I heard ALL this resistance and more when HD was first surfacing. ...and when CDs came out, when cable became an internet provider, when "satellite TV" was new, when cell phones were large boxes.... things just progress.

I'm really looking forward to being able to do software zooms, pans and tilts up to 50% with zero quality loss for 1080p target video. I do a lot of documentary style promo videos and subtle movement on footage can add a lot. Currently I can get away with 115% (or a little more) but this will open up lots of new possibilities.

[I]I heard ALL this resistance and more when HD was first surfacing. ...and when CDs came out, when cable became an internet provider, when "satellite TV" was new, when cell phones were large boxes.... things just progress.[/I]It is true that with any new technology you can find stories about people who don't like it, don't want it, and go out of their way to trash it. For instance, with CDs, it was (and is) the people who say vinyl records have a better sound.

However, having agreed with that part of the assessment, when you look at aggregate market statistics, rather than individual vignettes, there is a gigantic difference in the acceptance rate of new technologies.

Just because it is new and better doesn't make it inevitable.

The penetration rate of CDs, DVDs, VCRs, and satellite TV -- measured as the number of years before they were in half of all homes -- was unbelievably quick. Those are amazing success stories. Broadcast HD had a slower road to success, but it did get there. Blu-Ray is taking longer still, and will probably never achieve the success rate of the technologies I already mentioned.

3D has been pretty close to a bust, and many of us predicted exactly that, back when it was first introduced. Many other much-heralded technologies over the years have also not found a market, including DAT, laserdiscs, Polavision, videophones, and dozens more that I could list.

As others have already pointed out, there is nothing inevitable about a technology's progress measured by a single specification. If this was true, all those audio technologies mentioned in a previous post would have succeeded because they provided more fidelity via more bits.

Less is More.... More or less.

G

[I]"Many other much-heralded technologies over the years have also not found a market, including DAT, laserdiscs, Polavision, videophones, and dozens more that I could list."[/I]

I don't see that as terribly relevant or revealing.

DAT certainly didn't do all that well in the consumer space but had a big impact in the professional space. It ushered in digital audio to the consumers but was too arcane to get traction.

Laser disc did quite well going by the number of placing renting and selling laser disks in my younger days. It ushered in both digital and a medium that was random access.

Eventually we got CD and DVD and they took off very quickly because they delivered an obvious and affordable benefit to the consumer. Compared to VHS and vinyl they didn't degrade by simply playing them and they were random access and let's not forget they came with remote controls :)

I don't see any rush to 4K happening at all, 4K has been around for half a decade. Consumers will most probably buy 4K HDTVs when they are forced to replace units that have failed, pretty much the same as has happened with the migration from SDTVs to HDTVs. On our side of the business 4K and 8K has been around for more like a decade, film has regularly been scanned at 4K and 8K to produce a DI. 4K is fast becoming the standard for cinema projection as cinemas struggle to differentiate their experience from what can be had by staying at home.

The other thing missing from this discussion that we all should at least be informed about is that 4K is about more than just more pixels. Each one of those pixels now has much more data behind it. We're in the process of going from 8bpc to 14bpc and larger color spaces. This makes it easier for us to delivery very good looking images even for SD delivery on YouTube. Having more latitude in our digital negative saves time and money futzing around with lighting.

Bob.

bob's last observation above prompts me into thinking what sort of umph do you need to get full preview playback of 4k?

;-)

Bob: "This makes it easier for us to delivery very good looking images even for SD delivery on YouTube. Having more latitude in our digital negative saves time and money futzing around with lighting."

And that's a BIG fat + from me too. How we got here and onwards is kinda interesting . . . but Darwin is still correct.

G

[I]"bob's last observation above prompts me into thinking what sort of umph do you need to get full preview playback of 4k?"[/I]

I've watched someone grade RAW 4K from the F65 in real-time. I have no idea the specs of what was inside the standard sized tower case but it wasn't something that you'd need the NSA's budget to afford.

PS did I mention some of these new 4K cameras have global shutters, no more image skew.

Bob.

I mentioned the Sony push in my original post, but I also saw an ad from BH Photo of Sony announcing a new prosumer 4K camera. Looking to upgrade with all of the choices out there would it be wise to get started and hope to afford the rest that is required to even do anything with it? Here is a video promoting the camera from SGNL
]

beware of prosumer 4k cameras baring gift of amazingly high and destrcutive COMPRESSION. And small chroma sub-sampling. ... just sayin.. ;)

if you are going to step in to 4K, do you want to JUST get more pixels, or would you like to: reduce nasty compression, get better DR, higher colors?

I agree with Bob's observation that 4K, just like DAT, is going to be extremely important for the broadcast and professional markets. However, the original post in this thread used the phrase "most everyone" and was asking about acceptance in the consumer market. That was the issue I was addressing. DAT was a non-starter in this market. 3D is big in theaters, and certainly available to consumers, but based on market penetration figures (of content), it is a bust in the end consumer market. I see a similar likely fate, in the consumer market, for 4K, or at best, an extremely slow roll-out taking at least a dozen years, rather than the 3-5 years it took for the major success products, like VCR, CD, DVD, and satellite TV.

The question just asked about what horsepower is required to playback 4K is extremely important to answer. So far, I have been unable to smoothly play back any 4K content on my existing computers.

Thanks johnmeyer. that is just what I asked. And no wwjd, I don't need anymore confusion than I already have. I guess I could take the extra for the $K camera and put it towards a higher end HD rig.

Just saw the picture on a 84" UHD TV here last week.
If that is the future - then I'm in.

Affordable? well they are already offering Toshiba 58" UHD TVs here for about 3.000 USD.

Guess that it will take a few years, however, before the whole production line cameras-PCs for editing-etc is tuned properly and has become affordable for amateurs.

Watching some "only" 2 K movies in the cinema I wonder if another way to go - for amateurs and for the time being - would be to change to better subsampling and higher bitrates.

The examles shown in articles about subsampling show very noticeable quality improvements.

Wonder what just some 4:2:2 at say 40 Mbps would look like on my "normal" full HD 1920x1080 58" plasma ??

Anything that gets me to more juicy and inspiring image-taking and manipulation and editing I'm in - I can't speak for my bank balance.

I'm a total image junkie - always have been, always will be.

Grazie

see, that's the thing: everyone who has posted here, and in previous 4k threads who has actually SEEN 4k live in person, is pretty much stated they were blown away. Until you actually see/experience it, saying there is very little better because of pixel size and distance of viewing, doesn't really cut it.

It IS a big step up, it IS amazing and much, much better, and quoting numbers or links to reviews about it being bad is not going to change the impact of experiencing it first hand.

No one wants yet another newer, better technology making use feel inferior about our... um.... Pixel Size, where we have to go buy all new gear every week, that sucks, but 4k does not suck. It's just the next step. 8K is there too - I wish we could just strait to that, but 4k paves the cost way for 8k etc...

[cue Circle Of Life song]

It was not until I saw the 85" model did the quality improvement of 4K impress me. That is something to behold. The smaller models like the 55" models looked like very good 2K. Uprezzed 2K content didn't impress me. When the prices are equivalent to HD people will buy them but the content is going to be much slower coming. With Blu-ray stalled and streaming content stuck at 720P I don't get where the content will come from
Also if it takes the 85" to really see the difference how would a TV like that fit in most European homes?

Well, let's not exaggerate. I said that 65" Sony looked great, but so does my "regular" HD one. The difference is minor and it could simply be due to a better panel, not at all because of 4K. On that topic this is a 7K TV, as in $7000. I think that matters much more than 4K pixels.

The affordable 4K like that $3000 Toshiba somebody mentioned looks worse than my current Bravia, so it's not all about 4K. I saw a bunch of them in Japan; Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Toshiba....... Sony's looked great, but there were some which looked pretty bad. Prices ranged from $4500 all the way up to $20 000+

Most people today still can't afford to buy even a good HD tv. A good 46" to 55" TV costs at least $1500 - $2000. Most people aren't buying those. I'd bet that 90% of TVs sold are under a $1000.

If I go all George Jetson on you, don't stop me.

There is one place where I routinely capture 4K content: still images.
Usually, the only place some family members see the content is on the flat panel in the family room after the swim meet, dance recital, birthday party, etc. For me, watching the stills on the flat panel is expedient but less than stellar.

I would get a lot of satisfaction from a panel that more closely matched the resolution and quality of the source. I don't think I would get $7,000 worth of satisfaction.

As more and more information moves from paper to plastic, I could envision reading news feeds from the (dis)comfort of my family room couch as I drink my morning coffee. Based on my past discussions of what I could see, I would probably be sitting on the ottoman, leaning closer so I could read the text, but I'm sure I could read the text if I get close enough because the detail would be there.

Perhaps, only someone of my age would even think of such a thing since everyone under forty won't use a device unless it has a headphone jack. There was a recent thread about the experience of watching slide shows with the family that caused me to expand the large high resolution flat panel concept even further. I wonder which manufacturer will include the sound effect of a slide projector blower anytime one displays stills. Is there a difference in the tone of a Bell & Howell vs. the Kodak?

Excerpts from John Galt's interview (was Panavision's VP of Advanced Digital Imaging)

"A number of years ago some IMAX engineers did this wonderfully elegant experiment at the Large Film Format Seminar at Universal Studios Imax theatre. They showed this film they made that began with 2 rows of 2 squares: black white, white black, as if you had 4 pixels on the screen.

Then they started to double and double and double the squares. Before they got to 4K the screen was gray. Do you know what the means? There was no longer any difference between black and white, which is what allows you to see sharpness. It's the contrast that we see, not the actual information. Technically, the MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) was zero at 4K!

So if you had true 4K resolution in your local theater, everybody would have to be sitting in the first 6 rows. Otherwise they wouldn't see any extra detail. Their eyes wouldn't LET them see it."

"Is there a difference in the tone of a Bell & Howell vs. the Kodak?"

Yes, there is. The Bell & Howell projectors had much better baffles, so the sound was both quieter and generally restricted to the lower frequencies. The Kodak projectors are louder and the mid frequencies are more prominent.

Yes, i've spent way too much time sitting next to these beasts.

>>>>Anything that gets me to more juicy and inspiring image-taking and manipulation and editing I'm in - I can't speak for my bank balance.

I'm a total image junkie - always have been, always will be.

Grazie
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Ditto. That's what struck me about the Sony 4k demo on their 84" shot in 4k. The images were unlike anything I've ever seen. I have a 4k DSLR but the Sony footage was not the same, granted I've never viewed my Canon DSLR footage on a 30,000 dollar 4k monitor but the video imagery I saw seemed a few steps removed from anything I've seen before and that's what blew me away. I'm not that interested in seeing 2k captures on a 4k display. Or 4k captures on a 2k display for that matter. (saw Oblivion, which looked very good but also different than any 2k Alexia high budget feature) 4k on 4k!

[I]"So if you had true 4K resolution in your local theater, everybody would have to be sitting in the first 6 rows. Otherwise they wouldn't see any extra detail. Their eyes wouldn't LET them see it."[/I]

Compared to cinemas of yester years in a modern "extreme screen" cinema everyone is "sitting in the first 6 rows".

Bob.