing full resolution for stationary scenes.

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize most of those games you play don't run in 4K right?

Pixel whore? My how a man and his money easily separate.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Shirley Marquez]

TV is either 720p or 1080i depending on network. There are standards for 4K broadcasting in development, but whether it will ever see the light of day in the US is doubtful.

4K streaming has arrived from Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube. Limited selection so far, but all new Netflix original shows that are actually made by Netflix (as opposed to partnerships with foreign broadcasters) and all new Amazon originals for adult audiences (but not the children's shows) are being made in 4K. Some new TV series from other companies are shot in 4K and available to stream that way; for example, Amazon has the first two seasons of Orphan Black in 4K and Netflix has Breaking Bad. Most new movies other than documentaries or low budget indies are shot at 4K or more, though home distribution in 4K has lagged, and a few older films like Lawrence of Arabia have gotten new 4K transfers.

Ultra Blu-Ray is a real product now, and you can buy a player for $299. It's called the Xbox One S, and you also get a game console for free. (Now that it's available, the street price of the only other Ultra Blu-Ray player currently available in the US, the Samsung UBD-K8500, has dropped from it's $399 list price to a bit over $300. A much more expensive and higher end Panasonic player is expected to be available soon.) The selection of discs is small so far but it's growing rapidly; most of the big budget films of 2016 are getting Ultra Blu-Ray releases, as well as some older titles that were released theatrically in 4K. (I don't expect a flood of new transfers of movies shot on film, but some popular ones will get redone.)

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[lgw]

People who saw the 70 mm Hateful 8 said it was great - if you saw it on the first night or two. Then picture quality dropped noticeably, as did registration. That's always been the big problem with analog formats - they don't hold up well.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Shirley Marquez]

That is not true here in Boston. Comcast appears to be sending exactly the same bits that the local TV stations are broadcasting; the only difference is that they demultiplex the transport stream and send each subchannel as a separate cable channel. The files (captured by my HD HomeRun Prime and recorded by Windows Media Center) are the size that you would expect given that the subchannels are removed, and VLC verifies that the video is 1080i or 720p depending on network and that all the alternate audio and subtitle tracks are present. (Sadly, some local broadcasters are falling down on the job there; for example, the local CW affiliate does not send the Spanish language audio for Jane the Virgin on its OTA broadcasts.) I have compared the visual quality of OTA and cable captures of the same program and they look identical. Bit by bit comparison of the files would be challenging as it would be very difficult to align the exact start points of the recordings, and because either or both may be affected by occasional signal dropouts. It's not an infrequent thing OTA at my house - one reason for using the HD HomeRun instead - and rare but not unheard of on cable.

Satellite TV is another matter entirely. I believe those guys are recompressing everything in H.264 to save bandwidth. And they aren't using enough bits. so the results look bad.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Shirley Marquez]

A lot of the big theater chains have installed 4K projectors. (For example, the big AMC theater here in Boston has 4K projectors for every screen other than the IMAX one. The IMAX screen uses the usual Digital IMAX system of two 2K projectors set up with a half pixel offset for an effective resolution of about 2.9K. No frickin' laser beams yet.) Smaller independent theaters and chain theaters in smaller towns are likely to still be using 2K projectors because they are less expensive. Art houses that focus on indie films are in no hurry to install 4K projectors because few of the films they show are distributed in 4K.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Shirley Marquez]

A 35mm print is technically capable of beating 4K. A 35mm print as exhibited in most theaters does not. One problem is that the physical transport mechanism of the projector is not sufficiently stable; effective resolution is lost to the little wobbles of the film. The other problem is that few theaters receive reference quality prints; viewers outside of NYC and LA are unlikely to ever see one.

70mm is another matter. We'll have to move up to 8K to really challenge that. And then there is the glory that is the film version of IMAX...

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[lgw]

Computer monitors are a very different use case than TVs. Which makes me upset that it's really hard to get a panel designed for PCs these days: 16x9 isn't the only aspect ratio useful for monitors!

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Shirley Marquez]

Near the end, some 70mm films came with DTS digital sound tracks instead of the magnetic stripes.

Although the making of major theatrical films has gone its own way rather than following consumer standards, documentary films are frequently made with consumer or prosumer cameras and filmed in 1080p, or very recently in 2160p. They are also released in that resolution, and will be slightly windowboxed at some theaters because the theater does not have the ability to adjust its side curtains to that aspect ratio.

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[Shirley Marquez]

Where 8K will really come into its own is video walls that the like - screens that aren't just watched from one distance like a TV usually is, but that may be approached closely so the viewer can see fine details.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[bobbied]

People who saw the 70 mm Hateful 8 said it was great - if you saw it on the first night or two. Then picture quality dropped noticeably, as did registration. That's always been the big problem with analog formats - they don't hold up well.

How fast a print gets dirty is directly related to how well the equipment and booth is kept clean. We always cleaned the projector between reels and kept the boot as clean as we could, even though we where running old sooty carbon arc lamps. We could run a print for weeks without getting it too bad except at the ends of the reels where it got handled a lot.

For 70mm it was a lot of work too. We had to change reels roughly every 10-15 min for the whole show. That means once the show started and we ran though the first reel and switched over, you had 10 min to re-carbon the lamp, clean and thread the projector and run down reel 3 while reel 1 was rewinding. Then it was "lather, rinse and repeat" through the 10-12 reels of 70mm. By the end of the night, after 4 showings, you will have worked 8 hours, lifted 50 lbs over your head 40+ times with three 15 min breaks, correctly timed 40 reel changes, focused the projector and verified the sound 40 times. Good thing I was a young man back then.

By the time I got out of the business, they where running both 35m and 70mm on one big reel (we called them platters) and I where I made nearly $8/hour running the carbon arc house (and changing reels all the time), they didn't need me to run the platters anymore. I got to come in on Thursday night and Friday afternoon to splice the prints onto or off of the platters after that. They trained the ushers to thread up and push the button and nobody cared about cleaning anymore, so the prints got trashed in short order then. But it didn't matter to the theater, it wasn't their print, and as long as it ran though the projector, they'd run the thing....

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[blackprint]

Largely correct. Even if the projectors are 4k, the content is vastly still only recorded at 2k. The most used camera is the Arri Alexa, a 2k camera.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[bobbied]

IMAX... is just 70mm on edge. In stead of running though the projector from top to bottom, it runs sideways. I believe though it still runs at 24 fps...

Of course that means there is something like 4x the surface area per frame....

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Anonymous Coward]

Typically OTA stations are broadcast at 1080i. And that's not compressed like what you get from netflix, cable, directv, etc...

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[ShooterNeo]

Unfortunately, I think you might be right. Although, if this is true, why do 720p and 1080p encodes of a video look so similar? The 720p version is frequently only barely perceptibly of lower resolution, especially in motion. Is there not some standard algorithm to fix this blurring problem?

I know that in video games and in desktop use, what you are talking about is true. But I've seen at least one video game (Rainbow Six Siege) that has a great algorithm for repairing the damage. You can't really tell the difference between 1080p and full 4k rendering when it's in use...

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Grishnakh]

I'm a old projectionist from three decades ago... Now in my day, screens where much bigger and a house sat 400 or more, which is twice the size I'm seeing today in places

I'll bet that back in your day, even with those more-populated theaters, theater-going was a far more pleasurable experience, without people talking throughout the movie, using their cellphones, wearing big hats, bringing noisy little kids to age-inappropriate movies, etc. Or am I looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses?

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[bobbied]

I'm a old projectionist from three decades ago... Now in my day, screens where much bigger and a house sat 400 or more, which is twice the size I'm seeing today in places

I'll bet that back in your day, even with those more-populated theaters, theater-going was a far more pleasurable experience, without people talking throughout the movie, using their cellphones, wearing big hats, bringing noisy little kids to age-inappropriate movies, etc. Or am I looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses?

Well, generally I see what you mean with the general lack of regard for others getting worse, but we had our share of smokers on the back row threatening to set the place on fire and disruptions where not unheard of. They where just dealt with faster by a more attentive usher who actually entered the theater on a regular basis to check on things.

Personally, I like watching movies more at home than the theater these days. Less disrupted, The popcorn is fresher and cheaper and I can stop the movie when ever I need to use the restroom (which seems to happen more often these days..) Was well worth the "cost of admission" to get a sweet home theater set up....

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Jesus_666]

Does Windows apply compatibility settings automatically every time the program is launched or does it create a shrtcut that applies the settings? I seem to remember that at least older versions of Windows created a shortcut, which is completely useless for Steam games where the .exe is in a known location and is called directly by Steam.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Immerman]

Well, I'm not really an image processing whiz, but if you're upscaling to 4K both will work great, since 4K = 2x1080 = 3x720. A for upscaling from 720 to 1080 - that's a 1.5x scaling factor (2:3), with every 2x2 block of pixels being naively upscaled to 3x3, so there's probably some tricks that can be done to allow for a comparatively cheap, clean upscale. Even just using the same colors for the corners of each block and interpolating the new "inner" pixels probably wouldn't look horrible - even though it does introduce some geometric distortion it will be on the scale of a single pixel so will mostly be obvious on should-be-uniform textures. Though I have also heard claims that 720p sources will in fact look substantially better on a 720 screen than on a 1080 one. It probably has a whole lot to do with the quality of the upscaling engine. If you're upscaling on a PC it'll probably look much better than it would if done on the TV itself, simply because there's so many more CPU cycles to throw at the problem. (Alternately, if you watch 720 content on a 720 screen side by side with 1080 content on a 1080 screen of the same size, it will look of comparable quality, simply because 720 content is not actually of dramatically lower quality, it just doesn't scale up cleanly.)

None of that applies to scaling from 4096 to 3840 though - there you have a 0.9375 scale factor (16:15), so the vast majority of the source pixel centers will be nowhere near the centers of the target sampling grid, and interpolation will take its due.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Bengie]

My 5.5" cellphone has a 2k screen. Give it another year or two.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Grishnakh]

Interesting, thanks for the reply.

As far as needing to use the restroom, I've always had that problem; maybe it gets worse with age for some people, but judging by all the people rushing to the bathroom as soon as a theater movie ends, I don't think anyone's immune. 2-4 hours is a long time to go without a bathroom break, especially if you're drinking something during that time.

Personally, I try to never go to theaters any more; I just don't enjoy it that much, and would rather save my money. The only time I do go (maybe once a year at this rate) is when someone drags me into it.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[ArmoredDragon]

That is not true here in Boston. Comcast appears to be sending exactly the same bits that the local TV stations are broadcasting; the only difference is that they demultiplex the transport stream and send each subchannel as a separate cable channel.

Yeah this is the way most cablecos seem to do it. As I mentioned:

It's up to the cableco, and with most cablecos it's usually 720p unless it's pay per view or local channels.

Or another way of putting it, pretty much all cablecos will retransmit the locals undisturbed from their original broadcast, and pay-per-view or on-demand content will be at a higher resolution.

It's the other content, i.e. that which comes from content provider feeds like viacom, AMC, HBO, etc, that they tend to keep at 720p and only rarely go higher than that (usually major sporting events, like March Madness for example will typically be 1080i.)

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Agripa]

Anyway, the problem with 70mm was how little was shot in 70mm. Most of the 70mm projection was 35mm blown up. It made for a dramatic picture on that wide screen, but it wasn't true 70mm resolution.

To put this in perspective, Aliens shot in Super 35 which at the time suffered from an emulsion problem leading to graininess did not look any better in 70mm.

What 70mm did provide however is a 6 track magnetic sound track versus 2 track optical.

Re: Cool, and no 4K content

[Malc]

We don't get those. I seem to remember getting a lot of pillar-boxed American content long after everything went wide screen here in be UK, so not really surprising to hear there are still some companies in the US so far behind the times. BTW, rather than switching to 4K I wish the industry would hurry up and stop using interlacing, and for American content, NTSC framerates.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[fustakrakich]

8K is already here. It just requires more wattage and RAM out of your video card, and a lot more money. It does let you zoom in really nice. You still have full HD at 16x. Personally, I would wait for solid textured holograms, like the kind R2D2 projected, without the beamed lighting of course.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Shirley Marquez]

I checked a couple of my recordings from cable channels. AMC is 1080i at 7.2Mbps, which is about half the bit rate that my major local broadcast channels use. (The main PBS station and the major commercial networks use 14-15Mbps for their primary channel and give the rest to one subchannel.) Disney Channel is 720p at 6.4Mbps; that's an ABC property so 720p is probably its native resolution. The bit rates do seem to be somewhat more variable program-to-program than the broadcast channel bit rates. Cable multiplexes a few digital channels on each traditional channel slot; current digital cable confine each bundle of TV channel to one slot (combined with a few others) rather than bonding multiple channels and spreading channels over all of them. (Internet over DOCSIS 3.0 does bond multiple channels, potentially up to 16 depending on your cable system and the capabilities of your cable modem.) Comcast is probably dynamically adjusting the compression rates of the multiplexed channels to optimize the results depending on program content, so a given show may get more or fewer bits depending on how visually demanding it is and how demanding the shows on the other multiplexed channels are.

All in all, not as good as it could be, not as bad as it might have been, and much better than what I've seen on a friend's satellite TV setup. I don't have any way to check the bit rates on satellite but visible artifacts abound.

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[wbo]

The settings are saved in the registry - not the shortcut and are applied regardless of how the executable is launched once they are set.

If I remember correctly a hash of the excitable is used to identify which settings go with which executables so an update to an executable could reset the compatibility settings to defaults.

On the other hand, an update to an application or game could potentially fix any compatibility or DPI-related issues a previous version had, although game developers in particular appear to like ignoring DPI-related issues in my experience.

Not surprising.

[Mal-2]

When 1080p TVs hit the market, I wasn't all that excited. I was already using monitors with better resolution than that.

With 4k, however, I could replace my entire Wall O'Displays with a single 4k TV. I'm actually looking forward to doing exactly that. One 43" screen mounted to the wall would be much nicer and much more aesthetically appealing than what I have now. I would continue to use the older monitors with other machines, I don't expect my Chromebook (hacked though it may be) to drive a 4k display.

Re:Not surprising.

[Anonymous Coward]

The 4k wall mounted tv will compliment nicely all the junk and big gulps on your desk.

Re: Not surprising.

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn that shit off and go outside.

Re:Not surprising.

[adolf]

That's ok, he's also got plenty of antacid.

Re:Not surprising.

[ShooterNeo]

I'm sitting in front of a 4k monitor right now and this is just not the case. I still have a side monitor, although I do often leave it turned off. Yes, technically there are enough pixels, but in practice most apps won't handle it as well as they handle separate monitors.

Re:Not surprising.

[Mal-2]

The cup never contains anything but water. Sometimes cold, sometimes room temperature, often somewhere in between, but always just water. If I'm drinking coffee or soda, it goes in a normal ceramic mug that is easy to wash.

The junk, well, it's there because it's what I reach for the most. No sense in having it a mile away.

Re:Not surprising.

[Mal-2]

There are many apps where the bezels between monitors make it impractical to allocate more than 2048x1152 to them, but I really wish I could. Notation software with full orchestra scores really benefits, as does Cubase. Image processing also would benefit, though the bezels are a bit less of an issue there. The color calibration not even remotely matching except between the two identical monitors below is a bigger issue.

I might end up flanking a 4k with the two 2048x1152 panels turned to Portrait, though they suffer from poor range of viewing angle on their (normally) vertical axis and rotating them means my eyes are never on the same level with respect to them, leading to color-related fuckery. It would still be a much more versatile setup than what I have now, and software that makes apps think a large screen is actually an array of smaller ones (or vise versa) has been around for years.

Re:Not surprising.

[donaldm]

I'm sitting in front of a 4k monitor right now and this is just not the case. I still have a side monitor, although I do often leave it turned off. Yes, technically there are enough pixels, but in practice most apps won't handle it as well as they handle separate monitors.

Rather than separate monitors which take up real-estate on your desk, I actually use virtual screens which I can switch between in less than a second. My default is four virtual screens although I could go up to 20 for each task I set up and I can setup many tasks as my Desktop will support. Adding and subtracting virtual screens takes less than a second on my current system and I have been able to do something like this for over 25 years starting from Unix though to Linux.

I also have a PS4 and a backwards compatible PS3 which I use for gaming via an HDMI connection to my IPS monitor since I have never been into PC gaming and I can toggle between my PC and PS3/PS4 in seconds. While I don't have a 4K monitor (the steering committee is still arguing) I would only need a 27" to 32" one although it must have at least two HDMI ports and preferably an optical out to my amplifier.

A very import rule of thumb for selecting a monitor size is "if you can see the pixels when working on your PC then you need a smaller sized monitor or one with a higher resolution". The problem with a larger screen is you do have a tendency to sit further back (a curved screen may help) since sitting too close is almost a guarantee of needing eye care at a later date. Obviously resolution, screen size and quality do cost but you are better to pay a little more than making do with an inferior product.

Re:Not surprising.

[Anonymous Coward]

The height of the monitor is going to cause you neck pain after a few months. Unless you stand 2 meters away from it.

Re:Not surprising.

[ShooterNeo]

I develop embedded systems from Windows. (maybe I'm biased, but I feel that since Windows requires the least hassle to do most tasks it's superior to Linux as a desktop OS. I think Linux is a reasonably good OS for an embedded system, however, and I sometimes use it for that but I develop most of the code from Windows)

Re:Not surprising.

[Mal-2]

I'd most likely build my stack from the bottom up just as I do now, just without bezels. Foreground task, lower right. Supporting materials (usually a browser and a text editor), lower left. Skype and other messengers, upper right. Quick reference materials, upper left. I have already set up my workflow to spend as little time looking up as humanly possible, but having messengers available at a glance to see whether they're worth responding to -- without actually having to change the foreground task -- is much more valuable than having them in my line of sight. Besides, the most recent messages are always on the bottom.

The main advantage would be the ability to exceed 2048x1152 with a single task and not have bezels in the way. Despite this, I'd probably have it representing itself to user space as four 1080p monitors in an array.

Re: Not surprising.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows just started supporting virtual desktops in Windows 10. Unix and Linux have had this forever. My Mac has had it do a while now as well. But nahhhh Windows is surpeior.

PS4 Pro timing

[Etcetera]

On the one hand, great for streaming pickup.... But I've gotta believe that this decision still won't ever be hailed as a good idea -- failing to include a 4kUHD player in it (presumably waiting until the PS5 for that).

People are picking up 4K TV's. Early adopters are picking up 4K TV's. Some early adopters don't live in areas where massive bandwidth is available (or cheap) for streaming said video services.

These people who don't already have an XBox One are not likely to go out and pick one up *just* for the drive; they'll probably get a standalone player instead unless they were close to getting a Xbone anyway. But they're not likely to think too highly of Sony for leaving the drive out.

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree here. I dont care about 4k but I am very interested in HDR, and how it looks from my PS4. Note the HDR update will be pushed out to all PS4s, and isn't just a feature of the Pro.

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[Mal-2]

With better compression algorithms than H.264, why is it not possible to fit 4k content onto Blu-Ray discs? They'd need a new name to avoid confusion, but the same physical disc format (and drive) should work fine.

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[Anonymous Coward]

With better compression algorithms than H.264, why is it not possible to fit 4k content onto Blu-Ray discs? They'd need a new name to avoid confusion, but the same physical disc format (and drive) should work fine.

Because they increased the color depth and frame rate too.

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[Anonymous Coward]

HDR images already look amazing. HDR TV, movies and games should be an eyegasm.

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[sexconker]

Doesn't matter. BluRay uses MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 (including AVCHD) at stupid bitrates because players can't be expected to have anything other than the bare minimum processing power. Using a modern MPEG-4 Part 10 / AVC codec (such as x264) at 8000 kbps, Main or High profile, 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 (fuck chroma subsampling), you can get nearly the same quality as a BluRay source. That's 7 GB for 2 hours. Call it 10 GB for audio and whatever else. Double it, then double it again for excessive bitrates and boring, interminable Peter Jackson movies and you still have plenty of room left over.

The UHD BluRay spec should have simply been a codec and min spec update such that players would be expected to handle some more b-frames. Using modern (not even bleeding edge) codecs, 50 GB would have been enough for 4K, high bitrate, 60 FPS, with no chroma subsampling fuckery.

I was waiting for the PS4 Pro because I expected it to support UHD BluRay. I don't have a PS4 yet. I won't be getting the PS4 Pro. I hope the PS5 plays PS4 games or has copious re-releases, because I have yet to play Uncharted 4, I'd like to try Resident Evil 7 after the suckfest that was 6, and I don't want to touch the fucking awful Dark Souls PC ports. Other than those few titles, the reason I'd get a PS4 is for UHD BluRay, just as the main reason I got a PS3 was for BluRay.

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[Plus1Entropy]

What's wrong with Dark Souls on PC?

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[Plus1Entropy]

I actually think within a year we'll see another version of the Pro with the 4kUHD player in it.

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[sexconker]

They're generally terrible ports with bugs galore. The first one was locked to shitty resolutions and 30 FPS. (There were workarounds.) Their animation and rendering systems were tied to being 30 FPS and running higher than that caused all sorts of bugs. I believe they did issue a patch to make 60 FPS work at some point.

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[donaldm]

With better compression algorithms than H.264, why is it not possible to fit 4k content onto Blu-Ray discs? They'd need a new name to avoid confusion, but the same physical disc format (and drive) should work fine.

How about H265. If you take an H264 codec file and convert it to an H265 codec file you will reduce that file by up to 60% without impacting the quality of that file. Good luck trying to tell the difference. Of course, if you convert from 8bit to 10bit or even 12bit you will reduce the size even further and again without any noticeable quality reduction. Reducing the quality can dramatically reduce the size of the file or even the stream but this is a balancing act in that if you reduce too much most people will detect it.

At the moment there is very little 4K content although that will increase but most people, particularly for seasonal shows will be quite happy with 1080p Bluray or even (shock horror) DVD. Sure the videophile will want better but most people don't care as long as they can watch their favourite movie or show they will be quite happy.

From a personal perspective I have never purchased a DVD or Bluray movie preferring to rent (rarely) or stream (we have Netflix) and I have had a PS3 from day one. I have never even watched a Bluray movie on my PS4 since I only use it to play games. While I can't speak for a videophile I think most people are like minded.

I was surprised when the PS4pro was announced without a 4K player although it still has a Bluray/DVD player and all PS4's since the last update now supports HDR10, however times have changed from the original PS3 release with a Bluray player and most people are quite happy with 1080p considering the market for 4K TV's is still small (it is growing) compared to the HD market. In addition, there is also a hidden "snake in the grass" and that is 8K which are currently very expensive but give it 3 to 5 years 4K may be sidelined to what 720p is now compared to 1080p.

There is also another technology that is very much in its infancy and that is Virtual Reality which can allow people who prefer movies and TV shows to games to view their favourite movie/show on a massive virtual screen. VR also will allow for more interesting games as well although you will still be able to play conventional games.

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[donaldm]

I am quite happy with Bloodborne on my PS4. I can even play Demons Souls on my PS3 and you won't see those games on a PC anytime soon.

If you are really into games why would you want a 4K Bluray player since there is no real advantage in having one and all PS4's now support HDR10. Most people who have a 4K TV and a decent internet connection (major first world cities) and acceptable (if any) caps will be quite happy with streaming. Obviously, videophiles won't but if they want the best with their 4K TV they will get a 4K player, after all having a library of 4K movies or even 1080p is not exactly a poor man's hobby.

I just recently purchased "The Old Hunters" DLC and I guess I will have to "git gud" all over again. :-)

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[sexconker]

Demons Souls is my favorite of all the Souls+Blood games.

I'm into games AND want a 4K BluRay player. Multiplayer games I do mainly on PC (especially since MS and Sony now both charge for multiplayer) or Wii U (Mario Kart, Smash, etc. can't bet had anywhere else.)

The PS3 was a vehicle for BR because of Sony. UHD BR wasn't ready when the PS4 came out, but it was ready in time for the revision. I just can't comprehend why they'd omit it when even the Xbox One S (the"slim" revision, not the new, more powerful version) has it.

I can wait for the PS4 Pro Slim or the PS5 for my UHD BR player AND for my PS games. The games will be cheaper then anyhow. There really are only a handful I want to play. It was the same way with the PS3. I got it late in the cycle and enjoyed low prices on "old" games. Again, almost exclusively single player games (or single player games with tacked on multiplayer modes I don't care about, such as Last of Us).

Re:PS4 Pro timing

[Plus1Entropy]

Hmm, I haven't noticed any issues with DS1 on Steam, although it is the Prepare to Die edition, which came out later and probably included the patch you're talking about. I honestly don't know if it's running at 30 or 60 FPS (I actually think it looks really good given it's now 5 years old), but I definitely haven't experienced any bugs worth mentioning.

$300-400 range

[ArtemaOne]

With decent quality 43" sets in this kind of price range I'm not surprised. That's nearly disposable level, so a very nice quality one wont be too much more. My plasma 42" was $1300 about 7 years ago and am likely to replace it for a fraction of that price with a 4k early next year.

Reasons

[Zan Lynx]

They look amazing even upscaled. They make great PC monitors. They're affordable. I recently saw several that were on sale cheaper than 1080 models.

Re:Reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

4k is the first big general resolution bump we've seen in a LOOOOOONG time.

I had a 1600x1200 monitor in the 90s..

Re:Reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

^^ this, I got a 40inch 4k samsung ju series that will push 4:4:4 chromium for pc. The input lag is in the 7-10ms range which to me is completely unnoticeable.

I bought as a replacement for my 3 monitor set up....boy im glad I did. Much more clean, more desk space and screen real estate, no more bezel issues...and it looks fantastic. No regrets at all.

Re: Reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Your rich. Most people still have 1366x768

Great!

[twistedcubic]

Hopefully by Black Friday there will be $300 4K monitors. My eyesight will be very pleased.

Re: Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Black Friday is literally the worst time to buy a TV. All the retailers are unloading their shitty monitors on suckers who don't understand what the specs mean and just say "ooh 50-inch for $199" and open their wallets because Black Friday.

If you want a decent TV you are going to have to pay for it, Black Friday or not.

Re:Great!

[Guybrush_T]

There are already. I bought my 4K 42" TV at $300. Sceptre ... something. Not a smart TV, but I really don't care since I'm connecting it to a Shield TV.

Re: Great!

[nnull]

Those $199 TV's are decent enough for many.

Re:Great!

[antdude]

But they will be crappy brands. :(

Re: Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really when they break down in a year.

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting on UHD computer monitors too that also have 802.11AC wireless builtin so that it can stream video to it directly and act as both a monitor and a TV.
It should also have USB 3/3.1 builtin to support HDD drives too along with connector jacks for older computer video devices: VGA, DVI, HDMI, RGB etc. By having all of this builtin one doesn't need to insert external wirelss chips, set top boxes, and video convertor boxes to the monitor/TV. Moreover, the monitor /TV should have HDCP builtin too...

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

4K TVs tend to have their pixels arranged in a brick pattern, not a grid like a monitor. It's fine for video, but text and fine lines are terrible.

Re:Great!

[Carewolf]

I'm waiting on UHD computer monitors too that also have 802.11AC wireless builtin so that it can stream video to it directly and act as both a monitor and a TV.
It should also have USB 3/3.1 builtin to support HDD drives too along with connector jacks for older computer video devices: VGA, DVI, HDMI, RGB etc. By having all of this builtin one doesn't need to insert external wirelss chips, set top boxes, and video convertor boxes to the monitor/TV. Moreover, the monitor /TV should have HDCP builtin too...

Search and you shall find. My recent purchace has all of that except DVI and that is essentially included in HDMI anyway.

Anemic considering how many TVs there are

[Anonymous Coward]

And how about the sales rate of the 3D TVs everyone said would revolutionize entertainment?

Re:Anemic considering how many TVs there are

[ChrisMaple]

3D generally has been a fringe market for over 100 years. Every time publicists claimed 3D would be the next big thing it's flopped.

duh, they are cheap

[known_coward_69]

in 2003 a 40" HDTV cost you right around $3000. You can get a nice 4K unit for less than half that in 2016 with Netflix, youtube and all kinds of other features built in and game consoles that already support it.

in 2003 cable companies either didn't have many HD channels or charged extra $$$ for them. and blu rays didn't come out until around 2006 so there wasn't much reason to buy a HDTV unless you really wanted one just to sit around, read the blogs and be ready for whenever it was supported

Re:duh, they are cheap

[geek]

I've held off simply because I don't want to deal with hitting my bandwidth cap every month streaming 4K.

Re:duh, they are cheap

[Osgeld]

comcast still charges me 10 bucks a month for 720 upscaled to 1080i

Re:duh, they are cheap

[UnknownSoldier]

> in 2003 a 40" HDTV cost you right around $3000.

Close. In 2002 I picked up my first 42" plasma for $2500. It was only ED: 853x720. Since DVDs were still only 480p having only 720p was fine.

Re:duh, they are cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you want Netflix and youtube built in? Those apps will become obsolete far more quickly than the TV will. Better to have those "smart" features on a device that can be upgraded separately.

Re:duh, they are cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2002 I picked up my first 42" plasma

How heavy was it?

Re:duh, they are cheap

[UnknownSoldier]

I see what you did there. :-)

Only 62 lb according to the manual on page 43

And whoops, I made 2 mistakes in my previous post.

1. I see that was only 852 x 480 which matched the vertical resolution of DVD's 1:1.

2. I also dug up my receipt. I picked up my Panasonic TH-42PWD5UY for $3300.

Sorry for stating an incorrect facts.

Do not want.

[kheldan]

Come back when OTA broadcast stations are UHD, until then I'm not even remotely interested.

Re:Do not want.

[Anonymous Coward]

OTA Broadcast stations will most likely die off, or go the way of AM radio first (if they're not there already - seriously, what are the good for other than crappy reality shows and panel shows?)

Re:Do not want.

[nnull]

You still watch OTA broadcast stations? I don't even have an antenna hooked up to my TV anymore.

Re:Do not want.

[ChrisMaple]

OTA UHD requires too much bandwidth, and bandwidth is limited and expensive. It's unlikely to ever become a market success when 3 or 4 2k channels use the same bandwidth, for 3 or 4 times the revenue.

Re:Do not want.

[kheldan]

I got rid of cable years ago and never went back; I could no longer justify the expense when out of all the shitty channels offered, there were only a few I even bothered with. Besides which, they recompress the living hell out of everything, so the quality is garbage. I have a DVR and I have more to watch than I have time to watch things. Of course we have lots of local OTA channels and reception is good. I have no interest in streaming, it's just more 'pay TV' which is what I wanted to get away from. I'm not even interested in Netflix. I don't believe in 'The Cloud' or purely digital purchases because you don't really own them, I'd rather have physical media, and DVD is fine, don't even want or see a need for Blu-ray. Despite what some trolls actually would have you believe OTA broadcast isn't going to go away any time soon, not any more than broadcast radio is going away any time soon.

Re:Do not want.

[kheldan]

I really honestly don't get the draw of '4k'. If you're running a movie theatre then I can see where it makes sense, your projection screen is 20 feet on a side (or whatever it is), but I've got a 39" TV, and I don't ever notice individual pixels; I notice the quantization of the compression algorithm used when there's fast motion, but that's going to happen at any resolution unless it's totally uncompressed video. Really, it sounds like a 'solution looking for a problem', not anything 'innovative'.

Re:Do not want.

[Dins]

You still watch OTA broadcast stations? I don't even have an antenna hooked up to my TV anymore.

I do because it supplements netflix/other internet option well with all the local free content I need (don't have cable or sat tv). I get about 60 channels. Now granted probably 50 of them are crap, but I get CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and Fox for free. Granted this only works if you're within range of the broadcast antennas.

Sort of stupid actually

[keltor]

The 4k TVs basically directly replaced the HDTVs, as in they just replaced the same model that was $899 last year with a new $899 model that is now 4k. Instant 4k Adoption. You're also probably getting some generational effects where people with older 480p and 720p flat screens suddenly need new TVs because they hit that magic it's 10 years OLD effect.

When 4k BRs show up at redbox...

[Anonymous Coward]

Until then, whats the point... totally over-compressed streaming 4k is no better than 1k bluRay

Re:When 4k BRs show up at redbox...

[Ultra64]

Why would redbox stock 4k blu-rays before people have the ability to play them?

What means this?

[NEDHead]

"It's faster and more robust than HDTV."

The adoption rate or is there some purported technical advantage?

Re:What means this?

[AHuxley]

Recall early HD hardware and the way prices globally stayed up for a while.

Re:What means this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Marketing BS... it means they don't know how a TV works.

http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-11-17

Surprise?

[markdavis]

>"Now this may surprise some: "

Why is this a surprise? It is what the manufacturers are pushing. Consumers have no idea that 99% of them won't notice ANY difference on their TV's from normal viewing distances between 4K and 2K. They won't know there is little 4K content, anyway. They will just by the one that is "better".

Same thing with the bluray players. You could say "new- supports popsicle mode for enhanced viewer" and other marketing speak and they will buy it.

No, what is stupid is upgrading from HDTV TO OLED

[aristotle-dude]

I have seen uninitiated consumers tricked into buying last year's inventory of 3D or OLED HD 1080p sets for the same price as a 4k TV. They are convinced by the salesman that the they should spend over 1k on a slightly better picture (OLED) or gimmicky 3D TVs that will only work with 3D bluray discs. They are that you cannot see the difference in 4k because there is no content. There is 4k Netflix, 4k Youtube and 4k Bluray already and most sets now do a great job upscaling 1080 content.

If you have a small condo in the city, you do not need a 60 inch TV and if you are getting one, you should not be getting a 1080p model at this point regardless if it is OLED or curved. You are better off with a 4k model now. I have a 55" 4k samsung that I am still happy with even though it is a year old model with 4k Netflix but only 1080p youtube. I can use my laptops to drive it to 4k and watch Youtube that way. My 4k Samsung is an awesome 4k monitor.

Still feel 4K is not ready yet.

[DeathCom]

I'm one of the minority who sees the value of a 3D capable TV. I prefer to watch any movie this way and am all about the home theater experience. Granted there are some great passive 3D UHD TVs out there, but there has yet to be a 4K 3D standard. I fear if I jump in now, Ill end up using my PC to convert any new 3D content to the current standard. (which with Passive tech, it would be possible for 4K 60fps 3D at half resolution). I just prefer that the next standard for 3D, (something that likely includes support for HFR 3D for films like the Hobbit and upcoming Avatar sequels) be included in the next TV I get. Furthermore, with the exception of netflix, I will have very little 4K content. Plus, as an AMD fan, I gotta wait until Vega 10 at least to upgrade the video hardware to drive a 4K screen for gaming properly.

Do not buy

[ArtemaOne]

Don't put the money into the business that sells them, and you don't have to worry about any of that.

had to replace my tv

[Anonymous Coward]

I just wanted a nice 65" curved TV for the living room htpc. Only came in 4K. I actually use it at 1920x1080.

No affordable 4K projectors yet

[KalvinB]

The last "HD" TV I bought was 8 years ago and was a 32" 720p. It has long been replaced with digital projectors. I get a much bigger "screen" for about the same money.

You're much better off with a 1080p digital projector than some TV. Most TV viewing happens in the evening anyway so lighting isn't much of an issue.

With 4K, a monitor is your most affordable option.

Re:No affordable 4K projectors yet

[Anonymous Coward]

A 1080p projector does not have an image that looks at good, requires an awkward set-up, has a loud fan, and is more expensive than a reasonable quality 50-60" 4k tv, once you factor in that you should buy a screen. I too have a projector, and it's fun every once in a while, but get real.

With 4k, for something TV sized, they don't make monitors large enough. I don't imagine they even sell 4k tvs in a monitor size. They are about the same technically, but there is no overlap.

Please post less and lurk more.

expected sales are not sales

[Osgeld]

This is a marketing mouthpiece, you can make it say anything you want, and when it happens its a loss you pass on to the accountant

Just like my laptops and computer

[future assassin]

my 1080P tv has been doing fine for the last 7+ years and unless it burns out it'll do just fine for the next 7+ years. Same with my Olympus E5. The EM-1 is much batter but not enough to really make any difference in how I take photos or want me to upgrade and fork over the $$$$$

Just wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Quantum Dot Displays are coming and will blow away all other display types.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is a TV "faster" because it's 4k instead of full HD?

Who needs 4K?

[LeftCoastThinker]

I keep thinking about it, but honestly, unless you are 6 feet away from a 55" or larger screen, it doesn't look $700 better to me. The curved TV thing was just a gimmick (again, only useful if you sit close to a giant screen, 3D with glasses is a gimmick. If they can make a comfortable Oculus or PSVR that doesn't make me sick after 30 minutes that is where I am going next.

Blue ray vs HD DVD anyone?

[Charcharodon]

Duh because video standards don't matter anymore and online delivery of both hardware and media is driving down prices quickly. The consumers are better educated than the previous generation who were still wrapped around the axil over the whole VHS DVD HDDVD Blue ray debacle.

Customers have switched over to Netflix, Amazon, youtube, and a few others as the method for getting content. No waiting around for the various companies to get on board with a set standard. Want to watch in it 720? Go for it. Want 1080? no problem. Want to watch 4K knock yourself out. Still fucking around with ripped DVDs in SD? no one cares have fun.

Re:Blue ray vs HD DVD anyone?

[Tukz]

Blu-Ray.

Re:Blue ray vs HD DVD anyone?

[Charcharodon]

I refuse to bow to buzzwords and marketing speak. May spell correct live on forever.

Re:Blue ray vs HD DVD anyone?

[Tukz]

There are numerous examples of products and brands being spelled alternatively.

Are you refusing to accept those as well?

Re:Blue ray vs HD DVD anyone?

[Charcharodon]

Yes.

TV? Or video device?

[MMC Monster]

62 percent of consumers plan to buy a consumer electronics viewing device in the next 12 months; 33 percent plan to buy a smartphone, and 29 percent plan to buy a TV. "Consumers are showing a strong preference for 4K,"

Did they just include mobile phones in their 4K penetration data? If so, it seems somewhat misleading.

I would certainly like more pixels in my mobile phone and computer screen. 4K TV? Not so much.

Price and Standards

[HTH NE1]

If you'll recall, good HDTVs were over $10,000 while 4K sets can be obtained for under $2,000. Also, many of the cheaper original HDTVs offered HD only over VGA or Component cabling, and then only in 4:3 aspect on CRTs without an anamorphic setting so everything was taller and thinner than it should be.

Real 4K? Or will they still overscan?

[knorthern knight]

The picture on ancient CRT tubes (black-and-white and colour) tended to shrink as the tubes aged. Manufacturers responded by using "overscan". I.e. the projected picture was a bit bigger than the CRT tube face. As the tube aged, the picture shrank to almost fit into the viewing surface of the tube face.

Fast forward to 2007, when I got a 50-inch Panasonic plasma. I love it, but... when I tried using it for home theatre via a PC, I noticed a *LOT* of cropping on all 4 edges. WTF is a digital TV doing with overscan??? 1950 called; and they want their ugly hack back. I find that I much prefer a HD-Homerun tuner hooked up to my PC and 1920x1080 monitor, playing via mplayer. I get real fullscreen and I don't lose any of the picture due to cropping on the edges.

Re:Real 4K? Or will they still overscan?

[Not-a-Neg]

Most video card drivers default to having overscan turned on when connect to a TV, you need to turn it off in the video card driver.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

And what about the previous articles stating that people were buying LESS TVs in favor of Internet content and Phones?

EXCEPT....

[Anonymous Coward]

Some 4k hardware (rare though it is!) still supports legacy inputs (vga, composite/component, etc) and can be driven by hardware that has existed for 2-4 years among computers and tv dongles. When/if 8k TVs get released and become mainstream, new hardware will be needed, excluding the possibility that 8k is the 'year of palladium' and forces consumers onto an entirely drmed chain of devices (hdmi/hdmi 2.0 can be claimed as that, but there were circumvention devices until HDMI 1.4, something that cannot be claimed for the 2.0+ HDCP standards, unless the signing keys leak again.) Additionally, none of the current hardware can drive 8k displays at better than 24hz (making it akin to hdmi 1.4's capabilities for 4k) and AFAIK there are no graphics accelerators capable of rendering 4x2160p displays, which is roughly the equivalent necessary to achieve 8k rendering rates, not including the actual outputs (hdmi or displayport, neither of which support the 8k feature set or data rates yet!)

That said, while 4k would be nice for general desktop usage, I personally have been going towards lower resolution content, rather than higher. While I like my videogames crisp and easy to view (something I don't partake of much anymore), the majority of cinematic/television content gains nothing from higher resolutions. Most content simply lacks the depth necessary to make the ability to focus on background details necessary, and most content still doesn't make effective use of 720p, nevermind 1080p levels of detail that can't be downrendered to 480p or 360p with no signficant loss of quality. I have downscaled a number of videos for viewing on my cell phone for instance, which I later viewed fullscreen on my computer. Outside of maybe one or two where there was some background text worth reading, none of them lost any key plot related elements by being downscaled.

Re:EXCEPT....

[Shirley Marquez]

Circumvention devices for HDCP 2.2 are already available: www.hdfury.com

Smart TV? No Thank you.

[Anonymous Coward]

I ain't buying a TV with "smart" technology. Wifi, and all that shit can go to hell.
I don't care if it's 4k, 8k or FucK You K.

Re:Kill your television.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kill your god.

Thanks Dummies

[in10se]

Maybe idiots buying 4K TVs which can play all that non-existent 4K content will bring down the price of "normal" HD TVs.

Biology means 4K is nearly useless

[Anonymous Coward]

http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2013/01/27/resolution_chart.jpg

The human eye has finite resolution. The difference between 720 and 1080 is not physically visible for typical viewing distance on a 40 inch TV. In order to physically see the difference between 1080 and 4K on a 40 inch TV, you need to sit less than 5 feet from the TV. Framerate differences are far more noticeable. Unfortunately, most video is still "i", not "p".

4K is only really useful for computer monitors. The viewing distance for a typical computer monitor tends to be 2 feet, sometimes less.

Plasma upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

My 2010 Panasonic plasma is suffering from "red sparkles", time to replace it (and yes, I am aware it can be fixed with a pot adjustment), seems logical to replace the best with the best and get a UHD OLED 4K TV. Just need to wait for the price to drop or the economy to turn around so that I can get a reliable job to afford it.

Personal finances improved?

[Anonymous Coward]

My financial situation has changed and I am moving to a bigger place and will be shopping for a bigger TV. The prices have dropped to the point that I will be looking a UHD.

How is this supposed to be surprising?

[Maury Markowitz]

I saw my first HDTV, a 42" Pioneer Elite plasma, during the 1998 winter olympics. It cost $24,000.

I bought my first HDTV, a Sharp 50" which I still have, circa 2006. It cost $2300.

4K has been out, what, a year for real? You can get name-brand 60" models at Cosco for $2300.

So basically what took about a decade to happen with HDTV happened in about a year in 4k.

So given that 4k is currently at the price point that made HDTV "break through", no, I don't find it at all surprising everyone is buying one. The delta in price is fairly minimal, and although there's little content today, if it lasts 10 years like my HDTV, then it's certainly not a bad deal.

Re:How is this supposed to be surprising?

[jgotts]

Precisely the point I make below. I paid about $2,000 for my picture tube HDTV some time around 1999-2001, and I still love it. But most people don't want to pay thousands of dollars for a television, and they don't care about buying a television that will last them 20 years.

$500 is a very attractive price, whether there is content or not. Manufacturers have figured out how to make 4K equipment cheap, and so customers are buying it. Manufacturers could not figure out how to make a $500 HDTV for a decade or longer.

HDR

[HalAtWork]

You can notice HDR 10-bit color panels from any distance

SCTE/ISBE Adds 4K, HDR Focus to Cable-Tec Expo

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.multichannel.com/news/distribution/scteisbe-adds-4k-hdr-focus-cable-tec-expo/407824

"With an eye on next-gen video formats, the SCTE/ISBE said it will feature two sessions dedicated to 4K/Ultra HD and High Dynamic Range at next week’s Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia."

Some of you all are still running on Outdated info

[burhop]

Time to leave 2014 behind.

4K TVs are expensive - Nope - My 60 in 4K was under $1000 8 months ago.

There is no content - Au contraire - Netflix and Amazon are serving it out nicely.

You can't see the difference with 1080p - I'm sorry your living space doesn't allow for a TV larger than 32 inches.

Now, to be fair, I did check out the 8K TVs at CES and we may have already passed a useful maximum resolution. I can't tell a 60in 8K from a 4K when I'm a few feet away. I don't think the OCD market of people with 20/10 vision is going to be too big for 8k.

4K is different than prior generations

[Anonymous Coward]

4K adoption is more about computer use than classic TV use. Cord-cutting internet content is part of that computer use.

Additionally, 4K is largely stalled in Asia and China. Not because of the Chinese downturn but because large TVs don't fit into smaller living spaces common in Asia. Without the Asian market, the adoption could stall from lack of margin.

Unsurprising

[jgotts]

This doesn't surprise me. I purchased one of the first HDTVs, an RCA F38310 38-inch picture tube television within about a year of 2000. The MSRP was $3,500, which in today's dollars would be nearly $5,000. If I remember correctly, I paid right around $2,000, which would be expensive even in 2016 dollars. [After a capacitor repair ten years ago, the television works great and has a vivid picture to this day, only lacking 1080p and HDMI---easily worked around. I might keep this television forever, if only to play video games.]

Consumers today can get decent 4K televisions for around $500, and I've seen smaller sets for less. In 2000 you needed to spend over $1,000 in 2000 dollars for something decent. LCDs were really crappy back then. If you're old enough, you might recall that many people bought plasma sets, which were more like $5,000 each. None of this helped adoption of HDTV.

Retrospectively I'm saying that a lack of content was not the major factor in the slow consumer demand for HDTV equipment. It was simply that the equipment that was any good cost way too much, into the thousands of dollars. Manufacturers have figured out how to sell 4K equipment cheaply, and so consumers are buying it, lack of content be damned.