4k by 2k or Quad HD...lots of rumors? thoughts? - Page 38

You went "deep" a bit late. That was what I was saying in the 70"+ thread which you don't seem to get. 10G is not an elixir. It is the implicit consequence of volume that is more important. 10G is useless vs 8G if volume doesn't come through, and with the motherglass being more expensive.

4K comes with huge display. If displays are getiing huge and room size is not, then 4k makes sense. You went one big round and arrived.

A bit mixed feeling now that you finally "get it" after giving up trying to explain on both issues.

I do not see evidence in the above you got it right. Getting volumes at right price is obviously fundamental. Traditionally volumes are increasing by making bigger plants capable to put out more per hour, this led to the glass size increase. Apparently Sharp was able to overturn this logic by using smaller older plants for making bigger displays. It is still not completely clear how they managed to this and/or if the economy is right. You are also not able to explain this.

But it looks to me Chinese will be able to make affordable 110" economically. They can use more small plants working in parallel using more of the cheap manpower and working 24/7. So in the Chinese version of ultra high-tech economy, they might be even using very small machines and cheap glass sheets for stamping single 110" at a time but they make many parallel lines doing this, stuffing them with enough people. This is what you do if you have cheap people, if people are expensive you have to make bigger plants. But bigger plants are staggeringly expensive and not so flexible as smaller parallel plants. In a sense it is like an ant colony being better to survive and adapt than dinosaurs, all due to the fact single ant is worth almost nothing but colony can event eat a dinosaur .

^^
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post20929655


Hint: the chinese won't have volume at 110", not in next 3 years at least

55" is huge? I expect to see <55" 4k displays shipping in the future - if the iPad 3's display is any indication. 55" is just a starting point (e.g. Toshiba 55X3 - http://www.toshiba.co.jp/regza/lineup/x3/index_j.htm).

The US version of the 55X3 will start shipping in a few months?!

^^ all depends how near is your eye to the screen. Smartphone, tablet, monitor and TV all have an ergonomic distance that people somehow feels comfortable. For eg you bend your elbow reading iPhone but likely arms length for iPad.

10' from a >70" screen is generally not ergonomically unacceptable, 7' from a 55" screen will feel bit weird.

http://www.sharpusa.com/ForHome/Home...Vs/BIG-TV.aspx

BTW we define 70"+ as huge

Sharp isn't overturning any logic. If you use a fab that was making 40" screens that you were losing money on and therefore had no incentive to run at capacity (true of Sharp), and instead reconfigured a portion of it to make 80" screens (1 in place of 4 of the 40s), and then produced them at the same speed as before... you'd make 1/4 as many screens, which after a few weeks would give you a year's supply of what you need to satisfy the very small 80" market.

The economics of doing this can't be worse than what they were before since it's very easy to math out how much more than make on one of the 80" TVs vs. 4 of the 40s (most of which were probably being sold into the commodity panel market or into TVs that reached retail at a loss).

You base this sophisticated analysis on a press release?

They might do this, although that's fairly small motherglass and the fab would be unique in that it's basically handling fairly oblong pieces when traditionally LCD glass much more closely approximates square (every generation dating back to 5G at least approximates a ratio of 1.1-2: 1.

Nothing is stopping them from making an extended 8G sheet or a "half sheet plus a bit" of 8G glass and doing it 1 or 2-up.

That said, LCD manufacturing is not especially labor intensive and there are very few steps that you can replace better machines with any number of humans.

Your assumptions about the fungibility of labor and capital equipment are odd here. The most flexible plant could handle single sheets to make whatever size TV you wanted, but, again, those are tiny.

What's fascinating is the Chinese prove once and for all that cutting a giant sheet of glass isn't so special as you've been claiming for years. But if they do that, it's not because they replaced any machine step with labor. I wonder, do you actually understand what the machines do? There has never been anything magical about doing 4-up, 6-up, 8-up LCD making, except that it allows for, as an example, one giant machine to apply the color filter material to all the glass at once.

If you go to smaller susbtrates, you need more machines, period, to match the throughput. Humans can't deposit 6 million bits of color on the screen.

I usually agree with most of your stuff on 4K, but this one I have to disagree. Unless my calculations are wrong, a 110" is only 4.5 feet high and can easily fit through all front doors in the 120 million US households.
It would be about 8 foot wide, and could fit on most walls. Field of view would be the biggest concern, requiring viewing distance of 14 feet at the recommended 1.5PH for 4K resolution. I also think the large display segment (70"-120") is going to grow the fastest of all categories as prices continue to decline. It is amazing if you go back just a year and seen the speculation of 70+ set with people estimating prices of $8K plus. Now you can get the entry level Sharp for $1.8K. The 4K argument is pointless because it is only a matter of time before it becomes the new standard. It is simply needed on sets this large.

A set that big would never fit in the elevator in my apt building. And probably many others though.

i love the new flat panel tech forum here on avs, but this 4k thread in particular has more speculation, opinions, and outright guesses than i think every other avs thread combined.

what i have discerned is 4k is possible, probably will be offered in some electronic device reasonably soon, and its supposed benefits may not be discernable to most consumers who don't have a large display.

anything i missed?

Hmm, I tend to agree that I may have been overly negative about fitting it through the door. I'm more concerned about interior doors and the fact these things can't be bent. But even boxed, they are only a foot thick or so..... Seems mostly doable.

That said, I live in a house that is "average sized" by U.S. standards and larger than average for the market in which I live. It has no place whatsoever for a 110-inch TV. We visited a lot of houses in our real-estate search and have a number of friends who live in urban areas and virtually none of them would accommodate a 110-inch TV. I'm talking affluent America here.

I do believe a good number of U.S. homes could fit a 110-inch TV. (Will they? In my opinion never for the vast majority). But even in the U.S., I believe you are talking about no more than 10-30% of homes with a bare wall in a spot that is opposite where people would choose to watch TV that is large enough for a TV this big. I admit that there are many different layouts for family rooms and surely some smaller rooms have bigger bare walls to us. What's noteworthy is how few homes of people we know, however, would allow for these TVs to go anywhere.

In someplace like Japan or Europe, few people have the kind of square footage to justify anything like this -- living spaces are just too small. Spec likes to bring up the giant and growing Chinese luxury market (and it's huge). But it doesn't include millions of colossal residences because, again, there isn't room for them.

Look, there's a market here. Hell, some low-six-figure total of home-theater projectors are sold annually in the U.S. And, yes, the market will enlarge over time. But when we are looking out say 10-20 years and defining the market we're interested in "those people who buy flat panel TVs", the market share of 110-inch models still is going to struggle to reach the low-single-digits percentage-wise. And if it's 5 million annually 10 years from now, I'd be quite surprised.

A standard of comparison is that the entire market for 70-inch-and-up panels last year, globally, was significantly under 1 million... and, in fact, closer to 100,000 than a million.

I generally have a sense, also, that within a decade, the richer part of the world is going to be rejecting LCD for OLED on the theory that LCD is the cheap stuff sold to the developed world. "We've moved past that stuff". So the actions of a Chinese company focused on LCD might be limited to a smaller portion of the world if it seems like they're peddling inferior tech from the prior generation.

110 inch tv is roughly 54x96. Roughly 6" wider than a sheet of drywall. Because of that, I think that would fit through the door, around the corner into the living room or family room of MOST North American houses and downstairs for a good number. I would bet it would also fit in MOST service elevators in an apartment building. If not, then the problem is more likely the 54" than the 96".

Don't forget the box. That adds at least 5 inches to the width. We live in a brand new bldg in NYC and our elevators have a drop down ceiling of 92". Was a huge PITA ordering a sofa because the first one couldn't fit and we had to refuse delivery and order an "apartment sofa".

spec's context is always 80"-ish, which generally would fit into even japan or HK city dwellings

If it meant the difference between getting it into their apartment and going back to the store, I think most people would just take it out of the box.

92" ceiling in a service elevator is a little short sighted. Maybe that is common. I'd hope not if I were the guy hauling up building materials for renovations.

Yes, the most important thing you missed is regardless of the size, 4K resolution is the only way to get passive Full HD 3D. So while the larger 70-120" segment will definitely needed it, smaller sets will get it also. It really should not add that much to the final cost, depending on size, once mass production ramps up.

Right, and we've just agreed to disagree here. The ability to theoretically fit an 80" TV and the actual likelihood of ever purchasing one are so not related in my mind.

TV watching is moving to routinely smaller screens. "Honey, since we can fit an 80" screen, we should buy one" is not a conversation I believe is happening in any numbers, anywhere on earth, anytime soon. Again, that doesn't mean no one will buy them, but I don't believe for a second this is going to become somehow popular.

Sounds great, but try rebutting/refuting the text rather than proclaiming your opinion/bias of cnet, which of course is worthless and uninteresting to everyone here.

The crux (again) is that the VAST, VAST majority of people who live in homes do not utilize screen dimensions and seating arrangements that exploit the benefits of 4k.

Pretty straightforward really, and unless you have data to the contrary we already understand YOUR bias/personal opinion, thanks.

James

Well, until anyone can point to bona fide, scientific, data extracted from American homes, of course it's ALL opinion and speculation. sorry, bit of a "duh", there.

Will people sit closer than 3 PH's to a screen? Ummm, sure I guess.

People will also drive down the road drunk at 100 mph, so should we put interlock devices on every automobile made?

3 PH's from my 60" Kuro is what, ~SEVEN feet?!

yep, I'm certain there's definitely a % of 5 year olds that will sit that close, or worse (or better I suppose with some of the campers around here).

Over the last 10 days I was in 9 homes. One of them had their screen 3 PH's away and just barely, nearly exactly, actually. Yep, I was actually toolish enough to measure.

If I had to guess the mean (don't have the numbers in front of me), I'd say about 4.5+ PH's- which almost certainly darn generous- as at least (5) were 50" displays as I recall (24.5" PH) and they were all at least 9 feet away from the majority of the furniture/main viewing position.

I know it means absolutely nothing to this conversation, but I thought I'd be silly.

(BTW: I'm nearly exactly 4.5 to mine, if anyone cares).

James

Bias is when you don't even read the thread and continue your rant. The author himself doesn't seemed to have as big an issue with educated discussion

BTW you just confirmed my latter posts that people generally sit around 10' from the TV. Not too scientific though. It's just YOUR opinion. Probably counts less than the word count.

^ ummmm, no. I have read everything within the thread and nothing I have stated or even implied dictates otherwise, nice try.

And no one (myself included) is "against an educated discussion" as far as I've read.

Apparently, that's just your futile attempt at a strawman.

Last, I have confirmed nothing with my unscientific, tiny sampling. If anything, at least 5 of the 9 homes within my mini survey were well beyond 10 feet, again, for whatever that's worth. I recall: (2) @ ~13 feet., one 14', and one 15'.


James

Nope not the entire thread. You just need to read the past few weeks to grasp the straws. It's that obvious you commented without reading and getting the whole picture.

And while you're at it you can read Richard Paul's Sony links. If that remotely interest you.

Really, this- like so many posts like it within this very thread- pretty much says it all and we're ALL fools for beating our heads against the wall because we really simply have different opinions on the value/usefulness/quality increase of 4k and we'll never get one another to agree. Simple as that.

It's (4k) going to happen, I don't think anyone disputes that reality. Prolly the only item we'll all ever agree on.

Later, respectfully,

James

Wrong. Again. But I'm tired of typing it and I'm sure you're sick of reading it so, whatever helps you sleep at night.

Good day.

James

You can't sit to far away because you will lose detail. 15 feet/50 inch, should be 2/2.5 meter/50 inch.

Proper viewingdistance is when you can see all detail (not talking about millimeters here). I noticed that folks tend to sit to far away. I wrote a post about that
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...0&postcount=10

Dows anyone think that Apple will use a 4K display with mid size TV sizes in order to have a "Retina display". See the following quote from the Apple Web site about the new Ipad's display:
"
The best display ever on a mobile device.
Everything you do with iPad, you do through its large, beautiful display. And when the display is better, the entire iPad experience is better. The Retina display on the new iPad features a 2048-by-1536 resolution, 44 percent greater color saturation, and an astounding 3.1 million pixels — in the same 9.7-inch space. That’s four times the number of pixels in iPad 2 and a million more than an HDTV. Those pixels are so close together, your eyes can’t discern individual ones at a normal viewing distance. When you can’t see the pixels, you see the whole picture. Or article. Or game. In ways you never could before."

Apple link follows:

http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/

If Apple are even going to get into the TV business (I really can't imagine why they would, when everyone is losing money) I'd certainly hope that they would release a 4K set. But look at how long it's taken since the iPhone 4 was released in 2010 for us to have high density displays at larger sizes.

Sounds like if I told a couple of months ago that chinese are able to make 4K 110" you would be laughing. They now demonstrated full grasp of the technology and hinted on substantial innovation (lithography side). So why exactly they won't have volumes in THREE years??? (Since they are working 24/7 3 years for them is like 10 ys elsewhere).


I believe there must be more tricks there, otherwise nobody would invest in the 8 and 10 gen before. But anyway, this confirms chinese can make 110" without gigantic investments and they can be unbeatable because of much lower cost of labor.


Still making panels on larger number of smaller machines should be taking more people than on machines with larger glass. This was logic for investing huge billions in big plants to reduce running costs by saving a.o. on labor.


The chinese-type logic is that if you have very low labor cost
you do not need to invest into the most sophisticated tech.


That was not a problem of cutting glas, it was a problem of capital expense for making plants dealing with huge glas.


However, the cost of plants was seemingly exponential with the growing sheet size. In the end, this was too much to be economical.


Exactly, and you need more staffing for those machines. But for chinese this is prefect solution: the machines are exponentially cheaper than the behemoths and the labor is cheap.



Horizon of 10 ys is really unpredictable. By then, houses might be designed to have a place for a display wall in the living room (fireplace relegated from its dominant position). In any case, the market for 110" is limited but it will be globally growing if the price level is making it affordable not only for the US middle class. This is the reason why I see a place for a chinese firm in this segment.

A 100 Inch LCD would likely have serious off angle issues at any short seating distance.

I put up a 4% black level pattern on my friends Sharp Elite. A small off Angle showed the black levels increase and the bar disappear.

- Rich

So what? Let's pretend this is happening (it isn't, but let's pretend). Housing stock is replaced at a speed that make snails seem like Formula 1 cars. Most older homes are not renovated or cannot be renovated to modern design specs.

I live in one of the most dynamic areas for rebuilding homes in the world. And most of them wouldn't have a living room space for an 80" TV, let alone a 110" TV.

Even if this theory proves valid, it increases the addressable market for 110" TVs by maybe a percentage point per year.

Yes, it will be affordable for more people. Except average home sizes are smaller everywhere else in the world. And this is not actually changing in any meaningful way. What's illustrative about Japan is that even getting exceptionally wealthy over decades (as Japan has, no matter what people here think about Japan's more recent struggles) doesn't cause a significant increase in dwelling sizes when land is constrained.

This is why European, Japanese -- and, yes, Chinese and Indian -- dwelling sizes will be limited by geography, even as wealth increases.

"Many urban families live in apartments, where each person has an average of 12 square feet of space (the size of a small Western closet), and four generations live together. The living space for an average person in Shanghai is 70 square feet." (http://factsanddetails.com/china.php...11&subcatid=71) (In comparatively rich Hong Kong, the average person has about 100 square feet.)

That's urban China.

That figure is an average not a median.

Again, this doesn't mean there aren't mansions in China -- there are. And it doesn't mean that in a country with north of a billion people there aren't a lot of wealthy and upper-middle-class people -- there are.

But there are physical limits that are not changing -- and will, in fact, get worse.

Actually the company who build the LCd employs 192 professionals from Taiwan, South Korea and other countries - 110 professionals from the chinese mainland - so majority of those who constructed the 110 inch where probably not chinese
http://www.tcl.com/en.php/news/844.html

We still have no clue about price and how much 110 inch LCd's will be build and sold, all we know is that TCL donated two of the screens to the ''great hall of the people'' for public display. Don't believe they will make lots of em and no, there will be no reviews so we will never know about its performance. I bet we will never hear about this 4K 110 inch again..ever.
http://www.tcl.com/en.php/news/938.html