Saw a display at a Samsung stand at a show yesterday and totally bowled over by it.
But with the amount of data involved, will it ever become mainstream and, if so, will it be so compressed it will look nothing like I saw yesterday?

compression wont be the problem. even on a standard bluray disk, using .h265 there is space for plenty of video. comfortably over 2 hours.

the problem will be the appetite for it. people are still in the process of upgrading to bluray. asking them to upgrade again is too far. and the technology whilst stunning is a bit pointless. you literally can't resolve the difference unless you are sat within about 1.5x the screen size of the screen.

The way i see it coming is by stealth. high end tv's will support it and use an interpolation to improve the HD picture. but actual 4k sources will be very thin on the ground.

remember most people are watching SD freeview.

I can't see it ever happening in most of our lifetimes - there seems little point, as I've said before people won't sit close enough to watch 1080 HD - so they aren't going to sit a great deal closer to get benefit from 4K.

Incidentally, did you think the demo set looked particularly large? - we have a Sony demo set at work, and despite being 65 inch (or whatever) it doesn't look exceptionally big.

I think a lot depends on your definition of "mainstream". So far, Smart Features, 3D, and even 1080p isn't on every set for sale. So are they truly mainstream yet either? Do small sets (<32") really need 1080p?.... Probably not. If so, then 4K is pretty much overkill.

4K is already available in the home cinema projector market. Sony has a projector for £17K with that native resolution, so the technology is already in the market. What's missing right now though is a practical way to deliver content.

The UK still struggles with a massive gap between the fastest and slowest internet speeds; so streaming isn't a practical solution unless one lives in a fibre connected zone. We could do what the commercial digital cinemas do. They receive by satellite and store on to a hard disc server. The content is then secure, but that opens up the spectre of pay-per-view each time a film is watched. Who wants that? Memory cards and SSD's have been mentioned, and memory is getting cheaper. Is it cheap enough though to compete with the typical production costs of a 12cm disc? The alternative is what Panasonic and Sony are working on. It's a Blu-ray sized 300Gb U HD disc. But that's still a little way off.

4K will come, and 8K won't be far behind. If I had to guess I'd say that 5 years seems like a reasonable time scale for it to filter in to the top end and upper reaches of the mid market sets. How long for it to reach the sets sold in supermarkets and Brighthouse??? That'll be longer. Ten years maybe, or perhaps longer. It's taken that long for old 32" CRT sets at £299 to be replaced by budget 40" LCDs which are 1080p but still aren't universally 3D or Smart.

Now you mention it no. I am not sure what size it was exactly bit the dimensions were big. However as everything was so detailed it kind of felt like I was just looking out a window/around me and the set edges weren't there. Hope that makes sense!!
Initially I felt a little disorientated as the camera panned round abd felt like I was flying Peter Pan style. I guess that's while my brain adjusted and realised it wasn't actually real.

As others have said, we'd have to sit closer and closer to ever bigger tv screens to appreciate the extra resolution, to the point where a tv takes up a whole wall. So I'm wondering perhaps the future will be video glasses, something like

http://itvgoggles.com/

Early days but this path surely has more potential.

What are the Public statements
NHK are looking for 2023- 26 for SHV to match their centenary
FOBTV are looking to UHD(2) profile in the market 2025

Lets look to the last change in static resolution - IBC 1990 was year of HD
And say 2008 was IBC Year of SHV ...
so NHK look about on target!!!

The Broadcaster that are HD are still doing much conversion from SD
many are still SD are and going to HD

Most of the emission worldwide is still SD



And the US broadcaster if they are to retain broadcasting need to fund Repacking!!!
(and are not happy as the FCC Has forced them
to go Digital/UHF and Digital SNG without much recompense ...
. and are about to take perhaps all terrestrial emission.

So say 2025 onwards..... for emission of UHD2

and UHD1 aquistion will continue to grow

The whole chain need to be changed and the equipment needs to be close to commodity ..

Don't know how old you are Nigel, but, I'm hoping to live a lot longer than you think it will take.....

First 4K movie delivered via internet
BBC & Sony trial 4K at Wibledon
BBC & Sky together on HD future specs

One thing I've learned about Technology, is to never say 'not in my lifetime.
Plenty of people working on this, so I see it sooner rather than later....

I can imagine that the TV manufacturers will start to move across to UltraHD if we want it or not so it will start filtering down and replace existing HD screens.

As there's very little point in it, and the costs are going to be huge - I'm somewhat more sceptical than you are

Needless to say though, Sky are currently developing a suitable box and considering a 4K channel.

I suspect 4K might be similar to 3D, and didn't that do well?

I don't think you can compare the two.....But, as you will be fixing St Peters TV by then, sceptical or not matters little...

3D's biggest problem has been the content creators. When its done well 3D both in the cinema and in the home can be brilliant. Avatar, Life of Pi and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole are all movies where the 3D is stunning and really adds to the experience. Too much of it however is done as a gimmick and done cheaply in the hope to make more money and really adds little.

With 4K I don't think the content creators are going to be so important. Just as even the poorest produced HD content is an improvement over SD it will be be similar with 4K. The problem 4K has is the same one Bluray has had, is it really worth the cost to upgrade for the improvement you will actual see. It needs people to say 'Yes it is; from the off to get the prices to tumble and thus get more people interested but I'm just not sure there are enough people in the market for TV's large enough to really have 4K to wow. The design of an average British home imho doesn't really lend itself that well to TV's in the 40-50 inch range let alone the larger sizes 4K really needs or for people to be able to pick their seating position to be the perfect distance from the screen to fully benefit.

Personally I see it being a format for cinemas and commercial use rather than a home use, atleast in the UK. Places like America may take to it better where their homes are often better suited for placement of large TV's

I would say the biggest problem is that people just aren't interested in it - I've had occasion to ask a small number of customers who've had 3D how much they use it. In all cases they said they used it a little when they first had it, but have hardly ever used it since.

I suspect that's probably the case with most people?.

But that's a content problem imho. So much of the 3D is poor and tacked on for no real benefit that people write it off as generally being worthless so not worth the hassle (or extra cost). If we had more people like James Cameron and Ang Lee who employ it because creatively its the right thing to do rather than those who are forced into it and show their contempt at being forced into by not making an effort then I suspect 3D would be held in a higher regard and their would be a greater interest.

Hopefully we won't see the demise of 3D but with hopefully as it stops being the quick cash cow it was we will start to see much better 3D content being produced because only the content that really benefits from it will be done in 3D

I saw a huge, 84-inch Ultra HD TV
(an LG, I think it was) in the Fenwick
department store up here in
Newcastle Upon Tyne today, an eye-
watering £16,999, down £5,000 from
its original price of £22,000! I think I
might buy one-when I win the
lottery!

.....

Not to mention the initial cost of 4k sets.

I'm sure that in a few years, most TVs in the shops will be 4k. I'm also sure the vast majority of content will still be SD, but with more HD than there is today.

Sadly I think the rollout will be similar to what we saw with 3D. Lots of hype, demos in shops using specially made content, but the main use of the product is 2D due to lack of content.

Prices already falling as all the major manufacturers now have them on the production lines.

I'm over 60 yet I think we'll see 4k rolled quite soon and I'm not planning on dying before it is here.

I was watching something on BBC2 a while ago and I though to myself 'now why is this episode filmed in SD?' - turned out I was watching the SD channel rather than HD. Doh! I was about 6 feet from my 32" HD TV.

The big difference is when using my projector and say 95" screen to watch 1080 content, can't see the dots but it isn't as sharp as it could be.

p.s. I have 3D but no longer use it.

Is that due to lack of content or have you just become bored with it ?.

I might have tried a few more 3D films if I were still with Lovefilm but really I just got bored as you suggest.

Maybe when they get really good glasses-free 3D in a few years - and the directors and cameramen aren't focusing on it as a gimmick - then maybe things will be different.

I'm *really* looking forward to being able to see Jeremy Kyle's nasal hair as he self-righteously lectures some easy target low-life scum.

And also to only being able to see the benefit on a set that's so big you'll have to view it from the other end of the street.

The clarity of 4 and 8K gives it's own realistic 3D look IMO. None of the false stuff that's produced as 3D. I've not seen one scene that looked realistic. Especially live stuff........!!

I haven't seen 4k myself but I suspect the 'wow' factor has far more to do with higher frame rates than resolution.

Increasing the number of pixels doesn't make the picture sharper. It merely means you can sit closer or watch a proportionately larger screen without the picture looking fuzzy. Increasing frame rates on the other hand dramatically improves sharpness because perceived picture quality is the number of pixels multiplied by the frame rate.

It's easy to demonstrate limits of our current, but actually very dated, 50Hz system. Just watch a live event such as a football match and hit the pause button on your PVR! There is obvious motion blur, even on slowly moving objects. The 60Hz system used in the US is slightly better, but not much. The motion processing on modern TVs can't eliminate blur; it merely smooths the motion between frames by creating intermediate ones.

'Active' 3D TVs already support higher frame rates, since showing 3D involves doubling the refresh rate to show the left and right eye images. At the moment 120Hz material is a bit thin on the ground, though!