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It seems ridiculous now that you can get 4K TV sets for a reasonable price now and yet all the cinemas are touting their "New" 4K projection technology. Either

It seems ridiculous now that you can get 4K TV sets for a reasonable price now and yet all the cinemas are touting their "New" 4K projection technology. Either bring back film or start projecting at 8K+.

dickbasedregex 10y ago
Theaters can't die soon enough. They have all the charm of public transit but with laughable pricing.
- dpark 10y ago
  So don't go to the theater. Complaining that some other people do a thing that you aren't interested in and are not compelled to participate in is petty and obnoxious.
coldtea 10y ago
From the viewing distance of movie theaters 8K wont do anything at all. Actually it wont just be diminishing returns, but it will give movies the over-sharpened, soap-opera/sports-coverage style image (and even worse if paired with higher frame rates).
- freeone3000 10y ago
  Accurate picture reproduction is now somehow a negative?
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Accurate reproduction has always been seen as a negative among a certain set of people used to what came before. Other examples include higher framerates for movies, digital photography, and compact discs. If you live with a technology for long enough, you can start to see its flaws as advantages instead.
    - mtanski 10y ago
      A Stockholm syndrome of sorts?
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >Accurate reproduction has always been seen as a negative among a certain set of people used to what came before. Only I'm someone working with 4K video and beyond professionally, not some grandpa tied to the ways of yore.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        I don't see why that would disqualify you from what I said. Plenty of tech-savvy people are hung up on 24fps or vinyl, too. It can happen to anyone.
        coldtea 10y ago
        >Plenty of tech-savvy people are hung up on 24fps or vinyl, too. It can happen to anyone. Maybe take the opposite reading of this observation? E.g. that those tech-savvy people know what they are talking about, and are not merely nostalgic or whatever? First, vinyl vs mp3/WAV is not the same as 24fps vs higher frame rates, and conflating technical issues (each with their own characteristics and/or tradeoffs) is not really illuminating the subject matter. Some things are not merely an issue of "technological capability" but tied to human physiology (the eye, etc). The same way that a screen with 50,000 lumens is not naively "brighter = better" but blinding, or a 150dB headphone is not "louder = better" but physically damaging the ear. Yeah, 150dB dynamic range is great, but nobody can hear it, and nobody can tolerate the upper range of volumes it takes to reproduce the full range on a speaker. With color, on the other hand, it's not like that. The more, the better (24bit, 32bit, 64bit, etc). With fps, again, there are issues related to the eye, how the "afterimage" works, when visual information becomes too distracting or overbearing, etc. Note also that we, for example, have been technically lowering the resolution of photographs (smoothing the skin) to make portraits appear more pleasant since forever. It's one of the main staples in fashion and magazine portrait photography. And that's not because "some old-fashioned people like smoother skin vs detailed skin". It's inherently better looking unless one likes wrinkles, pores and detailed nose hairs.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    That's like asking "feeding yourself is now somehow a negative" when people talk about obesity. It's not always a naive "the more the better" issue. Too much resolution can result in unnatural and distracting results -- your eyes don't have that much resolution as when you see a person in 8K in a extreme closeup. It's neither natural not flattering to see an actors individual skin pores, for example. Similarly, faster frame-rates capture motion more accurately (sharper under motion), but result in a movie that looks distracting and soap-opera-ish to the viewers eyes.
    - dpark 10y ago
      > Too much resolution can result in unnatural and distracting results -- your eyes don't have that much resolution as when you see a person in 8K in a extreme closeup. It's neither natural not flattering to see an actors individual skin pores, for example. Your eyes can't see human faces 8 feet tall either but no one seems to think that movies are better on 20 inch screens. To the extent that movies look unnatural in extremely high resolution, that's an issue where directors need to learn to use the medium effectively. It's certainly not more natural to see blur or pixelation instead of pores. > faster frame-rates capture motion more accurately (sharper under motion), but result in a movie that looks distracting and soap-opera-ish to the viewers eyes. Only because we've been trained to expect films to be a juddery 24 fps experience. If high frame rates become commonplace they'll look commonplace.
    - josho 10y ago
      I don't follow. Even looking painfully close to my retina displays the picture still looks great. There is no point where suddenly skin pores become noticeable when they weren't previously. If you see skin pores in a movie then that's the fault of the makeup department--I recall reading early HDTV productions struggled with this. Rather, I think the reason why theatres don't benefit from 8k is that from a certain distance increased resolution doesn't have a benefit. E.g. If you ever get close to a billboard you may notice that the resolution of the ad is quite poor, but from street level it looks perfectly fine. We aren sitting much farther than 10' from the theatre screen, so more resolution won't be noticeable given the distance from the screen for most of the audience.
    - 10y ago
- nradov 10y ago
  It's just a matter of what you're used to. I think higher frame rates look great! If you had grown up watching 60fps movies, and then someone released a 24fps movie, you'd complain that it looked rough and jittery. I never watched soap operas and very little sports coverage so I probably don't mentally associate clear images and high frame rates with those types of content.
  - overcast 10y ago
    No, you'd complain they'd look blurry, and smoothed out. 60fps makes everything look sterile, and rough. Because you see every single minute detail on everything. Rough edges included. It's like using anti-aliasing and more recently motion blur in games, blur out the edges, and it's more "lifelike". Make everything a billion frames per second, and absolute, and it looks uncanny.
    - baddox 10y ago
      How do you know what another person would complain about? I've seen the Hobbit films in both 24 and 48 FPS, and the higher frame rate looked better. Period. I also don't watch soap operas or sports, so I have no aversion to a technically superior image.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >How do you know what another person would complain about? The same reason we know what people would find too salty or too spicy. Because, outliers aside, humans tend to have the same psychology.
    - snuxoll 10y ago
      AA isn't used to make things look more "lifelike", it's to make up for the fact that you're looking at a 1080p image (or lower) and since you're dealing with pixels shit looks jagged without it. On that note, to hell with motion blur in games. The first thing I look for when I notice a game has it enabled by default is a way to turn it off, I'm not watching a film and responsiveness is much more important when I'm not sitting there mindlessly consuming content being played for me.

dickbasedregex 10y ago

Theaters can't die soon enough. They have all the charm of public transit but with laughable pricing.

dpark 10y ago
So don't go to the theater. Complaining that some other people do a thing that you aren't interested in and are not compelled to participate in is petty and obnoxious.

coldtea 10y ago

From the viewing distance of movie theaters 8K wont do anything at all. Actually it wont just be diminishing returns, but it will give movies the over-sharpened, soap-opera/sports-coverage style image (and even worse if paired with higher frame rates).

freeone3000 10y ago
Accurate picture reproduction is now somehow a negative?
- mikeash 10y ago
  Accurate reproduction has always been seen as a negative among a certain set of people used to what came before. Other examples include higher framerates for movies, digital photography, and compact discs. If you live with a technology for long enough, you can start to see its flaws as advantages instead.
  - mtanski 10y ago
    A Stockholm syndrome of sorts?
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Accurate reproduction has always been seen as a negative among a certain set of people used to what came before. Only I'm someone working with 4K video and beyond professionally, not some grandpa tied to the ways of yore.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      I don't see why that would disqualify you from what I said. Plenty of tech-savvy people are hung up on 24fps or vinyl, too. It can happen to anyone.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >Plenty of tech-savvy people are hung up on 24fps or vinyl, too. It can happen to anyone. Maybe take the opposite reading of this observation? E.g. that those tech-savvy people know what they are talking about, and are not merely nostalgic or whatever? First, vinyl vs mp3/WAV is not the same as 24fps vs higher frame rates, and conflating technical issues (each with their own characteristics and/or tradeoffs) is not really illuminating the subject matter. Some things are not merely an issue of "technological capability" but tied to human physiology (the eye, etc). The same way that a screen with 50,000 lumens is not naively "brighter = better" but blinding, or a 150dB headphone is not "louder = better" but physically damaging the ear. Yeah, 150dB dynamic range is great, but nobody can hear it, and nobody can tolerate the upper range of volumes it takes to reproduce the full range on a speaker. With color, on the other hand, it's not like that. The more, the better (24bit, 32bit, 64bit, etc). With fps, again, there are issues related to the eye, how the "afterimage" works, when visual information becomes too distracting or overbearing, etc. Note also that we, for example, have been technically lowering the resolution of photographs (smoothing the skin) to make portraits appear more pleasant since forever. It's one of the main staples in fashion and magazine portrait photography. And that's not because "some old-fashioned people like smoother skin vs detailed skin". It's inherently better looking unless one likes wrinkles, pores and detailed nose hairs.
- coldtea 10y ago
  That's like asking "feeding yourself is now somehow a negative" when people talk about obesity. It's not always a naive "the more the better" issue. Too much resolution can result in unnatural and distracting results -- your eyes don't have that much resolution as when you see a person in 8K in a extreme closeup. It's neither natural not flattering to see an actors individual skin pores, for example. Similarly, faster frame-rates capture motion more accurately (sharper under motion), but result in a movie that looks distracting and soap-opera-ish to the viewers eyes.
  - dpark 10y ago
    > Too much resolution can result in unnatural and distracting results -- your eyes don't have that much resolution as when you see a person in 8K in a extreme closeup. It's neither natural not flattering to see an actors individual skin pores, for example. Your eyes can't see human faces 8 feet tall either but no one seems to think that movies are better on 20 inch screens. To the extent that movies look unnatural in extremely high resolution, that's an issue where directors need to learn to use the medium effectively. It's certainly not more natural to see blur or pixelation instead of pores. > faster frame-rates capture motion more accurately (sharper under motion), but result in a movie that looks distracting and soap-opera-ish to the viewers eyes. Only because we've been trained to expect films to be a juddery 24 fps experience. If high frame rates become commonplace they'll look commonplace.
  - josho 10y ago
    I don't follow. Even looking painfully close to my retina displays the picture still looks great. There is no point where suddenly skin pores become noticeable when they weren't previously. If you see skin pores in a movie then that's the fault of the makeup department--I recall reading early HDTV productions struggled with this. Rather, I think the reason why theatres don't benefit from 8k is that from a certain distance increased resolution doesn't have a benefit. E.g. If you ever get close to a billboard you may notice that the resolution of the ad is quite poor, but from street level it looks perfectly fine. We aren sitting much farther than 10' from the theatre screen, so more resolution won't be noticeable given the distance from the screen for most of the audience.
  - 10y ago
nradov 10y ago
It's just a matter of what you're used to. I think higher frame rates look great! If you had grown up watching 60fps movies, and then someone released a 24fps movie, you'd complain that it looked rough and jittery. I never watched soap operas and very little sports coverage so I probably don't mentally associate clear images and high frame rates with those types of content.
- overcast 10y ago
  No, you'd complain they'd look blurry, and smoothed out. 60fps makes everything look sterile, and rough. Because you see every single minute detail on everything. Rough edges included. It's like using anti-aliasing and more recently motion blur in games, blur out the edges, and it's more "lifelike". Make everything a billion frames per second, and absolute, and it looks uncanny.
  - baddox 10y ago
    How do you know what another person would complain about? I've seen the Hobbit films in both 24 and 48 FPS, and the higher frame rate looked better. Period. I also don't watch soap operas or sports, so I have no aversion to a technically superior image.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >How do you know what another person would complain about? The same reason we know what people would find too salty or too spicy. Because, outliers aside, humans tend to have the same psychology.
  - snuxoll 10y ago
    AA isn't used to make things look more "lifelike", it's to make up for the fact that you're looking at a 1080p image (or lower) and since you're dealing with pixels shit looks jagged without it. On that note, to hell with motion blur in games. The first thing I look for when I notice a game has it enabled by default is a way to turn it off, I'm not watching a film and responsiveness is much more important when I'm not sitting there mindlessly consuming content being played for me.