4K isn't enough to nudge broadcasters beyond 720p [yet...!]

[trey31]

Looking way beyond the horizon in 10-20 years something is going to replace 1080p. I'm just not sure 4k is it.

I agree (though hopefully its nowhere near 20 years. yikes!).

Manufacturer's introduce new technologies to sell more units. They are constantly asking themselves "What's going to sell more units?" and every year there is something else that they have to come out with to sell units.

720p is great. What's next?
1080p. Fantastic, it looks even better. What now?
LED backlighting? Moderate "Wow" factor. Now what?
Active 3-D! Sold well, what's better?
Passive 3-D! (opinion, I know). Looks great and helped us grab the consumers that passed on Active 3-D. Surely there is something we're missing.
Apps. What are "Apps?" You know, like a smart phone but its your TV. Oh! Well then heck yes. Ok that was great for 1 year, but it's not going to increase sales on its own.
960hz Ultra Smooth Extra Motion Feature Plus! Eh, how about we mostly just slap fake numbers on Spec sheets and call it 480hz or 960hz? Done. What now?

Every year since the "HD" TV boom, the manufacturer's have been looking for new ways to re-create the honey-pot that dried up when most of America bought into the HD craze. I fully support most of it (except the fake 960hz crap, that's just a punch in the face), but instead of trying to churn out "the next big thing" from a marketing department, the new formats should have been something more than just a numbers squeeze. With something like 8K, the drastic leap in resolution is likely what its going to take to get your average consumer to pull the trigger. When consumers buy enough of them, it would force the cable and media companies to move forward with new formats. 720p on 8K screens in 10% of the homes with the largest percentage of buying power, won't be up to par for the advertisers the media companies work for. There would be pressure for change from the consumers themselves, of course, but the important pressure on the media companies will come in the form of those with the advertising dollars.

I don't think 4K was a wrong move as long as manufacturers move on to something that does have the "Wow" factor that apparently quite a few people think 4K TVs don't have enough of (I am honestly not one of them, 4K is great. Its just not enough to push forth major changes). Maybe 8K is the answer, who knows. But I'm hoping whatever it is, that it comes sooner rather than later.

[trey31]

I've seen this chart many, many times.
It's a good general guidelines chart, but not a scientific guarantee. There are exceptions.

I play video games. That chart does not apply to gaming in any real world scenario.

And just for a point of comparison, the aliasing test on blurbusters is visible to 3 out of 3 people from 36' (yes, 36 feet) on a 65" 1080p panel, with anti-aliasing set to both on and off, and with different colored lines, set at 1 pixel and again at 8 pixels. Granted 8 pixels with anti-aliasing set to on isn't quite as noticeable, but it could still be seen. Huge difference compared to what that chart suggests "should" be the norm. As a secondary test, 2 out of 2 people were able to correctly identify the native resolution of 4 videos from 36' away; 2 were 480p and 2 were 1080p. When asked how certain they were, both responded they were 100%.

I couldn't do a test between 1080p and 4K, but obviously, just like 1080p and 480p, there is a large difference between the two.

[shadman]

Wow, 36 feet! In the room my friend has his 50" Seiki 4K TV, the couch is perhaps 8 feet from the TV!

Regarding the 'industry' adopting 4K, I like reading all the interesting, and detailed views on where we are going with it. I almost believe we are at about a plateau, similar to computing power found in most laptops that the average joe purchases for their Excel worksheets. Sure, we have the gaming niche, folding, and other power-users spending more for better quality/more preformance, but most people can take any laptop, even the cheap ones, and do their basic stuff on it. Most wouldn't realize the difference between an i7 and maybe a Pentium, depending on what they do.

And TV is becoming that way as well. Unfortunately, most people I know cant tell the difference between a 480p Youtube video, and the 1080p version, or simply don't care. Similar to trey31's post, 4K might simply not be enough to push an average joe to buy a new TV, or care apart from the buzzword, but in my own experience with peers, it is a lot less of a buzzword than 1080p was when that came out.
Sure, some people are ecstatic, but the lack of content isn't appealing either, going back to the chicken and egg conundrum.

No doubt things will change, as Chief's mentioned 'infinite channels' idea seems logical, with all the steps he provided, but it doesn't necessarily mean things will have to be 4K, or even that the larger stations will care they are slightly behind some individuals with better-quality cameras. He says one day they will be forced to buy new equipment, due to old-age/broken equipment, and that will happen, and they will get higher-resolution cameras sure, but I don't see that as a healthy pro-active way of moving forward, and that is one thing that could delay things 10 years down the road.

Boy, it is fun to speculate.

[TheRulesLawyer]

That overrated chart doesn't even record what material it covers (well compressed video? poorly compressed video? videogame graphics with no AA?) And it doesn't specify which percentiles of human population. It could reach >99% of population for say, well compressed/filtered video, but it can fall to <50% population for shallow non-AA angles in certain video games (as proven by http://www.testufo.com/aliasing-visibility ...)

It a home theatre chart is origin. Its meant to represent video material with 20/20 vision. I believe its based on THX guidelines. I'm surprised you've seen it many times without seeing its origin.

which seems to imply that no further resolution improvements would happen in humankind. It may not be called 4K (or even 8K) but something of a resolution beyond four times 1080p.

Not what I said. 4k as a specific tech. Who knows what's next on the horizon, but it could be holographic TV, VR, or something else. I just don't see 4k being compelling to the average consumer for use as a TV. At least to the point of replacing current sets. Inevitably 4k set will sell as prices fall and people need new set for whatever reason. Kind of like its hard to buy a good TV anymore without 3d and apps.

Perhaps we are arguing for the same thing (something with higher apparent resolution eventually) except maybe we disagree whether it's called "4K" or if the world will simply skip to "8K", or that it's called another name -- just that we agree something more than 4x resolution is going to happen eventually in humankind. I actually don't interpret "4K" as being necessarily called "4K", but as continued progress in video resolution.

We can agree there will be progress. Just even as an early adopter and video enthusiast I don't see a lot of point in replacing My 1080p plasma with a 4k set anytime in the foreseeable future (like 5 years tech wise)

[TheRulesLawyer]

I don't think 4K was a wrong move as long as manufacturers move on to something that does have the "Wow" factor that apparently quite a few people think 4K TVs don't have enough of (I am honestly not one of them, 4K is great. Its just not enough to push forth major changes). Maybe 8K is the answer, who knows. But I'm hoping whatever it is, that it comes sooner rather than later.

Maybe if they get glass less 3d working without dimming and flickering? Though 3d sort of has a bad name now. One of big problems is sometimes you get to 'good enough' Look at how MP3s took off over dvd-a or sacd. I don't know the statistics, but it wouldn't surprise me to find streaming is way more popular than bluray. I guess we have to look at what is either going to be convenient or wow viewers. If I were to get on the near term future of the industry its a move to IPTV 1080p streaming. Cable Co. would love to make all their DVRs an on demand feature that they can force commercials in like HULU plus does. As we transition from RG6 to fiber it makes sense to enable IPTV. That means we can have boxes the aggregate content from cable and internet sources. I've got my eye on the Xbox one with its hdmi-in to see what it tries doing with merging traditional cable and online content.

[aMunster]

Here's another angle - piracy. How does 4k affect piracy? In my mind it is easier for broadcasters to provide 4k than it is for pirates to handle it. Rendering already takes a substantial amount of time for 720p and 1080p encodes, especially since some items are broadcast in the godawful 1080i mode. You have the might of legitimate organizations versus the efforts of amateurs. So far, for better or worse, the pirates have kept up.

On the other side, it would require broadcasters to upgrade infrastructure to support the higher bandwidth content streams. I don't think this cost could be justified directly by anti-piracy.

I'm in a hurry so I'll expand upon this later.

[Chief Blur Buster]

That overrated chart doesn't even record what material it covers (well compressed video? poorly compressed video? videogame graphics with no AA?) And it doesn't specify which percentiles of human population. It could reach >99% of population for say, well compressed/filtered video, but it can fall to <50% population for shallow non-AA angles in certain video games (as proven by http://www.testufo.com/aliasing-visibility ...)

It a home theatre chart is origin. Its meant to represent video material with 20/20 vision. I believe its based on THX guidelines. I'm surprised you've seen it many times without seeing its origin.

I now remember the origin, but so many people quote the chart in game forums without mentioning its origin, with people interpreting the chart as if it was a guaranteed law of physics, without considering additional effects that can affect this.

Someday, we need a Holodeck Turing test ("wow, I didn't know I was standing on a Holodeck")' or a window-versus-TV Turing test ("wow, I didn't know which one was the window."), as solving all weak links becomes necessary for full immersive media (for those seeking that).