Until this format is widely adopted maybe a 401K is better than 4K?
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Apple Explored 4K Video Distribution in 2013
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
http://www.audioholics.com/hdtv-formats/4k-blu-ray-discs-players-arrive-2015-analysis
See h.265 vs. h.264 http://www.mediaentertainmentinfo.c...between-hevc-h-265-and-h-264-mpeg-4-avc.html/ The gist of that is that h.265 which is already minimally utilized within some Apple hardware right now can deliver the same visual quality of h.264 in as little as about half the bandwidth.
Shoot your own with relatively cheap 4K camcorders and DSLRs that can shoot 4K.
All those >1080p quality photos you shoot on your iDevices will show with much more detail on a 4K screen
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5BF9E09ECEC8F88F
http://www.cnet.com/news/4k-content-guide-what-to-watch-in-4k-today/
and so on. Do a search. There's actually a fair amount of sources of 4K available now.
Sure, it's nothing close to 1080p but 1080p wasn't everywhere when 1080p sets began to go mainstream. Even today, if you rule out blu ray, there's not that much 1080p available either, relative to- say- 1080i content. But the relative scarcity of 1080p content didn't stop just about all of CE land from going 1080p, and the scarcity of 4K content availability won't stop the next transition. As it was back then, upscaling lower resolution content will simply be assumed to be 4K by some 4K TV buyers. And 4K sets do seem to do a pretty good-to-great job upscaling 1080p sources to 4K now.
Apple rolls out another 1080p source and many of us already have more than 1 of those (probably at least one from Apple in the 2012 edition of
TV). However, Apple rolls out a 4K TV and they can quickly become a dominant leader as a source of 4K content. Get enough little boxes into homes to tempt Studio wallets and the Studios will add the 4K video option to their offerings. On the other hand, push more 1080p boxes into homes and it continues to be impossible for Studios to even try to make 4K for TV a profitable offering. As shared earlier, the hardware must go first.
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What?? 4K is not noticeable on screen sizes that small. 4K becomes more pronounced on screens 65" and above. That's the whole point. It's higher pixel density makes it possible for TV manufacturers to make screens 70-120" with no loss in PQ. Below a 55" TV you'd be hard pressed to notice the quality of 4K.
True, but the opposite can be said that Apple can help bring 4K into mainstream. Would anyone really complain about that?
Aside from the content, TV manufacturers are having a tough time bringing out products that people want to buy. For instance, I'm a Plasma guy. I won't touch another crap-ass LCD TV ever. 4K doesn't help the horrible junk that LCD TV's are. It's either Plasma or OLED and those are the only two TV types videophiles would even entertain. Since Plasma is now a thing of the past, OLED is the next generation of Plasma and the prices for even a 1080p set are still too high. Try and get a 65" OLED in 4K and we're still around $6000+.
Unless 4K LCD sets become properly priced and sold in Walmart there will never be enough saturation in the market and content creators will not have any reason to put forth resources for 4K.
I didn't, but then again, I got burned when I jumped on the HD-DVD bandwagon and now have a library that is useless. Time will tell.
You're right, OLED TV's are incredible. And you're also right about 4K TVs, however, I don't think you represent the average consumer. If the difference in price between a 4K TV and a 1080p TV was much less than it is now, I'm sure many more people would buy one. And if that happened, then 4K content would have to become more ubiquitous, thereby helping OLED TVs with more content as well. I don't think anyone would not benefit from 4K being mainstream.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
You do realize you could shoot your home video in 4K, edit it at 4K on Apple hardware and render it (downscale) a copy to 1080p for your current Plasma. Then, later on when you retire the Plasma and buy a 4KTV, a 4K copy could make the most of your future TV.
In my case, I was shooting all home video in 1080p long before I had a 1080p set, editing it in Apple software and rendering both a 1080p version (for the future set) and a 720p version compatible with
TV at the time. Later, when I purchased a 1080p plasma, I jettisoned all of the 720p copies and dragged all the 1080p copies into iTunes. Worked like a charm. Instant visual upgrades of everything.Some people think of home movies as almost throwaway footage, not wanting to give it the hard drive space except maybe very special occasions. I see it very different. For me home movie footage is probably the most precious and I wish I could jump in a time machine back to when our earliest family video shot on VHS (sub, sub SD quality) to reshoot all that in 4K. I'd love to see some long-deceased relatives again at resolutions well beyond VHS or 8mm. One never gets that second chance to go back and capture precious memories at higher resolutions. Get them while you can. Hard drives are cheap.
See h.265 vs. h.264 http://www.mediaentertainmentinfo.c...between-hevc-h-265-and-h-264-mpeg-4-avc.html/ The gist of that is that h.265 which is already minimally utilized within some Apple hardware right now can deliver the same visual quality of h.264 in as little as about half the bandwidth.
Shoot your own with relatively cheap 4K camcorders and DSLRs that can shoot 4K.
All those >1080p quality photos you shoot on your iDevices will show with much more detail on a 4K screen
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5BF9E09ECEC8F88F
http://www.cnet.com/news/4k-content-guide-what-to-watch-in-4k-today/
and so on. Do a search. There's actually a fair amount of sources of 4K available now.
Sure, it's nothing close to 1080p but 1080p wasn't everywhere when 1080p sets began to go mainstream. Even today, if you rule out blu ray, there's not that much 1080p available either, relative to- say- 1080i content. But the relative scarcity of 1080p content didn't stop just about all of CE land from going 1080p, and the scarcity of 4K content availability won't stop the next transition. As it was back then, upscaling lower resolution content will simply be assumed to be 4K by some 4K TV buyers. And 4K sets do seem to do a pretty good-to-great job upscaling 1080p sources to 4K now.
Apple rolls out another 1080p source and many of us already have more than 1 of those (probably at least one from Apple in the 2012 edition of
That's sort of my point, though. Shoot my own? I don't need my daughter's birthday party shot in 4K. I don't cliff dive, or do extreme river rafting, or anything else that would necessitate 4K.
I agree with you regarding the current state of 1080p, which just further solidifies my opinion on 4K. After all these years, we don't even have a decent source of good 1080p, yet they want us to buy into 4K without promises of decent content?
What cables can you even transfer 4K content over? Does HDMI work? My understanding was that there is no standard 4K cable yet... until there is one, I don't know how Apple could make a 4K Apple TV. If they make their own connection system, they run the risk of it not being compatible with most of the 4K TVs.
It seemed to me that all 4K TVs are "Smart TVs", because over the internet is currently the only way you can get 4K content.
I figure a standard 4K cable will come to computers first, perhaps as a new Thunderbolt standard, and then 4K TVs and Monitors will start using that new Thunderbolt standard.
It seemed to me that all 4K TVs are "Smart TVs", because over the internet is currently the only way you can get 4K content.
I figure a standard 4K cable will come to computers first, perhaps as a new Thunderbolt standard, and then 4K TVs and Monitors will start using that new Thunderbolt standard.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
8K but there is some work being done on 16K too. Do a search for both online. Lots of 8K television stories, some 16K.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Almost nobody does once Apple moves. We only find fault with advances BEFORE Apple embraces them. See bigger screen iPhones before iPhone 6 or NFC before Apple Pay or 1080p when Apple clung to 720p, etc. Tons and tons of negative sentiment bashing away at what was different than what Apple was offering at the time... until Apple switched and then it was "shut up and take my money" or "Let's boycott stores that won't take Apple Pay", etc. This is just another version of that. Same sentiment before Apple rolls out 4K and, I expect, same evaporation of that sentiment as soon as Apple endorses 4K by rolling it out.
In my observation, it's rare for group sentiment to persist once Apple moves and also rare that we'll bash Apple for being stupid for embracing something we bashed as stupid before Apple goes there. Instead, it's like we're all a bunch of closet marketers for Apple working hard (apparently for free) every day to try to help Apple sell as much of whatever they have for sale today. Then Apple switches something and we quickly "evolve with the times" to then regroup and rally around the wonders of the new thing Apple just rolled out... even if those wonders are exactly what we used to bash when they were only available in competitor products.
I'd think if 4K was a useless and stupid and pointless as some are portraying it in this thread now, they should be back in threads after Apple goes 4K bashing Apple for rolling out stupid, pointless 4K. But that hardly ever happens. About the only exception seems to be the Beats acquisition where, for once, the crowd seems to still be clinging to the "Beats is junk" argument rather than it having been evolved to "best headphones ever."
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Right and that's why I mentioned that 4K LCD TV's will have to become the norm in terms of affordability and saturate the Walmart sector to help become widespread.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I appreciate how you feel. Not everyone values home video the same. However, in my experience, home videos age like wine. 10 years from now, you may find yourself wishing you would have shot her party at 4K if you had a 4K camera. As I mentioned, I wish I could go way back in time and loan myself or my parents a modern 4K camcorder to shoot all of our family video at 4K. Instead, I've got a lot of videos that can't be re-shot, maxing out at VHS resolution or 8mm. I'm happy to have them but I wish I could have better quality versions of those videos that I value now more than ever. In 10 more years, I believe I'll feel even stronger about that.
There is no necessity in next-gen advances in technology- just wants. It's not necessary to upgrade iPhones or Macs or anything else made by Apple but we do it anyway. Why? Not out of necessity- just wants.
Very same thing said when
Big difference: From typical viewing distances, if you have perfect vision or keep your prescriptions reasonably up-to-date, you can tell a little difference between 720p and 1080p. 1080p is right around retina (not being able to discern pixels) for sitting 8-12ft from your 42-66" TV. Your iSight argument is strange and irrelevant.
I sit in front of a 27" non-5K iMac every day from only 18" away. In the evening or on weekends I use my retina MBP at home. The difference is quite apparent from these viewing distances. Again I don't get why you're dragging NFC and everything else into this debate is it's irrelevant. Apple didn't put NFC into devices until they had a secure end-to-end payment system in place. You literally can't use NFC for anything else so we still don't technically have NFC in the same way that Android users do.
The hardware has been capable for only a short time with the A8 chip. Apple just doesn't choose to do it because everything else isn't ready. Furthermore there's the fact that the Apple TV uses previous generation chips to save on cost since it's only $99. That's why we haven't seen it yet.
There's no downside. The "1080p is good enough" (or the "no one will be able to see a difference") crowd could still enjoy their 1080p to the fullest, as better hardware can always player lighter software to it's MAX. Even the "720p is good enough" crowd could still enjoy their 720p video to it's fullest too... just like older software written for Macs several years ago will run just fine on brand new Mac hardware just made. My current
Here's a huge downside: 4K video files are massive. Apple's cloud infrastructure isn't necessarily known for being very robust. Furthermore many companies are moving their customers to limited data plans at home. For instance my plan was capped at 350GB on cable and I had to pay a bit more to go up to the next tier at 1TB of data per month.
As I alluded to above Apple hasn't done it yet because the infrastructure isn't ready. Not enough people have TVs big enough to notice a difference in resolution from typical viewing distances. You'd need to approach the 80" and up range to notice a difference and most people don't have TVs that big. Furthermore there is so much compression when it comes to streaming that it's extremely difficult to tell apart 1080p and 4K, even fairly up close. Another issue is that ISPs have been complaining for years that Netflix and other streaming services are murdering their network, and that was only on 1080p. Another issue is that many internet connections aren't fast enough to sustain 4K streaming without a lot of buffering and occasional stuttering. I read that many 4K movies are around 100GB in size. Even if you compress that down to 50GB it's still huge. I download Xbox One games that size. I have a decent 100Mbps connection and it can still take nearly half the day. It's just not worth it right now. I agree that 4K is the future but you first have to look at the whole situation across the various components that play into the viability of such a product. Apple doesn't want unhappy customers complaining that the TV is slow when really their internet is slow. They also want to make the thing really cheap as it's currently down to $69. Apple may very well add 4K support in hardware this autumn, but from a business standpoint they don't really need to. If they do upgrade this autumn then they should build it in if they're only going to upgrade this product every 3-4 years. But I think they could skip this autumn and still be ok unless they're really trying to push an App Store and their new subscription platform. Personally I have no interest in 4K right now, but would like to be able to record 4K video for purposes of future-proofing videos of different milestone events in my kid's life. Right now there are hardly any 4K capable camcorder/phone consumer products on the market. It took several years after 1080p TVs became popular before you could record 1080p or even stream it. I expect the same here.
I don't remember exactly when 4K was introduced, but it's been years already so that has to happen by the end of next year (even if not all TV manufacturers jump in).
Seriously, 3 million out of billion(s) of TVs is supposed to be not "nothing"? Let me ask you another question - how well did the 3D HDTVs work out - which sold a heck of a lot more?We shouldn't make up numbers so easily checked. See: http://4k.com/news/more-than-3-million-4k-tvs-sold-in-april-of-2015-7526/ 3 million is an awful lot of "no ones" Do a search, there's lots of "millions sold" articles referencing single months. Apparently China in particular loves 4K TVs so fortunately for us 4K-haters, Apple doesn't cater it's thinking to that market.
Has 4K unit sales overtaken 1080p unit sales? No, but think about the future. Has smart phone unit sales overtaken dumb phone sales? No, but thinking about that future worked out pretty well for Apple too.
The hardware must lead. You need 4K-playing hardware in homes before it makes sense for the movie & TV industry to even test some 4K content for sale. Think about it. Suppose I could wave a magic wand and add a 4K version every single movie & TV show in the
Just as stuffing Redbox machines and stores with 4K Blu Ray discs today would make no sense before there is ready availability of 4K Blu Ray players, this is exactly the same. The hardware must be ready for a new kind of video and there must be a fair amount of that hardware in homes to act as temptation for a Studio to decide to give it a try. Otherwise, if they all decided to test 4K video in the iTunes store TODAY, sales would be zero. The hardware must go first.
If Apple wanted to promote 4K, they would at the very least start with a retina (5k) Apple Cinema Display, which still doesn't exist. They would make sure that all their current Macs from Mac Mini on up could connect to 5K. They would make sure that their new AppleTV could feed not just HDTVs but 27" iMacs and Apple Cinema Displays. Finally they would spend some of their $190 billion in cash on starting a nationwide high Internet feed company (1GB +), which most of our country is nowhere near even 1/10th of. Google has done it in what, 3 small cities?
When all of the above is done, 4K TVs could suddenly become popular.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Macduke, appreciate all of that. But so much of that very same stuff was said when Apple clung to 720p and some of us wanted them to embrace 1080p. People wrote stuff just like that including some of the very same rationale about bandwidth limitations, infrastructure not ready, crazy file sizes and so on to rationalize why "720p is good enough." There was "the chart" slung around like crazy to "prove" that none of us could see a difference between 720p and 1080p at "typical viewing distances".
Then, Apple rolled out 1080p and all those arguments evaporated. You make many strong points there. Come back after Apple rolls out a 4KTV and bash away at Apple for making such a stupid move. Your opinion if genuine should still apply AFTER Apple decides to go 4K. So come back and share this sentiment then. Those who felt similar pre-1080p TV didn't fault Apple for going 1080p and I doubt I'll see you in that future thread after Apple announces a 4K TV.
Then, Apple rolled out 1080p and all those arguments evaporated. You make many strong points there. Come back after Apple rolls out a 4K
TV and bash away at Apple for making such a stupid move. Your opinion if genuine should still apply AFTER Apple decides to go 4K. So come back and share this sentiment then. Those who felt similar pre-1080p TV didn't fault Apple for going 1080p and I doubt I'll see you in that future thread after Apple announces a 4K TV.I have no idea if you are joking or not, but my guess is that Intel is to blame here.
I said a year ago that I expected Apple to launch a 4K blitz across the product line --- retina iMacs, 4K in all macs and iOS devices, 4K in the stores, all delivered by h.265. This leak confirms (IMHO) that they were thinking that way.
But of course Intel let them down, with Broadwell delayed and delayed and delayed, so no big bang was possible and instead we got a whimper. We have the hardware in iOS devices, but there was no point in making a big deal about it at any event, and with the momentum gone --- no big event last September, maybe no big event ever.
I'm guessing the content distributors are now under the delusion that if they keep pushing, they can get Apple to give them whatever additional favorable terms they are after. Meanwhile Apple is retaliating by basically saying "you want to be a dick and charge 2x for 4K content? Well see how much you like getting 0x for 4K content. I can sit here all day, all month, all year..." At some point they'll crack, and at that point we'll get the big "AppleTV next gen, now with A8, now with 4K h.265 content, blah blah" announcement. (Hell, plenty of us think that was SUPPOSED to be part of the WWDC keynote and was cancelled at the last minute, hence the unsatisfying music mess that was dumped in its place).
Well that definitely is an option for sure. Possibly in the next few years 4K TV's will be more "complete" because as I mentioned, right now you can't even directly wire a 4K camera to just any 4K TV and view your recordings in full 4K because many of these "4K" TV's do not have HDMI 2.0 or USB ports that will transfer the full 4K resolution.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
The guy I quoted said "no one is buying 4K TVs". So I proved that people are buying them with a cite. Perhaps I'm a no one too? Changing the subject doesn't lessen the point. If the standard is that they have to outsell 1080p before we should consider them selling to someone, iPhones are not yet outselling dumb phones, so apparently no one is buying iPhones.
4K TVs could work out like 3D TVs or they could work out like 1080p TVs vs. SD TVs. I can certainly appreciate the pessimism for a new technology. Can you appreciate the optimism?
If Apple wants to promote 4K, a cinema display is not the "start". Instead, they would probably follow the lead of what they did in embracing 1080p. First, make a new iPhone and then iPad capable of shooting 4K, then roll out an
TV so that that video can get to a 4K TV from those iDevices. Cinema Displays while cool and great are far from mainstream. If they want to push 4K, iPhone will lead the way.But Apple doesn't want to promote 4K, they just want to sell a lot of hardware. A brand new
TV still capped at 1080p may or may not motivate those of us who already have 4-year-old 1080p TVs to upgrade. But a 4K TV would be a very tangible hardware upgrade for any of us "no ones" that already have a 4K set and/or any that thinks they'll replace their current TV in the next couple of years (which, between now and then means a new 4K TV would just downscale any 4K content to show on their current TV, much like the current TV will downscale to show on <1080p HDTVs).The key concept here is that a 4K
TV release means Apple can sell boxes to both those completely happy with 1080p or 720p (as it will feed those sets to their resolution max) AND those who have already purchased a 4K set too. It doesn't force anyone to buy a 4K set anymore than a MBP with thunderbolt ports forces anyone to buy only thunderbolt-capable devices. Some of us seem to think it would force 4K upon us or that we would all have to throw out perfectly good HDTVs or that it would simply not work with the HDTV we already have. None of that is true. All it would do is bring more robust hardware to our CE setups. For almost everything else Apple makes, we seem to always covet more robust hardware even if it is beyond our immediate needs to fully exploit it... except this one thing, where whatever we have now is fully "good enough," so it should be "good enough" for everyone else too.
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It could've had instant success had content producers jumped on board. IMO 4K is just another sales pitch to get consumers into buying products even though they can't take advantage of it's capabilities.