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I'm old enough to remember tv shows making a big deal about being in color, then stereo, then HD. The big change in going to 4K is that Netflix doesn't need re

I'm old enough to remember tv shows making a big deal about being in color, then stereo, then HD. The big change in going to 4K is that Netflix doesn't need regulatory permission or ten years of drafting standards to make the upgrade.

mattzito 12y ago
Except that at least back then, all you had to do was pay to upgrade your tv and you got the content. Today, not only do you have to buy the new TV, you have to hope your ISP has enough bandwidth to deliver the content, possibly pay more for that, then hope that your wifi network is high-speed enough to deal with the new bandwidth requirements.
- kalleboo 12y ago
  > Except that at least back then, all you had to do was pay to upgrade your tv and you got the content. Pay to upgrade your TV, hope you lived in a market with a channel that broadcast in color, hope you got good enough reception to receive the color carrier, maybe redirect the antenna on your roof with someone downstairs yelling "the picture looks good now!". Maybe you needed to even get a new antenna with VHF band coverage instead of UHF... Technology has never been easy.
  - lyricsboy 12y ago
    You might say living on the cutting edge never has a dull moment.
josephlord 12y ago
"...Netflix doesn't need...ten years of drafting standards..." When do you think standards work started on HEVC? When do you think NHK were first demonstrating UHDTV? They were both being worked on by 2004 and much of the research work will have preceeded that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_High_Definition_Television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_High_Definition_Televisi...
- te_platt 12y ago
  Good point. And I'm sure Netflix engineers had a certain amount of internal bureaucracy to deal with as well. The point I was trying make was just that it's easier now to make a change like this than what had to be done in previous iterations.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
timthorn 12y ago
Of course, before colour was HD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/405-line_television_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/405-line_television_system

mattzito 12y ago

Except that at least back then, all you had to do was pay to upgrade your tv and you got the content. Today, not only do you have to buy the new TV, you have to hope your ISP has enough bandwidth to deliver the content, possibly pay more for that, then hope that your wifi network is high-speed enough to deal with the new bandwidth requirements.

kalleboo 12y ago
> Except that at least back then, all you had to do was pay to upgrade your tv and you got the content. Pay to upgrade your TV, hope you lived in a market with a channel that broadcast in color, hope you got good enough reception to receive the color carrier, maybe redirect the antenna on your roof with someone downstairs yelling "the picture looks good now!". Maybe you needed to even get a new antenna with VHF band coverage instead of UHF... Technology has never been easy.
- lyricsboy 12y ago
  You might say living on the cutting edge never has a dull moment.

josephlord 12y ago

"...Netflix doesn't need...ten years of drafting standards..." When do you think standards work started on HEVC? When do you think NHK were first demonstrating UHDTV? They were both being worked on by 2004 and much of the research work will have preceeded that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_High_Definition_Television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_High_Definition_Televisi...

te_platt 12y ago
Good point. And I'm sure Netflix engineers had a certain amount of internal bureaucracy to deal with as well. The point I was trying make was just that it's easier now to make a change like this than what had to be done in previous iterations.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

timthorn 12y ago

Of course, before colour was HD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/405-line_television_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/405-line_television_system