Have you seen a 4K Demo at a show, etc?

[digitalbabe]

Vote here and chime in to share your thoughts.

 

[peajay]

No. I'm not even sure it exists.

 

[digitalbabe]

It exists Over 20 manufacturers showed them at CES for instance. I was just wondering if anyone in the industry has seen some up close and personal.

 

[Xavier]

I personally would love to see what the fuss is all about myself. If the timing is right(for me) and I can actually notice a difference then I might give it a whirl!
Id love to upgrade my tv again later this year.

I never went for the

Spoiler

3d because i SADLY cant enjoy it without hurting my head

 

[unam9]

I saw a demo at the Sony Store in Vegas. It was just shocking to see the clarity of the picture. I don't know how it can get more real than that. The only thing I did not like was the price tag which if I remember correctly was $27K for an 80 inch one

 

[darczap]

Best Buy has a Sony 4k display up. I saw a trailer for Total Recall and After Earth. The picture looked very real. So did the price tag for the set. $7k. I don't see this catching on. It's too soon imo. Maybe I'm wrong though.

 

[Wreck]

Here is great excerpt from Bill Hunt.

the Ultra HD 4K TV market will almost certainly remain limited to privileged super enthusiasts and professionals for the next few years, just as now old-fashioned HD was through the 1990s. Ironically though, high price is likely to be the least of the obstacles facing the adoption of 4K.

First, there’s the lack of content. It’s not that there isn’t 4K material out there. After all, the Hollywood studios all produce films in 4K — it’s become a standard resolution for directors who choose to shoot feature “films” digitally. You may have heard of the “RED EPIC,” which is actually the brand name of a 4K digital HD camera system that has been used to make dozens of Hollywood film and TV projects — everything from giant features such as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and the upcoming Oblivion and Pacific Rim to TV series such as Justified and Southland. In fact, it seems as though almost every major new film is being shot in 4K these days and the final studio masters for each are completed and finished in 4K resolution. So what’s the problem? Try rampant concern in Hollywood over digital piracy. “Theoretically, 4K is the resolution you can get from a film print master,” notes Panasonic North America’s Chief Technology Officer, Eisuke Tsuyuzaki. “I don’t think the studios will be willing to give that up so easily. If they did, what’s the monetary value? What’s the business proposition?”

Think of it this way: If someone pirates a Blu-ray, they’ve got a great 1K — or 1920 x 1080 — high-definition copy. If someone pirates a 4K file, they’ve essentially got a duplicate of the studio master — not an appealing proposition for any senior studio executive.

But let’s set this issue aside for a moment. Sony is making no bones about its desire to sell lots of Ultra HD 4K displays and offer 4K content (presumably from its Sony Pictures Home Entertainment division). So how will it deliver that content securely? While limited 4K broadcasting is just getting underway in Japan, Korea and parts of Europe, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has yet to approve a 4K broadcast standard for the United States, and one isn’t expected to be ready until 2016 or 2017. Also, according to Sony’s resident Blu-ray guru, Victor Matsuda, “There is currently no activity within the BDA to bring 4K into the Blu-ray specs.” Nor is there any new disc-based format being developed to replace Blu-ray. That means 4K movies are likely going to be distributed digitally, streamed over broadband or satellite transmission.

Sony’s 4K service is expected to launch this summer. Though the company hasn’t specified how it will work, it seems that some kind of Internet-connected box will be involved, employing an encrypted digital stream to deliver movies from Sony Pictures’ servers.

Meanwhile, RED is also marketing a 4K consumer player called the REDRAY, which will work like a DVR to deliver 4K digital files (in 2D and 3D) to your display. RED says its movie files will have a data rate of around 20mbps, which is about the same as a Blu-ray, but that means file sizes for a typical two-hour movie will hit 15GB. Cable companies are already up in arms about making consumers pay the full cost of their Netflix streaming in paltry 480p and 1080p resolution, so imagine how they’ll react to bandwidth-hogging 3840p!



The problems for 4K don’t stop there. The market research firm IHS Screen Digest recently reported that digital projection had officially surpassed traditional film projection. Analog film projection represented just 37 percent of all theatrical projection around the world by mid-2012, with that number expected to decline to just 17 percent by 2015. Care to hazard a guess as to what the current resolution standard for digital projection in theaters is? Yep… 4K. Given how much money theater owners and distributors have just invested in converting their screens to digital, it’s hard to imagine they’re especially thrilled at the prospect of having to compete with 4K in the home.

Yet another deal-breaker for 4K is the fact that many consumers will simply be unable to differentiate 4K content from current HD video at typical home display sizes. You’ll recall that lots of people had trouble telling Blu-ray content from DVD even in side-by-side comparisons, and there are many viewers to this day who own HDTVs but haven’t hooked them up properly. The result is that they’re not even watching true HD content on their expensive new TVs, but they don’t know it and can’t tell the difference anyway. Looking ahead, there’s research that suggests that in order to fully appreciate Ultra HD 4K, you either have to be sitting very close to your TV or have a very large display — something well over 60″. Neither of those alternatives is likely to be practical for most home viewers anytime soon.

But perhaps the biggest obstacle of all for Ultra HD 4K is the fact that HDTV is simply good enough for the vast majority of viewers, most of whom have only just upgraded to HD. In addition, most broadcasters have only recently completed the capital upgrades required to deliver HD content, so now they’re hoping to recoup their investments. And we tend to forget just how long we all lived with analog TV sets. Limited TV broadcasting in the U.S. began way back in 1929 but didn’t go nationwide until the FCC made NTSC the official analog standard in 1941, first in black-and-white and then (a decade later) in color. And so life continued for another 68 years… until analog broadcasting finally ended in the U.S. on June 12, 2009. That’s a long time to wait for digital and high-def, even though the first HD demonstrations appeared as early as 1987. Why did the HD transition take so long? Because, for most people, analog was good enough.

So what of Ultra HD 4K? Will there ever be a market for that much resolution in the home? “Time will tell,” says Panasonic’s Tsuyuzaki. “Keep in mind, people are already working on 8K. But I think 3D, IPTV [TV content delivered via Internet protocol rather than broadcast, cable or satellite] and mobile are the three areas where display technology is really going to evolve in the next few years.” Translation: Forget 4K for now. Sit back, relax and enjoy your new HD flat screen. It’s going to be around a long while.

---------- Post added at 11:41 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:39 AM ----------

So I take it those Blu's that came out that say "Mastered In" are just simply that .... they arent true 4k. But I hear if you buy that OLED (ie. the $25,000 tv) you get the box set up with the 10 movies already stored on the device. Perhaps those are true 4k.

 

[ABjerg]

I voted no and forgot I actually did see a big ass 4K tv with 4K material playing in London.

 

[lgans316]

Spoiler

here is currently no activity within the BDA to bring 4K into the Blu-ray specs.” Nor is there any new disc-based format being developed to replace Blu-ray. That means 4K movies are likely going to be distributed digitally, streamed over broadband or satellite transmission.

So the Studios and companies that supported Blu-ray are now ditching it.

 

[Wreck]

Spoiler

here is currently no activity within the BDA to bring 4K into the Blu-ray specs.” Nor is there any new disc-based format being developed to replace Blu-ray. That means 4K movies are likely going to be distributed digitally, streamed over broadband or satellite transmission.

So the Studios and companies that supported Blu-ray are now ditching it.

I would not say they are ditching blu-ray. More so not willing to allow a consumer to own a true 4k disc as that would then give us masters. So it might mean that blu-ray is the last format if they stick to digital streams. But the USA has crappy internet speeds compared to many other Countries. I think that will slow 4ks growth tremendously.

I'm interested in seeing a blu-ray upscaled on a 4k set. Just makes my collection look better.

But some are calling the tvs "7 foot tvs" as they claim you need to be that close.

 

[cityguyste]

I saw one in Paris last month in FNAC along the Champs-Élysées it was like 84" and a ridiculous amount of money

 

[lgans316]

The question is if there was a ridiculous amount of details?

 

[digitalbabe]

I saw one at a local Best Buy, but the screen was rather small. It looked clear, but I am not sure on an average sized display the difference is quite as astounding as on a 4K projector, etc. But out of fairness, sometimes they are not necessarily correctly calibrated at retailers-they just throw up a demo of the same material, of one brand, etc etc. Definitely looked very detailed, but not a difference like DVD vs a reference BD. I need to see a comparison on larger screens first to decide for myself.

 

[Wreck]

typically its the other way around DB .... well at least at BB that is .... where they are professionally calibrated as to persuade people they will have that picture when they get home.

But who knows on a 4k ... but I bet its a specific display model that was calibrated before it ever arrived at BB.

 

[digitalbabe]

Yeah, I wish that was always the case. From being in the distribution marketplace for years, I know unfortunately individual stores at various retailers often have to splice signals and the AV experience is diluted because they can't give each display a complete signal/staff has no time to effectively calibrate/demo equipment.

But, there is also the other consideration where specific brands have their MSRP's capped, and incentives lowered for the sales staff at certain retailers, so emphasis for displays and sales is often given to certain brands, while others are not given floor space. 'Magnolia' within BB has some nice set ups, but there are definitely other dealers that have ideal lighting and sound conditions (minimizing ambient light, etc by letting you test in closed, and properly insulated dedicated rooms), to display projectors and other equipment properly. The staff is knowledgeable/follows suggested calibration for the individual display (and don't just put the display on the highest contrast for instance). When we purchased our projector and all related equipment years ago, we had a chance to test run it first, with the screen set up,etc etc, and it was a whole other ball game. There may be more of this type of retailer expansion coming but not necessarily at BB. Granted that happened to be a rather large purchase (projector, receiver, screen, player, yadda yadda, as we were buying for a whole room set up), but unless you're at an actual brand showcase, E3, etc, there are vast differences to the energy and ability of retailers to actually demo equipment properly for a number of reasons, least of which is floor space.

 

[blu-steel]

I knew this was going to happen. Studios want you to pay each time you view a movie and the best way for that is Pay Per View or streaming. They don't want to have the masters hitting torrent sites as that would be the nail in the coffin for the studios. Good thing for us Blu-ray steelbook collectors. They are not going to lose value. I only see them going up in value.

 

[Wreck]

yup, I just wanna see a 1080p BD upconverted ... see how good that is ... that might inspire my purchase of 4k tv and player compatible much faster.

 

[Wreck]

I have now seen 4k .....

I will admit that yes it does look better to the human eye then 1080p (of course that is a duh! statement) However ultimately I'm not all that impressed. The differences I saw were pretty minimal.

One day I will get a 4k tv I'm sure .... but I was hoping/thinking I was going to be awestruck enough that I would want it now ....

So now I'm on the hunt for a 70-80" for the upcoming new man-cave ... and then I will just wait and watch the prices come down on the 4k. Will probably put a 4k in the main room first before the man cave as the big sizes will be crazy prices much longer then the 50-55"

 

[gbskidmarks05]

120hz vs 240hz

So I was close to buying a 65" from BB but then I was thrown off by the motion blur.. When its displaying a slow image or a stand still scene, it looks GREAT!! but during an action scene you get to much motion blur and judder. I asked Magnolia BB sales guy if the picture is still set to factory settings and he said no. They had a specialist come down and set it up! Really? my LG55LM9600 looks 100X better than this!! I asked if it comes with 240hz or higher and he said it doesn't matter, but obviously it does.. Have you guys seen this issue at your local display area?? or if you own one are you having the same problem?

 

[bigrob]

saw a 4K display in action in my local Sony store

the pros
well the stunning PQ for starters. the demo disc they had on with literally lifelike. the detail in wooden flooring and close up on a baby's face was jaw dropping.

the cons
well these new displays over come at a minimum of 55" which straight away kills it for me. as much as I would like a super size TV, my front room won't allow it. I'd rather invest in a top quality projector in all honesty for a cinema experience

lack of content

and obviously the price tag :eek: