I'm all for higher spatial and temporal resolution. Storage and processing power will catch up, just like it did for DV and then HD.

Cons: Even more compression artifacts when the camera isn't perfectly stationary. Clearer shots of lip fuzz and skin blemishes on my favorite actresses. Need to convert the local cinema into my living room for viewing comfort.

Pros: I think I'll go to sleep too.

actually i was asleep when someone pointed the article out to me. my rolling eyes didn't deter them however....

to repeat my comment on the article itself:

unfortunately we'll still be watching the same old cr*p on it - or hollywood 'youth market' junk.
still, the wheels of invention must turn to keep the wheels of commerce turning in order to wheedle more cash from the poor, confused public*...

and the chap i was talking to (or rather, was talking to me) is a prime candidate for buying a 4k whatever - he's progressively bought every iteration of hd from the dv1000 onwards in order to produce ever 'crisper' wobblecam of the trivia of everyday home-life (his wife HATES having to watch anything he shoots). he used to buy every hifi innovation back in the 60/70's, and would insist in talking over the music to describe the 'quality' of what one was listening to.....

"I'm all for higher spatial and temporal resolution. Storage and processing power will catch up, just like it did for DV and then HD. "

This ^

If they build it, we will come.

How abot 4k on a mobile phone?

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2012/04/13/nokia-808-pureview-technology-suggests-4k-video-capture-is-possible/

I work at Sony Studios alot and a few months back they had a 4k demo running in the company store on an 84" $30,000 flat panel. Most or all of it was shot in 4k on an f65. pretty spectacular to look it, not like anything I've ever seen before. I was surprised that I liked it as much as I did, but... it does not look "cinematic" in the traditional sense, in fact, most of it looked unlike what the human eye can see. There was a beautiful shot of some long grass blowing in the wind, very close to camera, in perfect focus and... way off in the distance, a snow capped mountain range, like the alps, also in perfect focus. If I had actually been standing in that location I don't think I could have seen as much detail in the mountains as I could in the 4k set. Strange but quite captivating, made me excited for what's in store for the future, for the first time in a good while.

2K, 4K, 8K, from the audience perspective, meaningless numbers that we've been using to fool them and perhaps ourselves.
The con seems to be up, increasingly young consummers are talking about DPI and that gets us back to reality and a whole new way of thinking. You could perhaps blame this on Apple when they introduced the term "retina" into the lexicon.

4K from what I've seen on a screen size one could easily accommodate in a living room is adequate to satisfy the eye that it's looking at something real. The technical challenge of how "retina" content is shot, processed and delivered to the viewer is certainly a challenge but that's our problem. Whatever it takes we have to find a way to do because the viewing public will pay for the experience and given the state of the industry at the moment we sure need to find something for the public to throw money at us to have.

Bob.

feel free to argue the point about youtube compression and resolution, but TO ME, it is easy to see the extra quality 4k brings even in this video.


unlike flicker CRTs, or moire and pixelating 1080 displays, THESE 4k images look more like faked "Display is Simulated" perfection, yet it is the REAL display being shown, regardless of compression and resolution in youtube, you can SEE how good it stands up, the detail, the colors and true reality looking depth.... even through a camera shot posted on youtube.

This looks like an animator's nightmare before falling asleep! Just trying to imagine how that entire format will one day have to be covered with drawings in motion makes me want to faint.

Hmmmmm. That brings up an interesting point. Maybe the reason i'm not all that gung-ho on HD is because my eyes are so sharp and my vision so acute that even when looking at a small HD screen across the room, i still see the rectangular pixels. (Heck, i'm the guy who used to run his 12" CRT at 1280x1024 with a 6pt font and read it from across the room. It was great for security; no one else could even tell there was text on the screen!)

To me, SD is sufficient to form an image that conveys the visual story and emotion of a scene in acceptable detail. HD doesn't do any better because it's still just blocky pixels and no closer to real. Maybe 8K on a smaller screen might just bridge that gap for me, but i bet 8K on a theater screen wouldn't.

Although I don't have hyperacute vision, Chienworks hit on my main issue. Is the goal of ever-higher resolution eventually to simulate reality on a screen? Perhaps in forensic/medical apps the ability to resolve to a cellular level would be helpful, but I'm in the entertainment business. 2K does all I need to tell a story. I have reality in front of me all the time. The screens I occasionally look at are expected to be fantasy.

The imagination is there to fill in between the pixels. That's where the fun is.

I always thought that zooming down to photon levels would be very interesting.
JJK

uh oh... here we go! :)

long ago: live stage plays - best they had at the time, people say, "This is all that is needed"

photography then motion pictures gets invented...

crappy, grainy, silent film at 15fps - best they had at the time, people say, "This is all that is needed"

added sound - best they had at the time, people say, "This is all that is needed, we don't need X improvement"

increased to 24fps - best they had at the time, people say, "This is all that is needed, we don't need X improvement"

added color - best they had at the time, people say, "This is all that is needed, we don't need X improvement"

invented television - best they had at the time, people say, "This is all that is needed, we don't need X improvement"

beta, vhs, laserdisks, dvd - best they had at the time, people say, "This is all that is needed, we don't need X improvement"

movie becoming digitally shot and shown - best they had at the time, people say, "This is all that is needed, we don't need X improvement"

hdtv, blu-ray - best they had at the time, people say, "This is all that is needed, we don't need X improvement"

streaming media, 4k, 8k, holographic projection - best they had at the time, people say, "This is all that is needed, we don't need X improvement"

I'm seeing a pattern here. :)

When I was a kid, I waited for The Lone Ranger to begin at 7:30 PM on the radio. I'm not sure if my imagination was in 480i, 1080p or whatever. I do know that my imagination supplied a rich visual of my own creation.

Our daily lives are in HD, but what we seek on the screen is not a mirror of our daily lives. Rather, we seek Hollywood's main products of escapism and fantasy, What I want on the 6PM news is a detailed visual. What I want on the silver screen is that perfect woman, free of the blemishes that would put her in the same league with us normal humans.

just use models, makeup and lighting. just like they do now.
If seeing too much detail takes someone out of the story, perhaps the problem isn't in the visuals but the story itself. :)

It's a self dieing topic anyway. The masses have been climatizing to motion correction in HDTV for years now, and that means 48fps and 60fps will not be a big jump. Instead it will look cooler and be easier to accept. Except for the curmudgedy old geezers (of which I am of age) that can't let go of great motion picturs MUST consist of furry grain, blurry pans and flatter coloring to make it seem more of a fantasy than the story it is presenting.

I mean, come on! Who HASN'T bought a Blu-Ray of their favorite old movie and watched it thinking, "My God! This looks simply incredible! I never knew this movie could even look this great!" AND enjoyed the movies story also.
Evolve or go extinct. :)

wwjd,

I might disagree with your pattern some. People always saw room for improvement, otherwise nothing would have changed. And it wasn't just the people that invented or improved, the public searched out for better ways to tell our stories. Before plays it was the campfire, then dances.

I expect fantasy when I listen to radio, watch a play or a movie, I don't want reality. That is around me. That is why I can enjoy a play with a table, chair and lamp as props. My mind can fill in the rest. If I see a fuzzy image on a screen, if the story is good my eyes adjust, I used to listen to songs I recorded from the radio speaker to a cassette. It wasn't the quality that made it a good song.

We will always seek ways to tell our campfire stories better, but it still is the story that sells it.

Dave T2

Right dave, and each time the way it is told gets better and better. It doesn't HAVE to stop at dances and campfires yet still have the same impact for each new generation's tech.
I am always shocked at the amount of rejection people display for changes, but then again, humans don't GENERALLY like change.

Humans don't like change, but they like gadgets. ;)

I admit, I fought against a few things, like 16 x 9. Now I can't enjoy anything in 4 x 3. But I have never, as fas I remember, discouraged quality improvements. Gadgets are our excuse to improve quality.

Dave T2

I like to see things in the aspect ratio they were shot in. If they were shot 16:9 then i like to see them in 16:9, but if they where shot in 4:3 then watching them in 4:3 is perfectly fine.

As far as the "wow" factor of BluRay, well, i was wowed by the technical innovation, but honestly, i really can't find myself caring or even noticing if i'm watching SD or HD. It's still pixels either way.

I can certainly notice whether I'm watching SD or HD. How far are you sitting from your HDTV?

Either our local OTA SD is looking better or my eyes are getting used to it.
JJK

In agreement with Dave T2's assessment of gadgets. If end viewers were driving the resolution war it would be a different story. But they're not. Industry is. And new content, i.e. grand special effects, digital backgrounds and characters, is being created to justify the tech, not better storytelling. The industry needs to maintain a line of financial separation between "professionals" and everyone else with an HD camera.
For pure viewing pleasure, a Chaplin film on BluRay adds nothing for me personally, and please don't talk about colorizing Citizen Kane.
This is totally personal philosophy we're discussing, but I think technology is in many ways weakening each new generation's ability to "fill in between the pixels" with imagination. I am not resistant to change, but I always question the need for change and what the change means in the long run. Cost/benefit of 4K as a new "standard" of delivery doesn't hold water in my business plan, or in my working philosophy. But as soon as it becomes the buzzword of agency creatives who don't understand it any more than they understand HD, I'll be forced to go there to survive.