The consumer has spoken and they don’t care, not even for 4K. Same as happened with 3D and curved TVs, 8K is a solution looking for a problem so that more TVs get sold.
In terms of physical media - at stores in Australia the 4K section for Blurays takes up a single rack of shelves. Standard Blurays and DVDs take up about 20.
Even DVDs still sell well because many consumers don’t see a big difference in quality, and certainly not enough to justify the added cost of Bluray, let alone 4K editions. A current example, Superman is $20 on DVD, $30 on Bluray (50% cost increase) or $40 on 4K (100%) cost increase. Streaming services have similar pricing curves for increased fidelity.
It sucks for fans of high res, but it’s the reality of the market. 4K will be more popular in the future if and when it becomes cheaper, and until then nobody (figuratively) will give a hoot about 8K.
It’s amazingly stupid having those prices. DVD should cost the same as Bluray and both should cost $25 max. After all, a DVD and a Bluray are two technologies far past their ROI date.
Some of the smaller 4k sets work as an XXL computer monitor
But for a living room tv, you seriously need space for a 120"+ set to actually see any benefit of 8k. Most people don’t even have the physical space for that
Well the good thing is info storage cost and processing power tends to increase over time, so that’s one side of their argument handled; and things tend to keep progressing technologically over time, so I’d assume 8k would eventually replace 4k, and so on and so on; but the human eye does have a limit to what it can resolve- so at some point 2d images will probably just be as good as we need them to be
8k is going to be for things like billboards, movies, and jumbotron-scale applications.
For what content? Video gaming (GPUs) has barely gotten to 4k. Movies? 4k streaming is a joke; better off with 1080 BD. If you care about quality go physical… UHD BD is hard to find and you have to wait and hunt to get them at reasonable prices… And these days there are only a couple UHD BD Player mfg left.
It’s such a shame that UHD isn’t easier to find. Even the ones you can find are poorly mastered half the time. But a good UHD on an OLED is chef’s kiss just about the closest you can get to having a 35mm reel/projector at home.
You are absolutely on point with 4k streaming being a joke. Most 4k streams are 8-20 Mbps. A UHD runs at 128 Mbps.
Most 4k streams are 8-20 Mbps. A UHD runs at 128 Mbps.
Bitrate is only one variable in overall perceived quality. There are all sorts of tricks that can significantly reduce file size (and thus bitrate of a stream) without a perceptible loss of quality. And somewhat counterintuitively, the compression tricks work a lot better on higher resolution source video, which is why each quadrupling in pixels (doubling height and width) doesn’t quadruple file size.
The codec matters (h.264 vs h.265/HEVC vs VP9 vs AV1), and so do the settings actually used to encode. Netflix famously is willing to spend a lot more computational power on encoding, because they have a relatively small number of videos and many, many users watching the same videos. In contrast, YouTube and Facebook don’t even bother re-encoding into a more efficient codec like AV1 until a video gets enough views that they think they can make up the cost of additional processing with the savings of lower bandwidth.
Video encoding is a very complex topic, and simple bitrate comparisons only barely scratch the surface in perceived quality.
It’s because for the Average Joe, having a TV box at the end of your driveway that has the latest big number on it is important. It’s how they gain their identity. Do not upset them for obvious reasons.
For what content?
Seriously though, quality 4k media is hard to find outside of … “finding it” on the internet.
Is there a player other than the shield that can play them and be simple? Roku Ultra can’t handle most 4k HQ streams .
Those rips are still coming from physical. If those go extinct too, bye bye BD Rips…
That’s the dumbest part of it all is that pirates seriously get the best movie/TV experience of anyone. I mean, maybe if you spend a shitton on DVD and BluRays to rip you can match that experience, but even that can be legally dubious depending on the jurisdiction
As someone who stupidly spent the last 20 or so years chasing the bleeding edge of TVs and A/V equipment, GOOD.
High end A/V is an absolute shitshow. No matter how much you spend on a TV, receiver, or projector, it will always have some stupid gotcha, terrible software, ad-laden interface, HDMI handshaking issue, HDR color problem, HFR sync problem or CEC fight. Every new standard (HDR10 vs HDR10+, Dolby Vision vs Dolby Vision 2) inherently comes with its own set of problems and issues and its own set of “time to get a new HDMI cable that looks exactly like the old one but works differently, if it works as advertised at all”.
I miss the 90s when the answer was “buy big chonky square CRT, plug in with component cables, be happy”.
Now you can buy a $15,000 4k VRR/HFR HDR TV, an $8,000 4k VRR/HFR/HDR receiver, and still somehow have them fight with each other all the fucking time and never work.
8K was a solution in search of a problem. Even when I was 20 and still had good eyesight, sitting 6 inches from a 90 inch TV I’m certain the difference between 4k and 8k would be barely noticeable.
I’d buy a 8k TV, provided that it has no smarts, no WiFi, no TV tuner and its price isn’t over 5% than a 4k TV
So an 8K monitor.
Nothing is released in 8k so why would someone want something nothing is in?
Computer monitor with multiple simultaneous 4k displays?
Grasping at straws here
PS3 has no games lmao
Nothing is produced in 8K either.
How many homes have walls big enough for a screen big enough for 8k to matter
You can use a pull-down screen attached to ceiling and a ceiling-mounted video projector. 4K is fine for that. I would not be able to tell the difference between 4K and 8K in such a setup.
You’d basically need to be sat less than the screen size away from it in order to see any difference at all. And that’s if your vision is perfect.
Chances are you wouldn’t be able to tell for video content even then. I can only really tell on gaming when the anti aliasing is shit.
Well now see my cousin Skeeter got himself a 8k TV with that settlement money he got from when he got run over by that bmw downtown tryin to get his kids back ya know? At the courthouse? Anyway he was sposed to use that money to pay fer his doctors and whatnot but he got himself that TV and the dang thing wouldn’t fit through the door! Got her in to the trailer but couldn’t go no where so he put that sucker up right outside has movie nights the whole park can come n see. Course ol Skeet likes them naughty flicks you know with the blood and gore and titties n stuff, talkin bout like Dusk Till Dawn, talkin bout some Striptease, uh you know what’s the other one the one where the girl takes off her bathing suit Fast Times that’s the one. Anyway the boys in the neighborhood LOVE ol skeets movie nights but I think some o them parents are gonna set his trailer on fire for too long here now.
What’s your opinion on using 8K TV as a monitor?
Open Source 10K TV please
Open source 4K TV please.
Typo
Okay sure I made a typo, but my point was more that an open source 4K TV would be more approachable, cheaper, and just as good if not better for most people interested in one.
Even 4K is not yet easily available . I mean except from AppleTV plus that all content is 4K and it’s part of basic subscription, every other streaming charges much more for 4K content, most people don’t want to pay more every month for 4K
So 8K is just a distant reality that content makers are not really wanting to happen
4k is really cheap now.
having said that, I have a4k TV and practically only use 1080p for everything.
videogames? performance mode
movies/tv/YouTube? 1080p for better buffering.
We’re still limited by what the HDMI and DP cables can throughput so it’s not like 8k tvs are even ready. Nobody wants an 8k tv if the cables can’t even transmit full fat uncompressed signal.
Wait HDMI 2.1 does not support uncompressed 8K? How much data rate you need for 8K?
Sixteen times as much compared to 1080, four times as much compared to 4K.
Bro I honest to God can’t see the difference between 1080 and 4k, you could put them both next to me and I’d struggle to point out which is which. We don’t need 8k. Enough is enough
You could probably see the difference on a big enough TV. The kind of thing you only see in home theaters. I’m not sure you could make a big enough TV for 8k to matter.
Like watching a movie in 720p vs 1080p in the notebook, you don’t see the difference. Once you try the same in a TV you notice how the 720p looks like shit.
Not just size of TV but quality of TV. Not all 4k panels are the same. Spend lots of money on a kickass OLED TV and you’ll see the difference between 1080p and 4k. Assuming both sources are of high quality of course. Comparing a high quality 1080p vs a low quality 4k isn’t enough.
I hate the wording of the headline, because it makes it sound like the consumers’ fault that the industry isn’t delivering on something they promised. It’s like marketing a fusion-powered sex robot that’s missing the power core, and turning around and saying “nobody wants fusion-powered sex robots”.
Side note, I’d like for people to stop insisting that 60fps looks “cheap”, so that we can start getting good 60fps content. Heck, at this stage I’d be willing to compromise at 48fps if it gets more directors on board. We’ve got the camera sensor technology in 2025 for this to work in the same lighting that we used to need for 24fps, so that excuse has flown.
The only complaints I’ve ever heard about 60fps are from gamers who prefer higher refresh rates. Does anyone advocate for framerates to be lower than 60??
Yes, movie people complain that more than 24 fps looks like soap operas (because digital TV studio cameras moved to 60 fps first).
Yeah, also as I alluded to earlier if you shoot at 60fps you get a shorter max exposure time per frame, which can translate to needing more light, which in turn leads to the studio lighting soap opera feel. But that was more of a limitation 15 years ago than it is now.
It’s got that cinematic feel, bro.
Yeah, I love when the camera pans slowly and everything is a blurry mess. Pure cinematic excellence.
I do prefer it, no /s
Thing is, I suspect you’ve been conditioned to it, rather than it being inherently good.
I would love to have an 8K TV or monitor if I had an internet connection up to the task and enough content in 8K to make it worth it, or If I had a PC powerful enough to run games smoothly in that resolution.
I think it’s silly to say ‘nobody wants this’ when the infrastructure for it isn’t even close to adequate.
I will admit that there is diminishing returns now, going from 4K to 8K was less impressive than FHD to 4K and I imagine that 8K will probably be where it stops, at least for anything that can reasonably fit in a house.
I’m so content with 1080p
TV and movies I’m totally good with 1080p. If I want a cinematic experience, that’s what the cinema is for.
But since switching to PC and gaming in 4k everywhere I can, it feels like a night and day difference to play in 1080p. Granted that means I care about monitor resolution rather than TV resolution.
But as an aside, as a software engineer that works from home, crisp text, decent color spectrum support, good brightness in a bright room, all things that make your day a whole lot better when you stare at a computer screen for a large chunk of your day
Na, 4K, even 1080p upscaled to 4K is significantly better thsn FullHD with a video projector.
I’m so content with 1080p
Me too. I don’t even need 60hz. I get motion sickness if a screen goes over 30hz. I guess I’m officially old.
I like 4k for documentaries and cinematic shows, but Ill never watch something like TNG or Jessica Jones on 4k again. Takes all the magic away, feels like you’re standing next to the camera guy - suddenly I just see an actor in room and the immersion is broken.
Sounds like you have motion smoothing on.
Resolution alone isn’t enough to fuck that up. I noticed it first when watching The Hobbit in cinemas at 48fps. It makes things that are real look very real, and unfortunately what was real was Martin Freeman wearing rubber feet.
unfortunately what was real was Martin Freeman wearing rubber feet.
🤣🤣🤣
Ok, good tip. I’ll try that out and see if I can enjoy it more.
I’ll take a pair of rubber feet too!
Tbh 720p is good enough
I’m content with 480. High quality isn’t important for me. I still listen to mp3’s that I got 25+ years ago.
Pretty sure my eyes max out at 4K. I can barely tell the difference between 4K and 1080P from my couch.
HDR is more noticeable, but yeah, I don’t care if it’s 1080p or 4k.
Try BD vs UHD BD on a modern movie. No Country for Old Men for example. Hugely noticeable.
If you can’t notice it when you’re not comparing side by side it doesn’t count
I never said side by side. The UHD is noticeable without that.
Yeah. Another one for me was Deadpool, because the texture of his outfit actually feels real on the 4K disc in a way that it doesn’t in HD.
Whenever I see people point at math equations “proving” that it’s impossible to tell the difference from a comfortable viewing distance, I think of Deadpool’s contours.
Can I identify the individual pixels in HD? Nope. Does it make a difference? Yes definitely.
