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Why 4K TVs are stupid
  • This article talks about 4k, fullhd and 720p considering the real world situations where people will watch the content to discuss if 4k is a must have or not:

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

    These two articles also compare 4k with 1080p and 720p with closeup from screen images and interesting graphic tables for viewing distance/screen size:

    http://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/what-is-the-resolution

    http://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/4k-ultra-hd-uhd-vs-1080p-full-hd-tvs-and-upscaling-compared

    in all these 3 articles the conclusion is: if you are 10 feet (around 3 meters) away from a 50 inch TV 720p is enough.

    A good thing using 4k resolution is home theater projectors with high lumen output to allow large screen, but affordable 4k projectors are far away to be real.

  • 23 Replies sorted by
  • Not to mention the color rendering of most 4K units is not so good.

  • But there are other things inside the 4k: the article below shows the HDR feature in 4k TV and it seems this will make the camera manufacturers to develop good quality hdr video in 4k. This feature will probably be in the 4k blu-ray players, so good 4k hdr video will be a must have in new cameras.

    http://www.cnet.com/news/behind-the-scenes-with-dolbys-new-hdr-tv-tech/

  • HDR is exactly useless, as dynamic range of TV is defined by actual contrast, and for LCD, even for Samsung panels, is it not too big.

    As for 4K, as owner of 4K TVs I can tell you that they useful, but not a lot of content is available for them.

    And I suggest to get 32-40" as your 4K monitor or 65" and up as home TV.

    In other words - ignore all this journalists shit. If you can - go and buy LG 4K OLED and never turn back,

  • 4K is great for desktop computer use and video acquisition

    HDR is an invented profit making gimmick by Dolby for Colorists and Hollywood studios and TV manufacturers who want to rerelease old content and TV's/projectors over the next three-five years until 8K is the final 2D standard

    Dolby creates a new standard which requires you to buy a $40,000 Dolby monitor to create content for the standard... nothing fishy going on- stare at the bright lights morons!

    Dolby has been doing this in audio for decades in audio, video community is dumb for taking their advice here - consider 5.1 audio has been around now for 15 years and all other standards they invent fail, so Dolby needs new lemmings

    I would not be surprised if they invent VR Subwoofer seat you can sit on and they blow sound / smoke up your *ss

    ;-D

  • I would not be surprised if they invent VR Subwoofer seat you can sit on and they blow sound / smoke up your *ss

    Well, they really tried with 7.2 and 9.2 setups. Did not went too well.

    Atomos has many good ideas as it encodes separate sound sources and separate tracks (that you can also move in space).

  • Maybe it's really that CNET is stupid.

  • 4k capture seems to be a lot be more useful than 4k presentation at this point

  • Yeah, I like my $350 28" AOC 4k monitor. Works better than what I had. That's for sure.

  • @NickBen

    Dolby creates a new standard which requires you to buy a $40,000 Dolby monitor to create content for the standard... nothing fishy going on- stare at the bright lights morons!

    Dolby's Professional Reference Monitor was designed to replace the drastically aging generation of Sony Trinitron monitors used for industry-standard color correction in pro studios. For this highly specialized market, $40K is a small portion of much larger budgets, and each of Dolby's production runs on the PRM have sold out in short time.

    http://www.dolby.com/us/en/professional/cinema/products/prm-4220.html

  • I have owned and used 720p, 1080p and now 2160p TVs in the past years, all in the same position in my living room. It might be that my viewing distance is somewhat shorter than average - about 2.5m - but I can tell you that both the transition from 720p to 1080p and the one to my current 2160p display made a big difference!

    Sure, the 4k material I am currently watching is either shot by myself or simply the computer display. It will certainly take considerable time to make more 4k content available.

    But once you've watched 4k content for only a few hours, when you switch back to 1080p material, you immediately notice the "awkwardly unsharp picture", and it takes hours until you get accustomed to find the 1080p picture "normal" again.

    Regarding HDR: I would love to see material use the dynamic range of my OLED TV, but as long as LCD is the predominant TV technology, it's unlikely there will be a lot of material using it.

    What I find really ridiculous is "Dolby Atmos": After all, "5.1" and "7.1" have been around for years, but hardly any movie is making good use of them - it's always "dialog from center only, music from front left/right only, a few "booms" from the LFE speaker, and a very few ambient noises from the rear speaker. I doubt productions will change this lack of interest in real surround sound with any amount of channels available.

  • And just think. In 1990s we were just happy at the quality of DVDs as opposed to VHS.

  • I agree with @karl and @blazer003. First of all, I don't care what any article says about whether I can see the difference, I care whether I myself can see the difference. If you are at the point where an online magazine is telling you what to see, you shouldn't be in the video business, period.

    Second, I obviously need a 4K TV to preview the videos that I make in 4K. Sometimes there is a pixel on the border that isn't dithered the right way, particularly with titles, and you get some weird edge artefacts--you need to see how the product looks on a 4K TV and whether it will play thought the USB port, and so on. It's a must.

    Third, a TV is a melding of the 4K with advances in other technologies--local dimming, better LEDs, better coatings, &c.; it all goes together to make a better TV.

    Some of these test show viewers two versions of the same vid, one in 4K and one 1080p. Well, of course they are going to look very similar because the 4K TV is going to upscale the 1080p material.

    In fact, when I downsampled the 4K in premiere to 1080p, and played it on the 4K TV, I was really astonished how similar it looks to the 4K original. So you could make a case that good upscaling is just as good, or very nearly as good. But I think you still need a 4K, if only to check your content. There's a subtle, quasi analog look they have, because the pixels disappear.

  • Yes I almost let all the know it all reviews talk me out of a 4k monitor. I don't know who writes those things.

  • This blog post makes several interesting arguments against buying a 4K TV. It's mostly from a consumer's point of view.

    http://chaseshumway.com/dont-buy-a-4k-tv/

  • This blog post makes several interesting arguments against buying a 4K TV. It's mostly from a consumer's point of view.

    This post is one of the worst things I ever saw on this topic.

  • I'm not sure why you say that. He seems to make many valid points. From a cost point of view for an average consumer, storage for creating 4K content is still exorbitant.

    And streaming content in 4K will be a long process. He claims the full transition to 4K will take 10 years, considering the current infrastructure for streaming is struggling with Netflix and Youtube already without 4K, but there's no way for me to know how accurate that prediction is.

  • From a cost point of view for an average consumer, storage for 4K is still exorbitant.

    4K sets are not very costly, really. Until you want absolutely latest and biggest. Sales are regular.

    Storage is doable, playback of 4K in H.264 (all cameras except NX1 and NX500) is no problems even on aged PC (as it is helped by Intel DXVA).

    HEVC playback is ok with modern graphics card or just good CPU. Almost all 4K TVs are able to play HEVC by themselves (we have topic on it).

    He claims the full transition to 4K will take 10 years, considering the current infrastructure for streaming is struggling with Netflix and Youtube already without 4K, but there's no way for me to know how accurate that is.

    Streaming is horrible idea by default (from infrastructure POV) for very popular things.

    Most probably we could see some variation of 3D in consumer sets in early stages.
    Countries that are ahead and where torrents are widespread still are not aware of some "3D failure".
    Same will happen as 4K films will become available. We will see lots of HEVC torrents.

    Looking at his points it seems that he do not know many things quite good.

  • The cost of 4K sets is not the main issue (unless there's a forced upgrade to 6K in 2 years). The 4K files are massive and it's expensive for the average soccer mom to store all these files, as he points out.

    It's a US-centric article. Where torrents are not allowed and streaming has become the norm. That you think streaming is a horrible idea hasn't influenced how things have played out. That's where things are headed. Do you think it's going to change? Netflix and Youtube are the most popular sites and have more viewers than all of TV, I think.

    Not sure what you mean about countries that are ahead. You mean they have better infrastructure?

  • The cost of 4K sets is not the main issue (unless there's a forced upgrade to 6K in 2 years).

    LOL, you won't be. May be 8K, but it is far away and will come only with on wall OLEDS.

    The 4K files are massive and it's expensive for the average soccer mom to store all these files, as he points out.

    No, they are not massive. As 50Mbit Samsung HEVC files are very good and easy to store for average Joe.

    It's a US-centric article. Where torrents are not allowed and streaming has become the norm. That you think streaming is a horrible idea hasn't influenced how things have played out.

    Well, looking at the stats, millions do not agree with you. US almost always among top 3 countries among torrent downloaders.

    EU also scare average Joe, but Joe quickly learns how to use VPN and such.

    Not sure what you mean about countries that are ahead. You mean they have better infrastructure?

    I mean ahead in terms of acceptance of new tech. 3D is popular in this countries :-)

    3D on 4K passive TV is amazing.

  • Vitaliy is right. That's one of the stupid ignoramous blogs out there. There are others saying worse. You can get a 28" 4k monitor for $300 and you will not regret it. 4k files btw are not huge.

  • You can get a 28" 4k monitor for $300

    Ok, that's extremely cheap. Maybe the blog was written when the prices were high.

    4k files btw are not huge

    This is subjective, just like cost of cameras. Does everyone on here have the A7s or some cheap out on the GX7 or whatever? I find that 1080p eats up 1TB drives rather quickly. But this is just a hobby for me. I'm not making money. I understand that most people on here are pros or semi-pros, filming weddings and what not and making money from this.

  • today I am watching old vhs movies on a crt tube television with a vhs player and it is amazing.

    I finished seeing "The Stolen Diary" (Le Cahier Volé) and I liked it a lot, the story, the talents, the cinematography.

    (I am 2 meters away from the screen and it is a 20 inch 4:3 tv set, and I cannot see the pixels, LOL)

    It is interesting how the noises from the mechanical tape loading, drum rotating, rew, ff, ... makes you perceive the media is part of your life, and the vhs on crt tube texture makes sense for how you feel the image together with the film emotions.

    I need to fix some interference in the image, but maybe it will be impossible due to equipment is too much old...

    I think it would be great idea to shoot 4k and master it to a vhs tape with some filme grain in post, LOL.

    vhs.jpg
    1280 x 960 - 692K
  • yesterday I had my first experience in front of a smart tv. I feel myself so idiot due to being worried about image quality for so long...

    it does not matter which camera was used, which resolution the tv is... I perceived that two things are important: the cinematography (everything about it: talents, framing, light, clothes, scenarios, edit rhythm, sound, music and so on...) and the content, what the video is talking about, the script.

    every camera looks almost the same from youtube 1080p streaming on a smart tv... (if you know how to use it) and if you do not compare you will imerse inside the storytelling. The TV Broadcast is not so much better, lots of compression artifacts if you look close to the screen, far away you cannot see.

    of course cinema theater presentation will show every pixel peeper from a camera, but internet streaming on a smart tv can make all cameras the same.