Sound Off: 4K (2160P) or whatever you care to call it, do we need it? - Page 11

What about converting film to 4k? Is the grain size of film less than a 4k equivalent? Surely a lot of films have been and continue to be shot on film. Then a 4k transfer has to be done, but the information is recorded and available for that. Both previous posts make it sound like 4k will never happen for a particular shoot unless a 4k digital camera is used. Again, what about just plain old film as an intermediate media? especially 65 and 70 mm.

Sharp's 8K display is getting rave reviews. The company is struggling -- I think it would be cool if this 8K Hail Mary pulled them back from the brink.
As far as longing for sharper/better images rather than focusing on the story being told on the screen, well, I must disagree. Taken to its extreme,
we should all be reading scripts and novels and skipping the video step all together.

Personally I enjoy watching my old favorites as they emerge in the new hi-rez format du jour. It makes for a different and better experience, even when
a make-up job or set worked OK at 480i but just falls apart in 1080p. Special effects undergo a even a more painful upconversion on older movies.

Do we need any of this? No.

We do need air, shelter, food, water -- and that's about it. Take one of those away and life falls apart. Those things we need.

I've heard people say we don't need color TV, don't need screens above 19", don't need Betamax or VHS or cable or satellite or DVD and certainly not Blu Ray, surround sound,
HD and God Forbid projectors and theater rooms. And they are right within a rigid narrow framework. Another way to describe a rigid narrow framework is a cage, and I think
that is good place to keep people like that. But we don't have to, they do it to themselves.

4K -- bring it, 8K -- bring it, too, the sooner the better.

Just from experience with my 27" monitor going from 1080P to 4K makes a enormous difference. 1080P 27 inch hurt my eyes, but 4K is awesome. I have 2 of them and would definitely upgrade a large tv or projector. However 3D is a no go for me. My wife and I saw the Hobbit in 3D yesterday and we also saw Avatar in 3D. We both agreed we would never go to another movie in 3D, we just didn't care for it.

First it was 4K now its 8K. Can someone tell me what the heck happened to OLED? That was supposed to be the next big thing............now its 4K and mention of 8K. Will the manufacturers please settle on a format and just leave it at that? Nope they are gonna flood the market with different formats and confuse the hell out of people to the point of where the regular joe out there aint gonna buy anything and just stick with their old, out of date tube tv or just stick with the HDTV they already have. What the heck happened to Sony's Crystal LED that they were working on? No mention of it at all. To much to soon if you ask me.

But you sit pretty close to that monitor, right? How far away do you think you are? I sit 18" or so from mine.

1080P and 2160P can both be made with OLED. Nothing to do with it, really. And there are 55" OLED TVs imminent (next couple of months I believe).
Edited by pdoherty972 - 1/18/13 at 11:52am

I'm with Steve, what happened to Crystal LED? I'm not making any more format jumps until I see a standard and products on the shelf, or on the web, or through the air. Besides, my current set-up is not made for 4K. In the future, I may get a 4K projector and screen, but for the next 12-18 months, I'm set.

I'm set as well John....now and for the forseeable future. When they have decided on what format they are going with and sticking to it whether it be OLED, 4K or 8K then maybe I will take the plunge. But right now I am set and I am gonna stay that way.

There are many ways that theaters can mess up 3D projection -- they are getting better, but I've seen some awful presentations of excellent material. That's why I like to watch 3D at home -- 130" screen, really good surround sound -- mindful adjustment. The folks I've known who just can't process 3D often have one eye much more dominant than the other -- nothing to be done about that. I'm rewatching my Blu Ray 3D collection since upgrading to an Oppo 103 -- really fine images, very immersive experience.

My thought is to keep an open mind toward 3D -- it can be very good.

From the articles I've read, Samsung and LG have all but abandoned OLED "for now" until they can figure out how to economically make large OLED panels. There is a 90% failure rate in production currently. As others have said, there are a few OLED's coming out this year at outrageous prices, but for the most part manufacturers are trying to make 4K the next big thing. And that's only because of the production problems with OLED.

How old are your sources? These are current.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/02/lg-oled-samsung_n_2394233.html

http://www.oled-info.com/tags/companies/lg

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/01/02/lg-beats-samsung-in-oled-tv-race/

Late December:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/17/screen_makers_lose_confidence_in_amoled_tv_tech/

Well then I'll be even more impressed when I watch it remastered to 4K down the road in my HT. .

Thanks for the link. There were some other links that also interested me in that article. While I dont doubt the trouble report, personally, I'm more concerned with a visual flaw in the OLED sets that do work. The excessive glare on the screen to me is distracting. I hope they work on that too. I'd like to see LCD/LED 65" 4k passives get down to $3000 and I'll pull the trigger on it. Later, I may get a smaller 32" OLED for the edit room but I can wait for that.

I don't have the link anymore, but another major problem I read about is the fact that the blue oled degrade much faster than the red or green. This causes a color imbalance as time passes. The article said there was no indication or information that they had solved this problem on these prototypes being shown at CES. I personally hope they solve the OLED problems because I am much more interested in OLED than 4K.

Yes, I recall Joe Kane mentioning something about the Blue degradation and color imbalance too. Hopefully, by the time I'm ready for a small 32" screen size OLED these problems will be resolved. In the meantime, I'll be ready for a 4K LED 65" this summer. May not happen,however, if the price isn't meeting what I want to pay. I can wait.

I bought a Sony 4K 1000es last summer and have been blown away by the extra detail and quality that it brings to already excellent 1080p blu rays.
I normally project onto a 92inch 1.0 gain screen(already small by other high end users) but I experimented this weekend past by creating my own customized 2.35 screen which is just 37inches in width.
I was curious to see if I could still see the difference between 1080p and 4k.

For the comparison i pulled out my trusty Panasonic AE2000(an excellent LED full 1080p projector).

Amazingly the Sony 4K blew away the Panny even on such a small screen---so much so I will continue watching 4k this way for sometime to come.
What you lose in immersion (by having a larger screen) you gain in perception(by being able to comprehend the entire width of the image).

I honestly do not understand this. I have 20/20 vision and could not see any real difference on an 84" Sony 4K screen at about 8 feet away. In fact, I was confused when I first walked in to the store to view this new 4K technology because I thought they were running a standard 1080p blu ray demo. How are some people saying they see an amazing difference in even a 37" screen while others (like me) say you have to get very close to tell? Even in the Sony advertisement, it tells you to "get very close to see the amazing difference".

EDIT: I did check on that Houston store and they were running 4K uncompressed, not an upconversion.
Edited by kdog750 - 1/21/13 at 11:17am

This chart seems to coincide very closely to what I was seeing in the Sony store. I think the people reporting huge differences outside of this range either have extraordinary visual acuity or are a victim of some placebo effect.


Edited by kdog750 - 1/21/13 at 11:41am

Not surprising at all. I'm not sure how much the resolution had to do with "blowing the Panny away". I suspect a Sony 95 would also blow the Panny away.

While that chart is in large part very correct when comparing HD sources, I can safely say ALL of us could tell the difference between 480p and HD from 15 feet even on a 27" screen. I think they need to adjust the distances just a bit to really hit that beginning threshold(s).

I agree! On my FP with 110" diag screen the difference I see at viewing distance of 15-18 ft is obvious with 1080p vs an older Dwin 720P.

When we add the 65" 4k panel, we do plan to sit about 10ft distance on that but that is more for the sweet spot of 11.1 sound stage. 10 ft puts us in the center of a 20 ft long room.

Yes I will by it when they really bring 4K content or better yet 8K on a 10 fet wide screen yumi :)

Yeah, Panasonics are a bit on the blurry side, if you compare them to a Sony or JVC DILA/LCOS projectors you will see a noticeably sharper picture.

Well having AB'd the Panasonic AE2000 to the Sony 4K at various screen sizes I can definitely testify to the fact that the Panny is not blurry---it holds its own to the Sony .
Sharpness is not the only deciding factor.
Sometimes the Sony is so sharp that it can be to the detriment of the material(especially older films which had composite optical effects)
Older movies shot on grainy film stock(Godfather,Taxi Driver ,Close Encounters,The Deep---some of the films in my collection) actually have some scenes that suffer when projected on The Sony.Films which feature scenes that have transitions from original negative to dupe negatives through wipes/dissolves ect ect exhibit noticable increases in grain density(not digital artifacts!) and contrast abberations.Sometimes this effect is jarring and a distraction.
This is not the fault of the Sony---it is merely accentuating the limitations of the anomalies inherent in the process of the analogue/photochemical film format.
The Panny handles this material much better by virtue of having a softer image.Sometimes less is more.
The Panny also has excellent colour gradation which is more than a match for the Sony.

I think it is important to retain a perspective.
1080p is a beautiful format.
4K is just an enhanced version of something that is already excellent.

It is not the same as the transition from an antiquated and limiting format like VHS to standard def DVD.

Having been so surprised about the step between DVD and BD on my new large screen, I can definitely imagine that 4K will be a visible upgrade when I go for a wall-to-wall size screen. So UHD 4K high-framerate 3d with a larger color gamut, pleeeeeease!!!

One of my wish list items for 4K is to be able to view 1080p 3D content on an FPR screen at full 1080P display. This is possible with the 4K or 2160P FPR screens. Having now seen this, I'm a buyer. Just get me the right purchase price. 4K native content is less important to me so I agree the 4K move is just making a really good resolution of 1080p a little bit better.

Virtual 4K, 8K, 12K

The increase in resolution may have less to do with what we see on our screens than with the capabilities that higher resolutions offer.

I imagine our local Bronco Stadium, home of Boise State, to have four cameras, one on each sideline and end-zone. No cameramen/persons roaming the sidelines panning for content and adjusting focus. A high resolution camera of 8K or 12K with an appropriate lens would send the image to a truck outside the stadium, or even back to Bristol, Connecticut or other site where the technicians would enlarge several images from one camera and track a play or player for the director to select.

Better yet, the image could be manipulated on the home screen to focus on a handoff, specific receiver, defensive player or whoever the viewer wants to track. With four cameras the feed to the home would be controlled by the net work, but in time, the home-viewer might even have access to all four cameras.

Higher resolutions in sports programming will be the/a driving force in this programming.

The title of the post –virtual 4K, 8K, 12K – is from a concept that may have not been explored but has been of interest to me.
I
In any view from the human eye, only a small tunnel seems to offer high resolution. If we stare at an image that in the center of our view is hi-def, and the resolution rapidly falls off on a circular plane. Looking at a hi-def TV, the image we are looking at is hi-def, but the fringes are very lo-res. It may be possible in a few years to send an image to a viewer that only gives hi-def to the “sweet” spot of the eye but lower resolution outside of that area. Image a TV screen with 24 hexagons. If looking at a central hex the screen displayed 4K or higher resolution then the rest of the screen could display as low as the old SD or even lower resolution. The screen would have to have a monitor device to track the viewer’s eye to determine where they are focused, but the technology may not be far off as is any technology today. A hi-def TV may ultimately require only a quarter of the band-width now required and could be even less if the set is not directly viewed – as determined by a sensor in the monitor.

As satellites struggle with sending an increasing stream of content, sending information on demand may be the answer a problem that will get worse with higher def formats.

I should have clarified that the 4K only blew the Panny away for sharpness.

The 4K will blow away the 95 or any of the JVC's(standard 1080p or e-shift models) too in that department.

But:

The Panny has 16bit color processing which at times even the 4K Sony fails to match.

The Sony does exhibit banding on some blu ray material wheras the Panny has beautiful color gradation.

Now this may come at the expense of some/negligable sharpness but it does mimic the appearance of 35mm film

---

hence the reason why Hollywood colorists have chosen Panasonic over other brands.

So when it comes to evaluating overall quality it really does come down to the subjective observations of the viewer.
Personally:
I tend to use my 4k for projecting material shot with digital cameras(Girl With The Dragon Tatoo,Social Network,Avengers ect ect)
But I prefer the Panny with anything shot on film(which is still the majority of everything else).
Edited by TheSony4KRises - 1/28/13 at 12:40am

"The Japanese government is pressing for the rollout of 4K UHDTV by 2014, 2 years ahead of schedule in an effort to save the TV industry from collapse.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications had formerly intended to introduce the next generation of HDTV in 2016, but has announced it will be bringing this goal forward 2 years to July 2014, to hopefully coincide with the World Cup in Brazil

The “Ultra Hi-Vision” 2160p broadcasts will start on Japan’s “BS” and “CS” satellite channels, to be later expanded to terrestrial digital TV.

It is expected that Japan will be one of the first (if not the first) nation to introduce UHDTV, although the huge bandwidth required may mean a lengthy period of spectrum shuffling on satellite and terrestrial frequencies will be required before all channels are available.

Previously NHK had been indicating it would rather switch straight to “8K” UHD (4320p, or 7680*4320) due to the enormous cost and complexity involved with upgrading TV broadcast and receiving infrastructure twice rather than once.

According to industry figures, Japanese TV sales for 2012 were down an eye-watering 66%, and with “3D” stereoscopic TV having proved an unwanted gimmick and ever larger screens unable to sustain sales (and probably unable to fit in an increasing number of Japanese homes), it would seem the next generation of HD is the only way sales can be revived.

Certainly it looks likely that if forced to wait until 2016 for any upgrades there would not be much left of Japan’s TV industry, which is already being eviscerated by competition from lower cost producers in the rest of East Asia, making the new standard an abject necessity from this perspective.

It has also been noted that with the CAS encryption system underpinning most of Japan’s satellite broadcasts irreversibly cracked last year, the TV broadcast industry has a strong interest in pushing for a new broadcast system (its only other recourse is reissuing every CAS card in existence) – as does the video game industry, which is going to have difficulty offering much in the way of graphical improvements if it is stuck on pathetically low TV resolutions.

However, none of this addresses the reasons fewer Japanese are watching TV in the first place, something generally blamed on the atrocious quality of mainstream TV, which will presumably remain unchanged even in UHDTV."