Sound Off: 4K (2160P) or whatever you care to call it, do we need it? - Page 9

Yes you are right, I was going to say the same thing.

A standard def tv will look closer to hd the farther away from it you get.

^ yeah toknowshita, don't doubt for a second that some won't have an easy time getting one in- if they can at all, period- but if not, the chances are slim that they likely have the space for a screen that large to begin with.

as for me owning one anytime soon, I hope to have such problems.

James

The day they managed to manufacture printable OLED on flexible plastic is the day projectors will die, both in HT and Cinemas.
The same day we will see that measuring resolution for displays will be meaningless because it will all be about DPI and all displays will have the same DPI, somewhere between 300 and 500 DPI regardless of size.

I'm still interested to learn what else comes with the "flexibility" of future screens.

Rolling up screens for easy transportation/installation? Sounds great, just what happens to the same material when you need to display it, flat...and even more imperatively, uniform?

I know what laminated posters and other materials look like, once unrolled and mounted...never anywhere near as aesthetically appealing as their non-rolled counterparts...no matter how much care is taken or the methodology applied to counteract it. Heck, even some of the best home movie screens lack fantastic uniformity and that's much easier to correct, top to bottom, then left to right some dozen+ feet.

Oh wait, by that time we'll have embraced curved (and even more so, irregularly curved) screens...much more "IMAX" and "life-like" that way.

We'll see.

James
Edited by mastermaybe - 1/10/13 at 9:05am

The flexible roll up OLED screen is going to be what the flat panel wall hanging TV was to consumers in the 70s, 80s and 90s. A promise that wouldn't be delivered for a long time. Even there are other logistics like how is it powered, how does it get its signal(wireless?), durability, cost, ect.

The big issue is going to be power or are we going to have flexible rechargeable cells also? I'm sure the screen can be done in a lab. The big question is if it can be translated to mass production.

I have a 104 inch projector screen and in theory would much rather deal with a large TV than a projector.
However, 100 inch TV is difficult to transport (will it even fit through my HT room door, I am not sure).

Don't know about "we" but I do not.

Indeed. You need a trained crew. NOT a DIY for sure.

OK- 2012 CES>>>> 3D---- in our Homes? #103

Ok- 2013 CES>>>>4k ---- in our Homes? >> 7

Ok- 2014 CES >>>> ???????? -2

Yes we need 4K hell even 8K is fine, the reason is simple clear is better its only up until we come near our human eye limitation should we stop upping the resolution. As a rule more resolution will enable pixel reductions and so the cycle will continue right now my 55inch tv shows 1080p without the clearness than my 24inch dell does the reason is 1080p.

But that's the point. With 1080p we are "near our human eye limitation" depending on the angle of view. It's all about the geometry of your viewing situation.

It depends on how far you are from the TV and the angle. Hell even the type of tech used is important IPS panels make the images appear better than a VA solution. These requirements need to be taken care off by using higher resolution images will not pixelate if you come closer to the TV by X inch's. Another problem is angles IPS are great but they have problems and so does my big arse VA that can be taken care of by OLED.

All in all a 4K OLED TV will be the best of both world, children can play their games close to the TV, we can watch movies from a far and both parties can still enjoy the crisp picture that comes along.

I am always excited about the new direction technology is taking. I am one of the few who seems to love 3D (glasses or not). I can't afford to buy a new TV every time some new feature comes out, but after a few years, and the new features mature and accumulate, it becomes more tempting and justifiable.

With my new 60ST50, I will likely hold out next for an OLED display at 4K and whatever other goodies are available by then.

Personally, I would also like to see more expensive TV's come out again, with real money in the components and R&D (rather than just margin), and less cost-cutting (such as Panny eliminating RS-232).

I also don't care for the term 4K as it comes off to me as deceptive. Suddenly calling it by the horizontal resolution rather than the vertical resolution because it's a bigger #. If anything it's 2K.

Yeah... I hear what you're saying. But we do quote screen size as width, so maybe they're just getting it all aligned measurement-wise. I don't say I have a 67.5" tall screen. I say I have a 120" wide screen.

I heard that at around 16K res, human eyes cannot tell if the image is real or not. Imagine look at your TV is like look out the window---it is so real that you can no longer tell it is just image/video on TV.
I can only hope we can reach that point faster, like with in 7 years or so.

As CES 2013 shows, 1080p is soon going to be relegated to phone screens only. Tablets, laptops, computer monitors of any size and all tv's will be 4k2k, and sooner rather than later.
And that is so because at realistic viewing distances for all those displays, the great majority of people will be able to clearly tell the difference.

I think the big player in the 4K update is the movie business it will be a long time for the internet bandwidth to get to the point it can stream 4K programming ( I have very fast internet now but still get buffering issues with some web sites. Also the lack of really good audio formats is a problem.) and we cant even get good picture quality now from cable. So the only way to get good 4K sources will be to keep buying new physical media.

Even if resolution is conquered, you would still need superior contrast, a greatly expanded color gamut, and stereoscopic 3D for the image to look real. These are just basic elements of our vision that can't be substituted.

Ok- 2014 CES >>>> 8k

except it's still 2013 and it's being shown now

Yup, there is a lot of truth to this. Convenience seems to be taking precedent over pure quality, the best example of this is mp3's pushing out cd's. Its pretty awesome just to sit back and pull up whatever movie you want from Amazon.

And gamma, don't forget gamma. A non-matching gamma can make things look pretty flat.

And what Hz rate does frames become linear enough to the eye/brain that it becomes 'real'? 24 fps panning still is annoying with the blurring. Maybe they top out the resolution and begin working on higher density of fps. 30/60/120/240 Hz and you still have blurring on fast motion. Plasma's 600Hz doesn't address the issue of source material either. This is mirroring the old computer gaming path but it adds up to a more life-like video experience. Compression loss of super fine details of surface lighting is another aspect that will probably be an issue for some time as well.

That's was my point earlier. 1080p is essentially what used in film industry referred to a 2K. It was slightly different due to the aspect ratio, 1.78:1(1080p) vs. 1.85:1, but there are very close in the number of pixels 2M.

2K worked in the Digital Cinemas as long as you sat farther from the screen, but I would tend to agree that 4K and even 8K are needed for large commercial cinemas where the screens are measured in feet, not inches.

The reality is even with the HT enthusiast market those with ginormous screens and extremely close viewing distances make up probably less than 0.001% of the installed displays.

To those that are dying for 4K at any cost:
Go ahead believe the hype if you want. You may end up rueing the day that physical discs went away when you are paying $20/viewing period... not a one time fee but the studios are going to be wired right into your checkbook for everything you want to watch.
Edited by Toknowshita - 1/11/13 at 1:16pm

Great points. What's curious to me is that some people want higher resolutions but not things like 3D or 48 fps. They want the image to look more real in some ways but not in others.

I can't speak for "we" but I don't and won't need it. At the moment, while I live in an apartment, my 46" is plenty. I sit 8 feet away, which I feel is optimal. I will never see a difference on a 46". When I move into a house, the largest I can see myself upgrading to is 60". Even still, I can't imagine seeing a difference. It's like a 22" TV that is 1080p, just ridiculous.

It would have to be a very large display for 4K to be noticeable.

In my opinion, any speculation about whether effectively quadrupling the amount of visual information standard display technology outputs is useless or not is quite silly. This increase in pixel density is not only inevitable, but will become standard faster than previous resolution jumps have taken place. To argue against 2160p technology development (and consequentially, adoption) is to severely lack foresight and/or to not have been paying attention to the past evolution of display resolution increases. The simple fact of the matter is that there are a huge amount use cases for display technologies being far more useful and more detailed due to the 4x (and later, 16x with 4320p) visual information increase. I know there are large amounts of HT enthusiasts here, but as we go into the future, display devices will be used increasinly more for simply playing back pre-recorded (or -rendered or -animated, etc.) video content, to the point where eventually 'dumb' display devices without entire SoCs inside them running a fairly modern and capable operating system will be niche products. Even though 2160p film and TV content will in time be produced and then become the standard, the lack of said content right now in no way makes me snub my nose at the idea of 2160p, *especially* as I am MORE of a heavy user of computers to perform a multitude of tasks than I am a film/tv consumer.


I currently use a 2560x1440 panel that I sit ~55cm (~2 feet) from, and I have a 1080p projector with a +100" screen size hooked up to the same computer. Before this, I had a 1920x1200 panel and a 720p projector. In both cases, when I upgraded the resolution, it was very noticeable and gave me much more room to display visual information on the screen and improved my workflow in multimedia editing applications. There is every reason why jumping to 2160p will be beneficial to those of us who attach display devices to our computers, be they in the flavour of PCs, game consoles, or tablets/smartphones that can wirelessly stream 1080p (and soon, 2160p) via Miracast.

For those that think of their displays in terms of simple playback devices for centralised broadcast video or polycarbonate discs, then yes, maybe staying with 1080p makes sense for the forseeable future. However, even if I had a 2160p display right now, I still couldn't display or edit the photos produced by my DSLR at 100% view without scrolling off the screen!! Or any of the fullscreen applications that I use in which I can select the output resolution of, from video games to rendering software, or perhaps being able to edit 1080p video without having the project preview be downscaled at all, or tiling multiple windows next to each other to improve my workflow... I could go on, but there are many reasons why more visual information than 1080p can be useful. Not to mention, I am absolutely sure that any informed projector owners here with decent screen sizes know that getting 4 times visual informations on their walls is going to be incredibly sexy. On a related note, video mappers will have much more creative license in their craft, if the total available pixel grid to be projected is increased by *any* amount beyond the current 1080p standard.



In ten years, when most of the members of this forum have ≥2160p in our pockets which can wirelessly beam the full resolution to both 2160p displays natively and upscaled on 4320p displays (which at that point will have ceased to be simple video output devices themselves anymore, but IP-connected computers in and of themselves), the idea of clinging on to 1080p will seem downright silly.
Edited by almalsamo - 1/12/13 at 9:09am

As a fan of technology, I'm all for 4k. I don't see many of the dominant content providers accommodating such a resolution for years, nor do I see the service providers delivering the infrastructure needed to support the increased bandwidth requirements. 1080p content is still practically non-existent unless you're watching a Blu-ray (I realize that there's also a number of video sites, including YouTube, that offer some amount of 1080p+ content, but I'm referring more to the major media outlets). If nothing else, maybe having 4k panels in the market will motivate the content and service providers to step up.

Hopefully I am not offending anyone with my thoughts here -


We already see that not all transfers to Blu Ray are created equal. Just like DVD there are good transfers and bad. Why bother with more resolution when the greedy studios can't even provide consistency with the Blu Ray media? Can you fathom the idea of getting a superb 1080p tranfer and then getting mediocre 4k that will more likely be noticeable on lack of quality? We will all be subject to that until the consumer roars enough to make the studios listen.

Did 3D really take off - yes and no. I for one prefer 2D but respect those that enjoy 3D and that too, is hit and miss and not consistent. Again, we are still subject to the whims of the makers who don't offer any real consistency nor guarantee of minimal quality. Why move forward with yet another hit and miss venue?

Do we really get consistent quality 1080i or 1080p via Sat or cable - NO. Even with newer compression schemes 4k will also be subject to the lack of consistency.

I guess my point is that I would welcome 4k if there was media consistency or at least a guaranteed level of quality. How many years have we all struggled with DVD and Blu Ray quality? We continue to do so plus the ever despised practice of double and triple dipping done by the studios.

When the studios put out decent blu ray transfers and we watch on a very good screen, it is wonderful. The studios and TV makers want us to settle for mediocrity at a high price and now enter into a new gimmick which is exactly what it is UNTIL they can be forced to provide a higher standard in media for sale.

I agree that 4K is not needed. Even on a large projection screen you're unlikely to see much difference.

Something else to consider is by upgrading to unnecessary high resolution, just because we can, will carry consequences in other areas. Like in bandwidth - some people barely can stream HD from Netflix and other services as it is. Quadruple the res and you can see this could become even more of a problem.

It took us so long to finally GET to HD; can't we simply enjoy it for a while?

If people just imagine what 4k. 2160p looks like on a 55" or 65" then they they really can't be sure if they benefit. If they actually see a 4k TV and still don't see the difference, thenI I'd recommend they go get their eyes examined and prepare for an Rx set of glasses.

There are distinct quality differences one can see on a 55" 4k whether it is OLED or just LED. They OLED adds color intensity and depth, the LED just adds detail and sharpness without edge enhancement.

Obviously the larger the screen size the more noticeable the advantages but I can see the distinct advantages of each of the upgrades. 4K OLED is the best of the best right now as shown at CES. This is only developed now to a 56" screen size. LG Is offering only 1080p OLED now. So, we all have plenty of options in the coming months to decide.

Now, do we need 8k? I've seen a few of these in 100" size and really, I'm not convinced that is needed for the ome unless your screen size is greater than 170" width. Few of us will sit that close to a 100" that will display the advantage.

If you are used to sitting 2-3 times screen height in your room, then maybe you will never see an advantage to 4K. Save your money. Instead, you might find OLED at 1080 p a better investment.