4k by 2k or Quad HD...lots of rumors? thoughts? - Page 98

Again, that's your instinct. Your instinct is a product of having resolution marketed to you for years as some sort of be all and end all. I doubt your "instinct" is based on some intrinsic human-brain function that tells you resolution is more important than contrast. If anything, the difference between seeing in dark vs. light should push "instinct" toward thinking contrast and color matter more. And they do.

As to how this is measured, it's easy. You survey people with some A/B testing of images and get them to subjectively tell you which is "better," Improving resolution doesn't improve the subjective ratings as much as the other attributes. It's not voodoo, it's objective science in that regard.

I said "nearly useless." Anyway, point made Chron.

They used to market contrast, actually. Aggressively. So aggressively it ceased to have meaning because the numbers were not apples-to-apples nor accurate.

Resolution is mostly objectively reported (although the use of Pentile calls that objectivity somewhat into question), but it's also highly undifferentiated.

And what we're now seeing on smartphones, for example, is a useless pixel-counting contest where people are touting 440 ppi vs. 350 ppi like that matters.... Customers will vote on other attributes there, too.

Yup, it brings up back to the days of 720p vs 1080p displays (or 768p as I believe many were at that time). When displays of both categories were shown to test groups, the 720p display was generally picked as having the best picture. Why? Because it had a higher CR than the 1080p display that was used.

CR wins over resolution.

People unfamiliar with accurate displays usually prefer images that would be looked on with horror by most of those who frequent this forum.

One can only hope that some of the higher-end higher-resolution displays (whether 4K or 8K) will provide the features necessary for proper calibration.

Indeedy (with caveats of course...and I know Ken is well aware of the following).

Contrast can increase the perception of resolution in of itself - since increasing contrast aids our ability to perceive sharpness and detail.
Devices like the much lauded Darbee Darblet use fine contrast manipulation to make fine detail more visible. And you don't have to be sitting with your nose to the image to see the effects. Whereas from what I've experienced it takes sitting at a "new" closer seating distance/bigger screen size to apprehend that 4K brings out more detail than 1080p, dialing a contrast effect with a Darbee or similar contrast control can yield quite visible results in detail and clarity from more average viewing angles on a display.

And of course general gains in contrast can be visible from any rational seating distance, vs the super close viewing angles required to appreciate the difference between 1080p and 4K.

"Again, that's your instinct. Your instinct is a product of having resolution marketed to you for years as some sort of be all and end all. I doubt your "instinct" is based on some intrinsic human-brain function that tells you resolution is more important than contrast. If anything, the difference between seeing in dark vs. light should push "instinct" toward thinking contrast and color matter more. And they do.

As to how this is measured, it's easy. You survey people with some A/B testing of images and get them to subjectively tell you which is "better," Improving resolution doesn't improve the subjective ratings as much as the other attributes. It's not voodoo, it's objective science in that regard."

Well, that's certainly true. It's manifestly obvious that it's MY instinct. Your premise that it's a result of some sort of Jedi mind-trick marketing is false. It was based strictly on the comparison of viewing a 480 image vs 1080(which is why I used that example), on the same display w/ identical contrast, color, etc. The difference is substantial. If I'm understanding you correctly, the studies show that continued increase in rez doesn't continue to yield big improvements in picture quality vs. more accurate color/contrast, etc. It's a diminishing return of sorts...

Yep.
Very good point.

It's actually more extreme than you think. If you take a 480p image that is contrast rich (say 1500:1 ANSI) and put it up against a 1080i image that isn't (perhaps 400:1 ANSI) and have 100 people stand 10 feet or so away from a 50" set, I'll bet you a substantial sum of money that the preference will be clearly in favor of the first image. Like, this wouldn't even be a close contest.

As you've already pointed out, this is not merely in the realm of "opinion." The research on this has been done to support the significance of contrast in our perception of image quality.

And yet some of the ISF guys slam the device for what they say are the significant artifacts it produces. I honestly can't say I see that. Of course you need to stay within the "HD" settings and be judicious in the amount of enhancement you dial in.

Yep, Rich. My only point of speculation was that I made up a particular hypothetical where I don't have an existing survey to cite.

Since 4K won't be broadcast will there be 4K Blu-rays? Or will you download 4K with the computer?

I know these are dumb questions. I ask them because I am afraid of the satellite COMPRESSION masters. Once they're through with 4K it will lose all its benefits.

Good points from everyone on why other aspects of PQ are more important than resolution. I thought only i cared about this with the way everyone is falling in love with 4K.

It will be broadcast.

It will be downloadable.

And there are even likely going to be BluRays.

Otherwise, your assertions are likely to prove true.

Yeah right, and how many people today own 720p tv sets compared with 1080p ?

It's very possible you missed Ken's point there.

very interesting thread. I did not read every post but scanned through and read alot of it and took some time.

First you have to see that business are in it to sell their product in a way they can market. They went soo hard at consumers selling HD and made sure that people understood that 1080 was the number you need (they got a bit fuzzy on the 1080i vs 1080p just ask a non-videophole the difference). They need marketing they can use. So saying the tv can do 1080 and that one only does 720 was great. So of course eventually they are going to push to make 4k tvs and projectors. They need to sell new and great products (in the eyes of those buying based on a number or detail they can have easily described). When my wife buys a tv she wants to know the size and if it does hd. So shows you how well they did on that front. So when they say the new HD is 4k then simple you eithier have 4k or you do not and if not your $2000 dollar smart tv is not as good as mine. It a simple thing for them to sell so of course it will be done.

Second once the technology is out there on the hardware side software and presentation and videos follow. So yes it will even be on refular cable television eventually. It will cost alot to do in R&D and implementation but then that is what will be done. Cable companies will have to do it to compete with companies offering online options. Sure they could do the online option but that is not where the millions are made on a daily basis. The money is on the daily regular tv watchers. You want people watching your cable and so you put the money into compete before someone figures out how to do it online or something similar. Once the big tvs are there capable to use 4k and big enough to make use of it then the cable industry will find a way to make it happen. It will probably be an expensive per channel feature at first and limited to major cities kind of like LTE at first with cells.

Third blu ray debate came up and I think it will stick around and will have a new format. The key is all the new blu ray players have got to change their sellling advertising. My wife did not know that a blu ray player did not play dvds yet the blu ray players now not only play dvds but up-convert the dvds to hd and when the seller told her that she actually said "well then that is the one I want". I remindeded her we are not buying yet and this was a scouting mission to compare different ones (I am buying in June). Just shows you how the selling works. If blu ray focuses more on selling it as the ultimate DVD and blu ray they will sell the players. If people have the players they will try a few blu rays. Once they try the blu rays then they will be more likely to buy them in the future as they will start to see the difference (especially with the 3d option).

In general companies know how to sell their products to the "uninformed" and that is who they are mostly selling to. So try to keep that in mind. Very few take alot of time to research all these things out. I just started researching a week ago for purchases I will be doing in June (want to make sure I will be ready) and my wife is already sick of hearing about projectors and different features. As she said "they all seem the same to me" " will it show a picture on the screen in hd then it is good enough". Was trying to discuss the jvc x55 eshift 2 vs reality creation on the sony h50 versus the panasonic she saw demo'd for like 2 minutes in 2d only where she said wow it looks great and that is good enough (she not wrong it looked good but for only 2 minutes and she later wants kids watching 3d more factors to look at but she not really going to look at them which is the majority of electronic purchasrs). People want a feature rich item and that is what they pick. Can it do this? and this? (play in HD? play 3d?) then they pick it.

Sure, ok.

I understand the reasonings behind that, but I'm not really on that particular bandwagon. In my view, it's not a hierarchical ordering of importance, it's a set of attributes, each with it's own acceptability ranges, and depending upon where a particular display falls within those ranges one attribute may win over another.

There is no single metric that applies to both CR and resolution, other than "acceptability", of which each has a range of values that can seem tighter or broader than the other.

If resolution is sorely lacking, the importance of resolution will triumph over CR.
If CR is sorely lacking, the importance of CR will triumph over resolution.

Our relative sensitivities to each is leading us to believe that one is more important than another. At least that's my approach to things. It reminds me vaguely of a car argument I remember about tires being "more important" than all wheel drive.

Been trying to work through the car analogy, and I think I've got it.

Tires win. That's the rule, everyone knows it. The reason tires win is they're the only part of a car touching the ground. Because of this, they inform everything you normally ask a car to do - accelerate, decelerate and turn. AWD only affects one of these to any significant degree.

So, in the same way that tires affect multiple aspects of a car's ability to do its job, CR affects perception of seemingly unrelated elements, for instance color and depth.

Nice analogy

"If resolution is sorely lacking, the importance of resolution will triumph over CR.
If CR is sorely lacking, the importance of CR will triumph over resolution."

This is true, except that we are talking diminishing returns, acceptable levels, and bang for the buck.

If you take any two instances of a 1080p display on the market and on one, you make it 4K, and on the other, you double the CR, the better CR one is going to win almost everyone's opinion.

That's really what we mean.

It really depends on what you're going from. Doubling contrast on say a 2000:1 display would make a massive difference. Not so much once you get beyond say 15,000:1. Then you are in the area of diminishing returns where you really need considerably more than double for a worthwhile improvement. (to most people)
But I suppose the same could be said about resolution. Unless you're playing games or hooking up a computer to the display, 1080p is probably fine for most people. If you are doing either of those things - particularly connecting up a computer - 1080p is woefully inadequate.

4K is only going to matter for you if you are buying an extremely large size TV and sitting very close to it.

4K at 22" is only 200 PPI - far lower resolution than any of the current "retina" class displays available today. 4K matters at any size.

^That must be why everyone's been so taken by that Sony 4K TV.

That would be me.

And thus 4K is going to make its most important contribution for projectors, and not tv's.

It must be clear by now to everybody that that is the case.

I'm thinking we need a filter for answers that are given more than 400 times.

^That would require some pretty advanced AI due to the risk of false positives.

^Not to mention all the false negatives.

Microsoft proof of concept 120" 4K Display prototype.

"The new 120-inch, 4k, widescreen television, being used to demo a full Kinect enabled storytelling experience that Microsoft believes will be the norm within five to 10 years."

Not that Microsoft are going to make or sell this, but.... "that this TV in their Envisioning Centre is purely for them to get the conversation started with their partners who they invite in to have a look."

Looks like it is a 21:9 AR Display, which is promising, but no word from the source of the actual pixel count, which just shows that techno blog journalists more and more have their head under their arms......or somewhere else?





http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/50507/microsoft-4k-120-inch-widescreen-television

^^^

Sign me up, I'll take one in OLED for no more than 6K.

I do not believe any screen that fits on my wall is too big.

EDIT: It must also have a instant shrink function.
There are certain faces that could cause brain damage if viewed close up

- Rich