Do we have more pixels than we ever needed?

[Tim Lookingbill]

I have a 65" plasma HDTV which I often use to display my still images down-sampled to HD resolution, about 5.9MB.

As a result of my own testing, I find that in order to see all the detail displayed in these 2k images, I have to sit at a distance from the screen of no greater than  2.5 metres, wearing appropriate spectacles for the distance.

I'm interested in the new 4k UHD displays, because I love detail and resolution, but I can't see the sense in getting a UHD screen so small as 65" diagonal. Surely in order to appreciate the extra resolution that 4k provides, I would have to sit even closer than 2.5 metres from such a screen, say about 1.25 metres.

From a viewing distance of 2.5 metres, I would need a 130" UHD screen to enable the appreciation of all the detail in a 4k still image. If that 130" screen could display 8k, I would be back to a minimum viewing distance of 1.25 metres. Is this not the case?

The Samsung 110" UHDTV seems close enough to the right size for viewing 4k material, but it's a bit expensive at $150,000.  

It's not been mentioned here how much of the 4K/8K content will have to be edited at the source production line and at output from the cable/Netflix-online pipelines in order cram that much redundant data to reach those high rez screens. Improved upsampling, compression, sharpening algorithms may not be able to do it justice. It seems unnecessary technology for mass consumption IMO.

Blu-Ray may be the only area of the entertainment industry that may show its benefit if they can keep up with re-scanning all that content such as 50 year old Technicolor movie restorations which I've been seeing broadcast through TWC's cable channel Turner Classic Movies (TCM). I can tell I'm seeing the Blu-Ray restoration from the improved image quality even through the that pixel squeezing black box. I just don't know at what point the sharpening is applied...during creation or by TWC. Blu-Ray screengrabs posted online in full 1080HD don't look as sharp on some of them as I see on my 32" 720p Samsung HDTV viewed 7ft away.

See the shots I took of the differences between a recently produced in HD commercial vs a TCM showing of 50 year old "Ride The High Country" Technicolor flick viewed at 60hz. My 6MP digital camera captures more than I can see so I have to dumb the sharpness and detail down in ACR to show how it looks to me viewed 7ft away.

Examining the big 4K screens at Best Buy shows sharpening halos even on 4K content. WTF!?

[Telecaster]

A few years back, a couple produced a movie about a husband and wife that were lost at sea while scuba diving on a dive trip when the dive boat miscounted and left the area, accidently leaving them there to die.  I can't remember the name of the movie.  It was shot on a Sony PD150 Standard Def NTSC DVCam camcorder.  It had a pretty broad theater release and was fairly successful as I recall.  Standard Def DVCam would be 720x480.

Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later from 2002, a zombie genre classic, was shot in Standard Def PAL for a deliberately edgy lo-fi look. (Issue #1 of The Walking Dead comic came out in 2003. The opening scenes are notably similar to those of the film.)

-Dave-

[Ray]

It's not been mentioned here how much of the 4K/8K content will have to be edited at the source production line and at output from the cable/Netflix-online pipelines in order cram that much redundant data to reach those high rez screens. Improved upsampling, compression, sharpening algorithms may not be able to do it justice. It seems unnecessary technology for mass consumption IMO.

That's often a problem, Tim, but really a separate issue. Even if there is a very slow transition to full 4k broadcasting because of bandwidth restrictions, I'd still like a large, 4k OLED screen for displaying my own stills, and perhaps experimenting with a new camera that boasts 4k video capability, such as the Samsung NX1.

The issue is fundamentally one of screen size and cost. This has always been the issue. I remember well the days before HD transmission was introduced. The argument was constantly raised that the average size of the (then) current TV sets was too small to result in any benefits from HD. Sizes ranged from 14" to an impressive 36" using the old CRT technology. At normal viewing distances, HD did not make much sense.

However, within a few years 55" and 65" screens became affordable, employing the new LCD and Plasma technology, and the issue then became, for those who were interested, a concern that most so-called HD transmissions were not full HD. Many were just standard definition interpolated. At best they were 720p or 1080i at source. Only certain Blu-ray recordings exploited the full benefits of HD resolution, using 1080p.

With the introduction of 4k video, we are now back to square one. The  current screen sizes suitable for full HD viewing are too small for UHD or 4k. However, I expect that in a few years, the 110" screen will become fairly common and affordable for many of us. By then, the largest screens, that only the rich will be able to afford, will probably be 140- 200 inches diagonal, which will begin to make sense for 8k video and stills. 

[Tim Lookingbill]

However, within a few years 55" and 65" screens became affordable, employing the new LCD and Plasma technology, and the issue then became, for those who were interested, a concern that most so-called HD transmissions were not full HD. Many were just standard definition interpolated. At best they were 720p or 1080i at source. Only certain Blu-ray recordings exploited the full benefits of HD resolution, using 1080p.

I can't tell whether the content piped through my cable system is 720p, 1080i or standard def interpolated but I do agree the current 50" screens displaying regular HD looks pretty bad viewed within 7ft. Viewing a 50" 4K TV required I step back even farther just to be able to see the entire screen without panning my head left to right and its resolution looked like a computer screen but not on the level of a Retina.

However, my main concern are the affects huge amounts of 4K/8K data streaming will have on net neutrality bandwidth policies down the road and whether I'll have to pay higher prices for internet and/or settle for severely slowed internet transfers when I don't stream movies.

[Diego Pigozzo]

my main concern are the affects huge amounts of 4K/8K data streaming will have on net neutrality bandwidth policies down the road and whether I'll have to pay higher prices for internet and/or settle for severely slowed internet transfers when I don't stream movies.

Net neutrality is mainly a myth: those who can pay for CDNs near customers will get more speed regardless of carrier policies.

[Robert Roaldi]

For these things to be relevant to the mass market, it must mean that people have much larger TV viewing rooms than I've ever had. My limited experience with 50 inch (or so) screens has been at other people's houses, where the TVs were far too large for the room they were in, and annoyingly so. The concepts of source-material resolution are not even in the vocabulary of most folks; big is always better, it seems.

I have assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that the moves to 4k and now 8k were being driven by the requirements of the pro film industry that need to show films in large movie theatres, so I have not really understood why those are even being discussed in the consumer videocam arena. But it's probably an unstoppable migration.

[Diego Pigozzo]

The concepts of source-material resolution are not even in the vocabulary of most folks; big is always better, it seems.

That's true for almost any technology, and let's thank those guys for paying for R&D 

[Telecaster]

For these things to be relevant to the mass market, it must mean that people have much larger TV viewing rooms than I've ever had. My limited experience with 50 inch (or so) screens has been at other people's houses, where the TVs were far too large for the room they were in, and annoyingly so. The concepts of source-material resolution are not even in the vocabulary of most folks; big is always better, it seems.

I personally refuse to let my TV dominate my rec room. I have a 40" set now, which is large enough although the room can handle a 46" or even 50" without getting unbalanced. The most meaningful objects on display in that room are my friend Kirsten's paintings, a sculpture by another friend and my guitar amps. The modern tech must be kept in its place. 

-Dave-

[BJL]

... The  current screen sizes suitable for full HD viewing are too small for UHD or 4k. However, I expect that in a few years, the 110" screen will become fairly common and affordable for many of us. By then, the largest screens, that only the rich will be able to afford, will probably be 140- 200 inches diagonal, which will begin to make sense for 8k video and stills.

The limits of useful resolution only increases in proportion to screen size if people keep viewing these ever bigger screens from the same distance, rather than using them to sit further back and so fit more drinking buddies into ever bigger man caves.  My anecdotal evidence from cinemas is that most people do not want to be within "one picture height" of the screen; that close, too much of image towards the sides of the screen is at the periphery of your field of vision, unless you zoom your head from side to side a lot.  If that "> 1PH" viewing distance is right,  Sony's hi-def propaganda at most makes the case of needing up to 6K, and its more balanced version of definition requirements would be met by under 5K, which I mention only because some people already have this via a 27" iMac or Dell 5K monitor.


P. S. As with audio, we seem to face the irony that the great majority of people who can afford to buy into the extremes of fidelity (based on meeting the measured capabilities of a lucky minority youths with 20/10 vision or greater than 22KHz frequency response) are far older than those well-endowed youths, and so can no longer hear or see the differences.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

My favourite way to look at images is projecting on a 73" inc screen. Viewing distance is about 1.8 m (6 ft). At that distance the resolution of 20/20 vision is about 0.5 mm. Long dimension on the screen is about 1600 mm, so pixel size is 1600/1920 = 0.83 mm, so fine detail is far from optimally sharp. Going to 4K resolution would give a pixel size of 0.41 mm, a good match for 20/20 vision.

Let's assume that we want to have a screen replacing a 13x24" print (which happens to be my standard print size). It is widely accepted that around 180 PPI is needed for an excellent print (corresponding to 50cm viewing distance with 20/20 vision). To match the quality of an excellent print 4160x2340 pixels would be needed, so 4K would fall short of a normal A2-size print.

So, what I can see, 4K is about minimum to implement my normal presentations with very good image quality. Add to this that 4K has a much wider colour gamut than sRGB or Adobe RGB. So I clearly see that 4K has clear benefits. But, mainstream media and games are driving this market and we will not get decent prices until 4K media is available.

Best regards
Erik

[Ray]

The limits of useful resolution only increases in proportion to screen size if people keep viewing these ever bigger screens from the same distance, rather than using them to sit further back and so fit more drinking buddies into ever bigger man caves. 

BJL,
It's not compulsory to sit close enough to be able to distinguish all the fine detail in an image, especially when the audience consists of a group of drinking buddies who probably would not be unable to discern any fine detail due to intoxication. 

My anecdotal evidence from cinemas is that most people do not want to be within "one picture height" of the screen; that close, too much of image towards the sides of the screen is at the periphery of your field of vision, unless you zoom your head from side to side a lot.

Have you not noticed that many of these large UHD screens are now curved. This is so one doesn't need to turn one's head so much when sitting close, and one gets a more 'immersive' experience.

When buying a camera, bulk, weight, resolution and cost are major considerations. Since one doesn't have to carry a TV set, weight is not an issue, so bulk, resolution and cost remain the major issues. These modern 4k OLED screens are so thin they hardly take up more space than a large picture on the wall, so the main consideration for me is cost. Even small rooms usually have a sufficiently large wall area to accommodate a picture which is a mere 110" diagonal, although one might have to move away some of the clutter. 

[BJL]

Even small rooms usually have a sufficiently large wall area to accommodate a picture which is a mere 110" diagonal, although one might have to move away some of the clutter.

Having room for such a screen is not the issue;  I am betting that video on a 110" screen (280cm: what happened to the metric system in Australia?!) will be viewed from a distance of at least five feet (150cm) at which range 4K UHD will likely have a visible advantage over current HD, at least to sober viewers, but 8K will have no further advantage.

I do not think that a bit of curving will change that much; that reduces the oblique viewing of the edges of the screen, but still makes the angle between center and sides too wide for comfort if you sit less than one picture height from the screen.

But I am happy for chasers of big spec numbers to drive down the cost of devices that could be geninely useful for displaying digital still images.  The day will come when some galleries are truly digital, displaying photographs on such devices, with more DR than any printer can dream of.

[Telecaster]

As with audio, we seem to face the irony that the great majority of people who can afford to buy into the extremes of fidelity … are far older than those well-endowed youths, and so can no longer hear or see the differences.

Indeed. I've been wearing glasses (near sighted) since age 12 and am now in my second decade of using the progressive variety. As for hearing…well, the attached pic hints at what my ears have been exposed to over the past 40+ years. (More appropriate names for the innocent-seeming Sustain knob on the pictured gizmo would be Sonic Mayhem or perhaps Audiologist Cha-ching.) 

-Dave-

[Diego Pigozzo]

 The day will come when some galleries are truly digital, displaying photographs on such devices, with more DR than any printer can dream of.

Unluckly, that day the archivial problem will probably worsen.

[BJL]

Unluckly, that day the archivial problem will probably worsen.

Why?  Because prints will not be made in some cases, and image files on digital media are considered less archival than prints?

I have seen this discussion recently, and it makes little sense to me, because:

a) The cost of storage on hard disks is tiny compared to the costs of storing film or prints under archival conditions, so that multiple copies can be stored for a far lower price than the temperature/humidity controlled storage needed to archive prints.

b) Transferring collections of image files to new physical media from time to time is also easy and cheap, so the fear of no longer being able to read files on old, obsolete media is misplaced.  In most cases I expect the file transfer will even be "automatic", as part of an online storage service, or routine hardware updates.

c) File formats like JPEG and TIFF might go out of fashion for recording new images, but the widespread archival needs of news organizations, libraries, governments, and such will ensure that the codecs needed to read them will not be lost.  At a guess, a complete set of specifications and codecs for all current image file formats, including even the hundreds of variants of raw formats, would fit in a small fraction of a Terabyte, and will continue to occupy a tiny fraction of the space used to store image archives.

[Diego Pigozzo]

Why? ...

There are many reason.
First of all, not requiring a print will devalue the printer competence, which will consequently lead to a loss of printing competence.

On the digital archives, the problem isn't the file format but the filesystem format and the physical medium of the archive.
Today is extremly difficult to read a 5.25 floppy disk.
What will happen, in ten years, to today's hard drives? We now have SATA drives, but before that there was IDE drives.
I'm now sure I could buy a IDE controller if I wanted to.

So, keeping accessible a digital archive could, in the long run, cost much more than archiving physical objects like prints.

[Tim Lookingbill]

Net neutrality is mainly a myth: those who can pay for CDNs near customers will get more speed regardless of carrier policies.

Don't know where you're getting that information but I know for a fact it doesn't explain why dpreview's site and any other site whose point of source servers are not in the US downloads MUCH FASTER than any local site or any within my home state of Texas. And we're not even talking about video streaming which I don't even bother with except for a few YouTube and Vimeo selections a few times a month.

[Diego Pigozzo]

Don't know where you're getting that information but I know for a fact it doesn't explain why dpreview's site and any other site whose point of source servers are not in the US downloads MUCH FASTER than any local site or any within my home state of Texas. And we're not even talking about video streaming which I don't even bother with except for a few YouTube and Vimeo selections a few times a month.

I'm getting my information from wikipedia.

About "any local site", this is a clear demonstration of the "net neutrality myth": both dpreview and "any local site" may be on the same "cable" but dpreview has more server, more powerful and has more output bandwidth because it paid for that with his connection provider.

Net neutrality is a myth because it just take into account "the cable" but not all the other factors that determine the output speed of a site.

[BJL]

First of all, not requiring a print will devalue the printer competence, which will consequently lead to a loss of printing competence.

I agree that if high-end printing were to be abandoned entirely, that would be a problem -- but all I expect is that on-screen display could become one of many presentation options used by galleries in the future.  Far older image display formats, going back before silver halide to cyanotype and before that to oil painting are still is use, and still pursued seriously by many artists, so I very much doubt that printing will be abandoned entirely.  

On the digital archives, the problem isn't the file format but the filesystem format and the physical medium of the archive.
Today is extremly difficult to read a 5.25 floppy disk.

Did you read all of my post?  I agree that a particular physical medium for storing digital information cannot be trusted to be "archival", but the information in the files can be, through the ease and low cost of transferring to new media from time to time, and the fact that this transfer to new media is almost automatic these days, with complete file collections being copied to newer, larger capacity storage devices each time the mass storage is upgraded or a new computer is acquired.


P. S. Color prints do not have a great record of archival durability so far!

[Tim Lookingbill]

I'm getting my information from wikipedia.

About "any local site", this is a clear demonstration of the "net neutrality myth": both dpreview and "any local site" may be on the same "cable" but dpreview has more server, more powerful and has more output bandwidth because it paid for that with his connection provider.

Net neutrality is a myth because it just take into account "the cable" but not all the other factors that determine the output speed of a site.

But can you show or can anyone determine if the gargantuan data stream of packets from one with a "Power Bandwidth" provider such as dpreview is slowing other smaller sites?