You don't really believe, that 4k-displays will drop to the prices of current FHD-displays in the next 5-10 years to come... do you? So let's talk about mainstream
A decent 1080p tv will still set you back close to £1000 for 50inch + by a good brand ( samsung ect) Dout we will see a 4k res tv for £300 which is what most people consider mainstream in tv land ( yes you can get a 1080p tv for that but its not great quality) Think id personally rather not see a race to the bottem in the 4k display market. As the quality will go down. Dout Panasonic Sharp who make most of the pannels for tvs can afford a race to the bottem. ( if either survives long enough to still be players in the market) Think for a quality pannel your still going to be north of £800 for a monitor and north of a £1000 for a tv by about 2020. Intel Hardware will struggle to run 4k res if it releases in its current form it struggles enough on a Macbook pro when you use the intel graphics. And thats not even close to the pixels a 4k display pushes. For the bulk of us 4k is a distant dream in this decade at least. We will also see how mainstream it plans to be if the latest consoles support 4k rez if they don't do not expect a push to 4k by tv manufactures.
I beleive the next gen console will run native 1080p and will have support for 4K which it will upscale to. Using HDMI 1.4 which supports 4K. As to the above, yes I believe in the next 5 to 10 years 4K will be mainstream, and we will all be talking about 8K panels and that too will change our lives. @ Rollo - I bought my first 1080p HD LCD Samsung 42" TV 7yrs ago for £699 and it is a quality panel which is still going strong today in my bedroom. So prices have been cheap for a long time because they wanted 1080p to be mainstream. Oh and the xbox 360 and PS3 came out supporting 1080p when SD TV where mainstream.
Yep 24Hz, which is what blu-ray plays at using 1080p. 24Hz @ 4k is perfect for movies, but no cop to us playing games. This will probably be the set standard for the first lot of TV's to keep the price down until prices drop and panels get cheaper to make by demand, and then we will see HDMI 1.4B or 1.5 with the full support of 4K @ 60Hz with TV's supporting that.
I think we'll be far more likely to see them stored on little flash cards. After all a single 32GB Class 10 SDHC card is only £10-15 at retailers, so a company like Sony could easily bulk buy the chips and sell 4K movies for £60 each.
That's what I'd figure too. But that would have some rather interesting ramifications. Including ease of piracy. If they're still idiotically concerned about that.
There is a delay between when the movie is in cinemas (from that moment on it is guaranteed to get pirated) and the physical release, so really those who are willing to wait for the physical release and pay for it would do so regardless of copy protection measures or not as pirated versions are out long before the release of any physical copy to the public.
1080p isn't even standard of todays broadcast. HDTV is broadcasted in 720p. Additionally the Xbox and the PS3 are supporting 1080p, because game-graphics heavily profit from the higher resolution. Anyways, the next gen consoles won't support 4k, as the hardware won't be beefy enough, so we're still seeing 1080p being the standard for the next gen of consoles, or in other terms, for the next 5 years to come. Also, as BluRay has just made it as a standard, with no other media being announced with way higher capacities, it's very questionable to have any movies being shot in those resolutions for the next years to come. The manufacturers of screens show all these 4k-stuff, as the market of 1080p-screens is saturated currently and they need something new to show. However, these new 4k-screens aren't really that interesting takig all the above into account. So, I wouldn't get my hopes high on 4k getting a standard until 2020. For PC-screens there might be a market sooner than that, but to make it a standard in the living-room all the other bases have to be covered first, i.e. there needs to be movies in 4k available and consoles supporting 4k aswell.
That and there's the huge if not monumental problem of a matter of bandwidth. We can't possibly broadcast everything @ 1080p much less @4k. Still it is nice to have higher resolutions no matter how it's looked at.
I wasn't 8 bit plus dithering, not 10bit. They will yes, because 4K will become mainstream for TV. Not broadcast TV in 5 years.. that will take a little longer, but you'll be able to play 4K at home, and when that happens, panel production will ramp up, and when that happens, prices will fall. It will never be cheap, but I reckon you'll be able to get a 4K monitor for around £2 - 2.5K, which as actually pretty much the same as my current monitor cost new. They'll be cheaper 4K TVs for £1000 as well. You think a thing like that will be a barrier? They'll be a small factor medium for it almost as soon as there's a need for it... besides, you can get 128GB on a BDXL disc now.
Bandwidth in the 2 main tv country's uk and USA are both pretty restricted. Sky tv in the uk hd broadcast is 720p for most films 1080p for sport. The reason they do this is not enough bandwidth in the broadcast range for full 1080p support. And that's the biggest uk tv supplier they have a monopoly on the market pretty much. The broadcast bandwidth currently avaiable is alot lower than most people think. Similar story is state side with 720p been the main broadcast of hd content. Netflix lovefilm and bbc iplayer say hd is 720p. At least in television we are a while away from been ready for 4k content. On a pc the cost will probably hit 2-3k for a professional grade screen and stay that way for a few years then drop slowly. What we won't see in the next 5 years is a £600 tv or monitor just not going to happen.
Am I the only one here who doesn't particularly enjoy looking at the 'retina' class panels? I like my 1920x1200 24" and thats about it... I'd move to 2560x1600 for the 30" size rather than the pixel density.
I think you dont realise that today's console render at a lower resolution and upscale to 720p or 1080p depending on what TV you have. I will bet money that the next gen console will support 4k upscaled. So In other words the console will render at 1080p and will then upscale to 4K at no cost to performance. You can do that now with DVD players that will allow you to upscale the image to 1080p. As for TV broadcasting, they will increase the bandwidth, but we won't get 4k broadcasting, not until 8K panels come to market. Everyone said what was the point in 1080p, now they say the same about 4k? Movies and games will be the market ing for 4k media. They aint going to bring a 4k tv out without it otherwise no one will want to buy it. Its all marketing. I want a 4k panel so bad, because even on a 50" 4k tv the dpi will be much more than that of a current 30" monitor. Which will make it a pleasure to sit a couple of feet away.
Nope, I'm now used to it but it took me a while to get used to the DPI of my U2711. I can't cope with a friend's laptop which has a 1080p res on a 15" screen or something, just doesn't feel nice to use and everything is so tiny
That's just a question of software support. Apple worked on their operating systems to properly support high DPI screens with settings for making UI components larger. Windows also supports that, but certain 3rd party programs may not like high DPI modes, which is the main reason why few people use it.
Yes true I could have increased the DPI in the software (well, he could have). I just didn't think it needed the extra res, so it could make icons more smooth? Really? Not the kinda thing that bothers me I guess. The great thing about a higher res is being able to do more stuff on the screen, for me there's a limit between that and things becoming too small to be nice to use, and while I may be wrong, I currently think a 4k 30" monitor wouldn't be my cup of tea as a result of that.
