4k resolution coming

[Arwin]

There is an upper limit to the angular resolution of the human eye. It is pointless to go above this resolution.

Not to make too fine a point of it, but nicely put.

 

[Scott_Arm]

...
I _think_ the professionals are already editing the movies in 4K today. Perhaps 3D 4K too. But yes, 1080p is for retail use. So the pros are already heading there (slowly ?).

EDIT: I don't mind slicing the 4K res into smaller frames for supporting Holographic output.

I think digital projection theaters are 4K projection right now, so the movies must be filmed and edited as such. From what I kind find, the max bitrate for digital cinema, according to the DCI, is 250 Mbit/s. That would be for 2K at 48fps or 4K at 24fps. Pretty crazy. They distribute the movies by hard drive, or download. Streaming not an option. I imagine that's not a compressed file, but the difficulties with distributing 4K to the home is obvious.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes, it might be an interactive wall and while you are standing only 50 cm from it, you will either watch something or read the news on the mirror part of it, while washing your teeth.

That's changing the context from 4k for displays for console games and movies to a different lifestyle application. But if you don't change the goalposts and review your earlier assertion:

The same resolution looks better on smaller display size simply because ppi is higher.

...this is not true above a certain image density. A 10" iPad with a 600 ppi screen held 1 foot from your nose won't look any better than a 10" iPad with an 800 ppi screen or an iPad with a 12,000 ppi screen, held at the same sensible distance (and I think the existing 300-350 ppi screens are about the maximum needed, although am not sure). And there'll be some resolution where even held close enough for the pixels to be 1/60th degree in size, the eye won't be able to focus, so you won't even be able to claim the 'move it closer' argument.

For games consoles, and for movie, and for TV, 4k serves no purpose in the living room, with have no market other than for the very niche enthusiast with a home cinema in their basement, and will not be a target for content creators. Games developers won't be creating textures to render in 4k resolution, working with 32,000 x 32,000 pixel textures per object and drawing in fine detail for when your avatar walks 3" from the wall and wants to check the quality of the mortar. 'Progress' for progresses sake is a stupid waste of resources. Instead, the targets should be selected for importance. Increase framerate, quality, colour reproduction, 3D quality, and goodness knows what else. These are the targets that future technologies need to address. Just upping the pixel count is a very application of RnD (except where it's being used to solve other issues, like glasses-less 3D).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You're right, that chart is just stupid. Or should I say how people use it is stupid.

It's a simple visual aid that helps illustrate a glance how resolution become immaterial. That's a lot better than looking at a table full of numbers to do the same.

And resolution is only one part of IQ. Luminance, Contrast, Color, and Frame rate are also part, with luminance probably the most important of all.

Right. These are the areas that need to be advanced. Higher resolution above 1080p is low (low, low) priority for the living room TV.

 

[patsu]

I think digital projection theaters are 4K projection right now, so the movies must be filmed and edited as such. From what I kind find, the max bitrate for digital cinema, according to the DCI, is 250 Mbit/s. That would be for 2K at 48fps or 4K at 24fps. Pretty crazy. They distribute the movies by hard drive, or download. Streaming not an option. I imagine that's not a compressed file, but the difficulties with distributing 4K to the home is obvious.

Yes, that's why they are exploring 4K Blu-ray. I suspect the manufacturers are also eyeing Ultra HD home videos. ^_^

 

[Scott_Arm]

Yes, that's why they are exploring 4K Blu-ray. I suspect the manufacturers are also eyeing at Ultra HD home videos. ^_^

Yeah, I knew that, but they'd need a disc with huge capacity. What application would that disc have, other than distributing movies? Seems like a very expensive business venture, considering the BluRay business doesn't seem to be making anybody a lot of money. Think of how long it took for people to switch from DVD to BluRay, when many still haven't bothered. How many people are going to be willing to replace their BluRay collections with 4K BluRays, and at what price? I think there are A LOT of years to go before this is even a remotely viable business idea.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yeah, I knew that, but they'd need a disc with huge capacity. What application would that disc have, other than distributing movies? Seems like a very expensive business venture, considering the BluRay business doesn't seem to be making anybody a lot of money.

If you consider why BRD isn't really taking off, because it doesn't make a lot of difference to the typical consumer especially factoring in the added cost, I guess there are two ways to look at 4k. Either 4k will present such a massive improvement for the home cinema enthusiast that they'll buy into it much more aggresively than BRD (which I doubt because every home-cinema buff will be buying everything on BRD anyway), or it'll be considered niche like SACD and be sold at a massive premium to justify it. That might well work with enough people to make it a parallel product alongside 1080p BRD.

 

[patsu]

At some point, if cinemas go the way of the dodo, I don't mind streaming a 4K movies to my neighbors over 802.11whatever and share the $$$ with the studios. ^_^

They can use the Blu-ray disc as the master if they want.

EDIT: Scott_Arms, so far they have only said they need 50Gb Blu-ray.

 

[mrcorbo]

Higher resolution above 1080p is low (low, low) priority for the living room TV.

Like 3D, 4K resolution is (relatively) low-hanging fruit for panel manufacturers, so it makes sense why they would want to promote it as the next big thing. Hopefully, consumers are discerning enough to recognize whether this represents a resolvable improvement for their usage scenario. Other improvements, like better luminance, contrast, color, faster pixel switching time, thinner or flexible displays and lower power draw, which would actually make a noticeable difference in all use cases and with all content, are much harder to develop and unfortunately harder to market than "MORE K's!!!".

 

[ERP]

I just don't see why Cable/Satellite providers will provide 4K feeds.
It took close to a decade to see HD feeds become common, and the quality is still extremely questionable for most channels.
I get it from the old school CE companies standpoint they need a way to produce differentiated high end product that companies pushing cheap TV's can't compete with for a while.
I actually think that Movies have reached the same inflection point that Music did with MP3, digital distribution quality though not as good as physical discs is good enough for the mass market, and I just can't see 4K streaming video anytime soon.

I think the SACD analogy is a good one, I loved the sound of SACD, but there was too little content and it was too expensive to ever get mass adoption.

We'll certainly see higher resolution displays on Computers/Tablets. But that's more of a return to the way it was before almost every LCD panel in the world had to be 1920x1080p for no obvious reason.

I'm just not convinced in 5 years I'll be watching 4K feeds from DirectTV on my 4K TV set.

 

[mrcorbo]

At some point, if cinemas go the way of the dodo, I don't mind streaming a 4K movies to my neighbors over 802.11whatever and share the $$$ with the studios. ^_^

They can use the Blu-ray disc as the master if they want.

EDIT: Scott_Arms, so far they have only said they need 50Gb Blu-ray.

H.265 will help here.

 

[mrcorbo]

I just don't see why Cable/Satellite providers will provide 4K feeds.
It took close to a decade to see HD feeds become common, and the quality is still extremely questionable for most channels.

My cable company re-compresses their HD channels and they look hideous.

We'll certainly see higher resolution displays on Computers/Tablets. But that's more of a return to the way it was before almost every LCD panel in the world had to be 1920x1080p for no obvious reason.

Yes, higher resolution displays should be used where it makes sense and where it provides a real benefit.

 

[Scott_Arm]

At some point, if cinemas go the way of the dodo, I don't mind streaming a 4K movies to my neighbors over 802.11whatever and share the $$$ with the studios. ^_^

They can use the Blu-ray disc as the master if they want.

EDIT: Scott_Arms, so far they have only said they need 50Gb Blu-ray.

Looking at H.265, if they can halve the size of an H.264 compressed video while retaining the same image quality, then they should barely be able to fit a BluRay movie on a 50 Gb disc. It looks like that's the improvement they're aiming for, for good reason.

 

[upnorthsox]

It's a simple visual aid that helps illustrate a glance how resolution become immaterial. That's a lot better than looking at a table full of numbers to do the same.

Right. These are the areas that need to be advanced. Higher resolution above 1080p is low (low, low) priority for the living room TV.

But it's not a good visual aid because it allows a user to read an outrageous result such as a 12" TV at 40' is better at 480p than 1440p when no such result exists.

If you just want a quick rule of thumb for resolution, then the wider the fov the greater the importance of resolution, the narrower the less. (And a 12" screen @ 40' is so narrow a fov as to make resolution irrelevant).

Likewise, the greater the distance from the display the greater the importance of luminance, the smaller the less to a certain point (as you always need some luminance).

 

[upnorthsox]

I just don't see why Cable/Satellite providers will provide 4K feeds.
It took close to a decade to see HD feeds become common, and the quality is still extremely questionable for most channels.
I get it from the old school CE companies standpoint they need a way to produce differentiated high end product that companies pushing cheap TV's can't compete with for a while.
I actually think that Movies have reached the same inflection point that Music did with MP3, digital distribution quality though not as good as physical discs is good enough for the mass market, and I just can't see 4K streaming video anytime soon.

I think the SACD analogy is a good one, I loved the sound of SACD, but there was too little content and it was too expensive to ever get mass adoption.

We'll certainly see higher resolution displays on Computers/Tablets. But that's more of a return to the way it was before almost every LCD panel in the world had to be 1920x1080p for no obvious reason.

I'm just not convinced in 5 years I'll be watching 4K feeds from DirectTV on my 4K TV set.

I think it's a matter of 1/2 the movie theatres in th US will be 4k in 2 yrs, so if the content is there then why not?

I believe there's more of a disconnect when you get to the CE level though. Then again, maybe reasonable 200" displays are right around the corner.

I think your SACD analogy is a good one though.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think it's a matter of 1/2 the movie theatres in th US will be 4k in 2 yrs, so if the content is there then why not?

I believe there's more of a disconnect when you get to the CE level though. Then again, maybe reasonable 200" displays are right around the corner.

I think your SACD analogy is a good one though.

200" displays? Honestly, a 60" tv is absolutely huge in most homes. That is definitely SACD niche territory.

 

[aaronspink]

Yes, that's why they are exploring 4K Blu-ray. I suspect the manufacturers are also eyeing Ultra HD home videos. ^_^

They tried that with audio too. It was a massive failure. Good enough is good enough and people who fail to learn this lesson will simply fail. At some point the realistic detail is captured and trying to cap more detail really doesn't do you that much good.

 

[aaronspink]

At some point, if cinemas go the way of the dodo, I don't mind streaming a 4K movies to my neighbors over 802.11whatever and share the $$$ with the studios. ^_^

They can use the Blu-ray disc as the master if they want.

EDIT: Scott_Arms, so far they have only said they need 50Gb Blu-ray.

For 4K you need around 150GB storage medium with upwards of 250 to fit a 3 hour movie + audio + xtras.

 

[aaronspink]

H.265 will help here.

H.265 is going to be much less effective than H.264 was vs MPEG2.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But it's not a good visual aid because it allows a user to read an outrageous result such as a 12" TV at 40' is better at 480p than 1440p when no such result exists.

I think the common sense understanding of screen size at a given distance is a naturally applied.

If you just want a quick rule of thumb for resolution, then the wider the fov the greater the importance of resolution, the narrower the less.

Sure, but for people who want to argue more resolution is better, what's needed is a chart of FOV against resolution that maps screen size to distance. This chart works okay as an approximate representation; hence that it gets used for as much.