4K Monitors... urgent.

[Corey_O]

Sony Press release.......4k push

http://www.bloomberg.com/article/2013-05-20/a_ZfDmvBcKtk.html

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Jeff puts on his cynical hat...

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.

That's only one facet of it though... There are many levels of consumer and sub-levels of consumer thinking. Some people will automatically just want the new tech, whether they can afford it or not. Others will need to be convinced. Many will not see the value, even if they are shown the best possible presentation. Joe Consumer doesn't give a rat's ass about UHD. "4K? Is that like 4G?" Yes, I heard that very statement rather recently, at the local Magnolia center in my local Best Buy. There is a strong resistance to > 1080p video tech out there, even amidst technically savvy people. Too many naysayers still claiming that you need giant 80" + displays to even see the difference.

In reality, UHD is just going to show up. It's already showing up. Content is coming as we speak. It's another marketing angle for CE companies to push on and they will. Joe Consumer is actually tired of changing standards. Many are pissed off they have to re-buy music and movies as new formats roll around and their old hardware dies out. Quality improvements be damned. It also didn't help when several of the past tech "improvements" in this world offered little in the face of all the hype surrounding them. But when it comes down to it, while all of us are chomping at the bit to get these new 4K/ UHD displays, average consumers are not. And they just won't be, no matter what you show them. They will all eventually buy 4K UHD-TV's because that is where the tech and the surrounding market is headed. In 3 or 4 years time, when Joe Consumer walks into his favorite discount warehouse and pushes that $900 70" Vizio or Apex or other tier-2 brand TV from the rack onto his flat-bed cart next to the bulk toilet paper and crates of caffeine-overloaded "energy" drinks, it's going to be a 4K/ UHD display. He won't have a clue what that means, but it will be thin enough and light enough he won't need to bribe his neighbor with a six-pack to help hang it on the wall and it's going to be the prettiest TV he's ever had for watchin' NAPCAR and the SooperBowl.

That may seem like an overgeneralization, even a "stupification" of how it will play out, but is it really? The majority of people out there don't have a clue what "full HD" or "1080p" actually mean. Do you think they're going to be able to sort out "4K", "UHD / Ultra-HD", "2160p" and HDMI 2.0??? Not to mention all the "retina" and "high-DPI" marketing that's about to hit with desktop displays, more mainstream laptops and smaller TVs coming our way.

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.

Lots of broadcasters buzzing over UHD/4K at NAB. The transition to 4K on their end is a different beast than the move to digital and HD. Much of the same equipment is still relevant and useable. 4K/ UHD will bring new compression schemes, new computers, monitors, etc.., but can still use all the same underlying IP hardware, cabling, even transmission hardware that 720p/ 1080p use. Not only that, but they're in a bind this time around. With the shift to digital and HD, there were government deadlines to adhere to and very little market pressure. Traditional broadcasters and their respective networks have competition now. IP based broadcast and on-demand services can change delivery formats almost on a whim. The weak link in the chain is that "last mile" of interconnects and restrictive bandwidth on the consumer end. In the IP broadcast and in-demand world, channels don't just mean a row of scheduled stuff on a 2D timeline or guide. With newer services, channels can be interactive sports programming or video arcade game classics to play. The resolution bump to 4K is just an evolutionary step within the mass progression of intersecting media. We focus on 4K and beyond around here because that is our world. Our camera systems. Our production pipelines. It's what we do.

In the end, the consumer will get 4K. Many will want it, many won't care, but they're going to get it. ...And then they're going to get 8K. And then who knows...

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... ;-)

The anti-4K progress buzz is alive and well. It sounds just like what we went through with HD, then again with 1080p, now 4K... The sad part is, none of the rhetoric from that camp is any different this time around. Still the exact same weak arguments they had against 1080p and digital / HD before that. By and large people may not be that aware of 4K. But I think they're even less aware of the resistance against it.

Off the top of my head I know of at least a dozen 4K/ UHD TV's hitting the market between June and October. Most of them from major manufacturers like Samsung, Toshiba and Vizio. Sizes from 46" to 75". PlayStation4 and XBOX One both support 4K. Roku 4 supports 4K. Intel and Google both have 4K media boxes coming early next year that do 4K. It's all falling into place. As for making the 4K presentation and the TV's look good at the store... Even in high-end stores like the Magnolia centers, ListenUp, etc.. Not going to happen. The TV's are going to look like shit. As I said in a post above, there's lots of market research. I see where they get the market research. Read all the comments about TV's online, customer reviews, blog commentary, etc.. Joe Consumer actually likes the motion-smoothing soap opera crap. Joe Consumer likes over-bright displays, over-saturated colors and crappy in-built speakers that sound like a duck farting through a bike horn -- you know, just like the dumbo-ear speakers Sony has on their new 4K TV's. And the social-media, YouTube generation is so accustomed to compression artifacts and lip sync issues that the crappiest H.265 4K is going to be like gazing into crystal pools of caribbean water, even on 6 bit panels with only the trending crap edge lighting to combine for 8 to 10 bits of dithered glory.

Yep, the future is a bright one indeed... At least as far as 4K is concerned. Now as for the American Condition, the general public and humanity at large, I'm not so certain.

 

[Les Dittert]

There is a strong resistance to > 1080p video tech out there, even amidst technically savvy people. Too many naysayers still claiming that you need giant 80" + displays to even see the difference.

.

There seems to be a strong resistance to > 1080p even here on this forum of Red camera users!
Take a look at the thread about the Canon D5mkIII , people are loving it's picture quality, discussing how well it color corrects and how it may cut in with Red footage.
Possibly no mention of 4K in the entire thread. Most people even on this fricking 4K camera forum, when it comes down to it, don't care. They post 1080 samples, when just a few different mouse clicks would have made a 4K still to upload for viewing.

I'm not sure what to make of it, really.

I just did a little comparo between an Arri BL35 shooting Kodak 5203 ( the most advanced detail holding color neg film ever produced by Kodak ) and my 'special' Scarlet.
The digital image blew away the 4K scan of the neg. It was so shocking that we are checking the Arri for bad back focus, etc.
I'm not sure anyone cares to see the results here, because when you look at it in 1080 the difference is not as shocking.

 

[Mark Toia]

The MOST offensive is that bullshit Motionflow 120Hz and 240Hz stuff. It makes nice looking 24P material look like a soap opera.


+1million!

F--KIN AYE !!!!!!!..

 

[Mark Toia]

There seems to be a strong resistance to > 1080p even here on this forum of Red camera users!
Take a look at the thread about the Canon D5mkIII , people are loving it's picture quality, discussing how well it color corrects and how it may cut in with Red footage.
Possibly no mention of 4K in the entire thread. Most people even on this fricking 4K camera forum, when it comes down to it, don't care. They post 1080 samples, when just a few different mouse clicks would have made a 4K still to upload for viewing.

I'm not sure what to make of it, really.

I just did a little comparo between an Arri BL35 shooting Kodak 5203 ( the most advanced detail holding color neg film ever produced by Kodak ) and my 'special' Scarlet.
The digital image blew away the 4K scan of the neg. It was so shocking that we are checking the Arri for bad back focus, etc.
I'm not sure anyone cares to see the results here, because when you look at it in 1080 the difference is not as shocking.

I have alot of old 2k and 4k neg scanned material on my computer to show clients FILM vs Digital... and your so right. Llike Chalk and cheese... so bad in fact that I cannot believe I used to praise film... but then again.... 4k Digital was not around for motion until only 6 years ago. It served us well for many many years. RIP

 

[Robert Hart]

Can anyone tell me the best settings for 4K on my Toshiba CT-M5954 CRT analogue monitor/television receiver? ( Yes I know, the best setting will be achieved by gravitational forces and an unimpeded path to the pavement five floors below. )

 

[jon honeyball]

will have access to most/all of the new 4k panels soon. just waiting for our redrays! (Ted is on the case...)

 

[David Kuhn]

There seems to be a strong resistance to > 1080p even here on this forum of Red camera users!
Take a look at the thread about the Canon D5mkIII , people are loving it's picture quality, discussing how well it color corrects and how it may cut in with Red footage.
Possibly no mention of 4K in the entire thread. Most people even on this fricking 4K camera forum, when it comes down to it, don't care. They post 1080 samples, when just a few different mouse clicks would have made a 4K still to upload for viewing.

I'm not sure what to make of it, really.

I just did a little comparo between an Arri BL35 shooting Kodak 5203 ( the most advanced detail holding color neg film ever produced by Kodak ) and my 'special' Scarlet.
The digital image blew away the 4K scan of the neg. It was so shocking that we are checking the Arri for bad back focus, etc.
I'm not sure anyone cares to see the results here, because when you look at it in 1080 the difference is not as shocking.

As with many new technologies... its kind of a chicken and egg problem isn't it? People (even on this forum) don't 'care' about 4k content online because when they look at it on their 1080p computer displays they can't see the difference. If a majority of us had 4k displays you'd likely hear a different tone in conversations comparing 2k with 4k. I've been pretty surprised at how many users post shots on this board and don't include a 5k link... and assumed that it was at least partly due to copyright concerns (pro's not publishing full res)... but maybe it's just because many users can't use all those pixels.

In any case... 4k is coming, and sooner than I'd have predicted 4 months ago. I bought that Seki display for one of my imaging labs and you know what... it's NOT BAD - which was really surprising. No it's not as nice as the >$10k 4k units we've got in our apps lab... but just the fact that it exists at all is an indicator of where we're headed. Sadly... it's JUST A BIT too large to use as a computer monitor.

 

[Simon Dunne]

Back in the day when Sky launched their first HD channels in the UK, they upgraded their test cards and made a demo video which looped every night for a month, so people could self calibrate their TV sets;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yatMoXGPm5o

It's a good start. The thing that still bugs me most though, is that most peoples houses i go into still have their sky box set to 4:3, and are stretching the image on their 16:9 telly and complaining that all the graphics are cut off and widescreen is crap!! Even the install engineers don't get!:cursing:

 

[Rob McDonough]

Thanks Blair, for the reality check about the retail floors. A few others recognized the facts about that as well. Sony TVs ask during setup if they will be set up at Home or in a Retail display. Theater or calibrated modes in the stores won't get much attention, for reasons you mention, and others related to contrast and comparison.


But while we are all sharing our Picture Pet Peeves, lets bring it a bit closer to home.


I favor the notion that 4K needs a boost via choice of content and setup to help people see that it is worth it. My next comments may not be very popular here, but are an honest report. With all the “4K talk” around here, I expected much more than what I have seen.


Sorry, sticking my neck out, but I have to say “4K” doesn't guarantee high res sharp looking images even at RED. I have attended 3 different RED events, all with high anticipation, and I have walked away disappointed, discouraged even. I went ready to be impressed,but was let down. (Still hoping Dragon will help restore my optimism.)


At the Tuesday night Shot on RED film festival in LA back at the first of the year, there was a lot of creativity, and cool film making, but unfortunately, also a lot of soft, dull, dusty and flat. Oh, and yellow. I wanted to blame the projector, or something. I walked away pretty let down. Maybe it was lack of 4K monitoring. Or simply budgets.


At CES, the REDray player was shown on a Toshiba 4K TV. Surrounded by other 4K and 2K sources on other Toshiba TVs. The RR player demo looked like it was outputting 16-235 range content into a 0-255 display. No blacks at all. Seriously, none throughout. Dim whites. 15 to 20 steps at either end sounds about right for what was missing. And again, soft, dull, flat. The least impressive of all of the surrounding content by obvious direct comparison. I wanted to believe the Toshiba TV chosen was just a bad one. Maybe it was. But you can't ignore contrast while touting resolution.


Then there was the REDucation Open House at the Saban theater in LA. The content there that looked the best was more recent “Shot in 4K finished in 2K” commercial trailer stuff. Sharper, more vivid, with contrast and more sense of depth. The 4K clips from the Shot on RED festival once again looked soft, dull, and flat. Couldn't blame the projector, with the newer stuff right there, which looked good, and provided some much needed encouragement. (I still walked out early, but that was just because I didn't want to watch young girls kill, carve and eat other young girls...sigh.)


Much of this is not helping to sell the 4K concept. Some of that 4K stuff could have used some serious quality sharpening, at least in production. If it looks noticeably softer, duller, flatter, or less exciting than reality, what is the point? Everyone has reality to compare against. We want to be transported some place beyond that. We need to at least show off the potential of the technology,then let the story tellers use the technology to enhance their story as needed.


And to jump off the OFF bandwagon, new 4K non-linear and data-base-assisted processing should be evaluated and applied where needed, not just turned OFF summarily. Be careful of the Lemming syndrome and look before you leap. Good 4K displays should help us work through some of this about what is good and what is bad, what works and what doesn't, and help raise our standards overall.


I am getting tired of hearing about good 4K. 2012 was not a very good year for convincing 4K demo content. 2013 is getting a late start from where I have been sitting, but offers promise. Turning sharpness controls on or off won't improve the content being produced or do much to hasten the acceptance of the 4K concept to a demanding market. Come on RED, show us something that will.

 

[David Kuhn]

Rob I 'in general' like LCD TV's... but there's no way around the fact that even new units are weak with regards to black level - especially in low ambient light (I'd call them VERY weak there). Conversely, if you have ambient light turned up to mask the black deficiency... then brightness suffers. So... if the Dragon captures the (very impressive) dynamic range it spec's, you'll need something special on the display side to be able to see it.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I don't know about you guys, but I think the current trend toward edge-lighting is a total blunder on the part of display makers. What a freakin' joke. We spent years trying to move away from edge-lit displays and all the inherent problems only to come back to it in the past year. Even the current best of the best Samsung localized Micro-Dimming edge light control is a complete farce compared to the full-array backlighting available on their top end panels (and even lesser brands' panels) over the past couple years. WTF????

LCD black levels were starting to get rather good. they are now suffering in a huge way with this move to edge lighting.

I really need to buy a new TV. I have a 71" Samsung DLP that is dead... Will cost more to repair than to replace, and that's assuming I can even get the parts without pulling them from other dead and dying units. There is not one TV on the market currently, LCD or plasma, that can match the picture quality of this DLP unit. Not one. The 4K units have it beat in resolution and that's the direction I want to go for obvious reasons. The Sony 65" 4K seems alright, but I can't stand the fugly Dumbo-ear speakers that Sony is so fond of pushing on us every few generations. And then 4K is somewhat of a bad purchase decision at the moment. Only 8bit HDMI 1.4 to drive it at a max of 30fps... Nope, no thanks.

What I really want is a 72" ~ 75" with full-array backlighting and pixel-level dimming. You know, technologies that Samsung and LG have both demonstrated, but have yet to release as actual products.

I'm tired of listening to the family bitch about not having a TV. Actually we're using the 50" SEIKI right now, but it's a bit small for the room and looks out of place. I almost bought the Samsung 75" 'F6400 model, but then I played with it at the store and ugh.. couldn't do it. The F7100 model is much better as the 240Hz refresh rate cures a lot of the LCD ghosting. Of course the manufacturers' primary reason for the higher refresh rates seems to be so they can shove that motion-compensation, blur-reduction filth down our throats. Guy at Magnolia/ BestBuy got mad at me for turning it off. He didn't seem to understand why I wanted it off when I was playing with the TV. And turning down the brightness from torch-light level to something more normal and whatever. It's a decent TV, but too expensive, screw that. Not going to spend $5500 for it, let alone the $8K for the F8000 bigger brother to this set.

I told the sales drones that they would sell more TV's if they actually tried to make them look good. The source they were feeding nearly every TV in the Magnolia showroom wasn't even HD. It was some heavily macro-blocked crap with over-saturated colors. Half of it was a giant Acer notebook ad that tied in with a re-cut Star Trek trailer. Looked like ass. Only TV's that didn't have this crap loop running were the Sony 4K and last year's 75" Samsung ES9000 model sitting centered in the Magnolia entrance. That Samsung looked great, had motion enhancement off, color at reasonable levels. The Sony had color and contrast all the way to 11. Holy shmoley it looked like a freakin' cartoon on acid. Stock Sony demo loop of waterfalls and flowers. I turned off the motion compensation and dialed everything back to reasonable levels while I played with it. Two of the Magnolia guys came over after noticing and they were in total amazement at how much better it looked. One of them switched over to the S790 BluRay hooked up to it and it had Hotel Transylvania in it.. Meh... But it looked pretty good upscaled to 4K (from the player). Of the two sales guys, one was in total agreement with me. The other guy thought we were both nuts and he actually preferred the motion enhanced soap-opera-smoothed look. He turned it back on and then both of them told me (as others have before) that they have to put all the settings back because that's where they're supposed to be set for demo purposes. And that's where I left...

All things considered, I'd probably buy the 65" Sony 4K before I buy the 75" 1080p Samsung. But those speakers... damn. Both Tv's are the same width because of the Dumbo ears.


I'm going to hold out until July. Samsung is launching their 65" 4K in July and Vizio is launching their 70" 4K XTV701d model then. I have high hopes for the Vizio, but at this point I'm thinking I might just buy last year's 70" Sharp that's on clearance for $995 and wait until 4K with HDMI 2.0 @ 60Hz+ is prominent.


...TV's looking like crap in the showroom. I think it's a universal constant and required by some obscure law I'm unaware of.

 

[Maik Müller]

Yeah, every time, when i look at new LCDs i see the old backlight-problems, greyish blacks, clouding and so on, not much happened here (well there are some rare exceptions, but those are mostly too expensive). Edge made it even worse, i guess it's just cheaper to make and thats all about it.

I always liked Plasmas a lot more, but they're dying and i don't have high hopes to see UHD-plasmas for consumers anymore.

BTW, we don't have any rear-projection tvs left in europe, so i can't talk about those...

 

[Rob McDonough]

David, I like them too, depending on how viewing angle is addressed, which often kills black level off angle. What was discouraging at the Toshiba booth was that every other surrounding LCD TV, including the other unit of the same exact model, ALL made good black, while the one with the RED player didn't, or received 16 as black while expecting 0. The others all had good contrast. The demo just hurt the overall story at a consumer show. It seemed even worse than would a Retail versus a Theater setup being compared side by side on a bright sales floor, since the setup for the REDray either did not or could not compensate to achieve black, which seems even less forgivable to me. I even gently pointed it out, but nothing was changed. I would have pulled the plug on the demo if I couldn't fix it.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Then again, the black levels out of REDRAY players looked great on the 4K LCD's at the RED NAB booth... Could have been a few things ranging from earlier beta software on the Redray at the time, different settings or a problem on that display. Who knows. But you're right. When things like that happen, for whatever reason, it doesn't make for a good impression.

 

[Jarred Land]

NAB was the first time we saw great images from the Toshiba displays.. even a week prior to the show there was a huge difference between the Toshiba and the Sony and Samsung displays. Luckily.. the fix was just in a firmware and the settings of the display, and more importantly the settings on their " 4K box " The prototype toshiba panels didnt ingest 4K all by themselves like the other displays, the prototypes had a processing box in between the player and the monitor. Something weird was happening in that box. Toshiba was great and sent us an engineer to help change ( translate ) the menus for NAB.. and it really only took a minute to go from piss poor to great.

To be fair.. all the panels from all the manufactures have looked like crap when we get them out of the box. All of them... and they just seem to be getting worse. We get a new 4K monitor in almost every week now and they are all setup ass-backwards. I think once upon a time someone in a different language sent a memo out of a list of all the settings to not turn on and to avoid, and whoever got that list translated it poorly and instead of " DO NOT " it became " DO " and that default standard was born.

 

[Rob McDonough]

Jarred, Glad to hear the CES Toshiba fix was simple. Maybe my guess about digital range mismatch wasn't too far off. Sorry I didn't get to go to NAB, but it sounds like that was the place to really evaluate the player.

The language "salt water diode" has caused enough communication trouble to become infamous among US engineers trying to work with or market foreign engineered products.

"Me too!"-4K products are probably being rushed out just to try to keep up. Any decent viewer options for 4K detail are going to require more intelligent higher precision tools than the old standbys.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

I don't know about you guys, but I think the current trend toward edge-lighting is a total blunder on the part of display makers. What a freakin' joke. We spent years trying to move away from edge-lit displays and all the inherent problems only to come back to it in the past year. Even the current best of the best Samsung localized Micro-Dimming edge light control is a complete farce compared to the full-array backlighting available on their top end panels (and even lesser brands' panels) over the past couple years. WTF????

LCD black levels were starting to get rather good. they are now suffering in a huge way with this move to edge lighting.

I really need to buy a new TV. I have a 71" Samsung DLP that is dead... Will cost more to repair than to replace, and that's assuming I can even get the parts without pulling them from other dead and dying units. There is not one TV on the market currently, LCD or plasma, that can match the picture quality of this DLP unit. Not one. The 4K units have it beat in resolution and that's the direction I want to go for obvious reasons. The Sony 65" 4K seems alright, but I can't stand the fugly Dumbo-ear speakers that Sony is so fond of pushing on us every few generations. And then 4K is somewhat of a bad purchase decision at the moment. Only 8bit HDMI 1.4 to drive it at a max of 30fps... Nope, no thanks.

What I really want is a 72" ~ 75" with full-array backlighting and pixel-level dimming. You know, technologies that Samsung and LG have both demonstrated, but have yet to release as actual products.

I'm tired of listening to the family bitch about not having a TV. Actually we're using the 50" SEIKI right now, but it's a bit small for the room and looks out of place. I almost bought the Samsung 75" 'F6400 model, but then I played with it at the store and ugh.. couldn't do it. The F7100 model is much better as the 240Hz refresh rate cures a lot of the LCD ghosting. Of course the manufacturers' primary reason for the higher refresh rates seems to be so they can shove that motion-compensation, blur-reduction filth down our throats. Guy at Magnolia/ BestBuy got mad at me for turning it off. He didn't seem to understand why I wanted it off when I was playing with the TV. And turning down the brightness from torch-light level to something more normal and whatever. It's a decent TV, but too expensive, screw that. Not going to spend $5500 for it, let alone the $8K for the F8000 bigger brother to this set.

I told the sales drones that they would sell more TV's if they actually tried to make them look good. The source they were feeding nearly every TV in the Magnolia showroom wasn't even HD. It was some heavily macro-blocked crap with over-saturated colors. Half of it was a giant Acer notebook ad that tied in with a re-cut Star Trek trailer. Looked like ass. Only TV's that didn't have this crap loop running were the Sony 4K and last year's 75" Samsung ES9000 model sitting centered in the Magnolia entrance. That Samsung looked great, had motion enhancement off, color at reasonable levels. The Sony had color and contrast all the way to 11. Holy shmoley it looked like a freakin' cartoon on acid. Stock Sony demo loop of waterfalls and flowers. I turned off the motion compensation and dialed everything back to reasonable levels while I played with it. Two of the Magnolia guys came over after noticing and they were in total amazement at how much better it looked. One of them switched over to the S790 BluRay hooked up to it and it had Hotel Transylvania in it.. Meh... But it looked pretty good upscaled to 4K (from the player). Of the two sales guys, one was in total agreement with me. The other guy thought we were both nuts and he actually preferred the motion enhanced soap-opera-smoothed look. He turned it back on and then both of them told me (as others have before) that they have to put all the settings back because that's where they're supposed to be set for demo purposes. And that's where I left...

All things considered, I'd probably buy the 65" Sony 4K before I buy the 75" 1080p Samsung. But those speakers... damn. Both Tv's are the same width because of the Dumbo ears.


I'm going to hold out until July. Samsung is launching their 65" 4K in July and Vizio is launching their 70" 4K XTV701d model then. I have high hopes for the Vizio, but at this point I'm thinking I might just buy last year's 70" Sharp that's on clearance for $995 and wait until 4K with HDMI 2.0 @ 60Hz+ is prominent.


...TV's looking like crap in the showroom. I think it's a universal constant and required by some obscure law I'm unaware of.

Have you considered front-projection DLP? Those are still plentiful - It is fact that DLP has the finest gradations of color of any technology, and essentially perfect motion rendition.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

Thanks Blair, for the reality check about the retail floors. A few others recognized the facts about that as well. Sony TVs ask during setup if they will be set up at Home or in a Retail display. Theater or calibrated modes in the stores won't get much attention, for reasons you mention, and others related to contrast and comparison.


But while we are all sharing our Picture Pet Peeves, lets bring it a bit closer to home.


I favor the notion that 4K needs a boost via choice of content and setup to help people see that it is worth it. My next comments may not be very popular here, but are an honest report. With all the “4K talk” around here, I expected much more than what I have seen.


Sorry, sticking my neck out, but I have to say “4K” doesn't guarantee high res sharp looking images even at RED. I have attended 3 different RED events, all with high anticipation, and I have walked away disappointed, discouraged even. I went ready to be impressed,but was let down. (Still hoping Dragon will help restore my optimism.)


At the Tuesday night Shot on RED film festival in LA back at the first of the year, there was a lot of creativity, and cool film making, but unfortunately, also a lot of soft, dull, dusty and flat. Oh, and yellow. I wanted to blame the projector, or something. I walked away pretty let down. Maybe it was lack of 4K monitoring. Or simply budgets.


At CES, the REDray player was shown on a Toshiba 4K TV. Surrounded by other 4K and 2K sources on other Toshiba TVs. The RR player demo looked like it was outputting 16-235 range content into a 0-255 display. No blacks at all. Seriously, none throughout. Dim whites. 15 to 20 steps at either end sounds about right for what was missing. And again, soft, dull, flat. The least impressive of all of the surrounding content by obvious direct comparison. I wanted to believe the Toshiba TV chosen was just a bad one. Maybe it was. But you can't ignore contrast while touting resolution.


Then there was the REDucation Open House at the Saban theater in LA. The content there that looked the best was more recent “Shot in 4K finished in 2K” commercial trailer stuff. Sharper, more vivid, with contrast and more sense of depth. The 4K clips from the Shot on RED festival once again looked soft, dull, and flat. Couldn't blame the projector, with the newer stuff right there, which looked good, and provided some much needed encouragement. (I still walked out early, but that was just because I didn't want to watch young girls kill, carve and eat other young girls...sigh.)


Much of this is not helping to sell the 4K concept. Some of that 4K stuff could have used some serious quality sharpening, at least in production. If it looks noticeably softer, duller, flatter, or less exciting than reality, what is the point? Everyone has reality to compare against. We want to be transported some place beyond that. We need to at least show off the potential of the technology,then let the story tellers use the technology to enhance their story as needed.


And to jump off the OFF bandwagon, new 4K non-linear and data-base-assisted processing should be evaluated and applied where needed, not just turned OFF summarily. Be careful of the Lemming syndrome and look before you leap. Good 4K displays should help us work through some of this about what is good and what is bad, what works and what doesn't, and help raise our standards overall.


I am getting tired of hearing about good 4K. 2012 was not a very good year for convincing 4K demo content. 2013 is getting a late start from where I have been sitting, but offers promise. Turning sharpness controls on or off won't improve the content being produced or do much to hasten the acceptance of the 4K concept to a demanding market. Come on RED, show us something that will.

Problem is, Red is meant to be graded, but most Red users have no clue how to grade Red footage. The ones who do get vivid colors, no yellowy-ness, no problem.

 

[Rob McDonough]

That's what I want to hear, but better yet, see. For the advancement of the format, we are going to be needing to see a lot more of that, and less of the other. Sounds like a real need for some in-depth education. Then I would like to see a contest to produce the most compelling, breathtaking and visually superior 4K demo content.