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4K TVs at normal distance already exceed the resolution the eye can see. This seems impressive, but also seemingly pointless. https://www.cnet.com/news/why-ul

4K TVs at normal distance already exceed the resolution the eye can see. This seems impressive, but also seemingly pointless. https://www.cnet.com/news/why-ultra-hd-4k-tvs-are-still-stupid https://www.cnet.com/news/why-ultra-hd-4k-tvs-are-still-stup...

colordrops 8y ago
Doesn't it depend on the size of the TV? Also, doesn't it open up a path to getting rid of the screen door effect for 3D/VR?
- oe 8y ago
  Looking at the RTINGS.com "Angular Resolution" chart, at 6 feet viewing distance you'd need to have a 100" TV to be able to see the difference: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-r...
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    Is that based on "average" vision of 20/20? Because apparently 20/20 is not average. It's just a baseline considered good enough. The majority of humans see better than 20/20.
  - stordoff 8y ago
    This appears to be based on 20/20 (6/6) vision. People can have a visual acuity significantly better than that: > Healthy young observers may have a binocular acuity superior to 6/6; the limit of acuity in the unaided human eye is around 6/3–6/2.4 (20/10–20/8) > The significance of the 6/6 standard can best be thought of as the lower limit of normal or as a screening cutoff. When used as a screening test, subjects that reach this level need no further investigation, even though the average visual acuity with a healthy visual system is typically better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity I myself have been tested (twice) at around 20/8 (and was still better than 20/20 when I was complaining of blurry vision after an eye injury).
cptskippy 8y ago
I recall in the 90s when they said a 640x480 image was the equivalent of a 3x5 photo print. I think it's naive to assume our vision can be diluted down to a fixed resolution at a given distance. No, I cannot see the pixel grid of my 55in 4k OLED TV at a viewing distance of more than about a foot. However I can see a single pixel illuminated at about 25ft. So to say there is not benefit to 8k is like saying we'll never need more than 640k of RAM.
- ajross 8y ago
  > I think it's naive to assume our vision can be diluted down to a fixed resolution at a given distance. You have an alternative theory of vision where resolution is not limited by photoreceptor density? Look, there are only so many cells on your retina. > However I can see a single pixel illuminated at about 25ft. And you can see a star (which subtends a MUCH smaller angular size than that mere pixel) at hundreds of light years. Yet it takes a skyscraper-sized telescope and mindbendingly crazy interferometric and occlusion techniques to detect even the planets in that system, much less the disk of the star itself. No, this is wrong. Your eyes can't detect the difference between 4k and 8k at routine (i.e. 90 degree width or so) distances. They just can't.
  - devwastaken 8y ago
    >No, this is wrong. Your eyes can't detect the difference between 4k and 8k at routine (i.e. 90 degree width or so) distances. They just can't. proof please.
  - Retric 8y ago
    People can tell the difference between a 4k and an 8k TV. 4K is still only 2,160 vertical pixels. That’s normally plenty but some images have really obvious issues at that resolution. EX: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moiré_pattern https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moiré_pattern PS: Eyes have 120 million rod cells, and 6 million cone cells. Further, those cells are not in a grid pattern. A 4K TV is approximately 8.3 million pixels so it’s approaching the right order of magnitude, but still has some room before you can individually activate each cell.
chrisseaton 8y ago
I remember them saying 640 by 480 was indistinguishable from a traditional photo print.
- vardump 8y ago
  Just take a look at some cheap consumer camera photo prints from eighties and nineties. Those prints were pretty blurry, 640x480 was pretty comparable.
  - jumelles 8y ago
    Anything captured on film simply can't be compared with a digital file. Even if the picture is blurry the resolution will still be there.
    - vardump 8y ago
      Perhaps deconvolution could reconstruct the detail in theory, but I'm only talking about perceptible quality. Cheap consumer pocket film cameras used to have a pretty crappy quality for a number of reasons.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
derefr 8y ago
To me, this is less about what you can see, and more about sending broadcast television (live news, etc.) in "archival quality." 8K has far fewer aliasing artifacts than 4K when you embed a picture-in-picture thumbnail of one news service's report on another news service, for example. It also can serve as a better input for documentary footage (since live news stations don't really release actual archival media, people's personal archives of the broadcasts are usually where documentaries and other such "remixes" get their footage.) Separately, though: you're assuming a pretty small (i.e. "regular-sized" TV.) There are a lot of other use-cases for display of broadcast TV signals, though. For example, there might be a 50-inch "wallpaper" TV on the wall of a corridor you're walking through, tuned to a nature channel, serving as a sort of "animated landscape art installation" to decorate the corridor†. 4K @ 50" is only 88DPI! And you'd be walking sometimes only inches away from it (if the hall is crowded.) It'd certainly look pixelated, and so not much like a real "painting" at all. 8K would look a lot closer to "real" in that situation. † If you're wondering, this is a real thing that most modern "wallpaper" TVs already advertise themselves as being usable for. Most such TVs have screensaver modes that display high-res scans of paintings, embedded in photorealistic "frames", and from even a few feet away, it's a near-perfect illusion.
- mrob 8y ago
  >8K has far fewer aliasing artifacts than 4K when you embed a picture-in-picture thumbnail of one news service's report on another news service This is simply mitigating the effects of a poor quality resampling algorithm, not a true advantage of 8K. At common viewing distances, you could get the same visual result on a 4K panel by resampling with a correct anti-aliasing filter.
jonathanbull 8y ago
I dunno, I recall hearing (and believing) a similar thing about the iPhone 4 retina display. Seen an iPhone 4 display recently? It looks fuzzy by modern standards.
- raghavtoshniwal 8y ago
  Mostly due to strides made in color reproduction and screen panel quality, and more recently due to support for higher frame rates. The gains from increasing the resolution have been minimal.
- bluedino 8y ago
  The other phones (except the XS/max) have the same dpi
  - hocuspocus 8y ago
    Except the Xs, Xs max, the X, and the 6/6s/7/8 plus variants. And about every mid to hi-range Android phone that came out in the past 5 years. I haven't seen the Xr yet but the lower resolution is extremely obvious on the non plus iPhones.
- giobox 8y ago
  This is a tough comparison to make, because all of the iOS device screens that followed the iPhone 4 have vastly improved contrast ratios, viewing angles, colour space support, different anti-reflective coatings, screen lamination techniques, glass, even refresh rate if one considers the 120fps iPad Pro panels. Point I’m making is there is more than just DPI making those new panels look much better. The panel on the XR is the same DPI as the 4 and is widely regarded as one of the best, most colour accurate LCD displays Apple has ever shipped. The vast majority will not notice the difference between 2x and 3x retina, to borrow apples technical terms for the different densities - beyond a certain point display DPI is a pure bullshit vanity metric for a given size/viewing distance. For me personally, improvements in screen lamination are some of the biggest differences - on modern iPhones the screen feels directly laminated to the glass - on an old iPhone 4 there is a very noticeable “air gap” between the display and the glass.
nihonde 8y ago
Someone may have a more technical reason, but my hunch is that NHK is pushing the next-gen button in the interest of the domestic panel makers. There’s some serious “made in Japan” nationalism when it comes to televisions, because of the challenge from Korea and China. Japanese consumers more or less willingly subsidize their domestic makers by paying almost double the price for Japanese-made panels compared to what the same models cost in the US. Go shopping for a TV at Bic or Yodobashi and you’ll see just two or three LG or Samsung panels on display, and salespeople have actively steered me away from those. I bought a Samsung for an older friend who asked me to pick something up for him and he was appreciative but also clearly mortified that it was supporting a foreign maker. (The thought never crossed my mind!) To be honest, I understand the sentiment. Supporting Sony or Sharp means supporting jobs and the domestic economy, and (unlike, say, US automakers) the domestic product is very high quality—just more expensive. Nationalism and protectionism are gross, but a little team spirit is not evil. So, I could be wrong, but I bet this is a way to move new models out of the showrooms, with the bonus of appealing to the upcoming Olympic broadcast, etc.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Someone may have a more technical reason, but my hunch is that NHK is pushing the next-gen button in the interest of the domestic panel makers. Part of it is Olympic pressure to be "first" and show off. We saw this with HDTV in the Atlanta games, with streaming during the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and 4K during the Vancouver games. All mediocre tech demos from electronics companies looking to impress a global audience that includes a heavy dose of political and business decision-makers. But Japan, and especially NHK, has a long history of being a wonderland of tech demos that never go anywhere, or take decades to go mainstream, even at home. There's something of a "Hey, look what we can do!" ribbon that runs through the culture that is marvelous and charming. There aren't a lot of societies left that, metaphorically, shoot guns at the sun just to see what will happen. (Apologies to A Fine Frenzy)
- nihonde 8y ago
  Self-correction: I forgot that Sharp is owned by Foxconn now!
agumonkey 8y ago
I thought 8K was needed for that. But maybe uncompressed 4K is enough but compression clearly degrades signal even at 4K. Note that I enjoy my busted 15" CRT quality fine. And to add to this, I really feel that there's a diminishing return in that era, where resolution is ultra high, yet content is not as enjoyable as thing 30 years ago.
- lsc 8y ago
  >Note that I enjoy my busted 15" CRT quality fine. I... think you are not in the majority if you think NTSC is "fine" (Unless you mean a 15" computer monitor, a 15" computer monitors could go rather high resolution, and they are absolutely tiny compared to modern non-portable displays, so the pixel density was kinda okay.)
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    No I really meant 80s average quality. Hell, I even rewatched some old TV ripped on VHS, it was ugly.. yet I liked it. Not only for nostalgia. I think obsession for perfect signal is pushing people away from quality and simple enjoyment.
devwastaken 8y ago
Any time someone comments on 'what the eye can see' without any objective backup, it's typically wrong. The number of people who say 120hz is 'unseeable', yet were completely wrong about that. You're not even mentioning the TV's size. We talking a 60' TV? https://www.noteloop.com/kit/display/pixel-density/ https://www.noteloop.com/kit/display/pixel-density/ The pixel density at 4K is atrocious on larger panels.
pault 8y ago
I play my Xbox about four feet from my 55” 4K and text looks terrible at that distance. There may not be much of a difference if you’re watching a movie six feet away but it’s silly to say there are no use cases for 8k.
wtvanhest 8y ago
I have a fairly standard sized living room, TV (55inch), standard vision. I vastly prefer 4k content. It is much, much clearer. There is likely a 4th or 5th variable that isnt considered like the additional pixel count's impact on how the eye sees color etc.
- jrobn 8y ago
  I doubt 8K will be as big as a subjective improvement. Things like HDR, 10-bit color depth, and higher display brightness (nits) all contribute to a better image than just a resolution increase.
mseidl 8y ago
I've never seen an 8k tv before, but the difference between 1080 and 4k is night and day to me. But I still have a 1080p tv. The amount of 4k content , let alone the amount of 1080p content(with my iptv) isn't that good.
- Koshkin 8y ago
  Well, even a supposedly full HD movie on a BluRay disc will show a lot of grain which you do not care to see.
threatofrain 8y ago
Isn't DPI closer to what most people intuitively think of resolution on monitors?
pessimizer 8y ago
Even if you could see it, I have yet to notice an actionable pore on a television show, or a marginally detectable irregularity on a car's paint job in a movie that forced me to completely reevaluate my opinion of the story. 8K is not pointless, it is a higher number. Higher numbers are better. Would you like to buy some stereo equipment? I literally cannot read text on a monitor that is less than 4K, it causes me to uncontrollably vomit. I watched a demo of an 8K monitor, and it enabled me to read in languages I don't even speak.
- pinum 8y ago
  A sharper picture a) helps immerse me in the movie/game, by strengthening the illusion of a "window into another world" and b) is simply prettier. Most people do like eye candy.
wongarsu 8y ago
At currently normal distances, with currently normal display sizes, 4k is already better than needed. But screens are getting larger and more ubiquitous (often leading to people standing close to giant displays), so when designing for the next one or two decades 8k definitely makes sense.
Shivetya 8y ago
You can sit closer to these TVs, 4K included. Which opens up the larger screens in smaller rooms. This can really improve the viewing experience.

colordrops 8y ago

Doesn't it depend on the size of the TV? Also, doesn't it open up a path to getting rid of the screen door effect for 3D/VR?

oe 8y ago
Looking at the RTINGS.com "Angular Resolution" chart, at 6 feet viewing distance you'd need to have a 100" TV to be able to see the difference: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-r...
- jjeaff 8y ago
  Is that based on "average" vision of 20/20? Because apparently 20/20 is not average. It's just a baseline considered good enough. The majority of humans see better than 20/20.
- stordoff 8y ago
  This appears to be based on 20/20 (6/6) vision. People can have a visual acuity significantly better than that: > Healthy young observers may have a binocular acuity superior to 6/6; the limit of acuity in the unaided human eye is around 6/3–6/2.4 (20/10–20/8) > The significance of the 6/6 standard can best be thought of as the lower limit of normal or as a screening cutoff. When used as a screening test, subjects that reach this level need no further investigation, even though the average visual acuity with a healthy visual system is typically better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity I myself have been tested (twice) at around 20/8 (and was still better than 20/20 when I was complaining of blurry vision after an eye injury).

cptskippy 8y ago

I recall in the 90s when they said a 640x480 image was the equivalent of a 3x5 photo print. I think it's naive to assume our vision can be diluted down to a fixed resolution at a given distance. No, I cannot see the pixel grid of my 55in 4k OLED TV at a viewing distance of more than about a foot. However I can see a single pixel illuminated at about 25ft. So to say there is not benefit to 8k is like saying we'll never need more than 640k of RAM.

ajross 8y ago
> I think it's naive to assume our vision can be diluted down to a fixed resolution at a given distance. You have an alternative theory of vision where resolution is not limited by photoreceptor density? Look, there are only so many cells on your retina. > However I can see a single pixel illuminated at about 25ft. And you can see a star (which subtends a MUCH smaller angular size than that mere pixel) at hundreds of light years. Yet it takes a skyscraper-sized telescope and mindbendingly crazy interferometric and occlusion techniques to detect even the planets in that system, much less the disk of the star itself. No, this is wrong. Your eyes can't detect the difference between 4k and 8k at routine (i.e. 90 degree width or so) distances. They just can't.
- devwastaken 8y ago
  >No, this is wrong. Your eyes can't detect the difference between 4k and 8k at routine (i.e. 90 degree width or so) distances. They just can't. proof please.
- Retric 8y ago
  People can tell the difference between a 4k and an 8k TV. 4K is still only 2,160 vertical pixels. That’s normally plenty but some images have really obvious issues at that resolution. EX: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moiré_pattern https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moiré_pattern PS: Eyes have 120 million rod cells, and 6 million cone cells. Further, those cells are not in a grid pattern. A 4K TV is approximately 8.3 million pixels so it’s approaching the right order of magnitude, but still has some room before you can individually activate each cell.

chrisseaton 8y ago

I remember them saying 640 by 480 was indistinguishable from a traditional photo print.

vardump 8y ago
Just take a look at some cheap consumer camera photo prints from eighties and nineties. Those prints were pretty blurry, 640x480 was pretty comparable.
- jumelles 8y ago
  Anything captured on film simply can't be compared with a digital file. Even if the picture is blurry the resolution will still be there.
  - vardump 8y ago
    Perhaps deconvolution could reconstruct the detail in theory, but I'm only talking about perceptible quality. Cheap consumer pocket film cameras used to have a pretty crappy quality for a number of reasons.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

derefr 8y ago

To me, this is less about what you can see, and more about sending broadcast television (live news, etc.) in "archival quality." 8K has far fewer aliasing artifacts than 4K when you embed a picture-in-picture thumbnail of one news service's report on another news service, for example. It also can serve as a better input for documentary footage (since live news stations don't really release actual archival media, people's personal archives of the broadcasts are usually where documentaries and other such "remixes" get their footage.) Separately, though: you're assuming a pretty small (i.e. "regular-sized" TV.) There are a lot of other use-cases for display of broadcast TV signals, though. For example, there might be a 50-inch "wallpaper" TV on the wall of a corridor you're walking through, tuned to a nature channel, serving as a sort of "animated landscape art installation" to decorate the corridor†. 4K @ 50" is only 88DPI! And you'd be walking sometimes only inches away from it (if the hall is crowded.) It'd certainly look pixelated, and so not much like a real "painting" at all. 8K would look a lot closer to "real" in that situation. † If you're wondering, this is a real thing that most modern "wallpaper" TVs already advertise themselves as being usable for. Most such TVs have screensaver modes that display high-res scans of paintings, embedded in photorealistic "frames", and from even a few feet away, it's a near-perfect illusion.

mrob 8y ago
>8K has far fewer aliasing artifacts than 4K when you embed a picture-in-picture thumbnail of one news service's report on another news service This is simply mitigating the effects of a poor quality resampling algorithm, not a true advantage of 8K. At common viewing distances, you could get the same visual result on a 4K panel by resampling with a correct anti-aliasing filter.

jonathanbull 8y ago

I dunno, I recall hearing (and believing) a similar thing about the iPhone 4 retina display. Seen an iPhone 4 display recently? It looks fuzzy by modern standards.

raghavtoshniwal 8y ago
Mostly due to strides made in color reproduction and screen panel quality, and more recently due to support for higher frame rates. The gains from increasing the resolution have been minimal.
bluedino 8y ago
The other phones (except the XS/max) have the same dpi
- hocuspocus 8y ago
  Except the Xs, Xs max, the X, and the 6/6s/7/8 plus variants. And about every mid to hi-range Android phone that came out in the past 5 years. I haven't seen the Xr yet but the lower resolution is extremely obvious on the non plus iPhones.
giobox 8y ago
This is a tough comparison to make, because all of the iOS device screens that followed the iPhone 4 have vastly improved contrast ratios, viewing angles, colour space support, different anti-reflective coatings, screen lamination techniques, glass, even refresh rate if one considers the 120fps iPad Pro panels. Point I’m making is there is more than just DPI making those new panels look much better. The panel on the XR is the same DPI as the 4 and is widely regarded as one of the best, most colour accurate LCD displays Apple has ever shipped. The vast majority will not notice the difference between 2x and 3x retina, to borrow apples technical terms for the different densities - beyond a certain point display DPI is a pure bullshit vanity metric for a given size/viewing distance. For me personally, improvements in screen lamination are some of the biggest differences - on modern iPhones the screen feels directly laminated to the glass - on an old iPhone 4 there is a very noticeable “air gap” between the display and the glass.

nihonde 8y ago

Someone may have a more technical reason, but my hunch is that NHK is pushing the next-gen button in the interest of the domestic panel makers. There’s some serious “made in Japan” nationalism when it comes to televisions, because of the challenge from Korea and China. Japanese consumers more or less willingly subsidize their domestic makers by paying almost double the price for Japanese-made panels compared to what the same models cost in the US. Go shopping for a TV at Bic or Yodobashi and you’ll see just two or three LG or Samsung panels on display, and salespeople have actively steered me away from those. I bought a Samsung for an older friend who asked me to pick something up for him and he was appreciative but also clearly mortified that it was supporting a foreign maker. (The thought never crossed my mind!) To be honest, I understand the sentiment. Supporting Sony or Sharp means supporting jobs and the domestic economy, and (unlike, say, US automakers) the domestic product is very high quality—just more expensive. Nationalism and protectionism are gross, but a little team spirit is not evil. So, I could be wrong, but I bet this is a way to move new models out of the showrooms, with the bonus of appealing to the upcoming Olympic broadcast, etc.

reaperducer 8y ago
Someone may have a more technical reason, but my hunch is that NHK is pushing the next-gen button in the interest of the domestic panel makers. Part of it is Olympic pressure to be "first" and show off. We saw this with HDTV in the Atlanta games, with streaming during the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and 4K during the Vancouver games. All mediocre tech demos from electronics companies looking to impress a global audience that includes a heavy dose of political and business decision-makers. But Japan, and especially NHK, has a long history of being a wonderland of tech demos that never go anywhere, or take decades to go mainstream, even at home. There's something of a "Hey, look what we can do!" ribbon that runs through the culture that is marvelous and charming. There aren't a lot of societies left that, metaphorically, shoot guns at the sun just to see what will happen. (Apologies to A Fine Frenzy)
nihonde 8y ago
Self-correction: I forgot that Sharp is owned by Foxconn now!

agumonkey 8y ago

I thought 8K was needed for that. But maybe uncompressed 4K is enough but compression clearly degrades signal even at 4K. Note that I enjoy my busted 15" CRT quality fine. And to add to this, I really feel that there's a diminishing return in that era, where resolution is ultra high, yet content is not as enjoyable as thing 30 years ago.

lsc 8y ago
>Note that I enjoy my busted 15" CRT quality fine. I... think you are not in the majority if you think NTSC is "fine" (Unless you mean a 15" computer monitor, a 15" computer monitors could go rather high resolution, and they are absolutely tiny compared to modern non-portable displays, so the pixel density was kinda okay.)
- agumonkey 8y ago
  No I really meant 80s average quality. Hell, I even rewatched some old TV ripped on VHS, it was ugly.. yet I liked it. Not only for nostalgia. I think obsession for perfect signal is pushing people away from quality and simple enjoyment.

devwastaken 8y ago

Any time someone comments on 'what the eye can see' without any objective backup, it's typically wrong. The number of people who say 120hz is 'unseeable', yet were completely wrong about that. You're not even mentioning the TV's size. We talking a 60' TV? https://www.noteloop.com/kit/display/pixel-density/ https://www.noteloop.com/kit/display/pixel-density/ The pixel density at 4K is atrocious on larger panels.

pault 8y ago

I play my Xbox about four feet from my 55” 4K and text looks terrible at that distance. There may not be much of a difference if you’re watching a movie six feet away but it’s silly to say there are no use cases for 8k.

wtvanhest 8y ago

I have a fairly standard sized living room, TV (55inch), standard vision. I vastly prefer 4k content. It is much, much clearer. There is likely a 4th or 5th variable that isnt considered like the additional pixel count's impact on how the eye sees color etc.

jrobn 8y ago
I doubt 8K will be as big as a subjective improvement. Things like HDR, 10-bit color depth, and higher display brightness (nits) all contribute to a better image than just a resolution increase.

mseidl 8y ago

I've never seen an 8k tv before, but the difference between 1080 and 4k is night and day to me. But I still have a 1080p tv. The amount of 4k content , let alone the amount of 1080p content(with my iptv) isn't that good.

Koshkin 8y ago
Well, even a supposedly full HD movie on a BluRay disc will show a lot of grain which you do not care to see.

threatofrain 8y ago

Isn't DPI closer to what most people intuitively think of resolution on monitors?

pessimizer 8y ago

Even if you could see it, I have yet to notice an actionable pore on a television show, or a marginally detectable irregularity on a car's paint job in a movie that forced me to completely reevaluate my opinion of the story. 8K is not pointless, it is a higher number. Higher numbers are better. Would you like to buy some stereo equipment? I literally cannot read text on a monitor that is less than 4K, it causes me to uncontrollably vomit. I watched a demo of an 8K monitor, and it enabled me to read in languages I don't even speak.

pinum 8y ago
A sharper picture a) helps immerse me in the movie/game, by strengthening the illusion of a "window into another world" and b) is simply prettier. Most people do like eye candy.

wongarsu 8y ago

At currently normal distances, with currently normal display sizes, 4k is already better than needed. But screens are getting larger and more ubiquitous (often leading to people standing close to giant displays), so when designing for the next one or two decades 8k definitely makes sense.

Shivetya 8y ago

You can sit closer to these TVs, 4K included. Which opens up the larger screens in smaller rooms. This can really improve the viewing experience.