Ill admit that I don’t upgrade my TV very often, maybe once every 8 or so years. I spend most of my time in front of my computer screen that my computer hardware and the computer screen take precedence over my TV. However that being said, I recently tried to get back into console games after a long break due to highschool and university and I decided to upgrade my television as well. I have to admit, I was blown away by the upgrade from 1080p to 4k.
4k is roughly 4 times the resolution, but what excited me much more than just a clearer picture is the possibilities that 4k, 8k and further holds for certain implementations. The specific implementation I want to see is digital tourism and potential VR implementation. Many people say you really cant tell a difference when you get to 8k, but it all depends on how good your eyes are. In many situations you can “feel” a difference more than see it. It’s the same “you cant see past 60 frames per second” argument, but again that depends on how good your eyes are.
Right now the biggest hindrance for 4k in the United States is probably the internet. Our internet is pretty terrible compared to other first world countries and streaming video is very hard to do. In addition if you want to download a movie in 4k they can be anywhere from 30GB-60GB, which is going to take a very long time to download without fast internet. Recently something very exciting happened which is that the encoding on 4k physical disks was cracked so now we should see most 4k released be torrentable.
Its only a matter of time until the technology catches up and everything we see and consume online will be in superior resolution. It is insane to believe we are here compared to only 10 years ago when we would kill for any content in 720p. Consumer adoption will take time, but as soon as most services and internet speeds start getting faster, the more content we will see in 4k. As someone who loves documentaries, I cant wait until all are available in 4k as a standard.
Im curious how many of you have a 4k television and what are you most excited for in the future? I don’t see myself updating to 8k plus until they are widely available and the content is there as well, but I am excited. I just hope that the online infrastructure in the US does not hurt the industry. It is a shame that we how slow speeds comparatively to other countries on our level.
Thanks to @Elyaque for the badges