I remember it well. I also remember
"There's no point having 1080p on anything smaller than 32 inches", and now we have 4K on smartphones
A person typically holds a smart phone 6-15 inches from their face. That is a LOT closer than say 10 feet from a 32" TV, relative to screen size? 4K on a 27" monitor is plenty visible at an average sitting distance at a desk of 1-2 feet. Now move back to 20 feet and tell me you can even read the damn text on a web page on that monitor. THAT is what is meant by distance vs. resolution. The farther away you get from something, the harder it is to resolve small details. Get far enough away and you can't even see the object. I'm sure the sales people LOVE it when people THINK they can tell the difference. It's a good way to make sales on a $2000 set vs. the same sized set at $500. Now if you want to sit 4 feet from a 50" set, 4K is absolutely worth it. Sit 15 feet away and you might as well get a 720P set.
I have a 55 inch 4K and can tell the difference. Small details are much more noticeable from a distance vs 1080P.
That reminds me of the golden ear audiophiles who claimed to hear a difference when they coated the outer edge of a CD with a green marker pen that cost $20. It was exactly the same as a marker that cost 50 cents, of course and there is no scientific theory why coating the edge of a CD would affect anything in the middle of it, but hey, it was advertised in Stereophile magazine so it MUST be true! Ah, the placebo effect. It turns sugar pills into cancer cures!
Try a Google search of snake oil and audio some time. It's eye opening how many results pop up. 4K video isn't snake oil, but they are selling something that isn't delivering at typical viewing distances. Now I'm not saying things like color can't be improved and noticed at a distance, but it's a waste of money throwing thousands at 4K where 1080P would do just as well in a given room.
I only bought a 720P Plasma for my living room as the seating location didn't justify 1080P, but plasma offered real benefits over LCD for motion and what not. Well done 480P looks pretty sharp at 12 feet on a 48" set. 720P is noticeably improved, but it looks about as sharp as I could expect (and according to the charts, it IS as sharp as I could possibly see for that screen size and distance). Going to my 93" screen with my original 720P project, it looked pretty awesome for sheer size, but it's clearly nowhere near as sharp looking at 12 feet as the 48" Plasma. Bump it to 1080P and it's nearly as sharp over the same area of vision relative to the distance, but takes a lot more peripheral vision. Go to 4K and it looks just as sharp (and the screen size could go larger still before it started to look blurrier again since that distance is not even in the middle of the 4K curve). Now if you have 20/10 vision instead of 20/20, you could see more detail a bit further out. The charts are made for 20/20 vision. This is why some can read further down on the Snell eye vision charts at the eye doctor office.
Allow me to quote myself, since you're wrong, and those aren't scientific anythings.
OMG! BuffaloTF?
THE BuffaloTF!??!? OMG, I'm SO sorry! I didn't know it was you, the creator of all things and master of the Universe! I'll shut up now!
So yes. There is a difference. And there is no scientific fact, there's a scaling change in noticeable differences. Reading something on a chart without actually understanding the chart or the text put with it, doesn't make something fact. It means you didn't read it and understand the critical message it conveyed.
Yeah, I don't understand a damn thing as you've so obviously proven by quoting...yourself.
Some articles for others that aren't BuffaloTF (since he already knows it all) to check out to learn more:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.465.874&rep=rep1&type=pdf (Limits of Human Vision PDF)
http://www.red.com/learn/red-101/eyesight-4k-resolution-viewing (4K Viewing)
http://carltonbale.com/does-4k-resolution-matter/ (4K Viewing)
http://pocketnow.com/2012/12/12/how-important-are-ppi (smart phone HD related)
Demonstration of details you can try at home:
http://stokes.byu.edu/teaching_resources/resolve.html
On the other hand, the more people that buy small 4K sets and demand 4K content, the sooner and better off those of us who want really big screen 4K to come down in price and take off, etc. will be.....Hmmmm. Hey, forget what I said above and go buy lots and lots and LOTS of those 50" 4k sets and the new Blu-Rays when they come out! DEMAND 4K content!
