It's official: 4K is pish - say hello to 8K!

[Jac Hawk]

Yes it's better, but not night and day like standard def to HD, in my opinion it's another case of diminishing returns, 4k is better than HD but I find HD is more than acceptable, apparently your eyes can't see better than 8K so anything more is pointless and if you need glasses then your eyesight won't even be that.

[Marco]

Interesting, Mike... Even at 53, I don't wear glasses and still have very good eyesight, so don't have any problem differentiating between HD and 4K. I find the difference quite marked, with the latter being notably superior, in terms of overall clarity and definition!

No idea about 8K, as that's unlikely something I'll be entertaining anytime soon.

Marco.

[Jac Hawk]

I was at an Extron event a few years ago and one of the things they were showing was their new 4K switcher scaler, anyway one of the demos sent 2 identical video clips, 1 in HD and 1 in 4K to two 55" Samsung displays, 1 HD and 1 4k, they sat us 3 meters away and asked us which was which, out of a room of about 15 people their wasn't a definitive answer and it wasn't until you were sat considerably closer that the difference was apparent, the guys from Extron said that unless you sit really close or you go for larger than 55" you're going to struggle to see a massive difference from a normal viewing distance, they also said that the need for higher resolution only becomes necessary on very large screens 75" and higher as each pixel in larger and therefore more obvious

[Gazjam]

Not all 4K is the same,
even when you take variable quality streamed 4K from Netflix and the like out the picture.

Like mastering in audio, depends on on the movie was shot and on how it’s been transferred to bluray.
Special effects driven modern movies, due to expense and time doing the effects tend to be shot in 2K resolution (as cheaper to render the effects?) and the “4K” Blu-ray is in fact upscale 2K.

4k digital scans of 70mm film stock will be quite different from these, despite both being ‘4K’.
Know what I mean?

Have a few 4K discs now, some don’t look that different from 1080p Blu-ray (though colour pop is usually better due to HDR) and others...like anything Chis Nolan shot on IMAX or older films 4K’d PROPERLY like 2001 or Blade Runner are absolutely stunning, night and day better than the standard Blu-ray.

So,
like most things..

It depends.

8K...naa.

[Marco]

I was at an Extron event a few years ago and one of the things they were showing was their new 4K switcher scaler, anyway one of the demos sent 2 identical video clips, 1 in HD and 1 in 4K to two 55" Samsung displays, 1 HD and 1 4k, they sat us 3 meters away and asked us which was which, out of a room of about 15 people their wasn't a definitive answer and it wasn't until you were sat considerably closer that the difference was apparent, the guys from Extron said that unless you sit really close or you go for larger than 55" you're going to struggle to see a massive difference from a normal viewing distance, they also said that the need for higher resolution only becomes necessary on very large screens 75" and higher as each pixel in larger and therefore more obvious

Fair enough, and again also interesting. We do sit pretty close to the TV, as it's only a small room, so probably no more max 3.5m, from chair to screen

Marco.

[Marco]

Not all 4K is the same,
even when you take variable quality streamed 4K from Netflix and the like out the picture.

Like mastering in audio, depends on on the movie was shot and on how it’s been transferred to bluray.
Special effects driven modern movies, due to expense and time doing the effects tend to be shot in 2K resolution (as cheaper to render the effects?) and the “4K” Blu-ray is in fact upscale 2K.

4k digital scans of 70mm film stock will be quite different from these, despite both being ‘4K’.
Know what I mean?

Have a few 4K discs now, some don’t look that different from 1080p Blu-ray (though colour pop is usually better due to HDR) and others...like anything Chis Nolan shot on IMAX or older films 4K’d PROPERLY like 2001 or Blade Runner are absolutely stunning, night and day better than the standard Blu-ray.

So,
like most things..

It depends.

Yup, also my experience - and totally concur with your last two paras...

Marco.

[Pigmy Pony]

Fair enough, and again also interesting. We do sit pretty close to the TV, as it's only a small room, so probably no more max 3.5m, from chair to screen

Marco.

Bet you sit closer when watching C4's "Naked Attraction"...

[Marco]

Lol - not heard of it... Would I need to fit some windscreen wipers on the TV?

Marco.

[Pigmy Pony]

It's a dating show, where someone comes on, gets to view a line up of 5 or 6 "hopefuls" - showing their downstairs bits first, then the chest areas, then their faces. Then one is chosen, and they go on a date. It's very graphic, not very sexy, and I don't know how they get away with it.

I suppose with 4K you could check whether they had crabs. Won't help the person doing the choosing though, who doesn't get as close a view as the camera.

[Clive]

I've a 4 year old HD 65" TV, the picture is pretty good so I can't justify a 4K set yet. What has made a difference though is using 4K fire stick (of course it's only HD on my set), the HDR in the stick makes a BIG difference with Amazon and Netfix; even iPlayer is better than the live feed.