8K discussion thread

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by RalphoR

Yeah....but I'm a Sony TV guy

It would be a weakness to consider only Sony for a 65" 8k solution, why because they acquire their OLED panels from LG and don't seem to pushing the envelope with LCD panels like other TV manufacturers with 8K models.

I daresay Sony's relevance to 8K TV market has limited time before many competitors start selling 8K TVs that will show up at CES 2020.

Previously mentioned against 8K LCD panels

While major players including Samsung Display, AU Optronics (AUO), Sharp and BOE Technology have already rolled out 8K panels, China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) will join the rank in 2020

[RalphoR]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

It would be a weakness to consider only Sony for a 65" 8k solution, why because they acquire their OLED panels from LG and don't seem to pushing the envelope with LCD panels like other TV manufacturers with 8K models.

I daresay Sony's relevance to 8K TV market has limited time before many competitors start selling 8K TVs that will show up at CES 2020.

Previously mentioned against 8K LCD panels

You're not knocking me over with those company names

When the time comes I'll definitely look into all my options.

[smeemi]

8K content must be on the horizon if the big players are releasing so many TVs in their lineup with it. With the Xbox and PlayStation rumoured to play 8k (I doubt how on AAA titles) maybe 2021 will be the year for it. My LG 65 w7 4K OLED will last me a while but I think in 2-3 years I may purchase an 8k.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

#1. The introduction of UHD TVs was a knee-jerk reaction by the TV OEMS to the failure of 3DTV to take hold. That's why all they offered was a resolution step-up. If you remember, it wasn't easy to get UHD content to them at the time. Most were 8 bit panels.

#2. When over 50% of the comments by reviewers stated that they couldn't see any difference between HD and UHD, this prompted the addition of HDR and WCG using 10 bit panels. Though BT.2020 was introduced as a standard, Hollywood's lower P3 was the benchmark. These improvements were easily seen from any viewing distance. HDR/WCG took off and has since been a large part of the success of UHD.

#3. Going from Rec.709/HD to P3/UHD was not that big of a step. Sort of like going from NTSC to HDTV. Doable within an acceptable cost factor.

And now we are at the dawn of UHD 2 (8K) which for the most part has only been "pushed" by a single country and a single company (Japan/NHK).

Going from UHD1 to UHD 2 is a HUGE leap forward. The infrastructure doesn't exist outside of Japan. Think about the changes: HD to UHD 1 (2MB/frame to 8+MB/frame with the + being HDR/WCG). UHD1 to UHD 2 (8+MB frame to 32+/MB per frame). THAT'S A TON OF DATA per second.

I see two improvements to UHD 2: 12 bit panels so BT.2020 can be reached and HFR which has already been proven successful in trial live broadcasts of sports. Because resolution drops off so much when objects are in motion, it is a prerequisite. The difference between UHD 2 HFR and UHD 2 is like night and day.

IMO - you aren't going to see the transition from UHD 1 to UHD 2 as we have seen in the past: SD to HD to UHD. There is no need to shoot and show movies or TV shows in UHD 2. UHD 1 will work just fine. Sports on the other hand is, if you will excuse the pun; "a whole new ball game."

#1 They needed a new hook so yeah, I can agree with that.

#2 If only it were that simple re: HDR as being "easily seen from any viewing distance" when it comes to what the wider populace think of it, there are still plenty of people on here who think it's premium snake oil and outside of our little forums echo chamber the actual public don't give a shit. And P3 was decided upon by DCI as a suitable gamut for emulating that of film which is why it's been such a mainstay in Hollywood, one of the things behind the lack of takeup of 2020 isn't just that "the panels cannae do it captain!" because certain projektors can get much closer to 2020 coverage, and DCPs are encoded as 12-bit XYZ anyway so they could be 2020 if they wanted, it's that you're not going to encounter such a wide range of colour for every piece of content.

It's not a coincidence that when Vincent Teoh pointed the 'out of gamut' marker on the Sony BVMX300 mastering monitor at several UHDs the only ones to show significant colour beyond P3 were nature documentaries - shot to 'pop' as they always are - and animated material like Spider-verse and Lego Batman because in the case of the latter the image is being built from nothing, the gamut can be as narrow or as wide as they like and they have specific control over it, unlike real world conditions when shooting narrative material where 'pop' is often the last thing on people's minds. Indeed, one of the first Hollywood movies to use the 2020 gamut was (drum roll please)....an animated movie, Disnee's Inside Out which used 2020 for certain sequences in the film IIRC. Even now, live action movies are only just starting to move into P3 monitoring from end to end to really see what the WCG is doing at every stage of the production, a lot of the time they just use a quick 709 transform on-set.

And then there's the issue of metamerism. The wider the colour gamut gets the more that our eyes will diverge in what we actually see of it, so there's still apprehension there in wanting to paint everything with that brush. Though given how badly botched HDR has been in terms of display implementation - for the tone mapping as much as display performance - then I don't suppose some extra metamerism will matter, as it is I often wonder if I'm watching the same disc as what other people are

#3 Given all the above I don't think it was them using existing WCG standards just to be cheap, it's that the tech still just isn't there for panels and bit depth doesn't really come into it, because bits alone don't govern how much of a gamut you can reach. They will give you more gradations within the gamut and less banding the wider you go, but gamut coverage is not a specific function of bit depth. Heck, most professional monitors don't get anywhere near full 2020 so it's not just a consumer-related hardware issue when it comes to panels and it makes sense to stick with the existing WCG layout for practical reasons as much as cost.

As for UHD 2 being a HUGE LEAP FORWARD, any time you quadruple your pixel count then it's going to create A TON OF DATA PER SECOND, the amount of information that HDR and WCG adds is nominal. You're storing the pixels first, and the storage medium doesn't care about what's in them as it's totally agnostic in that fashion. A blank frame in uncompressed 8K will take up 32 MB just as surely as the most blazingly bright and colourful frame from an action scene. So 2 MBp/s (2K) becomes 8 MB (4K), 8 MB (4K) becomes 32 MB (8K), and if they go to 16K then 32 MB becomes 128 MB. A TON OF DATA then, but will it actually be worth all that extra bandwidth?

HDR and WCG were included for them being very low on additional data as much as anything, when combined they give one of the most appreciable benefits (in testing, heh) for the lowest amount of extra bandwidth vs sheer spatial resolution alone. More pixels aren't a huge leap, more an incremental step ESPECIALLY when dealing with conventional 24p content which is why HFR is going to be increasingly important when it comes to 8K as you say. If HDR was the big thing for 4K, then HFR must be the big thing for 8K.

[DJJez]

im not buying an 8K TV until 8K 88's come way down in price which will probaly be like 3-5 years

[Scottishguy]

Don't forget screen size Geoff

[DJR662]

Originally Posted by DJJez

im not buying an 8K TV until 8K 88's come way down in price which will probaly be like 3-5 years

I'm not buying an 8K TV unless its specs match what I want/need. That 8K resolution in itself is way down at the bottom of my checklist.

[JohnAV]

Samsung Electronics announced today that its upcoming 2020 QLED 8K television lineup will offer ATSC 3.0 tuners.

[PaulGo]

I am not buying a replacement TV until they offer 3D!

[Lee A Stewart]

Originally Posted by PaulGo

I am not buying a replacement TV until they offer 3D!

You have one chance of that happening . . . If AVATAR 2 is a smashing success.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

You have one chance of that happening . . . If AVATAR 2 is a smashing success.

If it’s shown in the theaters in 8k that might launch 8k also.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

#2 If only it were that simple re: HDR as being "easily seen from any viewing distance" when it comes to what the wider populace think of it, there are still plenty of people on here who think it's premium snake oil and outside of our little forums echo chamber the actual public don't give a shit.

That might change with user groups in the future.

I think a premise that may be presented at the upcoming Hollywood Professional Association Tech retreat in February is that the implementation of SMPTE ST 2110 (like BT. 2100 , another of those lesser known standards to hobbyist forums or AV magazines) very well could be a driver in leading to mass acceptance of HDR.

[Blu-rayNut51]

Earlier today, Geoff D was talking about material shot at high frame rate being a promising advance in quality for us video enthusiasts. However, considering the fact that in the past several years, the couple of cases of theatrical movies having been shown at high frame rates basically left audiences cold, with many people complaining about the sterile, video-like look of those high frame rate movies, that amount of rejection by the public, seems to have frozen the movement toward any major implementation of HFR by movie producers.

[Blu-rayNut51]

Back on Dec. 23rd, forum member rachaeldeckard wrote "And for the millionth time in this thread: 8K content will not come from Hollywood Movies."

Now maybe I'm just very slow on the uptake, but if we Home Theater enthusiasts cannot look forward to seeing movies produced in 8k, then, just exactly what sort of material would we be watching to take advantage of the greater resolution and detail provided by 8k TVs? Because I can't believe that many people will invest in 8k displays, just so that they can watch brief 8k videos on YouTube.

After all, the name of this website is Blu-ray.com, not YouTube.com, so I have to assume that the people who are attracted to a site named Blu-ray.com, are folks whose main interest in the area of video, is to use their video equipment for the viewing, at home, of major, full length movies, being shown with the best picture quality possible.

Hollywood's movies have always been the main driver that's allowed the Home Theater business to succeed, and continue to thrive. So, without us video/Home Theater fans having had a steady supply of Hollywood movies to present at home, it's certain that Blu-ray would have never been developed, and brought to market, nor would most of the top performing TVs, and other premium video equipment, that we've taken for granted, ever have appeared in stores, either.

[Scottishguy]

I'm sure 8K film's will be digitally available in the future. The thing with all tec is that it needs an eco system to survive.

So the question is what will 8K eco system be?

Well firstly you'll need an 85" screen minimum to enter. Even then, like 4K on 55", you'll have people saying that 95" is the real entry point. So already you have ridiculously niche market, not because of cost. But by how limited your average joe is in living space, even in America, to have such a screen. No matter how thin you get those panels and, the what houses their processing.

Then you have content. Well sport is the obvious driving force. But are TV production companies going to spend extra millions on finishing shows in 8K for a high end niche of a TV market? Probably not for a long time.

Like I've said as well, the 55" TV barrier is still strong in general consumers mind. And without meaning to sound sexist, this has a lot to do with the wife factor. That's something which is a universality in most human cultures, since the dawn of civilisation, and the advent of commerce. Yes in ancient Sumeria I'm sure even a husband was talked out of buying a larger goat by his wife/wife's

I'm not saying all this to be negative, or unjustly flippant. I'm simply pointing out some tough realities that can be foreseen at this juncture.

Robert though does make a good argument how native 8K processers do bring significant improvements down the chain into 4K.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

So the question is what will 8K eco system be?

Well firstly you'll need an 85" screen minimum to enter. Even then, like 4K on 55", you'll have people saying that 95" is the real entry point. So already you have ridiculously niche market, not because of cost. But by how limited your average joe is in living space, even in America, to have such a screen. No matter how thin you get those panels and, the what houses their processing.

This is based on what people want to sell you, versus what it practical in one's house. Its likely even with the switch from 4K to 8K upscaling displays that the most popular sizes of displays will still be 65" to 77" per forecasts.

The problem here is that large TVs just take up too much space in most people homes. This is why Samsung felt they could sell 55" and 65" 8k sets from the get go, along with LG adding a 65" 8K OLED to their line up. Yes you start with the expensive models at first which are large, but it all has to eventually be attractive to most consumers. The roll up OLEDs I thought if they becomes more widely used might persuade consumers to go with something a lot larger, if it can be hidden when not in use.

[Scottishguy]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

This is based on what people want to sell you, versus what it practical in one's house. Its likely even with the switch from 4K to 8K upscaling displays that the most popular sizes of displays will still be 65" to 77" per forecasts.

The problem here is that large TVs just take up too much space in most people homes. This is why Samsung felt they could sell 55" and 65" 8k sets from the get go, along with LG adding a 65" 8K OLED to their line up. Yes you start with the expensive models at first which are large, but it all has to eventually be attractive to most consumers. The roll up OLEDs I thought if they becomes more widely used might persuade consumers to go with something a lot larger, if it can be hidden when not in use.

I'm more an advocate for the wallpaper TV. Though you have the issue with it needing an umbilical cable for the processing box.

Give me my 8K Winscape!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8R-...ature=youtu.be

[Scottishguy]

There is the factor of shooting in 8K to produce better 4K. It should also be noted that Warner scanned The Wizard Of OZ in 8K, which not only sets a precedent for their classic titles. But also, possibly, current productions.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Blu-rayNut51

When originally introducing its SXRD Digital 4k movie theater projectors to the owners of commercial movie theaters....

You gave up promoting this manifesto from yesterday? -

Originally Posted by Blu-rayNut51

As I'm sure you know, Sir, when 4k was introduced to America's video enthusiasts, nearly 8 years ago, many publications such as Sound & Vision and Home Theater, as well as Sony itself, published information about research which showed that people with 20/20 vision need to be within 1.5 screen heights of a 16X9 aspect ratio UHD 4k TV, in order to be able to perceive the smallest details that 4k motion video can present.

That means that in the case of a 65" 4k TV, for example, that 1.5 screen height viewing distance translates to being 4 feet, or less, for viewers to be within the 1.5 screen height distance that allows people with vision as good as 20/20, to see the smallest details 4k motion video can present.

My basic point Mr Zohn, is that since, for example, with 65" size TVs, almost nobody locates that size TV even as close as 5 feet from where its viewers will be sitting , Americans simply don't sit close enough now to their 4k TVs, to even see the smallest details that 4k can present. So the even tinier details that give 8k it's superiority, will certainly not be observable at the 7 foot distance, or more, where almost all Americans would watch a 65" TV from.

Again, there's been an evolution in vision science with regards to thinking, research and development of video monitors/TVs in 8 years (like there has been in other aspects of science and the human visual system, e.g. layman’s article for you - https://mindmatters.ai/2019/12/resea...visual-cortex/).

Instead of investigators (including those from SONY) confining themselves solely to considering the parameter of “detail”, they’ve examined and tested observers for their take on other factors of overall picture quality obtained with higher pixel density displays (8K) which gets into perceptual and cognitive factors previously given not much attention. Read a professional peer-reviewed journal like last month’s Journal of Information Display or a prior SID Technical Digest from last year.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

There is the factor of shooting in 8K to produce better 4K. It should also be noted that Warner scanned The Wizard Of OZ in 8K, which not only sets a precedent for their classic titles. But also, possibly, current productions.

Movies are often scanned on 6K or higher datacines (Northlight II is 8K, Arriscan is 6K in double flash mode), we just don't hear about it in the marketing bumpf. Warners also did the same 'scanned in 8K' schtick when they did the 2009 4K restorations of both Oz and GWTW, the industry joke being that you could now see the amoebas swimming about in the grain. It's the finishing in 8K that's the deciding factor and AFAIK there hasn't been much on that front because of the hideously huge amounts of data that would need to be piped around. As with early 4K restorations using 2K proxies then the same could apply with using 4K proxies for 8K, but until there's a pressing need to remaster films actually *in* 8K - and IMO there's no pressing need for 4-perf 35mm and below in 8K - then it's a non-starter.