If they make these things record 4K video, they had better let us put SD cards in. Not that they will.
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A8 Chip in iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Capable of Playing 4K Video
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Don't worry, at the rate Apple's been going, I'm sure they'll get around to including mobile 4k capability by the release of iPhone 10.
I'm half-kidding. But maybe in a few years when the 4k tech is more easily accessible and conducive, Apple will fully support it on iDevices.
I'm half-kidding. But maybe in a few years when the 4k tech is more easily accessible and conducive, Apple will fully support it on iDevices.
Why is everyone going spastic for 4k video?
Most cinemas only screen movies in 2k. The Avengers (for example) was only shot in 2.5k on the Alexa.
Also, any television under 65" qualifies as 'retina display' at 1080 when viewed from the average living room distance of 7-10 feet.
There is no perceptible advantage to having 4k video in most situations.
Most cinemas only screen movies in 2k. The Avengers (for example) was only shot in 2.5k on the Alexa.
Also, any television under 65" qualifies as 'retina display' at 1080 when viewed from the average living room distance of 7-10 feet.
There is no perceptible advantage to having 4k video in most situations.
Why would anyone like android for phones, but iOS for tablets? Do android tablets suck that bad? I thought they did multitasking, multiple users, and all that stuff that would make a difference on a tablet, but NOT on a phone. For such a personal device as a phone you don't need multiple users and they're arguably small for multitasking. And in the end, don't you want your devices to sync and have the same apps? For that reason, I can't see why anyone with a Mac would get an android. They'd lose out on so much simple interopability.
iThink that Apple waits for the Broadwell processors (4K via Quick Sync/AirPlay) so that you can send 4K content to a compatible Apple TV device.
Being an owner of a 4k Sony, I'll argue that while the resolution doesn't make or break the viewer experience, it certainly enhances it. There is a discernible difference in the resolution. Unless, of course, you have poor vision.
4K makes a huge difference on a large screen so you have to be blind to not notice the difference. 1080p in comparison is pixelated even on a small 40". Pretty soon it'll be hard to buy anything other than 4K so having 4K decoding and output capability make sense if not for future proofing.
Got to agree. Also, this mean that the option is there, but we can't really use it. So what good would it do now? How it's gonna make a difference in the current devices?
1080p is 'retina display' for any screen under 65" when viewed at an average distance of 7-10 feet by someone with 20/20 vision.
TV production isn't moving to 4k any time soon so you'll be watching upscaled content for many years to come.
Also, 4k screens are being pushed by manufacturers like Sony, Samsung and LG to make people feel like they need a new TV. It is purely to drive sales since there is almost zero 4k content for them. (Most cinemas only show movies in 2k).
it surely couldn't, not even with native (mp4 / m4v / mov) hardware decoding. the first phone to offer ok-ish 1080p support was the 3gs. with lower (under 10 Mbps) bitrates. Higher-bitrate (e.g., BluRay-grade, for example, 48 Mbps) videos could only be decoded & played back by the iPhone4+ / iPad1+ via hardware decoding.
(I've publsihed tons of articles and posts on this in this very forum so I know what I'm talking about.)
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so far, the biggest problem with Droid tablets, at least for me, was the common aspect ratio. It was 16:9 and 16:10 that continuously drove me back to iOS and its far more Web browsing-friendly 4:3 screens.
Now that the Nexus 9 and the Nokia N1 are both 4:3, Android has become a much more interesting platform to be used on tabs.
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No support on the iPhone. The Lightning adapter can only decode / output native 1080p H.264 stuff and, in direct drive mode, 900p only. In this regard (too), it's far inferior to competing standards like Mini DisplayPort and MHL used on, say, Nexus models and Samsung's flagships.
1, 4K is far superior to 1080p. You must be blind if you do not realize it.
2, it's much more future-proof. Sooner or later, the cinema industry will move to 4k. Just look at for example indie filmmaker sites like EOSHD. They ALL are talking about 4K, upgrading their rig to 4K and the like. Of course, that's "only" indie cinema - but mainstream cinema will follow.
7-10 feet is far from the screen! If you have a large TV it's because you want to experience it like you do in the cinema : sitting close enough to the screen that your field of vision is filled with it. It's like in the cinema: I never understood the point of going there if you're not sitting the the very front rows...
A HD TV is meant to be watched from 2m away at most and 1.5m is better.
I don't know about the US but in France we already had some programs in 4k (tennis championship). If the networks have bought the tools to film and broadcast sport in 4k (which is the most demanding since the broadcast is in realtime) they're not going to let them collect dust. They're going to use them... The same happened with HD: the networks were using HD internally long before they made their first broadcast in HD - they just downscaled everything.
At the cinema you're sitting 10m away from the screen. Moreover the screen has some texture to it. Besides more and more cinemas are moving to 4k. I just check and we already have 12 in Paris and suburbs.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Many of these same pessimistic arguments were flying when Apple was still clinging to 720p as HD.
No point in making iDevices shoot 4K if the iDevice screen is not 4K? How about shooting in 4K and then moving the video to a 4K TV? Even prosumer 4K cameras come with little screens that don't have 4K resolution. Why? Because what you shoot with and on what you play that video doesn't have to be the same device. For more than 100 years now, major motion pictures have been shot to film. The viewfinder for that was often an eyepiece peering through a hole and lens. Never could the shooting device play back the film being shot at full resolution. But that was also never the goal. For a long time now, the resolution of photos able to be shot with iDevices has greatly exceeded the resolution of the screen of that iDevice. No complaints there. So this is motion pictures instead of static pictures. So what.
No point in 4K
TV until there's 4K content in the iTunes store? That's purely chicken vs. egg. We already have other sources for 4K now. Camcorders and some cameras have been able to shoot 4K for a while now. Getting an TV that can play that back at 4K would deliver great utility. Once there's enough chickens, the eggs will follow.
Another way to look at that one: right now, there's no apps in the app store that can fully exploit the A9 processors coming next year or the A10 coming the year after that. So since there is no such content in the app store, why bother building iPhones with newer A processors?
But what about the memory-hogging nature of 4K on memory-starved iPhones? First, you don't have to shoot anything at 4K. Second, if you intend to shoot 4K, you know you'll need the storage so pay up and get bigger storage. Cheapest price and highly-demanding, latest & greatest video standards are rarely compatible.
4K-capable iDevices would bring many benefits, from pressuring competitors to roll out more competitively-priced alternatives to getting to capture precious moments at higher resolution that you can never go back and capture again when all the con excuses are fully addressed. 4K iDevices probably comes with h.265 and probably spurs on a h.265 4KTV too. Concerns about 16GB clashes might motivate Apple to shift the base up to something more (which would be good for just about all uses of iDevices). Home movies & Vodcasts could step up to 4K first and then some Studio would eventually be tempted to try some 4K offerings in the iTunes store. If they make some money, they'll roll out more and the other Studios will compete.
Some of you guys crack me up. There's no software to fully exploit the next generation of hardware coming in Macs but that doesn't stop us from pining for the latest & greatest in the next incarnation of Macs. We so look forward to that A8X or A9 in iDevices. We so look forward to the next generation graphic cards. We want faster/better/sharper everything except this one thing, which we decide to cast as gimmick and then spin ideas like eyes can't see the difference (though we jumped all over retina HD when retina (non HD) was spun as the max eyes can see).
Much like it was before Apple got around to embracing 1080p, Apple doesn't have 4K now so "we" can find all kinds of flaws with it. But once Apple formerly endorses it, we'll forget all such arguments against it. There were very passionate pro-720p, con-1080p argument spun before Apple endorsed 1080p (including some of the very same ones that have been repurposed into this thread). Then Apple endorsed 1080p and all that evaporated. No one called Apple stupid for going 1080p, the whole internet did not crash, somehow those interested in 1080p found a way to store those "huge" files, "the chart" stopped being slung around, and the 1% that wanted 1080p (because apparently "99% did not") were apparently so enthusiastic about buying it, they motivated just about every offering in the iTunes store to offer a 1080p version.
No point in making iDevices shoot 4K if the iDevice screen is not 4K? How about shooting in 4K and then moving the video to a 4K TV? Even prosumer 4K cameras come with little screens that don't have 4K resolution. Why? Because what you shoot with and on what you play that video doesn't have to be the same device. For more than 100 years now, major motion pictures have been shot to film. The viewfinder for that was often an eyepiece peering through a hole and lens. Never could the shooting device play back the film being shot at full resolution. But that was also never the goal. For a long time now, the resolution of photos able to be shot with iDevices has greatly exceeded the resolution of the screen of that iDevice. No complaints there. So this is motion pictures instead of static pictures. So what.
No point in 4K
TV until there's 4K content in the iTunes store? That's purely chicken vs. egg. We already have other sources for 4K now. Camcorders and some cameras have been able to shoot 4K for a while now. Getting an TV that can play that back at 4K would deliver great utility. Once there's enough chickens, the eggs will follow. Another way to look at that one: right now, there's no apps in the app store that can fully exploit the A9 processors coming next year or the A10 coming the year after that. So since there is no such content in the app store, why bother building iPhones with newer A processors?
But what about the memory-hogging nature of 4K on memory-starved iPhones? First, you don't have to shoot anything at 4K. Second, if you intend to shoot 4K, you know you'll need the storage so pay up and get bigger storage. Cheapest price and highly-demanding, latest & greatest video standards are rarely compatible.
4K-capable iDevices would bring many benefits, from pressuring competitors to roll out more competitively-priced alternatives to getting to capture precious moments at higher resolution that you can never go back and capture again when all the con excuses are fully addressed. 4K iDevices probably comes with h.265 and probably spurs on a h.265 4K
TV too. Concerns about 16GB clashes might motivate Apple to shift the base up to something more (which would be good for just about all uses of iDevices). Home movies & Vodcasts could step up to 4K first and then some Studio would eventually be tempted to try some 4K offerings in the iTunes store. If they make some money, they'll roll out more and the other Studios will compete.Some of you guys crack me up. There's no software to fully exploit the next generation of hardware coming in Macs but that doesn't stop us from pining for the latest & greatest in the next incarnation of Macs. We so look forward to that A8X or A9 in iDevices. We so look forward to the next generation graphic cards. We want faster/better/sharper everything except this one thing, which we decide to cast as gimmick and then spin ideas like eyes can't see the difference (though we jumped all over retina HD when retina (non HD) was spun as the max eyes can see).
Much like it was before Apple got around to embracing 1080p, Apple doesn't have 4K now so "we" can find all kinds of flaws with it. But once Apple formerly endorses it, we'll forget all such arguments against it. There were very passionate pro-720p, con-1080p argument spun before Apple endorsed 1080p (including some of the very same ones that have been repurposed into this thread). Then Apple endorsed 1080p and all that evaporated. No one called Apple stupid for going 1080p, the whole internet did not crash, somehow those interested in 1080p found a way to store those "huge" files, "the chart" stopped being slung around, and the 1% that wanted 1080p (because apparently "99% did not") were apparently so enthusiastic about buying it, they motivated just about every offering in the iTunes store to offer a 1080p version.
Well...
To be clear - viewing 4k streams on a phone isn't what has people here impressed. I'd say the takeaway is this, "wow, no wonder games look so amazing on my iPad Air 2 & iPhone 6... that graphics chip is fantastic! Did you know that it is powerful enough to handily decode 4k video?". Think of it like that... the "powerful enough to" is the key... NOT the actual action.
Where this DOES matter (as many before me have already mentioned), is that, it looks like with this part Apple TV can finally spread its wings as a media/gaming device.
I downloaded a sample 4K file onto my iPad Air. It was able to play at the native resolution of the panel... until the bitrate peaked out. It started dropping frames, but was still ~15 FPS. The rest of it looked amazing.
The real question is whether these phones can play H.265 streams. I saw a rip online of a full HD movie. It was just over 1GB in size -- roughly the size of a DVD-quality rip. That makes 4K video possible on iPhones. They would be about the same size as a full HD video in H.265.
(By the way, VLC can play H.265 streams, as long as you have enough CPU.)
The real question is whether these phones can play H.265 streams. I saw a rip online of a full HD movie. It was just over 1GB in size -- roughly the size of a DVD-quality rip. That makes 4K video possible on iPhones. They would be about the same size as a full HD video in H.265.
(By the way, VLC can play H.265 streams, as long as you have enough CPU.)
I can deduce that easily, because Apple doesn't function randomly as some here do. They need to trumpet a new iOS release with EACH AND EVERY iPhone ever released for maximal marketing. Unless you know a way to have iOS 9 beta tested and ready to go for June, despite the fact that the 8.2 WatchKit update will take up most of Apple's time for the next three months, it isn't happening. The future can in most cases be predicted with a rare attribute called wisdom.
Maybe. More likely it is a 3X display: 2304x3072, which is about 300ppi for a 12.9" display. That would still explain the A8/A8X's ability to rock 4K video, since after all, maxiPad owners will want to edit 4K on their special devices.
They could do 4K if they changed the aspect ratio to 16:9, but that's not Apple's style.
Which programs have you watched in 4k on a TV screen that are 'far superior'?
I think disasterous is a little bit of an over exaggeration. If someone buys a 16GB phone it probably means they have no inention of running 4K video.
W ... T ... F ...
The news story is that an iPhone can play back video files with non-native resolutions?
Isn't it fairly rare to have video files that ARE at native resolutions?
I've been playing 720p and 1080p video files on my iPhones for years. Again, WTF.
