I'm not as negative on this as I was (and am) about 3D which, as predicted, has not taken off in any big way and seems to be destined for a very small niche market.

4K is an obvious extension to the existing technology. However, I've seen several demos at the Sony store in Palo Alto and my impression is that the increment to 4K is nothing at all like the huge leap we experienced going from 480 SD to 720p, 1080i, and finally 1080p.

Also, my next door neighbor bought a 4K set two months ago, and I've been trying to help her get a way to play some 4K content. She still hasn't seen any 4K other than the small clips that came loaded into the TV itself. We live in an area where the maximum Internet speed is 10 mbps, and unlikely to get any higher for many, many years. Sony has announced a 4K streaming box for shipment next summer, but it will require 50 mbps, so it will be of no use to her. I downloaded some 4K clips from YouTube, and was unable to play them smoothly on my 3.2 MHz Intel i7 multi-core PC. I put them on a thumb drive and gave them to her, but so far she hasn't been able to play them at all.

Non real time download followed by subsequent playback from a thumb drive or media server seems to be the only way to get source material for her at the present time.

Another point to make is that the clock speed on PCs more or less maxed out about eight years ago, and all advances have come by using more processors (cores) in parallel. As we have all experienced, this does help with rendering time, but getting smooth playback performance -- even with today's standard HD material -- is not guaranteed. Thus, even eight years after we all started editing HD, IMHO we are not even close to the performance, both editing and playback, that we enjoyed eight years ago with SD. 4K is going to be even tougher.

Also, several people have pointed out in these forums (and elsewhere) that a typical 55" LCD screen at 4K really isn't going to look that much different from a good 1080p source and that to really take advantage of what 4K has to offer, you need to view it on a really big screen from the appropriate distance. This certainly was confirmed for me by my experience at the Sony store demos I saw.

So, my take is that this will be an extremely slow rollout and probably limited to large viewing areas and installations with huge screens, and markets where Internet speeds greater than 50 mbps are easily and cheaply available.

>>>Why the Rush to 4K

Like the proverbial dog and his jewels...
....... because they can.

4K? More "K" is not always a good thing.

I am still coming to grips with how bad everyone's skin looks on my new Samsung 3D TV. The regular old 2D picture is spectacular but I find all those pores, humps, and bumps on the faces of the actors quite distracting. Also certain costumes and sets look super cheesy because you can see all the details (or lack thereof).

How's this gonna work in 4K?

Regards,

Kimberly

To toss my .02 in on a controversial topic...

I think the blurring of lines between consumer and "pro" gear has caused some blurring of the lines in marketing also. Specifically, "gadget-worship."

True 4k acquisition (as in non-bayer sensors, everything else having to do with true "resolution", etc) is not within the reach of most of us currently. I would much rather see evolution in HD imagery to get real 1080 out of gear we can afford, more and better 10bit acquisition codecs, wider exposure range... I could go on.

We are so far from the best images we can produce at 1080, why tax our systems with bigger files and sloppier compression until we reach the peak of what we can do with HD?

4K.. BRING IT ON!! and 60P please, the sooner the better. Then replaced by 8k right after that. This is all a progression as we inch closer and closer to reality detailed 3D holographic projection -OR- some kind of implant connection to our cerebral cortex that creates artificial worlds within our mind's preception. So, there is no point in stopping.
I can't wait to get a 4k camera that also shoots 120p - files are gonna be fun, though.

Sure, it is not for everyone...
Since nearly everyone recently replaced all their TVs to go HD and digital I SERIOUSLY DOUBT the majority will chuck those new sets for the next big thing, 4K, but home theater rich folk will be all over it. As will I as an avid video hobbyist.

FYI- There is a 50+ inch 4k Sony Bravia on display at my local Best Buy now, running a fairly impressive demo......with a Sony 4k player attached.

The price is around $5500.

An article from just yesterday that says 4k is DOA.

Two words: planned obsolescence. Just as HD was the plan to make SD (and non-DRM media) obsolete, so it is that the main purpose of 4K is to make HD obsolete, now that the market approaches saturation; oh, and, Christmas is coming ...

Yes, "pixel envy." Drives the market. 4K will be here for real someday for all of us, but for now, I do not want more compression. I want better images. Not higher resolution macroblocks.

For anyone looking to create an "alternate reality" through higher pixel count and frame rate - you can do it now without investing in gear. It's called hypnosis. Can't tell it from the real thing.

I watch my movies on a 120" projection system, so upgrading from 1080P to 4k would be very desire able for me. But I doubt anyone would notice the difference on a 60" TV.

MARKETING.....

let's face it, capitalism is based on product sales, when everyone's got your product what do you do?

I like the hypnosis suggestion. For me, it's dreams. Pretty much all of them are in color, and I feel like I'm really "there."

On some rare nights I wake up in a cold sweat and then realize it was "just" a dream. Man, talk about realism. Surround sound, too.

After watching a demo at the Sony store at Sony Studios in Los Angeles of their 4k demo on an 84" 4k sony monitor that actually had the price tag of $29,999.00, I was sort of blown away. I love HD and bluray but they pretty much just brought my home into the realm of a movie theatre, no better, but a far cry from SD DVD's. The 4k demo, shot on Sony's F65 had moments of images that I have never seen before, breathtaking at times, strange, too, as they were not what I would call "cinematic" but something different. I kept thinking that this is beyond what my eye can see, and that was impressive and slightly unsettling. Not sure what to make of it, I'm certainly not interested in buying a 4k set, at this point. The content will dictate when that will make sense. Some gifted filmmakers will take this technology and create something quite unlike anything anyone has seen before and that will be a wonderful thing.

Much as I would like to see a smooth, fast, and affordable transition to 4k, I don't see it happening for a variety of reasons.

- Comparing a good 480p video on a 50" SD display to a good 1080p stream on a 50" HD display is like night and day. You can see the difference immediately. Not so when moving to 4k where you really have to get up close to see the improvement in normal programming, ie not resolution charts. Moving to HD was tough for most people when DVD was "good enough." Another jump for very incremental perceived gains is gonna be a tough sell.

- Cable provides can't even provide good HD streams. So they obviously aren't ready for good 4k streams.

- Consumer video cameras won't have the lens block or sensor size (low light capability) to resolve anything close to 4k. 1080p is a reach for most of them.

- Prosumer gear will also have a tough time resolving 4k under anything but studio lights.


All that being said, if manufacturers can produce high quality 4k sets now at relatively affordable prices people will buy them to "future proof." But again the price premium has to be really minimal.

On the upside I'm thinking that if we move to UD then cable providers can finally make HD the defacto standard (no upcharge for HD boxes) and do away with SD once and for all.

- Mark

I've seen the Sony 4K TV demonstration in three stores and spent a fair amount of time with them. It is very appealing. I did notice that there is fine detail even in the soccer video. However, there was an absence of very fast camera pans that one might see when the camera follows a ball with the crowd as the background. Lots of slow pans...

I watched the upscaled demonstration Blu-ray video that came from one of Sony's newest Blu-Ray players to show its 4K conversion prowess. (I was able to get my hands on the remote and see the bit rate of the source video and it was pegged at 40 mbps. It probably would look good on any other good panel.)

$3000 is about the upper limit for my entry into early-adopter technology so I suspect I won't be buying a 4K panel in the next few years. I'd drop $2000 on a new 1920x1080 panel to replace my 1024x768 plasma, though.

That's where I begin to wonder. I sit about nine and a half feet from a 43" TV with a resolution of 1024x768 and I can't resolve the individual pixels. I'm unlikely to resolve the pixels of a 1920x1080 panel in the same room. So, what's the benefit?

I'm not a Luddite! I'm not a Luddite!

Why Rush?
Simple : Probably a competition between Sony and other brands.... like RED, BMCC..., etc. - And Sony is trying to keep to be on the top...

btw, any free XAVC sample media available somewhere ? Love to try it as a test on how our PC can handle these...

Even on the surprise, Arri, known for cinema-class camera also make recent announcement of AMIRA, a simpler ENG-style camera...
https://vimeo.com/74444377

>>> Cable provides can't even provide good HD streams. So they obviously aren't ready for good 4k streams.<<<

That is the case in USA where HD broadcasts look like crap. In Japan they look just as good as blu-ray. Very difficult to notice the difference. Why US has crappy HD broadcasts remains a mistery to me.

The new 65" 4K Bravia looked great, but it also costs $7000

Definitely agree with you on the crappy HD broadcasts. Watching stuff straight from the network at my aunt's house on her 38" 1080 set is painful. There's so much compression that it looks like a bad 240 web video blown up full screen. One can occasionally see flashes of fine detail, but mostly it's all blurred with tons of artifacts. Faces and skin look like plastic dolls, and when they move it looks like the plastic is cracking. I honestly don't understand how people can stand watching it.

On top of that, though this might just be a problem with her particular set or reception, the image keeps jumping back and forth temporally, almost like the frames are arriving out of order.

Then when she flips channels to some station showing an old SD movie, the quality is smooth and crisp and very easy and enjoyable to watch.

Nope, no reason whatsoever to upgrade past SD here.

I'm sure it won't change anyone's mind, but this interview with John Galt is the best discussion of camera resolution I've seen. It's four years old, but it gets my feet back on the ground again every time I read it.
http://library.creativecow.net/galt_john/John_Galt_2K_4K_Truth_About_Pixels/1

I think there might be a parallel with audio formats: shellac disks, vinyl, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, and then: the CD. Although there have been numerous post-CD formats, nobody can really hear the difference ... so what did people opt for? Crappy compressed formats that offered convenience at the cost of quality -- the ability to stream anything from the internet trumped the need for ultimate audio fidelity, and it was still way better than listening to a cassette tape Walkman.

One possible problem with this analogy is that the content of video media is still on a qualitative upward curve, whereas with audio, it's been a race to the bottom since the mid seventies.

One possible problem with this analogy is that the content of video media is still on a qualitative upward curve, whereas with audio, it's been a race to the bottom since the mid seventies.

whilst i most certainly agree with your latter statement, i'm not sure that your first is necessarily true.

there have been a number of outstanding series produced for tv recently (most noticeably by hbo), along with some memorable made for tv features, but in the bigger picture the vast majority of tv programming is cheap, mindless dross. from reality to panel to 'contest' shows there is nothing edifying or remotely 'creative' in their presentation.

and coming back to the op - broadcasters are not going to waste resources on 4k when their audiences are happy enough with 720p, and as for net - hell, how many people get 10mbs+ over their connections as it is?

as i wrote earlier - pure marketing, 'we gotta move these colour tv's' (curtsey dire straights ;-))

Thanks for all of the well thought replies. Looks like it will be a format for the haves while the have nots can only look through the window and wonder.