When will 4K TV (Ultra HD) happen?

[rcoobc]

Just interested about what your thoughts were on this?

It might seem ridiculous considering your phone my right now be 1080p, but I cant see this really taking off for another 15 years. Or will we completely skip this standard and move onto something else?

 

[Skywarden]

Edit: I'm blind and confused.

The F9000 series for example, a 4K series from Samsung is already here.

 

[ciderman9000000]

I reckon we'll be watching 32k TV's in fifteen years.

 

[101]

Sony are already selling a 4K TV: http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/st...551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&identifier=S_4KTV

If you have £4,000 to hand then go for it!

 

[Peasplease]

Is there any point to these? Most channels don't even broadcast in 1080p.

 

[rcoobc]

Is there any point to these? Most channels don't even broadcast in 1080p.

Exactly. HD content is still fairly rare, or at least not used for everything.

There are practically no films currently in filmed in 4K, and 4k TV's are bloody expensive.

2006 was the birth of HD in the UK with the World Cup and stuff, and it was a long time after that that content became more frequent. How long will it be for a similar moment with UHD? The PS4 and Xboxone can apparently broadcast film in 4K, but probably wont play any 3d games.

 

[Cina]

Are Bluray's capable of 4k or will a new media be required?

 

[rcoobc]

Are Bluray's capable of 4k or will a new media be required?

Should be fine, but they will probably move onto a new media anyway. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23492609

 

[rcoobc]

The main reason I put UHD adoption at 15 years away, is that we another new technology on the horizon: OLED

Both OLED and UHD obscenely expensive at the moment, so practically no one is actually going to buy one. OLED is (practically) the same as the AMOLED screens you get with your smart phones, but it's a lot more expensive to create over 40 inches instead of 5. Without bothering to go into why, with OLED TVs the blacks are blacker (or quite simply black) so the contrast ratio is meaninglessly perfect, and they can be extremely thin as they are not backlit. With OLED TVs, all that lovely 1080p content is rendered beautifully.

You can also have curved OLED screens which in my opinion are (probably) completely pointless.

UHD TVs need new content, otherwise they are expensive current generation TVs and that new content hasn't been created yet. They are as expensive as OLED, although further along the development tree and so could be closer to mass-market manufacturing. They are also mostly being made ridiculously large; 50 inches plus, purely so the UHD content actually looks (noticeably) better.

Again, with OLED you could have a regular 32 inch or 42 inch TV and the picture would seem fantastic, even with current generation content.

Of course you could have an OLED 4k TV, which probably would cost a fortune, but it's practically what I would recommend. If you want a 4k TV, why would you not buy an OLED one? There is little 4k content at the moment, so you are buying a several thousand pound machine which will be outdated as soon as the content arrives, because OLED 4K screens will be the norm.

5 years time OLED, 15 years time OLED 4K? My guess anyway.

 

[Rooney in Paris]

On top of there not being that much content to go along with 4K, is there actually a real point in it? I mean from a user's eye point of view? Are we capable of making a difference between 1080p and 4K? At the pictures, it makes sense for me in a certain way cos the screens are so huge, but on a small screen TV, is there a point? (genuine question, I don't know enough about this)

 

[rcoobc]

Also, by the time the PS3 (a mass market device capable of playing 1080p films) was released people were already buying HDTV's. In the UK it was for the 2006 World Cup, or just because they were the new thing.

This year the PS4 and Xboxone (both apparently capable of playing UHD video) are being released and there is practically no UHD TVs kicking around. As I said above, neither console will be able to play 3D games in UHD either, so there will be no reason to buy a UHD TV for the console gamer. Of course you could that in a few years the market will be saturated with machines capable of playing UHD films, but there is no "triple storm" this time around, and no reason for Gamers to buy one.

So the next question is, will the PS5 and Xbox10^10 be able to play games in 2160p? Or 4320p? Maybe. I think Sony will go for 4K at least, but it will be difficult; worse than the tame jump from 720p to 1080p and certain people don't even believe that there will be a console after these. (Although I dont agree).

The equation will be, when are there enough people who own 4k TV's for TV and Movie companies to film it? Yet only when there is enough content will people bother upgrading the 4k. A very slow uptake then.

 

[Silva]

They've already made 6K Cameras, the future is bright and very highly defined.

The equation will be, when are there enough people who own 4k TV's for TV and Movie companies to film it? Yet only when there is enough content will people bother upgrading the 4k. A very slow uptake then.

It won't be long until 4K TV's are the ones in mass production, by the end of this decade it'll feel about as revolutionary a technology as flatscreens are now.

 

[rcoobc]

They've already made 6K Cameras, the future is bright and very highly defined.

It's a crying shame that Film and high-quality TV makers don't future-proof their content, but they don't. Most of the money of the product is made the moment it is released; in Cinema or on TV.

Incidentally, my phone has a 4K Camera (or thereabouts). That's what a 8 megapixel camera is, which is why the megapixels race is stupid. Obviously it doesn't record video in that though.

 

[Silva]

My phone has a 4K camera (or there abouts). That's what a 8 megapixel camera is, which is why the megapixels race is stupid.

I know your talking about video cameras of course, but I just thought I'd point this out. It's a crying shame that film makers and high-quality TV makers don't future-proof their content, but they don't. Most of the money of the product is made the moment it is released; in Cinema or on TV.

It'd be impossible to future-proof TV and Cinema IMO, look at 2001: A Space Odyssey, that's quite brilliantly made but a lot of people think it's outdated and slow. So really, if any content is good in its moment, that's all the creators should be worried about, rather than splashing extra buckets of cash at better Camera's.

 

[simonhch]

Sometimes I watch a movie or TV show in 1080p, the picture is almost too clear. You lose that element of mystery and magic that film creates. The characters look too life like, smaller and less impressive. Anyone else ever experienced this phenomenon?

 

[ciderman9000000]

Sometimes I watch a movie or TV show in 1080p, the picture is almost too clear. You lose that element of mystery and magic that film creates. The characters look too life like, smaller and less impressive. Anyone else ever experienced this phenomenon?

Yeah I get that when watching porn in HD.

 

[rcoobc]

Damn you Silva, I fixed that as it sounded too aggressive.

I don't quite agree with all of that, but perhaps it doesn't really matter anyway. The far-future will be 3DTV which allows your eyes to focus on anything you want, rather than the film makers forcing you to focus on something and giving you a headache. For this to work, content would have to be filmed with methods that I cant really imagine, each person watching would have to have cameras picking up their eyes focusing in realtime and each person would have to have their 3d content individually. Every film would in effect become a virtual-reality game, so content would be filmed and the converted into the game framework, which would look no different to real life anyway.

This certainly can't be made future-proof.

But i'd have loved it if earlier TV had been filmed using a modern aspect-ratio, or simply used a high resolution camera and cropped it to the modern size, but kept the excess. Also, films being converted in post-production to 3D is stupid, as is digitally remastering earlier films to 3D.

So probably what I am saying is that modern TV should be filmed in something higher than 1080p and then simply crop the central 1080p content. Although this obviously has its own flaws in that you need the entire set to be wider and taller. I can't really imagine something replacing the pleasing 16:9 ratio, but films use wider resolutions.

 

[Silva]

Sometimes I watch a movie or TV show in 1080p, the picture is almost too clear. You lose that element of mystery and magic that film creates. The characters look too life like, smaller and less impressive. Anyone else ever experienced this phenomenon?

Depends on what you're watching, character driven dramas aught to filmed in such a way that fits the themes of the film - and if the themes are in anyway murky the lighting and to a slightly less extent the camera work should be too. When watching things that are supposed to be visually impressive, the higher the detail the better.

Documentaries should strive for HD, especially wildlife ones. Historical documentaries are slightly more complicated - their talking heads should make use of HD, but reconstructions can be look wrong and be somewhat disconcerting if they're in HD.

 

[ciderman9000000]

Imagine 256k TV's with screens as wide as your eyes go!

 

[rcoobc]

Depends on what you're watching, character driven dramas aught to filmed in such a way that fits the themes of the film - and if the themes are in anyway murky the lighting and to a slightly less extent the camera work should be too. When watching things that are supposed to be visually impressive, the higher the detail the better.

Documentaries should strive for HD, especially wildlife ones. Historical documentaries are slightly more complicated - their talking heads should make use of HD, but reconstructions can be look wrong and be somewhat disconcerting if they're in HD.

I'm not sure. I think everything is better in HD; if you look at youtube videos of games for example, everything looks better when at 720p or 1080p. I agree everything needs to be made in context though, so the lighting and colours need to be right. You can have something extremely murky and unclear, even in HD.


Does Amnesia look better in 720p or 360p? I'm not sure.

 

[rcoobc]

People always say that porn is the greatest innovator when it comes to this crap. And as Ciderman had tonnes of 3D porn, I can half believe it. Right?

 

[Silva]

3D porn didn't come around as an innovation really, 3D porn cropped up because relatively cheap 3D cameras and 3D editing suites are available now.

Porn tends to innovate distribution quite well - we all know how well they've adapted to the internet for a start.

 

[ciderman9000000]

People always say that porn is the greatest innovator when it comes to this crap. And as Ciderman had tonnes of 3D porn, I can half believe it. Right?

Yeah I've still got the 3D porn but I don't use it very often these days.

 

[olesmyhero]

Are Bluray's capable of 4k or will a new media be required?

RED, the makers of the 1st 4k digital camera, have a RED Ray player that does 4k.

We're a good way off from 4k being a standard for movies at home, and even further away from 4k being the standard for HDTV.

 

[rcoobc]

3D porn didn't come around as an innovation really, 3D porn cropped up because relatively cheap 3D cameras and 3D editing suites are available now.

Which is why 3DTV is dead! Amiright?

Yeah I've still got the 3D porn but I don't use it very often these days.

How's Sam getting on? My 1st was born recently. It's amazing.

 

[Silva]

I bet laptops/computer monitors wind up being 4K as standard before TV's do.

 

[rcoobc]

Yup. I reckon monitors will start to move away from 4k before TV's move away from 1080p. PC Gamers can run their games at practically whatever resolution their PC and Monitor can handle. It can be a fair bit higher than 1080p at the moment.



Sometimes, even I have the urge to splash a few grand on getting this set up properly.

 

[rcoobc]

From a CNet poll:

4K vs. OLED

What are you more interested in, 4K or OLED?

OLED! Give me some contrast ratio.
49%4K!

Love me some pixels.
18%

Cheaper 1080p TVs thanks to all these fools buying 4K and OLED!
33%

Total votes: 3869

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57514352-221/4k-tv-vs-oled-tv/

That's relatively pleasing. Probably fueled by the Galaxy S4 owners being interested in the technology, but you would think there would be more 4K fan boys out there. Although I think OLED TV's are less in the news, whereas 4K is in the news all the time, so that article is unlikely to be found by the 4K fanboys, but discovered by the OLEDs.

 

[101]

I think TV refresh rates are a much more pressing issue. The newer TVs do 200-400Hz and everything looks too damn smooth! When you're watching a movie it's like watching a sitcom.

 

[ciderman9000000]

You actually have 4k and OLED fanboys?

Bollocks.

 

[rcoobc]

AV stuff has always had fanboys, probably from the Dungeon and Dragon brigade.

 

[ciderman9000000]

What doss Dungeons & Dragons have to do with AV?

 

[rcoobc]

They share the same members? Who knows. It's the classic American "AV Club" image though, full of nerdy kids siting in their parents basement playing D&D.

I'm not being entirely serious. But people do have strong opinions about this.

 

[Gambit]

a real 4k mass market is about 10 years away. Also the step up in quality isn't the same as it was from sd to hd. Looked at from normal viewing space on a similar sized TV I doubt many would even notice the difference. Added to that the fact most channels still broadcast in sd and even the hd ones aren't full hd instead opting for 720p. Also take James Bond Skyfall a feature film shot in 2.8k but simply upscaled to 4k for the 4k cinemas. No one noticed. The future market to concentrate on is smaller handheld devices. 4K will be a specialist market. The vast majority of content will be watched on devices that anything over 1080p is a complete waste of time and bandwidth.

 

[rcoobc]

LG have presented a 77 inch "4K Ultra HD OLED TV"...

Now we are talking. Just need to shrink it by 2.3 times

 

[fishfingers15]

Alright, I'm thinking of buying a HDTV, currently I have 3 choices. One is LG Plasma, one is a 55 inch Samsung LED 8000 series and another is a Sharp aquos 60 Inch. Anybody recommend a TV?

 

[The Don]

Plasma is actually a better screen for Sports and Fast moving action films. It falls down in other areas compared to LED but with smoother viewing for sports and deeper, richer blacks, I always go for plasma. There is a 50inch LG Pentouch plasma that goes for a nice price.
Its also a full HD, 3D Smart TV and it also comes in 60inch.

http://www.lg.com/uk/tvs/lg-50PH660V

The 60inch is actually available on ebuyer for under a grand.

http://www.ebuyer.com/522789-lg-60-plasma-full-hd-3d-smart-tv-freeview-hd-60ph660v

 

[JmRssll555]

RED, the makers of the 1st 4k digital camera, have a RED Ray player that does 4k.

We're a good way off from 4k being a standard for movies at home, and even further away from 4k being the standard for HDTV.

Panasonic currently make a 4K blu-ray player which is around £270 and available in most large electrical retailers like Currys and Argos.

In my opinion, the OLED will be a more successful technology, although we are more likely to see 4K on the mass market sooner since it seems to be both further along in development and easier to implement.

The curved screen aspect of OLED screens is also an interesting one - I remember my high school physics teacher telling us all about OLEDs when we were looking at electricity and LEDs in his class. He claimed that with the mass manufacturing of OLED screens, with their ability to be curved, that eventually we could see TVs which could be rolled up like a newspaper and easily carried around. Mind-blowing stuff, but I'm not sure how accurate his claim was.

 

[fishfingers15]

I like Plasma TD, but my TV room is well lit and plasma could be a problem with the amount of light in my living room. And I play video games, where a lot of reviewers have complained about lags in the Panasonic/LG sets I will definitely consider this at the showroom though, thank you for the suggestion.

 

[rcoobc]

Plasmas use a fair bit more electricity wise too.



Is it just me or do many more plasmas tend to only be "HD Ready" rather than full HD? Is it a price point thing? After my huge 2nd hand 50 inch plasma I'd never get a plasma again, but it might just be a bad experiance.