Re: [Avid-L2] Re: More folks are panning the 4K push

The fact 4K TVs are at Best Buy means nothing. They were packed to the
gills with 3D televisions just a year or so back. That demand didn't
eventuate.

I'm not saying 4K won't come (although I'm not entirely convinced - people
don't always upgrade just for the sake of upgrading) I'm just saying it's
not here, and I don't think it's immediately around the corner either.

While I may not watch a whole lot of broadcast TV anymore, there's no
denying that the vast majority of people still consume most of their media
through broadcast or cable. The driver for HD televisions was HD broadcast
and, to a lesser extent, Blu-Ray.

We're nowhere near that with 4K. There's barely a way to deliver 4K to the
home - the systems that are available currently are single-manufacturer and
entirely proprietary, which hasn't ever been a recipe for success in the
past.

RED's RedRay format requires 25Mb/s - not many people can get a reliable
25Mb/s download meaning that live streaming isn't an option. The RedRay
player tries to cope with that by pre-loading things it thinks you might
want, but that's a pretty big ask.

And all that for a picture that's barely any better perceptually, even to
people who know what they're looking at.

Hollywood quite likely will adopt 4K more widely, but at the moment they're
still pretty happy with 2K for the vast majority of screens, and that's for
a picture that's project 60-feet high. I don't know about you, but I've
never heard anyone come out of a theatre complaining about the resolution.

And even if Hollywood goes 4K - so what? They used 35mm film before and we
were happy enough with our DVDs.

Again - not that 4K won't happen, in cinema at the very least, but it's not
happening now in any meaningful way, and anyone who tries to convince us
otherwise is probably trying to sell us something.

Dylan Reeve
http://dylanreeve.com/


On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 1:59 PM, T Hopkins <hoplist@hillmanncarr.com> wrote:

> **
>
>
> 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
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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