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Sharp Announces 8K Consumer TVs Now That We All Have 4K (theverge.com)

Thuy Ong reports via The Verge: Now that you've upgraded to a shiny new 4K TV, Sharp has revealed its latest screen to stoke your fear of missing out: a 70-inch Aquos 8K TV. That 8K (7,680 x 4,320) resolution is 16 times that of your old Full HD (1920 x 1080) TV. Sharp calls it "ultimate reality, with ultra-fine details even the naked eye cannot capture," which doesn't seem like a very good selling point. Keep in mind that having a screen with more pixels doesn't buy you much after a certain point, because those pixels are invisible from a distance -- while an 8K panel would be beneficial as a monitor, where you're sitting close, it won't buy you much when leaning back on the couch watching TV. HDR, however, is something else entirely, and fortunately, Sharp's new 8K set is compatible with Dolby Vision HDR and BDA-HDR (for Blu-ray players). The lack of available 8K HDR content is also a problem. But there is some content floating around. The TV will be rolling out to China and Japan later this year, and then Taiwan in February 2018. Sharp is repurposing its 70-inch 8K TV as an 8K monitor (model LV-70X500E) for Europe, which will be on sale in March. There is no news about a U.S. release.

285 comments

  1. Like high-end stereo gear... by taiwanjohn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You have to wonder what percentage of the population can even detect the difference between 4k and 8k TVs. Seriously... unless they're displaying a test pattern to highlight the sharpness, it's all the same to me.

    --
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    1. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I was watching a DVD the other day and noticing the pockmarks on the face of one of the characters. The jump from VHS to DVD quality was very noticeable. Anything beyond that and I stop caring - occasionally there are scenes when it makes a difference, but they're rare. 4K is nice for a monitor, because it makes text rendering a lot crisper (barely any antialiasing needed), but for video I don't care. 8K is probably more pixels than I can resolve unless the display is positioned such that I don't fit the entire thing in my field of vision at once.

      --
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    2. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by aglider · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The real problem on content quality to me. Not image quality!

      --
      Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    3. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's one of my pet peves.

      I once bought a Full HD for my father -- he had an old standard resolution CRT one at the time -- and he just said the image was OK.

      I kept saying cable TV image was awful (back then not HD) and he kept saying it was great. He just watches sports and, what is more important, he's old and has poor near vision, being able to read road signs before you can even tell there's a sign.

      I suspect he can't see details at a 3m/3yds distance and should in fact move farther away from the TV. But he's an exception, most people I know (including me) are near-sighted. Also, there are psychological factors, like being able to distinguish the traits of a person in a train window instead of just seeing a small spot representing the person's head.

      Though you cannot really see the traits, you can see they're there. In fact, if all faces were equal in several window, even so it would be better than having no detail. And this happens with branches in trees, fur from a certain distance, hair blown by the wind etc. etc. It's like those high rate frame frequencies: you cannot really perceive above a certain amount, but there are scene situations -- like a sudden turning of a vehicle -- that you absolutely need a higher framerate.

      Finally, this watching TV from a standard distance is 100% BS. People say, for instance, watch a TV at least 2 meters away. It might not be bad, but I want cinema at home, I want to be able to watch a 70" set from 1m/3ft and experience a movie like intended on a cinema big screen. Or play a game with more complete immersion.

      At such distances, 8K is probably very much needed for a good view of the details mentioned above.

      With all that said, as a counterpoint, let me say I watch Netflix on Linux with a reduced resolution on a 42" TV at 720p -- because it works at that setting at 60fps. Choosing Full HD implies using an interlaced mode. Not all movies available on Youtube, for instance, have all that resolution, specially when considering the year of production. And my TV has resolution enhancing features (I believe it's called upscaling).

      Understanding and creating new good methods for upscaling is probably more important than the resolution itself IMHO.

    4. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by taiwanjohn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      On the bright side, though, it might make those "obsolete" 4k TVs cheaper in the not-too-distant future...

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
    5. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe he needs glasses. I'm supposed to wear glasses, but I can read text perfectly well. Wearing glasses does sharpen images up - it's the equivalent of disabling/enabling nearest/linear blending mode in texture mapping.

    6. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      8k resolution is close to IMAX for detail. Not quite as good as 70mm film, but close.

      You also have to remember that even if your eyes can't see individual pixels at that resolution (a good thing), what matters is the Nyquist frequency which is half the sampling frequency. That's why CDs sample at 44.1kHz, even though the human ear can't hear much about 20kHz.

      Basically 8k reduces aliasing, which is something that the eye is quite good at spotting and makes the image look artificial. That's why most of the 4k demos you see are careful to select images that avoid aliasing.

      8k isn't just resolution. When they start broadcasting in Japan for the 2020 Olympics, it will be 60Hz native format, and with a colour gamut beyond what current TVs can display.

      8k isn't just a resolution bump like 4k was, where they mostly used the same equipment and some upgraded but fundamentally the same cameras as HD/2k. For example, manual focus is impossible with 8k. Until recently only extremely specialist, power hungry hardware was able to process an 8k video stream and save it to storage fast enough. NHK, the Japanese national broadcaster, has been working on it since the 90s and skipped over 4k to concentrate on it. It's not just incremental, it's a genuine attempt to make video almost indistinguishable from reality.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Dogtanian · · Score: 5, Funny

      You have to wonder what percentage of the population can even detect the difference between 4k and 8k TVs.

      "Hey, check out the picture on my shiny new 8K TV! It's great, isn't it? Look at that detail! I could never go back to 4K now..."

      "You know, it'd look even better if you weren't still using the composite video input..."

      --
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    8. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      Good point, though 4K monitors are already pretty cheap: at work we switched to buying them by default two years ago because there wasn't much price difference between them and lower res ones.

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    9. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Funny

      8k isn't just resolution. When they start broadcasting in Japan for the 2020 Olympics, it will be 60Hz native format, and with a colour gamut beyond what current TVs can display.

      You'll be able to see the radioactive dust fly into the air :D

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    10. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Back in the late 90's, as a curiosity, I did a quick rough calculation that the max a person's eyes (with 20/20 vision) would notice up to 16K X 8K. No idea if I was correct or not, but I think we are hitting close to the max based on resolution alone.

    11. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "You know, it'd look even better if you weren't still using the composite video input..."

      If that's the only connectivity you use, the TV set will not dial back home and send pictures and audio records of you as well as your viewing habits.

    12. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by mt2mb4me · · Score: 1

      What people don't realize is that when things went from 480p (DVD quality) to 1080i (first gen HD) the difference wasn't so much about it being a clearer picture, it was about having more screen real estate to work with. at 480p, if you wanted to do a landscape, you had to letterbox, now you only have 300 scan lines or less and you don't get the same quality. They did not do that for the 1080-4K though. Although, they should, I understand that they cannot. In theory, to enjoy a 65" 4k television and be able to discern the difference between that and a 1080p you have to be 4' from the screen. Now if 4K tvs took up 4x the space, and they used it to show more of the world around them, I would be impressed. So far 4k means very little over 1080P

    13. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure how it would do that over HDMI either...

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      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    14. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can barely even see the difference between 1080 and 4k on a PC monitor, so I doubt I'll see much difference with 8k unless I literally glue my face to the screen,

    15. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      I was thinking of those graphs so beloved by economists where one line slops up and the other slopes down.

      If those lines are resolution available and what I can detect I think they crossed already.

      Doubleplusunyoung.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    16. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Unless they're smart TVs and they brick them by a firmware update.

      Remember that for some products your biggest competitor is your installed base.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    17. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When they start broadcasting in Japan for the 2020 Olympics, it will be 60Hz native format, and with a colour gamut beyond what current TVs can display.

      And then it will be compressed into a crappy, ghosting, 30fps, sRGB colorspace mess -- worse for online streaming and transmission by the cable providers and NBC (assuming you actually get to see any non-US medal round content)..

    18. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 1

      8k isn't just resolution. It's whoop dala whoop dala whoo! You need it now. Somebody at work will be talking about their new 8k tee vee before you!

    19. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by jabuzz · · Score: 2

      I recently got a 4k TV and while the best material I have is 1080p (above a certain size it's hard not to get a 4k TV anymore at least in the UK) what I really notice is that the interface for all the catchup and Pelx is now super sharp. Way better than a 1080p screen which I also have. So while I don't have an 4k content to play back having used a 4k TV for a couple of months now there is no way I would buy a none 4k TV in the future.

    20. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Kazymyr · · Score: 0

      I can barely see a difference between SD and 1080p. Seriously, people keep telling me how much better 1080p is, but for me the difference is insignificant. I have seen 4k sets in stores and I don't really care about them, it all looks the same to me. My main TV is a 720p plasma, I also have a 1080p LED (because that's all there was in stores when I got it), I see no difference between them in terms of sharpness (of course the plasma has better color rendition that the LED). I have no plans to upgrade either of them until they die, or they become incompatible with broadcast standards.

      --
      I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
    21. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      So while I don't have an 4k content to play back having used a 4k TV for a couple of months now there is no way I would buy a none 4k TV in the future.

      That's easy to fix: just go to your favorite torrent site and search for "[movie name] 4k".

    22. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by umghhh · · Score: 1

      and pr0n can be really a turn off in high resolution.

    23. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      And then it will be compressed into a crappy, ghosting, 30fps, sRGB colorspace mess -- worse for online streaming and transmission by the cable providers and NBC (assuming you actually get to see any non-US medal round content)..

      The Japanese will be able to watch their money wasted in stunning 8k video, and they'll be able to stream it over their fat fiber network. The rest of us will have to watch the waste of money at a lower fidelity.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    24. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Indeed. Broadcast video quality in Japan is vastly superior to anything I've seen in the US or UK. They decided to have a small number of high quality channels instead of a large number of shit quality ones. In Tokyo you can get about six channels over the air.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    25. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Mordaximus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      8k resolution is close to IMAX for detail. Not quite as good as 70mm film, but close.

      You also have to remember that even if your eyes can't see individual pixels at that resolution (a good thing), what matters is the Nyquist frequency which is half the sampling frequency. That's why CDs sample at 44.1kHz, even though the human ear can't hear much about 20kHz.

      I would assume it has more to do with the Bayer Filter and demosaicing in particular, than Nyquist, however the point is well taken. At least as far as sampling is concerned. For example, you wouldn't shoot with the intent of displaying on a 1MP display with a 1MP sensor.

    26. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not quite, certain jumps in quality are noticeable, but the benefits are diminishing with smaller screens and incompetent hardware.

      A jump from 240p/480i to 480p is not noticable for VHS/DVD content if you are still playing it on a CRT, if you play it on a LCD of that era (connected by Composite, S-Video or Component video) most of the quality upgrade comes from the move to the LCD in the first place unless you are playing a video game, in which case the CRT remains superior for latency reasons.

      HD 720p and 1080p screens are not a noticeable upgrade from 480p unless you are actually playing a Blueray disc, or receiving a VoD (eg Netflix) broadcast. An analog HD signal (eg over component or VGA) noticeably flickers, but over HDMI or Displayport is really solid. However, over a built-in ATSC tuner, or a Cable (Mpeg 2 or Mpeg 4) tuner, or a Satellite tuner, the video quality remains over-compressed. Satellite tends to be the better of the two. Due to how slow things moved from SD to HD, most broadcast and cable channels are STILL SD, and as a result are stretched or letterboxed, so your 50" TV ends up with 33% of it's space wasted on poor setups.

      With 4K the notable detail is mostly background detail. Foreground detail in most video games is still modeled to scale from 720p up, so anything you gain in a video game is mostly in scaling/zoom distance, and that's about it. Games still use poor textures because downloadable games can't take up TB's of space (FFXIV takes almost exactly 32GB) and "textures" tend to look worse the higher the resolution of the model. When we stop using textures and actually use radiosity and high detail models for cutscenes, 4K and 8K will look better, till then most 4K content looks identical to 720p content except with UI widgets and background level of detail. Foreground detail remains the same.

      What will likely be the best improvement in the 4K and 8K arena is HDR color, as that will require switching away from 4:2:0 color subsampling we've been using since MPEG-1. Until there are improvements in lossless compression, 4K/8K and HDR color will be little more than demo's to show "what things could look like" if you bought a 80" TV and have a living room big enough to fit it. The average apartment dweller in a 400sq foot 1 bedroom apartment or Bachelor suite doesn't have the a wall big enough for such a thing, and as a result the average person with a 4K screen will not have anything larger than 40", and an 8K monitor at 40" is not going to be a justified upgrade.

      The entire reason "3D" monitors basically went out the window is because electronics manufacturers couldn't standardize on one thing to work without glasses, (auto-stenography, see the Nintendo 3DS) and what they came up with was worse than the theater experience. At 8K you have enough pixels to switch to a "4K 3D mode" where as with HD screens, switching to 3D mode often meant cutting the resolution to 480p or relying on frame-rate shuffling which gives people headaches, as they always have. "3D" needs to just stay in the realm of VR headsets, and when an 8K headset becomes possible, we might finally have a VR environment that looks real enough to not make people instantly sick. Current "half HD" versions are a joke, especially ones that use a smartphone as the display.

    27. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Only on the low-end. 4K IPS monitors are still more expensive, but "gaming" 4K TN monitors are about the same. TN monitors remain rubbish however for all other work.

      No 4K monitor supports HDR color, so you're going to see a lot of bargain 4K gaming monitors coming out that are based on 6-bit TN panels instead of 10-bit IPS panels. You need a "10-bit" panel for HDR color, and even then, you need HDR content, which little to none exist. So there's no loss right now with 4K monitors, but there will be when the content starts existing.

      "men" will not appreciate HDR color since men tend to have the most amount of color-blindness.

    28. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You clearly have never actually been to Tokyo, and imagine it as some Anime utopia. Tokyo has had 9 free to air channels of the absolute lowest quality TV that money can buy since the 1980's. Japanese TV is almost nothing but wall to wall game shows and chat shows featuring the same limited pool of washed up celebrities. They even have whole shows dedicated to presenting this week's YouTube memes, complete with the standard "eeeeeeee?", "oooooo", "aaaa", "kawaiiiiiiiii!" canned audience soundtrack and half a dozen B-list celebrities discussing the relative merits of various cat videos.

    29. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even 4k resolution is only 68 pixels per inch on a 70-inch screen. In computer imagery that's a poor resolution. It just seems so amazing because a lot of us grew up on NTSC. To have the equivalent resolution of my 1998 Sony Trinitron monitor, a 70-inch TV would need to have 7586 horizontal pixels, which is about 8k.

    30. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      anyone upgrading to 8k, i'd be happy to take your old 4k..

    31. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by green1 · · Score: 0

      HDMI sends a lot more data about what you are watching, and it can incorporate full ethernet connectivity.

    32. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wish more folks had seen the 8K screen that was at CES in 2012. It was just a prototype from sharp but omg it was truely amazing. It gave a depth to the content that 3D basically exaggerates. The images are far more convincing and with oled on the rise should produce a truly convincing image that 4K gets closer to but doesn't quite get there. So yes you can tell the difference but it's not in "oh wait a minute I think I see a pixel" but rather a, wow look how realistic, it's like I'm there

    33. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by green1 · · Score: 1

      Unless there was also a distance calculation involved, I can tell you that you were not correct.

      The amount you can see depends on the pixel count, but also the distance from the source.

      For most average TVs being watched at an average viewing distance, someone with 20/20 (or even much better) vision is unlikely to even be able to see the difference between HD and 4K, That said, 4K also incorporates things like HDR which are independent of the number of pixels, but improve the image quality and can be seen. If however you're set up with a more theatrical viewing experience (where the screen fills a much larger percentage of your field of view than the average TV setup in most homes) you might be able to see an improvement from HD to 4K, though it'll honestly likely be minor.
      Where 4K really shines though is in large monitor applications where you're sitting only a foot or two away from it. There you can see the extra resolution and take advantage of it. even there though I find it unlikely that 8K would actually provide any noticeable improvement.

      If you have an old 15" TV in the corner of your kitchen, you probably wouldn't be able to notice the difference between SD and HD if you don't have the black bars on the side of the screen from the different aspect ratio.

    34. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by chuckugly · · Score: 1

      Yes, rubbish, because I need a wide viewing angle and 10 bit color while cutting code, generating threat models and other artifacts, and other actual work tasks. /sarc

    35. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ever gotten your eyes checked out?

    36. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by green1 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Keep in mind that one of the reasons you don't see a difference between 720p and 1080p is likely the content source. I work for a telco that also does IPTV, I talked to our engineers and learned that the streams feeding in to our network from the content providers are all 1080i with the exception of sports that are sent to us in 720p (on fast movement the effective faster refresh of the progressive scan is more important than the extra lines of resolution that you get on 1080) So even though most of our STBs are set to 1080p, you're still just getting one of those 2 resolutions, just upscaled. (VOD content is different, much of that is in actual 1080p, but only the newer stuff)

      That said, I agree that the jump to 4K is basically pure marketing hype with 2 exceptions: 1) theatrical setups where the screen fills a fairly large portion of your field of view (quite rare in home setups, but some people do manage) and 2) computer monitors where you're sitting very close to the screen.
      I always get a big laugh when I see 4K TVs in the 40" range, the odds of you using that as a TV, and being able to tell the difference between 1080p and 4K is about zero.

      To be perfectly honest, there's only one reason 4K TVs even exist. Manufacturers loved the switchover from SD to HD. it was a once in a generation opportunity where everyone rushed out to replace their otherwise perfectly good TVs because there really was a visible improvement. That's basically over now as the market penetration of HD TVs is now extremely high and people have no reason to replace them. Manufacturers are willing to do anything to re-capture those glorious years. They have tried smart TVs, and 3D TVs, and nobody cared about either, so now they're trying 4K TVs, and some people are buying it. But once those reach saturation, what are they to do? well, apparently Sharp thinks that if resolution has worked for them twice, why not try a third time? But as others have pointed out, at some point you're not buying a better experience, you're just buying marketing buzz. No different than spending several hundred dollars on an HDMI cable, it won't improve your experience any, but you can try to convince people that you have the best one out there because you spent too much on it.

    37. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It must be rough going through life where everything is a blurry mess.

      On the plus side you can get by with a smaller TV budget, and assistive technologies for the blind are getting more advanced every year.

    38. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by green1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But PPI is an irrelevant metric when you don't count viewing distance. Computers and smartphones need high PPI because they tend to be used within a foot or two of your eyes. TVs tend to sit 10-20 feet away from you. That 70" screen at 68 PPI is probably more pixels than you can possibly see at the viewing distance you're actually watching it from.

      You can't actually see the difference between even HD and 4K in the vast majority of home TV setups. The average setup is a 40-50" TV sitting 10-15 feet away from the viewer, at those distances and that size screen, you just can't see it. (I won't even discuss the poor lighting, glare, and viewing angles of your average home TV setup) Now if you actually have a more theatrical type setup where you have a screen that fills most of your field of view, that's a completely different matter, but that's actually somewhat rare in home setups, in those cases the difference from HD to 4K is noticeable (though not as major as you might think) but even there you're unlikely to notice a difference from 4K to 8K.

      Now there is one place that 4K really does shine though, and that's computer monitors, a good 4K monitor is great, but that's because you sit so close to it in that application.

    39. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm the opposite. I see no need for 4K. It would just be a massive performance hit when gaming.

      I'll stick with 1920x1080 with FXAA and 16x AF. Everything looks and runs great on it.

    40. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FXAA is a blurry mess...

    41. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have to wonder what percentage of the population can even detect the difference between 4k and 8k TVs. Seriously... unless they're displaying a test pattern to highlight the sharpness, it's all the same to me.

      Just because you're blind doesn't mean the rest of us are.

      Also, keep in mind that at 70 inches, 1080p looks like shit, 4k is acceptable, but 8k would actually look nice.

    42. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      so....a mixture of NBC/Fox?

    43. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      and pr0n can be really a turn off in high resolution.

      Never had that problem. The closer to reality it is, the better.

    44. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No it isn't. It looks just as good as MSAA except it has near to no performance hit.

    45. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL @ 60Hz. It's 2017. If your display doesn't do a minimum of 144Hz, then it is obsolete garbage.

    46. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The jump from VHS to DVD quality was very noticeable. Anything beyond that and I stop caring - occasionally there are scenes when it makes a difference, but they're rare.

      I used to think that, until I started to actually watch things with good quality.
      Some things are released as HD without actually having a HD source.
      I would say the main difference between VHS and DVD is the noise reduction but a high quality VHS tape is certainly competitive.
      If you step up to HD on the other hand, even if it's just 720p, you suddenly see that hair have texture and isn't just a one-colored blob.
      I don't want to go back to DVD quality.

      Still haven't got a 4k TV so I can't say if it is worth it but HD definitely is.

    47. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit. The jump from DVD to 1080p was almost as big as VHS to DVD.
      Beyond that, it's not nearly as noticeable... for watching a movie. But I'd much rather have one large 4k computer monitor than setting two 1080p next to each other.

      Or put another way, focusing on resolution is becoming outdated. What matters is dpi. If your 8k TV is 100 feet tall then it's pretty easy to see the pixels. If it's 1 inch, it's pointless to even try.

    48. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and pr0n can be really a turn off in high resolution.

      That is such a bullshit argument.
      Really, it's the kind of crap that is spouted for the same people that fell for birtherism.

      Unless you find real life sex with all its flaws a turnoff then there is no way higher quality porn is worse.
      If you feel that way you should go back and jerk of the hentai because that is probably what you find most arousing.

    49. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      As everyone else has said... it all depends on how close you are sitting to your TV.

      Despite the impression you might have gotten from popular culture, we don't build our living spaces around our TVs.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    50. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      Why would you see a performance hit? At that level of antialiasing, you're rendering at more than 4K and then downsampling. Just rendering at 4K and not downsampling would use less GPU power and give you a better image.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    51. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by dfghjk · · Score: 1

      While technically the post is "interesting", it is only so because of how poorly informed the author is.

      Without any information regarding viewing angles, no conclusion can be made regarding whether the eye can see individual pixels or not. If it cannot, then it cannot. Aliasing is unrelated to this and is handled upstream of the display. Furthermore, the eye isn't "quite good" at "spotting" aliasing, aliasing appears as false detail, no different than any other detail to the eye.

      Regarding color space, again it is unrelated to resolution. A wider color gamut is only useful when there is content that can use it. In most cases it is moot.

      Manual focus is impossible with 8K? You're out of your mind. Still photography has achieved this resolution forever and manual focus is used there all the time. Why even bother mentioning this, though? The topic is display, not content creation.

      A little information is a dangerous thing.

    52. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by toejam13 · · Score: 2

      I've noticed in the past two years that local broadcasters are rushing to add as many DTV subchannels as they can. As a result, the picture quality is turning to absolute garbage. I've been slowly deleting them from my channel list as they become unwatchable.

    53. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm pretty happy with 720p. It isn't like the jump from 480i to 720p.

      And hell, I routinely watch YouTube videos at 480p without being particularly bothered.

    54. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SKY do 4k content, especially F1 in 4K is really noticeable compare to 1080

    55. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope you don't work for google, making gender generalizations like that.

    56. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      I hope you don't work for google, making gender generalizations like that.

      In this case, it's accurate - men do have more colour-blindness - 16x as much.

      As many as 8 percent of men and 0.5 percent of women with Northern European ancestry have the common form of red-green color blindness.

      Men are much more likely to be colorblind than women because the genes responsible for the most common, inherited color blindness are on the X chromosome. Males only have one X chromosome, while females have two X chromosomes. In females, a functional gene on only one of the X chromosomes is enough to compensate for the loss on the other. This kind of inheritance pattern is called X-linked, and primarily affects males. Inherited color blindness can be present at birth, begin in childhood, or not appear until the adult years.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    57. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      and pr0n can be really a turn off in high resolution.

      It's a self-correcting problem, because the more you watch, the worse your vision gets.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    58. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      As the population ages it will matter less and less. It's not like you can get 8k eye implants.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    59. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Still haven't figured out how porn, even the highest quality (how would you even tell) can ever be as good as sex. About the only advantage is it's available on demand and doesn't come with the baggage of a relationship. But then again, so does a carton of ice cream.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    60. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by PedroPerez · · Score: 1

      Aaand you are now FIRED for publishing your feminist ideas based on mumbo jumbo science! Thanks Google!

    61. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In this case, it's accurate - men do have more colour-blindness - 16x as much.

      Men and trans women.

    62. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      It must be rough going through life where everything is a blurry mess.

      Yes, it is. Until you consider the alternative ...

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    63. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by sjames · · Score: 2

      HERETIC!!!!

      The genders are all *EXACTLY* the same in every respect! That is the holy policy! Please report for re-education.

    64. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by martinX · · Score: 2

      Australia, mate. Each TV station seems to have one 1080i stream and stacks of 576p. It's pitiful.

      --
      When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
    65. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It will matter less and less... to some people. Market for high quality video and audio isn't going away, ever. If there is some worldwide catastrophe, there might be no supply but demand will still be there.

    66. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm just like you. I highly benefit of using glasses for watching TV and can read without them (though, as I get old, reading small letters is harder).

      My father is 84. And he still drives without glasses. Actually, he reads books without glasses.

      His problems are less related to vision and more to being stubborn.

    67. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > at 480p, if you wanted to do a landscape, you had to letterbox, now you only have 300 scan lines or less and you don't get the same quality.

      Very well put! I will try Full HD with letterbox movies and see whether there is an improvement.

      This is really something I once thought, too (there's even a nice site for that called Display Wars), but now have forgotten. Thanks for the reminder!

      PS: The site only compares screen sizes, not resolutions.

    68. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by kamapuaa · · Score: 1

      The average TV size is 40"-50"
      What the fuck? That's tiny. Maybe creimer in his studio apartment gets that, but not for the sort of person with a large enough living room to keep the TV 10-15' distant.

      --
      Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
    69. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

              Re:Like high-end stereo gear... (Score:?)
              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 02, 2017 @07:48PM

              My favorite explanation for this
              http://i.rtings.com/images/optimal-viewing-distance-television-graph-size.png

    70. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Australia, mate. Each TV station seems to have one 1080i stream and stacks of 576p. It's pitiful.

      Old shows yes but many shows are in 720p and movies (the ones you pay for) are in 1080p. You can get Netflix (there are others) and most movies are 1080p although you really do need broadband to get that resolution.

      The problem is in Sydney there are over 30 free to air TV station and most are shopping channels. The main channels which are 2, 7, 9 and 10 have TV shows that are IMHO mostly rubbish although you do get a good (subjective) one every now and then.

    71. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really sure WHY you want to notice that. HD always looks worse to me.

      Get off my lawn.

    72. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      8k source means i can use a 4k screen and zoom in to read the newspaper and notes in the on screen documents with no jaggies.

    73. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is the dumbest argument ever.

      As if we are the last generation of humans and nobody is young.

    74. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you like to fuck ice cream, that is fine. That really doesn't help the rest of us.

    75. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by green1 · · Score: 1

      I said average, not what you personally have. I don't know what you have, I just know what is average.

      I work for a telco that provides TV service, I've spent years in people's houses hooking up HD, and now 4K TV service, the average TV is 40-50" and located 10-15' away from the viewer. Sure that's not everyone, but it is definitely the majority.

    76. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've got a 720p tv downstairs and 1080p upstairs, they are both high enough quality for me. I'd rather be in the woods riding my bike.

    77. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1k was line-countable.
      2k doubled was nice and hardly that.
      4k eliminated line / pixel counting at all reasonable distances.
      8k is nothing but overkill and bandwidth waste.
      nevermind that any 8k and 4k media you play will basically amount to 1k compressed shitware in practice.
      dont believe me, do your research.

    78. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The distance is largely irrelevant if you just calculate based of field of view.

    79. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which isn't at all going to enhance the experience unless someone actually puts something relevant in the text. If the director et al wanted you to be able to read it, they would have shown it to you in a way you can read it.

    80. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by reanjr · · Score: 1

      Yeah, some of us have no interest in dedicating a large space to a television, regardles of the size available. The larger the TV, the uglier the room.

    81. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where do you live? Somewhere poor? I just can't believe many people in the Bay Area have 40" TVs, I haven't seen anybody with a principle TV that small in like a decade.

      Yes I know, Slashdotters don't even own a TV.

    82. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. You are such a special snowflake!

    83. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I also like my pr0n to deal with the complexities of real human relationships, but nobody seems to be making it.

    84. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      Basically 8k reduces aliasing, which is something that the eye is quite good at spotting and makes the image look artificial. That's why most of the 4k demos you see are careful to select images that avoid aliasing.

      I find that with the first generation of any new format (be it DVD, BD/HD-DVD, whatever) all I can is compression artifacts writ large. It takes several years for encoders to get good enough.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    85. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      It's almost as if you're a complete moron, with the intellectual capabilities nature has bestowed on the rock I kicked across the sidewalk this morning.

    86. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your post is quite informative (as in general are your others) however, what is with this bullshit hiding in there?

      "For example, manual focus is impossible with 8k."

      What do you mean by this statement? Manual focus on analogue film cameras is perfectly possible. Why would it be impossible with an 8k CCD array? Are you saying there is no system that has sufficient bandwidth to provide monitor output from the 8k CCD? If not, then how the hell does the cinematographer know what they are shooting the camera at?

    87. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Ice cream makes you fat, jerking off to porn makes you lose [a small amount of] weight. Clear win.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    88. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      At that level of antialiasing, you're rendering at more than 4K and then downsampling. Just rendering at 4K and not downsampling would use less GPU power and give you a better image.

      Basically every video card made today has a scaler that will do that stuff for free if you use the driver correctly. That, in fact, was what got me to take my Ouya back the day I got it. Well, the day after, but I had it boxed back up on day 1. There's a scaler in there that can do practically any resolution you can imagine, and then they hard-locked it to 720p or 1080p, so I couldn't use it (for example) on my 1920x1200 monitor, which advertises neither resolution. What a bunch of fucking chimps.

      Anyway, you shouldn't be paying anything noticeable for scaling whether it's up or down.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    89. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      What the fuck? That's tiny. Maybe creimer in his studio apartment gets that, but not for the sort of person with a large enough living room to keep the TV 10-15' distant.

      The average is around 50". The manufacturers are only now really pushing the 60-70" sets. When we bought our 52" Sharp AQUOS TV, for one thing, Sharp was still making televisions :) But for another thing, it was around $1500, and that was a quite good price for a TV that size and with anything approaching that contrast ratio. Got it at Costco, which not only comes with an essentially eternal warranty but also came with an explicit additional year of warranty protection, up from one year.

      So, we've got a decently large (now average-sized) television with really good contrast and daylight viewability, and about two Blu-Ray discs... why would I bother to upgrade my TV again? Hell, I'm still using a Sony BDP-S300 (literally the first commercial Blu-Ray player) even though it's slow AF to read the disc initially because it's still covering my movie-watching needs which don't involve streaming. I could spend more, but meh. I'm sitting far enough away from the TV to where it really doesn't matter.

      If you're in the store today and you see that you can get a 60" TV for barely more than a 50" TV, and in any case for hundreds less than I paid for a 50" TV, then yeah, you're going to get the 60" (or larger.) But if you already have a working 50", and you haven't scratched the screen or anything ridiculous like that, why would you upgrade? It's fine.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    90. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      The real problem on content quality to me. Not image quality!

      There's plenty of high quality content coming out of places other than Hollywood.

    91. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      You'll be paying in terms of power consumption and heat, which may trigger thermal throttling elsewhere. Either way, it's hard to imagine that generating a high-resolution image and not downsampling it is more expensive than generating a high-resolution image and downsampling it, which is what the grandparent was claiming.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    92. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      You'll be paying in terms of power consumption and heat, which may trigger thermal throttling elsewhere.

      The scaler is very efficient, and it has been at least since the original Xbox, where it was used for upscaling for most titles. I presume they do but do not actually know whether ATI has as efficient a scaler.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    93. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by green1 · · Score: 1

      Same thing really. You can't say what the absolute resolution is that you can see unless you also say how much of your field of view it occupies. Size and distance together give you that information and are easier for people to calculate than degrees of field of vision.

    94. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      The statement "men do have more color-blindness" is wrong. The typical man has no more color-blindness than the typical woman. The true statement would be "more men have color-blindness".

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    95. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah well, you can prove anything with facts.

      Burn the witch!

    96. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Think of a football game with the camera covering 50 yards. In SD, the football almost disappears because it's smaller than 1 pixel.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    97. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have to wonder what percentage of the population can even detect the difference between 4k and 8k TVs. Seriously... unless they're displaying a test pattern to highlight the sharpness, it's all the same to me.

      Yeh, I'll wait for 32K and then see if I can teal the difference.

    98. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by michael_wojcik · · Score: 1

      at 480p, if you wanted to do a landscape, you had to letterbox, now you only have 300 scan lines or less and you don't get the same quality.

      Shrug. I have plenty of VHS videotapes that are letterboxed, and I continue to enjoy the content on them, because it includes good storytelling. As far as I'm concerned, the image only has to be good enough to be discernible.

      I don't have a 4K television, and I won't be getting one until the current set dies, and then only if I can only find 4K sets that have the features I actually want. (Or, actually, the features I have to compromise on, since electronics companies insist on providing idiotic "smart" TVs. It'd be nice if I can continue to avoid this crap, but I don't have a lot of hope. May have to buy components and build my own.)

    99. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by michael_wojcik · · Score: 1

      It's not just incremental, it's a genuine attempt to make video almost indistinguishable from reality.

      Well that sounds just awful.

    100. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Acer recently announced a 4K HDR IPS panel, the Predator X27. I found out about it on 144Hzmonitors.com

    101. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      I'd rather waste a 10-bit panel by feeding it 8-bit colours to get a 24-bit, 16.7M colours image than having a 6-bit panel which tries to do real-time dithering on my 24-bit image.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    102. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by vandamme · · Score: 1

      It's OK, women are better.

    103. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      I'd love to be able to read your comment, however this black-on-white text is really hard to read.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    104. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by vandamme · · Score: 1

      And it will be boring, but the color will be nice.

    105. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      What's faster to render? A 4K image with no FXAA, no AF, no nothing, or a 1080p image with FXAA and 16x AF?

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    106. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Nice to see one of my stalkers finally admitting that trans women are not men. But you really need to get over your obsession.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    107. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by segedunum · · Score: 1

      The jump from VHS to DVDs was noticeable and needed. The jump from DVDs to 720p is certainly the next big noticeable jump. Beyond that, even to 1080p, I can't see a big difference and certainly nothing that will warrant me forking out for equipment and content.

    108. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by segedunum · · Score: 1

      I can't see any difference between 1440p and 4k, unless I look closely at monitor output on a computer.

    109. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      That is the dumbest argument ever.

      As if we are the last generation of humans and nobody is young.

      In case you haven't been keeping tabs, millennials are way poorer than previous generations. Stuck with huge educational debt, having to compete in the rip-off gig economy with its' higher overhead (no employer health insurance, you've got to pay both your income tax and the employer's share, etc) and uncertainty, zero-hour "contracts" from employers who refuse to commit to a minimum number of hours but want them there immediately when called, entry-level and menial jobs being automated | off-shored | totally eliminated, crappy internships that lead nowhere, if they're not stuck living with their parents they are going to be more concerned with covering their basic expenses every month than in buying an 8k TV.

      So that leaves the older generations - who have about as much use for an 8k tv as they do for 3d tv. As your vision normally deteriorates with aging, an 8k tv is overkill if you're sitting at a normal tv viewing distance.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    110. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Since there is no such thing as the "typical" man or woman, just aggregate averages, you're wrong. Also, there are zero males with tetrachromatic vision.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    111. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You want porn where the guy has to finish taking out the trash and painting the fence before the fun happens?

    112. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by KingBenny · · Score: 1

      yea just like cpu's and ssd's have been sharply diving down in the past years like .. not unless its different overthere, but i know sarcasm when i see it :p i think moores law is broken and the competition is in cahoots to keep the prices level

      --
      Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
    113. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I came back to post some real life observations...

      First, as the post below states, storytelling is more important than image quality. It pains me to watch a nice image without a meaningful plot; that said, I know at least one literary masterpiece which was filmed long ago in black and white and which makes the movie experience a lot worse than it might be.

      Now, you deal with what you get. Netflix here is 1280x720. I'm sure there are ways to pretend to be on Windows to get them to send 1080p, but I won't care about that now. Youtube is another thing. Sometimes one gets 1080p and it must be downgraded somehow to 1080i, which is what my TV set can show; sometimes you get the 60fps versions and IMHO 720p60 is better than 1080i, and that is what I opt for; sometimes, we're stuck with 720p, 30fps, or even 480p, because better versions simply weren't uploaded. We get to make automatic choices based on what's available. Unfortunately, changing resolution is somewhat cumbersome and it is not a viable proposition to it all the time.

      Sure I can get a TV set able to do 1080p60, but 1080p30 already wastes a sizable chunk of my bandwidth (24Mbps, measured with Youtube's "Stats for Nerds"). A 4K set would introduce new trouble in the bandwidth department... :-/

      For the time being, 1280x720 -- sometimes with 60fps -- seems to be the best compromise. But I also have computers which cannot do 720p60, though 720p plays well.

      And then there's the upscaling thing which can make a 480p movie a lot more enjoyable. In the past, I even experimented with mplayer tricks like introducing noise to get a better image.

      Thanks for the attention and have a nice day!

    114. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      God this shit gets so boring. I swear every thread is infested with this and anti-systemd shit (no matter how offtopic). It's not funny or clever or anything except boring.

    115. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL at Nyquist frequency when talking about video...

    116. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correction: he does use glasses for reading (newspapers, mainly).

    117. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As green1 posted below (or so I did read it), you are probably being fooled -- if you use cable, for instance.

      You can have a 1080p just as good as an SD one, and that may be the result of excessive compression of your TV signal. But why would they do that? Answer: to be able to serve more customers with the same bandwidth they have available at one given location.

      You can improve things by paying an extra and get an "HD" signal, but I suspect even that will have some compression. For a better comparison, tune in an over-the-air channel and see a detailed view -- usually easier to get with slow paced shows (like interviews, for instance). Also, have in mind they might be artificially reducing the image quality -- for instance to avoid showing an old actor's wrinkles.

      Also, there are Full HD test videos on Youtube so you can conduct your own tests. Focus on details, like text or uniforms... see this:
      https://www.cnet.com/news/when-hd-isnt-hd/
      for a better explanation.

    118. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know, Radeon 9700 Pro came out in 2002 and had fast and effective rotated grid MSAA anti-aliasing. MSAA anti-aliases the triangle edges while leaving the triangle's interior alone, whereas SSAA (supersampling) has effectively the same load at rendering at 4x the res (or whichever the factor is)

      This way the Radeon 9700 pro played high end games with 4x AA and 16x AF (anisotropic texture filtering) at 1024x768 and 60fps, with a low enough performance hit.

      Later, MSAA became expensive because of shadows, tiled rendering and whatever. Post-processing AA techniques got developed, though the biggest rationale from them is small fixed cost and very low memory use on PS3 and Xbox 360, making it predictable and low cost.
      Then it got refined so that a combination of 2x MSAA and post-processing techniques can give you more bang for the buck than 4x MSAA (and pixel shaders themselves can be tweaked so that they anti-alias content inside of a triangle ; pathological case would be to have smooth triangle edges but a complete smearing mess everywhere due to specular and other lighting techniques)

      tl;dr 1024x768 with anti-aliasing is faster than 1600x1200 without anti-aliasing, and in the 2010s it's the same with 1080p vs 2160p.

      If you're after a cost effective gaming PC above other things you can look for 1920x1080 144Hz monitors (I did game at 100Hz in 2002, although that was on far more modest hardware than Radeon 9700. 60Hz sucks balls, even 320x200 VGA ran at 70Hz. So your 3840x2160 monitor runs slower than a game of Duke Nukem 3D at 320x200 in 1996)

    119. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Couldn't either the Ouya or the monitor make that 1920x1080 with black bars at zero cost? If the Ouya didn't support that that was really dumb.

      I fully agree with you, in particular late 90s graphics cards make scaling free regarding video playback. They had YUV to RGB color conversion as part of that.

      This is why we could play movies and vids on 400MHz CPUs (local media player, Real Player or .WMV browser plugin) but needed 1000MHz CPUs or higher for flash videos and 1600MHz or higher for HTML5 video.

    120. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We've had dedicated scaler hardware since the 90s e.g. S3 Vision 868, S3 Vision 928 graphics cards as opposed to the 864 and 924 cards. Gave us S3 Trio 64V+. Followed by S3 Virge and S3 Trio 3D.

      Playstation 3 had a special low latency scaler built in the GPU (I think it had limitation such as operating on the horizontal only)

      Finally we might argue that downsampling or upsampling an image after rendering it has a very low and fixed cost next to generating that image in the first place. Like running a ray tracer on an Amiga then downscaling the result on it. Perhaps you'll spend an hour rendering three floating spheres then a minute scaling down.

    121. Re: Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the young are watching on 5" monitors. Makes them lose their sight faster too.

    122. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's one smart rock!

    123. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whether you notice the difference of increased resolution is debatable, as is whether it is cost effective. You _can_ see it though.

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

      While the fovea centralis / central vision is a very tiny part of your field of view, it is processed by 50% of your visual cortex.

      Since fovea centralis has a resolution of 31.46 arc seconds, a 1920 pixel width would have a view angle for no possible improvement of only 17 degrees (1920 * 31 / 3600). This is much smaller than 40" at 15 feet. 4k doubles that to 34 degrees, which sure, for 40", 15', can't be beat. Though many people have larger screens and/or sit closer.

      I totally agree with you about high resolution being more noticeable when used as a computer monitor, and really enjoy my 40" 4k (tv turned) monitor).

    124. Re:Like high-end stereo gear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My eyeisnaked? OhNo! :-)8 kwouldbecoolforamonitorofthissize

  2. Flight sims by Voice+of+satan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In flight simulators, especially in combat flight simulators 4K monitors are said to be below what the naked eye can do in real life. When you have to identify visually a contact at long distance actual screens are not enough.

    1. Re:Flight sims by Calydor · · Score: 0

      And how many average consumers actually care?

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    2. Re:Flight sims by Voice+of+satan · · Score: 1

      Where did i imply simmers were a very large crowd in my comment ? Simmers know very well their pastime is a niche market.

    3. Re:Flight sims by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      This was the first flight simulator I ever played.

      "Identify visually contacts at a long distance" on *that*, you spoiled gits. ;-P

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    4. Re:Flight sims by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      And how many average consumers actually care?

      A potentially surprisingly large set of the same people who buy those big books about warships and bombs and whatnot play flightsims. My father was Marine ATC in Korea, he was into Hornet and Comanche.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Flight sims by mikael · · Score: 1

      The first flight simulators consisted of tricycles with wings:

      http://c7.alamy.com/comp/C7BWR...

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    6. Re:Flight sims by Voice+of+satan · · Score: 1

      Aww cool.

      When i saw your post i thought i was going to see a video of one of the first MS-DOS popular flight sims and was thinking about posting a commodore 64 retort. I am beaten. I love that retro stuff.

      If we want to take advantage of a 8K monitor for simming, the power and prices of graphic cards better improve. It is hard enough on those who use three full-HD monitors.

    7. Re: Flight sims by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 2

      So, not a very large market.

    8. Re: Flight sims by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      So, not a very large market.

      Sure. But who wouldn't like to have more pixels? I just don't want to pay for them. That's why I'm still using the same 25.5", 1920x1200 display I've been using for ages. It's adequate. I actually have one with Adobe RGB (~120% sRGB gamut) but it has persistence issues which are annoying.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re: Flight sims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why I'm still using the same 25.5", 1920x1200 display I've been using for ages. It's adequate.

      Likewise. I recently ditched my 11-year old 21" 1680x1080 displays because one of them died, and I replaced them with a pair of cheap 27" 1920x1080 units that have performed admirably. I had been drooling over the IBM T221 forever, but the increase in productivity/entertainment value just hasn't been enough on the newer displays to make it worth the cost for me.

    10. Re:Flight sims by green1 · · Score: 1

      This is a very different application from TV though, those monitors are sitting much closer to you than your TV tends to.

      Keep in mind that most homes have a TV in the 40-50" range at a viewing distance of 10-20', at those distances, and with those set sizes, you just can't see 4K vs HD, especially if you add the poor lighting, the glare, and the sub-optimal viewing angles often employed. Now people with an actual home theatre type setup may benefit from 4K, but even they're unlikely to see any difference going to 8K

  3. Fuck Everything, We're Doing 8K by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of TV in this country. The Sharp 2K was the TV to own. Then the other guy came out with a 2K TV. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the 2K Turbo. That's 2K and a DVR. For entertainment. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happenedâ"the bastards went to 4K. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling 2K and a DVR. Entertainment or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to 8K.

    1. Re:Fuck Everything, We're Doing 8K by mikael · · Score: 1

      That sounds like one of those Hitler spoof videos...

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    2. Re:Fuck Everything, We're Doing 8K by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      It's a (rather appropriate) variation of this well-known Onion article.

      As for the original article, it came out before Gillette launched the Fusion razor which *did* have five blades. The fact that the parody became a reality doesn't make it any less ridiculous; on the contrary, it shows that Gillette's razor blades have become so ludicrous and marketing-led that no-one above the age of sixteen should be able to take them seriously any more...

      I mean, I thought the fifth blade on the back for "hard to reach areas" seemed like a good idea for a few seconds until I realised the obvious point that they were only "hard to reach" because the shaving head itself had become so ridiculously bulky.

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
  4. yes we "all" have 4K tvs *sarcasm* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Now we all have 4K". Eh, no.

      Only 16% of people own a 4K TV.

    https://www.cedmagazine.com/data-focus/2017/05/cta-survey-shows-4k-uhd-tv-ownership-rise-united-states

    1. Re:yes we "all" have 4K tvs *sarcasm* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep. Why does the media use this obviously false word. I regularly heard news stories about how we all this or that and yet no one in the media has every asked me anything.

    2. Re:yes we "all" have 4K tvs *sarcasm* by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      The media really doesn't understand middle class and under lifestyle.
      Those making under 6 figures who need to make decisions which tradeoffs they want for their recreational purchases.
      But they all talk to their wealthy counterparts who all have 4K TV. Also if you are starting to live on your own, and need to get new stuff a 4K tv may be on the list.

      I am still on a 1080p tv and I am not willing to upgrade yet because I don't see the point.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    3. Re:yes we "all" have 4K tvs *sarcasm* by antdude · · Score: 1

      Ditto. I just upgraded my TV and computer monitor to 1080P HD in 2014! I am not getting 4K and 8K for several years or more.

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    4. Re:yes we "all" have 4K tvs *sarcasm* by mattmarlowe · · Score: 1

      In 2006, I spent a pretty penny on a premium Panasonic Plasma 50" 720p/1080i TV......to be honest, with everything mobile on tablets/laptops these days, the TV is only for group viewing of Movies and the occasional TV show with 3-4 people at a distance of 5-10' perhaps once or twice/week. It's normally connected to an Amazon FireTV controller and has Plex installed to watch DVD's/Bluerays stored on the NAS.

      Short of the need for group VR or holograms 5-20 years in the future which somehow renders the TV viewing experience obsolete, this TV is never going to be upgraded. It's just not worth the cost given the viewing distance and frequency. Yeah, maybe 10-15 years in the future, the plasma tech inside will slowly dim it too much to be that watchable. But, I'll deal with that problem when it happens.

      As for laptop/computer screens, none of the ones here are yet 4K. Ultra crisp screens are nice, but not enough to force an early upgrade. I am at an age where I prefer a perfectly well done small screen at high DPI...... I'm more likely to buy screens in the 9.8" - 17" size range and 2.7K seems to be where most of those are at right now.

    5. Re:yes we "all" have 4K tvs *sarcasm* by King_TJ · · Score: 1

      Exactly.... Not only is my eyesight not that terrific, but I purposely went for a "last years' model" new HDTV when we were due to replace it. Got a lot more features for the money by picking out something 1080p instead of 4K, and most of the content we use with it isn't 4K anyway.

      We do a lot of streaming of content saved on my Plex media server, for example -- and pretty much all of that is compressed to 720p or 1080p resolution, tops. The larger, higher resolution files are less likely to work over wireless without stuttering, and clog up my bandwidth if someone wants to watch them remotely, served via my connection. The cable company isn't sending us any 4K content either ... at least not without paying some additional fee to see a limited selection of things in it.

      I have a 4K monitor for my Mac and that's more clearly useful to me -- but even so? I still find myself dragging a lot of windows over to my big 1080p resolution display, just so all the fonts are displayed larger.)

    6. Re: yes we "all" have 4K tvs *sarcasm* by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      If you can solder, you should check out common problems for your plasma and look for cheap repair kits. I got one for about $17 delivered that was cheaper than 3 delivery fees if purchased on my own. Or at the very least, check the common symptoms so when it eventually goes tits up, you can repair it again.

    7. Re: yes we "all" have 4K tvs *sarcasm* by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Yes, I was going to say that it almost certainly will fail before another ten years go by, and that the failure will probably be a cap or a diode that can be replaced for ten cents if you know which one it is :)

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  5. I think maybe is for media analysis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe is for media analaysis, video reconstruction, or astronomy (it's in vogue now) but definetly is not for the public eye.

  6. Highest resolution without spyware? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And Digital Rights doublecross and whatnot? SVGA or so? I'll have that, thank you.

  7. Nope by aglider · · Score: 1

    There's just a few things on 2k.
    I won't ever replace my full HD TV!

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
  8. Hardly use my TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a 720p TV in my living room I hardly use. When its done, not even sure I will buy another and certainly not an expensive 4K or higher one. This is where TV makers are hoping to replace volume sales with more lucrative margin expensive TV's. I hope it works for them, like 3D and curvy screens.

    1. Re: Hardly use my TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I just got a 4k tv for £300 ($300) to supplement my crt. They are not expensive.

    2. Re:Hardly use my TV by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1
      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    3. Re: Hardly use my TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can relate. If I had a 720p TV I would'nt want to use it too. It would collect dust forever or be sold for cheap.

    4. Re:Hardly use my TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is a TV?

    5. Re:Hardly use my TV by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Caitlyn Jenner.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    6. Re: Hardly use my TV by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 1

      I don't mention that I watch almost no television unless it comes up in conversation. It seldom comes up in conversation.

      Probably, to be fair, I don't talk frequently to people who talk a lotvabout what they watched on tee vee last night.

      Fair enough.

    7. Re: Hardly use my TV by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 1

      I would probably replace it with another bookshelf.

    8. Re:Hardly use my TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Caitlyn Jenner.

      I have absolutely no idea who this woman is. Caitlyn who? Am I supposed to have heard of her? I'm sorry, but I haven't.

  9. Zero F.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Firstly "we all have 4k" - is bullshit.

    Now, why buy 8k when:

    4k broadcast content (satellite/cable/DVB-T): Minimal, if at all
    4k streaming content: None on most providers, a little on Netflix/youtube/maybe some others
    4k optical: A tiny amount. Hard to find at retail, the rest is order-able online.
    8k content: Virtually none.

    Zero fucks, yo. Let the early adopters pay through the nose, someones got to to make it eventually affordable. The switch from 1080p to 4k is still in progress, 4k is not even close to widely adopted. I'll come back again and laugh in a few years when the situation has hardly changed.

    1. Re:Zero F.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Now, why buy 8k when:

      4k broadcast content (satellite/cable/DVB-T): Minimal, if at all
      4k streaming content: None on most providers, a little on Netflix/youtube/maybe some others
      4k optical: A tiny amount. Hard to find at retail, the rest is order-able online.
      8k content: Virtually none.

      Same reason people spend thousands on apple gear: dick size wars.

    2. Re:Zero F.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed, and there's no point in investing in a massive cock if it only works when it is flaccid.

    3. Re:Zero F.... by Koen+Lefever · · Score: 1

      Now, why buy 8k when: 8k content: Virtually none.

      In case you are into space sims: Elite:Dangerous supports 8K.

      --
      /. refugees on Usenet: news:comp.misc
    4. Re: Zero F.... by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 1

      They are probably busy 'digitally remastering' old episodes of Hogan's Heroes from the 35mm originals to 4k right now as we speak.

    5. Re:Zero F.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PC gaming son. Imagine Minecraft in 8k. Nothing but the cleanest looking blocks you've ever laid eyes on. With their beautiful 16x16 textures in pixel perfect clarity stretching off into the horizon. There's some open source quake engines that you might be able to run at 8k too. So you have two of the all time classic PC games, Minecraft and Quake, with mods, in perfect 8k clarity. There's no going back from that.

    6. Re:Zero F.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      4k tv turned computer monitor. It is like have four 1080p monitors, with no bezel. So much space for activities.

      And yes, I can still see individual pixels until I scoot back a ways, and wish for 8k.

      The fovia centralis can resolve 31.5 arcseconds for the average person. Which is a view angle of 67 degrees for 8k, which would be perfect for a computer monitor.

      And don't give me any fovia centralis is only a very tiny part of your vision. 50% of the visual cortex processes it's input.

  10. Do we? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Informative

    We All Have 4K

    News to me.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Do we? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I only got a 1080p Blu-Ray player like a year ago, and I have a whopping two discs. Mostly I stream. The quality is so vastly much better than the VHS I grew up with that I'm still perfectly happy with 1080p even at reduced bitrates. The only time I can even tell is when there's a lot of black on screen, sure it comes up, but who cares?

      It's not that I wouldn't like 8k, it's that HOLY GOD MY WALLET

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Do we? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      News to me.

      Exactly. I don't even own a television.

    3. Re: Do we? by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 1

      It's funny how the only time we hear much about 'people like that' is when that one parody article is linked to.

    4. Re: Do we? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It's funny how the only time we hear much about 'people like that' is when that one parody article is linked to.

      I will attest to the fact that we were hearing a lot from people like that even here on Slashdot before we started mocking them preemptively. Someone would always crop up to talk about what a waste of time it was, and how commercials sucked. This way is better, even if it is annoying.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Do we? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Not quite. The idea is that we all have 4k in that the technology is done and the natural progression is complete. i.e. when your TV dies the likelihood is that the replacement will be a 4k TV.

      We all "have" 4k. It's available to us whenever we want to part with the money. There's no point for a display company to develop 4k any further. There's nothing to differentiate a technology company from it's competitors with this technology anymore.

  11. High res TVs don't interest me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... but dumb TVs do.

    Seriously. Look around. If you're looking at large TVs, or TVs with ultra high definition, what do you see? "Smart" TVs. Meaning: TVs with embedded computers. Meaning: security risks. Meaning: do the manufacturers keep these things patched and up to date when security problems are found?

    The economics of it all means that my bet is... they don't.

    So forget this "smart" TV thing. I want a bog standard, every day, dumb TV, with no smarts built in. If I need those smarts, I'll get an Apple TV, or a Roku, or a Chromecast, or something. At least that way, if I have to ditch the device because it isn't being updated and has a known security problem, I'm only out a couple of hundred bucks - instead of several thousand for some of those high end disasters waiting to happen.

    Else I guess I'll just end up getting a large computer monitor and a set of speakers, do it the "hard" way...

    1. Re:High res TVs don't interest me... by taiwanjohn · · Score: 1

      I would mod you up +1 Insightful, but I've already commented in this discussion.

      Personally, I feel the same way about washing machines, and many other major household appliances. I would pay a premium price for a new washing machine that has the old-fashioned mechanical timer dial instead of membrane switches and an LCD.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
    2. Re:High res TVs don't interest me... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I would pay a premium price for a new washing machine that has the old-fashioned mechanical timer dial instead of membrane switches and an LCD.

      I broke one of those once by simply turning the dial too quickly. One of the little metal fingers in the timer broke off, and the whole timer module had to be replaced. I don't want internet-connected appliances, but I do enjoy electronics over mechanical systems in most cases. You're not slashdotting from a relay-based computer, are you?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:High res TVs don't interest me... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      One of the little metal fingers in the timer broke off, and the whole timer module had to be replaced.

      Must have been a while back if anything could be replaced (except maybe seals and drivebelts).

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re: High res TVs don't interest me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plus companies track what you do on your "smart" TV. Be afraid.

    5. Re: High res TVs don't interest me... by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 1

      That's probably because you bought one of the later models, with the mechanical timer in it that the 'cost reduction' engineering team brought in by the new MBA 'designed.'

      They found that switching from cast aluminum to pot metal had no impact on in-warranty returns, and in fact significantly increased profits from sales of replacement timers.

    6. Re:High res TVs don't interest me... by toejam13 · · Score: 1

      Legislation will need to be approved that forces manufacturers to keep their software patched. There just isn't enough financial incentive at the moment. What scares me is that the next gen DTV broadcast standards are moving towards increased connectivity. The new ATSC 3 standard uses a MPEG-H transport stream over UDP/IP, which includes a HTML-5 presentation layer. Even if you leave your TV disconnected from your local network, it can still receive bad content from from broadcasters.

      Imagine a scenario where a state sponsored intelligence agency pushed out an attack against a neighboring country that bricked television sets just before an invasion by their military.

    7. Re:High res TVs don't interest me... by kamapuaa · · Score: 1

      What an idiotic post. If you don't want the smart TV features, don't use them. Just don't log into the wifi, obviously.

      --
      Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
    8. Re: High res TVs don't interest me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plus companies track what you do on your "smart" TV. Be afraid.

      I am assuming you are using a PC with a Windows 10 operating system. Talking about the pot calling the kettle black.

    9. Re: High res TVs don't interest me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is a terrible idea. The military and police have radios and will know what is up. So do the gun nuts (as in red dawn is a fantasy camp scenario for that variant of nuts).

      You just personally attacked every gun owner doing financial damage and simultaneously removed the opiate du jour. So instead of passively watching and saying how awful, we'd speculate and mobilize.

      An invading army does not want the masses bored.

      Oh, plus smart phones are a thing.

    10. Re:High res TVs don't interest me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      smart tv's can suck a dick. privacy invaders. stupid users.
      oled and other true black and color gamuts are FAR more important to image quality than ANYTHING else.

    11. Re:High res TVs don't interest me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And when the TV refuses to work unless it's connected to the Internet - what then? It's not that far fetched a scenario...

  12. We don't all have (or want) 4K... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My main screen is still a 1080P VT60 which still has people 'wow' over when they see it, because they are used to their normal (or in one case 4k) LED.

    4k will matter, but not a big deal yet. 8K needs to happen but it's hardly something for anyone to cry over if they just bought a new TV.

    For most of the LED owners, an OLED is a better upgrade than 4 or 8k.

  13. 4K Suckers! by MachineShedFred · · Score: 2

    I'm still on NTSC CRT with a fine tuning knob!

    --
    Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    1. Re:4K Suckers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you waiting for a 16K or 32K TV before upgrading?

    2. Re:4K Suckers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you waiting for a 16K or 32K TV before upgrading?

      Will they actually have 16,000 or 32,000 pixels in any direction ? When they stop lying with the xK designation maybe there will be more interest.

    3. Re:4K Suckers! by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      You should upgrade straight to Virtuall Reality with brain impants. Leap frog all the suckers who bought 4K, 8K, 16K and 32K.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    4. Re:4K Suckers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By the HDMI/CEA spec, 4K can have either 3840 or 4096 in the horizontal direction. I'm sorry you bought the cheaper 3840x2160 thinking it was a 4096x2160.

      8K is 7680 wide, and 16K is presumable 15360 and the first time where simple rounding yields a smaller size. So you'll have to wait until 16K is announced before you really have any right to complain.

    5. Re:4K Suckers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I didn't buy anything, I saw that 4K wasn't in fact 4K for consumers, just shrugged at yet another lie and walked away.

    6. Re:4K Suckers! by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      He is probably waiting for his TV to break.
      That is why I upgraded my TV to 1080p because my CRT died.

      If there is anything I would like to upgrade on my TV is a better sound system. More than a higher resolution screen.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    7. Re:4K Suckers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He is probably waiting for his TV to break.
      That is why I upgraded my TV to 1080p because my CRT died.

      If there is anything I would like to upgrade on my TV is a better sound system. More than a higher resolution screen.

      The real problem is content. No, I don't mean the 1080 or 4k content, I mean the fact that all TV and most movies are pure shit.

      We need something that doesn't totally suck to actually watch on these amazing TVs.

      It's a bit like once we finally had decent quality audio available on all our phones and in all the new cars, suddenly all the music was shit.

    8. Re:4K Suckers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, so you're just talking shit about something you know nothing about.

    9. Re:4K Suckers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have two CRTs, one is about 15 years old and the other is pushing 30 years old. They're still working fine, so they aren't getting replaced. If I *need* something in HD (and I use the word need ligthly), I can watch it on my computer.

    10. Re:4K Suckers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      front projo 1080i crt here. fucking awesome. and enough for me.
      i downconvert from 4k bluray, haha.
      but usually upconvert from dvd if im bored.

    11. Re:4K Suckers! by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      It was a joke. I've had a 55" 1080p 120Hz LED for like 7 years now. No reason to move away from it yet.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  14. Depends on distance and size of the TV by grimJester · · Score: 2

    At my normal viewing distance, some chart said I'd need to have an 80+ inch TV for 4k to make a difference over full HD. The announced 70" 8k TV might be useful as a monitor if it's bent in a 180 degree arc.

    1. Re: Depends on distance and size of the TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Me too. I didn't want 3D TV, but I do want holodeck.

    2. Re:Depends on distance and size of the TV by Kjella · · Score: 2

      Yeah, but you can eliminate that from the equation because 20/20 vision = one arch-minute (1/60th of a degree) of resolution. So if the TV covers 30 degrees field of vision (FOV), you can see 30*60 = 1800 pixels of resolution (with a perfectly curved screen where you don't have aliasing effects, 3600 if you do). Now most young people have better than 20/20 vision because that's just the threshold we've set for normal, doesn't need correction vision and if you're really enjoying your widescreen you might be pushing 50 degrees though that's uncomfortably close for most. But even if you have a 50 degree FOV and 20/16 vision you'll at most see 50*60*20/16 = 3750 pixels, which is like front row at the cinema with your average teen eyesight.

      Exceptional people have all the way down to 20/10 eyesight, though 20/8 is the physical limit. Exceptional people might recognize aliasing, in theory you could arrive at a number where you need 15K resolution (50*60*20/8*2) to display a "perfect" image. If you are a photographer and want to like stare at a detail on the screen ignoring the big picture, a 32K monitor might make sense. But big Hollywood productions like "The Martian" have made a 2.5K master and nobody has complained, truth is even 4K seems overkill for video. It's not like anybody can actually hear the difference between 24 bit / 96 kHz and 16 bit / 44.1 kHz, it's all in their heads. Good for editing but makes zero difference for presentation.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Depends on distance and size of the TV by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      The "20/" terminology should be regarded as obsolete. It is based on how well a person can focus as 20 feet. Furthermore, it has no relevance to displays, for which people can wear corrective lenses.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  15. Cart, meet Horse. by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "The lack of available 8K HDR content is also a problem. But there is some content floating around."

    Uh, just for the record, we're still saying this shit about 4K.

    As we put the cart before the horse again, keep in mind that it'll probably be years before you can actually start using your obscenely expensive 8K set on a regular basis.

    The good news is you can enjoy those $75 Invisible-To-The-Naked-Eye HD movies on a $2000 disc player in the meantime. Yeah, I know, movie theaters are such a ripoff these days...

    1. Re:Cart, meet Horse. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I'm looking forward to affordable 8k computer monitors. 4k is okay up to about 24", but the pixels are visible above that.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Cart, meet Horse. by Solandri · · Score: 1

      I don't have a problem with the megapixel race. We're still very far from the display resolutions needed to generate and display holograms in real-time (about 1000 lines per mm). So this 8k screen technology if shrunk down would give us a hologram 8mm x 4mm. Add in GPUs which can do billions of FFTs per second, and we should be able to take a computer-generated 3D scene, and convert it to a holographic interference pattern for display in real-time at reasonable FPS.

      That's where all these excessive megapixels and ridiculously overpowered cryptocurrency-mining GPUs are taking us. So I don't have a problem with it.

    3. Re:Cart, meet Horse. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      You can do something with a horse, but can do nothing with a cart that has no horse. It's not a good analogy when discussing content. A real analogy would be which came first the chicken or the egg.

      You can't do anything with 8K content without 8K screens, and you can't do anything with 8K screens without 8K content. Choosing to develop either is not a question of carts before horses.

    4. Re:Cart, meet Horse. by geekmux · · Score: 1

      You can do something with a horse, but can do nothing with a cart that has no horse. It's not a good analogy when discussing content. A real analogy would be which came first the chicken or the egg.

      You can't do anything with 8K content without 8K screens, and you can't do anything with 8K screens without 8K content. Choosing to develop either is not a question of carts before horses.

      The cart and horse analogy is often used to describe putting things in the wrong order. In this example, it would be commercially pushing 8K hardware before a need for it even exists. Yes, I get the two are obviously related and dependent on each other, but justification often defines the order, and choosing to even develop 8K content is hardly justified today when only 16% of consumers own 4K hardware, and and even smaller amount of content online is 4K-enabled. Shit, you can't even get 1080p streams everywhere, proving we still have an elephant-sized bandwidth problem to solve for.

      Does pointless development for the sake of massive profit surprise me? Hardly. We've been dealing with more and more "features" no one asked for for years now with our most popular electronic devices. It's how a vendor justifies a $1000 smartphone, or a $15,000 television.

    5. Re:Cart, meet Horse. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      The cart and horse analogy is often used to describe putting things in the wrong order.

      That was precisely my point. It's not an appropriate analogy since there is no right order in which to pursue two technologies 100% wholly dependent on one another.

      and choosing to even develop 8K content is hardly justified today when only 16% of consumers own 4K hardware

      If you want to completely stall technological development then sure that would be a great way of doing it. What consumers own and what is on the market are irrelevant. There's nothing further to develop in terms of 4k resolution with every major vendor providing offers in that resolution with a wide variety of technologies and specifications. So you can either fire your R&D department or start developing something new. Now's your choice. Do you compete with the likes of Samsung and LG battling for ever increasing colour fidelity and HDR standards (neither of which have content available may I add), or do you differentiate by developing a different technology, one that has benefits outside of TV displays?

      Does pointless development for the sake of massive profit surprise me? Hardly. We've been dealing with more and more "features" no one asked for for years now with our most popular electronic devices. It's how a vendor justifies a $1000 smartphone, or a $15,000 television.

      This is also exactly how trickle down technology works. What you see as pointless and chasing a luxury market I see as necessary in the evolution of technology and I thank them that in a future tech generation will be able to get that "pointless feature" (long since a required and must have feature that has shown real world benefit) for cheap Chinese import prices.

  16. "we all"??? by nightcats · · Score: 1

    It's been a few weeks since I last turned it on, but I suspect my TV doesn't even rate 2k. What will it cost me to join this "we-all" collective?

    --
    Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
  17. How many times resolution??? by Circlotron · · Score: 5, Informative

    "That 8K (7,680 x 4,320) resolution is 16 times that of your old Full HD (1920 x 1080) TV. " No, it is 16x the pixels but only 4x the resolution.

    1. Re:How many times resolution??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "That's just like your opinion, man". -The Dude

      3840x1080 is 2x the horizontal resolution of 1920x1080, and it's also 2x the resolution.
      1920x2160 is 2x the vertical resolution of 1920x1080, and it's also 2x the resolution.
      3840x2160 is 2x horizontal and 2x vertical of 1920x1080, for a total of 4x the resolution.

      tl;dr: Video resolution is the number of pixels.

    2. Re:How many times resolution??? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 2

      Resolution has been specified linearly at least since Lord Rayleigh's paper in 1879. The use of total pixels to specify resolution changes is advertising lies.

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  18. Too Big by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    I get that it's easier to build a big 8K than a small 8K because of density, but I am damn close to finally getting the 40" 8K monitor I've had set as my target dream display since the early 90's. Yay, future. Looks like it'll be here before 2020, which beats the extrapolated guess from 25 years ago.

    --
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    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re:Too Big by Overzeetop · · Score: 1

      I don't even see why it should be all that effing difficult. A 200dpi phone screen is super low resolution now. it's hard to imagine that one of those techs (AMOLED, perchance?) couldn't be upscaled to an 8k, or a 4k tall x 12k wide, curved screen with older tech.
       

      --
      Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    2. Re:Too Big by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      It's a question of economic practicality. Defect rates with big, high resolution screens is a problem. Getting adequate screen driver hardware is a problem. Handling the high information bandwidth is a problem. The money to build the machinery that can make big screens is a problem. Lack of perceived market is a problem.

      Manufacturers have to decide on what is the best use of their available money flow. They don't want to spend $100 million to be ready to produce a product that won't be mass market for ten years. On the other hand, they don't want to be too late to the game to get in on the bulk of the profits.

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  19. We don't all have 4k by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you check for 4k TV penetration in 2017 it sits at about 15-18% of the US and around 20% worldwide. Hardly "all" and not even a majority

  20. Missing the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's not about 8k, it's about a new technology with an Asian launch, followed by a European launch, with no American launch planned. Something that was unthinkable a decade ago.

    1. Re:Missing the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think its more about predicted market demand than anything else. "Is anyone going to buy it?" 4Ks aren't exactly flying off the shelf, and most households have less TVs than ever over here. The market is saturated. 8K is mostly useless for normal viewing, so you have to market useless tech to the most clueless markets first.

    2. Re: Missing the point by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 1

      So it's about 3% of the Chinese population and twelve Danish plutocrats.

      Thank you for clarifying.

    3. Re:Missing the point by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 1

      Because they ruined the US market for themselves: Sharp To Americans: You Don't Want to Buy a Sharp-Brand TV

  21. Not until it goes up to 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm holding out. When they make a TV that goes up to 11... then I'll bite.

  22. No announcement about a US release by Provocateur · · Score: 0

    Somewhat unrelated, the US begins testing long-range missiles. Sources say this has nothing to do with that 8k TV announcement; none at all

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
  23. Hey it goes to 9000! by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 2

    Oh wait, that's the price. Oh well, I'm guessing it'll be about 5-7 years before the price comes down enough that I'd even consider it.

    --
    Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
  24. Broadcasting is still at 720 by sandbagger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And heavily compressed to boot. Keep your money people.

    --
    ---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
  25. Roadmaps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This isn't news. If you actually looked at the different companies roadmaps for where they have been going with Display resolutions, you'd know this is where it was heading. And the roadmaps are pretty much on schedule for 8k, which has pretty much been where they were going with Displays. It's the reason I have stayed at FHD, why waste money on the interim tech.

  26. Depends on the usage by info6568 · · Score: 2

    FullHD it is not enough to display music pdf files. The problem is that music has thin horizontal lines located in analogous defined positions, and sometimes, they just are not in the screen. 1080 it is not enough.

    So, it is important to go up, although it is also very difficult to find a good monitor that be able to "replace" printed music, with the right size, weight and resolution. Just think about having two letter size pieces on paper in front of you, with 4K resolution.

    But here we are talking about 70 inches monitors. These are behemoths that must be attached to a wall, and that, with that resolution can work perfectly in a group-work room or a table. Not for people to see from the distance, but paired with some type of touch screen technology, to put and move high resolution elements around the screen.

    This can work for:

    • Medical imagining, in particular real-time remote surgeries
    • Engineering analysis (can you imagine to check Fukushima pictures at that detail?)
    • Painters creating very detailed high resolution digital art
    • Software engineers describing highly complex 3D software models
    • A different type of music expression
    • High quality advertising on huuuuge displays on public places
    • Very detailed map and picture analysis

    And maybe, if they make cylindrical screens where you can be inside, a totally different type of immersive experience.

    I see many usages ... but just a TV ... this is like to drive a 12 cilindres car to carry children to school.

    1. Re:Depends on the usage by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      FullHD it is not enough to display music pdf files. The problem is that music has thin horizontal lines located in analogous defined positions, and sometimes, they just are not in the screen. 1080 it is not enough.

      It seems like it should be a relatively easily solvable problem to translate music PDFs into some format which better represents music. If you were trying to OCR hand-written sheet music that would be a harder job, but PDFs? Then you could simply render the lines deliberately.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  27. Futurama clip about very high HD by MiliusXP · · Score: 2
  28. Emperor's New Clothes - Tech division by kaizendojo · · Score: 1

    Sharp calls it “ultimate reality, with ultra-fine details even the naked eye cannot capture,”

    I can see the difference immediately, can't all of you?

  29. Drive market price down by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Keep your money people.

    Nononono ! Actually let them buy this marketing crap.
    Them buying the newer TV helps driving the price of the pannels down.

    Meaning that soon, you'll be able to have affordable prices on 7 680 x 4 320 PC monitors,
    on which you'll be able to plug your huge multi-GFX-cards/multi-CPU workstation to get actual 4320p content.
    (And as a bonus, you'll save on your winter heating bill once you turn your monster-computer on).

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:Drive market price down by iamacat · · Score: 1

      I am already using a 45 inch 4K TV as a monitor. You don't need quite so much space for IntelliJ, but sides are great for e-mail, calendar, IM, browser with documentation... And did I say you can also watch TV on it?

    2. Re: Drive market price down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not at the same time without PiP you can't. Though iiyama has some nice integrated multiplexors...

  30. I don't own a 4k TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Procrastination pays off again!

    And because
    1) content on TV and online is so bad
    2) cable TV providers suck

    The odds are still around 0% that I'll ever buy a TV ever again. Going on 15 years without one and I don't miss it.

  31. There isn't going to be 8K content by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The lenses that collect the video also have limits and, no surprise, they are similar in spatial frequency resolution to the eye. So at some point, and I can't swear it's at 8K excatly, you just aren't collecting new information.

    Thus the anti-aliasing also gets fixed at the collection step as well.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:There isn't going to be 8K content by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The lenses for 8k have been in development since the 1960s when IMAX was introduced. The main challenge was reducing size, power demands and cost of the cameras for use on TV, as well as attaching real-time digital capture/compression tech.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:There isn't going to be 8K content by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      your retina cells vs iris area do not have even so much as 8k resolution.
      look it up.
      8k is pointless.

    3. Re:There isn't going to be 8K content by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      The human eye's best resolution is greater than 4k. 8k is the next power-of-2 step, so why not?

      For monitor use (static images) it's reasonable to move in close and study one region, then move over a bit and study another region. That's easier and better than panning the whole screen.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  32. Small perceptible difference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At the sizes of TVs that a consumer can fit int otheir house, you will find little visual difference between 4K and 8K.
    For commercial installations where you have movie theater size screens, billboards, etc. Then 8K becomes interesting, but it's panalized at that size and Sharp's technology is not needed.

  33. Porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... is often an early adopter of high-quality video technology.

  34. 16K by hduff · · Score: 1

    I'm holding out for 16K . . .

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
    1. Re:16K by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pfft...32K will be out the year after that. Then we can landfill all those old useless televisions.

      Conspicuous Consumption is alive and well.

    2. Re:16K by toonces33 · · Score: 2

      Nobody will ever need more than 640K.

    3. Re:16K by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe that's what Gates was referring to all this time and he wasn't as wrong as everyone thought.

  35. Stats by cahuenga · · Score: 1

    with ultra-fine details even the naked eye cannot capture

    So what exactly is the point?

  36. Needs to be smaller, needs to be wider by Overzeetop · · Score: 1

    44" is the 8K I want. If I could get a 4320 px tall screen in a 2.35:1 ratio - curved, preferably, for a 1m viewing distance, that would be ideal. I just want a true 200 dpi desktop monitor (yes, I have a big desk).

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    1. Re:Needs to be smaller, needs to be wider by scdeimos · · Score: 1

      Our workplace started buying LG 21:9 screens for new employs and replacements recently - apparently they're cheaper than same-sized 16:9. Everyone who's got one bitches about them. No thanks, I'll stick with my 16:10 (not 16:9) screens.

  37. Devil is in the details with these purchases by MTEK · · Score: 1

    Has the industry settled on an HDR standard yet? What about bandwidth? Will this TV launch with HDMI 2.1 or will the viewer have to compromise on color sampling and/or refresh rate. What about HDCP? Any chance those fuckers are going to change that again?

    Just curious if the industry learned anything from the 4K roll out.

    1. Re:Devil is in the details with these purchases by David_Hart · · Score: 2

      Has the industry settled on an HDR standard yet? What about bandwidth? Will this TV launch with HDMI 2.1 or will the viewer have to compromise on color sampling and/or refresh rate. What about HDCP? Any chance those fuckers are going to change that again?

      Just curious if the industry learned anything from the 4K roll out.

      You mean like "Dolby Vision" which does require HDMI 2.1. Very few, if any TVs and receivers support HDMI 2.1 today. Practically all manufacturers will have ti next year (2018).

      I just finished upgrading my entertainment system and computer monitors to 4K.

      I'll move to 8K when my 4K stuff dies, in about 8 to 10 years. By then, 8K prices will be affordable and perhaps there will be 8K content. In addition, a single NVIDIA GTX 1080 TI struggles to render high end games at 60fps @ 4K. I'm thinking that it will take at least another 5 years for graphics card hardware to catch up to handle 8K at a decent FPS. Perhaps it will require a SLI setup or dual GPUs on a single card..

    2. Re:Devil is in the details with these purchases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll move to 8K when my 4K stuff dies, in about 8 to 10 years. By then, 8K prices will be affordable and perhaps there will be 8K content. In addition, a single NVIDIA GTX 1080 TI struggles to render high end games at 60fps @ 4K. I'm thinking that it will take at least another 5 years for graphics card hardware to catch up to handle 8K at a decent FPS. Perhaps it will require a SLI setup or dual GPUs on a single card..

      I doubt it... who plays "flat games" anymore? Who is going to want to waste their time playing one in 2027?

      In about 8 to 10 years we'll have 64k VR displays with eye tracking and VR specific display hardware that pushes only detail resolvable by our feeble eyes within that pathetic sliver of less than 8 degrees of arc in which humans are able to recognize anything of substance and it probably won't require much more than a 1080 TI to pull off.

    3. Re:Devil is in the details with these purchases by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I'm thinking that it will take at least another 5 years for graphics card hardware to catch up to handle 8K at a decent FPS. Perhaps it will require a SLI setup or dual GPUs on a single card..

      You already need dual 1080s or Titans to really max out 4k gaming. It's a pretty safe bet that there will be a substantially long period where you need SLI to max out 8k. On the other hand, most gamers are still catching up to 4k, if that.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Devil is in the details with these purchases by MTEK · · Score: 1

      You mean like "Dolby Vision" which does require HDMI 2.1. Very few, if any TVs and receivers support HDMI 2.1 today. Practically all manufacturers will have ti next year (2018).

      HDMI 2.1 isn't out yet, and Dolby Vision does not require it. Whether DV becomes the standard remains to be seen; manufacturers have to license it from Dolby Laboratories (unlike other HDR types).

  38. Monitor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > while an 8K panel would be beneficial as a monitor,

    That's all I need. Where do I order one?

  39. Resolution, how much is too much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Once you can actually see the football, more resolution is a waste of money.

  40. Now that you've upgraded to a shiny new 4K TV by AdamStarks · · Score: 1

    Who exactly do they mean by "you"? Not me, surely, nor (as far as I can tell) any of my friends, family, or coworkers.

    1. Re:Now that you've upgraded to a shiny new 4K TV by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Not me either. Still using a 1920x1080 computer LCD display connected to a Netflix-streaming box.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  41. In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Samsung is announcing a new line of backpacks. Stylish and tailor made for carrying around its upcoming 8K phones.

  42. Meanwhile in the US by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cable companies are compressing the fuck out of all streams to jam more channels in, making 1080p look worse than 720p. No fucking thanks.

  43. The programs that we can watch suck however. by toonces33 · · Score: 1

    They can make the picture as nice as they like, but the programs that are on TV these days are so unwatchable that I don't even try. The movies coming out of Hollywood are even worse. What I do watch is science/nature programs and news programs that feature talking heads. The 1K TV that I currently have is more than good enough for that.

  44. Does it come with the latest spyware? by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    Is it preloaded with the latest NSA room bug spyware? Or does that have to be downloaded after you install it?

    Is the built-in camera also of correspondingly high resolution? Then the facial recognition could work solidly at across-the-room distances. Maybe good enough for lip-reading apps. Or to read text from a distance as well.

    Are the graphics processors good enough to do OCR and voice recognition on the platform? Then the upload bandwidth could be economized by doing that processing locally. Keyphrase search could be pushed to the platform as well, so the agencies wouldn't need such large server farms. (Ah, the convenience of distributed processing.)

    = = = =

    In other words, don't bother me with the new shiny until the platform is open - hardware (including onboard security and remote management processor), software, firmware - and can be checked, or replaced, by the owner.

    I want a monitor, and don't need it bundled with 1984-style "telescreen" features.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  45. It's the content stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who cares? 4k, 8k whatever.

    If the content were any good I'd be happy watching on an old Dumont.

  46. Is it just me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Certain sporting events seem really choppy, such as when an ice skater does a triple axel. It seems like a series of still frames for a fraction of a second. I would really like to benefit from this technological advance. However, it does not seem possible given the limits of transmission technology.

    What would the bandwidth be to eliminate that issue? My HD Homerun sends OTA 1920x1080 progressive scan or interlaced content at 30fps to my computer at roughly 15Mb/s. So an 8K TV would theoretically need a 480Mb/s to receive a signal of 7680 x 4320 progressive scan content at 60fps.

    Not only is OTA unable to transmit at that speed (max 19.39 Mbps total for primary and secondary channels plus overhead), but cable companies are going to need to provide a guaranteed Gigabit to the premises for this to be remotely feasible. In fact, we are still struggling to implement 4K ATSC 3.0.

    This technology is therefore more likely to show up in the Radiology lab of the local hospital than the Olympics.

    1. Re:Is it just me? by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      Certain sporting events seem really choppy, such as when an ice skater does a triple axel. It seems like a series of still frames for a fraction of a second...

      On a positive note, that at least gives you a little extra time to check out her ass while she is spinning. :D

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    2. Re:Is it just me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The higher the resolution, the more content you can throw away. And newer codecs can focus on efficiency at higher resolution.

      So let's say, where you could have 1080p MPEG2 (high bitrate and file size i.e. MPEG2 Blurays) you can have 2160p H264 and 4320p H265 although ideally you want the bitrate to increase still.

      Possibly, H265 or competitor is better on the temporal front : looks future images up not only past ones, and 60fps contant might provide more opportunity than 30fps although if you overexploit it you'll get judder.

      So, I think it's doable with a very solid 100 Mbps.
      Too much for OTA still ; unless they do it as a prestige broadcast, one channel eating the spectrum instead of about five multiplexed channels on one channel.

      This technology is therefore more likely to show up in the Radiology lab of the local hospital than the Olympics.

      Actually, Nazis broadcasted Olympics on television, and then to hospitals mainly. They really launched TV on.. September 1st 1939. Duh! After that date TV was in hospitals for people hurt at war.

  47. Has anyone checked? by LeftCoastThinker · · Score: 1

    I have to wonder if anyone has actually calculated, based on the effective resolution of the human eye with 20/20 vision, how big the screen has to be for this resolution to be appreciably better than 4K? I can barely differentiate the difference between 1080P and 4K on a 50" screen from 10 feet away, but I am getting old.

    For example, can the average person even tell the difference between 4K and 8K looking at a 70" screen from a reasonable viewing distance (say 10 feet)? I bought a 4K 40" TV to use as my computer monitor because at 24" viewing distance, it makes a difference, but I have to wonder.

    I suspect the TV industry is just looking for the next gimmick to abnormally elevate the TV sales numbers. First it was HD adoption, then it was plasma, then it was LED, then it was 3D, then it was 4K, now it is 8K... I don't mind when there is real value and improvement (HD, flat LED TVs that you could hang on the wall and 4K were all real improvements), but the rest were just gimmicks.

    --
    If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
  48. I'm holding out for 16K by mea2214 · · Score: 1

    because that's how much RAM my TRS-80 had.

  49. First world problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get a life. 8K, 4K..... if you "need" that many pixels then you might want to examine your life.

  50. Get a projector by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Because of the inherent nature of projectors, almost none of them seem to come with the smart TV nonsense. They are just dedicated to display, some adding tiny speakers as an afterthought.

    On top of that you'll get a much more massive display than any standard TV you could buy.

    1080p projectors are getting really cheap now, but there are a lot of nice 4k projector options at this point for around $2k.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Get a projector by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm pretty happy with my 1080p projector (ceiling mounted) and a powered 120" screen (drops down in front of the bookcases at the touch of a button -disappears when not in use). It looks good from anywhere in the room, no issues with viewing angles. Definitely the way to go for a room full of people.

      I am looking forward to the 4k projectors becoming affordable. I think it will be a noticeable difference on the large screen.

      Anyone who is considering putting in a projector and screen system -go for it. Quality work is important when setting it up (alignment, focal distance, keystone adjustment, and cable management) but the results are impressive.

  51. Ultimate TV Set (Mark II) by Babel-17 · · Score: 1

    I'm leery of that kind of marketing speak. Many of us appreciate, and recognize, the incremental gains in IQ by the technological advance and innovations of the leaders in the field. Talk to me about better black levels, and increased contrast, etc., and I start thinking about my path to an upgrade.

  52. Not everyone. by Walter+White · · Score: 1

    I have a 50 inch plasma that pretends to be 1080 but I'm pretty sure it's only 720. And yet cable looks at best OK most of the time. Some content is spectacular, but very little makes that grade. Lots of it is so highly compressed that anything that is not static has a lot of blocky artifacts. (It's Comcastic!) Blu-Ray looks better.

    I'm sure if I were to buy a TV today I'd probably get a 4K model. My son bought a new TV a couple years ago and went with 4K because FHD models were feature poor.

    I haven't looked at the picture quality lately. I hope something has come along that looks better than plasma.

  53. HDR is a joke. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem with HDR is that it does not make things look "more realistic." Yeah, there is note color info in the darks and lights, but it is typically tonemapped to hell, giving a picture that looks horribly garish and much less like reality than standard non-HDR video.

    It's just the latest fad, like 3D a few years ago, and I expect it to fall by the wayside just as quickly.

    1. Re:HDR is a joke. by jwymanm · · Score: 1

      This is so frigging true. HDR looks like muddy crap on both a 10bit LCD and OLED. It can't be turned off either.

    2. Re:HDR is a joke. by jwymanm · · Score: 1

      I love 3D though. Really sad it did not make it so far but I'm sure glasses free will fix that.

  54. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  55. Weakest link is compression not display resolution by WaffleMonster · · Score: 2

    To a comical degree actual display quality is limited by compression that dominate most Internet/Satellite/Cable/OTA distribution channels in the name of saving money and cramming more stations into limited bandwidth.

    So far marketeers seem to be getting away with suckering people into giving a shit about meaningless things like display resolution when those who care about quality are best served spending their time demanding content distribution providers quit turning content compression dial up to 11. They will always seek to turn that knob as far as they can possibly get away with.

    The reality for consumers:

    2k is overkill.
    4k is worthless.
    8k is comically worthless.

    HDR and more efficient codecs (HVEC) are what will actually drive perceptible improvements that actually matter.

  56. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  57. 8k by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hah, glad I skipped 4K.

  58. Dynamic range by PoopJuggler · · Score: 1

    I'd rather they started paying more attention to increasing dynamic range rather than resolution.

  59. Amazing technology by siamesevodka · · Score: 1

    It comes complete with dog whistle so your pet can see and hear what you are missing. I'm sure broadcasters and movie studios are jumping through hoops so you can have the latest 8k technology. Right?

  60. No 4K yet by lapm · · Score: 1

    Dont own even 4K yet, havent seen any good enough reason to buy one... You should fix your title...

  61. What I want in a TV by kimvette · · Score: 1

    What I want in a TV is:
    * a multitude of inputs (despite using an AV receiver I like additional inputs) including composite, component, HDMI, and VGA
    * 4K resolution w/ HDR
    * 3D (granted it would be = 1080)*
    * frame interpolation/"smoothing" (I hate 24Hz jitter when scenes pan)
    * Multiple selectable video setting profiles (I like bright settings for some shows, "movie" settings for most, and a custom profile for late-night viewing with blues diminished)

    What I don't want:
    * Apps that will be orphaned before the warranty is expired
    * Microphone/camera (I'd tape over the cam then when warranty is expired, open it and de-solder the mic and cam or break the lens and diaphram)

    *Manufacturers fucked up with 3D; they pushed it before the tech was ready, then when the tech finally matured they killed off 3D. They should have not focused on 3D in the beginning but offered it as a 'free bonus feature" and should have waited until the tech was matured before pushing it as the killer feature. I want a 3D set now and can't find a new one; just "new old stock" from brands I don't want, or smaller screens. :-(

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  62. Save it for VR by Ayano · · Score: 1

    Pixel concentration will directly benefit VR due to pixelation issues. Now being unable to tell real from virtual is really a dream there. It's difficult however to emulate focus but that's another issue entirely

    --
    I don't read AC
  63. "ultra-fine details even the naked eye cannot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...capture"

    That's classic!
    4k for a computer monitor sounds very nice, I haven't actually used one yet, so I don't know if 8k will ever be necessary, I doubt it somehow. But 8k for video? It's ridiculously high resolution and just not necessary, and never will be.

  64. They have to do something by PlaynBass · · Score: 1

    Manufacturers must always do something to keep selling, or their whole business model collapses! That's what keeps the whole Ponzi scheme of capitalism from failing completely, even if it means that humans must eventually completely trash the only planet known to sustain life.

    Somehow I doubt that enough humans will ever wise up to their suicidal behaviors. It's probably why we've never found any direct evidence of other intelligent life in the universe: the really smart species avoid us like a plague, while any species who followed our demented path have killed themselves off, as we are very likely to do in the not-so-distant future.

    Happy consuming, fools!

    --
    PlaynBass
  65. FTS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Duck that shit!
    I have closely seem 4K but decided I do not need one, full HD completely quenches any thirst I have for imagery, either for movies, games or air-TV.

    Stop spending cash on useless shat, people!