Viability of 4K?

I was in Thailand recently killing time while my wife was shopping for a handbag. Don't know about you all, but my mind has a tendency to go numb after seeing a few handbags, knowing I need emmidiate stimulus to counter shopping with the wife I emmidiately sot refuge in the huge tech store there, and was able to look at and compare the differences of HD and 4K TV's. Big difference I would say but only really noticeable the closer you get..... kind a reminds me of lens comparissions where they zoom in at 100 or 200 % to look for sharpness and chromatic aberration etc.

I'm also looking at getting a C300 mkii in the next year or so. The main reason is to future proof my purchase by a few years, and the ability to punch in the image, the later has a very real appeal and the former a more abstract appeal.
 
Resolution is certainly a marketing gimmick in many situations. Years back, Sony released a bunch of Handycams touting 1080P resolution, turns out they only had 720P sensors and simply stretched the image and captured as 1080P; someone told me that the HVX-200 did the same thing, but I'm not sure about that. Same thing goes for a lot of 1080P DSLRs, at lot of them resolve 800 vertical lines at best. It would be nice if advertizing wasn't so dishonest and misleading, but dishonesty sells products which makes companies money, so unethical practices aren't going to go away anytime soon.

As far as displays go, LG had a $5,000 laser projector and 105" screen that I though looked really good, it even worked pretty well with a fair bit of ambient light from a nearby window.

What's the life span of current OLED TVs? My concern is that the organic components of OLED TVs won't last the life of the TV, or the expected life time of regular LED TVs (eight to twelve year is what the sales man told me, probably a lie, but that's my base line). I usually keep my displays until they die to get my full money's worth.
 
The lifespan of OLED was also a concern for me, but LG claims they have tripled the lifespan. It is now up to 100,000 hours.

So, If I left the set on 24hrs a day I would get over 11 years of life.
 
rsbush said:
I understand magnification. What I don't get is framing during a live sporting event. Is he suggesting reframing on the fly, as the action is happening (is that even possible) or having dedicated 8K cameras to cover every angle, employed only for replay?
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If you look at the very first play (replay @15s mark), you see that the cameraman can't always keep both the puck and the net in the frame. Now, presuming that this is 720p, as it's given by YouTube, a 4K sensor allows the cameraman to pull a much wider angle with the same/better resolution. 8K would, obviously, be even better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t3FykloKfM
 
DLD said:
If you look at the very first play (replay @15s mark), you see that the cameraman can't always keep both the puck and the net in the frame. Now, presuming that this is 720p, as it's given by YouTube, a 4K sensor allows the cameraman to pull a much wider angle with the same/better resolution. 8K would, obviously, be even better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t3FykloKfM
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Of course, but then the shot has to be wider, correct? The camera op could have gotten a wider shot if he chose to. Resolution doesn't affect framing choice, aspect ratio does. Who wants to watch a game with all wide shots?
 
rsbush said:
Of course, but then the shot has to be wider, correct? The camera op could have gotten a wider shot if he chose to. Resolution doesn't affect framing choice, aspect ratio does. Who wants to watch a game with all wide shots?
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A cameraman should keep two things within the frame in team (ball/puck) sports - the ball/puck and the net/basket. In basketball, it's easy with even a center-court based camera. Hockey, due to player movement and puck speed, is arguably the most difficult (tennis has long gone to "behind the line" angle). The game is generally covered in wide angle but tracking the puck - anyone recalls the Fox blue tracking? - is difficult. Increased resolution solves that problem.

And, when I mean "increased resolution", I mean, 8K.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/witcher-iii-8k-needs-four-164818092.html
 
jagraphics said:
What that paper by Sony appears to be saying is that you only notice the difference if you are close to the screen. "Close" is relative. Most of use will be sitting far enough away from our monitors, tablets and phones NOT to notice the difference. Also where we have screens 40-50" or less we won't notice the difference in most (European) homes. However in a cinema people will be sitting closer than 2.3 times the hight of the screen and will see a difference. Therefore those who are expecting to have their work on a cinema screen would need 4K.
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Maybe. Kinda. I remember a few years ago when Skyfall came out. Lot's of noise about what a gorgeous film Mr. Deakins had made. And people were absolutely right, Deakins did a spectacular job. I was really impressed with how sharp it was on the big screen. I typically sit (when I can) where my head is a little above the center of the screen, so I was about in the middle of the theater. I was amazed and chagrined when I did a little research and found it was captured on an Arri at 2.8k, and all the theaters got 2k DCPs.

I've more or less kept track since and found that most theaters here never show at 4k even though they have the big Sony 4k projectors. Just about every movie shown is 2k. And... I can't tell the difference, even when I was really trying to see it.

If there's a place where 4k display will be even slightly useful, it's a big theater. You'd have to have a monster home theater for it to work in a house. I'm just not that rich myself. :embarasse

Now, there are some good reasons to capture in 4k. But 4k presentation? I don't get it. And 8k? Even less.
 
DLD said:
By the way, the "glowing puck" was what Fox felt it had to do to make hockey more popular.

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Yeah, and that didn't work because hockey fans hated it. You're not supposed to watch the puck, you're supposed to watch the players. If you know where the players are, you know where the puck is, and where it's most likely going.

More resolution doesn't help you shoot wider with the lenses those guys use. Choosing to shoot wider does.
 
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I think he meant something along the lines of what I do for "Reframing"

Shoot 4k of 2 people at a table talking, Pop that on a 1080 timeline. now you can have a wide shot of 2 people talking, then zoom in to highlight just guy 1, then flip to "just" guy2, then back to wide with both. All without losing any resolution. (provided you're delivering in 1080.)
 
Chris Johnston said:
I think he meant something along the lines of what I do for "Reframing"

Shoot 4k of 2 people at a table talking, Pop that on a 1080 timeline. now you can have a wide shot of 2 people talking, then zoom in to highlight just guy 1, then flip to "just" guy2, then back to wide with both. All without losing any resolution. (provided you're delivering in 1080.)
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Just exactly how do you acheive that live? We're talking live action sports here, not post work.
 
I think the sweet spot is really 2k/1080p. The fact that for years this resolution has been shown in large theaters where people pay $10-15 a ticket (and typically don't complain about quality), kind of proves that point. While I think 4K does look good on the right displays (OLED) at the right distance, I think it's less important.

I still see people renting newly released DVDs from Redbox kiosks. I think that even if all TVs go 8k, you'll still see people watching DVDs on them and certainly HD blu-rays.
A lot of people are watching highly compressed streaming HD footage on their TVs without complaint right now.

We've entered the MP3 era of visuals. You'll always have the diehard people who want the best home theater setup, but you'll have more that are fine with DVD/HD Streaming on their 55" TV with sound bar. That or their laptop or smart phone.

So while I think electronic companies will keep pushing it forward, less and less people will care as time goes on. It's already gotten to the point where someone like me doesn't care that much. I haven't run out and bought a 4K TV yet or replaced any of my blu-rays with UHD blu-rays and I make video content for a living and I'm a movie buff.

It's going to take a radically new technology to change all of this. Even then, that technology will likely be a different format unto itself. The way video games are to movies.

That said, if you can give me an affordable 8K or even 12K full frame camera with great low light ability and dynamic range that produces a cinematic-style image and shoots on low-cost media with ample backup storage and computers that can cut through it like a hot knife through butter, I'll take it. I mean if I'm going to put all that work into what I put in front of the camera, I might as well capture it at the highest quality I can get. Even if that just gives me room to play in post and no one ever sees it that way.
 
I think he meant that in a higher resolution system(and larger viewing screens), you could shoot wider and still resolve/see detail that you would have had to shoot tighter to see on a lower rez system.
 
Run&Gun said:
I think he meant that in a higher resolution system(and larger viewing screens), you could shoot wider and still resolve/see detail that you would have had to shoot tighter to see on a lower rez system.
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Right. Because, at SD, one couldn't even see the puck well. Which is why Fox used the Day-Glo tracking.

I'd mentioned in another recent thread that old (1960's and 70's) hockey coverage had two cameras - one wide and one on the goal because there was little detail from a wide angle. As the action came to the crease, they would switch from one to another live and inevitably lose the track of the play but that would have, at least, make the replays easier to follow.

Now, at 720p, they can do much wider and still keep the puck visible. The key, however, is to have both the puck and the net/netminder in the same frame while having enough resolution for the puck itself without the Day-Glo.

Watch the sequence at 16m and how they cut from the wide angle to net and other close-ups.

(the commentary is in Russian but the original feed was from CBC, I believe)

 
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OK, even a better cut. From wide to closeup as Cournoyer comes bearing down on Tretyak.

 
DLD said:
Right. Because, at SD, one couldn't even see the puck well. Which is why Fox used the Day-Glo tracking.

I'd mentioned in another recent thread that old (1960's and 70's) hockey coverage had two cameras - one wide and one on the goal because there was little detail from a wide angle. As the action came to the crease, they would switch from one to another live and inevitably lose the track of the play but that would have, at least, make the replays easier to follow.

Now, at 720p, they can do much wider and still keep the puck visible. The key, however, is to have both the puck and the net/netminder in the same frame while having enough resolution for the puck itself without the Day-Glo.
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The puck can be seen clearly at 720p with as wide a shot as you want. And why would I want to see the goalie when the action is happening in the neutral zone? I only need to see the goalie when the team playing in their offensive zone is on the attack. I want to feel like I'm in the game, not watching from the nose bleed seats.
More resolution would be useful for replays but it won't change the way the live action is framed, simply because it would diminish the experience rather than enhance it. Just like the ridiculous glowing puck that every true hockey fan hated.
 
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