4K TVs now on display at Best Buy…viewers were fascinated but...

Jim Arthurs said:
I've had mine for about a month now (paid $1199 or so from Tiger Direct)... I use it for two things; all day use as a 50" 3840 by 2160 PC desktop (I'm typing this post on it right now) and 4K footage review of C500 and other material via conversion to Cineform codec. I love it.

It's very impressive for NLE editing (a full 1080p preview window above your timeline) and for photo editing and compositing work. I love Lightwave and Modo and Digital Fusion on it.

The Seiki doesn't have all the internet connectivity and "junk" that drives up the cost of the other 4K monitors. It doesn't do 1080p upscale well, you'll need a "scaling" Bluray player or the like for that.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
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That sounds pretty awesome. I'm working on a huge visualization in modo right now and would love to have the item list, shader tree, maps, statistics and properties all open at once and taking up the full height of a display like that.
 
There are thousands if not millions of movies that were shot in less than 4k resolution, there is no way that these titles would just be obsolete because 4k makes it mainstream. It will be supported somehow (uprezzed etc.)
 
Thanks everyone for your input. Interesting to read all the different points of view here.

Philip Bloom posted a very interesting article "Why you must have 4K and why you absolutely don't need it" which prompted me to start this thread. Bloom explains at one point how he tried to impress upon his parents how much better the image resolution is on a 4K TV is to HD and how they just weren't that impressed. Which seems to be how most consumers feel right now, my wife and my mother included.

As a documentary film maker, I decided to take the plunge on 4K after buying a Canon 1DC and couldn't be happier with my purchase in terms of the freedom shooting 4K gives me in post (reframing, etc) besides the fantastic picture quality. But in terms of buying a 4K TV, I think I'll hold off perhaps for another year.

My reluctance to invest in a 4K TV right now stems from the fact that not a single channel is yet broadcasting in 4K. So while the 4K image looks stunning, I would need to see how good upscaled HD broadcasts look on 4K TV.

To those of you who did buy a 4K TV: are you happy with how HD upscaled looks on your 4K TVs? If HD is blown up 400%, is there a noticeable loss of quality? Does the image look much softer or pixelated? Next time I'm in Best Buy, I'll ask the sales staff to show me some HD content upscaled.
 
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androbot2084 said:
The Broadcasters had fair warning years ago with the introduction of the Red One and now we have consumer 4K cameras. The broadcasters argued that the digital transition happened too recently in 2009 but the truth is that the switch to high definition started 30 years ago in 1983 with the introduction of ATSC.

The broadcasters simply dragged their feet. During the 1980's the broadcasters said let's wait for digital rather than implement analog high definition. When digital 720p was invented the broadcasters said let us wait for the super computer to be invented so that 1080i can be deinterlaced and converted to 720p along with cross conversion of 18 other obsolete formats. When the super computer was invented the broadcasters waited for the price to drop before installing the digital tuners in new televisions. When the price of the super computer dropped the broadcasters demanded that the convertor boxes be crippled to output only a low definition signal so that the older HD ready televisions would not work and had to be thrown away. Today we have high definition television only because high definition televisions are the only televisions you can buy and all of these televisions have free high definition tuners.
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There are no 4K consumer camcorders unless you your talking about the JVC GY-HMQ10 4K that sells for $5,000 and uses four memory cards to output to four HDMI ports. Consumers will not touch that with a ten foot pole IMHO and the jump from 1080p to 4K is not as big as standard definition to 1080p.
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Nicholas Natteau said:
...Philip Bloom posted a very interesting article "Why you must have 4K and why you absolutely don't need it" which prompted me to start this thread. Bloom explains at one point how he tried to impress upon his parents how much better the image resolution is on a 4K TV is to HD and how they just weren't that impressed. Which seems to be how most consumers feel right now, my wife and my mother included...
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I read that part and thought about a thread from quite a while ago (which I can't find) about "Good Enough"... based on a Wired Magazine article that pointed out that people tend to be utterly content with stuff that is... well... good enough. For all the incessant talk about the latest and greatest in 4k/8k, is there really a practical benefit for the home viewer? The difference between 480i and 1080i is drastic for someone with a 42 inch TV 10 feet from them. but the same scenario moving from 1080 to 4k? As I've stated elsewhere, my old station still shoots news in 480i and uprezed, even though the cameras are all DVCProHD and/or AVC-Intra capable. The practical benefit doesn't justify the infrastructure cost to shoot 1080i, as the uprezed 480i is good enough (and depending on the photog, could look pretty darn good).

My parents are still using a 27 inch SD TV. They'll move to HD when that set dies. They've seen HD and can see a difference, but they just don't care. I think we forget in all of our pixel peeping that 99% of the population is not us, and are quite happy shooting home videos on their poorly held iPhones with crappy audio. It's been my experience that the folks rushing out to get the latest and greatest are the folks trying to keep up with the Jones. That simply isn't the overwhelming bulk of consumers. *ALL* of the stuff I shoot, the client doesn't care that it's only 1080i or 1080p AVCHD. If I started throwing around 4k Raw, their eyes would glaze over (and probably wouldn't justify the extra cost). They just want it to look nice.
 
Mike Harvey said:
I read that part and thought about a thread from quite a while ago (which I can't find) about "Good Enough"... based on a Wired Magazine article that pointed out that people tend to be utterly content with stuff that is... well... good enough. For all the incessant talk about the latest and greatest in 4k/8k, is there really a practical benefit for the home viewer? The difference between 480i and 1080i is drastic for someone with a 42 inch TV 10 feet from them.
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Yet how many people watched stretched out SD and went, "Man, this new HDTV is awesome."? I remember a study a while back that said even though something like half the country now had at least one HDTV set only like 15% actually viewed HD content on it. Even if people can't really tell a difference they sometimes make themselves believe they can because they just bought an expensive new TV so it better be superior to the one they replaced. In the end I think consumer electronics makers are just going to eventually phase out HD products the way they phased out SD products. These companies need revenue so they are always looking to get people to buy in to the 'next big thing'.


-Andrew
 
adkimery said:
Yet how many people watched stretched out SD and went, "Man, this new HDTV is awesome."? I remember a study a while back that said even though something like half the country now had at least one HDTV set only like 15% actually viewed HD content on it. Even if people can't really tell a difference they sometimes make themselves believe they can because they just bought an expensive new TV so it better be superior to the one they replaced. In the end I think consumer electronics makers are just going to eventually phase out HD products the way they phased out SD products. These companies need revenue so they are always looking to get people to buy in to the 'next big thing'.


-Andrew
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Walmart sells 46" 1080p HDTVs for $348 and I agree when 4K 46" UHDTVs are selling for that price consumers will buy them ;)
 
Regarding the 50" Seiki UHDTV, I read positive (Personal View, reduser.net) and negative (cnet.com) reviews. I have to say that I never heard of "Seiki" before, so I'm a little hesitant: $1,300 for 4K seems too good to be true (in May 2013). Not that prices for 4K won't come down, just a matter of when.

I wouldn't be surprised if even later this year Sony, Panasonic, or Samsung offers 4K for $4K. As someone else said, once 4K TVs reach current HD prices, there'll be a lot more consumer interest, provided of course that there's more 4K content or that HD upscaled on a 4K TV looks just as good as HD proper.
 
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Nicholas Natteau said:
Regarding the 50" Seiki UHDTV, I read positive (Personal View, reduser.net) and negative (cnet.com) reviews. I have to say that I never heard of "Seiki" before, so I'm a little hesitant: $1,300 for 4K seems too good to be true (in May 2013). Not that prices for 4K won't come down, just a matter of when.

I wouldn't be surprised if even later this year Sony, Panasonic, or Samsung offers 4K for $4K. As someone else said, once 4K TVs reach current HD prices, there'll be a lot more consumer interest, provided of course that there's more 4K content or that HD upscaled on a 4K TV looks just as good as HD proper.
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I bought the Seiki and am happy with it for the most part. Although I use it as a desktop and not really for 4k content and when the monitor is calibrated using the service menu in conjunction with the default menu, it can put out a fantastic picture IMO. I think the bare-bones price really boils down to the off-brand name and the lack of fancy features built-in to the set (bare-bones price for a bare-bones product).

I saw the cnet review, but I dunno how much stock I would put behind someone who says a VGA port can do 4k (or maybe I'm wrong?) Also, as shown, they only used the default settings menu. He is correct about the TV's internal scaler for 1080p, it's terrible, but the black levels/shadow detail and color issues he mentioned can be tweaked with the hidden service menu.

Downsides are definitely the 30Hz limit's effect on mouse pointer and some wonky HDCP issues I've run in to while using it as a desktop that no-one will help me troubleshoot apparently.
 
It was a big jump from CRT to LCD and Plasma. Everything was different. It just looked like the future. Average consumers just don't care about better fidelity and resolution, and you're talking to a wall if you try to explain it to them. Now that they're forced to by either LCD or LED screens, they buy them. They're bigger and mount nicely on the wall. They like that. They'll buy 4K when everything upscales nicely to that. In the end there will be just 4K screens, and people will just buy them because that's what's offered. But I hardly think they will pay a premium for it. Then the industry can just seamlessly migrate to 4K broadcasting in 2050 with no hassle, and average people will sit there and say "Is it just me or did the picture just get better?" and their friend will say "Meh" .
 
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I need to head over to a Best Buy. For all my interest and activity in video and film production, I have never seen 4K displayed in its native resolution in my life. Perhaps it says something about me, but I tend to think it says something about 4K and just how immature distribution of it is.

I love my retina display iPad and would love to see that tech make its way onto 30" computer monitors or something. I'm enthused to see it coming to home entertainment. The really, really big chasmic gulf that I don't see a bridge over currently....is content, and playback. Is Sony's playback device the first consumer 4K playback product? And even then, it starts with something like 10 titles and will slowly grow to include other Sony titles?

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/st...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666556068

4K acquisition is definitely here, but isn't absolutely necessary for the majority of people producing 1080p deliverables. 4K distribution on the other hand still seems to be about as far away as many of us were saying years ago. Still...need to learn more about this Sony thing - perhaps their title library will expand rapidly?
 
Ryan Farnes said:
Is Sony's playback device the first consumer 4K playback product? And even then, it starts with something like 10 titles and will slowly grow to include other Sony titles?
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Both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are supposed to support 4k at launch... to what degree is anyone's guess.
 
Seiki is coming out with a 39" version too.

Broadcasters will not adopt 4k until there is a ratified standard to support it, which there isn't at the moment. So far only a hand full of test broadcast systems have been done to help develop the standard. H.265 ratification was the first step for compression codecs that can do 4K in the same bandwidth as H.264 2k. The next step is completion and ratification of the ATSC3 television standards, which should also define codecs for extended DR and a new broader color gamut for XYCC deep color to replace the current analog NTSC referenced standards. Not quite there yet.

But 4k already has significant production potential in medical and digital signage markets. 15 megapixel plus videowalls are becoming commonplace. I am involved in the AV build out for a new regional bank in the southeast and they are putting floor to ceiling 4 x 4 1080p LCD display video walls in all of their major branch lobbies. That is a 33 megapixel video wall. 1080p looks very soft on one of those.
The consumer market is the last market to adopt any technology. Entertainment production is a very small part of the total production market anyway.
 
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