Panasonic 4K at NAB?

[adkimery]

No, because HD is near the limit of human vision at traditional theatrical viewing distances.

You can't simply say that every transition is just like all the past transitions, especially when the number of transitions to study in history is so few. How many major transitions in motion-picture history have there been.

When did I say that every transition was like past transitions and why are taking what I said entirely out of context? You brought up gear-centric reasons why, in your opinion, 4k is not worth the expense right now (more render time required, more storage space required, higher pixel density on sensor reducing light sensitivity, etc.,) and those exact same things were true when HD cameras first started coming out. Heck, I don't think it was until the EX-1 and its 1/2" sensor that we got a prosumer HD camera that had low lightly ability on part w/the PD-170.

No where in your previous post, nor in my response to that post, was anything beyond that brought up.

 

[cowpunk52]

a very important reason -- future-proofing -- to use it.

I think this concept of shooting 4K to future-proof your content is fairly misguided. The only way to future-proof content is to make it good, not higher resolution. Even after the fabled switchover from HDTV to UltraHD, most people will not be able to see a significant difference, if any at all. This is assuming that a large enough audience even purchases 4K television and pays for the premium service of 4K broadcast. Getting a sizable enough audience to make 4K worthwhile is even further away than the technology to make it happen (witness 3D TV).

In the far future (10, 15, or even 20 years from now) when enough people have finally switched to UltraHD, they aren't going to want to watch a lot of old 4K material - except maybe the absolute classics. They'll want the current and most recently produced products.

 

[dop16mm]

I would be more than happy with 50Mb 422 long Gop on sd cards with the current package. Despite the apparent improvement of the sony and canon chips, the af100 was approved for BBC content with an external recorder, if they would just provide an internal codec with the broadcasters magic numbers, I think it would kill. You don't need P2 cards to record 50Mb/s, and that is all you need to be approved.

I think a lot of us are trying to produce content on spec, and hoping for the best chance of being able to monetize it. Whatever produces acceptable results at the lowest possible cost will please a lot of people. Its not necessarily about the best, because that is nearly always out of reach, but good enough at a given budget point. 13 stops of dynamic range is nice to dream about, but I've never seen it, not even on film. Learn to light, learn to use reflectors, ND windows, dim practicals it isn't that hard.

Word to panasonic, AvcUltra 50 to sd cards to af100a would blow the doors open.

 

[adkimery]

First off, I think 'how useful is 4k for professionals' is a separate discussion from 'how useful (noticeable?) is 4k for consumers'.

Secondly, IMO, 4k will come regardless because companies that sell cameras and TV sets need 'the next big thing' and 3D obviously is not going to be it (due to large technical and convenience hurdles). Bigger is always better (right?) and having something easily explainable and quantifiable (it's got more pixels, yo) is very easy to market. Consumer electronics companies will eventually help usher in the 4k-future the same way they helped usher in HD... by ceasing to make cameras and TVs in the old format.


-Andrew

 

[combatentropy]

I seriously doubt that 4K will ever catch on in the living room.

If I'm wrong, if the majority of people ever own 4K TV sets and computer monitors, I think it will be for the wrong reason: because the number 4 is bigger than the number 2, so it must be better, even though they can't actually tell. So, even if this comes to pass, it means that your 2K content is still future-proof, because people will not see much or any difference between the 4K and 2K movies playing on their 4K screens.

 

[Barry_Green]

Even when the HVX200 was released on Dec 29, 2005, high definition television had been broadcast in the US for nearly a decade.

Sorry to butt in here, but -- you're making it sound like HD was a commonplace thing. And the reality is 180 degrees different. HD broadcasting may have started in 1998, but even then the question was: broadcasting to who? In 2005, maybe 5% of the population had HDTVs. By October 2007 (almost two full years after the HVX200 had been on the market) Nielsen estimated that only 11.3% of American households could receive HD programming. By 2009 that number had only grown to about 35%. Heck, it was only about a year ago where HDTV penetration into American households exceeded 50%... and as of last year, only about 1/3 of local TV stations are even bothering to acquire or broadcast in HD, still 2/3 of local stations are SD only.

I do agree about the pace of HD broadcasting adoption being so slow that 4K broadcasting seems completely unapproachable now and for the foreseeable future. Stations only have 19 megabits of MPEG-2 to work with, and many of them are subdividing that up to result in maybe 6mbps streams or less. I don't know how 4K is going to work in that world, and broadcast is not a growing field, it's a dying business; having just shelled out for the HDTV transition it certainly doesn't seem likely that they're going to turn around and replace all their HD cameras and HD broadcasting equipment with 4K cameras and 4K equipment.

Plans have just begun to take shape to begin to explore the possibility of 4k delivery by satellite. Nothing yet is in the works via cable & air, AFAIK. 4K, 8K, & UltraHD will happen - but we're looking at quite a few years before the technology hits mainstream. Five at the most optimistic minimum, if customers really start clamoring for it, but more likely I predict it will be 10-15 years before we see it become anything more than novelty.

Agreed completely. It's amazing how people take things for granted and think that the world will change so quickly. Today, a full decade after blu-ray players were introduced on the market, still only about 8% of consumer dollars are spent on blu-ray discs; 92% of media buys are spent on DVDs. And since blu-ray discs are more expensive, the actual title breakdown is probably more like 95% of the discs sold are DVD, 5% blu-ray. Thinking that we're going to transition to a world of 4K tvs and 4K broadcasts any time soon (any time in the next 10 years) seems wildly unrealistic.

 

[Tzedekh]

I think this concept of shooting 4K to future-proof your content is fairly misguided. The only way to future-proof content is to make it good, not higher resolution.

It's best to do both, if possible, so future-proofing isn't misguided.

In the far future (10, 15, or even 20 years from now) when enough people have finally switched to UltraHD, they aren't going to want to watch a lot of old 4K material - except maybe the absolute classics. They'll want the current and most recently produced products.

Again, I disagree. Future-proofing can only help the saleability of current product in the, well, future.

 

[adkimery]

If I'm wrong, if the majority of people ever own 4K TV sets and computer monitors, I think it will be for the wrong reason: because the number 4 is bigger than the number 2, so it must be better, even though they can't actually tell.So, even if this comes to pass, it means that your 2K content is still future-proof, because people will not normally see the difference between the 4K and 2K movies playing on their 4K screens.

This doesn't seem too different from the common stories of people continuing to watch SD content on their HDTVs and thinking they were actually watching HD. People buy things because they think bigger is better all the time. I think the whole consumer electronics industry is pretty much based on that facet of human nature.


-Andrew

 

[cowpunk52]

Sorry to butt in here, but -- you're making it sound like HD was a commonplace thing. And the reality is 180 degrees different. HD broadcasting may have started in 1998, but even then the question was: broadcasting to who? In 2005, maybe 5% of the population had HDTVs. By October 2007 (almost two full years after the HVX200 had been on the market) Nielsen estimated that only 11.3% of American households could receive HD programming. By 2009 that number had only grown to about 35%. Heck, it was only about a year ago where HDTV penetration into American households exceeded 50%... and as of last year, only about 1/3 of local TV stations are even bothering to acquire or broadcast in HD, still 2/3 of local stations are SD only.

You're absolutely right, of course, and sorry to be misleading. My point was that there was a HD pipeline, and content being delivered, well before cheap broadcast HD acquisition was available. It seems like with the hype 4K acquisition and no viable consumer delivery medium as of now, it could be a case of putting the cart before the horse! To me, the unfortunate aspect of that aim for higher resolution is it leaves other, arguably more important, imaging aspects by the development wayside.

 

[Barry_Green]

You're absolutely right, of course, and sorry to be misleading. My point was that there was a HD pipeline, and content being delivered, well before cheap broadcast HD acquisition was available. It seems like with the hype 4K acquisition and no viable consumer delivery medium as of now, it could be a case of putting the cart before the horse! To me, the unfortunate aspect of that aim for higher resolution is it leaves other, arguably more important, imaging aspects by the development wayside.

Totally agree.

I fully recognize that there are people making a case for 4K regardless of whether 4K distribution ever comes about, and that there's reframing and whatnot, there's resampling down to sharper 1080p and resampling down for higher effective chroma sampling, etc. I just don't accept the concept that "TV will all be 4K so you'd better be shooting 4K right NOW!!!"

 

[Jay Birch]

I don't know how 4K is going to work in that world, and broadcast is not a growing field, it's a dying business; having just shelled out for the HDTV transition it certainly doesn't seem likely that they're going to turn around and replace all their HD cameras and HD broadcasting equipment with 4K cameras and 4K equipment.

You have to ask why broadcast is a dying business though? Because internet delivery is the future. I'm not saying that 4K is going to happen soon, but if it does, it will be streamed via optic fibre, not broadcast. (even in Portugal, we can now get 200MB connections). Internet speeds are here or coming, computing power is here (my Sony Tablet powers through 720p... Ipad 3 breezes through 1080p) so I imagine the latest desktops and even laptops could handle 4K in a decent stream.

If the sports networks pick up on the 4K hype though, then I see a slow but steady move to 4K in broadcast too.

 

[cowpunk52]

I'm not saying that 4K is going to happen soon, but if it does, it will be streamed via optic fibre, not broadcast. (even in Portugal, we can now get 200MB connections). Internet speeds are here or coming,

This is not the case for the US, unfortunately. Our infrastructure is sadly lagging and in dire need of upgrades. Don't know when we'll see that happen.

 

[Steve Castle]

You have to ask why broadcast is a dying business though? Because internet delivery is the future. I'm not saying that 4K is going to happen soon, but if it does, it will be streamed via optic fibre, not broadcast. (even in Portugal, we can now get 200MB connections). Internet speeds are here or coming, computing power is here (my Sony Tablet powers through 720p... Ipad 3 breezes through 1080p) so I imagine the latest desktops and even laptops could handle 4K in a decent stream.

If the sports networks pick up on the 4K hype though, then I see a slow but steady move to 4K in broadcast too.

Its very unlikely that the internet will be the delivery vehicle for 4K in the short or medium term. As it stands now, its struggling to stream 1080p in acceptable quality. For many, streaming is the 'good enough' alternative. One of the big issues with streaming is consistency, they don't want a sudden glitch in their viewing experience due to the lack of fidelity in their internet connection. For this reason, most of "HD" streaming is done in 720p rather than 1080p. Consumer's don't like long download times and they don't like 'buffering' of their videos.

Then there is the fundamental cost of bandwidth from the host side, streaming 4K sporadically is one thing, but delivering 4K to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of viewers, is a different matter altogether.

Worse yet is the cost of bandwidth to the consumer side. In many countries, a lot of internet providers still have bandwidth caps and bandwidth throttling for home internet, even if the speed is available, the amount of bandwidth required for 4K video is going to be incredibly high. In these cases, consumers may prefer a 720p/1080p video to a 4K version for reasons of cost and convenience.

You also mention tablets and iPads. Wireless is even more of an issue. Its around $10 per GB of data over wireless in the US, not that much different in the rest of the world. The cost of downloading a 4K movie over a wireless connection would be astronomical.

But yes, internet speeds will get faster, and the price will come down, but increase of internet speeds are significantly slower than technology. This is because lines have to be laid, towers need to be constructed, rural and suburban areas need to be thought of, routers and backbone need to be updated, and governmental approval is necessary for all these things to happen. By the time that we can start talking about delivering 4K to homes cost effectively, displays will be moving to 8K.

For the near-to-middle term 4K will be only for early adopters. 4K Blu-ray players will probably be the primary delivery format for 4K to homes. Its obviously something that CE companies want to push. They are going to try to convince consumers that 4K & 3D are reasons people should buy fancy new equipment.

Its going to be hard sell. Before we can talk about wide 4K adoption, consumers are going to need 4K TVs, 4k Blu-ray players, and any other associated equipment. Right now, we are starting at zero.

 

[Bassman2003]

TIME TO STOP THE MADNESS!

"Excellent 2K"... to me... is 4:4:4. Which requires like at least 6 megapixels anyway.

These "4K" sensors you're complaining about aren't producing pixel-for-pixel sharp 4K. They're 8 megapixel sensors with Bayer filters producing blurry, approx-4:2:2 4K... and really nice 2K.

You think you're talking about two different sensors but actually they're really similar.

Question: how many megapixels did the sensors for the Genesis, Viper, etc have? F900? F23?

All of the TOP 1080p/2K cameras have ALWAYS had around 6-12 megapixels total, and similar sensor area (whether 3 x 2/3" chips or 1 x s35 chip).

Stop thinking in terms of specs and K and think in terms of sensor and you'll see that a 4K camera is just a good 2K camera, read out properly. The extra resolution advantage is just a bonus. And a great marketing tool to convince people to buy them... which makes them cheaper for us.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

After reading this post again, I think some words were put in my mouth. I was not talking about sensors, I was talking about retail cameras branded as 4k cameras. However it takes for the camera to get its image internally was not part of my points, only the downstream image. I am not "complaining" about 4k sensors. The context of what I wrote was marketing a camera that outputs a 4k signal in the under $10,000 price segment when we still look to over $10,000 cameras for really good 2k.

I don't think that is MADNESS.

 

[Kholi]

But it's the same thing, right? Even if the camera is giving you 4K you're doing the post work to get it to 1080.

The only thing that changes is price to consumer on hardware. It's cheaper to give people a 4K solution nd let them process it than it is to create hardware that tries to do what a dedicated computing device could do better.

At least it's my understanding, but I am probably wrong.

 

[Bassman2003]

I don't believe it is the same thing if the 4k image has more compression and less color information. Also, since most of the world does not produce for cinema projection, a 4k to 1080p workflow just represents more work in many cases. So many are just wanting to buy cameras that go beyond this 24mbps AVCHD limit that has become so popular.

 

[rmdorrington]

April 11th Japan time? Does that mean we'll be hearing about these sometime after midnight?

 

[cowpunk52]

It's cheaper to give people a 4K solution nd let them process it than it is to create hardware that tries to do what a dedicated computing device could do better.

At the moment - unfortunately, no. There isn't a viable 4K acquisition platform less than $15K. I mean, there's the JVC handycam, but I don't know if that 4-stream solution is really viable. Makes me a bit nervous, at least. Bayer interpolation needs to use a lot of power, and the more pixels, the more processing, right?

Maybe a C300 type sensor that doesn't need to interpolate for 4K would do it, then record raw data via an on-board media ala Ikonoskop DII. But even still, you've got to do some processing in cam if you want to have HD-SDI or 3G-SDI out. It all adds up. The more data, the more work that has to be done, and the more expensive the solution is going to be.

In technology, I think more equals more in a lot of cases - at least right now.

 

[jamesc]

This is not the case for the US, unfortunately. Our infrastructure is sadly lagging and in dire need of upgrades. Don't know when we'll see that happen.

http://www.google.com/fiber/kansascity/index.html

Google also gained approval to use their fiber lines to push pay-TV as well. Hopefully the KS test pilot goes well and Google can then focus on a major city next.

It's very true that our the telecom giants want to hold off on a massive fiber investment as long as possible, but that's where big disruptive moves from Silicon Valley can shake things up. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and pretty soon Facebook will be sitting on enormous stockpiles of cash and since they've already identified the $160b TV ad industry as their next major target, hopefully they can take the financial risk to speed up America's broadband backbone.

 

[PappasArts]

4K acquisition technology is needed- If digital is to replace film as the tool of choice for acquisition, then why does digital have to remain as a lesser quality to that very system it aims to replace?

I remember when the Cheers producers were speaking years ago about one of the decisions to shoot the show on film and not video- It was for future proofing the project. There are sitcoms that became very successful and today are living their life in syndication. However some of the programs years ago shot in SD, and that was short sided on the producers part. They look hideous on today's HD systems. While other shows shot in film, have been re-transferred from their film negatives to have a very good existence in the HD Cable/Blu-ray market as for image quality is concerned.

It's all about future proofing the project if it has a future. Many times you don't know if your sitting on a project that might explode now, or years to come . So why not just future proof it?

It's not that your going to be delivering in 4K ( unless it's in theaters ) in the near future- It's having your productions investment fully recorded at the best possible quality in stored away masters.


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