Sony Playstation Meeting September 7 2016 [PS4 Slim, PS4 Pro, Rumors, Speculations, and News]

[Shifty Geezer]

It's annoying how most are hating on 4k. Has anyone even experienced it in a environment where it's strengths are available?

That's kinda the point. If you haven't got a suitable setup, it's a pointless feature. Those with 4K are probably pleased at the better quality of PS4Pro, but they'll be very much the minority and the majority are more likely to be heard complaining about the lack of 1080p enhancements.

 

[rapso]

DLP has better chance at 10bits when there are 3 imager chips because that's 3x more time you can spend on PWM, apparently there will be single chip DLP-s with HDR maybe they can do it with a solid state light source anyhow, I'm not sure.

do they really add up for range? I see how it can work for resolution increase or color separation(to avoid rainbowing), but for range? wouldn't that just divide the range by 3 in best case, which is just an 1.6bit increase in range?
From 10s googling, the current limit seems to be 12bit. with some temporal dithering, they maybe could up it to a fake 14bit.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Will VR titles be able to automatically switch between basic PS4 and Pro modes and will all VR games have an enhanced Pro mode? Were there any hands on tests during the Pro reveal for VR games on Pro? I haven't seen any on the Internet.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

On one note, can you give me an indication as to what screen size you have and how far away you are from it? Cheers

I use a 40" 4K TV as a monitor, it's not big, but I sit quite close to it. would say my eyes are typically around 2.5-3 feet from the display.

Spoiler

It's on a monitor arm and I can move it quite freely forwards and backwards or change the orientation any way I like, I can even push it flat against the wall if needed.

That's kinda the point. If you haven't got a suitable setup, it's a pointless feature. Those with 4K are probably pleased at the better quality of PS4Pro, but they'll be very much the minority and the majority are more likely to be heard complaining about the lack of 1080p enhancements.

That is a fair point and I understand that, but it'd be better if people actually had properly experienced 4k before criticizing it anyway. The Avatar movie theater experience is a perfect example of someone making a point without knowing better. I've been complaining the resolution of movie theaters for years. That's actually a one place where 4k would bring very nice benefits, unless you sit at the back. Watching a proper 4k movie in the front portion of the theater should make Avatar 1080p look shitty to just about anyone.

edit: Digital Foundry made a good point about Sony having a uphill battle on selling the Pro as people will have hard time experiencing the visuals as they did at the unveiling.

 

[xz321zx]

do they really add up for range? I see how it can work for resolution increase or color separation(to avoid rainbowing), but for range? wouldn't that just divide the range by 3 in best case, which is just an 1.6bit increase in range?
From 10s googling, the current limit seems to be 12bit. with some temporal dithering, they maybe could up it to a fake 14bit.

It's all dithering to begin with (and error diffusion), and for example at >1000hz you only have two levels because there is no time for it. Same with single chip , you need 3x time for each color it so will be less gradual (though not apparent at 60hz). To begin with you need over >10bits of linear gamma depict 8bit of logarithmic.

Actually LCOS has a better shot at HDR because of >10.000 contrast and seperate RGB microdisplays, though apparently single chip DLP can do it with RGB LED/laser: LZ7BlWO5WgU / youtube

 

[Rurouni]

I do say that I need more than 1080p for my PC monitor, so it isn't that I can't see the benefit of 4K, but I place more importance, especially for things like gaming and movies, in HDR over 4K.
And yes, cinema really need higher resolution than currently is, but the first thing I would fix is not the resolution, but the frame rate. It is horrible. Can't track fast motion at all. Especially bad if you sit close to the screen. Headache inducing.

As for VR title, I think it should really be straight forward. If you plug PSVR to Pro, it will display the pro mode. You plug it to standard PS4, it will display the standard mode. Whether games will have pro mode it will be up to the developers, but I assume it should be easy to include a pro mode.

Anyway, they should really make VR headset with HDR. Considering the fact that if I blasted full brightness on my phone, it is really bright in a dark environment (like inside VR headset), thus the peak brightness shouldn't really be a problem for small screen. Whether or not the LCD is up to the task, I don't really know. Shouldn't it be easy tho for OLED screen?

 

[Scott_Arm]

Why?

I'm operating under the assumption, maybe wrongly, that their checkerboard method and hardware is like Valve's proposed solution for VR. It does not have a temporal element. It renders pixels in a checkerboard pattern, in 2x2 blocks, and then it calculates the remaining pixels using weighted averages of near pixels. It looks simple enough that it could be implemented in hardware and offered to devs "for free" as part of their image upscalar. It would likely cause blurring and limit high-frequency detail, as well as potentially leaving artifacts.

Rainbow Six's method looks far more complicated. It should have better results (how much better in practical terms?), but it would also be very hard to offer up as a one-size-fits-all approach for devs. So many companies would have to massively overhaul their game engines to support it. Offering an upscalar with the other approach above would be a much more universal solution that could be added to games more easily.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Surely lasers are the only real contender for HDR projections?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm operating under the assumption, maybe wrongly

I think that's a very wrong assumption. Reports are that 4Pro isn't blurry. We've no idea what the solution is nor how programmable (if at all), and considering Rainbow Six was the first implementation and it ran on a PS3, it'd be an ignored feature on 4Pro if the quality was lacking where working on the GPU directly would deliver better results.

We don't know the details, but I think it wrong to assume a naive checkered interpolation is in place. Ultimately details won't matter if results are good enough, so we should taste the pudding to prove it.

 

[sebbbi]

It isn't that I don't see a benefit of 4K, it just that I feel HDR need to happen first before 4K. Right now, there is only a very slim chance that they will make a 1080p HDR because they usually put this kind of advancement on their top panel, which in this time means at least 4K panel. I personally don't need a 4K panel for my TV, but I really want HDR.

The UHD standard includes both HDR and 4K specifications. Minimum resolution to support UHD standard is 3840x2160. 1080p HDR TV sets would not meet the UHD minimum specifications. I doubt any TV manufacturer releases a TV set that doesn't follow the standard.

Games can of course render at 1080p + HDR and let the console or TV scale the result to 4K. Xbox One S has 4K output + 4K scaler. PS4 Slim and the original PS4 most likely use the TV scaler to scale from 1080p to 4K. I am not 100% sure what HDR input resolutions are supported by UHD standard, but it would be odd if 1080p HDR input wouldn't be supported.

 

[mpg1]

PS4 Slim has lower power consumption and is quieter

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-hands-on-with-the-playstation-4-slim-cuh-2000

 

[iroboto]

Totally agree. I have a 40" 1080p TV and it looks great. If I had a 4K TV at what point would I see the difference? Well personally I would need to be pretty close to the screen to notice the difference or if the screen size was proportionally bigger the further back I go.

Would I notice the difference between a 50" 1080p and 4K TV from 3 metres away? No I seriously doubt it. So this is where we move into the realm of gargantuan (as you said) 4K screens before we seriously notice a difference.

So what kind of layout is the normal living space for consumers that would buy PS4 Pro? A 4mx5m room with their seats approx 3-3.5m from the TV. Look at the attached chart. View attachment 1581
For 3 metres away (10 feet), the 4K screen would need to be between 85-90 inches for the consumer to see the benefits of 4K, of course this comes down if they are closer, but for a living space, you seriously wouldnt have your nose up against the screen.

Now how much is a 85-90 inch 4K screen today? We are talking £10k. It does make you think. Probably better investing in a 4K projector and a few extra bulbs.

Not entirely sure if any of this is true, more like a half truth I think. The difference is that between games and video content. Games can refocus on where you are looking, video content cannot. Video takes infinite resolution and reduces it down. As such in real life if I look out the distance, several hundred meters away becomes sharp, I can see things in that distance; with lower resolution may be entirely omitted.

There are certain realities where, I agree there are diminishing returns on screen, but there is not necessarily a diminishing return on base resolution. Where with high enough native resolution that detail may not be lost, but at lower resolution that detail may not be there entirely. As such, today we tend not to render things like high wires and fences well because things start to blur when we get to 1px thick and standing at a weird angle for instance. This problem tends to crop everywhere. But with 4K and as resolutions continue to increase, those issues become less of a problem. More of a processing problem I suppose.

TLDR; you are probably correct in the general sense, but if the source resolution continues to increase, and you have a matching output resolution, clarity will be evident regardless of the distance you are away from the screen.

 

[davygee]

I use a 40" 4K TV as a monitor, it's not big, but I sit quite close to it. would say my eyes are typically around 2.5-3 feet from the display.

Spoiler

View attachment 1582
It's on a monitor arm and I can move it quite freely forwards and backwards or change the orientation any way I like, I can even push it flat against the wall if needed.

Nice setup and I can see how you will get the advatanges of 4K.

The biggest problem with 4K in general is that there is not enough advice being given out to consumers when they intend purchasing a new TV. I do wonder how many people have went home with the TV, plugged it in and then went.....I don't really see a difference, but in electronics stores you get right up close to the TV and can see the difference. They should ask questions about distance from screen etc and then direct them to the appropriate size, but to be honest they wont bother doing that unless they are guaranteed a sale. They just want to get them out the door.

And 40" 4K is fine for your use seeing as your under 3 feet away, but in the normal living space people will be metres away. Even the smallest of rooms will mean you are 2 metres minimum away and you just would struggle to tell the difference between 1080p & 4K at that distance.

I dont see myself investing in a 4K TV for a long time. I even have a 1080p projector that projects a 3m+ wide image on the wall and we watch it from 3.5m away and it looks fantastic. Yes we would notice a difference at 4K when it's this size, but going from a £500 1080p projector to a £5000 4K projector is such a big jump.

I also wonder how quickly prices of the larger screens will come down. Realistically you need to pay the best part of £1k for a decent size HDR UHD screen thats decent, when you can get a comparably sized 1080p screen for £400 or less.

I agree about HDR though, it would be good if some manufacturers would start producing HDR 1080p sets.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Looks like i missed it all.
So dose the new ps4 pro let u have better gfx if you are still on a 1080p display?
I even wonder if actually having that extra gpu power concentrated on 1080p is better than focussing on rendering 4k pixels.


Sent from my SM-N920G using Tapatalk

 

[goonergaz]

Looks like i missed it all.
So dose the new ps4 pro let u have better gfx if you are still on a 1080p display?
I even wonder if actually having that extra gpu power concentrated on 1080p is better than focussing on rendering 4k pixels.


Sent from my SM-N920G using Tapatalk

Apparently yes, there will likely be a 2 mode switch (sometimes 3 like RotTR) between the modes. 4K or 1080p with more effects/foliage/frames

 

[MrFox]

Looks like i missed it all.
So dose the new ps4 pro let u have better gfx if you are still on a 1080p display?
I even wonder if actually having that extra gpu power concentrated on 1080p is better than focussing on rendering 4k pixels.


Sent from my SM-N920G using Tapatalk

It seems to be up to the devs, but they had Tomb Raider with an option menu: 4K/30fps, or 1080p/30 at ultra settings, or 1080p/60 mid-settings or something like that.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/09/08/ps4-pro-the-ultimate-faq/

Q: What benefits does PS4 Pro provide when played on a non-4K HDTV?
PS4 Pro offers benefits even if you play on a HDTV that isn’t 4K. Depending on how the developer chooses to use the increased processing power, games with PS4 Pro support are able to render higher or more consistent framerates, increased environmental and character model detail, improved overall visual quality, and other related visual enhancements. For a look at how games are using the power of PS4 Pro, watch some of the first game footage on our YouTube page.

 

[rapso]

at >1000hz you only have two levels because there is no time for it.

shouldn't the frequency be orthogonal to the PWM signal? the width of the 'up' should define the amount of steps, not the frequency.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think that's a very wrong assumption. Reports are that 4Pro isn't blurry. We've no idea what the solution is nor how programmable (if at all), and considering Rainbow Six was the first implementation and it ran on a PS3, it'd be an ignored feature on 4Pro if the quality was lacking where working on the GPU directly would deliver better results.

We don't know the details, but I think it wrong to assume a naive checkered interpolation is in place. Ultimately details won't matter if results are good enough, so we should taste the pudding to prove it.

It could be a wrong assumption, but it also seems likely. It would make little sense to offer devs anything that was non-trivial, especially when they're hoping devs will patch their games to hit 4k. No one could just patch their game to render the way Rainbow Six Siege does.

Blurry is also subjective. They could use an upscale that adds some "blur" but it wouldn't mean that everyone that looked at it would find the image blurry, or maybe even anyway. Ultimately you are right, and good results = good method, especially if it's cheap and fast.

 

[Rurouni]

The UHD standard includes both HDR and 4K specifications. Minimum resolution to support UHD standard is 3840x2160. 1080p HDR TV sets would not meet the UHD minimum specifications. I doubt any TV manufacturer releases a TV set that doesn't follow the standard.

Games can of course render at 1080p + HDR and let the console or TV scale the result to 4K. Xbox One S has 4K output + 4K scaler. PS4 Slim and the original PS4 most likely use the TV scaler to scale from 1080p to 4K. I am not 100% sure what HDR input resolutions are supported by UHD standard, but it would be odd if 1080p HDR input wouldn't be supported.

Is there a possibility for FHD display to accept UHD signal like those 720p display that are compatible with 1080p signal? I would imagine someone can make a FHD HDR display by accepting UHD HDR signal, unless there are verification board or something that prevent them from doing it. Basically I just don't want the extra cost of 4K panel (at least not right now where 4K is significantly more expensive vs 2K panel).

 

[ultragpu]

Still so butt hurt with the omission of UHD bluray playback, it's a very non Sony thing to do! Well, guess I'll be buying a Xbox Slim after all then since I intend to start building my 4k Bluray collection asap.