What Is 4K TV?

[Guest]

Now that HDTV is commonplace, companies are selling TVs with four times the resolution, called 4K or Ultra HD.

What Is 4K TV? : Read more

 

[josejones]

I'm glad 4k is coming but, I'd prefer TRUE 4k at 120 FPS with G-sync for gamers. One problem is that HDMI 2.0 cables and Blu-Ray may not cut it. Blu-Ray is currently limited to 8 channel audio instead of the new 32 ch. Of HDMI 2.0's 18 Gb/sec bandwidth, only 14.4 Gb/sec is usable due to a 20% overhead. HDMI 2.0 will NOT handle 120 FPS.

http/hdguru.com/hdmi-2-0-what-you-need-to-know/

I may wait for 8k TV but manufacturers, HDMI and Blu-Ray have all got to get it together.

 

[officeguy]

Well, I am 36. Most of my generation, their parent said "Don't sit so close to the TV, it will ruin your eyes". Now its "It's good to sit closer because the picture is bigger and clearer." What should I do?

 

[alchemy69]

A sales gimmick designed to prey on weak minded idiots who assume that more equals better.

 

[DeadRam]

4K is useless since TV broadcasts are 720P, 4K movies won't fit on current Blu-ray media and Next gen consoles can't even render games at 60 FPS 1080p.

 

[d_kuhn]

I just ordered a 4k 31.5" monitor(Asus PQ321Q)... and there are a number of gotcha's when you're looking at 4k. The big one is interface... HDMI 2.0 will only deliver 30hz... and many of the 4k displays out there are limited to 30hz. The Asus can do 60hz but only by using 2 cables and splitting the screen into what windows thinks are 2 separate monitors. If you can wait then I'd suggest holding out for HDMI 3.0, which will have plenty of bandwidth for 4k.

Playback is even more limited... not much out there can drive a 4k display yet so most of the folks I've talked with are using PC's with high end graphics cards. You will need one of the newest/higher cost cards to even get to 30hz (we've been using Titan's but I just ordered the R9 for the Asus - apparently less issues running 4k)

On the plus side... if you're willing to deal with a 30hz panel then there are some low cost options. Seiki has 2 displays in the $1k range... up to 55".

 

[clonazepam]

I like how the render at the bottom isn't to scale so it looks like you have to have 4K in order to sit at an appropriate distance from the television. The scale is so horrible, they make it appear as though proper viewing distance for 1080p is only achieved by being on the opposite end of the room lol

 

[Innocent_Bystander-1312890]

3 screen heights from 1080P is rubbish. You can't see pixels until you get as close as 1 screen height, even then you have to have pretty good eyes.

The hype machine for 4K is revving up... time to tune out for the next... umm... 5 years?

IB

 

[dilbert]

Good article.

One little thing: in the "4K IS A CONFUSING TERM" section, it says 3140x2160 instead of 3840x2160.

 

[jobadiah]

@clonazepam, I know right. 3.7 feet away, your knees would almost be touching the wall. I couldn't sit that close to a 60 inch screen just for the fact it would be like sitting in the front 1/3 of a movie theatre; you are too close to see everything without looking around. Plus, you can only fit so many people around the TV at that distance. Sitting 2 feet away from my 24" monitor (11.5" vertical) I can't really see pixels. Any bigger screen and I would probably sit farther back.

 

[jobadiah]

@clonazepam, I know right. 3.7 feet away, your knees would almost be touching the wall. I couldn't sit that close to a 60 inch screen just for the fact it would be like sitting in the front 1/3 of a movie theatre; you are too close to see everything without looking around. Plus, you can only fit so many people around the TV at that distance. Sitting 2 feet away from my 24" monitor (11.5" vertical) I can't really see pixels. Any bigger screen and I would probably sit farther back.

 

[hannibal]

In many test in here FInland they have found out that upscaled 1080p picture is so much better than normal HD picture, if you are just willintg the pay the deep price of 4K screen. So I would not be worried about content at this moment. They did say that real 4K content did look better, but upscaled will be just fine in the mean time!

 

[Jim90]

"Such data rates are impractical for current broadcast TV (over the air or via cable or satellite), which, with a few exceptions, doesn't even deliver full-HD 1080p resolution for most channels. (Instead, most stations come across in the 720p"

--> Exactly!! we can't even get 1080p streamed so, even with compression - and it better be lossless - how the hell can 4k be streamed.

Still, that's some nice real estate for desktop productivity apps.

 

[Dirk_Funk]

I hope there aren't any engineers reading the comments here. Some of the commenters sound so spoiled... yes there are some things holding 4k back right now but jeeze it takes time to make products that do the job right AND can be mass produced AND will be cheap enough for consumers AND will actually have enough of consumers attention to justify selling the product in the first place. I mean look at pc gaming at 4k, you have to pay at least 1000 dollars on gpu's alone just to get 60 fps at high settings. This is clearly future tech and if I have to wait for the future to get it and have it run right then so be it!

 

[Gurg]

Personally I'm tired of discs that get scratched, wasting money on DVD/BlueRay players that die and don't want an enhanced 4k BlueRay. Those are obsolete technology.

I want to buy a personal media license to access books, movies, music etc from the cloud and download with fast internet connection and possibly using my PC as temporary storage and media playback controller interface. More of the Steam and Amazon Kindle for books model. .

 

[techguy911]

4K tv's are a huge waste of money it's like buying a blu-ray player in 1995 there is no content that will support 4k for at least 5 years, cable still maxes out at 720p and even blu-ray discs are not large enough to handle true 4k.
A real true 4k source movie size for 2 hours would need 500gb those Sony mastered in 4k video are 4k down converted to 1080p.

 

[smiley4julie]

Also do not forget, With 4K Passive 3D, 1080p 3D looks amazing mostly because you do not loose resolution with the interlacing, with cheap glasses and no headache. Normally I get nauseous and headaches with 3D TV. But not here it was fantastic.

 

[mi1ez]

720p ISN'T just another way to describe a res with 720 scanlines. The p is for progressive rather than interlaced 720i which affects the way the frame is refreshed. Same with 1080p/1080i.

 

[smiley4julie]

mi1ez, that's a fair point and true. I was meaning something else, the left eye and right eye are interlaced to a lower resolution. So left eye gets half of 1080progressive, every odd line, and the right eye gets the other half of the 1080progressive, every even line. Effectively halving the horizontal resolution, (passive 3D). So maybe interleaved is a better description. And with 4K, half the resolution is still 1080p per eye. Unless I misunderstanding how the passive 3D works. Either way the end result just looks better.

 

[Hupiscratch]

A wider view on the UHD format is shown by the FlatPanelsHD guys: http/flatpanelshd.com/focus.php?subaction=showfull&id=1366264710