2012: The Year of 4K

[Larry Kelly]

With the renewal of this type of discussion, I can just imagine how hard it is for Jim to stay quiet on this thread right now considering what they are likely to have behind the curtain for Nab announcements. I can also imagine Jarred helping him breath but staying firm on keeping quiet.

Larry

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Haha! Seriously though, most cinema - especially Hollywood - is so far removed from reality it doesn't really matter. That makes sense, but I would certainly love to see a few more realist films and capturing humans like they really look would be a good start. There are some incredible close-up shots in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest films shot on HD - I can imagine they would be even more involving at 4K. I may be crazy, but watching human faces like people I might run into is far more interesting to me than seeing artificially softened and excessively made up supermodels.

Totally agree!

 

[James Sielaff]

If one considers that HD was invented when Reagan was in office(US presidency), and introduced to the US after 2000, and even in 2011 is still not ubiquitous, then it is quite sane to say the transition to 4k can be faster and smoother.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

Commentary suggests that will deliver 4K resolution stills (i.e. from early reports on Sony 4K home cinema theatre)

Yup - that's the PS3. But the question is - will PS4 be teased at CES. It's known that the Playstation 4 has been in development for some time now and it has been said that developers already have access to the SDK tools used to create new titles.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Yup - that's the PS3. But the question is - will PS4 be teased at CES. It's known that the Playstation 4 has been in development for some time now and it has been said that developers already have access to the SDK tools used to create new titles.

Could be. If PS4 doesn't rear it's head in 2012, it will for sure in 2013...

I'm out of the gamedev loop these days. Last console project I worked on was for PS2, so no one tells me much. haha. I've just been told that they will be showing 4K out of a PS3 and I've been told that by more than one source. But it seems like that may not be news, given some of the commentary I'm reading.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

I have to disagree somewhat. Take still photography, print advertising, etc.. as an example. Personally I think much of the processing done there is too much, but that's the thing to do these days. And no reason why it could not be applied to motion.With 4K and higher resolution, you have a creative tool at your disposal. All in how you choose to use it. Some people want to cover it up.

I agree about too much processing, but there are few issues...

a) What can be done to a still image is much harder to do to a sequence of images.
b) Motion adds another dimension and in many cases rules change. Perceptive rules.
c) Photographic "beauty", pleasing image and cinematic "beauty" or a pleasing sequence in many cases cannot switch places.

One example for c) - faces, bodies, gestures, poses...all range in appealing effect, throughout camera angles and parts of the motion sequence.
Another example - in many cases motion adds "beauty" to a person which would look unappealing in a still image, just because it reveals that one special appealing thing about that person. It works in a negative way as well, as a person in one frame can look beautiful and few frames later completely the opposite. In that case, extra detail in the image can be a limitation.
Another example - a lot of supermodels do not look as good with their head moved two inches to the side, as they do on few selected stills...or if they have to say a couple of sentences and their facial appearance varies throughout the line of text.
There are many more examples...

" anything involving a close-up of a woman? No one wants to see all that."

hire better looking women. Seriously though, I'm not sure I (or many of us out there) follow the same logic. In many ways, saying this is like saying your female subject is not attractive unless she is shot on camera at a resolution low enough to hide any skin features. I often wonder, do these DoP's / cinematographers thumbprint or wipe petroleum jelly on their eyeglasses when they're going to be around a group of women and talking to them face to face?

It is not just a subjective cinematographer's aesthetic thing as it may seem.
It's a viewer's perception thing as well.

If a storyteller wants to show one thing, one part of the image, but the viewer's eyes wander somewhere else due to the additional detail in the frame, attracting eyes to see and explore (not solvable by DOF control, lighting or simple post work), viewer may be missing the storytelling element of the shot.

In which case "more" can lead to "less".

4K, even 8K, are still lower resolution than real life...

Yes, but in real life you don't see a human face 30 feet high.
And a smile has a different effect with insight about the teeth structure.

Obviously, upping the rez brings significant benefits, but I'd say generalizing (if that would be the case) that UHD must be perfect for all purposes...may leave a lot of people unpleasantly surprised...unless a lot is left on post folks' shoulders, that is.

 

[Emanuel A.]

2012 is shaping up to be the year of 4K.

4K Projectors for the home from more than one manufacturer - 4K TVs from 6 manufacturers that I am aware of. (5 confirmed - 6th is an exciting wild card rumor)

http://smarthouse.com.au/TVs_And_Large_Display/OLED_TV/T8A4B6T8

You can talk all you want about the slow and poor transition to HD - and you can sit there shooting 1080p content and claim that it will be many, many years before we are watching TV shows in 4K - but .... you'd be DEAD WRONG.

Things are VERY different now. TV is the internet. HBO GO has better compression in HD than some carriers. APPLE's VOD numbers for indie films are insane (in a good way). There's COMPETITION to deliver content - Google, Amazon, Apple, Hulu (with more than twice as much as the combined total of video streamed from the websites of ABC, CBS, the CW, Fox and NBC) - so .... delivery platforms will need to differentiate themselves with QUALITY. I'm aware of one early start-up company already working to be the first all 4K broadcast channel.

2012 the 4K dominos will fall.

1080 is the next Black and White. (and yes - you can still make a good movie in black and white ala "The Artist" - but harder when it comes to financing and selling the content)

Good post. Buying a professional 1080p camera when you get an hacked_GH2* out there, it doesn't make any real sense, at least to me.


* http://vimeo.com/33025136

 

[Emanuel A.]

Has anyone ever seen these no-glasses 3D displays? It sounds too good to be true.

I have not seen the Toshiba one that tracks faces and tries to align viewing zones accordingly.... So can't comment.

I have seen other no-glasses solutions and so far I have not been impressed by any of them. You have to keep your head and line of sight in alignment with one of the parallax barriers in the display. So if you tilt your head more than about 15 degrees, you lose the 3D and see blur or generally fucked up images. If there's a bunch of people trying to watch or if you're too far away from the display, you can't see the effect or can't even see a proper image. Right now, the no-glasses displays feel more gimmicky than wearing glasses.

no-glasses 3D is awesome on some handheld devices though, at least in moderation, it gets a bit hard on the eyes.

It is not only this the hassle. Toshiba included. You have the feeling of a low definition display device plus that unbearable interlaced-like look(s). Too bad to be true ;-)

 

[Stuart English]

4K broadcast ?

4K broadcast ?

In Germany only one out of ten discs sold is a blueray. In 2014 blueray is estimated to gain 50% of the market here. Yes, the internet is the way to distribute high quality content in future. But will broadcast stations spend again millions of Euros to switch their equipment from HD to 4k in this decade? They don´t even distribute 1080p in Germany.

If I were running a commercial broadcast station I'd have a very long think about my future business model.

I need an audience. What kind of an audience, and hence programming, are traditional questions to consider.

Most important, how do I obtain revenue - is that from commercials, or subscriptions, or data transmission?


Though wholesale re-tooling of the broadcast infrastructure to support 4K resolution broadcasts seems unlikely ....

...a digital (hence data) pipe is a very valuable asset to have, and these guys are also pretty darn smart.

 

[Brian Merlen]

Yea realistically it will take a while for broadcasters to get on the 4k gravy train, but the internet is already on it if you include 4k youtube videos.... I can't actually play them on my computer, I don't know if its my GPU or my internet connection, but I am sure it'll get worked out soon when I upgrade NLE computers and eventually pay for optimum boost on my cable connection

 

[Stuart English]

Yea realistically it will take a while for broadcasters to get on the 4k gravy train, but the internet is already on it if you include 4k youtube videos.... I can't actually play them on my computer, I don't know if its my GPU or my internet connection, but I am sure it'll get worked out soon when I upgrade NLE computers and eventually pay for optimum boost on my cable connection

Being realistic it's probably best not to include 4K YouTube as an example for some of these very reasons.

A 4K delivery either works or it doesn't. Once we get past that, then the question of image quality is key.


RED RAY will deliver on both counts...

 

[Stefan Antonescu]

Good post. Buying a professional 1080p camera when you get an hacked_GH2* out there, it doesn't make any real sense, at least to me.


* http://vimeo.com/33025136

Thanks for the link, Emmanuel.

Very inspiring... !

 

[Brian Merlen]

Being realistic it's probably best not to include 4K YouTube as an example for some of these very reasons.

A 4K delivery either works or it doesn't. Once we get past that, then the question of image quality is key.


RED RAY will deliver on both counts...

yea i am very excited to see it! i have a feeling 4k content distribution is about to get really mainstream between red ray and ivy bridge gpu's being capable of playing 4k. its great how quick adoption will take place, compared to the sd to hd transition

 

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

2012 is shaping up to be the year of 4K.

you think so Mark? nah I don't agree.. look 4K delivery over a network requires a majority of homes to have Fibre to the Home (not to the cabinet, actually into the home..) That process is not going to be complete on a mass scale until 2020. It is just too expensive. We are three years into what looks like being a long recession, and there is money around for network deployment there is not enough to roll out FTTH to most everyone before the later half of this decade. Also the networks are more concerned with delivering lower bandwidths everywhere the user goes (LTE for example).

Secondly you have to consider the truly vast backhaul requirements to shift 4K to millions of end users simultaneously. I'm currently sitting on an FTTC connection in Asia. Now if I want to watch a YouTube video or an apple trailer there no way I would choose full HD delivery because the network still can't deliver in real time.

Thirdly I know that a 4K laser or whatever projector will blow my mind, I don't doubt it. But most people don't have a huge room to watch a screen big enough to justify 4K. 1080p on my plasma is just fine, honestly. So if the gear was cheap enough and the network/delivery system actually could handle it I'd go for 4K in 2012 but that isn't going to happen IMO, not so soon.

 

[Ivan Kovax]

I am wondering what Red's marketing strategy will be up against BluRay 4K?

We all know how the HDDVD/ BluRay battle ended, as the VHS/beta wars before that. It is not always the best technology that wins out, but the best marketing strategy.

Clearly, at this point there are two factors to take into account - BluRay is an established consumer brand, and people will be more comfortable with that, even if it means buying new gear.

However, the industry production standard is currently Red (to a degree I guess). Red4K/RedRay will be perfectly integrated into the current Red workflow and if some Hollywood big-wigs get behind it because the Finchers, Jacksons, Soderberghs and Scotts of the industry are embracing it then we could have an interesting 2 front battle on our hands

 

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

Can BluRay handle 4K?

 

[Ivan Kovax]

Can BluRay handle 4K?

Yes and no... have a read of the rest of the thread and all will be clear

 

[Caden Nash]

Can BluRay handle 4K?

no.

 

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

I suspect even if it could it would really be new technology requiring new players and so on, it's not like you are suddenly going to be able t buy a 4K bluray disk and play it on your existing player..

I think that first the big movies will be delivered and in some cases projected in 4K (like early IMAX, so in a few major cities you'll have a some 4K cinemas). Then with an eye on future revenues, distributors will start asking for all movies to be delivered 4K (even if they are mostly not going to be distributed in that resolution). Then a few major TV series will be delivered 4K, but still not broadcast that way (at least not to a mass audience). Then there will be a 4K home delivery solution; like BluRay enabled true 1080p for the home. Then gradually over several years, more and more cinemas, home cinema systems and broadcasters will switch to 4K. It'll be 2020 before we're mostly all watching 4K, and even then loads of media will still be 1080p or less.

 

[M Most]

Then a few major TV series will be delivered 4K, but still not broadcast that way (at least not to a mass audience).

I seriously doubt that. Archived, perhaps, for shows shot on either Red or F65 (although personally I doubt that anyone is really going to record in 4K for a television production on the F65, I believe the vast majority will use it in HD mode and record directly to SR Master format). Delivered? No. Not without a broadcast format in place. Television productions are paid for by primarily by broadcast entities, the US television networks (including cable networks) and foreign broadcasters as well. The standard in place for those entities is HD and will remain so for a long time. Without both a compelling reason and a financial plan in place, there is little reason to do anything higher than that for current deliveries, especially considering that a lot of television programs have a somewhat serious amount of visual effects content.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Warner Bros. has been doing 4K archives (4K DPX files on LTO or LTO5) of Red-shot shows for a few years now, but that's as far as it goes.