Get your own 4k telly

[Andrew Smith]

It's also glasses-free 3D.

"On December 10, Toshiba's REGZA 553X is also capable of '4K' resolutions - four times current hi-def sets. Sadly, the price should ensure the 'naked eye' 3D set doesn't hit the mainstream straight away - it will be £7,400, and only available in Japan. It will launch in the UK early next year, price to be confirmed."

Read about it at 'Glasses-free 3D' hits the big time as Toshiba sets a date and price for 55-inch set - with a resolution FOUR TIMES hi-def

Just in time for the next Hobbit movie.

Andrew

[Andrew Smith]

See here: 'Ultra-definition': LG's 84-inch 3D TV moves beyond HD

LG is also getting in on the act with a quad-HD / "ultra-definition" / 4K television set.

No pricing available yet .. not that I'm going to be sweating on it.

Andrew

[Brian Drysdale]

A 4k telly probably isn't really much use unless there's something to show on it and I can't see a rush by the broadcasters in the short term and possibly in the meduim term to take it on. They're still trying to sort out 3D, plus 4k takes up a lot more bandwidth than HD, so perhaps it's something more for the home cinema brigade.

[John Vincent]

Exactly - other then Jim Cameron, George Lucas, and high end post houses, I'm not sure what market there is for something like this (assuming the price tag is 4x or higher than a normal high end set). Heck, not even all US broadcasters even use 1080. The 55" inch set is nearly 10 grand. Can't see too many mom and pops picking up one at that price.

The glasses free 3D is actually of more interest then the resolution - until 3D can be glasses free, the format will not take off. If that tech can be applied to 1080 sets, then they'd have something.

[Jack Zhang]

If a TV is too big for your space, 4k Computer Monitors exist now:

The EIZO DuraVision FDH3601 is a 4k x 2k Display, and We Want It | PC Perspective

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

I'll wait for 8K

[Andrew Smith]

I've often heard that 640k should be enough for just about everybody.

Andrew

[Graeme Hay]

I have a 1080p tv (42") but nearly no 1080p serious content (why get Blue ray when DVDs can be 'upconverted' And are many times 1/5th the price at best buy? And Netflix is my friend, seriously quantity over quality costs are enormous for 1080p, let alone consider 4k)

3D is a bust, sure a lot of TVs have it but Nobody I know who has it has used it, except for something like Monsters vs. Aleins which came with the set. And the local theaters only have one 3D screen each, hell IMAX screens are more numerous...

So I can see RED's 4K is the future message but most people don't have 60+ inches( or whatever the size needs to be before your 20/20 vision can actually see a difference ) wall space available in most homes.

No denying its coming, but is it really going to get market saturation before everyone can by a 4k camera for under $2000 and the 4K TVs cost the same as there 1080p brethren today?

Shot for what you know will sell today, tomorrow, next year. By the time everyone is demanding 4K content 4K TVs and 4K cameras will be significantly cheaper.

[Lee Mullen]

1080 has more or less just arrived, now another gimmick.

[Gints Klimanis]

I'd be quite happy to have my D3 photos shown in full glory on a 85+" TV. At a distance of 4', it's pretty easy to see the pixelation of a 65" 1920x1080 TV and certainly the 85" plasmas in the conference rooms at work. Why shouldn't the current viewing distance guideline be eliminated? My living room is small, and I'm willing to pay a couple grand for the immersive 100" TV experience, though I stop before going to the projector.

[Brian Drysdale]

There are people who will be willing to pay for a larger resolution TV, but it's also a question of how large a market exists. Most viewers tend to watch at a 8ft to 10ft distance, so the current broadcast TV standards are designed for those people. Personally, I'd like to watch stuff without banding and other compression artefacts before they should even consider going for even larger pixel numbers on the screen.

At a certain distance human vision can't resolve any further detail, and so it becomes a law of diminishing returns. Of course, there will always be people willing to pay uber amounts for cables etc, often beyond that used to record the material in the first place.

[R Geoff Baker]

It is my observation that those most opposed to bigger and better HD are often constrained by the cost and the space requirements. My own experience living in the UK is that seldom is there the equivalent of an American 'rec room' -- a comfortable space with more than enough room for 84" inches of screen, and seating for 8 or more, well removed from the formal 'living room' (lounge, in UK speak). My own comparison is telling -- here in America I have a 45" HD set relegated to the bedroom, with a couple of hundred HD channels via cable. And a 60" HD set in the rec room, also with HD cable. And a 32" HD set in the study. Two Blu-Ray players, a PS3 with Blu-Ray playing capability. One of the TVs has a Blu-Ray player built in. And my teen sons have cast-off HD sets in their rooms, the size and configuration of which escape me.

When I lived in the UK just three years ago, I had colleagues with a telly about the size of a microwave -- if they wanted something as large as 30", they went to the pub. Here in my town there is a sports pub that has a 40" TV at every single table booth, giant screens projected on every wall, and the floor has scores of screens set into them -- a trip to the loo means walking across the screens. And when you get to urinal, you have your own personal screen larger than the UK pub screen ...

Our local grocery has a vending machine in the front lobby that rents Blu-Ray discs of the latest release for $3 (about 2 pounds) per night. My local cable provider delivers four hundred or so channels, and almost half of them are HD. There are specialty services by internet, by mail and walk-in shops that have Blu-Ray movies in the hundreds ...

In other words, there is no shortage of true HD material for television and movies -- and this ignores the almost overwhelming amount of HD sports coverage -- all the big sports in America (football, baseball, hockey & basketball) offer HD coverage -- those sports alone, just counting the major franchises, amount to thousands and thousands of hours of HD coverage. Heck, I can get HD coverage of soccer, rugby and even 'aussie rules' -- for a monthly cost that is hardly more than what I paid for Virgin's basic service in the UK.

The American Superbowl is coming up, and that event alone has historically pushed tens of thousands towards a newer, larger screen every year. And that goes back to when an HD set cost typically $3,000 (2,000 pounds) -- now that even 60" screens are selling for nearer $1,000 (do the math -- roughly 600 pounds) the market is clearing for big spenders to buy bigger and better sets. Most rec rooms can find the space for a screen that will extend from roughly desk height to near the ceiling -- about 4' tall and so about 7' wide. Those with grander spaces may find room for 5' height and so 9' wide ...

Thirty years ago an American music enthusiast would spend the equivalent of $5,000 for a capable stereo system. Many spent multiples of that amount. The number of enthusiasts numbered so great that any shopping mall had competing specialty shops, and every magazine had page after page of full-colour glossy adverts. When I was in University, the student loan program was jokingly referred to as the 'stereo assistance program' ... today, the big screen replaces the perfect speaker. Whether your opiate of choice is movies, television, sports or video gaming, the centre of most homes is some sort of viewing screen.

Individuals may be reticent to join the HD world, but there is no point in denying that the world is moving overwhelmingly in that direction. I find it telling that I owned an HDTV five years ago, and I was an early adopter but in no way the first person in my community -- today I own half a dozen, and this year I may well discard one as it will no longer suit my needs. Not broken, not dysfunctional, just not big enough and not valuable enough to hold onto. My aging parents have not only got two HD sets, but they are fully aware of whether a program is available in HD, and pay the supplement to be sure that they have access to the hundred or so HD channels they're interested in.

This forum is directed at digital video enthusiasts. If you've missed the pull of HDTV and the coming of QuadHD ... I'm not sure why you're here!

Cheers,
GB

[Brian Drysdale]

I've no problem about HDTV, it's the size of the domestic market for 4k and larger sizes and what is a law of diminishing returns, combined with the limitations in bandwidth to distribute it. The diminishing return being that you don't have the wow factor in the jump from HDTV to 4K as from SD to HD and you do need sit close to the screen to notice the difference. Certainly closer that most people do in the domestic environment.

That's not ruling out the home cinema, which is a different market, in theory, that is trying to replicate similar viewing conditions to a cinema. Which is fine for 3 ft viewing distance or having very large screens that give an angle of view similar to being in the front half of a cinema. However, if you're not going to make use of those viewing conditions, the need for a 4k mass market TV could be questioned because the limits of human vision.

4K theatrical projection is fine.

[R Geoff Baker]

I would note that the bandwidth point may be a non-issue -- like as not, compression 'solves' bandwidth issues. Don't be surprized to see 4k broadcast arrive at substantially less than 4x the bandwith of current 1080 signals. And the 'wow' factor too may be entirely measured in square inches -- if the manufacturers start offering 100" screens but in 4k only -- that's what you'll have to buy if you want to fill your rec room wall. It would be my observation that large as the home cinema crowd may be, the avid sports fan crowd is substantially larger, and prepared to spend substantially more. The sports network package of my cable system adds the price of three or four trips to the cinema to see a film. And for the cost of a pair of tickets to any major sporting even ... I could pay the sports cable costs for a month or two. Sports spending for the fan easily measures into the thousands per year, when the costs of specialty cable, occasional tickets, memorabilia, magazines and apparel are factored in.

I don't have a crystal ball, but neither did I jump on the 3D bandwagon. Just sayin'

Cheers,
GB

[Graeme Sutherland]

There are two things to bear in mind.

Firstly, display resolutions are starting to be pushed upwards again by the computer industry. Apple are rumoured to be putting a 2880 x 1800 pixel panel in the top-end Macbook next year, and the iPad 3 is said to have a 2048 x 1536 screen.

Laptop display pixel counts to quadruple in 2012 ? reghardware
iPad 3: Super-High-Res Displays a Go, But Yields Will Be Low | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Asus announced the Transformer Prime will be coming with a 1920 x 1080 resolution in the next couple of months, and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Note launched at the end of last year with a 1280 x 720 screens on phones. OK, the Note is rather enormous, but...

I really wouldn't be surprised if 4K screens are common on desktop PCs within a year or two.

Secondly, being digital devices cameras (and the delivery media) are now subject to Moore's and Kryder's Laws. Namely the cost of processing or storage will halve every 18 months to two years.

The same forces that have made your mobile phone more powerful than your PC was a few years back are now going to be driving camera technology. As such I wouldn't be surprised if we see 4K versions of the the Sony F3 and Canon C300 within the next year or two. (Probably sooner given JVC's announcement at CES.) And 8K before the end of the decade at the $10K price point.

Incidentally, the BBC and NHK are going to shoot and broadcast test footage of the 2012 Olympics at an 8K / quad HD resolution.

NHK To Broadcast Olympics In Ultra HDTV - DigInfo TV - Tech News Videos From Japan | The latest technology, products, gadgets and scientific research direct from Tokyo

I think that the real shortcoming is going to be in finding a delivery platform, though I suspect that this is going to shift to downloads, particularly with the rise in fibre to the home networks.