Is 4K a game changer?

[Kirsty_Mc]

Is 4K a game changer....

IMO it will be when it's fully rolled out. There is already some limited and rather highly compressed stuff on Youtube. Given the aforementioned caveats and the quality of some of it, this bodes well for such as Blu-Ray UHD or whatever they will call it. The only real danger facing Blu-Ray UHD / 4K is them taking too long to get it to market. If they are tweaking it to the nth degree, they may miss the boat completely and their target market may reluctantly switch to streaming and downloading out of sheer frustration. That is those who have a fast connection, not too far from the exchange, with a truly unlimited broadband cap etc... Etc... Those who live just too far away from the exchange to get good broadband... Tough luck on you.

[saprano]

No.


Not while it's using the current HD standard. 8 million pixels is just that.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by saprano

No.
Not while it's using the current HD standard. 8 million pixels is just that.

Sir, it’s 8.294 million pixels….and change!

[scorpiontail60]

Originally Posted by UFAlien

So despite the opinions of most analysts/reviewers who've tried their low-bitrate "technically 4K" streams and predictably found them worse-looking than a good Blu-ray, Netflix's new shareholder report says "the best quality consumer video in the world is now streaming Internet video," referring of course to theirs.

http://files.shareholder.com/downloa...14%20final.pdf

I thought it was illegal to lie to shareholders?

[Nightopian]

I think what others have said about only future titles and popular money making titles will be released / converted to 4K sounds about right.

If you compare the titles released on DVD since it's release in 1997 until now, there are over 250,000+ titles. Compared with Bluray which since 2006 has around 10,000 titles. As members have said it takes time. I don't think even Bluray will even get all the titles available on DVD in it's lifetime either...which means a 4K medium (which they are currently working on right now) will be lucky to see even half of what Bluray has right now.

4K will be phased out too eventually. Japan already has 8k running. Seems technology is advancing so quickly, we can't keep up. You basicially have to draw the line yourself.

I was quite content with DVD on my 55" TV and I still think they look fine. I only made the jump to Bluray when I built my new home with a dedicated theatre a couple of years ago. A DVD looks like absolute crap on a 160" screen. I was forced to start collecting my movies all over again on Bluray just for that reason. Will I start all over again with 4K? No. As I suspect most of you who have a large Bluray collection already will do the same. I will however add new movies to my collection in 4K if they are available and only if I know they were shot in 4K to begin with but I won't rebuy my movies...there are still a lot of older movies in my Bluray collection which don't look as good as others. It still comes down to source material and the conversion. Not all Bluray's look "FullHD".

The question is, how big will screens get? How much space do you have in your home to accommodate a big screen? Because it's only then will you see the real benefit of 4K. Will you see any benefit of 4K sitting 4m away from a 60" screen? Probably not. The majority of commercial cinema's are using 2k projectors...

http://www.cnet.com/news/why-4k-tvs-are-stupid/

But yeah, for me it's not a question of whether it will take over or not because I know eventually it will be the standard. For me it's more a question of, how long will it last and do I really need it? The shorter the lifespan, the less movies will be available...so should we give up on Bluray? I personally don't think you could even if you wanted to...

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Nightopian

...so should we give up on Bluray? I personally don't think you could even if you wanted to...

Not “giving up” on Blu-ray, I thought the man from cheese country made that clear. Just movin on up to 4K BD as another choice in due course…

Blu-ray Disc Evolution - DoStudio 4 - YouTube

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Hypnosifl

How do you figure?

1) knowing that the assumptions used for the charts and the math is wrong
2) doing my own tests that show the results are wrong
3) reading some professional research on the subject that disagree with the results of such charts.

Do you understand that your eyes are physically incapable of seeing details below a certain scale?

that's a dumb comment obviously we caqn't differentiate stuff that aree microscopic, the question is at what size and distance does it happen.

If the film grains are about the size of a pixel, then if you can resolve the grain you can resolve pixels. If the grains are larger, then the fact that you can resolve grain doesn't prove you can resolve pixels, and if you can resolve grain but not pixels you wouldn't benefit from higher screen resolution.

again you prove you don't understand anything and just pretending to have an idea of the discussion.

film grain comes from the world of film (as in that cellulose strip). film is cellulose with a coating on it, at the microscopic molecular level that light sensitive coating is uneven and so at the molecular level reacts differently to light in different areas. Now if it was that simple we would not be talking film grain but when projected that film is magnified many times and so what is microscopic becomes big enough to see and called film grain. Now when scanning a film that texture (film grain) will be a fraction of a pixel and depending on the scan algorithm and what is in the image will become pixel size. Unless we are discussing very rare random chance digitalized film grain will never be larger than a pixel. Since the scanner won't read the same anomaly in two spots. We would need a lot higher resolution for a single film grain to be larger than a pixel.

That's not a good test....

you are missing the point and doing the same mistake as the idiots with the charts.

first let me say that the white and black is for three reasons

1) easier to discuss a specific (and if someone would rather have blue with a red dot they can do the same test)

2) some people are more or less colour blind so going with something other than black and white could create an issue (i.e. the guy can't see the pixel at any distance)

3) people are much better at seeing differences in luma than chroma which is why in every system there is emphasis in brightness than colour

Now let me ask you this

you are looking at the screen and all you see is black. Does the white pixel make a difference in what you see? no, so who cares if it is there.

You are looking at the screen and you see the white pixel on the black. Does the white pixel make a difference in what you see? yes since you see it. It would be wrong to say it does not make a difference to the image.

Now yes this was a test, but what if we are talking the sky with a pixel size star or pixel size fireflies or pixel size sparks from a bond fire? it is not that unreasonable as a test to determine "would I be able to see that detail".

The issue is you and they are too busy trying to dismiss what you can see. We are not trying to see is it a P or an F but is it there or not. You are missing that it is all or nothing

for example
if we assume (the green and red lines are to differentiate pixels) in 4k you have image #1 (a white pixel surrounded by black ones) than in 2K it would be something like a, b or c that is shown on the screen depending on how that pixel is created. Obviously if you can see from your seat the white pixel in 4k represented by image #1 neither a, b nor c will look like #1 no matter how much you believe that pixel in #1 will be distorted.

Like I said, the issue of compression is separate from the issue of number of pixels.

Not at all. Now I did not bring up compression artifacts for this reason (i.e. it was meant as an example at things that are visible but might go unnoticed) . Burt you are wrong. Let's go with a simple example, an image has a gradient (i.e. moving slowly from one colour to an other) but because of way over compression you get banding. So, for example moving from white to black with the 2k compression you end up with a band of white, 20% grey, 40% grey, 60% grey, 80% grey, black. If you had 4k and a similar compression because the pixels are 1/2 the size in every direction you would have narrower bands and they would be white, 10% grey, 20% grey..... We are not talking making a difference at the pixel level but at the mega block level so even if one can't see the pixel level info, they would benefit because a block is many pixels. Now even with a 4k media downscaled to a 2k display for someone that is so far he can't see beyond 1k of info the image will still be more pleasant.

[Hypnosifl]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

that's a dumb comment obviously we caqn't differentiate stuff that aree microscopic, the question is at what size and distance does it happen.

I wasn't talking about anything microscopic. The page on the Rayleigh Criterion shows the theoretical resolution limit for 500 nm light (green) and a pupil opening of 5 mm would be 1.22 * 10^-4 radians, which is only slightly smaller than the empirical resolution limit they quote for "most acute vision, optimum circumstances" (i.e. people with better than 20/20 vision in ideal light) of 2 * 10^-4 radians, whereas the chart was based on the assumption of 20/20 vision which is a resolution of 2.9 * 10^-4 radians. So if you have better than 20/20 vision you may be able to shift the lines in that chart by a factor of 1.45 (i.e. getting the "full benefit" of 2K or 4K at 1.45 the distance they show there, for a given screen size), and in theory if there were no issues with aberration or with imperfections in the human lens it might be improved by up to a factor of 2.38, but that's the theoretical upper limit.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

again you prove you don't understand anything and just pretending to have an idea of the discussion.

film grain comes from the world of film (as in that cellulose strip). film is cellulose with a coating on it, at the microscopic molecular level that light sensitive coating is uneven and so at the molecular level reacts differently to light in different areas. Now if it was that simple we would not be talking film grain but when projected that film is magnified many times and so what is microscopic becomes big enough to see and called film grain. Now when scanning a film that texture (film grain) will be a fraction of a pixel and depending on the scan algorithm and what is in the image will become pixel size. Unless we are discussing very rare random chance digitalized film grain will never be larger than a pixel. Since the scanner won't read the same anomaly in two spots. We would need a lot higher resolution for a single film grain to be larger than a pixel.

I didn't think of it in terms of how large the actual film grain would be, I was just thinking of the fact that you often can see grain on blu rays, so obviously the blu ray is representing the grain as at least the size of a pixel and possibly larger. You're right that the real grain on the film is smaller than the scale of a pixel on a 2K screen (at least in the case of 35mm film), but for whatever reason the process of transferring it seems to make the grain visible at a scale larger than the size of individual grains. Maybe it's possible this is again an effect of diffraction smearing out small details with the lens and aperture of whatever scanner they're using on the film, I dunno. Another possibility is that what you are actually seeing in grainy blu rays is clumps of grains rather than individual grains, since there does seem to be some clumping in the top image of wikipedia's film grain article:

Originally Posted by Anthony P

you are missing the point and doing the same mistake as the idiots with the charts.

Does "missing the point" mean you actually disagree with my point that you could see a smeared-out white spot even in cases where the pixel size is too small for you to see at the distance you're viewing the screen? Or do you agree that's true, but think your test is nevertheless a good one?

Originally Posted by Anthony P

first let me say that the white and black is for three reasons

1) easier to discuss a specific (and if someone would rather have blue with a red dot they can do the same test)

2) some people are more or less colour blind so going with something other than black and white could create an issue (i.e. the guy can't see the pixel at any distance)

3) people are much better at seeing differences in luma than chroma which is why in every system there is emphasis in brightness than colour

Now let me ask you this

you are looking at the screen and all you see is black. Does the white pixel make a difference in what you see? no, so who cares if it is there.

You are looking at the screen and you see the white pixel on the black. Does the white pixel make a difference in what you see? yes since you see it. It would be wrong to say it does not make a difference to the image.

Obviously if you can see a white spot, then that means there is a visible difference between an all-black screen and a black screen with a single white pixel. But we were talking about 2K vs. 4K, weren't we? If you have a single white pixel on a 2K display and a single white pixel on a 4K display (with the 4K pixel a little brighter so both are sending the same total amount of light to your eyes despite the difference in size), and in both cases diffraction is visually smearing them out to the same angular size which is even larger than the angular size of a 2K pixel at the distance you're sitting, do you think in that case you'd be able to tell the difference between these two cases? If not, then the fact that you can see the light from a single pixel at 4K isn't a good test of whether the 4K screen will look any different than the 2K screen at this distance.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

for example
if we assume (the green and red lines are to differentiate pixels) in 4k you have image #1 (a white pixel surrounded by black ones) than in 2K it would be something like a, b or c that is shown on the screen depending on how that pixel is created. Obviously if you can see from your seat the white pixel in 4k represented by image #1 neither a, b nor c will look like #1 no matter how much you believe that pixel in #1 will be distorted.

And again, if in both cases you were far enough away that diffraction was smearing out the lighter pixel to an angular size larger than that of a 2K pixel, then as long as the total amount of light your eyes were receiving in both cases was the same, you wouldn't see a difference. If your eye was replaced by a camera with a circular aperture the same size as your pupil, then even if the sensor behind the lens was ultra high def it would just record a smeared-out diffraction pattern like this in both cases:

Originally Posted by Anthony P

Not at all. Now I did not bring up compression artifacts for this reason (i.e. it was meant as an example at things that are visible but might go unnoticed) . Burt you are wrong. Let's go with a simple example, an image has a gradient (i.e. moving slowly from one colour to an other) but because of way over compression you get banding. So, for example moving from white to black with the 2k compression you end up with a band of white, 20% grey, 40% grey, 60% grey, 80% grey, black.

But if that's because of "way over compression", isn't that the same as saying that it's an example of a poor choice of compression algorithm? A good compression algorithm should be able to display an even gradient where each pixel varies slightly from the next, since this is a nice regular pattern that is highly compressible (i.e. you can write a short program to generate a pattern like this without having to separately store the shade of each and every pixel using different bits in memory). You didn't answer my question earlier about whether you thought that the effects of compression would be apparent even when the compression was done in the most skilled way, as opposed to ineptly:

If you've seen uncompressed video converted to a blu ray and noticed a difference, are you sure the person doing the conversion was skilled at choosing the best compression algorithms, and encoding everything on the disc to fill as much available space as possible? For really high-quality blu rays like those in the "mastered in 4K" series, I wonder if there would really be much visible difference between an uncompressed 2K file produced from the 4K master, and what is actually seen on the blu ray.

[42041]

Originally Posted by Hypnosifl

I didn't think of it in terms of how large the actual film grain would be, I was just thinking of the fact that you often can see grain on blu rays, so obviously the blu ray is representing the grain as at least the size of a pixel and possibly larger. You're right that the real grain on the film is smaller than the scale of a pixel on a 2K screen (at least in the case of 35mm film), but for whatever reason the process of transferring it seems to make the grain visible at a scale larger than the size of individual grains. Maybe it's possible this is again an effect of diffraction smearing out small details with the lens and aperture of whatever scanner they're using on the film, I dunno. Another possibility is that what you are actually seeing in grainy blu rays is clumps of grains rather than individual grains, since there does seem to be some clumping in the top image of wikipedia's film grain article:

Like most natural sources of noise, film grain occupies a wide frequency spectrum and is subject to aliasing from digital conversion. On blu-ray, you're seeing its lower frequency components and probably aliasing products. My old Minolta 35mm scanner goes up to about 5K movie-equivalent and even that resolution resolves grain to single pixels on modern emulsions.

[I KEEL YOU]

Originally Posted by Nightopian

If you compare the titles released on DVD since it's release in 1997 until now, there are over 250,000+ titles. Compared with Bluray which since 2006 has around 10,000 titles. As members have said it takes time. I don't think even Bluray will even get all the titles available on DVD in it's lifetime either...which means a 4K medium (which they are currently working on right now) will be lucky to see even half of what Bluray has right now.

Almost all movies have a 2K master right from the start, of varying quality (looking at you, Universal). Therefore, releasing them on blu ray isn't a big problem.

The only studio that has 4K masters in gallons is Sony. For other studios, expensive 4K restorations would be required and many movies will never, ever see a 4K transfer. Even brand new restorations of classic movies are still happening in 2K. For example recently released Bergman's Persona, which looks fantastic BTW. I don't know how recently it has been restored, but it couldn't have been that long ago.

I've been noticing more and more "Should I buy a 4K TV" questions all over the Internet lately... Yet these people don't even know that most of the TV they watch right now isn't even in full 1080p HD, but only 720p.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by I KEEL YOU

Almost all movies have a 2K master right from the start, of varying quality (looking at you, Universal). Therefore, releasing them on blu ray isn't a big problem.

The only studio that has 4K masters in gallons is Sony. For other studios, expensive 4K restorations would be required and many movies will never, ever see a 4K transfer. Even brand new restorations of classic movies are still happening in 2K. For example recently released Bergman's Persona, which looks fantastic BTW. I don't know how recently it has been restored, but it couldn't have been that long ago.

I've been noticing more and more "Should I buy a 4K TV" questions all over the Internet lately... Yet these people don't even know that most of the TV they watch right now isn't even in full 1080p HD, but only 720p.

They will probably think Full HD is 4k!

[eriaur]

Originally Posted by I KEEL YOU

The only studio that has 4K masters in gallons is Sony.

And Fox

[evilswift]

Originally Posted by musick

as much a game changer as 3D was

This.

There doesn't seem to be a very big enthusiasm for it. Feels niche.

I have a feeling that most hardcores will buy a couple of the 4K titles and then soon auction them off to more hardcores once the fad passes.

With so many titles not even released on BD yet - and most serious collectors only just now outgrowing their shelf space... I can't imagine people switching. But who knows. I may be Crazy4K next year.

[jblank]

We STILL don't have decent 1080p content, outside of Blu-Ray, so no, I don't think it's a "game changer". Dish, DirecTV, Charter, Comcast, they all compress the heck out of what they offer, but OMG, let me hurry and drop $3,000 on a 4K UHDTV so that the compression artifacts are .00000001% better looking. Give me a break! How about the TV manufacturers kick the cable and satellite companies (not to mention the networks) in the butt and try to get them to give us a decent broadcast 1080p signal, THEN we can talk about 4K.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Hypnosifl

I wasn't talking about anything microscopic.

the point was that yes at some point things are too small BUT that has nothing to do with it, someone posted a chart (thatway underestimates the benefits of resolution), someone else posted that the chart is telling him that 1080p is useless for him and I posted why he should skip the charts and see for himself if it makes a difference or not.

I didn't think of it in terms of how large the actual film grain would be, I was just thinking of the fact that you often can see grain on blu rays, so obviously the blu ray is representing the grain as at least the size of a pixel and possibly larger.

but that is the point. You dismissed the grain test because you would rather believe a BS chart, without thinking what it meant. Scanning can work in different ways, but to simplify it think of it as averaging out (in some way) what is covered by one pixel, like 42041 pointed out even with a 5k scan a film grain won't be more than one pixel. Because of that fact the "possibly larger" part of your statement does not make much sense. It can happen through random luck that two pixels get the exact same "wrong" value when scanning the film but that is like saying someone can win the lottery jackpot. When they see graininess on a BD (or other media) they are either seeing individual pixels or the BD has other issues and it is not FG.

Does "missing the point" mean you actually disagree with my point that you could see a smeared-out white spot even in cases where the pixel size is too small for you to see at the distance you're viewing the screen? Or do you agree that's true, but think your test is nevertheless a good one?

neither. it means missing the point. To use your own point you can't define as too small to see something you see as smeared. What will be smeared if you don't see it to begin with? You are missing the obvious. If someone is walking far away from you you can say I see the person but because of the smear I can't tell who it is, because the smear affects some of the details in the persons face but a pixel has no details for you to see, so it is a simple yes or no answer.

And once you realize, to use my previous example that pixels at a given resolution matter it also has implications for higher resolutions

if we go back to

and assume in 1080p you see a white pixel What if in 4k we have


now this 4k white spot that has 4 4k pixels that become the the same size as a 2k pixel
but because of the location of the 4 white pixels there is no 2k example where it will be shown properly (i.e. there is no way to end up with C which would be the best 2k version of the data, it would either be 4 black grey or white pixels in 2K).

But if that's because of "way over compression", isn't that the same as saying that it's an example of a poor choice of compression algorithm?

No. Lossy compression is a reality of BW. Yes , possibly it could steal the necessary BW elsewhere in the image, but it is not a given that it would be any better. If there was no need for compromises we would have lossless video the same way we have lossless audio.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Firecrackker

Is 4K a game changer?

Can we set the bar higher, please? ‘Game changer’ seems a bit too low , don’t you think?

How ‘bout will 4K be as great as the pickup truck ….or the PC revolution - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...pc#post9130347

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by I KEEL YOU

Almost all movies have a 2K master right from the start, of varying quality (looking at you, Universal). Therefore, releasing them on blu ray isn't a big problem.

The only studio that has 4K masters in gallons is Sony. For other studios, expensive 4K restorations would be required and many movies will never, ever see a 4K transfer....

Not really. Display manufacturers can put almost anything in a 4K video pack – http://www.tomsguide.com/us/samsung-...ews-18510.html

with a relatively inexpensive upscaling solution from post facilities like Deluxe…..and call it a 4K transfer.

I wonder if this will become a trend.

[SillySauce]

4K is lame. All Arri Alexa shot movies are only 2K.

[Aragorn the Elfstone]

Speaking for myself, I don't have much incentive to upgrade to 4K. When I upgraded to HDTV in the first place (back in '07), it was largely because I wanted a widescreen picture. What I didn't realize at the time was how inferior it was going to make my DVDs look. I resisted diving into Blu-ray for a while because I didn't want to upgrade my collection.

This time around, there's really no incentive to upgrade aside from an increase in pixels. I'm sure it looks great for 4K material, but that doesn't matter much to me since I'm quite happy (to say the least) with the quality of 1080p. Add to that the fact that so many titles from the past 10+ years (film and television) won't ever be available in 4K (either thanks to their digital intermediates or the limitations of the camera resolution), it just doesn't make sense for me.

So a game changer? In truth, I don't know. But, at least for me, it won't be.

[I KEEL YOU]

Originally Posted by SillySauce

4K is lame. All Arri Alexa shot movies are only 2K.

It's not lame. But you do bring up a good point in that if cinemas felt that 2K was good enough for the cinema screens, at least for a period, it begs the question of how many ordinary consumers will begin to think that 2K isn't good enough for their homes.