8K discussion thread

[gkolb]

Originally Posted by philochs

So the best 8K prototype at CES was Sony's 10,000 nit monster, based on the new forthcoming "X1 Ultimate" processor. From what I am to understand, it basically puts puts the 8K OLED and the 4K MicroLED from Samsung to shame.

Apparently having content viewed/mastered at 10,000 nits is very good for HDR. It's not too bright, just far more lifelike. I sense that within couple years there will be some type of 10,000nit mastered content on Itunes using the AV1 codec. Maybe 4K and even some 8K titles. For UHD Blu-Ray, I suppose studios will start mastering the discs on/for 10,000 nit displays too.

We're reaching the 10,000 nit mark at the very beginning of the 8K era. Much sooner than I anticipated, and it's blowing everyone's minds.

AND, I anticipated 12-bit displays would come around the time 8K displays got closer to reality. But I haven't seen any mention of 12-bit.

10,000 nits isn't really ready for prime time when some 2016 - 17 displays still having a hard time with 1000 or 4000 nit containers. So I hope more things happen & time passes before any content gets released at 10,000 nits max.

[Staying Salty]

Originally Posted by philochs

For UHD Blu-Ray, I suppose studios will start mastering the discs on/for 10,000 nit displays too.

I don't think so. Maybe, maybe 10,000 nit UHD Blu-Rays in 10 years.

[ray0414]

Originally Posted by Staying Salty

I don't think so. Maybe, maybe 10,000 nit UHD Blu-Rays in 10 years.

Not if he's cruising around as a guest who can't post :P

[philochs]

Originally Posted by gkolb

AND, I anticipated 12-bit displays would come around the time 8K displays got closer to reality. But I haven't seen any mention of 12-bit.

None of the 4K/8K prototypes at CES were 12-bit panels, which means that we can kiss that feature goodbye, at least until 8K has already been out for a few years, and they need something new. I guess technology just hasn't caught up to native 12-bit panels yet.

10,000 nits isn't really ready for prime time when some 2016 - 17 displays still having a hard time with 1000 or 4000 nit containers. So I hope more things happen & time passes before any content gets released at 10,000 nits max.

Ready or not it's coming. Maybe the content will be via download only, or maybe via itunes, maybe Sony will start to master their Dolby Vision UHD Blu-rays for 10,000nits. If Sony is the only tv company with 10,000 nit sets for awhile, I think it's a safe bet they'll be the first to come up with 10,000nit mastered content. Maybe in 2019, or it might be 2020, but it's coming.

Originally Posted by Staying Salty

I don't think so. Maybe, maybe 10,000 nit UHD Blu-Rays in 10 years.

Dolby Vision can scale to 10,000 nits, if Blu-ray disc was maxed-out at 4000nit content, that would be a real drawback for the format in a couple of years. If it's added in 10 years that wouldn't be an update to the spec, but part of a new format entirely. Thankfully for consumers, 10,000 nits is a ceiling for the human eye, so we are about to reach the pinnacle of peak brightness for HDR, now we just need even wider color gamut, from 12-bit panels someday. It almost pays to hold off and skip the 4K generation, and just go to 8K, especially since 4K content will look so much better on a Sony 8K tv with 10000nits peak brightness.

[Staying Salty]

Originally Posted by philochs

Dolby Vision can scale to 10,000 nits, if Blu-ray disc was maxed-out at 4000nit content, that would be a real drawback for the format in a couple of years.

Seems that current displays have a hard time properly mapping/displaying HDR10 with 1000 or 4000 nit content. HDR10+ probably would have the same problem. Going to 10000 nits would drive the current displays crazy, wouldn’t it? I would guess that 6000 nits could be the next step.

Originally Posted by philochs

If it's added in 10 years that wouldn't be an update to the spec, but part of a new format entirely....

Are the nits in the spec?

Originally Posted by philochs

It almost pays to hold off and skip the 4K generation, and just go to 8K, especially since 4K content will look so much better on a Sony 8K tv with 10000nits peak brightness.

I believe this will be the last physical content. Now may be in a few years they have some 8K streaming.

[philochs]

Originally Posted by Staying Salty

Seems that current displays have a hard time properly mapping/displaying HDR10 with 1000 or 4000 nit content. HDR10+ probably would have the same problem. Going to 10000 nits would drive the current displays crazy, wouldn’t it? I would guess that 6000 nits could be the next step.

Are the nits in the spec?

I believe this will be the last physical content. Now may be in a few years they have some 8K streaming.

Well, the new Panasonic UHD Blu-ray player has an "HDR optimizer" feature that takes content mastered 4000-10,000nits and internally tone maps it down to 1000nits for hdr tvs that can't handle 10,000nits. Sony's next processor is the A1U, and two of it's features have been announced. First, it's an 8K cpu, secondly, it produces 10,000 nit "full-spec HDR". I don't know what type of LCD brightness other companies are going with in their prototypes, but Sony has already advertised that the successor to the flagship Z9D tv is going to use the A1U, so that means it's going to be 8K and 10,000 nits. Samsung nor LG have mentioned anything about a super high-nit prototype, so I don't think anything they're releasing in the next couple years is going to crack 3000 nits, let alone 6000nits. It seems everyone else will be playing catch up to Sony for quite awhile. The Q9S QLED 8K that Samsung is launching this year is basically kid's stuff compared to a 10,000 nit LCD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVW2QSYdn3A

[Geoff D]

Guys, as I just said in the other thread the PQ EOTF has been able to handle 10K nits from the start, it's what it's designed to do. It doesn't need to be "added to the spec" on the player side because it's an intrinsic part of PQ: if you're using it to encode then you can go up to 10K nits should you so desire. Same goes for BT.2020 colour. If you master your content with anything less then you just signal it with metadata, which is exactly what's been happening.

For example, the Sony test patterns on their UHD discs are mastered to 10K nits. Pic attached of the OPPO metadata report. And several UHD discs that are out there right now have been mastered well in excess of 4000 nits, MaxCLL (maximum content light level) figures quoted below:

Mad Max Fury Road: 9919 nits
Starship Troopers Traitor of Mars: 9978 nits
Life: 6414 nits
Magnificent Seven: 6968 nits
Crouching Tiger: 8985 nits
Bridge on The River Kwai, Close Encounters, Fifth Elephant, Inferno: ALL mastered to 10000 nits peak.

Photo of OPPO info screen on Sony test pattern (it only reports min/max, NOT MaxCLL so the same screen will not work on the above titles because their basic min/max is 0.005-4000 nits, unlike the test pattern):

[Joce]

What's the highest nits for movies shot on films ?

[Geoff D]

Remember guys: 10000 nits is NOT a Dolby Vision thing, it's a Perceptual Quantiser thing.

[Staying Salty]

I based my 10000 nit position on my belief that currently the mastering displays only go up to 4000 nits. I do believe that a current Dolby Vision Display could accurately tone map 10000 nit content. I am assuming that today’s HDR10 and HDR10+ displays would have a harder time getting the picture correct, not because they couldn’t tone map, but they would not know that it is mastered in 10000 nits.

[Geoff D]

Why wouldn't they know, if the metadata was mastered as such and they were reading the metadata correctly? If the 10,000-nit container were fully utilised then in an ideal world it would be signalled with the relevant min/max metadata as well as the accompanying MaxCLL and MaxFALL (if applicable because some studios null those figures out on their discs).

Therein lies the problem which is the same problem we've had since the start, that the application of HDR10 metadata is HUGELY variable across the spectrum of manufacturers. When x TV chokes on >1000-nit highlights then 10000-nit highlights are naturally going to suffer.

Penton posted this a little while back and it sums up the state of play re: static metadata rather nicely.

[Falaskan]

8K? I’m hoping VR will bypass higher HD formats.

[philochs]

Samsung is launching the first 8K tvs this year of course, with the Q9S model. It does 4000nits peak brightness. That's impressive, but I guess it means they better do at least 6000nits next year.

[LordoftheRings]

From two and half years ago:
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...-overload.html

[JoeDeM]

Originally Posted by Staying Salty

Seems that current displays have a hard time properly mapping/displaying HDR10 with 1000 or 4000 nit content. HDR10+ probably would have the same problem. Going to 10000 nits would drive the current displays crazy, wouldn’t it? I would guess that 6000 nits could be the next step.

I would think 4000 nits in a consumer display would be their next goal, One thing that is overlooked is how much power will 4000 or for that matter 10000 nits require, plus the cooling they would generate a lot of heat.

Z9D power consumption
65" 322w (1800 peak nits)
75" 428w (1800 peak nits)
100" 767w (2800 peak nits)

[philochs]

Originally Posted by JoeDeM

I would think 4000 nits in a consumer display would be their next goal, One thing that is overlooked is how much power will 4000 or for that matter 10000 nits require, plus the cooling they would generate a lot of heat.

Samsung is releasing 4000nit tvs this year, so that goal has already been achieved. There is no way that 4000nit peak brightness will still be the max in 2019-2020 models. 6000-10,000nits is a realistic expectation. We're heading straight towards "Full-Spec HDR".

[GunZenBomZ]

Amazing how some people now talk about 8K, yet previously held out delusional thoughts on other threads.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=284305

But then again we live in a time where characters & clowns alike seem to chop-n-change their opinions & promptly forget what they spouted.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by philochs

Samsung is releasing 4000nit tvs this year, so that goal has already been achieved. There is no way that 4000nit peak brightness will still be the max in 2019-2020 models. 6000-10,000nits is a realistic expectation. We're heading straight towards "Full-Spec HDR".

I have to ask, but what useful purpose does the maximum nit race fulfill?

1,000 Nits is comparable to about 3,426 ANSI Lumens
2,000 Nits is comparable to about 6,582 ANSI Lumens
4,000 Nits is comparable to about 13,164 ANSI Lumens
10,000 Nits is comparable to about 34,426 ANSI Lumens

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

I have to ask, but what useful purpose does the maximum nit race fulfill?

1,000 Nits is comparable to about 3,426 ANSI Lumens
2,000 Nits is comparable to about 6,582 ANSI Lumens
4,000 Nits is comparable to about 13,164 ANSI Lumens
10,000 Nits is comparable to about 34,426 ANSI Lumens

It's not about driving the TV at that brightness full-field for the entirety of the presentation or anything like that though, as I'm sure you know. This kind of nit level is reserved for the brightest specular highlights, tiny portions of the screen, getting close to what we actually see in real life.

[philochs]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

I have to ask, but what useful purpose does the maximum nit race fulfill?

With Full-spec HDR, you get a major improvement in specular highlights. There's no HDR clipping, no tone-mapping, and it matches the dynamic range of the human eye. When you boost the max brightness x5, then you get a serious increase to the color volume. We could still benefit from boosting the color gamut much further, but peak luminance is finally maxed-out. Before this demo, LCD and OLED were relatively close in PQ, it was a debate. Now the debate is over, LCD is champ, and self-emitting displays are relegated to to a secondary class status for the foreseeable future. Bottom line is that 1000-2000nit HDR is now old-school, and not even in the same ballpark as full-spec HDR, and that's where self-emitting displays are currently stuck.

People were so blown away by the CES 2018 ful-spec HDR demo, they called it "a serious development in television", "super-impressive, almost too lifelike" and a "quantum leap forward". Compared to the Z9D, the 10,000nit set "blows it out of the water" another said it "puts the Z9D to shame", Vincent Teoh said the Z9D "pales in comparison". To further quote Vincent Teoh, "I am a big fan of high peak brightness LED/LCD, and Sony has truly taken it to the next level, on that front... 10,000 nits is just so powerful, so realistic, all these reflections, all these sparkles, they just bristle with such intensity, with fury, the moment I walked into the room, I just said "wow!". I mean there's just no other way to put it. People, especially OLED owners, keep going on about 'you don't need 1000nits, you don't need 4000-10,000 nits', but once you see a side-by-side comparison, I mean, as much as I'm a big fan of OLEDs, I'm also a fan of peak brightness for HDR impact, for HDR immersion as well, and I can't deny, I fell in love with the 10,000nit Sony prototype display."