SD and HD would be upscaled to the TV's native resolution, so noticing pixels would be no different to viewing native material.

I saw a Youtube video and some Japanese boffin was showing an 8K tv and he said the resolution is comparable to perfect eyesight. Basically anything above 8K - for example 10k tv - if it gets invented (!) - would not make any difference. Some people still watch tv in black and white and use video players. C'mon, you oldies, get with the times!

I watched black and white episodes of classic tv show Lost In Space - upscaled from Bluray 1080p to 4k. Might be the best (black and white) picture resolution I've ever seen. Looked practically real. 4k does look better than 1080p but I doubt most people care that much or would notice a big difference.

C'mon, you oldie, get with the times!

I can't wait to watch Celebrity Big Brother or X Factor in 8K. My life will be complete.

Yes, all video is scaled to fit the resolution of the display panel. If you don't see the TV's pixels at your normal distance with native resolution material, watching SD material doesn't change that, certainly.

What I was trying to get at was magnifying an SD image by displaying it full screen on a very large 4K or 8K panel just reveals the flaws inherent in the SD video. Watching SD on a very large panel isn't a particularly pleasant experience (at normal viewing distances). You just get, at best, a soft looking large image. Upscaling does not overcome all the flaws inherent in SD and cannot put back in detail that is not there to begin with.

Back in the day, when there was only SD, in the UK the average TV set was 21" with 4:3 aspect ratio. In an average lounge, 28" TVs produced a visibly softer picture than 21", but a good 14" portable could produce a sharp looking image because it was small enough to hide the low resolution of SD and some other defects.

The average lounge size has not changed much over the years so neither has the typical viewing distance. So, maybe manufacturer's should make available more options for handling SD on large displays, like displaying SD at half or quarter size. The resulting picture won't fill the screen, but will be small enough to "!hide" SD defects.

Well I have, and watch, PL football on BT UHD but just now I watched it in SD on Sky and enjoyed it just as much, in spite of the much poorer picture quality.

Content rules, OK? Which is why Youtube is so successful in spite of the technical crapness of most of its video.

That's not the point I was making. I still watch SD when the content requires it.

I just think it makes sense for manufacturers to offer half or quarter size on very large displays. Maybe it's a hangover from the days when burn-in was a big issue, or they think no-one will want to use it. It's an issue that's only going to grow as screen sizes get bigger.

But I wasn't responding to your point, it was just something that came to mind after I enjoyed watching that match in SD pretty well just as much as when I watch the same team/s in UHD or HD.

On the point you made, that would be simple to implement and I don't know why it isn't already an zoom option in TV display aspect ratio settings. Maybe it is on some models? But I don't think it would be used by many people, given the quite large numbers who choose to always fill the screen if they can, whatever the aspect ratio!

That would be me. I love reading about TV tech, get a few magazines on it, read about the latest releases and remasters but still have a 4:3 CRT TV hooked up to my VCR as my main setup.

I think I've already said in this thread, but in my opinion, resolutions should stop being upped once we can't see the pixels no matter how closely we look at the screen.

If you stand close enough you can still see the pixels on a 55", 4K panel, but not at a sensible viewing distance. For a given viewing distance, a bigger screen requires a higher resolution to avoid seeing the pixels.

In the end what will govern the end point in the resolution "arms race" is the maximum size it's sensible to have in a typical domestic setting at a sensible viewing distance. At the moment that looks to be 8K with current screen sizes and viewing distances. It's possible that people will want even larger (wall sized?) TVs in the future, but I think that's unlikely.

There are two areas where there is still considerable room for improvement (to get closer to the limits of what the human eye can perceive). The dynamic range (difference between black and the brightest peak whites) and colour gamut (the range of colours that can be displayed).

Even the latest HDR TVs fall short on these criteria.

http://www.techradar.com/news/televi...eyond--1309119

Yeah, that's obviously true. I can't see wall sized TVs being produced for a long, long time yet. I mean, how many people will have a sitting room/lounge that's big enough to have a TV that covers all of one part of a wall? I think 60 inch TVs might be the maximum for the standard sitting room/lounge (where the size looks best). The resolution will then be increased until it's pointless to increase it any more.

In general I agree, though we'll never in fact get there as you can always go closer if you want to pixel-peep!

The only advantage of more and more pixels (apart from bigger screens) that I can think of would be to allow selective and simple zooming in to *any part of* the picture. Otherwise, given the same bit rates and codec quality, too many pixels can lower video quality because pixel count is far from the only important part of it.

How? Unless someone's eyes can focus pin-sharp at 1cm (or less), I don't think they'll be able to see pixels that are smaller than that on a 22 inch 1080p monitor.

Edit: Damn! You saw my post before I changed it. I thought you were meaning something else.

If you go close up, you can always see the pixels on the physical screen, though to be fair, that doesn't bother me at all as long as it doesn't reveal defects in the underlying video (compression artifacts etc.) and if there's no 'pixel dancing' that you seem to get on some LCD screens but not on plasmas.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that there is far more to TV video quality than counting and increasing pixels and if manufacturers would pay more attention to that, we could have had better video quality already, without having to wait years for the pixel counts to increase, as with UHD.

I can just about see the pixels on my 22 inch 1080p monitor. If my monitor was a 4K one and the same size, I highly doubt I'd see them.

I definitely agree that there's more to video quality than the resolution it's been recorded in, or compressed to. Some Blu-Rays that I've watched haven't exactly impressed me when it came to sharpness/detail.

Hence the point I made upthread about HDR and increasing the colour gamut. From what I've read, people weren't overly impressed by the increase to 4K resolution alone, but were more impressed when HDR was added. This is what makes the dramatic improvement with 2016 4K TVs, and there's still plenty of scope to make big improvements there, rather than just increasing the pixel count.

We won't know if people are impressed by HDR until we see regular programmes in that format. Demos are useless in that regard as everything is hand picked to look good if only on one specific TV from a given company. When HD was coming there were amazing high definition pictures on display, the bit rate was the absolute maximum possible and the material was selected so as not to show any defects the TV might have. The final colour grading was done on an identical TV, not a broadcast monitor, to hide any colour errors.

There's a fair bit of HDR content available now, movies and series from Netflix, Amazon and UHD Bluray, users with compatible equipment have been able to make comparison between the two formats for a while, first impressions are, they're impressed.

Demos? HDR is here now. I already have several UHD blu rays (4K with HDR) and watched TV series on Amazon with HDR. My point was that HDR was needed because 4K on its own was not sufficient to impress during trials. Hence why there are suddenly, this year, lots of 4K TVs with HDR (sporting the UHD Premium badge).

Apparently, most people when shown 4K didn't think there was much of an improvement in PQ over HD. That verdict changed when they saw 4K with HDR. When you add in HDR too, there's a very noticeable PQ improvement over HD. Almost as big an improvement as HD is over SD.

All true, but just to add that the industry could have done HDR and wide colour gamut years ago at 1080i and likely that could have been made backwards compatible. But no... and I think we all know why "the industry" works like that.

That is not mainstream regular broadcasting as I'm sure you know. We need to know if the public are impressed not a handful of early adopters if the system is ever to take off. Dolby Atmos is available, apparently impressive enough for the average person to notice it without it having to be explained to them, but you would need to knock on a lot of doors before you found a neighbour who had it. Most people don't notice 4K, HDR or HFR unless the difference is pointed out to them and even then they don't buy into it until they need a new tv as has been the case with HD. Even with HD the number of people still watching SD, thinking it is HD, on their shiny new TVs, because no one told the to use channels 101,2 etc instead of 1,2,3 is unknown.

Colour was blindingly obvious, flat screens that gave you a big piece of your living room back were a no brainer whether the picture was better or not, 4K, HDR etc don't fit into that category. Remember that the ability to manufacture cheap 4K panels does not mean that broadcasters have to spend eye watering amounts of money on new equipment, at the expense needless to say of programme budgets, when most of their viewers will not be able to see the difference between real and pseudo 4K or HDR.

No it's not, but you originally said regular programmes and people, not mainstream regular broadcasting and the general public.

The point being made was, a better viewing experience is not all down to increased pixel count, the recent addition of HDR is just one enhancement that has made a noticeable difference. Viewers not initially impressed with UHD have been saying they are suitable impressed with HDR supported UHD content. Other enhancements to come, hopefully, are a higher frame rate, increased bit depth and a wider colour gamut.

Films and some TV programmes are already being made at higher resolutions than HD. Some programmes are now made in UHD. For programme making, workflows and equipment do need to be upgraded. Some have been upgraded already. Sky are already doing some broadcasting in 4K.

No-one is expecting there to be UHD terrestrial broadcast channels anytime soon, though the BBC and NHK have been working on this and 8K. Not all of the equipment in the broadcast chain needs to be replaced to run 4K. Much can be upgraded by firmware. No-one is making TVs with UHD tuner built-in yet.

And you really don't need all of that to be in place before the public's reaction can be predicted/assessed. That was done when the manufacturer's were trialing these things before they ever got to be a real product,

UHD is definitely not mainstream currently. It may remain relatively niche (especially UHD blu ray).

Most of Joe Public do only upgrade when they need to replace their TV. They buy whatever's current at that point. If they care about PQ and if they're smart, they look to build in a bit of future proofing. Currently that's UHD (4K with HDR). Prices will and take up will increase as Joe Public replaces their TVs. Despite Joe Public's relative apathy towards HD you'd struggle to buy a non-HD TV today. It will be the same for UHD.