As some of you know i work for a professional AV integrator, recently at an event one of our hardware suppliers was giving a workshop on HD 4K transmission and the short comings of higher resolutions.

The workshop itself was long winded and droned on a bit, however one thing that was interesting was the difference between HD and 4K, they had set up 2 i 55" Samsung screens, the same models just on the older HD and the other the 4K, both fed identical content just one in HD and the other 4K, the question they put to us was which was which, i was sat about 3 meters away and couldn't really tell the difference and the room of about 20 people was split almost 50 / 50 as to which was which, it was when you got much closer around a meter away that you could tell.

What was being demonstrated was screen size / resolution and viewing distance ratios, simply put the smaller the screen the closer you need to be to be able to see the difference between HD and 4K and in most homes unless you have a very big screen 75" or larger or you sit 2m or less away from your tv, you're hard pressed to tell the difference.

So why bother with 4K or 8K when it's released, well the picture quality is better, but as i've said you're only going to see that on a very large screen or if you sit incredibly close, the sort of people this actually benefits are draughtsmen using CAD and people that need to take accurate sizes from a image on a display, or when you need to display a very large image 75" or larger and the viewer is relatively close to the screen.

At the end of the day our tv's are getting larger, i'm actually considering buying a 84" screen myself (the kids think i'm mad) so i will see the benefit of 4K, but for most folks a 55" screen is more than big enough, to these people i would say unless you're in the market for a new tv, stick with what you've got, as i've said 4K and 8K when it's available do give a more detailed image but from normal viewing distances not as obvious as you might think. In reality moving up to 4K or higher helps manufacturers sell tv's, there's always someone that has to have the latest tech, but for the rest of us my advice for what it's worth is get 4K when you need a new tv not because you think you need 4K.