4 ms·

Streaming is where its at. Disney+ will be 4k hdr. All Netflix's own stuff is 4k hdr. And now stuff like F1 racing is also streamable in 4k.

overcast 8y ago
Resolution isn't an indication of image quality. Just like megapixel chasing in photography. Sure it's 4k, but it's heavily compressed, just like the terrible audio quality you get still to this day. They aren't streaming you 100GB.
- rhino369 8y ago
  It’s been a long time since I took a class on compression, but I wonder if 4K has worse image quality than 1080P at the same bitrate. Anyone know?
  - tincholio 8y ago
    It will depend on a bunch of things (codec used, encoding parameters, size of the screen, etc.), but most likely yes.
  - ska 8y ago
    All else being equal, yes. The devil is very much in the details though.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    It depends on how restrictive the bitrate was to begin with. Higher bitrates mean there's more data to move from mini-improvements over to filling in extra resolution. Lower bitrates mean you're already squeezing every drop out and the codec will collapse when asked to handle more pixels. Here's a couple charts: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0095/4332/files/optimal_bitrate_4_grande.jpg https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0095/4332/files/optimal_bi... https://di2vvsisz3gt1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/08193649/fb8f7-1MM2gim3HrryC-djD3mYGBw.png https://di2vvsisz3gt1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018... It's possible to design a codec to handle that kind of detail scaling internally, but I don't think it's been a big priority.
- HeWhoLurksLate 8y ago
  have you run 4K video through things like Handbrake? They've been proven to seriously reduce the amount of space (and, therefore, bandwidth) that video files need, and considering that 4K videos have about three times the resolution [1] they have a lot of space to gain from it. I would guess that there are appliances that can run some flavor of compression in real-time to get 4K to stream well. Yes, it will take more space than 1080p will, but that's to be expected. [1] (31802160)/(19201080) = 3.3125
  - zeusk 8y ago
    4K is 3840x2160, or 4 times 1920x1080. Pedantically, 4K is 4096x2160 but UHD has come to resonate as 4K thanks to TV marketing.
    - HeWhoLurksLate 8y ago
      Nuts! I must have had a typo somewhere. I could've sworn it was 4 times. Thanks.
  - tracker1 8y ago
    precompressed content at 4K h.265 is pretty damned good at even relatively high compression. I also prefer the degredation method h.265 uses over h.264. For 720p-1080p it can actually go both ways, the higher the resolution the better h.265 is as the compression algo. However, that means nothing for live streaming as generally speaking "live stream" compression really tends to suck a lot. And as to the above, a lot of devices don't do well with 4k h.265 streams for playback, but getting better. Also, I really don't think I'd notice going from 4K to 8K for home video, maybe for some gaming, but even then I'm doubtful. Also, I'd expect 8K gaming on even next gen's console to be closer to Wii model quality than what we see in 1080p gaming today.
    - jerf 8y ago
      "but even then I'm doubtful. Also, I'd expect 8K gaming on even next gen's console to be closer to Wii model quality than what we see in 1080p gaming today." That's something I kinda wish more game ethusiasts would pick up on. There's not really a such thing as "4K" or "1080P" or whatever; it's more about fill rates and other numbers and the question of how much you can push at 1080P or whatever, vs. what the developer tries to push. There's actually a couple of PS2 games that push 1080 (can't remember if it's P or i) with the right setup. But obviously, there's a quality stepdown. There's no particular reason other than lack of hardware outputs the PS3-era machines couldn't push 4K games. They'd just have to be very, very simple games. I recall being impressed in the PS2 era by Katamari Damacy, which seemed to be one of the few games of its era that noticed that if you only allocate like 10 polygons and a teenytiny texture for a game world object you can have a crapton of things happening on the screen, at a high frame rate, and build a game around it. I can only imagine what a full-powered, brand-new Katamari Damacy would look like on even a Switch today.

overcast 8y ago

Resolution isn't an indication of image quality. Just like megapixel chasing in photography. Sure it's 4k, but it's heavily compressed, just like the terrible audio quality you get still to this day. They aren't streaming you 100GB.

rhino369 8y ago
It’s been a long time since I took a class on compression, but I wonder if 4K has worse image quality than 1080P at the same bitrate. Anyone know?
- tincholio 8y ago
  It will depend on a bunch of things (codec used, encoding parameters, size of the screen, etc.), but most likely yes.
- ska 8y ago
  All else being equal, yes. The devil is very much in the details though.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  It depends on how restrictive the bitrate was to begin with. Higher bitrates mean there's more data to move from mini-improvements over to filling in extra resolution. Lower bitrates mean you're already squeezing every drop out and the codec will collapse when asked to handle more pixels. Here's a couple charts: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0095/4332/files/optimal_bitrate_4_grande.jpg https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0095/4332/files/optimal_bi... https://di2vvsisz3gt1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/08193649/fb8f7-1MM2gim3HrryC-djD3mYGBw.png https://di2vvsisz3gt1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018... It's possible to design a codec to handle that kind of detail scaling internally, but I don't think it's been a big priority.
HeWhoLurksLate 8y ago
have you run 4K video through things like Handbrake? They've been proven to seriously reduce the amount of space (and, therefore, bandwidth) that video files need, and considering that 4K videos have about three times the resolution [1] they have a lot of space to gain from it. I would guess that there are appliances that can run some flavor of compression in real-time to get 4K to stream well. Yes, it will take more space than 1080p will, but that's to be expected. [1] (31802160)/(19201080) = 3.3125
- zeusk 8y ago
  4K is 3840x2160, or 4 times 1920x1080. Pedantically, 4K is 4096x2160 but UHD has come to resonate as 4K thanks to TV marketing.
  - HeWhoLurksLate 8y ago
    Nuts! I must have had a typo somewhere. I could've sworn it was 4 times. Thanks.
- tracker1 8y ago
  precompressed content at 4K h.265 is pretty damned good at even relatively high compression. I also prefer the degredation method h.265 uses over h.264. For 720p-1080p it can actually go both ways, the higher the resolution the better h.265 is as the compression algo. However, that means nothing for live streaming as generally speaking "live stream" compression really tends to suck a lot. And as to the above, a lot of devices don't do well with 4k h.265 streams for playback, but getting better. Also, I really don't think I'd notice going from 4K to 8K for home video, maybe for some gaming, but even then I'm doubtful. Also, I'd expect 8K gaming on even next gen's console to be closer to Wii model quality than what we see in 1080p gaming today.
  - jerf 8y ago
    "but even then I'm doubtful. Also, I'd expect 8K gaming on even next gen's console to be closer to Wii model quality than what we see in 1080p gaming today." That's something I kinda wish more game ethusiasts would pick up on. There's not really a such thing as "4K" or "1080P" or whatever; it's more about fill rates and other numbers and the question of how much you can push at 1080P or whatever, vs. what the developer tries to push. There's actually a couple of PS2 games that push 1080 (can't remember if it's P or i) with the right setup. But obviously, there's a quality stepdown. There's no particular reason other than lack of hardware outputs the PS3-era machines couldn't push 4K games. They'd just have to be very, very simple games. I recall being impressed in the PS2 era by Katamari Damacy, which seemed to be one of the few games of its era that noticed that if you only allocate like 10 polygons and a teenytiny texture for a game world object you can have a crapton of things happening on the screen, at a high frame rate, and build a game around it. I can only imagine what a full-powered, brand-new Katamari Damacy would look like on even a Switch today.