Sony 4K and the rest - Page 2

The flat screen hysteria are over.Sales are going down.
4K could be the next big thing,"saving" the electronics industry ?
(No,3D is not saving anything)

Have you not seen blu-ray disc with 480p on on side and 1080p on the other? I don't think you understand the technical aspects of the advancing 4K revolution. Intel's bottom of the line graphic chip next year will be able to output 4K. We are not rendering 4K in real time via $600 AMD HD 7000 graphic card. We are buffering and compressing a 4K data stream using the next gen HEVC compression codec.
There have been nothing but glowing reports of the Sony 4K projectors. Regardless of what "magic" it is using people report a night and day difference. It is always chicken and egg with new tech, but what until marketing gets a hold of the new 4K display and puts a demo on the showroom floor. Even though there will be little native 4K content, "up converting" and future-proofing will sell the displays. Once they hit mass production you are maybe talking about a 10-20% premium over 1080p displays.

Have you not seen Blu-ray packages with 3-4 discs on them? Why do you think they didn't combine them to avoid people selling them off on ebay? There is a thing called manufacturing yield...


Oh, trust me, I know .


And the sun comes out of the east . Graphics card outputting 4K exist even today. What does that have to do with building multi-layer double side BD discs? Do you have yield and cycle times of said discs?


Take a look at who is the co-chair of HEVC JCT: http://hevc.info/

You see the name of Dr. Sullivan? Did you know that he worked in my group at Microsoft while he co-chaired MPEG-4 AVC/H.264? Did you know that I managed the compression technology that is mandatory in Blu-ray?

Please don't throw these terms at me. I know what HEVC is and I know it is not ready to be deployed in the market. The standard has to first finish, then written into new formats, then SoCs developed to decode it, etc. This stuff doesn't happen overnight or just because someone wishes it.


It is a $25,000 projector. It better do well.


People see things as they like. That is not my concern. My concern is the reality of the business and technology. Here is some explanation of what you think is night and day: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post21639855

Read that and the other posts I have written on the topic and tell me what you think is different.


There is indeed a chicken and egg problem with 4K display looking for 4K content which does not exist. So they sell you on night and day magic of it producing 4K out of 1080p. They know it is not real, and even say so in the manual but that doesn't stop people from believing in magic. See the other thread above.


As I said, there is no dispute that consumers love the sound of 4K. That part is clear. What is also clear is that even folks who come to AVS Forum seem to want to forego reality. I must say, this part I did not predict .

Great article Amirm, thanks

Amir,
Have you seen the Sony an an appropriate screen size ? Pretty amazing really. If it's a trick, they deserve the award for pulling it off very very well. I don't believe that it matters much if you don't sit pretty close to the screen but if you do I have a very difficult time believing that anyone couldn't appreciate the differences.

Art

I saw it at Sony's booth at CES which used a 182 inch diagonal Stewart 130 screen.

Well, that would certainly constitute an inappropriate screen size !

Art

I am with you Art. After I saw it, I told them they are far better off with a 20 inch screen in a bathroom! They loved the idea but said they like to see what AVS Boys think of it before re-positioning the PJ for bathroom breaks. I will be sure to tell them at you least one guy agrees with me!

It's amazing that after all these years dealing with SD video and high resolution displays that people still argue about the merrits of upconversion!

Amir,

I'm sure you are aware of this, there is the option (for those who can't afford the higher resolution cameras on the market now), of making your own "4K" material starting next month. 5K for 4k is the pricing.
http://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/f...&feature_id=01

Clearly then the merits are not well understood . I keep reading how people think there is new detail being shown with this projector where the math and science say completely otherwise and Sony's own manual confirms the same. Yet, the temptation is so strong to think that you are getting "4K" images. I just read yesterday someone posting that 4K upsamapling almost gives you the same native resolution as 4K source. By that notion, we should be buying DVDs and playing them on our 1080p displays and not bother with Blu-ray!

So no, we haven't learned a thing. We confuse reducing pixel size with increased resolution. It is like changing your HDMI cable and thinking you doubled your contrast. We are as susceptible to the marketing pitch here as we possibly could. We put subjective audiophiles to shame here as we try to believe anything from 4K BDs with huge capacities being around the corner to magic in the scalar of the projector despite the manufacturer's own statement to the contrary.

So here is the science of it: the only people who need a 4K projector are the people who are seeing pixel edges on their 1080p setup. Vast majority if people do not fall in this bucket. Most 3-chipper displays for example have sufficient convergence errors of the three panels to not show pixel edges clearly. Use of acoustically transparent screen likewise softens your pixel edges. And I suspect most people sit way too far to resolve the 1080p pixels.

With 480p, our pixels were just too large for our screen size. But with 6X the resolution of 1080p, we solved that problem. So unless you are upping your screen size again, in which case this PJ lacks sufficient light output to deal with that, you are trying to solve a problem you don't have.

Did I miss anything?

Maybe.

I did note some years ago of a tendency of people with constant height setups to sit too close to the screen and that the scaling errors associated with the vertical stretch are visible. The truth is there has been a demand for 4k for years.

this thread has more delusion factor built in than a thread debating the merits of shunyata power cables!

so amir..are you saying that the reason people are gaga over the sonys image is not because its 4k but simply because sony used better components and tweaked the image algorythms ,etc to acheive a 'better' picture?

It's an OK writeup with OK points on now minor issues.

IMO the current big name movie/audio companies should pay Bill Gates (or his foundation) some very serious money for his advice.

Given their focus on copy protection, odds are that they'll not do that.

LOL at this newb comment directed at amirm.^^^^^

What are the minor issues?

This was in response to his statement "Why didn't you say the rules were this? I think we are just going to make up stuff we should assume the disc is one-sided"

Despite who he is or works for, he is simply wrong about 4K. It will take time but it is coming. People see a difference whether by "magic" as he calls it, or not. Sony needs another cash cow and will push 4K hard. They will open their movie library and others will have to follow suit. They will justify its early release by pushing the improvements in the up scaling of 1080p content and transition with hybrid 4K/blu-ray players. By 2016 4K displays will be more than 50% of all set sold.

The point is I'm quite sure amirm knows the technical aspects of 4K, which you questioned. That's all.


amirm isn't disputing that people are seeing differences with the 4K projectors. Rather, he is saying, to the degree people are seeing truly perceptible differences (as opposed to placebo) he's explaining what is likely causing those visual differences. It's very common for non-technical people, enthusiastic new projector owners included, to misunderstand the technical explanations behind what they are seeing.

I find amirm very helpful on this issue.


Sounds great! But people make claims on forums all the time.

I have some confidence in amirm's technical explanations, given his known technical background in the business. Is there any particular reason I should place confidence in your claims?

Doubt it. I don't usually agree with amirim on some other things but I agree with him this time.

While it wasn't native 4k (upscaled 1080), my calibrator was allowed to test the new Sony 4k in his set up and at his seating position he reported he couldn't tell the difference between 1080p and the upscaled "4k". If that's true I'm fine with 1080p

Boy, I sure hope your right!

Maybe by then, 2016, the TV networks will have made some progress and will at least be broadcasting in 1080P so I can take advantage of the equipment I have now!

That gave me a chuckle also.

Didn't Amir also work for Sony in the past?

If you sit near the SMPTE minimum distance for scope ratio material I assure you that you will see a difference.

Art

Yes. Having failed with SACD, I am sure Sony can't wait for new 4k discs to demolish any success for Blu Ray. I even heard that Toshiba, the creator of HD DVD, is going 4K, just to get back at Blu Ray.

Except that Sony is the creator of - Blu Ray!!@@@

Has a 4K Blu-ray standard even been written yet? Agreed upon?

Which would be what distance? Is that the 1.5 the screen width?

Yes sir he did.

For others from amirm's prior ref:
You might want to read it:
Digital Video Revolution: Did We Miss a Step?

;;;

1st paragraph: "Can you imagine still using DVD at one sixth the resolution to power our large screens?"

That's an eerily strange sentence.

Agreed that a Blu-ray movie offers more resolution than a DVD movie, but how important is that really?

Meaning that I've a very decent 37" Panasonic flatscreen TV as well as a very decent Panasonic Blu-ray player, and while some Blu-ray movies show a clear improvement over the same movie via DVD format, it doesn't impress me that much. And BTW sitting at 4 or 5' from the screen does show the hi-rez benefit from Blu-ray, but it's nothing to get overly excited about.

So how big of a flatscreen does one need for a Blu-ray movie to become compelling?

If the answer is > 70" then my question becomes: what percentage of families own at least one flatscreen TV > 70"?

Similarly what percentage of families own TV projectors?

;;;

2nd paragraph: "We saw the music industry go through similar transformation with the resulting format being lower fidelity music compared to where we started (Compact Disc)."

A true but misleading comment.

Steve Jobs simply had the insight (genius (?)) to "rip off" (pun not intended) the easily rippable CD into the mp3 format. AFAIK anyone can legally do this for themselves if they own the CD. Jobs' genius was in seeing the convenience of offering it legally via Apple's iPod devices.

Meaning that without the CD being able to be legally ripped by the CD owner, I rather doubt that the iPod would have ever gotten off the ground.

;;;

3rd paragraph: "At high level, the transformation is occurring due to two factors: what the consumer wants and what the business owner wants."

It isn't what the consumer wants so much as what the consumer will pay for.

If they can get something they want without much additional cost, then sales volume will explode. And everyone benefits.

Both Gates and Jobs understood this when they were in charge of M.S. and Apple.

I continue to think that the execs in the AV biz don't see this.

Doesn't surprise me as I've seen it before. Meaning copy protection has been the AV mantra for the past 25+ years and they can't see past it.

One thing I remember about early PC software was that copy protection often made the software unusable on a 2nd install attempt, even when you were the legal owner and had removed it from the 1st PC. And that many (most?) of those companies went out of business.

Given that you worked for MS, odds are you've an opinion on that?

Or maybe you weren't really that connected with sales and what makes sales work?

Of course you're now in the high end music biz, so maybe you've new insight?

;;;

THE CONSUMER NEED
"The consumer is always looking for convenience."

This is seriously incomplete.

You need to add that the consumer is always looking for what is free or so low cost that it is almost free.

Not to mention: whatever is not a hassle. And copy protection is a hassle. Not insurmountable, but a hassle nonetheless; and one that leads to lower overall volume sales.

;;;

THE CONTENT INDUSTRY NEED


The key thing you missed is that they need/want volume. Yet their pricing and copy protection of the Blu-ray discs has led to low volume sales. The opposite of what they want.

Unintended consequences, but that's where the AV copy protection focus has led to.

e.g. I won't pay for a low cost download of high-rez audio for the simple reason that odds are that in the future I might not be able to prove that I paid for it.

It's a chicken/egg thing.

A physical audio disc is my proof that I own it. But with SACD I can't get the sound to my PC HDD. I recently gave a try to several 2L Blu-ray combo audio albums, which supposedly with mShuttle can be downloaded to the PC, but so far it hasn't been simple and 2L did not respond to my e-mail for help.

Hence I won't be buying any more 2L Blu-ray combo audio albums.

Unintended consequences is what I see with the whole AV biz.

This is a thread where people say 1080p is not enough and 4K is it. And you are saying it is odd to talk about getting 6X the resolution?


I don't know how far back you sit from that smallish display. So sure, it is possible that you are not getting much of a benefit. But what does that have to do with a 12 foot wide projection screen?


Well, OK. You are not the target my my article then.


It is a function of viewing distance in addition to display size. *And* being an enthusiast. My wife doesn't care about BD either. But I didn't write the article for her .


I didn't write the article for US Today or post it in People magazine forum (do they have one?). It was written for a magazine called Widescreen Review where vast majority of their readers have one. And you are in $20,000 part of AVS Forum where similar percentage do the same.


He didn't use MP3 but AAC. And he didn't invent this at all. Nor did he invent the iPod. A different dude led that project (he is making thermostats now). The key innovation in the original ipod was a small Toshiba hard disk that they got an exclusive on for a time period. The allowed them to make a much smaller hard disk based portable music player. Combine that with Apple's talent in user interface and industrial design and you had a hit. Job saw the potential and went all out marketing the product with tens of millions of dollars spent on a product category that belonged to geeks before that. The rest as they say is history.

The point above though, had nothing to do with people ripping their own. It is about the music industry and what they provide today for digital distribution of new content. There are already music tracks that are only available in compressed music and not CD. Over time that trend will continue.


People have a choice of bit rate and format when they compress their own CDs. I rip into lossless format as do many others. But when I wanted to buy an album recently that was only available in download form, I had to settle for 256kbps. I was not happy about that.


There was nothing in the article about ripping CDs.


As an ex VP at Microsoft in charge of digital media division, there is not much you can teach me there . None of the points you are making are relevant to my article. My article is not about history of music. But rather the fact that video is appearing to follow its footsteps in a narrow area relative to quality of distributed content. The proof point is perfectly there and explained in the article.


I hope present company is excluded .


Don't want to rat hole into there .


I do. But as I said, it is for another topic and discussion. For now, it is not possible to preserve the revenue model of studios by doing away with copy protection. They have built a business from sequential releases of the same movie. The movie comes out in theater, goes on PPV, then home video, then cable premium and then broadcast. No one sells software 8 times in a row and make money from it but that is what they do.

You can go further and consider the author who writes the story and gets printed in paperback and hardback making double income. It then gets converted to a script for a movie and the cash register rings again. So the history of making money multiple times from copyrighted material goes well beyond movies.


You must have a habit of telling your doctor that he must not have finished medical school. I ran a division at Microsoft. A division is one that is end to end from making the product to selling it. My marketing team alone had 40 people in it. But maybe you can teach me something I don't know. Hopefully that will come in the next post.


I am not into high-end music. I don't deal with distribution of music which is what the article is about: distribution of video. You seem to have missed the very purpose of the article.


Non-sense. Was the iPod free? Nope. It was one heck of an expensive device. The smaller version retailed for $400 and the "larger" 10 Gigabyte version $500. Millions of people bought them anyway. The iPhone competes with free phones yet it sells in huge volume. iPad sells for lots of money.

Consumers routinely pay for convenience. DVRs are another example. So are automatic transmission in cars. Air Conditioning. Jet flights, etc.


Apple products used copy protection for music for years. Didn't seem to hold them back. DVD has copy protection. Didn't stop it from making more money than theatrical release of the movie. Poorly done copy protection is poor. Poorly done software is poor too. So what?


I didn't miss that. From the article:

"One could say that Blu-ray is part of the problem as its higher retail pricing actually encourages more rentals as opposed to purchases. "

Studios opted for higher margin thinking this is a chance to up the margins that were being eroded by likes of Wal-Mart pushing prices down as loss leaders to get you into the store. If it were me, I would have priced it the same, give everyone the right to make a few copies, and see how well it did.