4K - Too Lifelike?

[wrkactjob]

The shops are starting to have demo 4K TV's in them now showing off breathtaking views of the Grand Canyon/helicopter flights through city centres or close up of Lions and Tigers (sorry love that link!)

So 4K for natural history programs seems great and I guess this is the same argument I have against Blue-Ray....but for the eventual action movies?....

Will it be too realistic and spoil the film?....36mm films old skool stylee seem to have some 'magic' that evaporates when watched in ultra ultra high def etc....

Are you looking forward to Die Hard 8 in 4K?

 

[Tilpots]

Yippee ki yay mother ****er! I enjoy watching films in the media that they are intended. Films in movie theaters, tv shows on tv, etc. So when a product is release on a new medium, yup, I'll enjoy it.

 

[roadbloc]

Last thing I want to see is Alan Sugar's ugly mug in even higher definition.

But a 4K monitor for my PC would be badass.

 

[Tsuchiya]

Aren't a lot of movies today filmed in 4K or something close to it? The cinema I usually go to has 4K projectors in all of their theatres and while it looks great it isn't been the monumental jump that I got from SD to 1080p

It looks clear, but it's not so significant that it affects viewing. Nature footage or anything purposely filmed to "pop" will look much better, but right now I still get that "wow" from some 1080p nature footage which I wouldn't get from whatever Bluray I happen to be watching.

 

[LethalWolfe]

The shops are starting to have demo 4K TV's in them now showing off breathtaking views of the Grand Canyon/helicopter flights through city centres or close up of Lions and Tigers (sorry love that link!)

I'd bet dollars to donuts that the TVs you are seeing are running at 120Hz or 240Hz which utterly destroys the look of a movie. Have you ever seen an IMAX movie? IMAX equates to about 6K yet it still looks movie-like. There also might be sharpening and other processing done by the TV that makes it 'pop' in a show room even though it butchers the original look of the footage in the process.

Aren't a lot of movies today filmed in 4K or something close to it? The cinema I usually go to has 4K projectors in all of their theatres and while it looks great it isn't been the monumental jump that I got from SD to 1080p

4K and 5K are starting to be used a bit but the finishing is still typically done at 2K. They shoot at a higher resolution so they can reframe in post, get extra pixels for FX work, etc.,. For what it's worth 35mm film is somewhere between 3K-4K but is typically transfered to digital at 2K for budget reasons.

 

[MacNut]

Aren't a lot of movies today filmed in 4K or something close to it? The cinema I usually go to has 4K projectors in all of their theatres and while it looks great it isn't been the monumental jump that I got from SD to 1080p

It looks clear, but it's not so significant that it affects viewing. Nature footage or anything purposely filmed to "pop" will look much better, but right now I still get that "wow" from some 1080p nature footage which I wouldn't get from whatever Bluray I happen to be watching.

The high budget films are shot in 4k because they need different cameras. As said 35mm can be transferred easier to 4K because it has more detail. This is why they can take all of the older negatives and rescan them into 4K.

If you took 1080p and looked at it through a true 4k screen it would look like crap. 1080 looks awful on a true hi-res screen. It is like watching I love Lucy on an HD screen vs something on Blue Ray on a 4K screen.

 

[boast]

It is the frame rate. My seiki 4k TV does not look life-like at all (running at 30Hz). But my friends 1080P 120Hz TV did have that weird "everything looks glossy like a commercial" feel to it.

 

[MacNut]

It is the frame rate. My seiki 4k TV does not look life-like at all (running at 30Hz). But my friends 1080P 120Hz TV did have that weird "everything looks glossy like a commercial" feel to it.

I didn't think you could get a TV now at 30 Hz.

Now is too early to be looking at a 4K set. The standards have not been set yet plus they are far to expensive.

 

[yg17]

It is the frame rate. My seiki 4k TV does not look life-like at all (running at 30Hz). But my friends 1080P 120Hz TV did have that weird "everything looks glossy like a commercial" feel to it.

That can be disabled. It's called the soap opera effect and is a result of the smooth motion feature on newer TVs. It's the first thing I did when I got my tv a few months back, I hate that feature.

 

[LethalWolfe]

If you took 1080p and looked at it through a true 4k screen it would look like crap. 1080 looks awful on a true hi-res screen. It is like watching I love Lucy on an HD screen vs something on Blue Ray on a 4K screen.

I'm confused by your post. You say 1080p would look horrible on a 4K screen and then imply watching a blu-ray (which maxes out at 1080p) would look good on a 4K screen. Also, I Love Lucy was shot on 35mm film. It was re-masted in HD and I wouldn't be surprised if it was re-masted again in 4K sometime down the line.

 

[MacNut]

I'm confused by your post. You say 1080p would look horrible on a 4K screen and then imply watching a blu-ray (which maxes out at 1080p) would look good on a 4K screen. Also, I Love Lucy was shot on 35mm film. It was re-masted in HD and I wouldn't be surprised if it was re-masted again in 4K sometime down the line.

I am saying a blu ray would look bad on a 4K screen. Weren't the original Lucy shows on tape? Could those be remastered?

 

[rhett7660]

At last years CES show, the 4K's were not that impressive. The 8K on the other hand that Sony was displaying must have been really something as the line was around the booth and people were getting sick at what they were showing!

 

[NewbieCanada]

The high budget films are shot in 4k because they need different cameras. As said 35mm can be transferred easier to 4K because it has more detail. This is why they can take all of the older negatives and rescan them into 4K.

If you took 1080p and looked at it through a true 4k screen it would look like crap. 1080 looks awful on a true hi-res screen. It is like watching I love Lucy on an HD screen vs something on Blue Ray on a 4K screen.

Don't knock I Love Lucy. It was shot on 35mm film and while it hasn't been released in HD as yet, the DVDs look as good as any other show - and a good deal better than shows from the 80s and 90s that were edited on videotape.

This is from a downrezzed XVID rip, but still looks fairly good.

 

[NewbieCanada]

I am saying a blu ray would look bad on a 4K screen. Weren't the original Lucy shows on tape? Could those be remastered?

Nothing was on tape in the early 1950s. First regular use of videotape on for a show was in 1957. I don't recall seeing a videotaped sitcom until All in the Family in 1969. Videotape (in the United States) was used for game shows, soaps and variety shows.

 

[smithrh]

Don't knock I Love Lucy. It was shot on 35mm film and while it hasn't been released in HD as yet, the DVDs look as good as any other show - and a good deal better than shows from the 80s and 90s that were edited on videotape.

This is from a downrezzed XVID rip, but still looks fairly good.

Along similar lines, I saw a brief clip of "The Longest Day" in 1080p and it looked entirely different - just so crisp and detailed. All of the times I've see it, it's been frankly horrible quality, probably too many copy processes.

Most anything done halfway well on film - and preserved correctly - should look awesome in HD.

 

[LethalWolfe]

I am saying a blu ray would look bad on a 4K screen. Weren't the original Lucy shows on tape? Could those be remastered?

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

As others have said, I Love Lucy was shot and edited on 35mm film. Kind of an irony when HD was becoming popular is that it was typically easier to re-master older shows which were shot and edited on film compared to new showers that were shot on film but mastered to video tape. For example, the Star Trek: Next Generation was relatively difficult to remaster into HD because all of the FX were done at SD resolution.

 

[deluxeshredder]

I encountered many users who prefer DVD(480p) to Blu-Ray(1080p) because DVD looks "more natural" (!!!). Some don't even notice a difference.

I can't imagine how 4K will be shoehorned on Mr. General Public now. Unlike high-DPI mobile screens, 4K TVs and monitors are unlikely to become affordable and see any decent marketing/advertising in the near future.

 

[cube]

4K looks great, what I did not like was The Hobbit in HFR.

But I will see the new Hobbit in HFR anyway because it is the original version.

 

[rayward]

So 4K for natural history programs seems great and I guess this is the same argument I have against Blue-Ray....but for the eventual action movies?....

I was in a Sony store looking at The Avengers on one of their smaller (65", I think) 4k sets. It wasn't an action sequence. Regardless, the actors in particular, but the whole thing in general looked quite fake. Offputtingly so.

 

[LethalWolfe]

I can't imagine how 4K will be shoehorned on Mr. General Public now. Unlike high-DPI mobile screens, 4K TVs and monitors are unlikely to become affordable and see any decent marketing/advertising in the near future.

4K will go mainstream when the price point makes it affordable to the mainstream. Same with high-DPI mobile screens. For example, we didn't see retina screens in 2008 because it would've been cost prohibitive at that time. I'd say 4K will hit the mainstream in 5-8yrs. I also think manufactures will phase out producing HD sets around the same time frame.

I was in a Sony store looking at The Avengers on one of their smaller (65", I think) 4k sets. It wasn't an action sequence. Regardless, the actors in particular, but the whole thing in general looked quite fake. Offputtingly so.

It's the 120hz refresh rate, not the 4K resolution.

 

[DeSnousa]

4K will go mainstream when the price point makes it affordable to the mainstream. Same with high-DPI mobile screens. For example, we didn't see retina screens in 2008 because it would've been cost prohibitive at that time. I'd say 4K will hit the mainstream in 5-8yrs. I also think manufactures will phase out producing HD sets around the same time frame.

It's the 120hz refresh rate, not the 4K resolution.

I for one hope the roll out is 3-5 years, now would be good. How long did it take HD to go mainstream from SD?

 

[MacNut]

4K will go mainstream when the price point makes it affordable to the mainstream. Same with high-DPI mobile screens. For example, we didn't see retina screens in 2008 because it would've been cost prohibitive at that time. I'd say 4K will hit the mainstream in 5-8yrs. I also think manufactures will phase out producing HD sets around the same time frame.




It's the 120hz refresh rate, not the 4K resolution.

We will see more HD sets in 5 years. The big hurdle will be getting the bandwidth available to view TV shows. Cable companies are having a hard enough time making room for HD. 4K takes 4 times the resolution of 1080p so until analog is dead and all of these channels convert to 4K it will be a while before we see wide spread adoption.

 

[DeSnousa]

We will see more HD sets in 5 years. The big hurdle will be getting the bandwidth available to view TV shows. Cable companies are having a hard enough time making room for HD. 4K takes 4 times the resolution of 1080p so until analog is dead and all of these channels convert to 4K it will be a while before we see wide spread adoption.

With consumers adopting with more and more online content I do not think this will be a massive hurdle.

 

[LethalWolfe]

I for one hope the roll out is 3-5 years, now would be good. How long did it take HD to go mainstream from SD?

The move from SD to HD had a lot of stops and starts due to lots of technical hurdles (new frame rates, new frame sizes, going from analog to digital transmission at the same time, etc.,). The first HD transmissions in the US started in the mid-90's but it wasn't until the mid 2000's that HD really started to gain traction.

By comparison in a span of about 5 years YouTube went from low rez SD streaming to 1080p streaming w/o any of the headaches associated with the switch from SD to HD in TV land. I'd expect the move to 4K to split the difference between the two.

We will see more HD sets in 5 years. The big hurdle will be getting the bandwidth available to view TV shows. Cable companies are having a hard enough time making room for HD. 4K takes 4 times the resolution of 1080p so until analog is dead and all of these channels convert to 4K it will be a while before we see wide spread adoption.

H.265 will help solve the bandwidth limitations for IP delivery and I'm not expecting 4K to hit traditional b'cast/cable/sat delivery in the foreseeable future (there's just too much infrastructure to upgrade and traditional distribution is in a downward trend that will plateau eventually but not rebound). I read that at NAB a TV maker (forget which one) was doing a demo w/a 72" 4K UHD TV that was fed an H.265 stream. It look really good and the stream was only 7 or 8 megs per second (the same bit rate as Netflix's current highest quality streaming option).

 

[cuencap]

With consumers adopting with more and more online content I do not think this will be a massive hurdle.

The more consumers adopt content online, the more of a hurdle it will be. The data still needs to get to the consumer's house somehow, and many people have sub-optimal routers and service plans to keep up with the buffering required to watch a 20GB video.