Blu-ray 4K Under Consideration by BDA

[ronjones]

Originally Posted by COLD_COBRA_

I hear that 720p plasmas will still look better than 4k lcds. Is this true?

Originally Posted by img eL

Uh? Nope, a 4K plasma on the other hand. Deep inky blacks where plasma's advantage over LCD's. LCD's blacks have very much improved to Plasma, I'm not sure if there will be 4K plasmas in production, it will be interesting to see

However 4K OLED will look better than either LCD or plasma. 1080p OLED going on sale next month (LG 55 inch for $12K) and Sony and Panasonic have been working together on a 4K OLED (56" engineering unit shown at CES 2013). However, it still remains to be seen if the OLED reliability (life) and price will ever get to the point of being competitive with plasma or LCD.

In any case I don't feel that 4K resolution (but itself) really makes a difference for normal TV or home cinema viewing, from a typical viewing distance, unless you are talking about a large display size (e.g, 80 inch display when viewed from 6 ft. is probably near the threshold of seeing the full benefit of 4K resolution). If you want to see the full benefits of 4K resolution in a dedicated home theater context (using a front projector + screen) and you have 20/20 vision, with a typical viewing distance of perhaps 12 ft. you would need at least 10 ft. wide in order to get the full resolution benefits 4K has to offer. However, if we end up with a 4K Ultra HD standard that includes increased bit depth, increased color space and improved chroma coding then those benefits (as compared to the current blu-ray 1080p standard) would be gained even without a very large screen size.

[COLD_COBRA_]

And what is OLED going to do about handling motion? Plasmas are just so smooth.

[ronjones]

Originally Posted by COLD_COBRA_

And what is OLED going to do about handling motion? Plasmas are just so smooth.

OLEDs have a faster response time than plasma and a much faster response time as compared to LCD. Beyond the display technology itself, the TVs associated electronics can also impact motion handling. Therefore OLED as a class should have less motion artifacts than plasma and much less than LCDs. Also because of OLED's fast response time it's certainly possible to have fast refresh rates that are exact multiples of the source video's rate. For blu-ray movies recorded at 24Hz this would mean 72 Hz, 96 Hz or 120 Hz for 2D video (with 72 Hz the minimum multiple of 24 Hz high enough to eliminate flicker for most viewers). For an active 3D system that means the minimum refresh rate would be 144 Hz with 72 Hz per eye. For displaying 2D video from a 24 Hz source most plasmas today end up using 2:3 pulldown which introduces motion judder when displaying at 60 Hz. Some offer the alternatve of using 2:2 pulldown for 24 Hz material which results in a 48 Hz display refresh rate, but this introduces flicker. A few few high end plasmas have the ability to display 2D 24 Hz material at higher refresh rates such as 72 Hz using 3:3 pull down, which generally avoids introducing motion judder and flicker.

[img eL]

So when is the next time all the BDA members meet?

[ronjones]

Originally Posted by img eL

So when is the next time all the BDA members meet?

The BDA meeting schedules and draft reports/standards/etc. are normally only made available to the BDA member companies. There are currently 18 companies on the BDA board of directors and several dozen other companies that are "contributors". The BDA's inter-workings (e.g., board of director meetings) are not made public and it's only occassionally that public statements are made by BDA officials about work that is underway. The expected schedule for the new task force looking at technology enhancements for Blu-ray has not been made public.

[slimdude]

What good is Redray or any other future 4K content is going benefit, without owning a native 4K UHDTV? Any 4K content being shown on a 1080p HDTV, will still be down converted to 1080p resolution anyway, so therefore, the viewer still won't be getting a true 4K image from a 1080p monitor. An HDTV cannot process any higher resolution, than what's been already incorporated into the unit. Everybody is discussing the future 4K content, but the question is, can anybody afford to invest into 4K technology, unless you're wealthy. For some people, $25,000.00 is almost their life savings! The lowest 4K UHDTV are currently priced at: $25,000.00. Ask yourself, will 4K really be a significant difference in picture quality in comparison to 1080p, and worth the $25,000.00 investment before taking the plunge.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by slimdude

...but the question is, can anybody afford to invest into 4K technology, unless you're wealthy. For some people, $25,000.00 is almost their life savings! The lowest 4K UHDTV alone is currently priced at: $25,000.00. When 4K TVs becomes affordable, (if at all) then we'll talk.

Duuuuuude - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=2659

See - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ny#post7059806

[saprano]

Originally Posted by slimdude

What good is Redray or any other future 4K content is going benefit, without owning a native 4K UHDTV? Any 4K content being shown on a 1080p HDTV, will still be down converted to 1080p resolution anyway, so therefore, the viewer still won't be getting a true 4K image from a 1080p monitor. An HDTV cannot process any higher resolution, than what's been incorporated already into the unit. Everybody is discussing the future 4K content, but the question is, can anybody afford to invest into 4K technology, unless you're wealthy. For some people, $25,000.00 is almost their life savings! The lowest 4K UHDTV are currently priced at: $25,000.00. Ask yourself, will 4K really be a significant difference in picture quality in comparison to 1080p, and worth the $25,000.00 investment before taking the plunge.

Do like me. Don't buy anything 4K for another 3 years at least. TV's are too expensive, no content at all, everything is upscaled with very little benefit. Native 1080p will look better than upscaled 4K. And more importantly, 1080p still looks damn gorgeous. Check out the Skyfall BD. Amazing PQ. Don't expect a jaw dropping difference with 4K. It's better, but only by a little and if you know what to look for. I saw the Skyfall trailer on the Sony 4K TV and while I noticed the increased resolution in the picture, the 1080p BD is still stunning. The only thing the 4K version has over it is that it's a little sharper and you can see the little details better.

[U4K61]

Originally Posted by slimdude

...will 4K really be a significant difference in picture quality in comparison to 1080p, and worth the $25,000.00 investment before taking the plunge.

Well, they have come down a bit in price. There is already one from tigerdirect.com for $1299.99. I remember in 1998 when a very low contrast 720p Pioneer plasma went for 25k. Owing a flat screen TV was just a pipe dream back then.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by img eL

So when is the next time all the BDA members meet?

Doesn’t matter. Don’t get your hopes up as to expecting a meaningful announcement in any near-term meeting.

What I mean is that, if, and when, the consortium actually agrees to adopt a 4K spec, there will be no…or very little heads-up given to the public because of the feeling that such an announcement could jeopardize the sales of 1080p BD movies.

You see, there are competing revenue-producing influences involved here, essentially unlike there was for the adoption of 3DBD…which b.t.w. , from the time of the formation of the 3D task force, took 8 months to finalize its BD3D spec. With BD3D, there was great incentive to move forward as expeditiously as possible. In regards to some membership, with 4K, the consumer electronics companies are the primary drivers as some studios have little 4K catalog. Plus, it’s not like 1080p BD has been *milked* for as long as DVD was before a higher rez format was offered to the public.

Practically speaking, I would say that the most you could hope for in a…clear, definitive….non-corporate speak answer, other than statements like “under consideration”, “making progress”, etc.,…..is at CES 2014 for when to expect the spec.

For some additional perspective, regarding HDMI, for instance, real world practical fact – the forum expected to release HDMI 2.0 either before the end of 2012, or at CES 2013, at the latest….and we all know how that went.

[Spicoli]

Originally Posted by ronjones

However 4K OLED will look better than either LCD or plasma. 1080p OLED going on sale next month (LG 55 inch for $12K) and Sony and Panasonic have been working together on a 4K OLED (56" engineering unit shown at CES 2013). However, it still remains to be seen if the OLED reliability (life) and price will ever get to the point of being competitive with plasma or LCD.

In any case I don't feel that 4K resolution (but itself) really makes a difference for normal TV or home cinema viewing, from a typical viewing distance, unless you are talking about a large display size (e.g, 80 inch display when viewed from 6 ft. is probably near the threshold of seeing the full benefit of 4K resolution). If you want to see the full benefits of 4K resolution in a dedicated home theater context (using a front projector + screen) and your have 20/20 vision, with a typical viewing distance of perhaps 12 ft. you would need at least 10 ft. wide in order to get the full resolution benefits 4K has to offer. However, if we end up with a 4K Ultra HD standard that includes increased bit depth, increased color space and improved chroma coding then those benefits (as compared to the current blu-ray 1080p standard) would be gained even without a very large screen size.

Thank you much for that. I know people here that don't have a sub woofer let alone enough $$ to appreciate 4K. I'll never own one.

[Gally]

Originally Posted by ronjones

However 4K OLED will look better than either LCD or plasma. 1080p OLED going on sale next month (LG 55 inch for $12K) and Sony and Panasonic have been working together on a 4K OLED (56" engineering unit shown at CES 2013). However, it still remains to be seen if the OLED reliability (life) and price will ever get to the point of being competitive with plasma or LCD.

In any case I don't feel that 4K resolution (but itself) really makes a difference for normal TV or home cinema viewing, from a typical viewing distance, unless you are talking about a large display size (e.g, 80 inch display when viewed from 6 ft. is probably near the threshold of seeing the full benefit of 4K resolution). If you want to see the full benefits of 4K resolution in a dedicated home theater context (using a front projector + screen) and your have 20/20 vision, with a typical viewing distance of perhaps 12 ft. you would need at least 10 ft. wide in order to get the full resolution benefits 4K has to offer. However, if we end up with a 4K Ultra HD standard that includes increased bit depth, increased color space and improved chroma coding then those benefits (as compared to the current blu-ray 1080p standard) would be gained even without a very large screen size.

Very much true, along with potentially support for higher framerates, and the advantages that come with a more efficient video codec. It will probably be worth it to get a 4k blu ray player even if you don't have a 4k monitor if you want to take advantage of higher image fidelity; the downsizing of the image won't change the gains from color space, chroma, frame rate etc. The 4k player will certainly be cheaper than a 4k monitor will be, and I expect the price will fall faster (look at how cheap 3D blu ray players have become).