
8K TVs Are Coming to Market - prostoalex
http://www.wired.com/2016/01/8k-tvs-coming-to-market/?mbid=social_fb
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thenomad
Still of relevance: the "when will 4k matter to you?" chart.

[http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html](http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html)

Short version: you might get some benefit from an 8k tv (and associated 8k
media if/when it arrives) if you're routinely sitting closer than 5' from your
80" television. Otherwise, not so much.

I generally try to avoid dissing new technology/software/ideas, but really, 8k
TVs appear on the face of it to be pretty pointless. You literally won't be
able to tell the difference between a 4k and an 8k film if you're sitting at a
reasonable distance from a normal-sized TV.

(I'm defining "normal-sized" as "55 inches or smaller" here. If in actual fact
lots of people are buying 90" TVs that changes things.)

For reference, I've been a video professional for 20 years, I have a
reasonably large television in a not-massive living room, and in my living
room I can _just about_ tell the difference between 720p and 1080p content
playing on it, if the source is high-quality and I'm concentrating. The
resolution has to drop down to 480p or less before I find it starts actively
interfering with my enjoyment of whatever I'm watching.

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forgueam
I agree that these resolution jumps aren't overly relevant for casual TV
viewing.

The increased resolutions _are_ important, however, for the success of VR
headsets where the display is literally inches away from your eyes.

~~~
thenomad
Oh, definitely. No disagreement there. I'm very much looking forward to my CV1
Rift :)

~~~
forgueam
Me too!

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daviddumon
I love commercial videos that explain to you why this new resolution is
unbelievable, but the cam used to record it is a full hd one, and it's
displayed in a 640*320 window :)

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orblivion
And yet there's something to them. There's clearly some sort of interesting
technique used. I guess they try to make the things on the screen look as real
as the people watching.

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bitL
Literally the only 8k content available for the foreseeable future are
timelapse/hyperlapse movies stitched together from 32Mpx+ pictures, i.e. from
D810, 5Ds etc. (maybe medium format as well if they weren't so slow).

We have immense problems with silly 4k RAW recording - first, only the latest
M.2 PCIe SSDs are fast enough to record/play it in realtime and second, the
size of RAW footage is ridiculously large. 8k cameras are just experimental
prototypes.

~~~
usrusr
> Literally the only 8k content available for the foreseeable future are
> timelapse/hyperlapse movies stitched together from 32Mpx+ pictures

Pointless screensaver-like demo visualization apps might see an unexpected
revival. Think tutanchamun mask projected onto mirrored sphere floating above
infinite checkerboard, or even just the randomly swooshing hairline polygons
on black, perfect to show off superior pixel density. Last time this has
happened, customers were faced with a similar mismatch between theoretical
multimedia capability and available content.

~~~
bitL
That would require a fanless GPU capable of 4k @ 60Hz. But we can dream ;-)

~~~
usrusr
Anything capable of painting a modern channel selector UI on that screen will
be generously oversized for recreating effects from the screen saver age.

But I get your point, it may take a while before those screens become must-
have gaming accessories. Even if you had the GPU resources to achieve high
FPS, an excessive increase in screen resolution would only expose low polygon
count artifacts without a matching increase in scene complexity.

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vitriol83
maybe i'm old, but I can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on my
ludicrously oversized flat screen tv

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gambiting
Really? I've got a 50" FullHD TV and I could definitely use an upgrade to 4K.
Sitting 3-4 meters away from it some content is definitely not as sharp as it
could be.

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vitriol83
i have a 46" TV. I suspect the x.264 compression artifacts were becoming a
limiting factor (and my eye sight)

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rconti
I often can't tell between 720p and 1080i source material either on my 46"
1080p set. About to buy a 75" 4k set though. The size means I'll definitely
notice 4k from my couch distance (~8ft) and the sheer size will come in handy
when watching TV from the kitchen table (~15ft away)

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fabrixxm
> it means digitally zooming an image without affecting picture quality will
> be a reality.

Wait.. what?

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domas
The paragraph is saying that "absolutely no evidence of pixelation even if
your face is an inch from the set", so my interpretation is that in normal
viewing distance even zoomed in video will look perfect: "That’s not a
realistic viewing scenario, but on the production side of the equation, it
means digitally zooming an image without affecting picture quality will be a
reality."

~~~
bitL
My 55" 4k TV has pixels visible pretty much from distances under 1m. I use it
for showcasing my photography portfolio, looks much better than on 1080p, as
well as to review my hyperlapse movies and that's about it. 8k on a smartphone
will be different though, but why? 720p on 5" is close to "good enough" for
median vision of population.

8k is supposed to be the "final resolution" of TV as it should bring retina-
style to people with perfect vision (not to eagles though).

~~~
pkroll
8K on a smartphone means a reasonable resolution for VR headsets, so don't
discourage them. :)

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DanielBMarkham
Cool. Now make it a touch screen with wireless connectors and sell it in racks
beside the drywall at the local home improvement store.

I keep waiting for this world of ubitquitous cheap displays that we've been
promised. Seems like we're getting there -- but it's been taking its sweet
time.

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uptown
"I keep waiting for this world of ubiquitous cheap displays that we've been
promised."

What do you consider cheap? You can get a 42" screen for under $300 these
days. That used to cost $1500 and weigh 5 times as much not too long ago.

~~~
owenversteeg
I imagine he's referring to 13-21" screens, where the price has stagnated in
the past, say, 5 years, especially relative to higher-end displays. Case in
point: you can now get a $5 Raspi Zero, which is more powerful than my laptop
from seven years ago, which cost $700. That's an absolutely insane, and
amazing, reduction in price. But any meaningful display for it will cost you
around $90-$120, which is roughly how much it cost seven years ago.

As much as I appreciate the stupid and pointless race towards insane
resolutions for how it benefits VR, I too wish we had some progress making
"normal", 1920x1080 20" (or 13" 1600x900) displays for cheap.

People talk about "Raspi Zero, the $5 computer" but for six billion people in
the world who don't have a computer, a computer is a device with a screen.
When _that_ whole shebang becomes $5, having a computer suddenly becomes a
choice for everyone, not a privilege for the upper 15% of society. And right
now, the thing that's holding us back from that dream is only the display.

A $5 Raspi, which consumes 0.6W at most, can be powered for 18 hours with a
battery that costs $2 in bulk. A SD card in bulk might be an extra $3 and a
Wifi dongle can be had for $2 in bulk. That's a $12 laptop. Add a display, and
your $12 laptop becomes $100. The lack of progress in displays is criminal.

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jpollock
I believe that LG uses double resolution TV's so that they can do full res
passive 3D where they alternate lines to each eye. That way they get full
frame rate, reducing the flickering, and getting rid of battery powered
glasses. So for them an 8k TV would really be a 4k 3d TV.

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FussyZeus
I haven't even upgraded to 4K yet. Who gives a damn if there are 8K
televisions, barely any Blu Rays support 4K yet, and streaming it (in the
States at least)? Fuhgetabboutit.

I upgraded to a 4K on my gaming PC and that's awesome to have because it's
right in front of my face, but until the content is widely available I see no
reason to move up past 1080p for the living room. Just dumb, I'd rather have
the content the native resolution of the TV's panel. Maybe that's just me, I
dunno.

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suvelx
And the 4K content is where?

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martinko
Netflix, Youtube.

~~~
uptown
How's the quality from them? I got the sense, from articles I'd read, that it
was overly compressed, but I've never seen it first-hand.

~~~
daviddumenil
I've never seen any artifacts in the ~50hrs on content I've watched in 4K
across Netflix and Amazon.

The biggest picture quality issue is possibly the cameras themselves: a lot of
TV looks uncomfortably real - like it was shot on a security camera. Though I
did get the same impression from Breaking Bad in 4K, even though it was shot
on 35mm.

~~~
joneholland
The "Soap Opera Effect" Is usually more pronounced from running at a frame
rate higher than 24fps.

For some reason we've become accustomed to 24FPS as realistic, and the smooth
motion on a 120hz screen is jarring.

~~~
phn
There is a theory that a thing so smooth as 120hz falls in the "very real but
not quite real" case, or the Uncanny Valley. Whereas 24fps tells our brain
we're clearly watching a movie and so it's ok.

Just like those highly realistic dolls from Japan where you can tell something
is wrong but you can't quite put your finger on it.

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dzdt
I hope they keep going on this resolution kick. There is a pretty big gap
between the max resolution that really makes sense for flat images and the
minimum resolution for holographic displays. The higher resolution that sells
to videophiles, the smaller that gap becomes and the more likely we are to
eventually bridge it.

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pookeh
I don't think pixelation from digital zoom is a cause of tv resolution (it was
decades ago)...since digital zoom will produce pixelation artifacts that cover
multiple tv pixels. Example just connect your tv to your computer and zoom
into a picture.

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coldcode
So where are the 128 bit addressable CPUs?

~~~
kuschku
We don’t even have full 64-bit currently, actually current processors (Haswell
series, for example) use only 48-bit for memory.

~~~
throwaway7767
Modern CPUs have 64-bit word and virtual address sizes, so by normal
definitions they are 64-bit. The physical address range is not the metric
here.

Besides, it would make no sense to have a 64-bit physical address bus. There
aren't enough atoms in the universe to make memory to fill it.

~~~
kuschku
Indeed it makes no sense to have a 64-bit physical bus, but the parent was
asking why we don’t have 128-bit yet on consumer devices.

~~~
teilo
Same answer. It's all CPUs, bus width, and address space. Consumer devices are
not special.

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kuschku
Yes, I’m just saying: Before we look towards 128-bit devices, we should look
towards 64-bit devices first.

