Topic: SD to HD to 4K to 8K diminishing returns...?

So I am old enough here to have grown up using CRTs. I was in middle school when HDTVs started becoming cheap enough for people with a thing for the latest tech to be able to buy them, but it wasn't till I was in college when CRTs really were done with common use. I remember all the trial and error they did with LCDs and plasma screens and 3DTVs before we settled for the time being. Having a newer 4K TV myself I feel like the improvement is much less of a jump that it was when I switch from my old CRT to my first flatscreen HDTV about a decade ago. Now with 8K TVs coming out I have to wonder if we are reaching the upper limit of what can be done. I've seen store demos where they set up the side by side comparisons and yes, 4K is nicer than "regular" HD at 1080p. And yeah, with the proper input, 8K can be noticeable, but for me, it's only a little bit nicer. The amount of improvement isn't as noticeable. It's less of a jump than going from HD to 4K was, which was less of an improvement than "standard definition" to HD.

Thoughts?

I can't see 8K panels coming out anytime soon. But still, yes there are diminishing returns. The same happened with digital cameras. It was a megapixel race for a while but when we hit 8MP+ it no longer mattered.

4K is 8.5MP.....

I remember the jump from sd to hd very well. I loved it. It was the biggest one, because of the increase in clarity.

From sd to 4k, though, you're getting into "sharpness" mode, for lack of a better word. We're seeing the difference, but the crispness is increased rather than the clarity that hd brought.

Switching to 8k will be useless for most purposes. It will happen, of course, yet I expect it to stall. The gaming world is having trouble keeping up, because all of the picture is calculated - meaning, of course exponential increases in required calculating power.

Personally, I'm much more excited for a radical increase in color depth. That, to me, is the biggest leap forward waiting to happen. Some tv's support it, games rarely manage though. I hope it'll happen soon. It will be awesome once it properly does.

@erv You mean HDR?

@Heavyarms55
I Don't even need 4K or 8K.
I can see Tons of Disgusting rated 18+ games dominated market JUST Only to Maximize the potential until 8K.
What an Irony, 8K technology just TAINTED by such those Disgusting rated 18+ games.
I REFUSE the existence of that technology if being MISUSED to show More Disgusting, Inappropriate, Brutal, Vulgar entertainment just to WORSHIP the importance of 8K technology.

I would rather choose Standard HD 1080p for Fun, Entertaining and Safe for Watch entertainments / games.

@Anti-Matter Dude... It's just a resolution, not the end of the world.

@Anti-Matter You do realize that every form of visual entertainment benefits from 4K, right? Would you be saying the same thing if the next Nintendo console had 4K? I don't think so. Or would Mario and Kirby suddenly look 'disgusting' to you just because they're at a higher resolution?

yeah, is that what they settled on calling it in the latest tv panels (gotta check up on it )? I want more of that, in my switch as well.

@erv It's standard in most 4K TVs these days. I recall the first few models to be released without it, but now you're going to have difficulty finding a 4K TV that does not support HDR. And yeah, it's quite noticeable. Arguably even more than the jump in resolution. All games I've played this year support it (SOTC, MHW, GOW, Detroit). I'm certain it's going to be standard going forward.

I'm not sure if the Switch can support it, for the same reason it can't do 4K. The USB-C is the bottleneck I presume. There's only so much data that can pass through that port.

4k is nice and all but honestly for me it's not a game changer. HDR on the other hand makes a huge difference when implemented week in games.

@Octane no that's definitely not it. usb c has a much higher throughput than anything out there. If anything, usb c is the enabler.

Getting more depth takes a huge amount more processing I think. I'd have to check for the exact impact - whether it's textures, rendering, calculations etc. I don't know. usb c is proper ready for all of it though.

@Anti-Matter Ummm dude, what on Earth are you talking about? Anything can be in any resolution. They could make rainbow and kitten videos in 8K as well as brutal porn and everything in between. The resolution has nothing to do with the content.

@erv I don't think it noticeably taxes the hardware anymore than non-HDR. Sony retroactively updated some of their ''older'' PS4 games when the HDR update became available a few years ago. They still run the same, they were pushing the hardware, so there wasn't a whole lot of processing power left available to begin with.

I'm not sure how much bandwidth the power supply takes up, because that also passes through the USB-C port. It's not just the video and audio output.

@Anti-Matter Yup, I would hate to see Nintendo to to 4K or 8K or even HDR for improved visuals and resolution. The thought of Xenoblade and Smash Bros with bigger worlds and graphics disgusts me.

On a serious note, I am tempted by 4K/HDR. Still don't see point of owning a 4K TV yet, as only a Switch owner and 4K Blu Ray doesn't have enough leap over 1080p content for me, more so with fake 4K blu ray out there (even with HDR).

Maybe if the backdoor for pre 90s movies was opened up + newer movies properly supporting 4K?

I think the current returns are diminished right now just due to source material, which presents a problem in itself; If there's not enough 4K-native content to justify purchases, there won't be enough sets to justify 4K-native content. I have a 65" 4K HDR Tv, but really grabbed it as an affordable upgrade for the living room area over the existing 50" LED HDTV. I can see on the supplied 4K demo things that look drastically different, but unless it was made in 4K, it just looks cleaner and not necessarily better.

We all know what needs to happen to drive higher native resolutions. The naughty bits industry, as always.

I got a 4k tv, PS4 Pro and X1X.

4K is noticeable, but not by much. Its really not. I noticed a bigger jump in 4K Netflix streaming though. But games... eh. They look pretty close at 1080p.

The fact 4K exponentially increases the amount of data needed makes me feel like it's not really viable. Downloads are ridiculous, storage space needed is ridiculous. It's fine on disc but even then...

As for 8K... absolutely not worth it. People think we'll just keep cranking out higher Ks but nah, even 4K has such marginal returns that I cant even begin to imagine how 8K would become standard. They'll move on to other aspects of image besides resolution after 4K. They might try to push 8K as a new selling point but, not enough people are going to be willing to pay for the upgrade from 4K to 8K. Not worth it.

All i want from TV's and consoles in the future of this diminishing returns thing, is to allow the picture to be cut in half so we can see the side by side comparison of 4k/8k or 1080p/8k instead of flipping back and forth thinking "uhhh I -guess- this looks better?"

If only for the psychological validation of it lol

Reminds me of the optometrist when it gets down to the last two flips. “Which is better, 1..or 2?” “I don’t know anymore, why don’t you tell me if you’re so smart?”

What people don't realise is that a lot of "4K" content isn't sourced from said resolution. The majority of UHD Blu-rays are sourced from 2K masters, and I imagine that a lot of "4K" games on PS4 Pro and XBX are merely upscaled as 2160p is exactly four times that of 1080p (so it would scale perfectly), unlike lower resolutions, where at least some distortion of the image would be taking place when upscaling to a higher resolution (do the math, literally).

Same applies to 3D content. With so much "3D" content being faked in post, many uninformed audiences were convinced that 3D was a mere fad that wasn't worth the time and expense, hence why it died. The fact that no full-time 3D broadcast was ever available also served in its decline, I feel. No-one thought it was worth taking the risk, and very few TV shows have only half-heartedly dabbed with stereoscopic 3D.

Unfortunately, far too many content providers exploit the latest trends which serve to only warp public perception about the advantages of new formats, higher resolutions etc.

@Octane
A lot of sets "support" HDR but that doesn't necessarily mean they can take advantage of it. Being able to accept a signal with 10 bit colour, bright highlights and deep blacks is nice and a lot of sets do support that signal. However it means nothing if you have an 8bit panel with zero local dimming and low peak brightness. Most of the cheaper panels can barely handle the colour depth of "SDR" let alone let HDR shine.

@JaxonH
That video came up in my recommended feed on youtube a week or so ago. The guy doesn't know what he's talking about. You'd literally get more reliable information reading the marketing spin from LG trying to sell you their highest end panels at CES.

@Silly_G
With 3D what you're talking about was definitely a thing. With 3D you have to get an image from two separate angles for it to work. Easy with CG content and definitely possible when you plan it out from the start. But as you said, it's super hard to do for legacy content. I don't think the same is at all true for 4K. "4K quality" has basically been the standard of film for decades.

Yes there was definitely a period in the early 2000s where films were filmed at 2K on early digital cinema cameras most notably the Star Wars Prequels. So for those movies it's definitely true. Buying UHD BluRays for movies filmed at 2K is a waste of time, effort and money.

However most movies weren't filmed on 2K digital cinema cameras mostly because 2K is lower quality than 35mm film. This means that all of the movies filmed before the early 2000s and still some movies even to this day were filmed on film. Depending on a number of factors the estimates I've seen online have 35mm at somewhere between 4 & 20MP. Effectively we're in the ballpark of 4K (8MP) and well above 1080p (2MP).

On the other side of things there are newer films. The first widely used 4K digital cinema cameras started to become available by around 2007/2008. It was literally marketed as "35mm film quality". So pretty much any recent high budget movie would have been filmed at 4K or higher. Also any CG components can be re-rendered at a higher resolution in the same way that a game can be.

Really, unless you're buying a film from the 50s or a CG heavy film from the early 2000s? A UHD BluRay is almost certainly going to be 4K. Assuming they've pulled it from the source it's not marketing BS.