First 4K Blu-ray titles announced

Been sayin it for years now.........4K is a "stepping stone" to twice that resolution, 8K.

4K is a fad, useless and an absolute NEGLIGIBLE difference from 1080p. Total waste.

TVs that employ 4K and then charge for that technology are also a waste.

I was really waiting for them to put smurfs 2 on 4k.

Originally posted by hearme0:

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Been sayin it for years now.........4K is a "stepping stone" to twice that resolution, 8K.

4K is a fad, useless and an absolute NEGLIGIBLE difference from 1080p. Total waste.

TVs that employ 4K and then charge for that technology are also a waste.

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Pardon me while I completely and quantitatively trash every single thing you just said.

First of all, it could be said that all resolution formats are a stepping stone until technological advancements can provide the next increase in format resolution. That said, 4k was a goal for the consumer side as there was going to be a lot of 4k material available. This was because so many films were archived at that resolution. While most films and TV were probably shot on 16mm, which could theoretically be archived at a much higher rez, the evolution of professional grade equipment dictated the use of 4k for probably 20 years worth of material that was digitally archived. This allows for not only a pristine 1080P Bluray release, but also a next gen 4k release, all from the existing 4k archive. To get that entire library transferred to 8k would take an entire change in scanning & digitizing equipment and a ton of time that would not be economically possible, and therefore will not happen on a mass scale, but will surely happen in the case of the cult classics that could guarantee enough sell-through to warrant the immense investment for such a project.

Next, 8k is not twice the resolution of 4k. these references to 2k, 4k, and 8k are simple abbreviations we use, and are not to be confused with the total size terminology expressed in megapixels like we use in graphics. Every jump in format that we have had in television has been a magnitude of 4 times the resolution. Standard def was about .5 MP, 2k (1080P) is about 2 MP, UHD (4k) is about 8 MP, and so on. So that means you can fit 4 full HD 1080P images on one 4k monitor. Full HD is 1080x1920 while UHD is 2160x3840. So from this data, we can come to the conclusion that the only real stepping stones were 720P & 1080i, and that was due to broadcast limitations. So the statement that the improvements were negligible are hardly appropriate as a general dismissive, but depending on the screen size / viewing distance, it could be a valid point in some scenarios.

As far as TV's that charge for higher resolution being a waste, that's like saying a Bluray shouldn't cost more than a DVD, or a high rez audio track shouldn't cost more than a low rez mp3. You get you pay for, and you are probably happy with a Vizio