4K Monitors... urgent.

[Jarred Land]

Steve, just to add to your idea, maybe some entity (RED?) could do a "how to" demo to accompany each new TV sold showing how to set up the panel for 4k. It would be time consuming to make one for each brand and model but in the end it would cause 4k to gain acceptance much faster. RED could do this but since SONY or others sell panels themselves they would not do a brand by brand demo. RED would gain exposure to the public and their brand would become synonymous with 4K.

You guys should do this... we have our hands full.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

You guys should do this... we have our hands full.

I was being a little bit facetious because I know these stores won't do it. They just want to move a large volume of stuff quickly and unless consumers are demanding it, they aren't going to change their ways.

The thought of walking into best buy and seeing RED 4K Certified was pretty cool though. -

 

[Jarred Land]

I was being a little bit facetious because I know these stores won't do it. They just want to move a large volume of stuff quickly and unless consumers are demanding it, they aren't going to change their ways.

The thought of walking into best buy and seeing RED 4K Certified was pretty cool though. -

they have a segment called Magnolia that have been trained on the REDRAY .. those guys seem to really care about how stuff is setup. Wish every BestBuy had one.

 

[Corey_O]

Does that mean REDRAY will be available at Magnolia in the future? Where do I get in line for the REDRAY training? -

 

[Elsie N]

Steve, just to add to your idea, maybe some entity (RED?) could do a "how to" demo to accompany each new TV sold showing how to set up the panel for 4k. It would be time consuming to make one for each brand and model but in the end it would cause 4k to gain acceptance much faster. RED could do this but since SONY or others sell panels themselves they would not do a brand by brand demo. RED would gain exposure to the public and their brand would become synonymous with 4K.

You guys should do this... we have our hands full.

I know there are some well-qualified people here on Reduser that are proficient in doing this. I just hope one or more of them accept your challenge... for the good of advancing 4k.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Are we the only ones who care?

Are we the only ones who care?

The core of the problem is the viewing environment. Proper ISF calibration could easily look worse to most people if they view in brightly lit surroundings with heavy glare on the screen. The typical TV sales floor is particularly challenging, so in order to "compete" everything is jacked up to "cut through".

It's also worth noting that the business imperative for the manufacturers is selling units. As long as the retina burning look moves boxes, it plays. I would also point out high refresh rates may mangle narrative fare, but it does make LCD screens render fast moving sports better - and sports content is a big sales driver.

I am continually perplexed that such a high percentage of people lack basic awareness of image quality, or sound quality for that matter. MP3 at 64kb/s and MPEG-2 at 3mb/s are standard fare these days and they SUCK BALLS. WTF?

Not so cheerily - #19

 

[L. Langer]

they have a segment called Magnolia that have been trained on the REDRAY .. those guys seem to really care about how stuff is setup. Wish every BestBuy had one.

Most Best Buys have Magnolia A/V these days but that training isn't company-wide unless it's the craptastic online toolkit training that is mandatory for employees and every department has their own set of required training on a quarterly basis. Out-of-store employee training - sending people to RED or Sony for example - comes out of the store budgets unless corporate somehow by some act of God chooses to pay for it or the company goes directly to Best Buy stores for product training, and from personal experience, most store managers are loathe to approve any store expenses like that which might hurt their bonuses and profit margins.

 

[brett ogden]

they have a segment called Magnolia that have been trained on the REDRAY .. those guys seem to really care about how stuff is setup. Wish every BestBuy had one.

Yes they care but I just fixed a Sony 65in at bestbuy with the image shapness on... and they said Magnolia set the TV up 4days ago. So I turned it off

 

[Jon Chema]

And while we're there, we should have them turn off the 120hz "true motion" or whatever it's called. Ack.

Amen to that!! bugs me more than sharpening

 

[Rob Anderson]

these panels should not be 8bit. rec2020 is the mandated colour space for uhd and its a min of 10bit 4:2:2 - strangely nobody is talking about that mandate. I hope these early tvs won't be useless like the pretend hd ready ones were

Absolutely, 100% guarantee you... Yes. This first generation of UHD in the < $5k category will be 'useless' once the standard-compliant sets drop. They are first out the door and first on the floor. As early adopters, we expect this and so should anyone else scooping up 4K right now.

That doesn't make them bad monitors at all. Loving this 50" Seiki. Incredible. And had for $300 more than a 27" Apple LED. Ridiculous.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

they have a segment called Magnolia that have been trained on the REDRAY .. those guys seem to really care about how stuff is setup. Wish every BestBuy had one.

Can't speak for all of them, but the Magnolia in the Best Buy near me usually does a pretty good job. They unfortunately still have the motion-smoothing (or whatever you want to call it) active on most TV's though. I've asked them about it on more than one occasion, different sales guys, same answer. They turn it off when and where they can, however most of the TV's from the big name manufacturers they can't touch. They can change settings if a patron in the store wants to see, but otherwise they have to leave at the factory default or demo-mode settings. Samsung, Sony and Panasonic are all this way. They have oodles of "market research" which tells them how they're going to sell more HDTV sets.

That's cool to think Magnolia centers could be showing REDRAY soon.

these panels should not be 8bit. rec2020 is the mandated colour space for uhd and its a min of 10bit 4:2:2 - strangely nobody is talking about that mandate. I hope these early tvs won't be useless like the pretend hd ready ones were

No one is going to implement or attempt to enforce (because it's impossible to implement) the REC2020 spec until HDMI 2.0 arrives to give us the necessary bandwidth for full UHD spec. The unfortunate reality is that while several UHD / 4K TV's are now hitting the market, they are lacking the official interface chosen for UHD and can't deal with the intended amount of data. Right now we have bastardized UHD wanna-be displays.

 

[Eryc Tramonn]

they have a segment called Magnolia that have been trained on the REDRAY .. those guys seem to really care about how stuff is setup. Wish every BestBuy had one.

Interesting.

This thread is right on time. I was at a BestBuy this past Sunday (last minute Mother's Day shopping), and I really wanted to report my findings...but then part of me felt like, well...maybe no one will care. Ha, I should know better than that here.

Anyway, so I couldn't resist rolling into the Magnolia theater to check out the Sony panels. I ended up spending WAY too much time in there, analyzing the hell out of the 55" UHD, and one of my first questions to the rep was, "Have these panels been professionally calibrated?" They certainly did not appear to have been.

His honest answer...a resounding "no." The panels fell out of the box and onto the display base. But this is supposed to be the Magnolia theater, you say? Hmm. My experience, going back to the 90's, has proven this to be more the standard than not. It seems their displays are rarely professionally tuned. Sharpening was definitely turned on, and the image looked rather "sterile" for lack of a better word. It was too sharp; the image felt unnatural. Overall, the image did not have the vibrancy that you would expect. It was almost like watching low contrast, non color-corrected footage. The blacks weren't rich, and hence all the other hues looked dull. And the VFX showcased within the highlight content being served by Sony's 4K Media player (eg After Earth) looked -- well, regrettably like CG. In order to supply for a 4K composite, we'll have to generate VFX at 16K to have it hold up. And yes, that is a bit of hyperbole, but we will definitely need to address this. Crazy. And obviously there are many factors that will contribute to this, but rendering animals and fur wasn't really holding up to my eye. And the rep expressed a similar sentiment.

As we continued to pixel freak the image, the Magnolia rep informed me that Sony has been "acquiring material at 4K resolution for the last ten years." Hmmmmmm. Film? Then he proceeded to tell me how there is an absence of 4K content in the world sans a few sources. Okay. That's when the conversation segued over to Sony's 4K media player and its ability to upscale 1080 content. He fished into his pocket, extracted a USB flash drive and started raving about this piece called "TimeScapes"...never heard of it. Hahaha. Totally kiddin' Tom.

Anyway, so he eagerly plugged in a downloaded 1080 mp4 from his thumb drive (I saw the file on his drive), and hit play. Irrespective of any IP issues, the file looked damn impressive. It gave me a huge sense of pride knowing the backstory, and that the content was acquired on RED...and this is the material he chose to showcase the panel. Although the content still looked too sharp, the most minute details were preserved. I could see single strands of spiderweb in the forest shots. Incredible. From a friggin' mp4? The level of detail was otherworldly.

I realize we're not pushing upscaled material, but I felt this was a testament to the origination and it deserved mention. Sony's 4K technology, at a comparatively low introductory price point, is only one more example of why the future looks pretty bright for indie content creators.

 

[Eryc Tramonn]

Can't speak for all of them, but the Magnolia in the Best Buy near me usually does a pretty good job. They unfortunately still have the motion-smoothing (or whatever you want to call it) active on most TV's though. I've asked them about it on more than one occasion, different sales guys, same answer. They turn it off when and where they can, however most of the TV's from the big name manufacturers they can't touch. They can change settings if a patron in the store wants to see, but otherwise they have to leave at the factory default or demo-mode settings. Samsung, Sony and Panasonic are all this way. They have oodles of "market research" which tells them how they're going to sell more HDTV sets.

Well...there you have it. That totally makes sense. At the end of the day, it all dissolves to market research and the lowest common denominator.

 

[Eryc Tramonn]

Hey Jannard. This might not be related to the thread but it is related to 4K. I went in for the REDucation Open House in NY today, and I was absolutely blown away by the reel you guys showed. It looked absolutely fantastic and breathtaking. The short films were excellent as well and it was great to see them projected in 4K.

Thanks for all your hard work and I can't wait for Dragon... although I'm not sure how it can get better than what I saw today.

+1

Wasn't at REDucation NY, but I share the exact same sentiment in regard to the reels I've seen, and the feelings of gratitude for such an awesome tool.

 

[Álex Montoya]

these panels should not be 8bit. rec2020 is the mandated colour space for uhd and its a min of 10bit 4:2:2 - strangely nobody is talking about that mandate. I hope these early tvs won't be useless like the pretend hd ready ones were

I have a Panasonic 50 inch HD Ready plasma and it is far from useless.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

They have an 85" LG television at the Myer Centre in Brisbane city. Looks absoultly shocking. I couldn't believe it.

There was a popup on the screen that showed that it was being run from a Windows 7 machine, but I'm not sure if it was actually 4K - looked upscaled from 1080p, with heaps of sharpening.

Complete rubbish. I was in a hurry so I couldn't tell anyone to fix it...

 

[Jeremy Torrie]

85" LG Ultra HD display at the after party for Jimmy P in Cannes...but what a tragedy. All they showed was a pastiche of photos taken on camera phone. None of the photos had much resolution and thus defeated the purpose of displaying content in 4K since none of it was.

 

[L. Langer]

Just saw the 55-inch Sony 4K at my nearest Magnolia A/V. Guess where it was? In the back corner with no promotion or signage whatsoever along with a bunch of clearance displays. They were playing some underwater footage with a little 4K logo on it. :confused1:

 

[Stacey Spears]

REC2020 spec until HDMI 2.0 arrives to give us the necessary bandwidth for full UHD spec.

2.0 still has 8-bit video for UHD resolutions, at least for 60p.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

First impressions

First impressions

For those of us who have skin in the 4K game, it's not encouraging that many people's first exposure to 4K might be VERY compromised.

The UHD/4K rollout has a number of critical challenges, first of which is being able to clearly demonstrate the superiority over 1080. If the early wave of interested parties doesn't have their minds blown we're in trouble - first impressions and all. We need them texting their friends "you gotta see this".

The big CE guys like Sony must commit to making sure their UHD devices look their best in places like the Magnolia section at Best Buy. People will question the price/value of UHD displays like they do with all consumer goods. The lack of content is a reality that perversely needs device sales to resolve sooner than later. IMO, the way to get people to look past reasons not to get a UHD display, is to show them picture quality so enthralling they just want one.

Let's not forget that most networks/broadcasters are in no rush to bear the cost of upgrading their 1080 infrastructure to UHD/4K. Greater expenses but no commensurate increase in revenue, anyone think that's likely to happen fast? I get that like HD, going UHD will eventually be the "ante" level to compete, but every year you put it off, the more you can milk ROI from your HD gear.

Negative buzz about UHD as it starts showing up on more people's radar could be quite damaging. Don't forget that the same entities who would have to lay out big coin for UHD infrastructure are also the media voices people hear every day. I'm not saying there's a "60 Minutes" segment on the UHD-TV "scandal" on deck, just that trumpeting a couple of negative stories about UHD to slow it down might seem like a smart play for the bottom line. Maybe I'm just paranoid... ;-)

Cheers - #19