Current bandwidth can't even do half of what Blu Ray can do, years away from it to.
To build there own nationwide network independent of anyone elses lines? Into everyones home? Even Apple doesn't have that kind of cash.
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Apple Working on 4K 'Ultra HD' Television Set for Late 2013 or Early 2014 Launch?
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Current bandwidth can't even do half of what Blu Ray can do, years away from it to.
To build there own nationwide network independent of anyone elses lines? Into everyones home? Even Apple doesn't have that kind of cash.
I can only imagine 1080p Blu-ray, or even 720p that is not compressed having better video quality than 4k compressed to fit into what will work with current bandwidth.
What Apple should focus on is producing a television that will fulfill perfection for videophiles and promote the importance of high quality video re-production. Funny how we are focuses on 4k when most people use garbage lcd panels than at the least slightly shift color and black levels with any off angle viewing. Try turning off the lights in a dark room and look at what happens to the black levels of any but the very best lcd tv, led backlit or not. At least we have some very good lcd's, and definitely plasma tv's with very good video quality, but the viewing experience is still ultimately up to the lighting and picture calibration.
If Apple could mass produce a very high quality display, where all pictures will by default be calibrated to reproduce sources with an exact standard I think they would have a hit. Even televisions such as the high end Panasonic plasmas can be finicky and most people don't have a clue about such issues. Perfect quality 1080p would be much more beneficial than half-assed and compressed 4k.
What Apple should focus on is producing a television that will fulfill perfection for videophiles and promote the importance of high quality video re-production. Funny how we are focuses on 4k when most people use garbage lcd panels than at the least slightly shift color and black levels with any off angle viewing. Try turning off the lights in a dark room and look at what happens to the black levels of any but the very best lcd tv, led backlit or not. At least we have some very good lcd's, and definitely plasma tv's with very good video quality, but the viewing experience is still ultimately up to the lighting and picture calibration.
If Apple could mass produce a very high quality display, where all pictures will by default be calibrated to reproduce sources with an exact standard I think they would have a hit. Even televisions such as the high end Panasonic plasmas can be finicky and most people don't have a clue about such issues. Perfect quality 1080p would be much more beneficial than half-assed and compressed 4k.
Yes and here in Australia the transformation is still not 100%, our main network channels still broadcast in SD and it will be another couple of years before they finally make the switch when the analogue signal is turned off to free up bandwidth for HD. I won't go into the details but here we have 3 main networks. Each has a license for 2 SD and 1 HD channel and since some have not made the change to HD the main channels are still SD. There are many more satellite channels in HD for those who can afford it.
It could be many years before we even see a start to 4k transmissions on cable or network and decades before they all can make the switch to 4k.
"But unlike Sony and LG, Westinghouse's models will be barebones displays with no on-board Smart TV features and no elaborate 4K up-conversion video processing technology."
Good. I hate how my Samsung and Vizio TVs actually lag when going through menus! I just want 50 inputs and real buttons. My Samsung TV has black touch-pads on a black bezel, and I have to put tape on top of them for them to even be visible/useful. On top of that, it takes like 20 seconds to change the input.
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From a computer... and producers will probably start outputting 4K now. It should be easy to do with today's movie technology. I'm sure the ≤1080p display is the bottleneck here.
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TV coax bandwidth can easily do 4K. Decently fast Internet connections should be able to start 4K movies without too much buffer delay. Even if it's slow, it's waiting 30 minutes for it to load vs going to buy/rent a disc.
Good. I hate how my Samsung and Vizio TVs actually lag when going through menus! I just want 50 inputs and real buttons. My Samsung TV has black touch-pads on a black bezel, and I have to put tape on top of them for them to even be visible/useful. On top of that, it takes like 20 seconds to change the input.
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And where will the 4K movie/content come from?
Upconverted 480p?
From a computer... and producers will probably start outputting 4K now. It should be easy to do with today's movie technology. I'm sure the ≤1080p display is the bottleneck here.
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TV coax bandwidth can easily do 4K. Decently fast Internet connections should be able to start 4K movies without too much buffer delay. Even if it's slow, it's waiting 30 minutes for it to load vs going to buy/rent a disc.
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Already tried something similar to that and I concede that I can't tell the difference except for unrealistic scenarios such as a test pattern or pressing pause and closely looking.
I have no doubt we are chasing exceptionally small diminishing returns on a normal size TV, and I would agree with you there. The thought of a 4K Apple TV seems silly to me.
BUT, I don't think 4K is useless in all scenarios. Part of whatever formula of usefulness we are using must include screen size and seating distance. I'm betting that if it's useful to have 1080P for a 50" screen, it would be useful to have a 4K projector on a 100" screen.
And a 100" projection screen is actually yesterday's technology. As Microsoft and others are planning entertainment rooms of the future where the entire wall is the display, or even all four walls, more resolution will be needed to get us there. 4K not only becomes a useful step in this respect, it is also perhaps insufficient!
But back to today. When it comes to picture quality, of far more and immediate importance to me is deep color for Blu-Ray and less compression for streaming. I may not be able to tell the difference between 720P and 1080P at a normal distance on a normal size TV, but I can certainly see color banding on even the very best Blu-rays, and blocky compression effects on streaming. As a matter of picture quality priority, I would rather see those fixed before 4K.
I really don't like where and how this company is going. I am much more excited over what products Sammy will bring it up than whatever apple has in store for near future. It just feels stale and incremental update coming instead of anything exciting in horizon. Apple Tv ? REally? I have $300 46 led tv w/ apple tv 3.. it works awesome for me... At least I am not going to shell out 3 grand for apple branded tv.. Wow.. watch? Seriously? .. iphone 5s ? wow.. really? What else do you have ? (Other than typical update coming up).
Air gesture by sammy was something that apple should have came out for it's hottest tablet LONG while ago.. Epic fail.
Stylus? People want it..
Bigger screen? People are flocking over there..
Count me for leaving iphone when iphone 5s comes out.. Wake me up when they decided that coming up w/ 4 inch was the lamest idea and eat up their words to make bigger phone sometime in 2014..
Air gesture by sammy was something that apple should have came out for it's hottest tablet LONG while ago.. Epic fail.
Stylus? People want it..
Bigger screen? People are flocking over there..
Count me for leaving iphone when iphone 5s comes out.. Wake me up when they decided that coming up w/ 4 inch was the lamest idea and eat up their words to make bigger phone sometime in 2014..
While I definitely agree with you on this, I would add that there is another angle today that was not present at the onset of HDTV: much faster data speeds. That aspect, along with better compression technology, might take this in a different direction not tied to traditional broadcast media.
We are not there yet, but faster and faster data pipes are reality. Not that long ago it was not possible for Netflix et al to exist.
Time will tell...
Michael
Maybe for now, but I think it might have potential a little further down the line.
Agreed, probably not at 15. But you can easily make out the quality difference, though. 480i, 720p and 1080p are distinctly different at 15' and further out. I haven't seen 4K on a tv, yet. Only at the movies. So I can't comment on it.
Increased resolution allows for improved detail at all distances, even if you cannot "see" actual pixels.
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I'm sorry you have bad vision, on the bright side you'll save a ton of money on TVs in the future!
I'm not exaggerating or lying, on a sharp 80" TV, sitting where I like to sit to watch it, movie theater style at my house, I CAN tell the difference. You may not be able to, but don't put your limitations on me.
I also use the computer on my TV and can clearly see issues with it when I'm reading. 1080p is NOT enough and I welcome the 4k improvement.
Maybe you shouldn't sit 15 feet away from your small TV and you'd be able to tell too?
most people are like me, we pay for the cheapest data pipe for internet
for me its 20/1 from time warner. FIOS cheapest internet is 15/5. unless i get a free upgrade from my ISP i'm not paying $100 or more a month to stream at higher quality. i'll just buy a blu ray for stuff i want to watch
I prefer to think of myself as having normal vision and people who can't tell the difference to be lacking...
And it's nothing to be ashamed of, my girlfriend cannot tell the difference between the iPad 2 and 3, it's great for her b/c she got the thinner one at a cheaper price!
It's not a product that only I can benefit from, there are a lot of people that can tell the difference, as there are a lot of reviewers at this years CES who not only said it was a big difference, but also that upscaled 1080p content looked improved. Likely, upscaling will be used a lot until 4k content is more common place.
While I ultimately think that TV makers need to focus on a better picture, not just more pixels, the pixel jump is coming. It's an easy thing for TV manufacturers to do, and consumers will buy it, because they will naturally assume 4k is better than 2k.
Right now, I agree that not everyone watches a giant TV close up theater style like I do, but what if they did have a 100" TV or projector that looked great up close? Maybe more people would! It doesn't take special vision to notice this difference, we're just not doing it right now, but we will.
Seriously though, you need to read some of your statements. Just as I said, you're like one of those people a few short years ago who couldn't understand the retina screen, and probably before that HDTV. Why do I have to buy a new TV, my standard def is fine... and it doesn't have those black bars!!!!
It's coming, deal with it! The real question is, will Apple be bringing it?
Edited to add a paragraph.
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The fact is average connection speed is rising year-over-year. I don't see how you can dispute that.
That said 20 mbps down is higher than average in the USA.
As for me, I'd rather pay for just a data connection and not be tied to a cable or satellite subscription either separately or "bundled." In my eyes that is where things are headed. It is only a matter of time. "Broadcasting" is so last century.
BTW: "Most people are like me" is generally false unless it is about having two arms and two legs
.Michael
i'm all for 4k, but this is kinda early for apple to be jumping in on it. but if they can somehow keep costs down, then i would love to see this happen
Weren't those like a Macintosh Color or something with a TV Tuner card or a whole TV all together?
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True enough, but that said, I can say I was close.
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So I guess we can say that may be the price range. If you fully configure a Mac Pro with all kinds of accessories (That's configuring it with the best and most high-end hardware) you can pay up to $17,000 no problem. I guess I can sort of see Apple pricing it like that, unless they come up with some trick to make it less costly.
It's the same thing as an HP Z820 Workstation. Fully configured that machine will cost around $28,000 to $30,000. With no accessories.
But, a 5 GB movie is smaller than many DVD movies.
The main feature on my BDs is usually in the 25GB to 35GB range - that would make 50GB to 70GB downloads even at the optimistic H.265 projections.
Youtube at 4K. LOL
If you believe that, you can't compare H.264 to H.265.
The usual comparison is that MPEG2 and H.264 are 2 to 1 (an H.264 version at the same quality is half the size of the MPEG2 version). People here are using the same 2 to 1 approximation for H.265 vs H.264.
Of course, this is a "typical" result - some content will be better, some will be worse. On average, though, 2 to 1 is a fair estimate.
But DVD movies average around 5 GB for the feature, and BD movies are 25-30GB on average. How can that be if the codec is twice as efficient?
H.265 movies at half the size means that a movie with 4 times the pixels will only be twice the size, right?
On the other hand, the sheep may be perfectly happy with 4K content compressed to DVD quality. History supports that idea.
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This is just the harbinger for a 4K iPad...
Phil's going to be up on stage (like in the iPad 3 event) claiming how the iPad 4K has 1 million more pixels than a 4K HDTV.
... a 4K iPad would have 6.8 million more pixels than a HDTV.
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Because blu-rays have 2 million pixels per frame, times 24 frames per second, times the length of the movie, while DVDs only have 345,000 pixels per frame. that's over 6 times the resolution, for a two fold increase of size (the actual AVC data on a blu-ray takes between 20 and 30GBs, depending on bitrate, the rest is audio (at least a few lossless copies for various countries, usually English, + Russian or whatever) then audio for every other country in lossless, and 50MB subtitle files for every subtitle language (usually ~15) then there's HD extras, menu video loops and audio loops, Java, security stuff, etc.)
I rip blu-rays for my media server, and the average file size is about 22GB, including lossless audio converted to FLAC, plus English subtitles in PGS AKA BMP.
I can. And my eyes aren't that special. Sounds like someone needs a bigger screen.