I knew it was coming......been advising clients of the wave of 4k and 5k quality screens come and now it's here.

Detail beyond belief but damn the camera and operator limitations are glaring.

When the shot is top notch and full size it will take your breath away.

This wave of high resolution content and screens is impacting all over the visual media universe - from my clients shooting in 5 and 6k to scale down to 4k ( ) to streaming providers trying to cope with the demands of that much information being accessible even to storage for 4k anything. ( 20 TB the norm )

A quality 27" IPS 4k screen from Dell ( looking at it right now ) is $750 and works lovely at all resolutions up to 3480x2160 and beats the **** out your video card doing so.

If you are are buying gear of any sort, cameras to computers to TVs to IPS providers....tred cautiously just now.

My predictions are you will not be able to buy a high def TV as currently understood ( 1080p ) within 18 months or less.

Your 12 and 16 MP camera's will display 1:1 on these screens - one of our high end photographers came in with a 150 mb panorama shot from Iceland and we heard him all over the house *()_U_O)U)(UPIP{II{ @@@* holy **** was the least of the blue air.

Traded in his 12 core MacPro on the spot for a 5k iMac.

This will drive a whole other level of technology over the next 2 years and once you see what your photos are like on a 4k or 5k screen there is no going back.

Thinking about a new TV, new laptop, new video card, new computer monitor, new video camera, still camera...go very very cautiously just now.

A Lumix GH4 can shoot 4k at feature film quality ( and my clients are ) and it runs $2500
A Go Pro can shoot 4k creating a revolution in sports filming.

The impact list goes on and on including your ISP and the support for 4k in your software.
How big the files you upload to your photostorage site....

We're not in Kansas anymore Toto...mind the road ahead...

Just to pick you up on one thing, 4k doesn't make the Panasonic GH4 feature film quality. It has as much relevance to the quality of the image as megapixels do on a stills camera. You're still using the same lenses. In fact, I'd argue having 4k on phone cameras, etc, is completely pointless, because all you do is massively increase your file size for no increase in quality. Don't get me wrong, you can shoot a perfectly good film on the GH4 (as you could on the GH2), but it's no match for the big boys in terms of dynamic range, and still has plenty of limitations that you have to shoot around.

As for your main point, I think 4k is extremely exciting for cinema, particularly with projection, I'm not too arsed about it in the home, and think it's fairly pointless online. I think that a large amount of the video people watch nowadays (on Youtube, etc) is actually at lower than high definition quality and nobody really cares. Given the choice between a slow loading, high resolution video, and a fast loading low resolution one, I think most people would choose the latter. In fact, I know they would. Whenever I download things from torrent sites, the low resolution options (lower than HD) are always more popular. For computer-based videos, I think that bandwidth issues combines with hard drive space will mean that people won't really bother with 4k for online stuff (especially since you're unlikely to notice a difference on a small laptop screen anyway). I own a 1080p TV, and I still mainly watch SD video.

The exciting part for filmmakers is the freedom it offers you in terms of adjusting your image. But the costs involved are astronomical. Sure, you can get a camera for a reasonable price, but then you need a much more powerful computer to edit it, and shitloads of storage space.

I'm guessing its just the latest in a long stream of tech steps to measure the haves and the have nots by. Levels of memory required are huge and expensive ATM, so is the hardware to run and view it properly.
I'm prepared to give it all a few yrs to settle down. I'm buying 1 TB of memory now for similar money that 8 GB cost 10 yrs ago.

Being stuck with a copper ADSL connection would preclude me from anything faster than HD streaming for the moment. I can barely discern the difference between SD and HD anyway.

From normal sitting position you won't be able to see the difference between a quality 1080p film and a quality 2160p film. It's overrated. Hell, people probably hardly notice the difference between a quality 720p film and 1080p film. Personally I'd prefer a 48fps framerate over 24fps as is standard now. That you will notice.

Having said that, higher resolution laptop and computer screens are highly welcomed!

We'll not be getting internet upgrades here anytime soon. We're on 2Mb/s max out here in the sticks. Some people haven't even got that.

I thought the joke with 4K was that nothing is being broadcast in that format. Your 4K TV is too far ahead of its time. But now 6k is here to play? I call bull shit

The weak link for me already is the content. 1080p is impressive on a good plasma but I'm not actually watching that very often as it is. Just as I did when 1080p came out, I'll be waiting until there is sufficient content before upgrading.

Just turned 50. I need new eyes.

Actually, perhaps someone could explain this to me: often I'll find streaming videos in various grades of quality up to 1080. But I will almost never watch anything at 1080, as it's very harsh on the eyes. Even at 720 this weird harsh quality starts to become apparent, but there it's minimal, and it's outweighed by the wonderful clarity. But above 720 the harshness is just too much to take.

What's that about, and is it curable? Is the newfangled stuff similarly afflicted?

I asked similar of Nautilidae when he visited in the summer, I'm finding some TV shows camerawork 'floating' but thought it was meant to be arty or something, only with HD shows/movies this visual irritant happens, though. Nautilidae told me it is the TVs refresh rate that is out, it needed adjusting.
I can't confirm if he was right though as my housemate owns the giant smart TV and refuses to tinker with it.

A very good article here: http://carltonbale.com/does-4k-resolution-matter/

Apparently I would need to be sitting 5 feet away from a 70" screen, or 10 feet from a 150" screen in order to enjoy the difference between 1080p and 4k. The numbers at 8k are exponentially more ridiculous. Sorry, but I'm not "buying" the hype even if content for these screens was widely available, which it's not. I remember looking at this or similar charts when I decided to get a 1080p screen and was convinced only when the price gap closed. I also found that he quality of the screen (other specs not so widely promoted) was actually as important as the resolution depending on the size x distance. Also the type of technology used mattered more, I found plasma to be superior to my eye but unfortunately plasma is nearly dead.

This all sounds a lot like the way audio was sold back in the day, and still is.

So I should get a better quality screen, but sit further away from it?

In terms of content, it's worth mentioning that any film shot on film will already be high enough resolution, so it's just a case of transferring it to the new format. And obviously this is great for the cinema. I've definitely sat through a digital film and noticed it's not quite what it could be. But yeah, I don't think there's any point watching 4K Question Time or Newsnight. David Attenborough documentaries, on the other hand...

Yup - the critical point is you won't lose anything ( maybe gain a little ) for 1080 programming which most is now but will gain on the truly high rez stuff that is rolling out in a wave.

CES 2015 is coming up next month and it's all about 4k and up....their take...1080 will be consigned to the bargain basement so even if they are produced they will not get the enhancements in backlighting etc that the 4k screens will.

Laptops and desktops and camera's will all move into the higher rez world even if content and the ability to deliver content lags.
Gonna drive video card and video game and console development as well.

As people move away from TV into near field viewing for movies and TV series ( as I'm doing now ) it provides a much more satisfying experience .

Websites are being re-written to accommodate...ripples everywhere.

The very large scale TVs tho benefit the most as will theatres as it rolls out

Good article and explanation here but even this is dated and remember - the diminishing gains they talk about is for TV - not nearfield screens which are the most immersive....it gives you professional level photography quality, enormous workspace if you choose to use it. ( spread sheets that are both complete and perfectly crisp )....multiple windows for greater productivity and for those with vision issues ....multiple resolutions that are perfectly crisp unlike standard LCD screens.

Have to figure out how to get Blade Runner in 4k ....

This is a year out of date - stay tuned...interesting times in visuals.

What is 4K UHD? Next-generation resolution explained
From the World Cup to Netflix, in 2014 you're going to start hearing a lot more about 4K resolution or 'Ultra HD.' But what is it? And more importantly, do you want it?

http://www.cnet.com/news/what-is-4k-uhd ... explained/

This is key concept I'd like people to understand.
Just as you choose the resolution you want on your camera, you choose the resolution you want on the screen and you get the benefit of all the fine grained pixels at those resolutions. I even had a hard time getting it across to staff who don't use retina level screens every day.

JoeB wrote:From normal sitting position you won't be able to see the difference between a quality 1080p film and a quality 2160p film. It's overrated. Hell, people probably hardly notice the difference between a quality 720p film and 1080p film. Personally I'd prefer a 48fps framerate over 24fps as is standard now. That you will notice.

Agree! Actually, it could (and should) be even higher than 48fps. A rate of 60 or 90 fps would be ideal.
24fps made sense in the days when constraints were imposed by the camera technology and, practically, by the length of film (48fps would simply have required too much celluloid!)
The advent of digital movie cameras and projectors and subsequent advances in storing large amounts of data mean that there's now no good reason not to go for higher frame rates across the full spectrum of entertainment.

One need only watch a sports broadcast (typically captured at 60fps or more) then compare it with a movie shot at 24fps...
The strobing associated with a movie's low frame rate is especially visible when vertical lines (e.g. those of a door frame or window) appear in a horizontal panning shot. Then watch, for example, a tennis match. As the camera tracks to follow a player, look at the movement of the background (e.g. the advertising boards or umpire's chair)... the strobing is barely noticeable even when those background lines are in sharp focus. At 72fps or 90fps there would be no discernible strobing at all!

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate

24fps prevails because it's the film standard, and when you show people a 48fps video, it looks like video. It might technically be better, but it doesn't look like film, which is basically what all digital technology has been trying to do since it started. In fact, one of the biggest selling points of the Panasonic GH series of cameras was precisely that they recorded 24fps in addition to 60fps. The former just looks more like a movie, because that's what people are used to.

Ah yes, but if we could get used to the upgrade from 16fps to 24fps (sometime around the 1920s) then we can do it again!

There is an element of that in digital...just as there is in audio ( living with a record collector )

It also depends very much on what is being watched - certainly a space or nature docu benefits from the very highest resolution all the way through the chain ( iMAx for instance )

Generally n the past you did have to have distance to get a combination of smooth and detail...iMax succeeds well as it challenges your vision space making that immersive.

That immersion is available near field now and even more so as Occulus Rift matures to OLED and high resolution screens sitting on your eyeballs.

Things like Flight simulators will be incredible as the artifacts of the simulated flight morph into I cant tell it from real....should be no uncanny valley for that as there is with humans.

Being able to burrow into GoogleEarth without losing the detail...on and on the implications are wide ranging.

Virtual travel will be more immersive, mundane things like a virtual tour of a house will let you burrow in in far more detail and these tours can be shot in 4k now for peanuts. The agent offering that has an edge.

Accommodating this level of resolution is a big challenge.....one of my suppliers had to shift his font to accommodate the Retina level detail....so did we,

It is all about money.

You are a salesperson Macdoc?

Where are the big hi-fi sets of the '60's-'70's?

Quadruple sound anyone?