Will 4K UHD TV's just be upscaling dispalys or will 4K content actually come out? (1 Viewer)

[Kevin Collins]

While 4K UHD TV's have been growing at an exponential pace, content producers and broadcasters have yet to kick production into high gear. 4K hardware is so far ahead of 4K broadcasts that one wonders if the gap will ever be bridged.


Today most 4K hardware owners are mainly watching upscaled HD content. That's essentially the same thing as watching upscaled SD content on your HDTV.


When HDTV came out, the most content was from broadcasters and then from optical disc and then from streaming. The majority of 4K content today is from streaming providers like Netflix, Ultraflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video. While it is debatable if 4K streaming with the high compression rates is really a match for optical disc 4K (if and when it ever ships) the biggest problem is that a large contingent of 4K hardware owners simply do not have enough bandwidth on their internet connections. To adequately stream 4K content the recommend bandwidth is 20Mbps with only 19% of US households have even 15Mbps connections (Source Akamai).


If you paid attention to CES announcements new 4K TV's abounded while 4K content announcements were scarce. There was about six new 4K TV's announced from every major manufacturer.


It's a sad state of affairs to see content lagging so far behind the amount of hardware out there. It was the inverse situation with HDTV. It's a primary reason I am still holding off on purchasing a 4K TV. I might as well wait for some interesting content to emerge and get a better 4K TV at a cheaper price when it does.


How many own a 4K TV today?

 

[Reed Grele]

I have no plans on upgrading to 4k (projection in my case) for the foreseeable future.


My "early adopter" HT purchases have, since 1980, contributed much to the success that the electronics, and entertainment industry enjoys today. But for once, I'm going to sit this one out for as long as I can.


I am more than satisfied with all that current 1080p hardware, and Blu ray software (in 2D and 3D) has to offer.


This time around I'll let someone else pay for the costly R&D on the next advance in HT technology. And if, at some point in the future, 4K hardware prices have fallen, and there is an abundance of well produced current and back catalog 4K titles on optical media, then, and only then, will I consider an upgrade.

 

[Ejanss]

Like a good number of city-dwellers, I live in an apartment, and can't HAVE a minimum uber-60"+ set with a dedicated audio surround system that 4KTV requires to show itself off. I do, however, have a 3D set, in hi-definition Blu-ray, that I can enjoy at any size screen.

This is one of the problems that companies who fall in love with a "new format" before taking the market into account are likely to run into.


As to "available content", we're still going to have to wait until the dust settles over disk companies fighting over a new coding which would require replacing new titles, at the same time as every other company in the industry keeps mysteriously failing to mention disks when talking about 4K content, and seeming to believe it as a streaming-only format. (Which my current bandwidth also can't support.)

And which, of course, will have to wait until whether the current streaming companies yet show any interest or unity in jumping onto a single format.

 

[Worth]

The problem is, the electronics manufacturers are moving much faster than the content producers. There's very little 4K content that exists, period. Look at the most successful films of the past few years:


Guardians of the Galaxy - (2K)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2K)
The Lego Movie (2K)
Transformers: Age of Extinction (4K)
Maleficent (2K)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2K)
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2K)
The Amazing Spider Man 2 (4K)
Godzilla (2K)
22 Jump Street (2K)
The Hunger Games - Catching Fire (4K)
Iron Man 3 (2K)
Frozen (2K)
Despicable Me 2 (2K)
Man of Steel (2K)
Gravity (2K)
Monsters University (2K)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2K)
Fast and Furious 6 (2K)
Oz the Great and Powerful (2K)
The Avengers (2K)
The Dark Knight Rises (2K DI but finished on film - could be upgraded to 4K)
The Hunger Games (2K)
Skyfall (4K DI but limited to 2.8K because it was shot with Arri Alexa)
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2K)
Twilight - Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2K)
The Amazing Spider Man (4K)
Brave (2K)
Ted (2K)
Madacascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2K)


The overwhelming majority are locked at 2K, and even the ones finished at 4K are at least partially upscaled. Also, keep in mind that 35mm is generally regarded as having somewhere between 3-4K of actual image detail, and that's going from the negative, which no one ever sees. Many cinematographers feel that 4K is overkill, From American Cinematographer:

Although the visual-effects work and final filmout were done at 2K, Spider-Man 3 was scanned at 4K for the DI. Pope notes he was very excited to do a 4K scan for Spider-Man 2 (see AC June ’02), but he would have preferred to work in 2K on its sequel. “I’ve found that I actually like 2K scans better. There’s a certain softness to 2K, in addition to softening filters that are not yet available in 4K, that hides a lot of flaws. 4K is so brutally sharp and clear there’s nowhere to hide. Every blemish, every wrinkle, every hour of work into a late night or a long week shows up on the actor’s face, and that’s not what I want to see — especially not in a movie like this, which is set in a made-up wonderland. It’s just too much to fight later on.

“In many ways, cinematography is about deciding what you don’t want to see, and if you don’t have the tools to erase what you don’t want to see later on, you tend to walk away from that tool the next time. Right now we’re doing 2K projection and 2K effects, so why bother to scan at 4K when it’s just too sharp? Honestly, if I’d thought about it more carefully, I would have shot all the actors through a light [Tiffen] Pro-Mist filter or something similar, just to take some of that sharp curse off the back end. I used a little filtration in the shooting, but not nearly enough.”

Here's a video of cinematographers arguing the pros and cons of 4K


http://nofilmschool.com/2014/09/three-world-class-cinematographers-share-their-wealth-knowledge-weigh-great-4k-debate

 

[David Willow]

I haven't even purchased a 3D TV yet (and have no plans to purchase one anytime soon). I just got another Plasma and I'm completely happy.


I'll get 4K when good 75" sets are under $1000 (and I actually have a source to play on it).

 

[DaveF]

I'm not "upgrading" my two TVs to 4k for the sake of 4k. The difficult question will be when I buy a projector: go with expensive 4k or moderate 2k?

If I were shopping for a new TV I probably would get 4k simply because all the higher end TVs are 4k. It's becoming standard, regardless of benefit. It's getting harder to not buy, if shopping for a new TV.

 

[Gregg Loewen]

you have to define " expensive vs moderate"

 

[DaveF]

Depends on how prices reduce, but currently my perception is its about $3k - $5k for 2k and $10k to $15k for pseudo 4k. Hopefully 4k projectors will get below $10k in a year or two.

 

[mattCR]

Last year I went with the Sony 600 4K projector.. and I've been very happy. Yes, almost everything is upscaled, but I have some - thought not a lot - of 4K content. A lot of it is documentaries, National Geographic film stuff, and a few items available from Sony.


Futureproofing.


That said, I anticipate some live events may move this way. A friend joked with me that the only people reliably putting out a continuous run of newly produced 4k are all porn studios. Probably true.

 

[zoetmb]

The majority of sets announced at CES are indeed 4K and many are approaching 1080p prices, so when you buy your next set, it will be 4k whether you can perceive the difference at your desired screen size or not. Both streaming and disc formats have been announced.

Regardless of whether true 4k titles get released, the biggest promise once standards are finalized is not resolution but expanded color space.

And I've found that in movie theaters, 4k projectors do provide better images than 2k, although obviously perceived screen sizes are larger than at home.