Latest TVs Are Ready for Their Close-Ups (wsj.com)

An anonymous share a WSJ article: The latest televisions have more pixels than ever. But can your eyes detect the difference? The answer is yes -- if you sit close enough. Old TVs had 349,920 pixels. High-definition flat screens bumped up the total to 2 million. Ultrahigh-definition sets inflated it to 8 million. And manufacturers are now experimenting with 8K TVs that have an astounding 33 million pixels. More pixels render hair, fur and skin with greater detail, but the benefit depends on viewing the screen from an ideal distance so the sharpness of the images is clear, but the tiny points of illumination aren't individually distinguishable. According to standards set by the International Telecommunication Union, that ideal distance is 3 times the height of an HDTV screen, 1.5 times the height of a UHDTV screen and .75 times the height of an 8K screen (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; here's a PDF copy of the newspaper). Given those measurements, viewers should sit 6 feet away from a 50-inch HDTV with a 24.5-inch tall screen. But they should sit just 3 feet from a UHDTV of the same size, closer than most Americans prefer.

Comments

Old TVs didn't have pixels

[Anonymous Coward]

They had an electron beam than scanned across a shadow mask to the phosphors underneath.

The limit was the bandwidth of the analog signal, resulting in a measure called lines of resolution.

Re:Old TVs didn't have pixels

[Anonymous Coward]

They had an electron beam than scanned across a shadow mask to the phosphors underneath.

The limit was the bandwidth of the analog signal, resulting in a measure called lines of resolution.

Well, the shadow mask kind of imposed a pixelization of a sort, so it was not simply a limitation of the analog signal bandwidth.

Shadow mask <-- close up of one.

Re:Old TVs didn't have pixels

[DontBeAMoran]

There was still a physical phosphors count though. Everything else was, in digital terms, resampling.

Re:Old TVs didn't have pixels

[OrangeTide]

Old TVs still had resolution, measured in lines. The lines happened to be varying intensity, but you still only could see a few hundred lines per frame. (525 total, 483 active, and around 435 visible)

Re:Old TVs didn't have pixels

[jellomizer]

That is true for Black and white. However Color TV's had phosphors setup to make a pixel. Because the analog signal needed to go up and down to create the color.

Even with Black and White, The glow of a phosphor on the screen was of a particular size. So this would limit its practical resolution.

Re:Old TVs didn't have pixels

[Anonymous Coward]

For NTSC, used in North America, Japan and a few more countries. The rest of the world used 625 lines, of which 576 normally contained an image.

Re:Old TVs didn't have pixels

[Rick Schumann]

Don't forget that it was a 59.94Hz scan rate, but interlaced, so 29.97Hz framerate.

Re:Old TVs didn't have pixels

[OrangeTide]

It was originally a 60 Hz field rate, but it was altered to 59.94 Hz to make space for color bursts. I omitted a lot of other unrelated details too. Do you need to talk about those unmentioned aspects as well?

Re:Old TVs didn't have pixels

[Ungrounded Lightning]

In the analog TVs and monitors, there was pixelization of a sort.
  - In the vertical dimension there were scan lines.
  - In the horizontal there was bandwidth / sweep rate, which limited the sharpness of focus, creating what amounted to a "pixel width" and thus a "pixel count", though there weren't discrete pixels with well-defined boundary locations.

In black-and-white that was it. In color it got more complicated:
  - The shadow mask and pattern of color phosphors created physical pixels - but the spacing of them was tight compared to the focus of the electron beam and the bandwidth of modulation. So the information/focus/bandwidth-vs-sweep-rate pixels covered several of these physical dots.
  - While directly cabled R-G-B signals were three separate analog signals, in NTSC the color information was separated and transmitted at a lower bandwidth (and thus lower resolution) on a phase-and-amplitude modulated subcarrier. This both limited the bandwidth - widening the "pixels" of color information - and tended to quantize it into discrete dots centered on particular phases of the subcarrier. (The subcarrier phase was shifted by 180 degrees between scans, both to make the color information collide less with the black-and-white information and to reduce visual moire patterns from the dots lining up and from crosstalk between the B&W and the color info signals.)

Re:Old TVs didn't have pixels

[ChrisMaple]

The subcarrier phase was shifted by 180 degrees between scans...

That sounds like PAL. I don't think NTSC did that.

Re:Old TVs didn't have pixels

[Anonymous Coward]

Really (seriously) old b/w TV had lines and bandwidth. Color had a shadow mask, which while not exactly a pixel per-se is close enough for practical purposes.

Re:Old TVs didn't have pixels

[Anonymous Coward]

Fun fact, black and white tv actually was 60hz scan/30 frame rate. The frame rate was reduced slightly to give room for color bandwidth when color was introduced.

Dumb

[AmiMoJo]

This entirely misses the point of 8k. It's not just a resolution bump, it addresses multiple use-cases:

- Very large screens / projectors
- Computer monitors that people typically sit much closer to
- 120Hz native for ultra smooth, realistic motion
- Much higher dynamic range and more accurate colour rendering
- Comfortably exceeding the capabilities of your eyes in all situations

If you want a perfect picture, like looking out of a window, this is what you need. Most people haven't even seen 8k in real life, and when they have it's often on an early model TV that doesn't support the full colour range or 120Hz.

8k is supposed to be the ultimate, the final form of 2D television. NHK, the people behind it, skipped over 4k because it's just a stepping stone to perfection. If anything is to blame here, it's 4k being a half measure and 8k not arriving quickly enough.

Re:Dumb

[fisted]

8k is supposed to be the ultimate, the final form of 2D television.

Son, who are you kidding?

Joe Sixpack knows it, marketing knows it: higher is better

I predict 16k devices in 3...2...1...

Re:Dumb

[computational super]

Now you're being ridiculous. The real world is only 10k.

Re:Dumb

[mattr]

I used to print color positive slides with a Nikon 8K printer, it was a long time ago but I remember very well you can see the difference from 4K with a loupe. Undoubtedly the image will incredible though personally I would love one for my desktop.

Re:Dumb

[shaitand]

What is dumb is motion compensation algorithms that do the opposite, they cause speed shifting and tearing with fast motion and on slow motion cause the soap opera effect which gives ridiculously oversharpened images. They put this crap out in 4k sets by default across the board and they'll do it again in 8k. As long as they do this nobody is going to have a truly enjoyable viewing experience... and there is certainly nothing in the settings indicating you should turn it off. Maybe the reason why is they want people to be somewhat dissatisfied with their current device so they'll be quick to upgrade on the next round.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And <simpsons> it was black and white up until the 1950s.</simpsons>

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[frank_adrian314159]

But that can't go on forever... everyone knows that "640k ought to be enough for anybody."

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[jellomizer]

For the longest time, we had the 72dpi standard for monitors for the 1080p display. Having a resolution limit, can actually lead to progress in different areas.

The 8k TV takes a lot of processing power. Which generates a lot of heat and uses more electricity, and in general make them expensive and lower frames per second.

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[omnichad]

120Hz native for ultra smooth, realistic motion
- Much higher dynamic range and more accurate colour rendering

Neither of these have anything to do with 8k other than sharing the same HDMI standard. Though I'll grant you that cheap 8k panels will have slightly higher color accuracy than their 4k counterparts due to less visible dithering.

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[DontBeAMoran]

The easiest and fastest way to disable any "image processing" crap is to set the TV in "computer monitor" mode.

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[omnichad]

And keeping it at 72ppi (points per inch, not dots) will give a nice sharp image and reduce eye strain.

Few people want tiny print, except for people who don't have room for multiple screens.

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[Anonymous Coward]

"- Comfortably exceeding the capabilities of your eyes in all situations.

The fovea centralis of the eye has an average resolution of 31.5 arcseconds. This gives a view angle of 17 degrees for 1920 pixels (1920 * 31.5 / 3600), 34 degrees for 3840 pixels, and 67 degrees for 7680 pixels. Compare this to the human horizontal stereoscopic field of view of 114 degrees.

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

While the fovea centralis is a tiny portion of the eye, it is processed by 50% of the visual cortex. It is the important part of the eye for seeing detail.

International Telecommunication Union in the summary may say that higher resolution is of no added benefit, but a look at the cone density and focal length of the eye proves otherwise. While there are certainly diminishing returns, to say it is indistinguishable is simply incorrect.

Re: Dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

8k is supposed to be the ultimate, the final form of 2D television. NHK, the people behind it, skipped over 4k because it's just a stepping stone to perfection. If anything is to blame here, it's 4k being a half measure and 8k not arriving quickly enough.

Huh. Say what?

NHK didn't skip 4K. They were the people behind it. The test channel in Tokyo was spectacular.

NHK are similarly behind 8K.

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[Kjella]

You sound like an audiophile that think people can hear 96KHz/24bit audio. People don't even notice that cinema movies create less than 4K masters and blow them up on screens the size of a wall. And that most movies are shot in 24p because people want them to be. The biggest shortcoming of current screens is the contrast level and backlight bleeding, if you could get a screen that went from max HDR to perfect black that would be the biggest improvement. The second biggest improvement is color and there rec. 2020 is just huge compared to rec. 709, bigger than even reference monitors can provide. And despite stretching it for HDR the granularity of 10 bit color over 8 bit is also pretty huge. Oh yes and also the color volume, being able to do not only intense whiteness but also intense color.

Basically, if people saw a well-mastered 4K BluRay on a laser projector (which is as close as we get to a "perfect" image right now) I doubt anyone would care about 8K/12bit/120fps. The problems we have are far more mundane. And that goes doubly so for OTA broadcast, streaming or other bandwidth limited media. Personally I'm hoping for the "real" electroluminescent QLEDs to steal the show, not Samsung's latest quantum dot-enhanced LCDs but OLED-style perfect contrast with LED intensity and QD color accuracy. The first working early prototype was shown in May, at least a few more years out.

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[AmiMoJo]

One of the benefits of 8k is that with 120Hz support there is no need for "motion estimation" and interpolation. That gets rid of all the artefacts and allows the director to choose suitable settings for their preferred look.

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[Rick Schumann]

I rather agree with you. Sales of something like a TV must be more or less a flatline, unless you can come up with something earth-shaking that no one else has -- and when there is a standard you have to follow for your TV to even operate, there's no room for that, not really. So hey, how about we push for a new standard every few years, so we make everyone want to throw away their perfectly-good working TV and buy a whole new one, so they can Keep Up With The Joneses? We all see that media hype can convince people of almost anything (like 'AI' being a real thing, or self-driving cars actually being safe and effective, or Trump being a good choice for POTUS) so it should be a snap to convince people that they need MORE resolution on their TV than they can actually discern with the naked eye, right? Audiophiles would agree with me considering how easily they can be convinced to buy $4000 speaker cables.

No, I'm not really being funny. But I am being sarcastic as hell.

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[AmiMoJo]

Power consumption is certainly an issue with 8k, as it having powerful enough equipment to edit it. That's one of the main reasons it has taken so long to arrive. The cameras took a long time to get down to usable sizes, and they had to change the way filming was done because for example manual focus is basically impossible.

For computers the sweet spot for me is 28"/5k. Good amount of physical space, exactly double the standard HD resolution for perfect 2x scaling. For 24" monitors 4k is exactly double the common 1080p we had before.

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[Anonymous Coward]

If you want a perfect picture

Is it ok to not want that? Maybe just go for decent performance without all the effort and cost? Maybe spend my time and money on other things?

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[shaitand]

I'm a 3D fan so I've been buying 120hz+ (real 120hz not the overinflated software enhancement specs) for the last several sets anyway. That hasn't stopped manufacturers from enabling motion compensation or backdoor enabling with things like HDR if you switch those on. Reality doesn't matter much, oversharpened images on specially made demo reels in Nebraska furniture mart and best buy sell TV's.

Given that the actual content is 30fps or less even 60Hz (60 updates per second) is refreshing the screen twice as often as the content changes. Of course, you can update as often as you like and it will never matter if the pixel response time isn't fast enough to keep up with it and nobody likes to publish their response times in the consumer market unless it is a gaming display.

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[Ghostworks]

Of course, you're not competing with the real world. You're competing with the past. For the most part, this means film, but it can also just mean "at whatever resolution we eliminate all the digital artifacts we accidentally put it". This matters for both Hollywood movies, and for most TV shows.

Say you're watching a DVD source on a 4K screen. You interpolate to fill in the missing data, but that's more missing data than available data and the contrast is terrible. When your screen resolution is better than your source like this, you have to rely on little (but still visible) tricks like digital grain to make it look less unnatural (as they did relatively successfully with, say, the old A&E/BBC version of Pride & Prejudice, and less successfully with the movie 300. To avoid this entirely, you have to re-sample the original source at a higher rate, which means going back to a higher-resolution master. For older material that means film. For newer material, it may mean you're just SOL.

A case study: All the episodes of the original Star Trek were shot (including special effects), edited, and mastered on film. That master was broadcast using analog technology, or digitized to some resolution for DVDs, Blu-Ray, etc. When screen resolution goes up, you can't just upscale the DVD or Blu-Ray and get good results indefinitely: you have to go back to the master and re-capture a higher-resolution digital version from that. The resolution of 35mm film is roughly equivalent to 20 megapixels.

Most of the Next Generation was shot, edited, and mastered on film, but a few effects were produced and edited in using digital 3D. For those 3D models, they had to do some digital archaeology and re-creation to replace (not scale up) those effects without artifacts. And then you get to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, were a lot was modeled in 3D, and it was all edited and mastered digitally assuming the TV resolution of the time. There's no film master of higher resolution to go to, so DS9 (even the human actors) will just look worse and worse as the screen resolution goes up, forever.

Theoretically, 8K is approaching the point where you can good and truly digitally re-master most older media -- getting as good as you ever got with film -- and thus the point where the technology tops out... at least until Hollywood starts digitally filming in 16K.

Re:Dumb

[WaffleMonster]

This entirely misses the point of 8k. It's not just a resolution bump, it addresses multiple use-cases:

There is no "use-case" of sufficient utility to provide value to the vast majority of consumers in the market.

- Very large screens / projectors

Very large as in IMAX large.

Most movie theatres are still running 2k and nobody cares. Heck most movies are not even filmed in 4k.

- 120Hz native for ultra smooth, realistic motion

Most movies are currently filmed at 24 fps. IMAX runs at 48 fps.

Why stop at 120Hz? Why not 240Hz for even better smoother more ultraer, realistic motion? Or even 480Hz?

- Much higher dynamic range and more accurate colour rendering
- Comfortably exceeding the capabilities of your eyes in all situations

4k already does. It's overkill for most users.

8k is supposed to be the ultimate, the final form of 2D television. NHK, the people behind it, skipped over 4k because it's just a stepping stone to perfection. If anything is to blame here, it's 4k being a half measure and 8k not arriving quickly enough.

When you put things into perspective you quickly come to realize resolution of TV is irrelevant.

The limit of human vision useful for discriminating useful detail is 10 degrees of arc at a resolution of 60 pixels per degree or 600 x 600 per eye. Anything much more than that is unnecessary assuming 100% efficiency of projecting photons into the fovea.

A 80" 4k screen at 5 feet distance already exceeds the limit of human vision at 64 PPD as well as most peoples budgets for TVs or place to put them to say nothing of natural unwillingness to sit so close.

Actual current real world problem with TV that people will actually benefit from addressing is not resolution or frames per second or color depth. It's the willingness of content distributors to provide sufficient bandwidth to drive current displays.. displays that have been available commercially for the last decade.. at quality they are capable of producing.

The largest national cable companies have in recent years *DOWNGRADED* HD broadcasts from 1080 to 720 (excluding local retransmission) and turned up the compression knob leaving very noticeable blocking and motion artifacts in order to maximize profit. Satellite TV broadcasts are a joke and even OTA is starting to degrade as broadcasters are able to cram more content into available bandwidth via sub channels. Internet streaming has the advantage of modern and more rapidly upgradable codecs yet still insufficient bandwidth to practically deliver at quality limit of current generation of televisions. It isn't cost effective and more importantly most people either don't care enough to affect market behavior or can't tell the difference.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for content or a delivery mechanism to meet the capabilities of displays having been commercially available for more than 10 years let alone 4k and 8k.

8k is the equivalent resolution of 36 720p displays the max currently broadcast by major US cable companies. If people are willing to accept 720p with heavy compression on what planet is a broadcaster going to make the calculus ... hey we should use the bandwidth we would normally transmit to 36 users over point-point or 36 channels over broadcast medium just to deliver a single 8k channel to the handful of people who would appreciate it. How does THAT generate profit?

My own opinion is VR/AR/display/lightfield/GPU technology is likely to advance far faster in the next decades with far better results vs the likelihood of bandwidth requirements for transmission being rendered trivial.

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[MightyYar]

Isn't that Calvin and Hobbes?

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[Anonymous Coward]

Already working on 32k devices here.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, yeah, you're right - thanks for the correction. C&H it was. I don't know why my brain morphed that into the Simpsons.

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[jonnyj]

International Telecommunication Union in the summary may say that higher resolution is of no added benefit, but a look at the cone density and focal length of the eye proves otherwise. While there are certainly diminishing returns, to say it is indistinguishable is simply incorrect.

Another issue with the standard analysis of distance v pixel size is that 20/20 vision, although typically used as a measure of normal visual acuity, is not perfect vision. Many people have much better vision than this.

The Wikipedia article on visual acuity says, 'Healthy young observers may have a binocular acuity superior to [20/20 vision]'. I am healthy (although definitely not young!) and throughout my life my visual acuity has consistently been measured by my optician to be around twice 20/20 vision.

So, for many people, higher resolution displays offer clear benefits without there being any need to press your nose against the pixels.

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[wwphx]

"The soap opera effect." Thank you for putting a name to something that's bothered me for a few years. A while back my film club showed Soylent Green, the guy's TV was at least 5' diagonal, and it was so sharp that the movie just didn't look right to me, and soap opera effect is exactly what it was. I have a feeling that I'm going to be looking for ways to dumb down output to 1080p when TVs grow beyond my liking.

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[Solandri]

It's nothing like audiophiles. No matter your distance from an audio source, you cannot hear above about 22 kHz. So there's no point encoding at higher than 44 kHz. Ever.

But whether video exceeds the resolving capability of your eye depends on resolution and screen size and viewing distance. I have a 42" 1080p HDTV which is fine for most of my viewing. But on my projector which throws a 12' image, 1080p is woefully inadequate. The pixels are completely obvious and it's like viewing a movie through a screen mesh. I'm anxiously waiting for 4k projectors to come down in price, but at this screen size I suspect the optimal resolution is closer to 8k.

The same goes for VR headsets. Because the screens cover such a wide angle of view, (110 degrees on Samsung's latest), the pixel size is far larger than your eye's resolving capability. 20/20 vision can resolve line pairs with about 1 arc-minute of separation. So the optimal resolution for a VR screen 110 degrees wide is 110*60*2 = 13,200 pixels wide. We're not gonna get there for at least a couple more decades.

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[YrWrstNtmr]

8k is supposed to be the ultimate, the final form of 2D television.

That's what they said about Super-VHS. "It can't get any better than this"

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[AaronW]

While I agree with you in some cases, namely the 8K. other aspects are definitely visible. For example, I often see the steps in intensity gradients with 8-bit color. Now video often doesn't use the 0-255 but a lower range of this, so it's typically not even 8-bit color. 24p is another parameter that is clearly visible. There are plenty of times where I find it jarring because I can see the stepping between frames. It's usually worse with computers because when switching from 24p to 60p using 3:2 pulldown you get a juddering effect which is not smooth. 120fps eliminates the juddering effect all cases since for 24p content each frame is shown 5 times. In fact, with 120fps the content can smoothly switch between 24p, 30p and 60p without having to change the display frame rate.

When I really want to watch a movie I use my PS3 as a blu-ray player because, unlike Windows, it sets the HDMI output to 24p.

Now as for 8K, and even 4K, for the distance most people sit from their televisions the eye cannot resolve the difference. The other consideration is the amount of bandwidth needed to handle these higher formats. Without significantly increasing the bandwidth all is lost to compression artifacts.

As you say, using OLED and other technologies provide a huge benefit in terms of better color and contrast. LCDs have improved, but they still suffer issues, especially at higher refresh rates. I'm still using my 2K 65" plasma TV because it has fairly good contrast and natively does 24P. I'm one of the few who even enjoys 3-D on it even though it requires active glasses.

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[Anonymous Coward]

This gives a view angle of 17 degrees for 1920 pixels (1920 * 31.5 / 3600), 34 degrees for 3840 pixels, and 67 degrees for 7680 pixels. Compare this to the human horizontal stereoscopic field of view of 114 degrees.

This is not really comparing apples to oranges. Yes, humans have a viewing angle in excess of 110 degrees, if you really bother about including all the peripheral vision. And sure, you do gain extra immersiveness, if "something" is shown at the edge of your field of vision. But it's not as if you could really take in most of the information on the edges. There is a reason, why THX specifies a viewing angle of 35 degrees. Any wider than that, and you are constantly swiveling your head trying to follow even a simple dialog on screen. Our source material isn't meant to be viewed at a 100+ degrees viewing angle.

Most people will tell you that a 35 degrees viewing angle is pretty damn immersive. And no wonder, that's how we end up with 4k resolution. I am not saying that 8k is entirely pointless. But it is reaching some seriously diminishing returns for the type of things people usually want to see on a screen (i.e. movies and TV shows). It makes a little more sense for information display, as people are more OK with swiveling their heads from one side to the other when organizing their data on a computer screen. It compensates for bad UI design that doesn't provide a good way to show data more compactly.

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[Miamicanes]

It's the same with framerate. There are people who think 60fps is the limit of human motion perception. They're wrong. The thing is, for one framerate to give you that, "ooooh, smoother!" feeling compared to another, you basically need to double it.

* 100fps is unambiguously smoother than 50fps, and is still a noticeable improvement over 60fps.

* 120fps is visually-indistinguishable from 100fps **with native 120fps & 100fps content**, but 60fps content looks better at 120fps than 100fps because it's a whole multiple. Likewise, 50fps content looks smoother at 100fps than 120fps.

* For lower-framerate content to look smooth at a higher framerate that's a non-whole multiple, you'd REALLY want it to be at least 4x faster (eg, 50fps at 240fps is almost indistinguishable from 50fps at 250fps, but 50fps at 150fps looks a bit smoother than 50fps at 180fps).

* Your peripheral vision is more sensitive to framerate & flicker than your foveal vision, especially when you have high contrast (like a moving sharp white dot on a black background). This is why old computer monitors often appeared to flicker if you were reading a book in your lap... you were seeing a bright flickering white are with your peripheral vision that didn't bother you (much) when looked at directly (a least, at 72hz or 85hz... 50 & 60 progressive-scan always looked flicker-y to me even back then, and the perceived flicker from close-up interlaced video (think: 640x400 Amiga, pre-FlickerFixer) was almost painful to look at).

* With current technology, 600fps is approximately the point where diminishing returns overwhelms the improvement. To do visibly better than 600fps, you have to exceed 1000fps.

* There's still a problem, though... "The Uncanny Valley" exists in video, too. Somewhere around 300fps, video starts to seem "odd". Why? At 300fps, your foveal vision is totally happy, and your peripheral vision is "generally" content... but your brain still notices little things wrong, and interprets their existence as "danger". At low (under 150fps) framerates, there are so many things your brain sees as 'wrong', it just goes into 'this isn't real' mode & ignores them. At currently-achievable higher framerates, you fall off the "almost, but not quite, hyper-realistically-perfect" cliff into the Uncanny Valley.

"Soap opera effect" is another manifestation of the Uncanny Valley. The problem isn't the smoothness or framerate... the problem comes from all the tiny details that are slightly wrong when the video processor tries to guess what a synthetic tween'ed frame should look like. Your brain subconsciously notices, and screams "Danger! Things are not as they appear to be!"

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[Merk42]

It's nothing like audiophiles. No matter your distance from an audio source, you cannot hear above about 22 kHz. So there's no point encoding at higher than 44 kHz. Ever. But whether video exceeds the resolving capability of your eye depends on resolution and screen size and viewing distance. I have a 42" 1080p HDTV which is fine for most of my viewing. But on my projector which throws a 12' image, 1080p is woefully inadequate. The pixels are completely obvious and it's like viewing a movie through a screen mesh. I'm anxiously waiting for 4k projectors to come down in price, but at this screen size I suspect the optimal resolution is closer to 8k.

The same goes for VR headsets. Because the screens cover such a wide angle of view, (110 degrees on Samsung's latest), the pixel size is far larger than your eye's resolving capability. 20/20 vision can resolve line pairs with about 1 arc-minute of separation. So the optimal resolution for a VR screen 110 degrees wide is 110*60*2 = 13,200 pixels wide. We're not gonna get there for at least a couple more decades.

Sure, for something really large, or close to your face. I can see the use case for 4K or higher.
However, most people going "ooh 4/8/16k" are buying it on their 40" TV and sitting 5' away.

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[Miamicanes]

The area of an 8k screen where one person can perceive the added detail, but in the real world, you probably aren't the ONLY person watching the TV, nor is everyone necessarily watching the exact same part of the screen. The only solution is to maintain the highest meaningful resolution & achievable framerate needed to satisfy the most demanding aspects of foveal & peripheral vision across the entire scene, so it will look equally convincing REGARDLESS of which part somebody is looking at.

It's like the headphones-vs-10.2-surround debate... YOU only have 2 ears, but you aren't bolted to a single "sweet spot" in a room with flawless acoustics. Using lots of speakers in different locations enables more people in different spots to enjoy the kind of ambient surround sound that would otherwise be impossible without headphones.

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[Miamicanes]

^-- Ugh. I hate posting long replies with my phone. That should read, "The area of an 8k screen where one person can perceive the added detail MIGHT BE SMALL,"

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[Anonymous Coward]

The limit of human vision useful for discriminating useful detail is 10 degrees of arc at a resolution of 60 pixels

Minor correction. 60 "pixels" per degree, not per 10 degrees.

That's not the limit. 60 is considered "normal", but the average is 80 and there are people over 100. Even then, we don't see pixels, the same way we don't see in "frames per second". Humans can see as small as 0.0024 arc seconds. which works out to 1,500,000 "pixels" per degree, as long as there is enough contrast.

It rains about 1 day out of 3 around here. The rule of thumb is it's not going to rain today, but it doesn't mean it's not going to rain.

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[MightyYar]

Because they are both awesome :)

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[HornWumpus]

Not all film is the same. Some directors (Kubrick, Kurosawa) shot their later work in 70mm. So did some hacks.

At the other end, you have 16mm.

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[Miamicanes]

There's one point many here have overlooked... it doesn't necessarily require a "UHD" TV to directly benefit from it.

Back around 1994, I bought my first "big" TV back when I was in college -- a 27" Daewoo. Nothing earthshaking, but it had higher-end specs... s-video input, decent stereo audio, and significantly better dot pitch than most of the other TVs at BrandsMart USA.

For the next 5 years, connected to a cable box and VCR, it mostly looked like shit. VHS tapes looked marginally less shitty at my house than at friends' houses, because I had a S-VHS VCR (mostly, so I could get S-Video output, even when watching non-SVHS tapes) -- they still had poor detail and awful color resolution, but at least the NTSC color artifacts were slightly better.

At one point, I contemplated buying a LaserDisc player. Unfortunately, by that time, LaserDisc was basically dead as a format in the US. In any case, a LaserDisc definitely wasn't something you could waltz into Blockbuster Video and rent for $5.

Then DVD arrived. Instantly, the TV's perceived video quality more than doubled. The TV's "real" physical resolution was somewhere around 360x480 under ideal conditions... but having a 720x480 video source to play with meant I could pump ever bit of signal detail into that TV that it was physically capable of handling. The improvement was dramatic.

The early 2000s arrived. My housemate bought a DLP HDTV, and we decided to switch to Voom! so we could enjoy "real" HDTV (at the time, Comcast in Miami hadn't started carrying HD channels yet, and only one or two of the local broadcasters were transmitting HD). As luck would have it, Voom! didn't screw around with "SD" boxes -- every box they gave you was capable of outputting anything from 480i60 over s-video (or composite, or component) to 720p60 and 1080i60 HD (over component or DVI). By this point, the old CRT TV from my college days was now my bedroom TV. And I quickly realized that even though it wasn't HD, Voom's channels (and OTA HDTV from the antenna diplexed into the LNB's output) looked MUCH better than anything I ever saw with cable.

Fast forward a bit more. Voom! went out of business, and my housemates and I were forced to settle for Comcast. God, it was awful. For a couple of days (before Voom shut down, after Comcast came to set us up), I was able to compare different channels from Voom and Comcast side by side. For SD channels like MTV, it was literally a night and day difference. On Voom!, MTV and MTV2 looked like DVD-quality video. On Comcast, I could barely watch it without feeling like my eyes were going to bleed from the blocky overcompression.

A couple of years later, I bought my own house, got a nice 65" DLP TV of my own, and signed up for DirecTV. I still had the same TV (from college) in the master bedroom, and decided to pay the extra $2/month to get a HD box for the master bedroom. Happy days again... DVD-quality, even from SD channels. Ditto, after switching to U-verse a couple of years later (a slight step down for HD, but more or less the same quality for 480i60 via S-video).

My point: most of the (2k, 720p60 or 1080i60) "HD" source available today via cable or streaming is very, very compressed... and Blu-Ray isn't necessarily a whole lot better (for economic reasons, most manufactured discs are single-layer, but studios feel like they need to shovel more and more stuff onto the discs, and it's usually the main video stream whose bitrate suffers the most). HOWEVER, even if it's horrifically overcompressed, "4k" UHD is STILL basically 2k HD with 4x oversampling, which means you can compress the hell out of a 4K UHD stream and STILL have it be a net improvement over what you WOULD have gotten from a real-world 720p60 or 1080i60 "2k" stream.

There's one small fly in the ointment now -- HDMI and HDCP. HDMI, because it allows the video source to ask what resolutions the TV supports instead of allowing you to forcibly set them with DIP switches or an explicit menu option. HDCP, because it means it's now a lot har

Re:Dumb

[jwhyche]

I believe this is the reason that we will never see HD episode of B5 on BR. While all the live action scenes where shot on 35mm film, all the space shots where CGI. Which was primitive at the time. They had banks of Amiga 2000/3000 doing the rendering.

All these scenes where shot in 4x3 format and at low resolution. They wouldn't scale well to a new format and would have to be completely redone. It would just be to expensive and the powers that BE don't believe it would be worth the cost.

I believe that I read some where the master tapes containing the CGI models has since been lost or destroyed.

Re:Dumb

[flargleblarg]

DS9 (even the human actors) will just look worse and worse as the screen resolution goes up, forever.

No, DS9 won't look worse and worse. It just:
* won't look better
* will look perceptually "worse" relative to newer things

but it actually will never look worse per se.

Re:Dumb

[pipingguy]

You should add high quality cropping and zooming.

Re:Dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't talk shite, mate. 4K isn't worth the money; 8k is just stupid.

Re: Dumb

[WaffleMonster]

The area of an 8k screen where one person can perceive the added detail, but in the real world, you probably aren't the ONLY person watching the TV, nor is
everyone necessarily watching the exact same part of the screen. The only solution is to maintain the highest meaningful resolution & achievable framerate needed to satisfy the most demanding aspects of foveal & peripheral vision across the entire scene, so it will look equally convincing REGARDLESS of which part somebody is looking at.

The primary message I was trying to convey with 600x600 is that human vision is mostly an illusion. I wanted the reader to understand this point. All of the figures regarding viewing distance provided are independent of the number of viewers.

It actually is possible for future displays to have the capability to present different information to different viewers including different people watching completely different content concurrently on the same display. The technology is partially already being developed for glasses-free 3D displays and future VR displays.

It's like the headphones-vs-10.2-surround debate... YOU only have 2 ears, but you aren't bolted to a single "sweet spot" in a room with flawless acoustics. Using lots of speakers in different locations enables more people in different spots to enjoy the kind of ambient surround sound that would otherwise be impossible without headphones.

It's the cheap and easy solution but hardly impossible with sensors and lots of m(a|e)th.

Re:Dumb

[geekmux]

This entirely misses the point of 8k....8k is supposed to be the ultimate, the final form of 2D television. NHK, the people behind it, skipped over 4k because it's just a stepping stone to perfection. If anything is to blame here, it's 4k being a half measure and 8k not arriving quickly enough.

Speaking of missing the point, let me help translate exceeding the capabilities of your eyes.

That means 16K, 32K, and 64K televisions will be made and marketed because there will always be enough dumb consumers who will spend thousands on "the best", regardless if they can actually fucking tell or not.

Re:Dumb

[geekmux]

Now you're being ridiculous. The real world is only 10k.

Speaking of ridiculous, let me know when you find the upper limit on ignorance and stupidity within the real world.

When you do, inform manufacturing and sales. They're rather busy designing and marketing 16K and 32K televisions right now.

Re:Dumb

[AmiMoJo]

8k finally exceeds the resolution of IMAX. The colour quality and frame rate are better, and of course HDR didn't really exist when IMAX was created.

Re:Dumb

[WaffleMonster]

The limit of human vision useful for discriminating useful detail is 10 degrees of arc at a resolution of 60 pixels per degree or 600 x 600 per eye.

Minor correction. 60 "pixels" per degree, not per 10 degrees.

It's often helpful to quote complete sentences rather than cutting them off mid-flight. For example if one were to improperly quote me by cutting off sentence after the word "pixels" it would be understandable for the reader to assume I meant 60 pixels per 10 degrees.

(e.g. "The limit of human vision useful for discriminating useful detail is 10 degrees of arc at a resolution of 60 pixels")

However this isn't what I said. I was misquoted and then the misquote itself was attacked.

That's not the limit. 60 is considered "normal", but the average is 80 and there are people over 100. Even then, we don't see pixels, the same way we don't see in "frames per second". Humans can see as small as 0.0024 arc seconds. which works out to 1,500,000 "pixels" per degree, as long as there is enough contrast.

Human eyes can even detect single photons under the right conditions so there must be no limit right? 60 is a nice round generally accepted figure for reasoning about these things. You can say 60 is too low or too high but it is generally accepted to be in that ballpark. It isn't 100 or 200 or 1,000,000 in the context of TV viewing no matter what arcane tidbit one is able to cherry pick out of the ether.

The point remains very few are ever going to get anything perceptible out of these displays.

The point remains resolution is being used to further scam those with existing HD displays who are already being scammed by not even getting advertised HD quality they are currently paying for.

Re:Dumb

[AmiMoJo]

I certainly notice that cinemas showing 4k images look crap. 4k isn't even as good as IMAX, a technology from the 60s.

You also miss the point about HDR. It's not just to display a wider range of colour at one time, it's to allow screens that can't produce the full range (i.e. all of them) to adjust the backlight automatically depending on the scene being shown.

Some TVs can even vary the backlight differently for different areas of the image. Still not as nice as my plasma but getting there.

Re:Dumb

[AmiMoJo]

120hz is good for sport and hyper realistic images. The reason not to go higher is technical limitations of transmission and displays, and that it doesn't make much difference anyway.

For broadcast you are probably screwed, but NHK will be making high quality streams available if your local channels want them. Not H.264 encoding, I'm not sure if they have decided yet. This will be ready for the 2020 Olympics.

The Pirate Bay is probably your best bet. Someone will post a .ts file.

Re:Dumb

[Anne Thwacks]

Even with VHS resolution, I have no problem whatever identifying the fact that the content of TV is complete crap.

However, when doing CAD, I definitely want more pixels, please.

Re:Dumb

[mccrew]

They had banks of Amiga 2000/3000 doing the rendering.

Assuming the original models are available, there's no reason why a modern Beowolf cluster of <something> couldn't be redone at a higher res.

Re:Dumb

[jwhyche]

Assuming the original models are available, there's no reason why a modern Beowolf cluster of couldn't be redone at a higher res

While I do believe the original models where lost, you still can't just drop a model in and render it at a higher res. Not if the original models where rendered and created at the low resolution. It's like blowing up a low rez jpeg image and sticking it on the side of a building. There just isn't enough information in model for it work.

You could resize the skeleton but you will still have to manually re-texture all the models. Like the jpeg example I believer there are algorithms that would help but I doubt they would be effective.

Re:Dumb

[Trogre]

And that most movies are shot in 24p because people want them to be.

And that's because people are used to movies looking like garbage. It's embarrassing when low budget TV looks much better than juddery blurry multi-million dollar film content.

The only way to enjoy such horrible content is on home TVs that, since the early 2000's, interpolate PTZ motion and generate intermediate frames, giving some semblance of smooth motion on a 60 or 120 Hz TV. Efforts such as Peter Jackson's The Hobbit that were filmed and presented at 48fps looked gorgeous compared to the status quo, but are of course just a stepping stone and were mostly panned by luddites complaining of motion sickness or that it looks cheap "somehow".

Seriously, go look up the Soap Opera Effect.

Even modern YouTube videos are now at 60fps, since content creators are finally getting the point that lower frame rates look like ass.

Other than that, though, I agree with what you said.

Re:Dumb

[Ungrounded Lightning]

You sound like an audiophile that think people can hear 96KHz/24bit audio.

You CAN hear the difference (with good speakers and perhaps moderately crummy electronics). You're thinking "nyquist" and signal-to-noise, but you're not taking into account some real-world pathology.

There are two issues: Sampling rate and sampling resolution. The original CD digitization standard was inadequate on both of them.

If you had perfect (and phase-constant) bandpass filters before the A-to-D step, you'd only need a sampling rate of twice the highest frequency audible to the listeners with the best-at-the-high-end ears: Children and (especially younger) women. (Men tend to lose the high end of their hearing sooner, and more profoundly, partly due to some of the same sex-hormone related circulatory system changes that are involved in pattern baldness, high blood pressure, and hyposmia.)

But "phase-constant" and "sharp" are at odds on an analog filter. And frequency-dependent phase errors make sharp sounds sound "fuzzy", as the different frequencies from things like percussion effectively arrive at different times. So filters aren't all that sharp. And thus some of the frequencies higher than the nyquist frequency get through to the A-to-D, get digitized, and are "folded back down" at the nyquist frequency and appear as noise. With good enough speakers you can hear them, mainly in the high end. They're REALLY annoying, because they're not harmonically related to the audio source causing them, so they don't blend in well with the desired sound from the same instrument. (It's particularly bad with synthesizers, such as the Moog, which uses discontinuous-function waveforms (like L and delta) that have strong harmonics to very high frequencies - theoretically going up forever.)

Using a higher sampling rate moves the nyquist frequency "fold point" up farther, drastically reducing this effect.

You'd think ordinary sampling resolution would put quantization error down into the inaudible weeds. But the mapping from signl to digital sample is linear. So while the sampling is adequate for passages loud enough to get the high bit set occasionally, every 3 dB quieter than "blow out the speakers loudest peak in the entire piece" is one less bit of resolution - while the quantization noise remains at full force.

For program material with only moderate dynamic range this is still fine. Rock music, as an art form, evolved on AM radio with audio compression. So the distinction between loud and soft passages was wiped out. As a result, rock does not use this distinction to any significant extent.

For program material (such as classical music) which DOES have a broad dynamic range it's a disaster. If the signal level is set so the loud passages don't distort, the soft passages are so quiet that the "waterfall" of quantization noise becomes audible - but only when there's a sound, so it make instruments in quiet passages sound "hissy" when they shouldn't.

Sample-sizes with more bits (provided the equipment really is that low-noise) can reduce this phenomenon. So can volume compression-reexpansion systems (such as the Dolby variants). (They can also increase the effective signal-to-noise ratio on the pre-digitization recording equipment, so it can provide a signal to the digitization step such that a high-bit-count sampling is accurate enough for the lower level of quantization noise to make a difference.)

Re:Dumb

[sexconker]

This entirely misses the point of 8k. It's not just a resolution bump, it addresses multiple use-cases:

- Very large screens / projectors
- Computer monitors that people typically sit much closer to
- 120Hz native for ultra smooth, realistic motion
- Much higher dynamic range and more accurate colour rendering
- Comfortably exceeding the capabilities of your eyes in all situations

If you want a perfect picture, like looking out of a window, this is what you need. Most people haven't even seen 8k in real life, and when they have it's often on an early model TV that doesn't support the full colour range or 120Hz.

8k is supposed to be the ultimate, the final form of 2D television. NHK, the people behind it, skipped over 4k because it's just a stepping stone to perfection. If anything is to blame here, it's 4k being a half measure and 8k not arriving quickly enough.

- Just a resolution bump.
- Just a resolution bump.
- 120 Hz is 4 times as hard on 8K sets vs 4K sets.
- 8K has nothing to do with dynamic range, color gamuts, etc. Any 4K set can do whatever an 8K set can do in this regard. (Though 8K standards may mandate support for better shit.)
- Your first two points negate this one. Size and distance are variable. What if someone has a 200" diagonal projection? Using the .75xHeight rule in TFS, you need more resolution at 6 feet.

I'm all for 8K, but let's not pretend it's the be-all, end-all. Hell, it may very well may be that 4K is the be-all, end-all, for consumer TVs/monitors/projectors, with 16K handling theaters and commercial shit. It's far more of an economics question than a technical or biological one. Will people buy 8K content and displays for the home? What's the difference between making small, making high res displays for headsets (or implants) vs. making giant displays of the same resolution?

Re:Dumb

[sexconker]

8k finally exceeds the resolution of IMAX.

No it doesn't. Scanning systems from 20+ years ago can resolve plenty more.

The fairly ancient FUJICHROME Velvia 50 can resolve 160 lines per millimeter.

At 70 mm for IMAX, that's 11200 horizontal compared to 8K's 7680 or 8192 (depending on which 8K you mean), That's ignoring the fact that you generally want double the resolution to eliminate various artifacts, but if we're comparing the display side I don't think that matters.

Then there are medium format (60x60 and 60x90) and large format (102x127 and up) films which exceed IMAX. You'd have to be Ron Howard levels of crazy to use them for video, though.

Re:Dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not forget that the 19th century era frame rates, to save film, is eminently visible, and looks really like shit.
With some training on better audio formats, like 96/24 or better, most people would appreciate the difference. We have been conditioned for many years with low-fi audio formats, and the "music" industry have been complicit in promoting forms of "music" with very simple technology that has weaned some generations into very low expectations.
I hold no hope.

Re:Dumb

[ChrisMaple]

As technology advances it ought to be possible to create the missing date for higher resolution images. Edges can be sharpened and interpolated/extrapolated to the added lines.Textures can be refined once by an artist, then the computer takes over rendering the details in subsequent frames. Experts review the results and give the system hints for fixing bad spots.

This means years of software development, but still not as expensive as paying some loopy actors to do the scenes over again.

Re:Dumb

[rtb61]

It is screen size driving graphic processing power, not the dots per mm. So bigger screens need higher resolution processing power, not higher resolution screens, in fact aside from language abuses those screens are lower resolution than you typical smart phone but they are much bigger. So the conflict of resolution of dots per mm vs dots processed (more total dots for bigger screens. How big video screens do I want, floor to ceiling across entire walls, some of my favourite content is scenery with pleasant music ie https://www.youtube.com/watch?... and the bigger the screen the better.

The logical future development is windows less apartments with large screens provided as part of the apartment, so which is better a shit view or a massive screen showing a great view. So who doesn't want a better view, someone who has never experienced one, I have a great one and it really does impact you life in very subtle ways and a big screen TV running with scenery, also has similar impact, the bigger the better, probably nine screen scenario filling an entire wall space being the development goal, with the centre having real power and the peripheral screens being pretty basic for just scenery or general data.

The long term question in capital development will windows be more cost effective than providing a big screen as default in an apartment with a scenery channel. You know they would fuck it up by showing commercials 24/7 at fill volume, you just know they would do it.

Re:Dumb

[ChrisMaple]

Even if you have a lens capable of resolving 160 lp/mm (unlikely), you'll have trouble achieving and maintaining focus, And that resolution is only going to be available at the center of the image, even on hideously expensive lenses. https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2017/07/experiments-for-ultra-high-resolution-camera-sensors/ The bigger the image, the bigger the lens has to be and the more difficult it is to design and build a lens that can achieve a given level of resolution. Lens cost goes up roughly in proportion to the volume of the lens.

Re:Dumb

[ChrisMaple]

Some slightly cloudy plastic film should diffuse the image some. If you can manage to install it uniformly, you may get the smoothness you desire without destroying all of the enhanced sharpness.

Re:Dumb

[jwhyche]

You missed the point. All these are cgi of space shots and battles. There are no actors involved in this. I believe all the original scenes are rendered in the Amiga's default resolution, which is 320x200. To redo them to HD standards would take hundreds of man hours to redo all of them. Even with the original models.

With out the original models everything would have to be redone from scratch. I doubt any studio would be willing to foot the bill for a 20+ year old tv series that only a few die hard fans remember.

Re:Dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Watching 4k content on a 1080p TV already does look marginally better off sources like watching 4k video samples from YouTube with chromecast.

It probably comes down to the 4k cameras have better optics, to keep the optics from being a limiting factor in the camera, less noticeable artifacts from post production processing since the edits were done a higher resolution, and their being a higher resolution and bitrate master file that was uploaded to YouTube before YouTube runs it though its own compression algorithm.

I'm honestly not sure how it works during the playback process, if YouTube is sending a down sampled 1080p stream to the chromecast, or if it is sending the 4k stream and the chromecast is down sampling it locally? Either way you can see a bit of a difference.

Re:Dumb

[david-bo]

Does the story of a novel gets better if it's printed on fancy paper instead of a paperback?

Re:Dumb

[fredzouille]

> The limit of human vision useful for discriminating useful detail is 10 degrees of arc at a resolution of 60 pixels per degree or 600 x 600 per eye.

The limit of Human vision is way higher than that. 60 pixels per degree is only normal visual acuity (20/20), average visual acuity is 85 pixels per degree and the limit is around 150 pixels per degree (what US fighter pilots have in average). And that's only for the ability to resolve pixels, for lines there is Vernier acuity at 450 pixels per degree.

Also 10 of field of view is quite small, the Human field of view is 210x135 binocular without eye movement.

720p

[randomErr]

I have a 720 32" TV. Its good enough for the shows and games I play. Does that make me some how evil? The way marketing is going I feel that way sometimes.

I like the higher resolution picture but I prefer content. That might be why I like to buy DVD's a lot of the time over a BluRay. Same content and cheaper.

Re:720p

[Zocalo]

I'm in the same boat - only at 1080p and 42" for my big screen video consumption of TV and movies. According to the math, my living room allows for an optimal viewing distance that' would support a 42" screen mid-way between 1080p and 4K, so I'd probably see *some* benefit from going to 4K, but I just don't see any point in trading in my current 1080p screen for it. That's not to say I don't know the difference between 1080p and 4K though - I already have a 4K monitor for video and image editing but, as AniMoJo noted above, that's a completely different usage case and the same rules don't apply. Since I'm currently only shooting video 4K, I don't see much need on a monitor upgrade either, although that might change if/when I start working at 8K.

Re:720p

[DontBeAMoran]

22" widescreen 1080p here, and I don't feel the need nor do I want want to upgrade to anything better. I use Netflix at the lowest possible setting because it's good enough.

Re:720p

[Tempest_2084]

Same here. I use a 36" 1080i CRT and it's just fine. I probably won't get a new TV until it dies on me.

Re:720p

[geschbacher79]

Same here. I have an 11-year-old 720p 42" TV, and I swear, it looks better than most other TV's out there. I'm pretty sure my cable box (Verizon FIOS) only outputs at 720p, and it looks fine. When my father got a 4k 50" TV for use with Cablevision, it looked like a pixelated nightmare, with jagged edges, etc.

Playing Mario Kart on my Nintendo Switch on my TV looks perfect. I can't imagine any other pixels being necessary.

I can't imagine replacing my TV anytime soon, and I certainly won't spend $1 extra to get 4k.

Re:720p

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. I've got (I think) a 46" 1080p TV, and sit about 10 feet away. I set my Roku to 720p because I didn't see any difference between 720p and 1080p from that distance.

Re:720p

[computational super]

I'm happy with the resolution of the TV I watch movies on. I do sort of hope, some day, for a computer display that renders text so that it's as readable as print. I still buy actual books, printed on paper with ink on it, because after a while trying to read on a computer screen gets to me.

Re:720p

[shaitand]

For your father's sake. There are a couple of features, like HDR and other "motion compensation" features, these turn on a soap opera like look which looks super realistic and heavily oversharpened. Turn this crap off, it's what causes the pixilation and edge tearing... it doesn't fix motion, it causes terrible motion related artifacts and it is enabled on every new TV out of the box. There are probably a lot of things that could be tweaked or tuned in the set but many of them will turn this crap back on even when it is explicitly disabled so learn to recognize that oversharpened overly "real" looking soap opera image and turn anything that brings it back off.

There is probably a great picture hiding in there.

Re:720p

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here, I have a 15" black and white TV but I mainly watch interracial midget porn so it works great.

Re:720p

[LordWabbit2]

Same, 42" 1080p - but it's a monitor - not a TV, it cannot receive broadcast signals. In my country if you have a TV in the house you have to pay a TV license fee, since I don't watch broadcast TV at all I gave my 720p TV away and bought the monitor. To be honest it gathers dust, we rarely watch anything on it, my wife and I both have PC's with multiple monitors, and we tend to watch stuffs on them. Perhaps it will change when we have kids, but at the moment it's simply there in case we need it.

Re:720p

[DontBeAMoran]

And make sure the TV isn't set in "demonstration mode" because all the changes you make will revert back to the crap settings after a set period of time.

Re:720p

[omnichad]

HDR is an increased color gamut at the source and gives a better true dynamic range. Simulated HDR or dynamic contrast are both obnoxious. Similarly for audio, there is dynamic range compression, which is only good if you need to keep your TV really quiet for others to sleep - not for everyday use. Yes, movies get loud and soft at times without it. It's supposed to.

Re:720p

[Anonymous Coward]

The fovea centralis of the eye has an average resolution of 31.5 arcseconds. This gives a view angle of 34 degrees for 3840 pixels (3840 * 31.5 / 3600).

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

While the fovea centralis is a tiny portion of the eye, it is processed by 50% of the visual cortex. It is the important part of the eye for seeing detail.

Re:720p

[AmiMoJo]

I have some 32" 720p displays and they are fine for TV. Of course, the "HD" TV channels aren't full HD 1920x1080 anyway, and over-compression makes them look pretty bad, so for broadcast 720p is okay.

Slightly odd reaction to feel "evil" at only having 720p... But still, I'm glad we have 4k because even though I'm sticking with my old 2k TV, it's great for computer monitors.

Re:720p

[Rick Schumann]

Does it make you evil? No. However according to marketers, their shills, rabid fanbois with more money than sense, and mindless early-adopters (who just have to have the latest regardless of need, sense, or if it's actually good) you're a 'luddite' and likely 'too old to understand' and will be taunted with accusations of telling people to 'get off your lawn', and the less polite of them will tell you you're 'old, and are going to DIE, SOON', and so on.

However in reality what you are, is an intelligent person, capable of critical thinking, who sees no reason to waste money on something that really doesn't bring you more benefit. It works for you, and so long as it continues to do that, why change it?

Re:720p

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise. 43" 1080p at about 11-12 feet. Zero desire to "improve" this arrangement. These are the concerns of rich people.

Re:720p

[Bing Tsher E]

I bought a 9" black and white TV for my dorm room in 1978 because there were rumors that the Beatles were going to have a surprise reunion on Saturday Night Live.

Re:720p

[geschbacher79]

I really appreciate the comment. It doesn't show the "soap opera" effect (which I've seen before), but you're right, it's very possible there are some other crap settings going on.

To me, it looks like videos from the early 2000's where there was too much compression going on. Whereas if I pause my 720p TV, it looks pixel perfect. I'll check this out.

Re:720p

[wonkey_monkey]

Turn this crap off

Or you could just let people make up their own mind about it.

Re:720p

[thegarbz]

I like the higher resolution picture but I prefer content. That might be why I like to buy DVD's a lot of the time over a BluRay. Same content and cheaper.

So you don't actually care about higher resolution picture at all, otherwise you'd spend the money on it.

Re:720p

[shaitand]

If your dad ends up with a better image it is well worth it. There is nothing worse than laying out the cash for a shiny new 4k TV and secretly feeling like your image is crap when you get it home and the new toy buzz wears off.

From what you describe I'd also particularly check anything related to sharpness/noise and anything you'd make a reasonable guess could be a marketing term for an algorithm playing with the same. Also trying all the overarching preset options and turning them off as well, a movie or cinema setting is sometimes a shortcut to a good image with sports or gaming settings being overly brightened with motion compensation and sharpening. I'd definitely try tweaking in the opposite direction of what is expected as well, you'd expect something for "Noise Reduction" to if anything blur your image but sometimes it doesn't work that way or would work that way but the internal hardware just isn't fast enough to keep up with applying the filter on fast moving images.

You also might check the net for a set of options from someone else who has done the work for you. You can usually ignore the color/brightness/contrast rabbit hole on these since they will only be applicable to the specific set they adjusted and in the viewing conditions where adjusted and good general settings are generally applied out of the box.

Also, there is the issue of DRM in 4k sets. Either the set or the sending box will downsample a stream if they don't both support the right HDCP levels. How to check this in practice depends on both devices but one shortcut is often to check Netflix and see if the Netflix titles which should support 4k have the little logo indicating 4k.

You are right, for most screen sizes and viewing distances a high quality 720p stream is going to look just fine and higher resolution isn't actually needed so your 720p might look just as good as his 4k but his 4k set shouldn't look like crap either. If all else fails and it is just some poorly spec'd low refresh rate off brand that can't be salvaged, get him to return it and replace with a new Samsung quantum dot display with at least 120hz native refresh. LG has a slightly better technology for black levels but the samsungs still have fantastic blacks, the best color on the market, and are a fraction of the price. No, I have no affiliation with Samsung it's just the truth. You'll still have to fix the out of the box settings though.

Re:720p

[MightyYar]

have a 720 32" TV.

We have you beat! We still have an analog TV - 23" I think. Though to be fair, you can watch "TV" on any of our tablets or laptops - and that's what the kids do. We are about to buy a real TV for our living room and I'll properly surround-sound it for movies... but I suspect only us old folks will really use it.

Re:720p

[shaitand]

People can make up their own mind about anything but random pixilation, motion tearing, time adjustment (sudden pause and then fast forward), ghosting, etc are objectively bad things that distract the viewer from what they are watching.

The problem is that they use specially produced content and image slideshows to demo the TV's in the showroom so the hyper-real soap opera effect is "looks like 4k" to many people. For the most part none of these sets have a refresh low enough to cause ghosting without these options and they are just there to oversharpen images to create a more stark visible difference with 4k sets in demo mode. It's a sales trick, nothing more. There is no objective advantage to running your TV with these options on.

Re: 720p

[magzteel]

I bought a Pioneer Elite 50â 1080i plasma tv used for $60. It was probably over $5000 in its day. Itâ(TM)s a beautiful picture, great black levels, excellent coatings for glare resistance, great sound built in. Has a separate media center so itâ(TM)s very way to mount cleanly on the wall. Itâ(TM)s unfortunate plasma is no longer made.

Re:720p

[Anonymous Coward]

True that regarding most of the things e.g. I stopped annoying people about brightness settings but there are other things people don't know about whatsoever and can't remedy.
E.g. 15 years ago it was the ubiquitous computer CRT monitor at 60Hz with black bars. Set at 75Hz or 85Hz and the picture dimensions or geometry fixed up, it was quite different in a good way and the monitor and Windows would remember the settings for the years to come.

For motion compensation I don't know or care yet, I just know that if there's a "sharpness" setting somewhere it is best at zero than on full or in the middle, and setting it at zero breaks nothing. So I like to do that and only that.

An analogy, if you try a friend's bicycle and there's absolutely no oil left on the chain, I won't let that unfixed. I'll tell the friend it's noisy, causes a loss of power and damages parts. Not an exact analogy as I doubt the TV damages itself from lame settings.

Re:720p

[kamapuaa]

How do they possibly suggest you're evil? The real question is, why do you take an obvious pride out of having a shitty old TV? It doesn't make you anti-establishment and cool, it just makes you a guy who happens to have an old TV.

Re:720p

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried hi dpi linux at 2048x1536 60Hz on CRT, grayscale anti-aliasing of fonts : it was great except totally impractical due to extreme flickering.
I think a very good not too big 4K monitor would do it but I'm not a fine of 1920-wide browser windows, or in this case a virtual 1920 width.
3200x1800 would be plenty for me, exists only on some laptops.

8K monitor would likely work well : 3x scaling (e.g. Cinnamon desktop only supports 1x, 2x and 3x), emulate a 2560x1440 monitor that way, two web pages (or whatever) side by side. I guess you can have that right now or soon enough, only the price tag is mad.

Re:720p

[jwhyche]

Content over quality. While there is some merit to what you say, I would be more opted to say it depends.

It depends on what you are watching. If I want to be mindlessly entertained, then to me the quality doesn't really matter. I have a plex playlist of old tv shows, MASH, Giligans Island, Night Court, Hogans Heros, ripped from dvd with a few that came right off late night TV. So, yes, mindless entertainment that works.

Same with most Hollywood movies. Most are crap, the ones where quality matters, very few, I will go see with friends in a movie theater. Most of that is for the social experience anyway. Same with watching a movie at home, I'm doing it because I'm with my family. Odds are if I watch a movie alone I won't finish it because I'll think of something better to do. Honestly, I really don't care about the quality of most movies ether, dvd, br, fine.

But there is where I draw the line. Most of the time if I'm watching something I'm watching a documentary. An there where I want quality and content. There is a difference in watching a nature documentary in SD then watching it in HD. You do get something out of it.

When more content in UHD comes out in that genre then I will drop a sack full of shekels on a UHD TV.

An yes, I did subscribe to the Curiositystream. Best $6 bucks a month I spend on entertainment.

Re:720p

[wonkey_monkey]

People can make up their own mind about anything but random pixilation, motion tearing, time adjustment (sudden pause and then fast forward), ghosting, etc are objectively bad things that distract the viewer from what they are watching.

It's a trade-off. Some people prefer motion-compensated video with all its flaws.

Re:720p

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, same here. I stopped caring about "improved" picture quality sometime around when dvd came out - that's when picture quality hit good enough levels, and past that point I really don't give a damn.

The whole "it's better so you must buy it or feel bad" is a con. Stop at good enough: you'll be happier, and so will your bank balance.

Re:720p

[shaitand]

"Similarly for audio, there is dynamic range compression, which is only good if you need to keep your TV really quiet for others to sleep - not for everyday use. Yes, movies get loud and soft at times without it. It's supposed to."

I have to disagree with you and most audiophiles here. I have a powerful center channel on my THX certified and installed surround system and there are still movies that you can't turn up enough that dialog can be heard clearly at all points without shaking the walls. This isn't just my subjective analysis, this is my decibel meter agreeing that the dialog is at range of normal human speech and the explosions are close to or pushing the limit where they can damage human hearing and that is with an EQ giving a couple decibels of boost to the speech range.

The gun shots don't need to be as loud as actual gunshots and the whispers so quiet you actually have to strain to hear them to give an immersive and theatrical effect in the film. This is just something being done because they can and I believe I speak for almost the entire movie watching population when I say we wish they'd cut it out.

Re: 720p

[shaitand]

Plasma were beautiful, during that generation of tech I was a big plasma fan. Sadly they have pretty severe burn-in issues and ridiculous power consumption. BTW if you don't know already if your TV does 1080i it probably has a 720p mode which is actually superior resolution to 1080i. 1080i was really just a way to be able to label TV's as 1080 when they weren't.

Re:720p

[omnichad]

there are still movies that you can't turn up enough that dialog can be heard clearly at all points without shaking the walls.

Stop watching Michael Bay movies.

The problem is that most of the dynamic range compression done by TV's is performed dynamically (made more confusing with the double use of the word dynamic). That means that the volume of even the dialogue bounces up and down depending on the volume of everything else (dialog gets quieter during an explosion). The Dolby standard actually encodes normalization data into the soundtrack so that you can do a proper range compression consistently across the entire viewing (dialog is louder relative to the explosion, but consistently). Your receiver probably has a "night" mode that uses this, but honestly receiver makers don't typically state whether certain range compression actually uses DRC metadata.

At least it results in better monitors

[dalosla]

The density race is pretty pointless as far as TVs on the wall go, but it has made for better monitors. I'm happy to have a 39" 4K monitor for a few hundred dollars, and I wouldn't have it if TV technology stagnated at 1080p.

Re:At least it results in better monitors

[shaitand]

Not at all. The point of higher densities is projectors. 4k or 8k might not matter on your 40-50" TV but it definitely matters on my 120" projector.

Re:At least it results in better monitors

[Tailhook]

120" projector

So to benefit from this "progress" I'd have to dedicate a room to TV........

Yeah. I'm not going to do that. The best part is that going forward I can safely ignore all future 8K, 16K etc. hype. Wonderful.

Re:At least it results in better monitors

[dalosla]

You are right, I should have been more specific. There are times, such as massive screens, when the number of pixels do matter. However, I think the vast majority of people won't really get any benefit from 4K, but I am happy to have the technology mainstreamed, improving the situation for computer monitors and for those who need or want a very large screen. It also means that while I wait for OLED prices to come down, I can pick up a really nice 1080p plasma TV, one suitable for my viewing situation, for cheap from someone who bought a 4K LCD TV.

Re:At least it results in better monitors

[shaitand]

Most people do that, it's called a living room. We like a relaxing and subdued light level in our living room anyway and with a decently bright lamp in the projector this works great. Does it fade in the day vs the night? A bit, but it hardly compares with the sharp glare and reflections on most screens.

It isn't for everyone. I love movies and I have a large enough room that there is a 12ft viewing distance in the living room and 20ft from the kitchen which is open concept and that large screen fits nicely with that. I also have a full THX certified surround system to go with it and am extremely frustrated by the lack of good surround audio in streaming services. At about $2500 all in for both and a decent screen the entire setup cost less than many 42" TV's and seems quite reasonable to me. YMMV. For others no matter how bright projection won't ever be the answer. They are used to those super sharp images of modern TV's and projection of the same brightness and resolution, depicting the same level of actual detail, will always have less jarring and smoother blending at the edges.

Re:At least it results in better monitors

[green1]

I'm not sure it scales that way. Remember that when you have a projector you also sit further away because otherwise you have to keep turning your head to see the action. I have a 96" screen with my projector, at 1080p it looks gorgeous, I suspect I'd see an improvement at 4k, though only marginally, but if have to be delusional to think I'd see the difference at 8k without sitting uncomfortably close.

The reason TV manufacturers are going 8k isn't because there's a benefit, is because they're trying to recapture the glory days of the SD to HD transition where there was a very visible improvement and most of the world bought new TVs. They tried 3D, but nobody wanted it, so now they're looking at 8k, they'll try something else next, is anything to recapture the glory days. Thing is, that was likely a once in a generation event, combining the noticable upgrade to HD, with the move from CRT to flat panels. They won't recapture that easily.

Re:At least it results in better monitors

[Tailhook]

Most people do that,

More things I don't care about.

Re:At least it results in better monitors

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all. The point of higher densities is projectors. 4k or 8k might not matter on your 40-50" TV but it definitely matters on my 120" projector.

Most projectors are 2K or 4K, and I find a good movie compelling enough on that when I go see one:

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

I saw "Dunkirk" in IMAX, and didn't think the extra size added much to the story (certainly not for the extra cash I spent on it). And I say this as someone who lives in Toronto, Canada, where some of the first IMAX stuff was used. I remember when IMAX was only used for nature-y stuff at the Cinesphere (the first IMAX movie theatre). I actually live about a 30 minute walk from it.

I'm not going to object to "progress" or technological "advancement", but as an EE I know it's about trade-offs, and depending on the situation I'm not sure the extra resolution is worth the extra bandwidth / storage (cost).

Re:At least it results in better monitors

[shaitand]

I don't know really. It would probably depend on your specific setup. Some things are definitely more visible on my projected display like compression artifacts. The latest YIFFY rips that everyone loves and look just fine on a 42" screen look terrible projected out with obvious pixilation. That is purely the size of the display, the improved blending and softer edges of projection would otherwise make the technology more resistant to that kind of thing otherwise.

In general I agree with your conclusion though. I expect a big boost to 4k and not as much to 8k. But there are probably others who need the 8k for maximum viewing experience. They are definitely pushing pixels because of the boost from SD to HD sales but regardless of motivation I'd like to see them keep pushing that train until there is no benefit to pushing it further with even the largest consumer screens displaying passive 3D (resolution cut in half per eye) all the way down to perfect viewing in tiny HMD applications. Not because I personally need a resolution that high but because I want everyone to have a high enough resolution for their use case and want all my source material to be at a high enough resolution for whatever I might find myself doing with it in the future.

Re:At least it results in better monitors

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit!

Do you think that LCD panels are manufactured in the witty bitty size that you buy them at?

The ability to manufacture a 100" diagonal panel at 3840x2160 means that you can chop it in four and get four itty-bitty 25" 1080p panels out of it. Once upon a time there was no market for non-chopped-up panels. Now there is.

Re:At least it results in better monitors

[Anonymous Coward]

120" projector

So to benefit from this "progress" I'd have to dedicate a room to TV........

Yeah. I'm not going to do that. The best part is that going forward I can safely ignore all future 8K, 16K etc. hype. Wonderful.

Not at all. You are missing the use-case for a projector and screen system.

My projector is ceiling mounted. It is small: about the size of a light fixture sticking down from the ceiling, taking up NO useful space. My screen is mounted above my shelves, and at a touch of a button drops down in front of them for viewing, and at another touch of a button retracts out of sight -once again taking up NO useful space in my living room.

How long is a bed?

[houghi]

Not sure how long a bed is in feed. It is 2m and I have a 52" (weird how those are in inches) at the end of my bed and I can see the difference between 720 and 1080 if I pay real attention and they play next to each other. For TV 480 is what I watch and although not perfect is is almost always good enough.

The TV is 5 years old or so and still works perfectly. If I need to replace it, it will be probably either the same quality, if they are still available or something that is as cheap as possible.

I do have 2 27" 4K screens as monitor, but I run them at 2K. Not worth going to 4K. Those are at 50cm distance.

I do understand that if you where a gamer, you might want to have something better, but with the shows I see, quality is not really a need. It has been good enough for me since 1080p. All the rest is extra money, unless I start to have 100" or 200" screens and have the place for it; which I don't. 100" (4x50") would need to be 4K.

Re:How long is a bed?

[shaitand]

Honestly, almost everything we watch is compressed and the compression/source quality tends to make a bigger difference than the resolution in image quality at that point.

That said, some of us use projectors and 4k, even 8k would make a huge difference in the quality of my 120" screen in the living room.

Re:How long is a bed?

[omnichad]

almost everything we watch is compressed

This is the real reason I'm a cord cutter. A plain old DVD looks better than an HD cable/satellite channel.

Re:How long is a bed?

[lgw]

Generally people can see the difference between 1080p and 4k if they sit pretty close - closer than normal couch distance, but still relevant for real-world viewing.

To see the difference between 4k and 8k the picture basically needs to fill your field of color vision (which is narrower than people think - the brain synthesizes colors at the edges). Relevant for movie projectors, but not much else.

Re:How long is a bed?

[jabuzz]

Nope you just need to bring up the "interface" of the TV, and the difference is immediately obvious. I recently got a 40" 4K LG SmartTV because it does everything I could possibly want aka all the catchup (iPlayer, ITV Hub, All4, etc,), Plex, NowTV, Amazon Prime, Netflix etc. from the one remote in addition to having built in Freeview and Freesat (based in the UK here).

Anyway the 4K bit basically came with all the other features, but compared to the 32" 1080p TV in my bedroom as soon as you are going through the now/next or in say Plex it is so obviously better and easier to read that despite the fact I have *zero* 4K content I would make my next purchase a 4K one for this reason alone, given that the price differential is somewhere around zero.

Re:How long is a bed?

[lgw]

You're talking about the UI elements? Not actual content? Contrasting the resolution of those between models of TVs? You do realize that may have nothing to do with the TV's resolution, right?

Old TVs?

[DontBeAMoran]

Old TVs had 349,920 pixels.

Which specifications were used to arrive at that number? I remember VideoCD used MPEG-1 at a resolution of 352x240 pixels (a total of 84480 pixels) and while it looked a bit pixelated on a CRT it didn't look four times worst than usual.

Re: Old TVs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Old TVs had 349,920 pixels.
Which specifications were used to arrive at that number? I remember VideoCD used MPEG-1 at a resolution of 352x240 pixels (a total of 84480 pixels) and while it looked a bit pixelated on a CRT it didn't look four times worst than usual.

720x486 was a common SD storage format.

Re:Old TVs?

[michael_cain]

Digital recording for NTSC analog video. 486 scan lines times 720 samples per line. Aspect ratio is 4:3, so non-square pixels.

Re:Old TVs?

[squiggleslash]

Well, that's already half the vertical resolution (and minus the overscan area which, in practice, generally had some viewable area despite "by definition" not.)

Broadcast standards I believe mandated 704x480/576 (NTSC/PAL) for digitally stored video. While TVs could be substantially worse than that, higher quality color TVs and almost all monochrome TVs would have approached that resolution.

Re:Old TVs?

[omnichad]

VideoCD approximates VHS quality, but with a bit more clarity. You're definitely at fourfold worse than DVD, though the difference is a lot more noticeable on some of the last-produced SD TVs that had better resolution.

Re:Old TVs?

[msauve]

The number apparently comes from NTSC D1 (ITU-R 601), which has a size of 720x486, so 349920 pixels. But not all of those are displayed - so the TV itself wouldn't have that many pixels. 640x480=307200 would be more realistic, and was a common size for early flat panels.

Re:Old TVs?

[Chris Mattern]

640x480 was the original highest definition of IBM's VGA cards for PCs, which is why early CRT monitors often had this definition--which early flat panels copied, as it tended to be the lowest definition supported by graphics cards at that point. It's certainly copied from the definition of standard def NTSC TV minus the overscan.

Re:Old TVs?

[hawk]

Not quite.

320 /line was about all you could display on NTSC. Apple's 280 was pushing it (but had horizontal margins), and you could, kind of, add half pixels that would extend a pixel, or start a pixel halfway through. This was how Apple tickled the color trap to get so many colors.

However, the color mask on the tube wouldn't have that many openings, so . . .

If you changed pixels faster than this, it just didn't work.

You could go more with B&W, though there is a sound trap at 4.5mhz which also needed to be avoided when using a television--which was important to the early industry.

640 was more a matter of being twice 320, and also 8x80--driven by the need for 24x80 displays. (some with a 25th status or other line).

Graphics therefore generally ended up with a multiple of 24 (or 25) lines, such as 480.

Nearly all of the early PCs either were geared to display on a television, or lied about it. The PET was its own weird thing in this regard (and you could do things from the keyboard that would overload and break the screen), while the TRS-80 and Compucolor actually used modified production model televisions as displays.

Once custom, really designed just for computers, monitors were economically practical, the size went yup (and up, and UP), usually in a 4:3 ratio. (This also meant separate color signals, rather than data and phase-shifted color carrier as with NTSC).

Finally, with 320 practically displayable spots per line, and about 450 of the 525 lines being displayable, there are about 150,000 pixels, not over 400k.

hawk

Nothin' like it

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothin' like detailed closeups of fat, ugly humans in HD. Makes me glad I held onto my AM radio.

Re:Nothin' like it

[DontBeAMoran]

Nothing like the crisp details of nasal, monotonous human voices on AM radio. Makes me glad I held onto my newspapers.

Re:Nothin' like it

[Bing Tsher E]

AM radio is a naturally sharp bandwidth filtered medium. You won't hear crisp nasal tones. As to monotonous, Air America isn't on the air any longer.

Silly comparison.

[Anonymous Coward]

So they're saying cinema-level resolution is wasted on a small screen viewed from afar.
Who knew.

The point of 8k is to use a BIGGER screen at the same distance while retaining clarity.

Re:Silly comparison.

[omnichad]

Or increasing the viewing distance to fit more people into the room.

Re:Silly comparison.

[famebait]

That doesn't require more resolution.

Re:Silly comparison.

[omnichad]

If you're one of the people sitting closer, it does. It really depends on your seating arrangement.

So what?

[Opportunist]

So we can see even more clearer now that the programming stinks, that the sitcoms ain't funny and that the thrillers are formulaic, predictable and anything but thrilling?

Seriously, I recently find way more entertainment in 30 year old shows than in the rubbish produced today.

Re:So what?

[computational super]

Uh, yeah, my grandfather used to say the same thing about the "rubbish" they were producing 30 years ago and how the entertainment value of the stuff from the 40's was so much higher...

Re:So what?

[thinkwaitfast]

Was he wrong? Ever see a tv news cast from the 70's?

Re:So what?

[bobbied]

It actually was better back in the 40's in all ways but two... The acting was better, the direction was better, the writing was way better.... The only thing that wasn't better was the quality of the image and sound.

Hollywood has turned all "good" TV shows into the same tired formula for political correctness reasons and then to pump up the ratings they throw in gratuitous sex or violence which usually adds nothing to the show, except shock value.

However, I think we are actually turning the corner on some of this, with subscription services starting to produce original content of their own that is pretty good and depends on better acting, directing and writing more than shock.

Re:So what?

[DontBeAMoran]

Depends on what you watch. Since I've signed up for Netflix I've watched a lot of enjoyable shows. What's on cable or satellite mostly sucks, the good shows are made by private networks such as HBO, Showcase, Sy-Fy (hate that name), Netflix, etc.

Re:So what?

[omnichad]

And lots of those were shot on film. Anything before about 1990 where the original prints still exist (and not just the telecined broadcast tapes) can be bumped up to at least 4K, though at 8K it's pretty much just sharper film grain. It was around 1990 when non-linear editing really hit its peak that shows were mostly shot directly on video. Everything from about 1990 to 2004 is hit or miss as to whether a high-fidelity transfer is even possible.

And for many of those older shows, they actually had good enough production values to hold up - though I think B&W probably fared better since better color accuracy would probably make some props look cheap or more fake. This should be a golden age for re-watching the golden age of television in a format that was never-before possible.

Re:So what?

[Trailer Trash]

Ironically, in terms of screen-minutes The Andy Griffith Show is the biggest thing in my house. And it stopped production nearly 50 years ago.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Either you're suffering from serious nostalgia bias, or you aren't looking in the the right places.
TV has been better during the past 5-10 years than it's ever been. So many great shows on HBO, Netflix, Showtime, AMC, Amazon...

Re:So what?

[Bing Tsher E]

Translation: the advertisers have little or no say in the new high quality programming.

Re:So what?

[Bing Tsher E]

You need to widen your horizons. There is Green Acres and Petticoat Junction, you know. Even the Beverly Hillbillies if you don't mind a slight 'Hollywood' contamination.

Re:So what?

[blindseer]

Seriously, I recently find way more entertainment in 30 year old shows than in the rubbish produced today.

There was better TV 30 years ago? A few TV shows from the top of my head, Knight Rider, ALF, Riptide, Manimal, and A-Team. Not great TV as I recall, just a mix of good to awful. I remember A-Team as something I looked forward to watching. ALF was campy fun. Manimal was memorable mostly because of how awful it was.

If you want to talk about formulaic and predictable then look at A-Team, Knight Rider, or just about any other man vs. evil in the world show. Come to think of it the man vs. evil trope is pretty common well before and after the 1980s. We'll see the hero (or hero and sidekick, or small team of heroes) do some humorous banter over an everyday task, like buying a newspaper or going to a movie, when something happens that sucks them in. They get introduced to the monster of the week by a damsel in distress, a hungry child, or some other character that can gather easy sympathy. This monster shows how evil he/she/it can be either as part of the opening or shortly after by some terrible act. The hero or heroes create a strategy to fight using amazing skills, gadgetry, or just plain magic. They face off, and the monster is captured, killed, or is chased off to return in a later episode.

The only real surprise is if the ending is a happy one with everyone dancing and singing, a downer ending with a serious lesson to ponder, or a bittersweet ending with something like a dead loved one mourned but the others live on free from the monster of the week.

Maybe you like the old TV shows better because the terrible ones don't get re-runs on TV, only the good ones with three or more good seasons (and the bad season shown out of order to hide the string of bad episodes) getting any air play now.

Re:So what?

[nealric]

Back in the early days of radio, movies, and television, all of the talent was focused on producing a relatively small volume of content. Everything had to appeal to general audiences because the movie theaters only showed one movie at a time and there were only a small handful of radio/TV stations.

Today, content has evolved to fill hundreds of different niches. There are entire TV stations devoted to specific hobbies like fishing and podcasts about the most esoteric interests one can possibly think of. That content doesn't need to appeal to everyone- just its target audience. With all that content siphoning away most users, what's left in the "general appeal" category that gets broadcast on legacy networks prime time is watered down and uninspired- everyone with inspiration is off entertaining for their specific niche.

The situation is both better and worse in some ways. You have much better access to the content you like, but in return talent working on general appeal content is diluted.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

SyFy makes good shows? When did that happen? I stopped watching when Sharknado, Firenado. Icenado, Arachnado, etc started showing up in the listings.

Re:So what?

[DontBeAMoran]

The Expanse?

Re:So what?

[Opportunist]

Well, there IS a reason they still do reruns of "I love Lucy", campy as fuck it may be.

Now that I think of it, your gramps is right. Damn, I get old...

Re:So what?

[Opportunist]

Yes, the 80s had a string of bad shows, too. Mid-80s especially. Bellisario, Cannell and Larson are responsible for a string of formulaic shows with little replay value.

On the other hand, there are a few shows from the late 80s and early 90s that tried a new spin. Picket Fences for example is one of the shows of that time that I remember (and that are curiously absent from the string of eternal reruns). Shows actually dared to confront their viewers with their established views and even force them to question them. It also was the time when The Simpsons came into existence. Family themed sitcoms turned from "perfect family" like the Cosby Show to dysfunctional families like Married with Children.

And yes, that was actually funny again.

Better than reality!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother going outside when 8K+HDR TV look crisper than the real stuff?

For my 13" Muntz B&W TV...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I should move closer to my 13" Muntz TV. According to the suggestions in the OP, I should sit about 24" away from it. Of course I'm assuming no one knew what a pixel was when it was made, so I'm just using the dimensions of the tube assuming it has pixels. The idea that there would be tiny Pixel phones, or even a Google, would have been laughable.

Re:For my 13" Muntz B&W TV...

[Anonymous Coward]

"...Of course I'm assuming no one knew what a pixel was when it was made..."

Since you cared to remember "Madman" Muntz:
"The Engineer generally credited with adapting or inventing the term "Pixels" for the Mariner Space Probe Digital Cameras had this to say: “I thought it was a vile neologism, and tried to avoid it myself." On July 15, 1965, Mariner 4 on its Mars flyby sent 6 bits per Pixel, "Picture X Element" because they were sequential in the X dimension. These were the first close Images taken of another Planet from Space. There was no "Piyel" because the Y dimension was expressed in the historical term "Lines". Image Processing hadn't caught up with the Electronics yet, so the very first image sent back was reconstructed line by line by hand on paper tape, chalking in the equivalent numerical value of each Pixel by hand, and then gluing the paper lines onto a backboard. The 200 Pixel by 200 Line images took about 8 hours to transmit, and each Image was transmitted twice, and then just over 8 hours to "paint by the numbers" back home."
-50 Years of JPL, NASA Technical Brief, 2009

Muntz TV went out of business in 1959.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

More pixels render hair, fur and skin

[dicobalt]

Admit the primary customers are rich porn addicts so we can move on.

Re:More pixels render hair, fur and skin

[Anonymous Coward]

Ewww... There are *some* things that just don't look better in HD... Porn is among them.

Re:More pixels render hair, fur and skin

[Anonymous Coward]

VR on the other hand.

I don't own a tele-vision

[Anonymous Coward]

Nor will I listen to any music in a digital format. Vinyl is far superior for true audiophiles such as myself. I also refuse to use any of the so-called social media platforms which ironically just make everyone less social!

Re:I don't own a tele-vision

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well I posted this comment via clay tablets conveyed by pigeon so that [NO CARRIER PIGEON]

Re:I don't own a tele-vision

[Bing Tsher E]

One of the knobs on my Dynaco PAS2 preamplifier is missing. Almost all the tubes are the original Dynaco branded ones, though.

We have a television, because they were selling a nice flatscreen on an unadvertised en-cap clearance at Walmart for $99 this past winter. It isn't out of the carton yet, though.

Re: I don't own a tele-vision

[Anonymous Coward]

'Merica, consumers paradise. "Why not? And then you'll have it." Why not buy cheap useless crap you will not use, because it's cheap and gives you a sense of superiority.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Ow, my Balls!

[thinkwaitfast]

In 8 billion pixels. I can't wait!

Doesn't matter

[burtosis]

Lots of content is in a standard "tv" format of 640x480, DVD standard is 720x480 (576 pal) while the high end content commonly available is only HD at 1920 x 1080. 4k is 3840x2160, if you can even find 4k versions of the content you want to consume. To top this off, far to much content is compressed heavily at this resolution to lower the bandwidth, defeating the point of more pixels. All 8k is going to do is make the compression artifacts from all content even more crisp and clear. I've long wondered why people even like the newer digital formats as I would personally much rather watch content blurred out evenly, like with an old crt, than watch HD, doubly so on 4k+ displays, and see the crisp digital noise concentrated around anything of fine detail or high contrast.

Re:Doesn't matter

[DontBeAMoran]

Free tip: disable any "image enhancing" crap on your TV. Yes, video compression does destroy the image somehow (that's how it works) but all the "enhancing" done by the TV only makes the compression even more visible than it should.

And make sure your TV is not stuck in "demonstration mode" otherwise all your settings will revert to the "it looks great for the showroom" with all that crap enabled.

Re:Doesn't matter

[omnichad]

This is why streaming still isn't as good as physical media. It's hard to see artifacts on a well-mastered Blu-Ray at 1080p. I haven't seen a 4K Blu-Ray, but since they use H.265 they should have plenty of room for a good quality image.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

4k Blurays are superb. As well as having 4x as many pixels, they support increased dynamic range (blacker blacks, whiter whites, etc), which makes more difference than many people realise.

Streaming is fine for cat videos in SD. It's not for 4k content.

In your face

[theendlessnow]

But they should sit just 3 feet from a UHDTV of the same size, closer than most Americans prefer.

Unless it's a phone, then just strap the bad boy to my face!

Re:In your face

[DontBeAMoran]

Is that a VR joke? I don't know anymore.

Usable resolution is 320x360

[tepples]

Actual TVs couldn't show all 720x486 pixels. The analog bandwidth of NTSC RF video is 4.2 MHz, with roughly 0-3.0 MHz for luma and 3.0-4.2 MHz for chroma. The 3.0 MHz limits the usable resolution to 320 pixels across, as anything higher will start to produce color fringes as luma detail mixes into the chroma. (SD viewers can occasionally see fringing on neckties on news channels.) In addition, fine horizontal lines in interlaced video will shimmer on a CRT if not blurred vertically before interlaced sampling. This gives a usable resolution of roughly 320x360 per 480i frame.

Who's on top?

[epine]

22" widescreen 1080p here

Same for me. It's perched on an small, wooden stereo cabinet with a DVD player I deliberated purchased with no BluRay support.

[*] As soon as they sell a feature to you, they count you as a user—see Google+—and then that statistic is rolled out to the studios to pressure them into dropping the format you actually use.

Our minimal yet adequate television resides in the corner of the room. Once a week we roll the stand very close to the couch, and pogo both of the speaker stands up close, as well. Then, when we're done watching (one or two movies which I procured on DVD days ahead of time) we send the court jester back to the corner where it belongs.
_____

Hitchens was fond of repeating the line that "alcohol is a good servant and a bad master".

Lustig, in his new book The Hacking of the American Mind, pretty much lays out the case that every dopaminic daemon needs to be kept on a short leash. To run this through the not-so-brainy left/right cheese greater: dopamine is the neurotransmitter of reward, and serotonin is the neurotransmitter of accomplishment.
_____

I basically read the whole of Chaos Monkeys straight through the other day. The Wolf of Wall Street strand is the usual dopamine, dopamine, dopamine narrative. Antonio goes so far as to moot with a faint toot Facebook's binge-drinking IPO as a vestage of moderation because he didn't notice many dishevelled revellers in unusually close consultation doing lines of coke off the nearest conference-room table.
_____

Convenience. More than half the time it means: won't get between your and your next dopamine hit. Back in serotonin world, I consider my television "convenient" because it stays in the corner when I put it there, and demands little to no attention when I'm better occupied by other life pursuits. Dopamine is a high-maintenance hobby. And now we've essentially proved that this is no accident: its core biological function: to keep you going back to the well for high-maintenance things.

Chasing the dragon

In modern parlance the original meaning has morphed somewhat, and it has come to be used as a metaphor for an addict's constant pursuit of the feelings of their first high. The "dragon" being mythical represents a goal that can never be achieved, because it does not exist.

Compared to heroine, video resolution is a relatively cute dragon, the Draco vulgaris that Pratchett mocks in Guards! Guards!.

Nowadays, there is a trend among nobles and other rich people to keep swamp dragons as pets.

Yeah, in their living rooms and bedrooms. Unlike the household squealer from the European middle ages, dragons whisper ever so slyly.

Those who did not wish to be compromised by a dragon's speech did never give directly information, but talked vaguely and in riddles, since denying an answer, would anger it to violence.

The dragon dictates, and, lately, it also listens.

Samsung Warns Customers To Think Twice About What They Say Near Smart TVs

Ever this seductive dragon whispers "come closer, little girl" and "moar pixels!"

Re:I want 8K, 16K content!

[geschbacher79]

The point is, though, that getting 4k or 8k content is essentially useless unless you sit 3' from your TV. Which means, internet bandwidth is basically being wasted on nothing productive. That's probably why some cell providers downscale your Youtube videos: You can't really tell the difference on your 5" screen, so better to save bandwidth.

Depth of Field Limits Resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless content providers start using smaller aperture video cameras, the real limit to TV resolution is the narrow depth of field of large lenses. Directors love Bokeh : purposefully making large areas of the scene blurry to place emphasis on one face or object.

Americans? Really?

[Anubis IV]

But they should sit just 3 feet from a UHDTV of the same size, closer than most Americans prefer.

This statement makes no sense. For one thing, what does being an American have to do with anything at all? Why would nationality affect how close people want to sit to their screens? Are the French so busy feigning disinterest that they need to sit that close to see what's on? Do the Brits need to sit that close because they have tiny screens they can quickly hide when the TV tax man comes around to collect? Would all of us Americans sit closer too, if not for the fact that our rampant obesity keeps us from doing so?

Come on.

More importantly, however, pixel density really has very little effect on where you should sit in relation to your TV. For people who have good enough eyes and actually care, it puts a lower bound on how close they can sit (i.e. a point at which they'll start to experience reduced quality due to the resolution of the TV), but it doesn't tell them where they should sit. The major factors in determining where one should sit are the size of the screen and how much of the field of vision one wants it to fill. Dolby, THX, and other industry groups tend to recommend sitting close enough to the screen that it fills more of the field of vision, providing a more "cinematic experience", but even their recommended seating distances (which are closer than most people seem to prefer) still have people far enough away that most people won't see any difference in terms of resolution (HDR and other advances notwithstanding) between a 1080p TV and a 4K TV. When the industry made the move to 4K, they blew past the point where resolution mattered for home theater setups, even for viewers with beyond 20/20 vision, in much the same way that the "DPI wars" in the printer industry eventually came to an end as it simply stopped mattering.

Which isn't to say that these resolutions are pointless. There are still numerous use cases where people sit closer to their displays (e.g. desktop computing) or have the display filling more of their field of vision (e.g. IMAX), so we still need higher resolutions for those sorts of use cases. And because passive 3D typically relies on polarization to direct half the pixels towards each eye, it requires that the screen support double the resolution you actually want to view content at, meaning that higher resolutions are still useful. And there are new possibilities that may be of interest as well as higher resolutions open up.

For instance, I recall seeing a patent that would have allowed up to 16 people to view a movie in 3D at the same time without any of them having to wear 3D glasses. The trick was having a projector screen with microscopic ridges angled such that each eye of each person saw a different set of ridges than any eye of any other person. More or less, there would be 32 copies of the image on the screen at any given time, with each eye only able to see one copy of the image. But to do that, you'd need to have a projector with such a ridiculously high resolution that it could hit each of those microscopic ridges perfectly. That notion seemed practically impossible back when it was proposed in the heyday of 1080p, but it suddenly seems a lot more viable as we start to talk about 8K reaching the market.

Re:Americans? Really?

[barakn]

Sure, now let's clamp those heads to those chairs so none of those eyeballs move.

Re:Americans? Really?

[Anubis IV]

I never said it was a good idea, just that it was a new possibility that may be of interest. I chose my words carefully.

Re:Americans? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, TV viewing distance does vary by country. Americans have larger average living rooms than in, say, Japan.

And then, your long as paragraphs say absolutely nothing that wasn't completely obvious from reading the summary. Fuck off and stop posting, you have nothing to contribute to a discussion of intelligent people.

Re:Americans? Really?

[Anubis IV]

your long as paragraphs say absolutely nothing that wasn't completely obvious from reading the summary.

My "long as" paragraphs (the longest of which was only five sentences) discussed, in order:
1) Why the summary was nonsensical in its singling out of Americans
2) How greater pixel density doesn't actually matter to the use case the summary spent its time discussing
3) Current use cases where we actually benefit from higher resolutions
4) An example of a future technology that may benefit from higher resolutions

None of those were covered in the summary, obliquely or otherwise, except inasmuch as it got them wrong. But if they truly are "completely obvious", feel free to point them out.

Fuck off and stop posting, you have nothing to contribute to a discussion of intelligent people.

It's kinda hard to take an insult like that seriously when it's coming from someone who can't even spell "ass".

The other way to read this study...

[Ghostworks]

... is, "as resolution goes up, you'll want a bigger screen if you don't want to move your couch".

In other words

[LeftCoastThinker]

"Given those measurements, viewers should sit 6 feet away from a 50-inch HDTV with a 24.5-inch tall screen. But they should sit just 3 feet from a UHDTV of the same size, closer than most Americans* prefer."

*Closer than anyone prefers

In other words, in a normal, living room application, HDTV and UHDTV with a 50" TV, the two are indistinguishable at comfortable viewing distances. Now if you have a 40" UHDTV as your computer monitor, you can still definitely tell the difference. The industry needs to find a new gimmick. HDTV was a good, reasonable upgrade, flat screen was also an improvement, but for typical applications, 4K and 8K TV is just not significant or even noticeable.

Beyond that, sitting that close to a TV for long periods increases your risk of eye strain and developing vision issues (your eyes need to relax periodically, which is why one should take periodic breaks from the computer.)

Way too close to be healthy

[fahrbot-bot]

But they should sit just 3 feet from a UHDTV of the same size, ...

There are better ways of going blind, like masturbating.

Re:Some actors should be viewed 360p

[SScorpio]

Laurence Fishburne, sitting in the front row of IMAX Matrix Reloaded. /shudder.

Laurence didn't look that good blown up that large either.

sort of

[argStyopa]

"...the benefit depends on viewing the screen from an ideal distance..."
Actually, that only matters if FIRST the content is either delivered at that resolution or upsampled to it.

Upsampling can be good, but never of course reaches the primary resolution value.

Hell, what do I know? I'm still perfectly happy with my hi-def tv; I never jumped on the 3D or 4k bandwagons and don't feel like I missed a thing. Hell, I end up watching most of my films on my computer screen anyway.

I'm skeptical when I hear things like this

[Glarimore]

I've heard people say similar things to rationalize why no one needs over 60 Hz or over 60 FPS in a video game. [quote]"The human eye can't distinguish a difference beyond 60 FPS! There's a reason films are shot at 24 FPS! and no one even notices!"[/quote] However, as a long-time competitive Counter-Strike player, I can easily detect the difference between 60 Hz and 100 Hz, or 100 Hz and 144 Hz. I actually kept a CRT monitor until 2012 because it could output at 100 Hz -- I had tried switching to LCD before then, but always returned the monitors because it negatively effected my play. Even now on my 144 Hz Benq, if CSGO launches with a 60 Hz refresh rate for some reason, I know something is wrong before I even join a server because my mouse has too large of a tail when moving it across the title screen.

Now my anecdote doesn't speak to whether humans can necessarily tell the difference between 4k and 1080p, but it does illustrate that people will make claims about the limitations of human's perceptive abilities that are wrong -- or at the very least, don't apply to all individuals and all use cases.

I personally think there is a clear difference between 1080p and 4k, even in a "normal" scenario, such as a 48" TV viewed at eight feet. I remember people saying something similar in the late 2000's: There is no point in getting 1080p over 720p if the screen size was less than 32" because "you can't tell a difference anyway," but I think most people would now agree that is incorrect.

Re:I'm skeptical when I hear things like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people are complaining about 240hz monitors because if your GPU can't keep up, the player may notice some micro-stuttering as your FPS dips down into the 230s. Human perception is absolutely great at finding anomalies. The brain is bad a picking out details until those details look like an anomaly, then they stand out like a sore thumb.

Re:I'm skeptical when I hear things like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably more of your issue with the early LCDs, rather than the refresh rate they supported was the horrible input lag that many of those early displays had.

Doesn't make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

People have no pronblem being 1 foot away from their tablet or phone but all of a sudden when it's a TV "whoa back off"?

Anyway it still doesn't make sense. If I sit 3 feet away from my TV, most of the content will be in my peripheral vision.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[green1]

Your second paragraph answers the question in your first.

There's an ideal field of view for these things where you aren't constantly looking side to side and up and down to see the content. That means that it's more comfortable to sit closer to a small screen than a large one. That's also why the ideal resolution is actually independent of screen size in a properly set up viewing area. The bigger the screen, the further away it will be from you keeping the field of view the same.

What this article is saying is that at 8k, to take advantage of that resolution, you have to sit too close to the tv such that is uncomfortable to watch because you're constantly looking up and down and side to side. Meaning that there is no benefit to anyone watching tv at 8k.

That's not too say there aren't applications for it though, for example virtual reality needs to fill your peripheral vision as well, so more resolution helps there. Also for a computer monitor it may be worth it as you might be willing to look side to side of up and down to see other windows or more text.

But for watching tv or movies? 8k is just a marketing gimmick.

bzzzt, wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is, though, that getting 4k or 8k content is essentially useless unless you sit 3' from your TV.

Nope. That's only if you have a particular size TV. Your TV is not everyone else's TV.

Resolution doesn't make up for content

[WoodstockJeff]

If you are SO bored by the content you're viewing that you can spend time looking at the number of pixels of resolution and how black the blacks are, adding more resolution isn't going to make it better.

Re:Resolution doesn't make up for content

[Anonymous Coward]

By that logic, you should just get some old CRT TV from a garage sale. Listen to music through dollar store headphones. Read with smudgy glasses - or really, why even bother with being able to see clearly at all?

Re:Resolution doesn't make up for content

[drinkypoo]

By that logic, you should just get some old CRT TV from a garage sale.

I bought my computer monitor at the flea market, you insensitive clod! It's a 25.5" 1920x1200 Samsung IPS display, which did turn out to have about five dead pixels down in the lower right corner. Otherwise, it's pretty sweet, for having cost fifty bucks.

Another thing about old TVs

[93 Escort Wagon]

People tended to hold onto them for as long as they were functional, which could be a decade or more. We had a 27" tube television which was 16 or so years old and still going strong when we replaced it with an HD set 10+ years ago (that old beast weighed something like 90 pounds too! I had a lot of fun hauling it away...).

And while Slashdotters are always more prone towards acquiring the new shiny toy, I suspect the average television owner still follows that principle... but the manufacturers keep trying (and generally failing) to induce people into treating their TVs as disposable gadgets which should be replaced every couple of years. 3D television was their first attempt; then 4K; now 8K. Meanwhile fewer people than ever are sitting down and staring at a television screen without also constantly texting on their phone or doing Facebook - it's doubtful they'd notice the increase in TV resolution even if they were a foot from the screen.

Re:Another thing about old TVs

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, our TV has been gathering a lot of dust lately as I hardly watch it aside from the occasional movie and the missus streams Netflix on her phone so often while in other parts of the house. That 5 year-old 50" plasma screen isn't going away anytime soon.

Re: Another thing about old TVs

[Malc]

My 32" 8 year old HDTV suits me fine. Given the amount of compression artefacts and detail loss in the signal I receive, I see little point in replacing it with something better until it dies.

Re: Another thing about old TVs

[Anonymous Coward]

I have one of the 32" Sharp LC-GP1U TVs. It was the 1st 1080p TV I came across in the 32" size at the time. About 10 years old now. The thing is still working perfectly these days as my bedroom tv. As for Living room use I have moved from flat panel displays and gone projection. Nothing like being able to have a 10 foot screen for a few hundred dollars from a second hand projector off ebay. Bulbs haven't even been a factor with that projector yet. It has been in fairly frequent use for the last 3 years, probably at least 5-10 hours a week, currently about 3000 hours on that bulb and its still going strong. I believe it is rated for about 5000 hours from the bulb. since the projector is so "old" now, replacement bulbs go for about $30-50 That was a different story when i purchased it, the bulbs were about half the priced I paid for the projector used, back then I just told myself id chuck the projector and just buy another second hand one with those prices, but the cost of the bulbs has come down significantly.

Id definitely say if you are thinking about projection, don't let the bulb prices be a turn off, depending on your usage of the projector the prices for those bulbs will probably come down significantly by the time you actually need to replace it. And that is if you aren't just wanting to replace the whole projector to bump up to a higher resolution.

Re:Another thing about old TVs

[Outta_the_way_peck!]

I have a 10 year old 46" LCD that survived a flood (bottom 6-8 inches was submerged for 2 days). Dried it out and cleaned it off. You can't even tell.

Valuing the wrong thing

[petes_PoV]

More pixels render hair, fur and skin with greater detail

Yes, but who want to be able to count how many nose hairs a newsreader or actor has?

It seems to me that picture quality is a very poor substitute for programme quality. But since it is the only substitute we have and it doesn't look like programme quality is going anywhere, any time soon, I suppose that counting nasal hair is what will pass for entertainment in the future.

Low Res!

[redelm]

Yes, when you focus on a small detail on the screen (games, sports, photos, etc) resolution matters, and you want as much as you can get. FWIW, full frame 35mm Kodachrome64 (100 lp/mm) is about 7200x4800. On Tech-Pan (b&w 600 lp/mm) that's 43000x29000. 1250K anyone?

But lets not kid ourselves -- portable DVD players and airline seat-backs hold attention with 400x263. Everything depends on viewing needs.

It absolutely has benefits!

[Anonymous Coward]

Smaller macro blocks will make any higher resolution video look better... And best of all we may not even need 8k TVs to enjoy the benefits.

The terrible resolution and artifacting I see on current 4k content means if we get 8k content it should be at least an improvement in that area.

Really?

[nospam007]

I have to sit 3 feet away from my future TV to see Trump's nose-hair real sharp?
Thanks but I'll pass.

Who cares?

[Shotgun]

I'm in an apartment. I already have a 40" TV, and it covers the entire wall I have available for it and the glare from windows ruins the colors. If it were to be given to me, I wouldn't want a bigger TV or would I care about a higher resolution.

What I would care about would be decent speakers built into the the thing, and a wireless protocol to move speakers behind the couch so that I can have surround sound without running wires over the floor. No, I'm not interested in investing as much in speakers as I paid for the TV so that I can have a second remote for a complicated, scarfed on solution that barely inter-operates. And, no, I don't want it to have 1000W of audio output. I'd prefer NOT to have the complaints from neighbors.

IOW, why can't manufacturers look at the vast majority of people and solve their problems, instead of just trying to sell the next iteration of the same thing.

cable and networks

[Anonymous Coward]

Still waiting for networks and cable companies to upgrade to 4K or at least HDR...but we all know they wont do poop unless its forced on them by legislation like the switch to digital HD was.

Eyes are easily fooled

[No Longer an AC]

I say that because the other day I watched a news story about Blade Runner on the lesser of my TVs - the one that's only 720p. I had been drinking but the picture looked great and I seriously wondered if they had done something to it. I have all the different versions of Blade Runner so it couldn't have been something I hadn't seen before - or was it?

I don't know, but for some reason it looked more vibrant with the colors contrasting better than I had remembered in the movie.

Maybe I was affected by the alcohol although it wouldn't be the first time I've seen Blade Runner (or scenes from it) while drinking.

Sadly my eyesight is deteriorating with age seemingly almost as fast as TVs are improving. I used to have eyes like a hawk but now I can't even see what time it is on my alarm clock across the room when I'm in bed. What do I need with a better TV?

Not surprisingly I sympathize with those with poor vision more than I used to. I had no idea what it was like when someone told me they were practically blind without their glasses. I just couldn't relate to it until my own eyesight started to falter.

Given the choice between an 8K TV and a pair of glasses that would let me see like I did 10 years ago, I'd take the glasses over the TV.

Where are my replicant eyeballs?

If anyone can get me in touch with Hannibal Chew I'd be most appreciative. He just does eyes.

if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes!

black and white purity

[SethJohnson]

I think you're missing the point of the OP preferring the certainty of vision enabled by the black-and-white format. As the name implies, "Green Acres" and its ilk introduce a slippery slope of variable color palettes that are unpredictable and inconsistent in their ability to accurately represent the stark reality of right and wrong in our world.

Not to mention the theft of imagination perpetrated by RGB pixels. Does the audience need to be spoonfed that Opie's hair is red? Let the character develop that understanding through exposing persistent vulnerabilities so the audience gradually acknowledges subconsciously that the Opie character is driven by recessive ginger traits.

Re:black and white purity

[Opportunist]

Not to mention that certain things simply hit harder in black and white. Can you imagine Schindler's List in color?

I got a Epson 720P projector

[future assassin]

on a 125" diagonal screen. So far all moves look just fine to me sitting 11 feet away from the screen. I got the projector for $375 refurb and got the screen for $175 CDN. Unless the bulb burns out or the unit stops working I don't see the need for 4K let alone 8K. Also same there I buy dvd for $2 at pawnshops the rest I pirate.

Is there content?

[Anonymous Coward]

8K is fine and good (though I agree with most that it is pretty much overkill), but pointless without 8K content. I have a hard enough time finding 2K content - 1080p is still the standard, like it or not (of course, there are specialty sources of higher content, but broadcasters generally max out at 1080p). So... what's the point?

Re:I want 8K, 16K content!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's get more 4K content, then 8K, and beyond. That will help force ISPs to fatten up those pipes, and bump data limits.

Personally, 720p is good 'nuf.

You are dreaming if you think it will "force" ISPs to do anything. OK, it might inspire them to clamp down on bandwidth hogs, but that's about all.

That is assuming UNCOMPRESSED full resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

If the data stream is CATRS (Compressed All To Rat Shit)[tm] the you need to multiply the "recommended distance" by the "compression factor" in order to get a viewable image.

SO for Cable TV you need to sit at least six times the recommended distance in order to not be blinded by the compression artifacts. NetFlix fullres needs only twice the distance, Blue Ray source material is (usually) not CATRS, though there is much that is CATRS, particularly when encoded with some of the original "really crappy garbage ass" codecs .

Then again, most other screaming sources are so badly CATRS that you ought to be viewing them on a 5" diagonal screen from 30 feet in order to hide the compression artifacts.

The whole thing is mostly a marketting fad and has nothing to do with reality. If reality were involved at all, then the "TV" would be a monitor with NO SPEAKERS (really, you are going to fit my $22,000 EACH speakers into a TV -- I kinda fucking doubt it). And the tuner shit would be gonzo.

I have not used the speakers on a TV or anything other than a single "line input" since the 1980's. Why would I want to start doing so now?

Re:That is assuming UNCOMPRESSED full resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

(really, you are going to fit my $22,000 EACH speakers into a TV -- I kinda fucking doubt it)

I have not used the speakers on a TV or anything other than a single "line input" since the 1980's. Why would I want to start doing so now?

Probably because one of the other "golden-ears" that you're waving your dick at points out that his oxygen-free anisotropic osmium-core component video cables give a clearly measurable 0.025% decrease in LSB phase distortion along light-to-dark borders in test images, and if your eyes aren't sophisticated enough to tell the difference, well, you should be very happy with your [snicker] "line input". You picked that up at Family Dollar, right?