That was incredibly interesting, and really well done. I had no idea about the studio upscaling methods, and how they differ from what a TV does in real time. It made me realize that someday (likely soon), A.I. might even be able to make a standard DVD look like 4K. If anything, props to that host for so flawlessly being able to list off all those numbers and all that jargon. Thanks for posting.

Also, if you are a Console gamer, the human eye can't even see anything faster than 24 frames per second! /pcmasterrace

what is funny is that with all of that they don't even touch on the fact that past 4-5 feet even on HUGE screens your eye can't detect the resolution difference between 1080 and 4K.

I mean they flat out say that most theaters still project in 2K and those are 30-40 feet screens.

I have a 75" 4K tv (I know, not necessarily the biggest you can get) and I have to stand a couple feet from it before I can see a difference with 4K content on Netflix.

This isn't what you should have taken away from the video. The video basically explains in long form why you and the studios shouldn't care about resolution as much as you should care about contrast, color accuracy etc etc. The cameras that were used for Game of Thrones captured more color and brightness variations than your TV can (probably) reproduce. Upscaling a 2K image to 4K is easy for a computer to do algorithmically relative to accurately assessing what color a blade of grass should be, so studios prioritize a workflow that maximizes wow factor. Color provides more "WOW!" than resolution after you get to 2K.


TVs are absolutely getting better, but it's not the resolution jump from 1080 to 4K that's making the difference. That's the takeaway.

We recently upgraded our projector, and I got really heavy into 4K compared to pixel shift with the new TI chip sets that do it in real time. Where I came down was realizing that contrast and noise are far more important to enjoyment of a picture compared to resolution, especially given the money. And when I say money, I mean the difference between $8,000 for a true 4K projector and $1000 for a model that simulates it in real time.

hph6203 said:

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This isn't what you should have taken away from the video. The video basically explains in long form why you and the studios shouldn't care about resolution as much as you should care about contrast, color accuracy etc etc. The cameras that were used for Game of Thrones captured more color and brightness variations than your TV can (probably) reproduce. Upscaling a 2K image to 4K is easy for a computer to do algorithmically relative to accurately assessing what color a blade of grass should be, so studios prioritize a workflow that maximizes wow factor. Color provides more "WOW!" than resolution after you get to 2K.

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You didn't watch the battle episode did you?

I'm glad we bought one of the last Samsung 1080p's a few years ago. It's been great for bluray and streaming, and was an upgrade in quality and size from what we had...for a minimum price.

The only time I feel like I'd want 4K is watching something like a Marvel film with a lot of colors and action.

And for regular cable/sat/internetTV, full 1080p still isn't even standard on very network...much less 4K.

They've also managed to sucker people into buying these 4K tv's at 'lower prices' with some brands that do a poor job of upscaling...which is still the majority of what people will watch. So yeah that 4K video they have on loop at the store looks great, but it doesn't represent the vast majority of the content that will be watched. What good is a 4K tv when it does a mediocre job of upscaling 720p and 1080p content?

And I love the sales pitch with these newer 8K sets..."Buy this to future-proof"...yeah that was the pitch just a couple years ago with 4K.

I would love to own an OLED one day. But I'm perfectly content staying at 1080p as cost/reliability improves.

So what this kind of tells me is my OLED will probably be great for years to come despite the 8K hype that will start happening soon enough.

1080p is definitely fine imo. But any new TV you buy now will be 4K unless it's like 32". Just like you can't find a 720p set really at all anymore.

I just don't understand how it would take 12 days to render one frame of a movie when my Xbox can render 30-60 frames of 4K in a second. I know the difference in video effect isn't comparable, but I don't think what I see pre-rendered in a Transformers movie is 1,036,800 times better than what a game console can render on the fly. I'm sure there's a reason for the difference, but I just don't get how it's as vast as it is.

C@LAg said:

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The part that it made me realize is that many of us obsess about the newest in TV features and those of other devices, in resolutions, etc, etc, etc, and a lot of it "doesn't matter" because much of the current and available source media is behind the curve of our present and near-term technologies.

The funny thing was I found that link from something i was reading that was explaining how GoT was mastered in 2K, so we will never be able to have a real 4K version of that show, which disappoints me.

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Same reason why we don't have a 4K Star Wars original trilogy.

Yeah, that was a **** show, but I was never a big GoT fan anyway. I only watched it at work out of the corner of my eye.

OldShadeOfBlue said:

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C@LAg said:

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The part that it made me realize is that many of us obsess about the newest in TV features and those of other devices, in resolutions, etc, etc, etc, and a lot of it "doesn't matter" because much of the current and available source media is behind the curve of our present and near-term technologies.

The funny thing was I found that link from something i was reading that was explaining how GoT was mastered in 2K, so we will never be able to have a real 4K version of that show, which disappoints me.

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Same reason why we don't have a 4K Star Wars original trilogy.

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there's likely no reason for that. star wars was filmed with film. there are probably already existing 8K scans of the film masters.

OldShadeOfBlue said:

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C@LAg said:

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The part that it made me realize is that many of us obsess about the newest in TV features and those of other devices, in resolutions, etc, etc, etc, and a lot of it "doesn't matter" because much of the current and available source media is behind the curve of our present and near-term technologies.

The funny thing was I found that link from something i was reading that was explaining how GoT was mastered in 2K, so we will never be able to have a real 4K version of that show, which disappoints me.

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Same reason why we don't have a 4K Star Wars original trilogy.

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The original trilogy was shot on film, there's more than 4k resolution in the original masters.

OldShadeOfBlue said:

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I just don't understand how it would take 12 days to render one frame of a movie when my Xbox can render 30-60 frames of 4K in a second. I know the difference in video effect isn't comparable, but I don't think what I see pre-rendered in a Transformers movie is 1,036,800 times better than what a game console can render on the fly. I'm sure there's a reason for the difference, but I just don't get how it's as vast as it is.

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What your Xbox does is drastically simplified. Extremely long render times will make fully CGI photo-realistic frames, not video game video. I'm guessing the 12 days is talking about multiple parts of a single frame being rendered and then them being composited together.

schmendeler said:

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1080p is definitely fine imo. But any new TV you buy now will be 4K unless it's like 32". Just like you can't find a 720p set really at all anymore.

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Oh I definitely agree, it's why I upgraded when I did. 4K was about to become the only option, but the ones under the $800-1K price point just didn't have the features to justify the jump for me. They were kind of '4K in name only' and many of them were a mixed bag with upscaling.

With OLED becoming a more viable option, continued tweaks to the technology, and better tech becoming more affordable, I'm content with 1080p until I can make a quality upgrade instead of getting something that's a stop-gap.