"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Dennis M

But film is meant to Large, Immersive and Life like.
You are meant to lose yourself in the experience.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by ole geezer

Writing negative articles on new emerging technologies is like shooting fish in a barrel for some writers and is par for the course. It's almost like a 'rite of passage' new CE gizmos have to go through.

agree, plus every CES has a new big thing. Talking of the newer TV (or other equipment) from ____ that is basicaly more or less the same thing as last years model (and the benefits even if realized can't be translated in words) does not make for BIG headlines

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Dennis M

But film is meant to Large, Immersive and Life like.
You are meant to lose yourself in the experience.

[ole geezer]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

...I do think the idea of a 4K home format is premature to the point of being perhaps... well... pointless..

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

I'm not talking about me; I'm talking about the industry.

Well... I'll address both than.

I may be rehashing old CE history but it's necessary for me to do this so I can drive home my point. I'll deal with HDTVs than DVD players.

I bought my first HDTV back in 2001; a Toshiba 1080i () CRT set that weighed something like 250 lbs, had a 5" "gun" and looked great 'cept when you compared it with a much more expensive set equipped with a 7" gun.

That gave way to a 720P DLP set in 2003 that had much better PQ which was replaced by a 1080P DLP set in 2005 with even better PQ. In 2010, a 3D HDTV took over my Family room.

Naturally, this same progression was followed with DVD players, i. e. 480i > 480p > 480i upconverted to 1080i.

Blu ray has been around now for 5+ years as a 2k format and imo has lost its "luster" and needs some juice (4k) to climb to the top of the pile...so to speak. It naturally follows that I don't think a 4k format is "pointless" at all and I know we're not talking "mainstream" here.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by ole geezer

Blu ray has been around now for 5+ years as a 2k format and imo has lost its "luster" and needs some juice (4k) to climb to the top of the pile...so to speak.

I don't disagree with you that some new "juice" in the packaged media world could be a good thing (despite a number of people already feeling jerked around by 3D coming so quickly on the heels of the BD transition), but I don't think a 4K disc format is going to provide that juice, even if it's launched into the market as well as anyone could hope for. I think the number of eyeballs that will be able to display and/or notice the benefits will be very small. The movie nerds who can afford very large systems will like it, but everyone else will resent being asked to upgrade again, to a format that looks "the same" to them, while they're still in the middle of switching their DVDs to Blu. Not only is that not juice, it may be a format-war-reminiscent functional opposite of juice in the marketplace.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Dennis M

But film is meant to Large, Immersive and Life like.
You are meant to lose yourself in the experience.

I find it a little ironic that some of us are quoting this comment in support of a 4K format.

This quote nicely resolves part of the problem with the practical idea of a 4K home medium.

There are two methods for viewing a 4K format in the home that will allow viewers to see a significant resolution difference from their Blu-rays: one is a humongous screen and the other is a high pixel-density near-field computer monitor of the type (again, ironically, in this discussion) alleged to be coming soon from the likes of Apple.

Guess which of these two methods is the only one that the vast majority of potential 4K buyers will ever be able to afford and integrate into their lives and homes? Yes, the latter option. The former option will be too expensive, not because the equipment prices will never come down, but because the necessary screen size is large enough that most would need to dedicate (and/or add) a room of their house to fit it.

With the display technology of the next decade, a 4K home medium in practical consumer usage will do one of two things:

appear essentially indistinguishable from Blu-ray on buyers' existing far-field systems

or

appear slightly (but often very negligibly) more resolute on buyers' upcoming near-field systems while making their pictures RADICALLY SMALLER to do so.

4K is only a "bigger picture" solution to such a small handful of the market as to be only a blip for that effect. Meanwhile, the vast majority of potential buyers will be left with the choice of:

Upgrade their player and discs and displays to 4K (far-field) and notice no real difference

or

Upgrade their player and discs and displays to 4K (near-field) and get a slightly more resolute but MUCH SMALLER picture

or

Just stick with the damn Blu-ray players they only bought two years ago, anyway.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

I don't disagree with you that some new "juice" in the packaged media world could be a good thing (despite a number of people already feeling jerked around by 3D coming so quickly on the heels of the BD transition), but I don't think a 4K disc format is going to provide that juice, even if it's launched into the market as well as anyone could hope for. I think the number of eyeballs that will be able to display and/or notice the benefits will be very small. The movie nerds who can afford very large systems will like it, but everyone else will resent being asked to upgrade again, to a format that looks "the same" to them, while they're still in the middle of switching their DVDs to Blu. Not only is that not juice, it may be a format-war-reminiscent functional opposite of juice in the marketplace.

agree in principal and the main point. Yes for some of us constant upgrading is a way of life but too fast of a pace and most people see it as forced obsolescence and that can lead to a backlash.

Anyways I find this discussion a bit ridiculous. Have we heard of a new disk (based on BD or not) that has several times the capacity of BD for 4K. This is just like HD, we had 720p displays at first followed by 1080p displays and lastly 1080p distribution and the same is happening again as far as I can see. The first step is some expensive 4k display for the people that can afford it and want much better than the norm. I don't expect 4k home distribution until 4k sets are the norm at retail.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

agree in principal and the main point. Yes for some of us constant upgrading is a way of life but too fast of a pace and most people see it as forced obsolescence and that can lead to a backlash.

Anyways I find this discussion a bit ridiculous. Have we heard of a new disk (based on BD or not) that has several times the capacity of BD for 4K. This is just like HD, we had 720p displays at first followed by 1080p displays and lastly 1080p distribution and the same is happening again as far as I can see. The first step is some expensive 4k display for the people that can afford it and want much better than the norm. I don't expect 4k home distribution until 4k sets are the norm at retail.

Which will happen in the next three years in my opinion.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

What about it?

You don't have to sell me on the value of a 4K scan of a 35mm source; I don't recall questioning it. I'm talking about the practicalities of timing versus industry practice. When end-to-end 4K is de rigeur, we can talk. Until then, I still think it's premature. And that still doesn't address the issue of displays large enough for a significant number of people to notice the difference. That's not just an issue of affordability; with practical display technologies, it will remain an issue of space. Significant amounts of people aren't going to have home theatres that can compete for size with commercial theatres in any economy, let alone this one.

Don't get me wrong- I'm all for 4K in the abstract. I just think it makes close to zero sense as a consumer product right now.

See “you’ve got to start somewhere”…
https://forum.blu-ray.com/5644495-post272.html

Doc, nobody is holding a gun to anyone’s head to buy a 4k display in the future, nor did they do so for 3D sets now on the market. You know it’s a matter of choice. You’re a motorcycle dude. When I raced off-road, I spent many hours first learning and then actually doing things to my ride to gain an incremental increase in horsepower or suspension handling quality because I was always chasing points during the season, every season I competed.

None of my fellow enthusiasts ever disparaged my choice for taking advantage of the latest advancements in that particular technology, despite the fact that probably 90% of the off-road rider population at the time didn’t know how, nor cared to do such things as port their cylinders….or at least polish them up somewhat.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Some are traveling by auto….

Volkswagen Sign and Drive Commercial - Vegas - YouTube

Whereas my wife, our Pom-Pom and myself are flying into town. For those who can’t make it out to Vegas, here’s links to the live streams of the Press Conference on Monday at 5:00 P.M. PST.
http://ces.blog.sony.com/
http://www.ustream.tv/sonyelectronics

Cue Kellie –

Kellie Pickler - Tough - YouTube

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Guess which of these two methods is the only one that the vast majority of potential 4K buyers will ever be able to afford and integrate into their lives and homes? Yes, the latter option. The former option will be too expensive, not because the equipment prices will never come down, but because the necessary screen size is large enough that most would need to dedicate (and/or add) a room of their house to fit it.

I disagree, why does someone need to dedicate or add a room to a home for a big screen. This is a misconception based on people used to watching an inappropriately small display. I have an HT, but that is not needed for a big screen and if you don't want multiple rows the room does not need to be that big.


I feel like I am repeating myself but maybe this third thread might help. We need to look at three measurements first the length of a room according to THX
http://www.thx.com/consumer/home-ent...r/hdtv-set-up/

Originally Posted by thx

How do you calculate the best seat-to-screen distance for a plasma, LCD TV or projection screen? Divide the size of your screen by .84 (screen size is measured diagonally). For example, a 65-inch TV divided by .84 equals a 77-inch viewing distance (6.5 feet).

and a seating distance of 10' will give a 8.4' diagonal or ~100" screen now obviously people can go larger or smaller closer or farther but this makes a good enough number and THX is a well reputed organisation in the field and no one can blame them for saying .84 because they want to sell you a bigger display since they neither sell or manufacture them.

I think we can agree that most people in homes (obviously excluding people in shanty towns and huts in the forest where they don't have Tvs) will have a room in the home that is more than 6.5' and most likely more than 10' (to put it in perspective a twin/double bed is 75" and a queen/king 80" so a bed room with a queen/king would need to be >6.5' to fit the bed even if it is wall to wall).

the next thing is height (to get it out of the way), at 100" diagonal that is just over 4' tall that definitely can't be a limiting factor, I have yet to enter a home where I can't walk upright.

the third is the image also has a width. For 100" that is 88" wide or 7' 4". again all you need is 10' without a used door way in order to fit in some speakers as well.

So Are you telling us the majority of homes don't have a 10x10 area/room they could watch in? and in order to have it it needs to be done with an expensive add on?

[ole geezer]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

I don't disagree with you that some new "juice" in the packaged media world could be a good thing (despite a number of people already feeling jerked around by 3D coming so quickly on the heels of the BD transition), but I don't think a 4K disc format is going to provide that juice, even if it's launched into the market as well as anyone could hope for. I think the number of eyeballs that will be able to display and/or notice the benefits will be very small. The movie nerds who can afford very large systems will like it, but everyone else will resent being asked to upgrade again, to a format that looks "the same" to them, while they're still in the middle of switching their DVDs to Blu. Not only is that not juice, it may be a format-war-reminiscent functional opposite of juice in the marketplace.

Whoa guy. I get the impression that you feel consumers are led by the nose kicking and screaming down that CE upgrade path and that's just not the case. Never once did I resent this process nor did I ever take it lightly. Everyone should always do their homework and weigh the expenditure against any perceived improvement in PQ, Naturally, this requires some discipline and patience but; fortunately, there's always some consumers that "shoot from the hip" and buy regardless of price and that's good because it permits new technology to take hold and allows consumers like me to catch up when prices are more favorable. But...it's always a fun and exciting process.

[ole geezer]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

...There are two methods for viewing a 4K format in the home that will allow viewers to see a significant resolution difference from their Blu-rays: one is a humongous screen and the other is a high pixel-density near-field computer monitor of the type (again, ironically, in this discussion) alleged to be coming soon from the likes of Apple.

Guess which of these two methods is the only one that the vast majority of potential 4K buyers will ever be able to afford and integrate into their lives and homes? Yes, the latter option. The former option will be too expensive, not because the equipment prices will never come down, but because the necessary screen size is large enough that most would need to dedicate (and/or add) a room of their house to fit it.

Well...If I do go 4k 3D, I'd borrow the principle that new stadium seating movie houses employ, i.e sit closer to my HT screen. IMAX at home. Ya gotta love it.

[Dennis M]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

I find it a little ironic that some of us are quoting this comment in support of a 4K format.

This quote nicely resolves part of the problem with the practical idea of a 4K home medium.

There are two methods for viewing a 4K format in the home that will allow viewers to see a significant resolution difference from their Blu-rays: one is a humongous screen and the other is a high pixel-density near-field computer monitor of the type (again, ironically, in this discussion) alleged to be coming soon from the likes of Apple.

Guess which of these two methods is the only one that the vast majority of potential 4K buyers will ever be able to afford and integrate into their lives and homes? Yes, the latter option. The former option will be too expensive, not because the equipment prices will never come down, but because the necessary screen size is large enough that most would need to dedicate (and/or add) a room of their house to fit it.

With the display technology of the next decade, a 4K home medium in practical consumer usage will do one of two things:

appear essentially indistinguishable from Blu-ray on buyers' existing far-field systems

or

appear slightly (but often very negligibly) more resolute on buyers' upcoming near-field systems while making their pictures RADICALLY SMALLER to do so.

4K is only a "bigger picture" solution to such a small handful of the market as to be only a blip for that effect. Meanwhile, the vast majority of potential buyers will be left with the choice of:

Upgrade their player and discs and displays to 4K (far-field) and notice no real difference

or

Upgrade their player and discs and displays to 4K (near-field) and get a slightly more resolute but MUCH SMALLER picture

or

Just stick with the damn Blu-ray players they only bought two years ago, anyway.

I agree the market for 4K displays will be small for some time to come. But that should should not limit advancements in technology. If that were the case we'd still see be watching content on 19" CRTs. Eventually as economies of scale come into play more and more people will adopt 4K displays. Will this happen over night, absolutely not. Were probably looking at a couple of decades. Just look how long it took the broadcast industry to adopt HD. In the end it took a government mandate. Change can be extremely slow at times.

But what is more relavent today is 4K in the workflow. As Penton has highlighted in previous posts the workflow today is largely 2K. Once the industry moves to a workflow that is completely 4K we will see the resolution benefits, even on our 1080 displays.

[Kris Deering]

While I'm all for innovation, I would rather see a lot of other things being added to software than 4K. Increases in bit depth and color resolution being the more obvious. I would much rather have a true 4:4:4 encode on Blu-ray than a 4K 4:2:0 encode. I would rather see 10 bit than 8 bit. Heck, I'd rather see them use the full 8 bit encode for the black and white signal (instead of limiting it to 16 to 235)!

I am all for 4K workflows on the post side as it is has been more than obvious that even Blu-ray at 1080p24 benefits tremendously from higher resolution scans and DIs. But a 4K display is lost on more than 99% of people out there IMHO.

[Kris Deering]

On a different note.

Penton please give my kudos to the chefs at Sony for the marvelous encode on Moneyball. Outstanding presentation of a great film. The wife and I enjoyed it immensely, even if we only got to watch it on our 120" 1080p screen.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

While I'm all for innovation, I would rather see a lot of other things being added to software than 4K. Increases in bit depth and color resolution being the more obvious. I would much rather have a true 4:4:4 encode on Blu-ray than a 4K 4:2:0 encode. I would rather see 10 bit than 8 bit. Heck, I'd rather see them use the full 8 bit encode for the black and white signal (instead of limiting it to 16 to 235)!

I am all for 4K workflows on the post side as it is has been more than obvious that even Blu-ray at 1080p24 benefits tremendously from higher resolution scans and DIs. But a 4K display is lost on more than 99% of people out there IMHO.

Bingo!

You absolutely get it, Kris.

I'm not at all against pushing further for progress; I just don't think a 4K consumer format is a logical or efficient means to do it in the current market. There are other directions for the industry to go in to much more readily bring significant improvement to a much larger segment of the audience (and 4:4:4@10bit is up at the top of my list, as well).

[rickah88]

Bond 50....I'm drooling all over this!!
Not Sony I know, but still...great set!

[Objectivity]

Penton, I know you can't do anything about this but I have to vent somewhere (and I'm typically a "suck it up and deal with it" type person.)

Just bought Moneyball. First blind buy I've made in years. Don't have time to watch it with the kids running around, so I figured I'd install it on my phone. I like the easy of iTunes, but honestly, Ultraviolet with Flixster wasn't so bad for Dolphin Tale and Harry Potter.

I open the disc, follow the directions on the insert, go to sonypictures.com and create an account. It won't let me create an account unless I agree to sign up for an eNewsletter that I don't want. Not checking the box isn't an option because it's required.

Then, once I've created the account and signed up for the eNewsletter I don't want, I have follow a link to the Ultraviolet website and log in there or create another account. I log in because I already have an account.

Despite doing what it says, Sony insists that my Ultraviolet account is "not Activated." When I click to activate and login, it goes to the page where I'm already logged in. I forget about that and try to move on.

I go to back to the Sonypictures website, click on download. Have the movie downloaded to my computer. I mouse over the link to the "Sony Pictures Download Manager" and the description on mouse over says "Watch your movies... on the go." Open the link, the only option available is to watch it on my computer. I have a six year old Dell Desktop. I'm not taking that on the go anywhere.

I go back online and go to the Ultraviolet website (the one that's "not activated") It shows that I own Moneyball. I click the link at the top of the page that says "Our Apps and Devices." I guess it's supposed to sound homey, but it just seems to say that everything I own belongs to them. Regardless, I digress. I click on "Our Apps" and I'm treated to a message that says "UltraViolet Devices Coming Soon! Devices coming soon. Adding a device will be as easy as clicking a button. Just look for the logo in your favorite software or hardware."

Ok. I have my (second) favorite software and hardware. I go to Flixster and login. It doesn't show Moneyball. I try to use the Redemption Code that came with the movie, not valid. Whether it's because I redeemed it on sonypictures or it never worked on Flixster, I don't know.

Now it's more than an hour later and my quest to load Moneyball onto my computer is at an end. Total failure, and I'm a computer saavy person with more than a passing knowledge of what I'm doing.

It shouldn't be this hard.

Go Ravens.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Objectivity

It shouldn't be this hard.

And, somehow, from the first moment I heard of UltraViolet, I knew it would be.