# 4K, do we really need it?



## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

I was reading a small article this weekend and it got me thinking. 

With the current standards on BluRay still below what we can actually see on our non 4K displays why the big push to move to 4K? Most HD displays can produce better picture than we actually are delivering to them as even BluRay is compressed. 

Why the big push to go to something that clearly we as a consumer will probably never see the full benefits given the compression they will have to use to get it to fit on a BluRay disc or over cable/internet.


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## tripplej (Oct 23, 2011)

I think the whole 4K, 8K, etc. push is the latest way to re-ignite the whole AV area so that folks will pay out money for upgrades. The industry tried it with 3d but it failed to re-ignite so now they are on round 2.

With no 4K content and 4K equipment costing an arm and a leg, in addition to the extra expenses for streaming to handle the 4K throughput, it is just not economically wise for the common man to jump onto the 4K, 8K, etc. bandwagon at this point in time.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

There is so much that can be improved with the current standard as it is, BluRay is at best 8bit color and 30megabits per second and both those areas can be dramatically improved to give us better picture with what we currently have.


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## tripplej (Oct 23, 2011)

tonyvdb said:


> There is so much that can be improved with the current standard as it is, BluRay is at best 8bit color and 30megabits per second and both those areas can be dramatically improved to give us better picture with what we currently have.


I agree. But I think the AV industry is just trying to get more money plain and simple while the economy is still in the tanks. Provide something new (like 3d a few years back) and they believe the masses will follow. They failed to understand that folks are not falling for these tricks. People are also having hard time under this economy just as the AV industry is and folks are not about to spend a lot of money for minor tweaks here and there.


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## rab-byte (Feb 1, 2011)

You read the home theater review article. They raised some good points in it. I agree at this point in the game it's an issue of standards that is holding video quality back. 

I will raise one point for the implementation of 4K and that is with respect to passive 3D displays. As we all know passive 3D cuts your display resolution in half. 4K will double the resolution thus negating the problems with 3D resolution. 

I know there are claims that glasses free 3D is just around the corner but I expect we're some 10 years away from that standard being implemented.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

rab-byte said:


> You read the home theater review article.


Yes


> I will raise one point for the implementation of 4K and that is with respect to passive 3D displays. As we all know passive 3D cuts your display resolution in half. 4K will double the resolution thus negating the problems with 3D resolution.


But to get true 4K we will not only have to change how it is delivered as BluRay discs cant hold that much uncompressed info and if they compress it to fit we really wont even get close to what true 4K is like.


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## rab-byte (Feb 1, 2011)

Same for current 1080p format or 720 for that matter. Compression is compression regardless of format. Master audio and other lossless audio formats have been the boon of the audiophile as it has gotten rid of compression. What is needed is a clear established standard that can take advantage of deep color. The problem as I see it is one for THX and ISF to tackle. Both still look to rec709 which uses SMPTe colors. The expanded gamut need a standard. 

Manufactures are all pushing the limits of what they can handle but there isn't as far as I know a standard to calibrate the new pallet. We can assume that D65 will still be standard for white point but moving rec triangle would require a new reference for secondary colors since blue hasn't moved nearly as much red and far less then green. 

That only tackles color space and gradience.

Attaching bitrate is a whole other animal. I don't know if bluray format is able to handle a higher transfer rate... HDMI certainly can.


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## BD55 (Oct 18, 2011)

We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they aaa haaaad. That's the best I can do for a JFK impression in text. Honestly, my personal opinion is likewise; we as a society choose to push the envelope, even where there is a point of diminishing returns (e.g. 4K). I work in the aerospace industry, and believe me, perfection is what is striven for. Does it _need_ to be perfect? No, but you do see barriers broken with that discipline which surprisingly brings about other advancements in sometimes unrelated fields. New manufacturing processes, materials, etc. are all had through development of things which we as consumers don't always understand (or even want). I will now get off my soap box :rant:.


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## magic (May 23, 2011)

We need it because my 106 inch projector demands it. .


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

Personally I don’t see any reason for 4k except for ultra-large displays. As Tony noted, we aren’t even getting the full potential of the current 720p – 1080p HD standard. I’ve seen 720p programming from regular cable channels on DirecTV - and that’s compressed, mind you - that was better than most blu-rays I’ve seen. 

I’ve noticed a trend in most of the TV shows we watch. When they show the establishing shots – outside landscapes, fly-over shots, etc. – the clarity and detail is awesome. But when they cut to the actors, everything goes soft. Anyone here watch _NCIS?_ The picture on that show is so pitiful even high-quality SD blows it away. I don’t know if it’s the producers or the actors, but it looks like they intentionally dumb-down the picture to mid-def. I guess the actors / producers don’t want us to see all the flaws in their skin or make-up.

If recent history is indication, all we’ll get out of 4k is a dumbed-down picture that’s probably equal to what 1080p is actually capable of, if that.

Regards, 
Wayne


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## Todd Anderson (Jul 24, 2009)

This 4K thing is great for huge displays... but I'd have to agree, it's all about selling new products.

Personally, I would have loved the industry to hold off and keep improving the PQ of 1080p displays until we are able to deliver true 1080p to our TV's via cable/sat. Just doesn't seem to make sense to move so far beyond what is reasonably delivered.


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## tripplej (Oct 23, 2011)

In the end it is all about the mighty dollar and how to survive in this economy!


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## bluemax_1 (Feb 14, 2011)

1080p has already been out for a while. Sure, in this economy, regular folks aren't looking to upgrade to 4k especially when coupled with the fact that there is currently NO 4k material available (with the exception of the 4k version of Timescapes on a flash drive).

The thing is though, in a poor economy, folks are less likely to upgrade to a newer 1080p display if they already have a 1080p display. With less disposable income available for frivolous purchases, folks who already have a 1080p display are more likely to think, "This is good enough for now. I won't upgrade until there's a major improvement somewhere". 4k is the step that manufacturers hope will be enough to cause people to upgrade.

In addition, manufacturers target different demographics for different things. They know for instance, that the 'bleeding edge technology' demographic tends to have more disposable income than Joe Average and are willing to pay 'bleeding edge' prices. Look at Sony's VW1000 projectors for instance. There is absolutely nothing out there to watch in true 4k, but there are people willing to shell out the $25k to get those projectors.

In marketing, there are 2 general ways to target certain demographics. Targeting Joe Average means providing something that most people need/want, but you have to make it relatively affordable to most folks. When the economy hits the crapper though, less folks are going to be buying wants vs needs.

The other way to market is to target the 1-percenters. These are the high-end of the market, targeted specifically at the 1% of the wealthiest population. This is where the 5 and 6 figure price tag speakers come in, the 5 and 6 figure amps, 4 and 5-figure price tag suits etc. The thing is, when the regular Joe is hurting in the economy, there are ALWAYS (at least until the whole system completely crashes) going to be the 1%. That 1% may change as markets change, but they're there and someone new will step in to take the spot when some 1-percenter falls, and they have huge disposable incomes compared to all the rest, so you can market items targeted at them with price tags that make ordinary folks blanch.

It's already been noted that at a lot of folks' regular viewing distances, 4k might or might not even be a noticeable difference due to visual acuity, but the industry needs a new improvement to induce folks to upgrade. The 0.5-percenters might upgrade for a 10% increase in contrast ratio, but they'll find it more palatable to say "4X the resolution of HD!".

The good news is that eventually, the bleeding edge technology trickles down into the more affordable range for regular Joe's. Was anyone else at CES the year the Sony Qualia 004 was first introduced? $25k for a 1080p projector, and these days, you can get 1080p projectors with better specs for 1/10 the price and even lower.


Max


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## bxbigpipi (Feb 2, 2012)

I myself am in no hurry to upgrade to 4k. I am extremely happy with my 1080p setup! To me the picture quality I get is amazing!


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## tesseract (Aug 9, 2010)

Great post, bluemax_1.

Another point to consider. What manufacturer wouldn't want their name on the latest tech? And who wants to buy from a manufacturer that does not?

You are completely correct. Right or wrong, human perception drives the market.


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## David Mackenzie (Apr 15, 2012)

We don't "need" 4K, 1080p, HDTV, colour TV etc., but the nature of the industry is to go onwards and upwards.

The same "do we need" questions were flying around when 1080p displays were new. We had all the claims of "human eyes won't be able to see it" and so on. Now you never hear it, the discussion stopped as soon as 1080p became affordable. The same will happen with 4K in time. I'm looking forward to, but not pining for the better quality.



> With the current standards on BluRay still below what we can actually see on our non 4K displays


I'm not sure what you mean by that? For clarification, the max resolution of BD as it stands is 1920x1080, which is the same as nearly all displays.



> There is so much that can be improved with the current standard as it is, BluRay is at best 8bit color and 30megabits per second and both those areas can be dramatically improved to give us better picture with what we currently have.


BD's max video bit rate is actually 40mbps, and it's not really a limiting factor. The quality of the source material and the various processes in the video encoder (how motion vectors are determined and so on) are more important than the bit rate. Good AVC encoders produce streams at 20mbps that look better than the output of a bad one at 30.

8-bit video is not hugely damaging as a delivery format either (as an acquisition format it can be tricky to work with). Although, I hope BD 4K goes to 10-bit while the opportunity is there.

I'm happy with my 1080p setups and will be happy with my 4K one in the future.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

David Mackenzie said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by that? For clarification, the max resolution of BD as it stands is 1920x1080, which is the same as nearly all displays.


Its compressed, and although the 1920x1080 is fixed there is plenty of room for improvement within those restrictions.




> BD's max video bit rate is actually 40mbps, and it's not really a limiting factor. The quality of the source material and the various processes in the video encoder (how motion vectors are determined and so on) are more important than the bit rate. Good AVC encoders produce streams at 20mbps that look better than the output of a bad one at 30.


But when was the last time you saw a Bluray at 40mbps? 



> 8-bit video is not hugely damaging as a delivery format either (as an acquisition format it can be tricky to work with). Although, I hope BD 4K goes to 10-bit while the opportunity is there.


There is a big enough difference between 8bit and 10bit that it would make the color that much more vivid. almost all 1080p displays can all handel 10bit so it should be used.


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## David Mackenzie (Apr 15, 2012)

> Its compressed, and although the 1920x1080 is fixed there is plenty of room for improvement within those restrictions.


What kind of improvements did you have in mind?

Yes it's lossy compression, but that's only damaging to overall resolution if the level of quantization is ridiculously high (and thanks to BD's capacity, it almost never is).

Most people aren't in the position of being able to see uncompressed (or almost uncompressed) masters, and I think if the average home theater fan was able to, thus seeing how close encoded AVC streams are to the source, they would realise how good BD actually is! Keep in mind that it was designed for MPEG-2 application (with a max bit rate to match!) with more efficient codecs added later, allowing for the double whammy of high bit rate and efficient encoding.



> But when was the last time you saw a Bluray at 40mbps?


Today  I encoded it!

The Indiana Jones box set stays pretty close to that number, IIRC. But as I said, it's fairly pointless discussing numbers alone. Few titles stay at a constant 40mbps because there is almost never any need to go that high. I prefer to stay close to 40 and give the bonus content lower rates, personally.



> There is a big enough difference between 8bit and 10bit that it would make the color that much more vivid. almost all 1080p displays can all handel 10bit so it should be used.


What 10-bit video are you using to base that on? If you think that increasing the bit depth makes the colour more vivid, then I'm afraid you've misunderstood the impact the bit depth has on the image. Given the way "Deep Color" has been marketed, I'm not blaming you.

I'm not arguing against higher bit depth video, BTW! I'm just saying that from the consumer's view of simply watching the video (not doing colour correction on it), it's not a necessity. (10-bit or higher processing in the display, on the other hand...)


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

David Mackenzie said:


> What 10-bit video are you using to base that on? If you think that increasing the bit depth makes the colour more vivid, then I'm afraid you've misunderstood the impact the bit depth has on the image. Given the way "Deep Color" has been marketed, I'm not blaming you.


Could you clarify what the bitrate means then for me?



> I'm not arguing against higher bit depth video, BTW! I'm just saying that from the consumer's view of simply watching the video (not doing colour correction on it), it's not a necessity. (10-bit or higher processing in the display, on the other hand...)


Understood, its good conversation :T


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## Chester (Feb 19, 2007)

I want 4k because I want to have a lot of screen real-estate on my desktop/tv  

large 'retina' computer screens - nice.


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## David Mackenzie (Apr 15, 2012)

Bit rate and bit depth get confused a lot. 

Video bit *depth* (8-bit, 10-bit etc) refers to the number of quantization steps used to represent the dynamic range. For 8-bit video, that's 16 to about 235. For 10-bit, 64-940. Roughly speaking, the more steps you have (the higher the bit depth), the less chance you have of seeing contouring/tone jumps.

For a consumer just watching the video, 8-bit is generally enough. The reason I make the distinction for acquisition: let's say you're colour correcting some video footage and something's gone wrong: it's been under-lit or under-exposed or whatever, and you have to manipulate the footage to make it seem brighter. Once I was fixing footage that had been shot on an 8-bit format (Sony XDCAM or some HDV camera, I forget which) and had not been properly lit. I had to pull the controls to fairly extreme levels to get an acceptable look. But, because the image had been acquired at 8-bit and the camera controls (and lights!) hadn't been correctly set, I basically had the equivalent of something like 4 or 5-bit video at the end, with lots of contouring and other artefacts (even after a lot of tweaking) due to having to stretch the small dynamic range so much.

Had the video been shot at 10 or 12 bit on a higher end camera, I would have had bits to spare. 

Manufacturers capitalize on this and say "many more colours!" which is the source of people thinking that higher bit depth = more colourful. The manufacturers aren't strictly wrong, just slightly deceptive. There are more VALUES to encode colours and tones, but that won't mean "more colourful" in the way most people think.

Manufacturers have started doing this with chroma subsampling as well; I think it was Panasonic who had a graphic alluding to the idea that 4:4:4 video was "more colourful" than 4:2:0. The reality is less interesting, it's just that the chroma channels are at higher spatial resolution, so won't look blurred. I guess that could be perceived as being "more colourful" in a sense so it's not a blatant lie, just a bit misleading.

Bit *rate*, as you know, is the data rate of a stream after the various compression processes have been applied to it. It's not as simple as higher bitrate = better in every case. And, again, I think a lot of people, now that they're used to the quality of Blu-ray, are forgetting how good it is. For viewing, it's visually indistinguishable to a 1080p studio master in many cases.

But back to 4K - it's coming, and while I'm not salivating for it in the same way that I was for BD (I was sick of compromised SD quality), I'll be happy to pay up with when the price is right. Or knowing me, before the price is right!


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Thanks, Great info!
I think where 4K will really shine is smart TV as right now computer on an HD display larger than 32" is still way to pixalized.


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## David Mackenzie (Apr 15, 2012)

I think that'll be the route things go down, yeah: using the extra resolution to add all sorts of "apps" and advertising and Facebook feeds down the side of the screen, stuff that wouldn't be possible with a lower resolution.


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## nthydro (Oct 18, 2012)

I read a CNET article saying 4K is pretty much useless for TVs under 80" but for projectors and large TVs it'll make a difference.


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

The value in higher resolution is not just in whether you can see the detail or the pixels. More of the perceived "sharpness" comes from the increase in contrast that comes with the greater resolution. It does not matter what kind nor size display you have, a higher resolution source will result in an image with better contrast which looks sharper. The perceived benefit is the same as the reason that so many people like what the darbee processing does.


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## JerryLove (Dec 5, 2009)

Though I'm all for res (and hopefully 4k TV means I can get a computer monitor with more than 1080p); I'd also like to see things like framerate pushed up. Panavision had an interesting article up at one point discussing the origins of the 24-fps rate and the benefits on perceived clarity of changing that.

I know in the PC gaming world, the magic number is considered 60fps.


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## gorb (Sep 5, 2010)

JerryLove said:


> Though I'm all for res (and hopefully 4k TV means I can get a computer monitor with more than 1080p)


You've been able to get that for a long time 

2560x1600 displays have been around for a decade or so, give or take a few years. There are also several 2560x1440 displays available 

1920x1200 has also been around for a long time too, but that's not that much better than 1920x1080 :/


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

gorb said:


> You've been able to get that for a long time
> 
> 2560x1600 displays have been around for a decade or so, give or take a few years. There are also several 2560x1440 displays available
> 
> 1920x1200 has also been around for a long time too, but that's not that much better than 1920x1080 :/


I think he means large PC displays (32" or bigger) at affordable prices


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

JerryLove said:


> Though I'm all for res (and hopefully 4k TV means I can get a computer monitor with more than 1080p); I'd also like to see things like framerate pushed up. Panavision had an interesting article up at one point discussing the origins of the 24-fps rate and the benefits on perceived clarity of changing that.
> 
> I know in the PC gaming world, the magic number is considered 60fps.


Isn't the Hobbit being released in 48fps?


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## phillihp23 (Mar 14, 2012)

I'm up for 4K.... Some day when it becomes affordable. Now all that talk about 8K...well....unless I buy a house with a room as large as my current house 2000 sq feet I don't think I'm interested. On the topic of 4K, a local theater near me uses a 4k projector..I haven't been there, only just heard about it. I am told its a very hi- end theater with individual motorized chairs to sit in. It's also always sold out due to the limited seating arrangement compared to regular theaters. I am going to have to try and get me a ticket to a movie there and check it out first hand. When and if I do...I surely will let everyone know what I think. Now to find out how much tickets are


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## tripplej (Oct 23, 2011)

phillihp23 said:


> On the topic of 4K, a local theater near me uses a 4k projector..I haven't been there, only just heard about it. I am told its a very hi- end theater with individual motorized chairs to sit in. It's also always sold out due to the limited seating arrangement compared to regular theaters. I am going to have to try and get me a ticket to a movie there and check it out first hand. When and if I do...I surely will let everyone know what I think. Now to find out how much tickets are


I am amazed that a specialty theater like the one you describe still exists. I am curious to see the name of this theater. Let us know. Would like to check out their website to see if any are in my area.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

tripplej said:


> I am amazed that a specialty theater like the one you describe still exists. I am curious to see the name of this theater. Let us know. Would like to check out their website to see if any are in my area.


We have two such theaters here in Edmonton, they even serve you rather than you going in a lineup and getting your popcorn, pop and other food items including alcohol . You can even get pizza and subs delivered to your seat prior to the movie starting.

Look here for info.


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## tripplej (Oct 23, 2011)

Thanks for the details. Looks like they are only in Canada. Will have to check it out next time I am up north!


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## ALMFamily (Oct 19, 2011)

lcaillo said:


> Isn't the Hobbit being released in 48fps?


Yes it is.


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## tistru (Oct 29, 2012)

No, consumers don't need it or want it...but the electronics industry does. Especially the TV industry. So as with many other technologies that were unnecessary and not well thought out (i.e home 3D), the industry will move forward with it.


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