Consumer response to 4K

[Michael Brennan]

I'm delighted to start this thread because here in Oz 4k displays have hit the shops.
I spoke with a state sales manager for a large retail chain who was over the moon with the response from the public. They are featuring the LG 84 UHDTV for a ticket price of A$18k (US$18k)

They are looping a top notch, stunning timelapse reel of landscapes and cities, presumably shot on DSLRs.
An interesting observation he made is that although 4k makes Bluray look better there is also a "significant improvement in HD3D quality" when screened on this set.
Part of his sales pitch regarding 4k content is the availability of 4k cameras, including the 4k gopro! (which they also sell in store)
He also has a tape measure to prove to customers that the screen is 4x the pixels of a 42 inch screen because many customers can't comprehend the numbers.


As seen from the shop floor, my view is that the 4k wow factor is greater than the wow factor at the time of the introduction of HD, largely because the size of screen has reached a tipping point.


Just about everyone entering the store are stopped in their tracks.
Having shoot HD material for the rollout of sets for a manufacturer, low noise awe inspiring generic 4k images are 4x more important for 4k than HD!

So what is the public reaction and how are the local shops selling 4k in your neck of the woods?


Mike Brennan

 

[Dominik Muench]

Hey Michael, I'm based on the Gold Coast. Havent checked out the displays in the shops yet myself but I wonder how all these people will feel when they take their 18K gadget home, plug it in and see shitty Channel 9 drama in standard HD lol
Personally, Kerry Anne in 4K would give me nightmares.

there is hardly any 4K content available for the general public yet...or most people wouldn't know where to look for the stuff that is around (timescapes in 4K, youtube...).

I dont know where you are based in Oz, but here on the gold coast and in brisbane the digital TV reception and the HD stream is absolutely shocking, I spoke to a sales guy at David Jones who admitted that the footage they show on all the TVs on the sales floor actually comes from a media server, because the live TV streams are so horrible and inconsistent, they cant use them to demonstrate the TV's cause people get putt off by it.

I'm not trying to put down 4K tv's, personally I cant wait to have everything 4K soon enough, but I think after the initial WOW effect, most people that aren't exactly tech savvy will be quite disappointed. I do a lot of photoshoots in expensive mansions around the coast...you wouldn't believe how many home cinema setups with HD beamers or fancy TV's that cost more than my car + house together I've seen, that ran of standard/ non blue-ray DVD players or were horridly calibrated and configured. A lot of the times its just rich people with nothing useful to do with their money, that buy these gadgets so they can brag down at the pub, but have absolutely no idea how to set them up and run them properly.

Maybe this can be a new business side venture ^^ offering 4K content and services to all the new TV owners.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

What shops have 4K TVs? I haven't seen any yet in Brisbane (but I haven't been to any AV shops in a while)

Hey Michael, I'm based on the Gold Coast. Havent checked out the displays in the shops yet myself but I wonder how all these people will feel when they take their 18K gadget home, plug it in and see shitty Channel 9 drama in standard HD lol
Personally, Kerry Anne in 4K would give me nightmares.

Standard HD? Isn't Channel 9's only HD channel Gem? All the others are standard def...

(Same with Channel 10 - all their channels are SD apart from One, and all of Channel 7, apart from 7mate etc.).

 

[Samir Patel]

I can't wait for 110 inch TVs to hit the market (and at a reasonable price). I too think we have hit the tipping point and at that size we can seriously consider that Theater has truly come into the home. I would say that I have owned a 55 inch tv for quite some time so I suspect I will not be upgrading until I can afford a 110 inch. Will skip everything else in between.

 

[Daniel Pearson]

I can't wait for 110 inch TVs to hit the market (and at a reasonable price).

I need a bigger house.

 

[Dominik Muench]

hey stephen,

i thought chanel 10 had an HD stream, but then I dont really watch any tv because its so horrid.
i saw on your website your a web developer ? you wouldnt have knowledge of Plesk server backends by any chance ??

 

[Phil Holland]

My theory is for the vast majority of consumers focused on LCD/OLED/etc. tech they will be targeting 46-60 inch 4K sets.

84 inches is pretty amazing, but it's right at that size that makes it pretty difficult to move around without a truck bed and two dudes to move it around. 84-110 inchers for houses and what companies call "enthusiasts".

Projection for the home can make some damage to that market. There's a physical 16'x9' screen size that I can see some folks putting in there homes with dedicated entertainment rooms, or simply converting the room for view material.

Production use is going to be an interesting world. Projection is pretty common for colorists out here on smaller screen sizes. 36"-60" monitors for office and potentially on set use. I can see larger displays in edit bays (which after long sessions may provide sort of a "your swimming in it" effect). We'll probably also see high pixel density 24"-ish field monitors by NAB.

Smaller screen sizes with pixel densities in the 300-450ppi realm will happen. Just don't know when yet for 4K. They are happening now for tablets and phones though.

Eventually this will effect web content/design once 4K displays hit desktops and potentially laptops with those extremely dense screens.

 

[Michael Brennan]

What shops have 4K TVs?

The retailer is Harvey Norman.

So is 4k being displayed much in the States or the UK? or is Australia being especially targeted as our economy and exchange rate is riding a high?


Mike Brennan

 

[Mark Toia]

4k sceens are in the near future, thats for sure... and they do make up-resed blue-ray footage look better as well. (sort of proves that 2k is still quite good)

But the sad fact is, that we are not in a 4k world yet when it comes to distribution to the consumer via TV, Online Movies or 4k Data streaming... or anything close to it.

RED's new 4k player is the first...and holds promise... it could start a frenzy from other manufactures maybe. But the reality is... we are some years away from having 4k shot images pumped to us in real time from Tv stations. itunes or anyone for that matter...

The big thing that is slowing down TRUE 4k as being the next best thing... Is internat bandwidth, satellite and antenna based compression.

But it will come... when? thats the question.

Me personally, I think if your making a film from this day forward... think 4k finish. May as well future proof your film from now on in.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

hey stephen,

i thought chanel 10 had an HD stream, but then I dont really watch any tv because its so horrid.
i saw on your website your a web developer ? you wouldnt have knowledge of Plesk server backends by any chance ??

Sorry, I dont. I haven't been in that game for a couple of years now (just maintaining a few sites from back when I was freelancing). I should really update the site - all the photos are really old too. My day job is in C#/.NET application development at the moment.

 

[Doug Durant]

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57366319-221/why-4k-tvs-are-stupid/

Really sums it up about 4k on the home television.

 

[Keith Walters]

Hey Michael, I'm based on the Gold Coast. Havent checked out the displays in the shops yet myself but I wonder how all these people will feel when they take their 18K gadget home, plug it in and see shitty Channel 9 drama in standard HD lol
Personally, Kerry Anne in 4K would give me nightmares.

there is hardly any 4K content available for the general public yet...or most people wouldn't know where to look for the stuff that is around (timescapes in 4K, youtube...).

I dont know where you are based in Oz, but here on the gold coast and in brisbane the digital TV reception and the HD stream is absolutely shocking, I spoke to a sales guy at David Jones who admitted that the footage they show on all the TVs on the sales floor actually comes from a media server, because the live TV streams are so horrible and inconsistent, they cant use them to demonstrate the TV's cause people get putt off by it.

I'm not trying to put down 4K tv's, personally I cant wait to have everything 4K soon enough, but I think after the initial WOW effect, most people that aren't exactly tech savvy will be quite disappointed. I do a lot of photoshoots in expensive mansions around the coast...you wouldn't believe how many home cinema setups with HD beamers or fancy TV's that cost more than my car + house together I've seen, that ran of standard/ non blue-ray DVD players or were horridly calibrated and configured. A lot of the times its just rich people with nothing useful to do with their money, that buy these gadgets so they can brag down at the pub, but have absolutely no idea how to set them up and run them properly.

Maybe this can be a new business side venture ^^ offering 4K content and services to all the new TV owners.

Australian broadcasters are not taking HD at all seriously.
The only Australian channel which simulcasts its flagship "Analog" channel in HD any more is SBS. It used to be 1280 x 720p but they recently changed it to the oddball 1280 x 1080i which caused a not-insignificant number of TVs to malfunction. None of the manufacturers had access to a source of 1280 x 1080i and I've never been able to produce one. In the end we had to record an off-air SBS transport stream and FTP that to the manufacturers so they could troubleshoot the problem!
Seven Mate, Nine's GEM, and Ten's ONE HD are the only commercial HD broadcasts, in 1080i, rarely with HD source material.
The ABC has taken up its 1280 x 720p HD allocation with a 24 Hr news channel in which about he only HD material is live studio shots of the newsreaders!

The transmitted data streams for the commercial channels are absolutely atrocious, with bizarre out-of-sequence data packets, truncated GOPs, sound-sync problems and other crap which people apparently dismiss as reception problems. I know about this because I do a bit sideline work recording and extracting data streams of TV commercials. I try to avoid re-encoding where possible (that is, extracting the original MPEG2 data stream), but in some cases you have to look at more than one recording of the same ad to get one without a glitch. I usually have two PVRs set up, one recording the Sydney channel, and the other recording the Wollongong version. Between the two you can hopefully get a clean sequence.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

This is why I'm so looking forward to the end of broadcast/cable as the main distribution channel of TV. Pulling it over IP lets things move so much faster - as opposed to broadcast where moving to DVB-T2 (which gives (iirc) 1080p with H.264 encoding (as opposed to the 1080i MPEG2 which is the best you can get now)) isn't even on the radar for the next five years.

Really looking forward to trying REDRAY/ODEMAX!

 

[M Most]

The advantage of the broadcast approach over Internet delivery, at least for the foreseeable future, is that broadcast delivers the same bandwidth to everyone, and it delivers it free of charge. Internet service is not only highly variable, it also requires that the consumer pay a much larger monthly rate for service that can accommodate the kind of bandwidth that makes the kind of things being talked about here possible. Not everyone can or will pay those rates, either now or in the near future.

 

[Rob McDonough]

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57366319-221/why-4k-tvs-are-stupid/

Really sums it up about 4k on the home television.

I guess I would have to agree regarding standard size TVs in most homes. This is supported by the number of "demo discs" (which have been created for TVs) that look bad even on large screen 1080 projectors, much less 4K projectors. They usually look OK on most TVs from average viewing distances.

But for larger, more immersive viewing, 4K offers smoother images, larger screens, closer viewing, less screen door effect, and with good 4K level scaling, even sharper images. This is definitely being welcomed into the best home theaters, which are simply awesome. With promise of 4K native being even better, and coming soon.

I am also expecting that 4K monitors and 4K projectors will provide better visual feedback for improvement during the acquisition and post processes. Viewing much of the early 4K stuff on 4K projectors reveals the need for better monitoring. Sometime I really have to wonder what they were looking at when they gave the OK on some of that.

I expect that developing a 4K projector has helped reveal a greater need for higher res sensors like Dragon. It is a feedback loop from front to back to front that helps move everything onward and upward. We all win.

Rob McD.

 

[Dominik Muench]

I usually have two PVRs set up, one recording the Sydney channel, and the other recording the Wollongong version. Between the two you can hopefully get a clean sequence.

thats exactly what the sales guy told me as well, he said they usually favor the brisbane digital streams over ...i think it was gold coast or sydney....because they are so unreliable and cause these jerky, artefact blocky images every couple of seconds. not a good thing to put on a high end TV you're trying to sell for big $$$$.

 

[Dominik Muench]

The advantage of the broadcast approach over Internet delivery, at least for the foreseeable future, is that broadcast delivers the same bandwidth to everyone, and it delivers it free of charge. Internet service is not only highly variable, it also requires that the consumer pay a much larger monthly rate for service that can accommodate the kind of bandwidth that makes the kind of things being talked about here possible. Not everyone can or will pay those rates, either now or in the near future.

In theory yes but unfortunately australian broadband internet is another sad and pathetic story in itself. the australian broadband network is nowhere near a high enough capacity or reliability to offer a streaming service of that kind. there are a few lucky people in the CBD areas that get very fast datarates but in the suburbs and coastal areas this would be very frustrating without some sort of pre buffer system in place. I live in the capital suburb of the Gold Coast, in a brand new residential area where actually several big internet and technology companies are situated and up until very recently it was impossible to get even ADSL+ in the neighbourhood, on top of all that, australian internet providers are around 5 years behind Europe when it comes to data plans and service...there is currently still no australian provider that offers a true unlimited internet flatrate for consumers which doesn't shape your line after a certain amount of data usage....germany, france and other european countries abandoned these pricing models years ago. In comparison my brother lives in a fairly small, 50.000 people town in switzerland and pays 55$ a month for a 2.5 MBit completely unlimited dataline with fixed IP, while I pay 79$ a month for an 8000kbps line with a 170gb data allowance a month that drops out on average twice a day....while my internet provider's HQ is only around 1.2 km up the road. the datarates on my Iphone 5 with LTE are better than anything I can get on my landline at home :/

 

[Sergio Perez]

I'm delighted to start this thread because here in Oz 4k displays have hit the shops.
I spoke with a state sales manager for a large retail chain who was over the moon with the response from the public. They are featuring the LG 84 UHDTV for a ticket price of A$18k (US$18k)


So what is the public reaction and how are the local shops selling 4k in your neck of the woods?


Mike Brennan

Exactly the same crowd stopping effect here in Lisbon, Portugal, where I'm currently vacationing. The same display with the same footage. The effect is actually more impressive as a crowd stopper than the 100" Panasonic 3D display. Would love to be able to see a Redray with my own content playing there just to see how it stacked up to those time lapses!

 

[Mark Pavy]

In theory yes but unfortunately australian broadband internet is another sad and pathetic story in itself. the australian broadband network is nowhere near a high enough capacity or reliability to offer a streaming service of that kind. there are a few lucky people in the CBD areas that get very fast datarates but in the suburbs and coastal areas this would be very frustrating without some sort of pre buffer system in place. I live in the capital suburb of the Gold Coast, in a brand new residential area where actually several big internet and technology companies are situated and up until very recently it was impossible to get even ADSL+ in the neighbourhood, on top of all that, australian internet providers are around 5 years behind Europe when it comes to data plans and service...there is currently still no australian provider that offers a true unlimited internet flatrate for consumers which doesn't shape your line after a certain amount of data usage....germany, france and other european countries abandoned these pricing models years ago. In comparison my brother lives in a fairly small, 50.000 people town in switzerland and pays 55$ a month for a 2.5 MBit completely unlimited dataline with fixed IP, while I pay 79$ a month for an 8000kbps line with a 170gb data allowance a month that drops out on average twice a day....while my internet provider's HQ is only around 1.2 km up the road. the datarates on my Iphone 5 with LTE are better than anything I can get on my landline at home :/

I agree with that, however, you also need to consider the Australian Government is doing everything in their power to increase the sale of 4K TVs.

1. Fibre Network, ok it's a cost, but will surely benefit all Australians on this forum
2. Increasing the percentage of people who will throw bricks at their current TV!!!!!

 

[Brandon J.F.]

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57366319-221/why-4k-tvs-are-stupid/

Really sums it up about 4k on the home television.

People said the same thing about HD. I remember it well.

That's right, at 10 feet, your eye can't resolve the difference between otherwise identical 1080p and 720p televisions.

I sure can tell the difference.

The difference between 720p and 1080p is just over 1 million pixels. The difference between 1080p and 4k is more than 6 million pixels. I am sure if you "blind taste test" 4k and 1080p people WILL notice a difference.