Predictions for 2013 4K projectors - Page 12

Streaming for sure and to an extent, downloading due to cap costs. Downloaded 4K content will quickly hit the cap and become cost prohibitive. 4K needs to be available for the masses that will eventually be buying 4K displays over the next two years as prices come down. Regardless of the perceived resolution benefit, J6P will be buying UHD displays because that's what will be selling in Costco. And they're going to want to pop in an optical disk. That's the only model that will work for the masses.

Perhaps ultra hi-def streaming will work for Generation X once 8K broadcast and improved bandwidth to the home is a reality. Before then, it has to be optical platters or it's not going to fly in the US. I'm not talking about what folks buy to watch now on their $20+K projector. These folks will watch anything at this point to get true 4K. Their best bet while waiting for some server is to build an HTPC.

That is Scott Stevens. I can't skate worth a damn.

Let us consider a 4k download service. While not the most demanding case the vast majority of movies are 2D at 24Hz. With a high efficiency compression scheme (perhaps HEVC as per h.265 or even something more efficient) it should be possible to get a 4K UHD movie down to 50 GB probably with 10-bit, and maybe even 12-bit color depth. If you have an internet service that can provide an average download throughput of 10 Mbps it can transfer 1.25 MBps or 1 GB in 800 seconds (13.33 minutes). For a 50 GB movie file that would take over 11 hours. However there are many people located in areas where the only "high speed" internet access is DSL from their phone company and in many cases they may be limited to somewhere between 750Kbps and 3 Mbps. In that case the download time would be measured not in hours, but in days and 4K downloads would be rather impractical in that case. I would speculate that such 4K download service would require a download througput something greater than 5 Mbps for it to be considered practical, and that assumes you only want to occassionally download a 4K movie. Without a physical media for the distribution of 4K UHD movies there will be many potential customers that will not have have a practical means of access to such 4K content.
Edited by Ron Jones - 3/3/13 at 12:36pm

Ron, that's a good point. The 100GB file size number that's been thrown around in headlines is almost certainly for 3D. There's just no way you need 100GB for a 2D movie so 50GB is going to be the majority case.

Yes, this will be totally impractical for people with DSL, but there are plenty of folks with 10Mbps+ cable or even fiber. I don't think Sony cares that not everyone will be able to use the service. It's clearly a halo product for the primary purpose of inducing drool and demonstrating technical superiority over competitors, which has trickle down benefits for the downmarket products in their lineup.

I believe YouTube already will push you up to 4K video if you ask for it. Just choose Original in the resolution settings, and you'll get whatever resolution the uploader used (assuming it is higher than 1080).

I agree there are many people with download speeds of greater than 10 Mbps, but there also many that do not to access to such services. I guess my main point is that industry standardized physical media as well as commercial download services, (along with moderately priced UHD TVs) are needed in order to get the acceptance needed for the success of the 4K UHD format within the next few years.

Ok let's agree to agree then.

Sadly I don't see any real progress being made in the last mile problem for a large percentage of America, at least if you're talking about hardwired. 4G/LTE may be a 10Mbps+ solution for some with no other options, but the cellular carriers will never let bandwidth caps high enough to even dream of downloading 4K content. Optical discs will continue to be necessary for a long time.

Agree - the last I checked Verizon wanted $300+ per month for a 50GB 4G download limit. I think most would rather spend $30+ for a UHD disc than ten times that amount for a single 4K movie via wireless download.

Agree. My cell cap at 1GB data limit per month. I have to resort to buying Bluray Disc because downloading movie is impossible for me.

In Canada we just got unlimited for a extra 10$ a month, don't know how long it will last but its there at least for now.

It is still early and there is lots of talks on how people will get the 4k in home, one thing floating around is a preloaded secure usb stick.

We previously discussed the potential for a 4K UHD blu-ray using quad layer discs. I just noticed that tiger direct currently has a LG WH14NS40 blu-ray burner (internal drive) on sale for $59 that has support for BD-XL quad layer discs. It appears that support for 4 layer discs is now becoming a standard capability for BD drives/burners and its not much of a reach to speculate that the new PS4, not due out until late 2013, will include a BD rom drive that can read quad layer discs. This would be just one hardware capability that might eventually enable the PS4 to support playback of future Blu-ray 4K discs (if they do come to market).

I think it has also been mentioned that more than 2 layers will likely be for R/W formats. I don't think it is that economically feasible to produce triple or quad layer ROM formats. The R/W formats will take far too long to write to ever become mainstream delivery media for movies. Same with flash or hologram. That doesn't mean I don't think some kiosk idea where you insert your own media couldn't be done, but I really don't see that happening either. Lots of hurdles to overcome.

What I think might be more likely is increasing the capacity of each layer in a dual layer format. There are already 33G/layer drives and triple layer R/W media out there. That would make for a 66G dual layer disk. With h265 I think very good quality, long 4k movies could be delivered.

I do kind of agree with Mark on one thing though. Other than Sony, I don't know if there is much willpower from the studios for any 4k delivery format other than download. Many TV series get the first season delivered on BD, then the other seasons go missing, presumably because sales of season 1 were so poor. But I could download decent quality HD episodes from itunes or vudu or netflix. At a cost of something like $3-4 each episode? That gets $60 out of your pocket for a 20 episode season. They are probably happy with that. Very little effort on their part. No huge investment to create a bunch of disks that don't move from the shelves. Either it sells and they collect, or it doesn't and cost them nearly nothing. So I for one think that 4k delivery may not happen in nearly the quantities that I'd like. But 4k download might happen and become the new norm.

Look at the bright side. With 4k download you probably won't have to look at forced previews, interpol or fbi warnings. Or the SOB's will ruin that also and force you to watch some dumb@$$ commercials before you can view your movie/tv show.

Mah DAY is made.

At long last, somebody has agreed with me albeitly only on one thing. But I gotta start somewhere. Life is good.

Read this guys: http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21572921-home-entertainment-new-television-standard-called-ultra-hd-four-times-sharper

The guy doesn't sound like he knows what he's taking about. He makes it sound as if you can only release movies in 4k if they were shot digitally on a RED or some other digital camera. The last few years most films (shot on film) have at least a 4k master created when the film went through a telecine process. There are a lot more than a "handful" of films that can be released today if there was a 4k format standard and thousands more that can be converted to digital. There are many films that probably won't be released on 4k. Older dated film may have an issue with showing 4k detail and thus wouldn't warrant a 4k release. Studios will probably release them anyways to make money.

many older films have 6-12k masters done already. godfather unfortunatly was so damaged it was only able to be saved in 6k i think though.

Film has been scanned at 3-5k resolutions for a long time now. Since before BluRays. 3-5k is the range of detail that can be pulled from 35mm film (70mm and specialty film, like Kodak Super-X b&w have more detail). That is one of the best reasons to get to 4K quickly. People can buy their movie collection again because a hundred years of film, outside of the few shot on 70mm or iMAX, will never ever get any sharper. It is a resolution plateau. We already have Master audio, this will effectively be Master video. Sure 8k and higher cameras will be able to get past that in the future, but everyone's favorite films won't ever get sharper. In addition, 4K is about the largest image for comfortable viewing. Being able to see 8k details require a 100 degree field of view, which might be okay for some people for theater events but is horrible for home. 4k can be seen at full sharpness with a 50 degree field of view, which is pretty big, but still workable in the home.

The "Master Audio" isn't exactly what you think. It's bit for bit identical to mix made for the BD. That doesn't always mean that its the same as what you heard in theaters. I don't know the specifics but I hope the mixes and quality aren't that different. An example where it's different in theaters would be the recent release of The Hobbit, which was mixed for Dolby Atmos but we're "only" seeing 7.1 on BD. I quoted only because most people don't take advantage of 6 channels let alone 8, but I'm just trying prove a point even though it's a bit ridiculous.

Well, as some people predicted, here is JVC's 8k e-shift projector

http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/21/jvc-8k-e-shift-projector-launch/

Shame its $260k...

Nonsense. There are practically no films with a 6K master, much less an 8K or 12K master. The standard is 2K and over 95% of all films with a DI the last couple of years have been done in 2K. The rest are 4K (mostly some high profile new releases and some restorations of classic films). 6K or 8K or 12K are scanning options. 6K is for 35mm with a 4K finish, 8K is for 65mm scanning, and 12K is for IMAX segments. 8K is also UHDTV material from digital cameras in the Japanese prototype system. Godfather was a 4K restoration.

So for fun at work today, at break we were talking about 4K and blu-ray etc. I'm really the only one thats a techy and I was asking if people would DL even 50 gigs to watch a 4K movie. Not 1 person out of 30 would. Pretty much everyone has netflix or similar as well. For an everyday customer, its just not going to fly as the only way to get your media. Regular people want nothing to do with it, especially with the general internet speeds we have. It would take a crazy amount of time for most people to dL a movie. They need discs, at least until a way pops up that will satisfy the masses that takes into account that we have crap internet speeds and garbage caps (well I don't but most people do)

Agree 100%.......DL only model is not going to fly on its own as yet....will need physical media to suppliment it till DL speeds are 'acceptable' less than 15min for a 100gig file IMO....

Movie studios and ISPs' will need to get into bed together and nut out the details....no caps if the movie is being paid for.

We're going to need to bring back movie rental stores. Am I the ony guy who misses them?

I am sure a SOPA-esque subscription model will eventually be put forward for high bandwidth content like 4K and cloud gaming. So you'll get your 4K movies but no illegal downloads.

The 50" Seiki model SE50UY04 LCD/LED flat panel 4K UHD TV can now be ordered from the NBC Store for well under $1500 and this is surely the least expensive 4K Ultra HD TV so far (by a wide margin). At 50" it really too small to benefit from the 4K resolution, but it could a great combo super high-rez computer monitor and TV. The NBC Store link is HERE.
Edited by Ron Jones - 4/1/13 at 4:25pm

Great for computers at that size to vesa mount. Specs say only up to 30hz on HDMI so poor gaming??? Can VGA handle full resolution at high Hz? May have to wait for end of year when they start selling these with display port or something. When is next standard of HDMI due out? Can you link 2 HDMI for good gaming speed.

Correct that HDMI 1.4b only supports 4K at 24 Hz and 30 Hz due to its bandwidth limitation. The soon-to-be-completed HDMI 2.0 standard will support 4K at 60 Hz. HDMI 2.0 has total bandwidth close to that of a displayport ver. 1.3 interface (i..e., preliminary info is HDMI 2.0 supports data rates up to 18 Gbps). All current 4K UHD TVs have the same 30Hz limitation for 4K video becauese of the limitations of HDMI 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 interfaces are not expected to show up on new UHD TVs until next year..

You guys are really optimistic (or pessimistic, depending on POV). Do you really think 4K online is going to be provided at bitrates requiring 50-100GB?

Remember Vudu HDX is about 10Mbps, Netflix 1080p is less than that I think (7.5Mbps?). That's only 9GB for 120minutes. HEVC is supposed to be twice as efficient, so with 4x the pixels that would only be up to 18GB for a movie.

But even at that, some people have demo'd 4K 60p at 10Mbps with HEVC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lXY8Szhz42M

I think if you're expecting 100GB 4k downloads you're incredibly optimistic (expecting super-great quality), or pessimistic (thinking HD can't be squeezed much).

I wouldn't be surprised to see a HEVC/H.265 based 4k service at 20Mbps or less, maybe from Netflix/Vudu/etc. Actually it would be a natural extension for Netflix and it's SuperHD/Open Connect scheme, or Vudu to keep their position as "best" downloaded quality.

Stranger, I completely agree. Unfortunately (for some) discs are still the only cheap option. I'm sure manufacturer's realize this and will come up with a solution to make it work. These companies stay running based on how much profit they can make. If discs are going to be cheaper that IS the option they will go with. I'm fine with discs because it will bring us higher quality material.

Red has already demonstrated pristine 4K quality at 20mbps with their proprietary compression technology. I'm not arguing that their 4K systems will prevail, just that high quality 4K is possible at half the current Blu-ray data rate.

That was probably on RED footage only. If you were to take something that has actual film grain and try to encode it under the same settings it would need a substantially larger bitrate to stay as close to transparent as possible . On clean content (ie RED and other digitally shot content) 20mbps may be adequate, but with almost anything older than 5-6 years you're going to need a lot more bitrate to make it look like it should.