4K Read

[FilmMan]

Quick read on 4K.
[url="http://broadcastengineering.com/shows/disappointing-3dtv-sales-makes-4k-next-big-thing"]http://broadcastengineering.com/shows/disappointing-3dtv-sales-makes-4k-next-big-thing[/url]

[jindrich]

Ok, here's a reality bite on 4K from the real world.

The first worldwide event broadcasted in HD was back in 1990, the FIFA World Cup (football/soccer) held in Italy. Sony's (defunct) HDVS system was used back then and it was big news all over the industry.

Now fast forward more than 2 DECADES and simply take a look around: in 2012, while there's finally plenty of HD content, roughly 50% of TV networks are still broadcasting in SD. In SD, not 1080 not 720. This means that 22 years later, we're still NOT into a 100% HD world.

And now people expect 4K to happen overnight? It takes decades for the world's (or USA+EU) entire infrastructure (networks, households, cinemas, satellites..) to change from one system to another AND for prices to come down notably, so the ordinary citizen can afford the appliances to take home.

At this point in time, 4K is just a Marketing fad pushed by some manufacturers as a sales argument. Yes 4K is nice and will happen someday, but we're a decade, at the very least, away from it.

I've never seen a producer request 4K and I don't expect this to happen for a looooooooooooong time. 4K is NOT required for High-End Commercials, or Broadcast or High-End TV drama or even for the typical Hollywood comedy/drama movie. 4K only has a place in the $100M+ blockbuster. And even then many just don't seem to care (Hugo, Avengers, etc)

As for the the argument that 4K future-proofs content, well, tell a producer or production company that you'll use 4K (and notably increase the overall costs) because they'll able to sell the same product again in 10 years and they'll all have break up laughing. Productions must be amortized in a year or less. In a decade from now, everybody will work for another company, so who cares really?
Besides, since when do people want to see a 10 year old movie or TV drama?

Wellcome to the Real World.

[Axel]

And what is more, the cameras in 2020, even in 2016, will be so far advanced in so many respects that there is no telling if the content [i]now[/i] labelled 4k will be considered sufficient then. Does anybody remember the Sony FX-1?

Cinema especially is a 'business on demand'. Films have to make profit within weeks, and, as you said, really NOBODY cares about 4k right now.

We don't know, if in a decade or so people will expect HFR rather than greater resolutions. The broadcast formats are still 1080i in many countries, who can tell when this old dinosaur interlace will finally be allowed to the museum? [i]Future proof[/i] is only foreseeable for two or three years. Or, as you said, way longer. The richest broadcaster in my area uses XDCAM SD still.

[jgharding]

They really are desperate to keep selling new things to consumers, and the old production industry is desperate to differentiate "pro" from consumer production. 3D is a headache-inducing hassle, and 4K is just too much of a luxury and doesn't make enough difference to the the end user experience. People's houses are getting smaller, not bigger, we're over populated in the extreme! There aren't enough people with room for a 100-inch telly to support this stuff.

There will be another world war before 4K is in every home, unless Apple release a cheap 4K iPad. Like that'd make a blind bit of difference to the viewing experience...

most content I work on day to day is delivered SD or 720p. a request for full HD is quite rare. One project shot at 5K was delivered 1080i. My own promo work is always 720p or 1080i.

The best film-like digital images I've seen come from the Alexa, that's 1080p. Drive looked amazing on a [i]huge[/i] [i]cinema screen[/i], as did Avatar, both 1080p. So where do you [i]really [/i]reap a benefit that justifies the huge extra cost of 4K?

Screw 4K, what about actually distributing some interesting content in 1080p? There's so much out there that's ignored... what about saying "that's good enough quality" for a while, and focussing on the content. It shows that the biggest companies are the distributors...

[Axel]

Speaking of 3D: What if someone invented a 3D technique without the need for glasses? For the big screen? No swords protruding from the screen, but if you moved your head, the [i]perspective[/i] would change slightly, you would be able to see the side (technology already exists for stills, millions of tiny lenses are connected like in a compound eye, and various angles, also on the z-axis, are stored). That could be similarly successful as surround sound. A mono movie is not accepted anymore. The same could happen with flat images. What do you do with your old 4k recordings then?

[jgharding]

There are already parallax barrier screens that don't require glasses, they are kinda fun, but not amazing. Stereoscopic 3D has a future on single-user devices, but otherwise it's impractical, unless an entirely new technology appears.

If video consumption shifts more toward single-user devices, and someone like Apple sticks a parallax barrier retina screen in a phone, it'll take off. until then, its a gimmick.

[HurtinMinorKey]

[quote name='Axel' timestamp='1347531844' post='17884']
Speaking of 3D: What if someone invented a 3D technique without the need for glasses? For the big screen? No swords protruding from the screen, but if you moved your head, the [i]perspective[/i] would change slightly, you would be able to see the side (technology already exists for stills, millions of tiny lenses are connected like in a compound eye, and various angles, also on the z-axis, are stored).
[/quote]
Image in the data requirements you'd need to make it look good. 3D is one thing, but making the actual perspective change when you move your head would require a retarded amount of information.

[Axel]

[quote name='HurtinMinorKey' timestamp='1347556223' post='17905']
Image in the data requirements you'd need to make it look good. 3D is one thing, but making the actual perspective change when you move your head would require a retarded amount of information.
[/quote]

With current technology there is no way to make this fly. I own a book from 2001, [i]Digital Effects in Modern Cinema, [/i]with the computers of that time no dentist would hold his clients' data nowadays. Nothing changes so fast than these things. When DCPs today use light wavelet compression (JPEG2000), a 3-dimensional 'film' could use stronger compression with a lot of vector data, moving away from the concept that an image needs to be composed of a mosaic of pixels, each representing an individual 2-dimensional coordinate in time. Either the processing speed multiplies, and unbelievably complex moving forms in space (no longer 'images' then, no?) are reconstructed during playback, or the storage is multiplied. Of course both will happen. And since we know that it will happen, this development is the [i]next big thing[/i], not just a lame quadrupling of pixels. By then the agitation about [i]Hobbit @ 48fps[/i] will resemble that of the bibliophilists of early last century about the paperback editions. What the heck was all this about?