4K… I have Seen The Light - Page 2

Let's see now...

Sony still can't make an LCD display that lasts more than 3 or 4 years before LCD rupturing starts, causing permanent fogging in the display, and

Sony still can't make an LCD/LED display that doesn't feature that neat "flashlight effect" around the edges of the display, and...

now Sony wants us to believe that they can make a 4K display?

Those 4Ks probably looked great at the show, just like the new 1080p LCD and LCD/LEDs did.....

The sunflower pic looks GREAT! When the prices come way down....

This is better TV but if you want to see movies at their best it's still at the 4K theater. Their movies are on 500GB drives.

Working at a major shipping company I'm so glad most of the theaters here no longer ship those ragged metal film containers anymore, the hard drives come in a nice padded pelican clone case.

I hear what you're saying, and I haven't seen one in person, but it is unlikely that most consumers will have a TV in their home large enough to see the difference. And right now they couldn't see the difference if they wanted to because there is no 4000K content in the U.S. available for home usage. It's like when quad core Intel processors came out; sure it looked good on paper but it was a gimmick at that time because there was no software written to take advantage of four cores. Right now 4000K is a gimmick IMO. In five years we'll all probably be singing its tune and own one, even though we probably won't be able to see much difference on averaged sized screens (less than 75"). But like I said, I haven't seen one, so maybe there really is a noticeable difference and there is more to it than just the pixels.

Mind you I am not arguing the purpose of 4000K when it comes to projectors, only your averaged sized TV's (say 42-65 inches). And this only applies to the present.
Edited by Nuance - 9/7/12 at 1:52pm

$25,000 might seem like a lot of money (and it is), but I see it as an investment price. They aren't targeting the everyday audience with that price and they don't mean to. When the extremely wealthy purchase this TV, it'll pay for the research and development. Then the price can begin trickling down and their target audience will evolve.

Personally, I've been investing in a Blu-Ray library to replace my previous DVDs, which replaced my previous VHS'. I don't expect I'll be able to afford this or any other 4k TV in the next several years, so I'll be ok. Plus, if the up-conversion looks anything like the typical up-conversion from Standard DVD to 1080p, I'll be more than impressed and will likely keep my library for a good while longer. In any case, I'm looking forward to higher resolution. If you're familiar with standard def television programming compared to HD television @ 720p and again @ 1080p, then you can certainly tell the difference from one to the next. I'm sure that 4k will be noticeable and easier on the eyes.

I'll agree with whoever said it up there ^ - when my television can reproduce imagery that I can see looking outside my window, I'll finally be pleased. Until then, I welcome the improvement in tech. =] However, you can leave the 3D at home... can't stand the stuff.

But, projected image can be distorted in many ways reducing what used to be 4K (as a source) to lower resolution. That is not possible with a TV.
Am I right?

It wouldn't technically effect the resolution, but lighting could effect the colors/blacks, and I suppose dust could break up the image a bit. Nothing's perfect. Lighting can effect the colors/blacks on a regular television, as well.

By "resolution" I mean spatial resolution, not pixel resolution. I am sure there are many more ways spatial resolution can be reduced, color misalignment (convergence issues) is just one of the things I can think of right now.
Edited by Randomoneh - 9/7/12 at 2:20pm

Amazing! We're how many decades from the invention of 35mm film and we're just getting around to tasting a bit of what it's capable of... in the theater and at home.

Perhaps this will spur theater technology to get back to 70mm road-show quality and giant screens once more.

According to the specs Sony posted, this 84" set is an edge-lit set (which is probably why it got a "900" and not a "950" designation). Especially for such a large screen size, can anyone in the know comment on how you can possibly have even back-lighting on an edge-lit set of that size?

As for the price, it's an early adopter price. I remember walking into the now-defunct Harvey's Stereo on west 45th street in Manhattan when HDTVs first came in and marveling at the picture (which at that time was probably only 720p uprezed from a DVD) and the set was $15,000. Prices will come down rapidly over the next few years. The bigger question is where is the content going to come from. It's not the 4K source content doesn't exist, it's how is it going to be distributed if there's no physical format for it and the file sizes would be incredibly large for download or streaming purposes.

The Blu-ray market is still a very small market. We're running about 10% ahead of last year and 2011 full year came in at $2 billion (in the U.S.) A 4K physical market would be a tiny fraction of that for years to come.

Someone please get Battlefield 3 running on that sucker @ 4096x2160 STAT!!! 3 way SLI, you betcha!

Sorry, delete this message.

That's what I'm saying. Seems like most Sony TV's these days have been CRAP for quality. My parents' 46" Sony LCD crapped in less than 3 years. Now they have shiny new Samsungs in their living room and bedoom that look just stunning.

$25K for a TV that will probably turn to junk in less than 4 years.

As for the resolution, a new Macbook Pro with retina display gets you more than 50% of the 4K's resolution for less than 1/10 the price.

I've lusted for 4k since is was just a rumor.

3d on the other hand... never been interested.

There are a number of other things that would make an image look closer to looking out a window than increasing the resolution. One of the biggest ones is a higher frame-rate. Better black levels and shadow resolution would also make a big difference and OLED in theory should make a dramatic improvement with that.

Hope they change the name once it's introduce to the public, allot of people are going to look at you a little strange when you tell them dude I GOT HVD

But seriously some of those pics above look jaw dropping gorgeous, not to through a wrench but what happened to 8K I thought some manufacture were making screens at that resolution.

DJoel

That is how I'm looking at it. Current costs of these, and I'm sure the OLED we might see soon, are very high. Then again, I remember seeing 42" 5 figure Phillips plasmas that had horrible PQ and thinking whats the point. As others have said, if 4K takes off, economies of scale and amortized R&D will drive down costs significantly. So I don't see the current price really being too related to what consumers will pay if/when 4K goes mainstream.

The biggest reason I think 4K might be successful is that it is easy to market. Not everyone likes 3D, and it can give people headaches, PQ takes a hit in may cases, and the viewers need to wear goofy glasses. That is a hard sell. On the other hand, people rely on heuristics over reason in many cases, and 4K > 1080P, they don't have to wear/buy glasses, and people will easily convince themselves they can see (and need) a PQ difference.

As such, for the industry, it makes sense. With 4K comes new TV's/PJ's, 4K "compliant" cables, screens (see above comment on "seeings/needing"), and perhaps new BR players, plus re-releases of their existing catalog on new media and in a new format ("Citizen Kane, now available in stunning, digitally remastered 4K for the ultimate in picture quality!!!!") . The industry is having financial issues, and delivering goods with a higher margin for awhile is a natural way to address stagnating bottom lines.

Unfortunately we've been watching 35mm copies at the theater for years. It didn't seem any better than my HD set. I had stopped going to the theater. Now we are getting 4K transfers from the master film and 4K video cameras. What a difference! I saw "Step Up Revolution 3D" which was shot with Red 4K video cameras, looked better than "Black Knight Rises" in Imax to me.

I'll be happy when we can get this quality at home but the theater will probably be 8K by then. At least they won't be able to resell us old movies at 8K because 35mm masters are only 4K. Of course most people won't know that.
Edited by Bill - 9/7/12 at 3:20pm

They may be getting cheaper but they'll never be as dirt cheap as optical disks.

I'm sure it doesn't. Do you have a link saying any of it's productions (apart from Super Hi-Vision/UHDTV tests/demos with NHK - which were up to around 8K) have been at 4K?

And there's no studio set up for multi-camera (ie. being able to mix between them, eg. live) 4K (though they quite recently had a studio set up for 1080p50 (3G)) - though they don't record anything even in that (1080p50) yet I think.
Edited by Joe Bloggs - 9/7/12 at 3:28pm

I take 1080p OLED over 4K LCD any day.

I been using nothing but AMOLED phones for 4 years now and i would never go back to LCD,difference is phenominal.LCD cannot produce live vibrant colors like OLED can.

With my 1080p Epson 6500UB on a 130" screen I can see the screen door effect (from my seating position) even on 1080p content. I'd go for 4k even in the absence of 4k content just for the upconversion of normal BDs. Also, I bet passive 3D would be awesome on a 4k because you wouldn't suffer nearly as much from halving the resolution to provide dual images.

My next pj upgrade will be to 4k; doesn't make sense to get anything else... just means I'll have to hold off on upgrading my current one longer than I otherwise would (waiting for a decent 4k pj for under $5k).

Have you seen the Super LCD screen on the HTC One X? It is better than any AMOLED screen currently on the market.

The difference in adding the additional pixels is very evident even on small screens - look at the original IPad versus the Retina IPad for example. I have to think that adding twice as many pixels on any size sccreen has to make a noticeable difference at least in color depth, smoothness, etc

What he said times 10. If you watch a lot of television you know this because depending on your provider you are already upscaling all of the time. In my case my cable provider sends a best of 1080i and I am not even sure that is what is being supplied and rather not something else being rezzed up in the box. I do know it looks like crap a lot of times on my 120" screen using the projector, but hey on a 40" screen at 9+ feet who can see the garbage that is actually there?

What is the need for 4k when we cannot even get proper HD at present in a lot of broadcasts? Yep I am even talking about live sports broadcasting which tries to cheat at times but on a 120" screen is fully exposed. Now for movie watching in native 4k I am drooling over that prospect. Give me a bright enough LED or laser projector and a 150" screen at a reasonable price, and some content and I am on board.....in a few years. For now my projector does what I need it to and a lot of times I do not even use it because for TV viewing I get tired of the crappy signal so watch on the 60" TV where it is less annoying. Yes, it is very disappointing putting the game up on the big screen with company present and then see that crappy overhead cable cam shot on some networks that is clearly the problem as other cameras are as good as they should be. I get tired of explaining this to guests and more tired of seeing it. All I hear is it looks good on my TV which in most cases is too small to reveal the problem in the first place. Before anyone comments, I upscale all cable signals from the 1080i the box provides to 1080p with my AVR.

And, while 3D may seem like a gimmick to many here, I have found that it adds a lot to certain movies and totally ruins others. It has to be done right. I will always have a 3D capable display unless the format simply dries up. Avatar in 3D is much more engaging in 3D than 2D and I am not even particularly fond of that movie. Your mileage may vary but a 3D capable display also does 2D just fine.

Skyfall is shot in 2K with Arri Alexa, so that trailer must have been up-converted too, whatever the Sony guys at Cedia said.

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)/H.265 is 50% more effective than H.264. 4K raw material can also be compressed much more than 2K with less loss of quality.
The aim is to have 4K running at 20-25Mbs for HT material. A 4K movie fits fine on a 50GB BD disc with the new color space standard for UHD. But you won't see 4K BD the first couple of years at least.
RED has their own RedRay codec that run at same bitrates for 4K at 10bit colorspace.

BBC shoot a lot with RED cameras at 4K and 5K, particularly Nature docs. How much they edit and render out in 4K is unknown.

What happens when a 4K TV plays a current Blu Ray? Is it essentially a line doubler ? Or does the picture look crappy?

Lifetime is huge problem. Apparently blue degrades faster than red and green.
That's probably the main reason we haven't been flooded with AMOLED TVs.