I'm waiting for 4K fad to fade in favor of 8K

L

lonewolf2koc@hotmail.com

Well-known member
I don't know about you but this 4K acquisition craze is just like the 720p ~10 years ago. For some reasons I skipped it entirely and got into 1080p. There's still the important broadcasting infrastructure that is probably waiting for 8K to mature and they are likely to make the upgrade when the time comes. With 8K is already making some progress, unless it's 100% absolutely necessary to shoot all in 4K and spend over a quarter million dollars in optics and cameras, why not wait for 8K and maximize the use of whatever you have now?
 
If your clients demand 4K and if you are getting enough money to shoot it to cover your investments, then it is no brainer to go for 4K now.

If your ego hurts you badly that some college boy with 26 inch chest is shooting 4k and proudly proclaiming his manhood and you are still shooting in 1080, then it makes sense to shoot in 4K. After all ego has resulted in some world wars, so investing in 4K is small price to pay for that.

And among the many other reasons, not being able to shoot your cat or dog at 4k is tough because when 8K comes they may not be around. So you will have to view 1080p upscaled to 8K.
 
lonewolf2koc@hotmail.com said:
unless it's 100% absolutely necessary to shoot all in 4K and spend over a quarter million dollars in optics and cameras
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Or $900 on an RX100 IV, but hey, your choice.

(I have an RX100 IV and I still haven't shot anything in 4K, except a couple of test shots; I just haven't needed it yet; much less, 8K)
 
Funny thing to me.

Most 'consumer' 1080 cams seem to shoot about 500 lines of resolution.

(consumer is anything not F35, F23 or alexa)

Most consumer 4k cams seem to shoot about 2k of resolution... which is actually close to proper HD.

I use the 4k mode on my FS7 when I want to make HD that is close to actual HD.

S
 
morgan_moore said:
Funny thing to me.

Most 'consumer' 1080 cams seem to shoot about 500 lines of resolution.

(consumer is anything not F35, F23 or alexa)

Most consumer 4k cams seem to shoot about 2k of resolution... which is actually close to proper HD.

I use the 4k mode on my FS7 when I want to make HD that is close to actual HD.

S
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Very good point.

If the F23 and F35 (and other high end cameras) can generate an HD image that is so much better than the consumer cameras - then it simply shows how much room there still is within an HD image that the consumer cameras are failing to deliver.
 
I will likely not be doing this by the time 8K becomes a broadcast standard in the US, if it ever does.

In the mean time I find that 4K acquisition provides me with a good looking 1080HD broadcast image. I don't see 4K as a fad, but rather a useful tool in my arsenal.
 
It is insanity to chase resolution. I would like to see how much difference people would actually notice if a television show or movie was shown to them shot in 1080p, 4k and 8k. Resolution only improves enjoyment to a point. Cinema often wants to create an alternate world or reality and often that is improved buy not having exact reality detail. I just don't see the need/benefit. The end result will just be more compression as the delivery pipe is limited. I see the need for faster computers and more encoding time as the main offshoot, not more sales or happy customers. Lets face it, people are just not as impressed with media as they used to be.

It is frustrating that consumer devices tend to offer more features than the pro options these days. At least on paper (which is what most people only care about). Shooting sports with my PX270 in 1080p60 creates a wonderful product but I could really benefit from 1080p120. Yet it is not there. Same with the $900 4k cameras. Yes they have higher resolution and pretty amazing images, but are you going to show up on a job with a P&S and be "the professional"? Yes it could work but you are going to generate a ton a confidence in the process. Strange times.
 
I am not sure if the OP is a tad sarcastic or not.

But it seems like 8K is the goal for the live sport and nature docs. For the narratives, 8K is a while away. For the consumers, 8K streaming is technically possible at ~ 75 Mbps, which is accessible today as a premium level package. For the manufacturers, 8K TV's are, once again, not an insurmountable task as they entail a sub-400 Pixels per Inch density and the current smartphone screens often exceed 500 and some 600 PPI.

Personally, I am more excited about a greater global production and the rapidly falling prices of the OLED TV's that have been bandied about for over a decade as the "next big thing". There are giant fabs being built in lots of places - by that, I mean, mostly China and South Korea - that should deliver the LCD tier prices by 2018 or so.
 
I'm much more excited by photon-counting sensors that allow for infinite DR, than by 8K. And they may be here sooner than 8K (there are already some low-res working designs).
 
Real life story is that many young kids these days use Red Cinema and other 4K derivatives for live stage productions that're more suitable for hard wired EFP cams (Ikegami, Sony). But my good old 1080p ENG/EFP 2/3" delivers the finished product in less than 2 weeks and get aired vs them waiting for months-never. It actually doesn't bother me as much as it used to because I'm very clear on my end goal of the production. I actually laughing at them for the cumbersome workflow (constant lens changing, focus puller, heavy matte box, on set DIT, huge # of media cards, huge .R3D raw files requiring expensive processing cards).

What I noticed is the price increase on regular 2/3" HD lenses. Not sure if it's a surge in demand or what, but the Fujinon HA25x16.5 went up about $8K ($58K) in just the past 5 months. Another complication here is that if I can afford to get a $50K 22x 4K 2/3" lens. will it be good enough for 8K in the next decade or not. PL is ideal but it's extremely heavy and cumbersome (over 25 lbs) when it gets to 400mm. Just not suitable for large venue live coverage. Argh. lenses are super costly and expensive whether it's 4K or 8K. I'll wait it out a bit longer just like I did during the 720p 2004-2009 Era.

indiawilds said:
If your clients demand 4K and if you are getting enough money to shoot it to cover your investments, then it is no brainer to go for 4K now.

If your ego hurts you badly that some college boy with 26 inch chest is shooting 4k and proudly proclaiming his manhood and you are still shooting in 1080, then it makes sense to shoot in 4K. After all ego has resulted in some world wars, so investing in 4K is small price to pay for that.

And among the many other reasons, not being able to shoot your cat or dog at 4k is tough because when 8K comes they may not be around. So you will have to view 1080p upscaled to 8K.
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lonewolf2koc@hotmail.com said:
There's still the important broadcasting infrastructure that is probably waiting for 8K to mature and they are likely to make the upgrade when the time comes. With 8K is already making some progress, unless it's 100% absolutely necessary to shoot all in 4K and spend over a quarter million dollars in optics and cameras, why not wait for 8K and maximize the use of whatever you have now?
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At some point you have to consider the human eye, and there has been proper research put into just how much is enough - at what point does the human eye cease to see a difference?

It comes down to the angle the screen covers to the viewer - so a combination of screen size and viewing distance. I believe that viewing distances in the home tend to average out very close to about 2.5-3 metres, and that's down to the size of the average living room. Take that and 1080p is good enough up to screen sizes of around 55" before 4K would make any discernible difference.

In the average cinema, the front half of rows should see an improvement with 4K, the other half won't see any difference over 1080.

So my feeling is that for high value productions (such as expensive feature films) it makes sense to at least originate in 4K, but for broadcast there is little point for the vast majority of home viewers - even those with screen sizes that would have seemed science fiction a few years ago.

So 8K? I don't dismiss it entirely, but I think it's really for a very specialist market. Such as showing big live sporting events to large screen cinemas many miles away. Or non-entertainment uses such as scientific, medical or military.

Yes, it will come, yes, it will get a market - but I don't think it's likely to be something "film-makers" are likely to need or worry about for a very long time to come. Never say never, but....
 
harddrive said:
At some point you have to consider the human eye, and there has been proper research put into just how much is enough - at what point does the human eye cease to see a difference?

It comes down to the angle the screen covers to the viewer - so a combination of screen size and viewing distance. I believe that viewing distances in the home tend to average out very close to about 2.5-3 metres, and that's down to the size of the average living room. Take that and 1080p is good enough up to screen sizes of around 55" before 4K would make any discernible difference.

In the average cinema, the front half of rows should see an improvement with 4K, the other half won't see any difference over 1080.

So my feeling is that for high value productions (such as expensive feature films) it makes sense to at least originate in 4K, but for broadcast there is little point for the vast majority of home viewers - even those with screen sizes that would have seemed science fiction a few years ago.

So 8K? I don't dismiss it entirely, but I think it's really for a very specialist market. Such as showing big live sporting events to large screen cinemas many miles away. Or non-entertainment uses such as scientific, medical or military.

Yes, it will come, yes, it will get a market - but I don't think it's likely to be something "film-makers" are likely to need or worry about for a very long time to come. Never say never, but....
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Well, yeah but it will be useful to shot 8k for 4k. You
know, to give you reframing and stabilizing possibilities.
:happy:
 
harddrive said:
So 8K? I don't dismiss it entirely, but I think it's really for a very specialist market. Such as showing big live sporting events to large screen cinemas many miles away. Or non-entertainment uses such as scientific, medical or military.
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NHK's original papers and pitches for 8K, which got the ball rolling on it as the next "universal" broadcast format, actually don't emphasize the idea of displaying most material in full resolution on an 8K screen. Rather, they were more interested in how a large 8K display could be multiplexed, with a few different smaller windows displaying several simultaneous video programs, one hooked to a game console, another maybe showing weather information or the output of the home surveillance cameras, etc. In other words, they were thinking about the way people multitask and trying to come up with a system that would facilitate that well into the future. Using the full 8192x4320 all at once for a single video display would be reserved for very special types of programming, like feature films or marquee sporting events, usually where you had a whole group of people gathered around the screen.

Viewed in this context, it is really a concept that was meant to embrace and extend programming from all kinds of sources, at different levels of quality appropriate to the subject matter. The idea wasn't to make 1080 and 4K production obsolete, but to help them find their appropriate place in a more diverse and eclectic home media environment.

Now I'm not sure I buy this entirely, because my head doesn't really seem to be wired properly to handle multiple videos playing simultaneously on the same screen, for example. It's too much like trying to answer the phone and listen to the radio at the same time (to put it in a 1940s context!). But I do like the idea of being able to pick and choose the appropriate medium and level of quality for each project and how it will be used by the end consumer. That's the hope, anyway.

- Greg
 
lonewolf2koc@hotmail.com said:
What I noticed is the price increase on regular 2/3" HD lenses. Not sure if it's a surge in demand or what, but the Fujinon HA25x16.5 went up about $8K ($58K) in just the past 5 months...
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It could be due to the exchange rate of yen vs. the dollar going up and down over the last year.

Greg Smith said:
... Now I'm not sure I buy this entirely, because my head doesn't really seem to be wired properly to handle multiple videos playing simultaneously on the same screen, for example. It's too much like trying to answer the phone and listen to the radio at the same time (to put it in a 1940s context!). - Greg
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When I sometimes watch a NBC SN stream of the English soccer matches, they have several camera angle options. One can watch it as p-n-p or delete it and just follow the main midfield camera. I delete it and follow the midfield camera.

But ... there's a radio/internet station/site that occasionally watch (I mostly read the transcripts) and they usually have two hosts and a guest with a typical 3-4 camera setup - a wide angle with every participant and a closeup option on whoever is speaking. And then, there's an individual choice of any working/available cameras. A week or so ago, I found a WWII history program with a rare guest -- a very spry 94 year old Rudolf von Ribbentropp. The idea then was to just watch the camera that was on him rather than on the hosts of the show.
 
To the point of 8k, it is a good thing that there is a diversity of productions and a diversity of tools and aesthetics surrounding them. After all, I wouldn't take an F65 to live sports broadcast. However, I wouldn't try to use an A7s to do a scripted narrative. Not that you can't do either with either camera, but for different scenarios I would choose different tools.

For me, given that we live in cmor sensor world, 8k is important in terms of 4k image capture. If I wanted to capture a 4k image, I would want an 8k sensor. If I want to capture a 2k image, I'd want to capture it on a 4k sensor. It's all about bayer patterns and maximizing luminance and chromatic information. The notion that 4k images are properly gotten from 4k sensors is misguided, in my opinion. So yeah, for 4k scripted production (or anything that needs to be captured in 4k), I would want to do it with an 8k sensor.

All that said, I don't think that this is a must. I'm getting great images from even gh2 that in the right situation, can stand up there with the best of them. And yes, there are other more important things for me than just resolution. Color space, motion cadence, bit-depth, power consumption, the list goes on...
 
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David W. Jones said:
In the mean time I find that 4K acquisition provides me with a good looking 1080HD broadcast image. I don't see 4K as a fad, but rather a useful tool in my arsenal.
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Me too, 99.99% of peoples Computer Monitors (mine included) can't even show 4K properly yet, let alone 8K. I only use my Laptop for "on the road" work storage, so unless I hook it up to an external monitor, it can only do 1366 x 768, not even 1080.

On Thursday Australia got its 6th "Free to Air" HD TV channel (its just a HD version of one it already had), the other 30 or so are still SD

I think the electronics company's are just upping the "K" ratio because its easier for them to do that for impressing people than it is for them to improve the picture any other way. People say WOW at 8K, but WTF is OLED.
Or any of this

combatentropy said:
I would much rather have:

- cheaper media
- higher frame rates
- global shutter
- wider dynamic range
- lower light sensitivity

than anything over 2K for now. More K works against all of those other things.
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combatentropy said:
I would much rather have:

- cheaper media
- higher frame rates
- global shutter
- wider dynamic range
- lower light sensitivity
- cheaper cameras
- cheaper lenses

than anything over 2K for now. More K works against all of those other things.
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Me too. 2K is fine with me. It's way more important to improve the dynamic range (even that is almost THERE), colors, movement, and add more features, better usability, better form factors, and so on. But that's not sexy, you can't market that outside a small niche audience. So I expect the resolution race to continue for now.
 
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