Goodbye 3D, hello 4k...

[ItDonnedOnMe]

I just sold off most of what I own and moved cross-country, so I suddenly find myself in the market for a new TV. I decided to wait until after the move to get a new one (didn't want to have to ship much stuff) which turned out to be a mistake as the entire Panasonic line of plasmas that I was interested in have pretty much disappeared over the last month (even floor models, I've been calling around).

So in considering all the lesser TVs still on the market I was surprised to see the new lineup Vizio announced at CES - they've dropped 3D across the board, and their mid- and high-end ranges are all 4k. On top of that they've gone to local dimming LED backlights on the entire line and added a host of other tech to improve the picture quality, it looks like they're stepping up to compete quality-wise with the big names. The general sentiment from everyone who saw these at CES seems to be that the quality is pretty impressive, although we'll have to wait for their release to get any comprehensive reviews. The crazy thing is the mid-range 4k line runs from $1000 for a 50" to $2600 for a 70" (msrp of course, street prices likely to be even lower).

In any case, when the largest seller of TVs drops 3D across the board, I think that's a sign that home 3D is pretty much dead. It'll be interesting to see how that carries over into the theatrical market.

And when they aggressively price 4k like that (sony & samsung's 4k start at about $3k) it may be a sign that 4k will be commonly available in the home a lot sooner than I expected. It certainly looks like I personally may end up with 4k sooner than I expected to - just because I'd prefer the larger backlight array that comes with their 4k sets. I'm wondering how soon we'll actually see much 4k content available - is there any real source for this yet? And, maybe more important, will people actually seek out 4k content? Or simply continue watching letterboxed SD content blown up with the TV's zoom feature to get rid of those annoying bars in glorious 4k?

 

[Sage Pictures]

I think what happened to 3d premium tvs is a good indicator of what will happen to 4k premium tvs -

I've trouble convincing nearly everyone I know that 1080p and bluray really is worth it, all these years later

 

[ItDonnedOnMe]

The thing is 4k looks to be quickly dropping from premium to standard. 3D did the same thing, but it also requires additional hardware & software to be added to the TV, so it simplifies things to drop it at this point if there's no demand for it.

With 4k it's a different situation - there are only a couple manufacturers of big LCD panels and they supply everyone else. Once they're tooled up and producing mostly 4k panels it could actually cost more to find someone to produce lower-res screens, so once it's standard across the board I'd be surprised to see it go away, at least on screens 50" or over.

 

[Will Vincent]

Seiki Digital has a 50" 4k that's $899 on amazon prime. (Their 65" is $1999)

Personally I'd probably hold off on buying a 4k TV.. They're just starting to filter into the market, chances are (very) good there will be many more announced at NAB in April.

Of course some of the other major brands prices are higher for their comparable version of the same TV.. but for example, Toshiba, Samsung and LG all have a 65" 4K "smart TV" with 3D.

 

[ItDonnedOnMe]

By all accounts though the Seiki is pretty poor quality - the Vizio's seem to be the first affordable models which actually try to produce a decent image. The current line they replace aren't reference quality but they're not bad, so if they have improved them with this new line I'd expect them to be pretty good.

I probably won't buy before NAB since the Vizios aren't shipping yet, but personally I'm not specifically interested in the resolution - it's the fact that they use local-dimming LED backlights, and the 4k models have twice as many (64 vs. 32) as the 1080 line - 4k just happens to come as part of the package. Of course their new 'reference' series has something like 380 zones, but since they haven't announced prices on those I'm going to assume they're out of my current price range (~$2k or less).

Interesting note on the Seikis though - this guy has equipped his whole office with them:

http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers

That actually has me more interested in 4k than anything on the film side, as the majority of my professional work these days is programming and I'm often working on my couch. There is something appealing to the idea of having a large secondary monitor that could work as playback for video but also double as a really effective high-res display for my programming work. The Seikis look like they'd be pretty useless for video work (color is apparently one of their weak points) but if I can calibrate the Vizio reasonably well - improved color calibration tools/functionality are one of their new features - then it could serve that purpose well.

Of course, if I do end up with a 4k TV then I guess I'll just have to upgrade to a 4k camera, right? Right?!?

 

[Will Vincent]

Interesting note on the Seikis though - this guy is equipped his whole office with them:

http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers

That actually has me more interested in 4k than anything on the film side, as the majority of my professional work these days is programming

That is an interesting thought.. I work as a developer for my "day job" .. I'm currently writing this post on a 30" 2560x1440 apple cinema display my employer was nice enough to provide me. At half the price I could get a physically larger Seiki, with almost twice the screen real estate. That might not be a bad idea for my new hackintosh build, since I've yet to settle on any monitors for it. Of course I will need something closer to reference quality for color grading, but that can be a separate display than the primary display.

Hmmmm...

EDIT: Eh.. 30Hz is a bit slow to be very useful for me. Even if I were just to stare at code all day long with it.

 

[sfoster]

I've trouble convincing nearly everyone I know that 1080p and bluray really is worth it, all these years later

I prefer DVDs over bluray 99% of the time. It has to be a pretty special movie for me to make the effort to get a bluray instead.

The difference is that DVDs can be backed up, archived, and accessed electronically which is a real joy of convenience.

Bluray would eat up all my storage if I tried to do it with those.

 

[Will Vincent]

Storage is cheap, get more.

 

[Metrostar]

Storage is cheap, get more.

And the more you have the more you use. Therefore, not so cheap.

 

[Will Vincent]

And the more you have the more you use. Therefore, not so cheap.

Western Digital RED (designed for NAS in a raid configuration) are selling for $99 for 2TB right now.. that's cheap.

If I was on my other machine I'd post a similar screenshot.. 8TB RAID0 for video editing/etc.. Cost me $400, and I get 500-540MB/s throughput read/write.

 

[sfoster]

Storage is cheap, get more.

Yeah I really should get more. If only to have an extra backup of important material. Right now I only have one external hard drive.

But even at 2TB that is only about 250 movies for bluray vs 2000 for dvd
Also I don't think bluray matters much for old movies, which is a large bulk of what I watch.

 

[MissingProductions]

Goodbye 4k, hello SD!

 

[sfoster]

Goodbye 4k, hello SD!

Funny but I do have a couple blu ray movies.
Like the man from nowhere. It's fantastic seeing all the little drops of blood spray through the air in HD

 

[wheatgrinder]

For consumers...

I don't want to store movies, I want to access them on the big internet thingy..
I don't buy movies on physical media anymore, I buy movies from itunes or amazon. This is the logical future. No need to have BR or DVD

For me, the film maker..
gimme some disks.. always need disks.. wife asked what I wanted for valentines day.... HD's please!

 

[IndiePaul]

I have a 3D capable HDTV. I never wanted or use the 3D functionality.

At the time I bought, nearly all the mid/top range HDTVs offered 3D as standard.
.

 

[Will Vincent]

I'd be interested in 3D.. but only if it's a REALLY big TV, and only if it's passive 3D. Shutter glasses are for losers.

 

[Metrostar]

Western Digital RED (designed for NAS in a raid configuration) are selling for $99 for 2TB right now.. that's cheap.

If I was on my other machine I'd post a similar screenshot.. 8TB RAID0 for video editing/etc.. Cost me $400, and I get 500-540MB/s throughput read/write.

I checked that deal out and it's pretty good. Incidentally, my drives 'c' and 'j' are solid state.

 

[Jack Lynt]

So 4K Blu-ray is coming?

Samsung: 4K Blu-ray Discs Coming Up

4 layers. How'll that be? How will the price be? But I guess the newer players can upscale your 2k Blu-rays anyway? How's that work?

Maybe everyone is going to the cloud anyway. But I'm old school. Don't quite trust it. If you actually own the physical media you don't have to be connected to the net, or depend on the cloud or the host or whatever. Unless, they ever actually implement that planned obsolescence thing or whatever which I think has been threatened(?) or speculated about...like you can only view it X number of times before it won't play? But then I'd really be likely stop buying films altogether; f&^% it.

I don't think I'd count 3D out yet. I don't have a 3D TV set etc, but that's only 'cause I can't afford it, or perhaps more like I can't justify the expense.

Sounds exciting, IDOM. Let us know what you do get and how you like it.

 

[jax_rox]

It would be interesting to look at with some evidence, why exactly 3D television sets failed to catch on - with less speculation and more facts. Was it because it required special discs? Was it because it required a different TV? Was it because it added little to the experience? Was it because you had to sit and watch TV with glasses on? Was it because the screen was too small for 3D to have too much effect? Is it because 'normal' TVs were still cheaper? Is it because 'normal' BD players were still cheaper..??

If the answer is yes to some of these, then one might gather that 4K TVS will suffer from similar reaction. 4K is almost necessary for larger sets. But for smaller sets, <65", you can barely tell the difference when you're more than 3 ft away from the screen. Are people going to want to pay a premium for that? 3D you could see a difference no matter where you were, though you did need to be wearing glasses.

Perhaps the reason 3D never took off is because television's support for it was incredibly weak. How long before TV embraces 4K? All of their systems would likely need to be upgraded again, in some cases only 5 or so years since the HD upgrade. How will we broadcast 4k when we can't even broadcast 1080p - and can't even broadcast 1080i at any kind of decent bitrate?

Will that be the deciding factor for 4k? Certainly with 3D, there was the availbility of cheap(er) television sets, and the BluRays to support it. Yet, it didn't really catch on. Perhaps because of the lack of support form television broadcasting.

Maybe everyone is going to the cloud anyway.

IMO, the cloud is a bit of a ways off. In Australia, our internet speeds are simply shockingly low, and it could easily take many hours for a 4k movie to download at any kind of quality . And I would imagine that whilst in other countries speeds are faster, once millions of people start downloading or streaming multiple 4k content, it's going to cause issues. Perhaps infrastructure would need to be upgraded before this could realistically be supported.

Then there's the fact that resolution alone simply does not make a picture necessarily any better than HD, it just makes it of a higher resolution. Whilst this will be good for some applications, for general movie and television viewing it does come into play.

Plus I also don't really want to have to move my head around to be able to see the entire picture

 

[Jack Lynt]

...why exactly 3D television sets failed to catch on... - with less speculation and more facts. Was it because it required special discs? Was it because it required a different TV? Was it because it added little to the experience? Was it because you had to sit and watch TV with glasses on? Was it because the screen was too small for 3D to have too much effect? Is it because 'normal' TVs were still cheaper? Is it because 'normal' BD players were still cheaper..??

So do you think 3D for home video is already finished, Jax? Will it become unavailable for Joe Schmo soon?

If the answer is yes to some of these, then one might gather that 4K TVS will suffer from similar reaction. 4K is almost necessary for larger sets. But for smaller sets, <65", you can barely tell the difference when you're more than 3 ft away from the screen.

Yeah, that's pretty sobering. I couldn't even fit a 65"+ set in my place.

So maybe it will only ever be for people with large, dedicated theater rooms?

IMO, the cloud is a bit of a ways off. In Australia, our internet speeds are simply shockingly low, and it could easily take many hours for a 4k movie to download at any kind of quality . And I would imagine that whilst in other countries speeds are faster, once millions of people start downloading or streaming multiple 4k content, it's going to cause issues. Perhaps infrastructure would need to be upgraded before this could realistically be supported.

Oh my gosh, can you imagine?

Plus I also don't really want to have to move my head around to be able to see the entire picture

Good point.

I think about this now and again. I guess the industry has to keep coming up with the next thing so that they can keep growing their profits, or even just maintain. They need to give people a reason to keep buying TV sets, for example. Oh well. I'd like to help them out with that. But my current TV is doing just fine, still, for which I am very grateful. =)