2012: The Year of 4K

[Gabriele Turchi]

any hint of 4K bluray ?.... or we all have to wait Red Ray ? :)


g

[Mark L. Pederson]

i am wondering how is possible the Home entertainment product will be launched in the market without having 4K content such as Blu Ray etc...
do you think that blu ray will update to 4K specs very soon ?

g

Sony reps claim the company is in talks with the Blu-ray Disc Association to iron out a standard compression scheme for squeezing 4K movies onto discs, and has already promised a 4K release of the next Spider-Man movie, but the July 2012 release date for that flick should be telling.

So yeah ... looks like BLU-RAY will have a 4K option as well. I'll put my chips on REDRAY :)

[Mark L. Pederson]

As much as I am looking forward for 4K, we are still many years until this becomes a reality in a "mainstream" way. We may eventually get there, but, my pessimistic prediction is that we are still 10 years or more away from mass penetration.

Try 2.5 years. That is all it will take. You can't look at the past for "rate of change and adoption of technology". Everything moves faster going forward.

[Sergio Perez]

Maybe so, Mark, but were I live, for example, the local broadcast has only now been updated to DIgital 16:9 SD. Its ridiculous, but in my neighbor HK they preserve the SD with their HD broadcast in parallel because many households still have SD sets. The online aspect of it all is interesting, but 720p is currently still the standard. I have a video going online with more than 30 000 views, and according to my vimeo plus account, the majority of plays were in SD.

I think that in the US you guys may be closer to 4K, but the rest of the world is still playing catch up to the HD revolution... (excluding Japan, obviously.)

However, if Apple surprises everyone with 4K, this could really change. Everyone in the mobile world is copying their moves. If they go 4K, everyone else will follow. But for that to happen, iTunes needed to have a 4K library ready for distribution. That's Apple's sales model and their big revenue channel. We all know why we aren't seeing blu-ray drives on Macs...

[Gabriele Turchi]

it will probably take a bit ,
but as a start i would be just happy with a nice 4K 58" plasma from panasonic that cost under 10K and a deckling 4K SDI card ...so at least i can grade and enjoy 4K...

not quite sure what is happening with the deckling 4K ( i believe they are not introducing that card until they figure that Resolve can grade 4K (on 4k project timeline) realtime having 4K SDI out ....


g

[Mark L. Pederson]

Maybe so, Mark, but were I live, for example, the local broadcast has only now been updated to DIgital 16:9 SD. Its ridiculous, but in my neighbor HK they preserve the SD with their HD broadcast in parallel because many households still have SD sets. The online aspect of it all is interesting, but 720p is currently still the standard. I have a video going online with more than 30 000 views, and according to my vimeo plus account, the majority of plays were in SD.

I suspect that "majority of plays were in SD" might have to do with most folks watching your video on a mobile device. That said, I do understand that internet bandwidth is not great everywhere in the world - but - plenty of companies racing to provide that. Your internet will get faster. Period. Most likely - it will outpace your "local broadcaster".

4K VOD delivery over the internet (download) is where I would place my initial bet.

I'm pretty sure I will be able to download an entire 4K REDRAY feature film faster than I can get to Best Buy and pick up a Blu Ray and get back home.

[Bruce Allen]

Yes, I think Apple is just going to double all of its monitor resolutions :) HiDPI mode, man. Been waiting for that since forever. And there's that Apple TV... 4K sounds right to me, with speech recognition. The question is whether it'll be 3D or not - Apple traditionally has not been pro-3D, but then there is the whole Pixar thing.

My skeptical theory for the TV manufacturers is:
1. sell everyone HD
2. sell everyone HD 3D
3. sell everyone 4K
4. sell everyone 4K 3D 48fps
5. sell everyone 8K display that also does 4K 3D auto-stereoscopic

A RED laser projector at least allows you to skip forward multiple steps!

BTW, I wonder if we'll move to a better color standard than 709 along with our move to 4K? And higher nits of screen brightness standard? Although then just all the commercials will use that and everyone will dial it back... so your movie will look too dark again :)

BTW if everything is being distributed digitally, there's no reason the content can't support wide-gamut color space as well as have a 709 fallback. Heck, you could even just send a 709 feed, with a few bits of wide gamut auxiliary data per pixel.

NHK's 8K / SHV standard has a lovely looking color gamut... pretty much Mitsubishi LaserVue gamut - and would be great for a RED projector.



Anyway, yay.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Tom Lowe]

"2012 is shaping up to be the year of 4K"

I agree. watch for some 4K love at NAB this year!!

[Mark L. Pederson]

"2012 is shaping up to be the year of 4K"

I agree. watch for some 4K love at NAB this year!!

Watch for the 4K love at CES next month.

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-...expect-1042619

[Tom Lowe]

That's true. I might actually be out there for a couple of days.