Is 4K Blu-Ray in your future? (1 Viewer)

[rsmithjr]

Well, since Joe Kane says you need at least a 6' wide screen to appreciate 1080 and at least a 10' to appreciate 2060, and no mention of 3-D at CES, then 2060 is probably the wave of the future.

And no 2060 or 3-D is in my future.

As I recall, Joe Kane spent some years trying to tell people that 720P was good enough.

As I indicated in my post earlier in this thread, 4K is simply going to replace 1080P in the larger form factors, just like 1080P replaced 720P. In 2 years, people will walk into the showroom, and 4K will be there, at a reasonable price and looking better. A no-brainer.

 

[FoxyMulder]

As I recall, Joe Kane spent some years trying to tell people that 720P was good enough.

As I indicated in my post earlier in this thread, 4K is simply going to replace 1080P in the larger form factors, just like 1080P replaced 720P. In 2 years, people will walk into the showroom, and 4K will be there, at a reasonable price and looking better. A no-brainer.

Shame all those showrooms will mostly be LCD ( yuck, doesn't work for me ) which means for some of us it's a no buy, roll on cheaper 4K projectors and maybe OLED in 4 or 5 years if they can just get the yields even better and the price down.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

I'm waiting for FED

 

[ROclockCK]

FED cameras have been around since '34 Ted*...at least within the former Soviet bloc.

* Let me take a wild guess that is not what you're referring to here...

 

[FoxyMulder]

FED cameras have been around since '34 Ted*...at least within the former Soviet bloc.

* Let me take a wild guess that is not what you're referring to here...

I think he means this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_emission_display

A field emission display (FED) is a display technology that incorporates flat panel display technology that uses large-area field electron emission sources to provide electrons that strike colored phosphor to produce a color image as an electronic visual display. In a general sense, a FED consists of a matrix of cathode ray tubes, each tube producing a single sub-pixel, grouped in threes to form red-green-blue (RGB) pixels. FEDs combine the advantages of CRTs, namely their high contrast levels and very fast response times, with the packaging advantages of LCD and other flat panel technologies. They also offer the possibility of requiring less power, about half that of an LCD system.After considerable time and effort in the early and mid-2000s, Sony's FED efforts started winding down in 2009 as LCD became the dominant technology. In January 2010, AU Optronics announced that it acquired essential FED assets from Sony and intends to continue development of the technology.FEDs are closely related to another developing display technology, the surface-conduction electron-emitter display, or SED, differing primarily in details of the electron emission system. In August 2010, Canon announced they were shutting down their joint effort to develop SEDs commercially, signalling the end of development efforts.

 

[ROclockCK]

Yeah, I was just funnin'...

 

[Worth]

As I recall, Joe Kane spent some years trying to tell people that 720P was good enough.

Honestly, I'd be fine with 720p 4:4:4 and no noticeable compression artifacts. The law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty hard once you get past 720p.

 

[Dave H]

Shame all those showrooms will mostly be LCD ( yuck, doesn't work for me ) which means for some of us it's a no buy, roll on cheaper 4K projectors and maybe OLED in 4 or 5 years if they can just get the yields even better and the price down.

Not an LED fan either (own VT60 plasma) but full array is returning and if they can refine it bringing Sharp Elite type blacks, it could be very interesting especially at some of those supersizes (80-90" screens).

 

[Dave H]

Honestly, I'd be fine with 720p 4:4:4 and no noticeable compression artifacts. The law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty hard once you get past 720p.

Still a decent difference between 720p and 1080p within certain screen size and viewing distances - twice the pixel resolution difference.

 

[Dave H]

As I recall, Joe Kane spent some years trying to tell people that 720P was good enough.

As I indicated in my post earlier in this thread, 4K is simply going to replace 1080P in the larger form factors, just like 1080P replaced 720P. In 2 years, people will walk into the showroom, and 4K will be there, at a reasonable price and looking better. A no-brainer.

In one of this recent interviews, he alluded that 1080p is still overkill unless the screen is quite large.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

I don't know, if you go out to a place with a good 4K screen and true 4K images, you really can tell a difference, at least I could.

 

[FoxyMulder]

A test has been done and so i disagree with Joe Kane.

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/4k-resolution-201312153517.htm

From that site i linked to a quick snippet of text.

An overwhelming majority of participants correctly identified the 4K TV, indicating that there exists a perceptible difference even from as far as 9 feet away on a 55in screen.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

And then i look at technology like the Avegant Glyph, which uses 720p displays with a 100% fill factor, and I'm brought back to the position that unless 4K can do something other than up the resolution (colour gamut, colour space, fill factor), it's a no-go for me.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

So much depends on what you're putting into the display. TV is 720P or 1080i natively so even a 1080P tv can't do that much with it, but compare 720 and 1080P, there is where you can tell differences. Same with a 4k set and a 1080 feed. It's just going to be upscaled. The real wow is watching good 4k images on a good 4k set.

 

[ROclockCK]

Well Ted, although I'm strictly in 4k tire-kicking mode at this point, I have seen some wonderful 1080p to 2060p upscaling on UHD monitors in the 65" to 80" range. What I'm detecting - strictly a personal, visceral reaction, waveforms be damned - is an overall more nuanced, assured rendering of the frame. And if this is apparent to even a non-pro under sometimes iffy showroom conditions, then I'm pretty certain it will provide a very nice kick at home.

So I'm not at all opposed to investing in a 4k monitor or player; in fact, I welcome both, just not at an early adopter price point. To my eyes, even when 4k capture gets downscaled to 2k for workflow...authored to 1080p Blu-ray disc...then upscaled back to 4k...it's still a pretty marvelous viewing experience*. Sometimes subtley so, but still noticeable in terms of overall impact.

* The caveat here being that the overwhelming majority of my feeder content has been, and will likely continue to be, 30 to 60 year old movies which already look pretty nifty in 1080p at a modest viewing scale and distance.

 

[rsmithjr]

...
So I'm not at all opposed to investing in a 4k monitor or player; in fact, I welcome both, just not at an early adopter price point. ...

The early-adopter price points will melt away quickly.

Vizio has already announced a 50" 4K HDTV for $999. Vizio is one of the companies that pushed the prices of 1080P down several years ago. The industry wants 4k to become the standard product, and they realize that pricing will have to come down to be not much more than we pay for 1080P today.

A number of years ago, people were buying 480P digital sets, with 720P as the premium. Today, 480P is completely gone, and 720P is only for inexpensive, small sets.

By next year things will be moving fast.

 

[Dave MJ]

I will eventually upgrade to a 4k projector and Blu-ray player when they become the de facto standard. I am more interested in expanded colorspace and contrast than resolution because I think that will make more of a perceptible difference. There isn't likely to be a lot of classic material made available in 4k, it will not be cost effective when 2k masters look "good enough". The big films which already have 4k scans will come out, but I highly doubt we will see many smaller films. I think it will be mostly new productions. If they do expand colorspace then some of the 2k films could be re-released with better color/contrast and less DNR.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

Not saying upscaling can't be great, but I saw an upscaled BD on a 4K set and it was good but it wasn't holding a candle to the native 4K.

 

[Doug Bull]

I will most certainly be an early adopter, just as I was with Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-Ray.

4k looks absolutely sensational and I can't wait for those first 4k Discs to be announced.
At the moment they can't tear me away from those astounding shop demos.


Doug.

 

[ROclockCK]

Not saying upscaling can't be great, but I saw an upscaled BD on a 4K set and it was good but it wasn't holding a candle to the native 4K.

Oh I agree Ted, merely acknowledging that 4k playback from a 4k > 2k> 1080p Blu-ray can still offer considerable value to movie fans with libraries skewed towards vintage titles which will likely never see a native 4k > 4k > 4k release.

Recently, I handed one bored salesman my Sony-mastered TT Blu-rays of Nicholas and Alexandra and Bye-Bye Birdie (both from 4k scans), plus Sony's own Lawrence of Arabia and Funny Girl (ditto) to spin up on some UHD systems, and I still crack a silly little smile when I recall how wonderful they looked.

So there's something in this 4k thing, even for diehard 2k collectors...