On Aug 24, 2013, at 8:17 PM, Dylan Reeve wrote:
> There is virtually no way to even get 4K to the consumer... No sign of 4K
> broadcast on the horizon.
This is most definitely not my reading of the tea leaves. 4K is not a maybe, it's merely a when.
I think you will see 4K monitors in Best Buy next year. 4K is here now at the pro level. It's all over the shows. Monitors, players, distribution, even projectors. The price is falling at an unprecedented pace. 70 inches of 4K glory can be had right now for about $15k.
As for getting 4K content to the consumer, that's also not major hurdle. You are correct, it probably won't be broadcast any time soon, if ever. Do you still watch broadcast? This is hardly a barrier. You could put 4k on a Blu-ray if Sony decides to, but I hope they don't because I would dearly love to see the nightmare that is Blu-ray go away.
LIke I said, the players are already available and will be cheap soon. Actually, this is the easiest part technically. 4K will initially go to the consumer as files. Yup, they will be big files. They will come over high-speed fiber and cable, on "thumb" drives and SD cards, and if we are REALLY lucky, the optical successor to Blu-ray. DRM will be an issue, but Hollywood will figure this out. Frankly, DRM is my biggest concern. It held up HD for years.
But 4k content? Come on, please. Where does Hollywood go next if not 4k? Major films are already shot 4k. Theaters are rapidly converting to 4K, driven in part by the fact that they know 4k is coming to the consumer. Again, not a technical problem. The market will be created by the electronics companies. Hollywood will be forced to oblige.
And sports. What would people pay for 4k football do you think? I'm thinking Superbowl 2015 maybe. World Cup 2018 definitely!
And don't forget the other things you can do with 4K. The new MacPro has 4k outputs. Did anyone catch that? As a matter of fact, it has dual 4k outputs! Any forecasts for the future of Xbox and Playstation? Anyone want to play Halo 5 in 4k on an 80 inch monitor? Yeah, me too.
Will the consumer care? Of course they will. Why? Because they are already buying 60-inch monitors, soon to be 70 and 80 inch. HD is great, but it's still not perfect. We can see the seams. It can get better and the consumer knows it. Sure they watch dreadful compression because it's convenient, but they also buy Blu-ray at stupidly unreasonable prices. They CAN see the difference.
Will everyone have 4k by 2015? No. It will be too expensive for most. Will 4k eventually replace HD? Certainly, and it will do so faster than HD replaced SD. Much faster.
cheers,
tod
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