Blu-Ray has won the Hi-Def war!
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Neal wrote:Just got a weekly circular informing me Circuit City plans to begin selling 4K TVs by 2010... A 4K display comes in at 4096 x 2160 pixels, almost four times the resolution of a 1080p display.
I wouldn't worry about 4k displays yet. Those are over 10 years away at best! Somebody at Circuit City is shooting their mouth off and doesn't know what they're talking about. 2010 is wishful thinking. But then again, I had a subscription to Wired for a while and they were always trying to push the latest bit of useless technological toys that nobody really needed. What's new from people trying to sell you crap that you don't need?
It took 20 years for digital broadcasts to become standard. During most of that time, hi-def was discussed but wasn't really finalized until a few years ago. The hi-def/digital turnover that's taking place next February '09 was supposed to have been concluded years ago but the FCC was convinced by political and economic concerns to delay the turnover process -- at least a half-dozen times, I think. It will be years before most other countries turn over to hi-def. For most, there just isn't a big need to do it, or they lack the money and resources to contemplate it. Remember, most human beings are still dirt-poor and struggle to survive.
Many of the other countries that are hi-def are in the same boat as the U.S. or still evolving their hi-def standards. Japan especially still seems to be working its way through towards a standard. Although they had hi-def broadcasts before everyone else, their system was originally analog and upgraded to digital some years back. Even today, most of their broadcasts are 720p or 1080i scaled.
1080p is the way to go -- now or five, ten years into the future.
It's true most hi-def broadcasts and hi-def videogames are 720p resolution but it's only a matter of time before 1080p becomes the default standard. 1080p will almost assuredly be the standard resolution for the next generation of game consoles AND HDTVs.
There's always going to be something new on the horizon, but really talking about 4k is premature and really stupid on the part of Circuit City employees and anybody else selling electronics. It's just not the reality of things right now. We're all still trying to keep pace with current technology. TV broadcasters will balk if they're forced to upgrade a second or third time within the next ten years! 4k is a pipe dream unless it's substantially cheaper than the upgrade to 720p/1080p. And it won't be.
Oh, and if anybody's interested, I hear 42" is the minimum size set you want to buy for 1080p. Below that, it's not going to make much difference if it's 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. Definitely go 1080p the closer you get to 50" or past that...
I've argued several times before that the electronics industry is pushing hi-def on a consumer base that by and large doesn't see a great need for it. Sure, they want a successor to standard def/analog video and the government is collaborating in the push by forcing its emergency standards (which co-opt the old analog bandwidths), but most people haven't seen the big need for HDTV.
Sports fanatics and home video nuts are the people driving the HDTV sales. They, by and large, are a small sliver of the video market.
The majority of those households that do own HDTV really don't understand you don't get the most out of it unless you upgrade both your cable subscription and video playback to hi-def standard. It's a consequence of human beings essentially resisting changes and at the same time not bothering to educate themselves by opening up books...
It' not an American thing. It's like this all over the world!
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Then that's nuts that they're suggesting their current selling technology may be potentially obsolete!
What's the swinger for an older couple, for instance, who have yet to jump for HD and think they may do so when their old set packs up the ghost. Why go out and buy something now when they'll likely say, "well, dear, we may as well wait until this one goes bang and we can get a really super dooper set".
Frankly, baffling marketing. Stores should be working to get us off our butts, buy the in-thing now and then get back out in two years and buy again! That's how it works! Also, what a time for a major store to be effectively saying "cut back on your spending"...!
What's the swinger for an older couple, for instance, who have yet to jump for HD and think they may do so when their old set packs up the ghost. Why go out and buy something now when they'll likely say, "well, dear, we may as well wait until this one goes bang and we can get a really super dooper set".
Frankly, baffling marketing. Stores should be working to get us off our butts, buy the in-thing now and then get back out in two years and buy again! That's how it works! Also, what a time for a major store to be effectively saying "cut back on your spending"...!
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Here's the whole thing:
Subject Line: What’s better than 1080p?
Intro: Technobabble: 1080p? That's so…2008
Super-sized screens need super-fine resolution. Find out why 4K is the next big thing in high-definition.
Article: If you bought an HDTV in the past two years, there’s one term you probably heard over and over again: 1080p. This term, indicating a TV with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels scanned progressively, is considered the pinnacle of modern HDTV goodness. Add in a 120Hz refresh rate, and you’ve surely reached nirvana.
Well, maybe not. Get ready to learn a new term: 4K.
So…why is this better?
A 4K display comes in at 4096 x 2160 pixels, almost four times the resolution of a 1080p display. When people first started talking about HDTV, they often used the visual of a basketball court. With a standard-definition set, you could see the basketball and the wooden court floor. An HDTV, proponents said, would allow you to see the grain of the wood and the texture on the basketball. Imagine what you’ll see on a display with four times the resolution: molecules, atoms, quarks…
OK, so maybe that’s an overstatement. For now, 4K action is largely confined to the realm of high-end digital projectors. You’ll find these used in museums and movie theaters, or in medical applications where the extra resolution can mean the difference between catching a problem and missing one.
Only a handful of companies are even manufacturing cameras capable of capturing video at that resolution, so don’t go looking for 4K broadcasts from TV networks any time soon. But there’s some evidence that TV manufacturers are already thinking about 4K in the consumer market.
Attack of the giant screens
Remember the big 150" plasma TV Panasonic showed off at the International Consumer Electronics Show back in January? That was a 4K set. On a screen that size, 1080p resolution would look as grainy as your old standard-definition set.
So what does 4K mean to you right now? Not a lot. But here's my prediction: as the HDTV market becomes saturated, TV makers are going to need something new and exciting to talk about. Pixel count on TVs is like horsepower in cars. Start looking for 4K TVs to quietly enter the consumer market in 2010. They’ll be expensive, but once you see one at your local Circuit City, you’ll know that the TV guys are serious.
Subject Line: What’s better than 1080p?
Intro: Technobabble: 1080p? That's so…2008
Super-sized screens need super-fine resolution. Find out why 4K is the next big thing in high-definition.
Article: If you bought an HDTV in the past two years, there’s one term you probably heard over and over again: 1080p. This term, indicating a TV with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels scanned progressively, is considered the pinnacle of modern HDTV goodness. Add in a 120Hz refresh rate, and you’ve surely reached nirvana.
Well, maybe not. Get ready to learn a new term: 4K.
So…why is this better?
A 4K display comes in at 4096 x 2160 pixels, almost four times the resolution of a 1080p display. When people first started talking about HDTV, they often used the visual of a basketball court. With a standard-definition set, you could see the basketball and the wooden court floor. An HDTV, proponents said, would allow you to see the grain of the wood and the texture on the basketball. Imagine what you’ll see on a display with four times the resolution: molecules, atoms, quarks…
OK, so maybe that’s an overstatement. For now, 4K action is largely confined to the realm of high-end digital projectors. You’ll find these used in museums and movie theaters, or in medical applications where the extra resolution can mean the difference between catching a problem and missing one.
Only a handful of companies are even manufacturing cameras capable of capturing video at that resolution, so don’t go looking for 4K broadcasts from TV networks any time soon. But there’s some evidence that TV manufacturers are already thinking about 4K in the consumer market.
Attack of the giant screens
Remember the big 150" plasma TV Panasonic showed off at the International Consumer Electronics Show back in January? That was a 4K set. On a screen that size, 1080p resolution would look as grainy as your old standard-definition set.
So what does 4K mean to you right now? Not a lot. But here's my prediction: as the HDTV market becomes saturated, TV makers are going to need something new and exciting to talk about. Pixel count on TVs is like horsepower in cars. Start looking for 4K TVs to quietly enter the consumer market in 2010. They’ll be expensive, but once you see one at your local Circuit City, you’ll know that the TV guys are serious.
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droosan wrote:4K monitors are already in use in Hollywood. Mostly just for film production, though.
We're a long way yet from consumer-level 4K sets. :idea:
I saw an article similar to what Neal was talking about.
It was linked from one of the e-mails Circuit City sends me regularly about their sales.
I just couldn't help but think, "Wow, these Circuit City guys are getting way ahead of themselves!" and "Gee, they ought to work for Wired! This information is as useful to as 98% in that magazine!" <= essentially worthless!
Seriously, I gave up reading Wired because so much of it is speculation about ultra-expensive technology that nobody really needs. Half that stuff never gets to mass-market because it's impractical and expensive or gets superceded by something else that's cheaper or takes advantage of current technology. Much like newer uses and greater capacity keeps getting mined out of existing 5-inch optical disc.
It's wonderful if they're working on 4k and 8k resolution digital monitors but frankly the consumer won't be ready for that stuff for decades!! The consumer market in the developed, industrial world is still working through the last few years of standard-def (count on at least five more years of SD) and getting into an era when 1080p will finally be affordable for most working people.
Progressive-scan DVD players and multi-resolution HDTV monitors were a very smart move on the part of the home video and electronics industriess. Although people will inevitably have to upgrade their discs to really get the best out of hi-def, at least they won't have to throw away their existing 5-inch optical disc libraries right away or feel the existing discs are unusable. It's not like what happened with reel-to-reel recording and 8-track tape at all.