[Raqia]

Originally Posted by Squilliam

How exactly ought they support it? All 4K displays will be capable of upscaling content and there is no point dictating that high of a rendering resolution. 4K will be to the next generation like 1080P is to this one.

Sufficient hardware power for native 4k resolution games.

[Squilliam]

Originally Posted by Raqia

Sufficient hardware power for native 4k resolution games.

Huh? It isn't likely that the adoption rate for that kind of hardware will be even lower than the current 1080P standard. Besides this it is more important to push more processing power per pixel at a resolution than can be displayed than to push hardware costs up by hundreds of dollars to satisfy a market which at this point is entirely non existent and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

[aaronspink]

Originally Posted by Raqia

Sufficient hardware power for native 4k resolution games.

There really isn't going to be sufficient hardware for native 4k res anytime soon. Look, a modern PC graphics engine generally needs xfire/SLI of current top end cards to come close to reasonable frame rates with 1600P displays. 4K displays are 2x the resolution. You are looking at on the order of 1.2 KW of power to drive a 4K display at reasonable refresh rates is modern games. The requirements for 4K realtime graphics are just way too high.

Likewise, the adoption uptick for 4K displays really won't start until the later half of the decade if even then. The costs have to come down by several orders of magnitude and they won't since there is no content pipeline on the horizon to really drive it.

[Raqia]

They're obviously not going to make it sufficiently powerful for 4k, esp. w/ a rumored price target of ~$300; it'd be nice considering the rumored 10 year life span of the device. Maybe they could make a refresh that has the requisite cables 5 years in and wire in a second GPU for the newer games at that point to use 4k.

[ERP]

4K may well be irrelevant even in 10 Years.
There is nothing they could put in a box today that would give good performance at 4K resolutions.
I have a 580SLI setup, and run surround resolution on my PC 6000x1080, that's still less pixels than 4K and I have frame rate issues on anything considered cutting edge.

[aaronspink]

Originally Posted by Raqia

They're obviously not going to make it sufficiently powerful for 4k, esp. w/ a rumored price target of ~$300; it'd be nice considering the rumored 10 year life span of the device. Maybe they could make a refresh that has the requisite cables 5 years in and wire in a second GPU for the newer games at that point to use 4k.

Eh? not going to happen. Not even a cool idea. 4K realtime is far off. You won't really even see any real adoption until the end of the decade. Lets put it this way, there currently is no interconnect standard that really supports 4K outside of boutique professional grade interconnect. The technology simply isn't ready enough to even be on the radar for something like a console. Or another way, it will be close to 15 years from when 1080p displays were commercially available until a console actually supported (had enough power for) 1080p.

[Raqia]

Originally Posted by aaronspink

Eh? not going to happen. Not even a cool idea. 4K realtime is far off. You won't really even see any real adoption until the end of the decade. Lets put it this way, there currently is no interconnect standard that really supports 4K outside of boutique professional grade interconnect. The technology simply isn't ready enough to even be on the radar for something like a console. Or another way, it will be close to 15 years from when 1080p displays were commercially available until a console actually supported (had enough power for) 1080p.

You might get faster adoption than you anticipated if a later version of iTV sports 4k resolutions; Apple has the clout to push these seemingly far off technology into relevance far ahead of schedule. An additional code path for multi-gpu rendering shouldn't be too big a deal 5 years down the road.

[Laa-Yosh]

Originally Posted by ERP

4K may well be irrelevant even in 10 Years.
There is nothing they could put in a box today that would give good performance at 4K resolutions.

Not to mention diminishing returns. All that pixel performance could be spent on better looking images instead...

[Raqia]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

Not to mention diminishing returns. All that pixel performance could be spent on better looking images instead...

I agree w/ that. It's just that saturating 4k resolution w/ the fixed function portion of the pipeline isn't a hard problem to solve, it'd be a shame if it were simply hardware limiting this from happening.

[tuna]

Games with less geometry and effects like Super Star Dust could be in 4k@60ps next gen, but probably not GTA6.

[Laa-Yosh]

It still doesn't make sense to trade image quality for resolution - resolution that only an insignificant amount of your customer base can even use.

[UniversalTruth]

SES Astra actively planning for Ultra-HDTV

Luxembourg-based SES Astra is preparing to launch Ultra-HDTV channels in “two to three years”. This is much earlier than previously anticipated.

“U-HDTV is still in its early days but NHK’s approach is for full 8K [transmission] but the other U-HDTV is 4K and we see this as being more commercially focussed and could be a reality only two or three years from now. We are very confident that U-HDTV will happen. BSkyB lead the introduction of HDTV in Europe so do not be surprised if you see us partnering with BSkyB in order to pioneer the introduction of Ultra-HDTV in the next two to three years. We are in close cooperation with our customers on their plans,” said Bausch.

Is Ultra HD going to be available in a few years?

......
......

The aim is to achieve an 8K signal with 7,680 x 4,320 pixels to match human vision. A 4K version at 3,840 x 2,160 pixels could match today’s digital cinema technology. Full HD currently only uses 1,920 x 1,080 pixels.

[Shifty Geezer]

What size screen/viewing distance is needed to benefit from 4k?

[UniversalTruth]

8K at 28-32 " (display size) should match human vision. 4K- well, it should be smaller--- 20-22 " maybe, you have to calculate it using formulae...

[ERP]

Originally Posted by UniversalTruth

8K at 28-32 " (display size) should match human vision. 4K- well, it should be smaller--- 20-22 " maybe, you have to calculate it using formulae...

For a monitor you're sitting 3ft away from maybe.
The difference between my 720P projector and 1080P projector on 106inch screen at perhaps 10ft is marginal. My GF certainly couldn't tell you which one was higher resolution.

There is a huge difference between can perceive and what people notice.

[patsu]

Probably more relevant for multiple perspectives/screens/views, rather than just 1 4K screen.

EDIT: Raqia, are you in EU ?

[UniversalTruth]

We can't say what's relevant and what's not from this point in time. I mean at present when I'm looking at my 1440 X 900 17" laptop display I can clearly distinguish the pixels.
In future with improving the ppi and resolution, that will be just a thing from the past and everyone, I bet, will admit that it is relevant...

You can't tell it simply becuase you haven't seen anything yet.

Originally Posted by ERP

For a monitor you're sitting 3ft away from maybe.
The difference between my 720P projector and 1080P projector on 106inch screen at perhaps 10ft is marginal. My GF certainly couldn't tell you which one was higher resolution.

There is a huge difference between can perceive and what people notice.

Well, the difference between 720p and 1080p in general is not big. From 0.92 MP to 2.07 MP.
8K is 33 MP, 4K is 8.3 MP.

[patsu]

I think the issue is content. We have 1080p because retail movies are available at that resolution. I don't know if they are willing to release 4K movies for consumers, if people just want to rent cheap movies for a buck. If they're going to sell 4K movies on Blu-ray media, then they should pad additional benefits for consumers.

HiDPI for portable displays may be more interesting given where Apple is heading.

EDIT: Apple's Retina MacBook Pro demo gave a glimpse of mixed 1080p video content with interactive UI for the remaining screen space, I think that direction looks more interesting -- as opposed to 1 big 4K video.

[Laa-Yosh]

That's an absurd race in content creation. TV has already had to throw away anchorwomen and actresses over 40 without botox, 1080p is too much, On the other side, hw requirements for 4K are absurd, from storage through bandwidth to CPU time (on CGI).

It's just a desperate effort from the TV manufacturers to sell a new set next year. They should focus on OLED instead

[UniversalTruth]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

hw requirements for 4K are absurd, from storage through bandwidth to CPU time (on CGI).

Software optimisations. With the new resolutions and standards, new codecs will be released.

[patsu]

Originally Posted by UniversalTruth

Software optimisations. With the new resolutions and standards, new codecs will be released.

Yes, this I agree. But they need to solve the user acceptance issues first. e.g., What's the compelling end user values given the connected mobile lifestyle ? Should I invest in a new TV instead of other more interesting gadgets ? Is there a new breed of 4K apps ?

I'm not even convinced that Apple needs to release a TV. 8^P
... let alone a "generic" 4K TV.

[upnorthsox]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

That's an absurd race in content creation. TV has already had to throw away anchorwomen and actresses over 40 without botox, 1080p is too much, On the other side, hw requirements for 4K are absurd, from storage through bandwidth to CPU time (on CGI).

It's just a desperate effort from the TV manufacturers to sell a new set next year. They should focus on OLED instead

Agreed.

[Ninjaprime]

Yeah, what do they intend to put these movies on? You get ~3 hours of 1080p on a 50GB Blu-ray IIRC, 4x the data means you need close to 200GB discs. Last I checked BDXL only goes to 128GB and I have yet to see one of those in the wild, not to mention Blu-ray adoption is still tiny, good luck getting anyone to switch.

[rpg.314]

Originally Posted by Raqia

Are they making their next console sufficiently powerful for 4k resolution displays? It doesn't seem like it.

For tetris? sure.

[aaronspink]

Originally Posted by Raqia

Are they making their next console sufficiently powerful for 4k resolution displays? It doesn't seem like it.

Current hardware required to drive a 4K display at reasonable refresh rates:

4x X-Fire/SLI Radeon 7970 or Geforce 680.

Approximate power: 1KW

Rate of power reduction at performance target: 50% every 18 months.

Minimum time until 4K is doable in 125W: ~5 years.