what's the 'h' stand for?

I presume H is screen height.

How far one sits from the screen depends on its physical size (you're not going to sit 1 metre from a 1 metre screen, unless you're a child). Seating convenience takes precedence. Where do people sit in movie theatres? The young (wanting to be immersed) sit in the front rows, the oldies (not wanting to hurt their eyes) sit at the back. Sitting well back reduces need to scan the screen (those old eye muscles and bifocals). In the real-world I've never noticed people moving back because they're too close (except from precipices and violence) and given real world image quality audiences would be happy to have a screen fill their field of vision. When I experienced IMAX Omnivision my only objection was that the resolution wasn't adequate. When your wall becomes a video screen, most everyone will be sitting within distance 2H.

""4K" is a bit missleading. Currently we have "1080p" and then tomorrow we're being sold "4K" which is in fact "2160p"."

I brought up that very point here about a year ago. The majority of the response i got was that 1080p had *always* been called "2K", which i found odd because i had never the "2K" designation before those responses.

anyone actually SEEN a real 4k tv with their own eyes yet? I predict that will change some opinions

Yes, I have and my opinion didn't need to be changed. In fact, it was set up side-by-side next to a 1080p monitor showing the same live material and it looked noticeably better. I do tend to sit pretty close to my HD monitors. The only reason that I sat a ways back from my SD TV was that NTSC looked horrible close-up.

No gain ? Quality of life ?

Maybe the concept of sitting back in the lounge with family and friends has consigned me to dinosaur status ?!!!

720 to 1080 was a real tangible quality improvement at real-life screen sizes. I doubt that 4K would be the same improvement in any normal viewing situation.

Unless one is the super-size me type of person....

geoff

I saw all the 4k displays at NAB. They really are quite spectacular when viewed at that 2.5 to 3 time screen height away.

There is something else going on with modern displays besides simple resolution perception. There is some other micro contrast or acutance that is clearly seen with higher resolution displays. I'm in my early 50's and my vision is no longer all that great, but I can clearly see the advantage.

The idea of a 50" 4k monitor for editing and displaying graphics is sounding more and more appealing every minute.

On a side note, I think nearly everyone at NAB was suggesting h.265 for distribution in 4k. I haven't seen the difference between h.264 and h.265 side by side, so I can't pass judgement there. It seems hard to believe that it can work. It's 4 times the pixels. I would guess that either motion will look terrible or it will have a much longer GOP and motion will look terrible :)

Cheers,
Pete

AFAIK we may distinguish between:

4K = 4096 × 2160 defined by Digital Cinema Initiatives and

Ultra high definition television = 3840 × 2160 for consumer televisions - also called "4K Ultra HD" or the like.

There are even other formats with "4K" as a part of the name:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_resolution

"The majority of the response i got was that 1080p had *always* been called "2K", which i found odd because i had never the "2K" designation before those responses. "

Well "2K" which is a DCI standard is very close to 1080p.

My objection is going from something the public knows as "1080p" to "4K"where one is based on the vertical pixel resolution and the other on the horizontal. The other designation for this new "4K" thing is "QuadHD", argh.

Bob.

What the electronics industry needs is a "few more good abreviations".
"Help me, I've fallen down and can't get up."
JJK

one guy saw it next to a 1080 and the 1080 looked better. another saw them at the show and they looked spectacular.
with 90" 1080 tvs being big enough that pixels are annoyingly noticeable, 4k is needed.

Bob, exactly. 1080 sounds like 1K, and that makes 4K seem like four times as big. It's only twice.

Of course, the television/monitor industry has *always* found ways to exaggerate their measurements. Anybody else remember the big diagonal screen size debacle and the class action lawsuit about 15 or 20 years ago? The manufacturers were listing their CRT tube sizes across the largest dimension of the tube, which was usually about 2' bigger than the viewable area. Took decades for consumers to actually grab a yardstick and notice that the 19" set they had bought was really only a 17.2" picture, and to finally complain about it.

Geoff, quality of life? Really? When i do movie nights i have a living room full of friends and family and serve a nice big dinner with dessert and popcorn and we have a fantastic fun time watching SD DVDs on an 80" projection screen. Pretty good quality of entertainment and enjoyment. And i only paid about $350 for the projector and the screen.

"and that makes 4K seem like four times as big. It's only twice.

Yes - and no: there are four times as many pixels after all... but that is maybe quibbling about words...

Four 1080 images fit within 4k. That seems to justify the concept for 4k wide and 4x the pixels.

HD was never properly defined as it came from HDV with a non-square pixel, 720 and 1080.

4k and Ultra HD sure are a lot easier to write and explain than 1440x1080 vs. 1280x720 vs. 1920x1080 all lumped under the term "HD" :)

Cheers,
Pete

Maybe we should just call it 8MPTV

Hey, that sounds TWICE as good as 4K!

Here's someone that has actually seen the Seiki 4k TV

http://gizmodo.com/5994765/seiki-50+inch-4k-tv-eyes+on-how-the-hell-is-a-tv-this-beautiful-so-cheap

You had me worried that all your entertainment watching was on a computer window ;-)

geoff

"and that makes 4K seem like four times as big. It's only twice."

How much bigger is a 60cm dog compared to a 30cm dog?

Twice the length. Four times the area (pixels) when viewed on a 2D TV. Eight times the volume (molecules) and therefore eight times when viewed on 3D TV.

Measuring linearly HD vs. 4K, the issue isn't whether it's twice as large or four times. The issue is that one format was measured along the short dimension and then the industry is pulling a fast one by measuring the new format along the long dimension.

SD is 480 (ish) lines, HD is 720 or 1080 lines. Why is the new standard "4K" instead of 2160 lines? Simple, because 4K is a bigger number and they're trying to make consumers think it's a bigger step up than it really is. Pure, underhanded, sneaky, misleading marketing; nothing other than that.