The pointless push for 8K

[Simon]

Currently shopping for a new TV and this is pissing me off.

Look, back when 4K came out a number of manufacturers started punting 4K sets before the UHD standard was ratified. Buying one of those sets would've been an expensive mistake. FWIW the UHD standard mainly defines 3 things: the number of pixels, support for high refresh rates and finally 'up to' the REC 2020 colour gamut. The last point is a little moot, as no screens currently available really support REC 2020 and nothing is really mastered to use the whole colourspace either. Anyway, for most of us now upgrading to a UHD TV from a HD or Full HD set you will see an appreciable difference. That difference won't really be in the higher resolution, (unless you're sitting really close to your TV), but rather in the HDR films, a likely brighter screen and vastly smoother panning and fast action motion scenes.

Still with me? My point is that for most of us '4K' is likely the last perceivable benefit of upgrading to a UHD TV.

Since the maturity of OLED and Quantum Dots it seems the industry has hit a bit of a plateau whilst it waits for the next-gen display technologies to reach maturity like Mini-LED, MicroLED, QNED and so on. So instead of taking time to deliver the 'perfect' experience UHD can bring, it seems to be fixated on boosting sales by chasing numbers to appeal to the brain dead 'bigger is better' shopper, and so is bringing us 8K. Now 8K is really pointless. Firstly it's not a ratified standard that brings other benefits like UHD did. Secondly, aside from some YouTube demos, 8K content is just about non-existent. Thirdly, a number of studios are actively pushing back against the cost of mastering in 8K in the first place because of the above. And finally, the really salient point. No-one will be able to tell the difference!

Look, I sit 8 feet from my TV. According to all conventional wisdom, that means I need about a 60-62" screen before I start to see the pixel difference between my old FHD set and a UHD (4K) one. For most people in a normal lounge, 60" is a bit ridiculous. It's fully council, and you never go full council. I'm shopping for a 47-50" set which'll be the limit of what we can reasonably accommodate in our lounge. Anyway, to see the difference between 4k and 8k at 8 feet I'll need a 120-125" TV. Really?! What's the point and cost of that?

At this point you're likely thinking 'hey if you don't want an 8K set don't buy an 8K set'. It's not that simple. Some manufacturers, and I'll take Samsung as my example here but others are just as guilty, have started moving some of their premium features up to their 8K only sets, leaving the 4K sets as the 'middle of the range' models. The number of local dimming zones for example is now only a decent number on their expensive 8K sets. It's clear what they're doing - they're pushing the features you want onto the expensive sets to justify the 8K TV prices. What they should really be doing is concentrating their energies to improve the brightness levels of their 4K sets (necessary to perceive HDR 'correctly'; it's thought about 10,000 nits would make TV like real life, but the best TVs are barely a third of that), and bringing full implementation of HDMI 2.1 and all it's features, the REC2020 colour space compliant panels etc etc, rather than chasing numbers that won't make a difference to 99.99% of the population.

This rant is longer than I thought it would be.

tl;dr. I don't want an 8K TV, they're pointless. Don't push me to get one just to get the features I do want.

[Broccers]

As I get older cleaning my glasses is as good as buying a new TV. Amazing results for no outlay

[KiwiDave]

Excellent ranting.

Also our lounge TV is 80" so FULLY council by your ratings. It's a Sony, came with the house, built into a wall...

[unzippy]

Excellent ranting.

Also our lounge TV is 80" so FULLY council by your ratings. It's a Sony, came with the house, built into a wall...

I saw an 85" in JB the other day...

I felt quite inadequate with my 43" so I moved my beanbag closer

[Jimexpl]

I completely agree.

Having supplied hundreds of TVs over the last seven years during my previous job, and being involved in the set-up of around fifty, what surprises me is that since the introduction of more picture processing features, you have to switch nearly all of them off to get a decent image, regardless of manufacturer.

A TV sweet spot came last year, before all the 8K crap, and I expect the next one is at least two years away.

[DeskJockey]

I feel wholly inadequate now. Still rocking my 32" Samsung FHD I bought in 2008. About once a week there's a line of dead/stuck pixels about 5cm from the right hand edge, but as everything warms up they disappear. Until it becomes permanent (or something else breaks), the TV isn't going anywhere. Even then I suspect we won't go above 40ish due to the size of the alcove it sits in.

[Simon]

I completely agree.

Having supplied hundreds of TVs over the last seven years during my previous job, and being involved in the set-up of around fifty, what surprises me is that since the introduction of more picture processing features, you have to switch nearly all of them off to get a decent image, regardless of manufacturer.

A TV sweet spot came last year, before all the 8K crap, andI expect the next one is at least two years away.

Boom! Yes, this was my observation too.

Alex, don't worry. I too have a 12 year old set. It's a Sony W series and still has a good picture, great sound etc, but the lack of smart features and HDR, plus the chunky bezels make it all a bit old school.

[Mito Man]

I remember when 42 inch was massive and you were doing well in life if you had one. Now people stick 50” in their bathrooms.

[Gavin]

I remember when widescreen was something you showed people and they hated them as they "look wrong".

When 25" was the average size and average weight was about a ton.

I agree, change for the sake of it seems to fly in the face of logic, by your explanation, and saving the planet by reducing our ridiculous appetite for consumption.

[Sundayjumper]

Personally, I'd like to see a return to non-smart TVs. I have a Sony with umpteen features built in and the only one I use is Netflix. And that's only because it's marginally easier than turning on the Apple TV as well. If my TV could be stripped back to a totally "dumb" unit with one input and no other functions I'd be perfectly happy. A monitor, I guess.

[ZedLeg]

I feel wholly inadequate now. Still rocking my 32" Samsung FHD I bought in 2008. About once a week there's a line of dead/stuck pixels about 5cm from the right hand edge, but as everything warms up they disappear. Until it becomes permanent (or something else breaks), the TV isn't going anywhere. Even then I suspect we won't go above 40ish due to the size of the alcove it sits in.

Aye, I’ve had the same 32” LG for nearly 10 years. It’s still going strong so I’m not fussed about changing.

I’ll probably end up buying a new one when I move to the new games consoles as 4K is going to be the default. Still won’t have a massive tv though because I don’t really want one.

[Mito Man]

Personally, I'd like to see a return to non-smart TVs. I have a Sony with umpteen features built in and the only one I use is Netflix. And that's only because it's marginally easier than turning on the Apple TV as well. If my TV could be stripped back to a totally "dumb" unit with one input and no other functions I'd be perfectly happy. A monitor, I guess.

Yep, I’ve got 2 smart TVs which are less than 5 years old and the smart functions on them are pretty unsupported and unusable - YouTube hasn’t worked for years and Netflix is choppy and slow. Parent’s new TV is ok but it has an Apple TV plugged in and Amazon firestick which are both infinitely better to use and more snappy despite being very old.
My old pre-smart TVs used for the classic games consoles are great in that I turn them on and instantly get sound out the speakers and the screen turns on 1 second later.

[mr_jon]

On the contrary I really the built-in smart TV stuff! Connecting youtube from my phone, Steamcast for a bit of gaming, VLC to stream media from my NAS, built-in Amazon Prime so no need for sticks & extra powers. We've done away with nearly all the peripherals we used to have to have connected to achieve the same functions.

[Richard]

Thirdly, a number of studios are actively pushing back against the cost of mastering in 8K in the first place because of the above.

Most content, Hollywood included is actually mastered in 3k, then upscaled to 4k. Seems weird to me, but it’s the norm

[Simon]

Oh sweet delicious irony. We've won a TV.

Only it's in Brazil.

A friend of ours out there rescues, nurses and then tries to re-home stray cats and dogs. We occasionally help her out with donations to pay for food, vets, etc. As she's quite well known in the local community she often gets gifted things to raffle off to raise money for the animals. So a local business gave her a Samsung TV and we won it after buying some of the tickets.

Yes, we won a Brazilian spec TV in the middle of a global pandemic. #winning.

We'll probably sell it to one of my wife's family, one of which has already gone and picked it up for us.

[Carlos]

Oh sweet delicious irony. We've won a TV.

Only it's in Brazil.

A friend of ours out there rescues, nurses and then tries to re-home stray cats and dogs. We occasionally help her out with donations to pay for food, vets, etc. As she's quite well known in the local community she often gets gifted things to raffle off to raise money for the animals. So a local business gave her a Samsung TV and we won it after buying some of the tickets.

Yes, we won a Brazilian spec TV in the middle of a global pandemic. #winning.

We'll probably sell it to one of my wife's family, one of which has already gone and picked it up for us.

I hope you've told them to reject it if it's 8k

[Ascender]

To be honest, I think I'm going to be pushing my luck to be able to stream 4K content on our crappy internet connection, so I can't begin to imagine what bandwidth I'd need for 8K. I'd have to get back in to the game of buying physical discs again, a 4K/8K blu-ray player etc etc. Not sure I CBA.

Maybe the next gen of consoles will see us finally getting a massive 4K set, but even that was confusing last time I looked due to the size v distance-from-screen you mentioned [mention]Simon[/mention]

[Mito Man]

I don’t know how true the size vs distance thing is, I don’t have eyes like a hawk but I can see the difference between HD and 4K sitting 6 metres away. It’s especially clear on Sports channels which have all the small text or F1 with all the driver names and tiny logos on the cars.

[Beany]

I don’t know how true the size vs distance thing is, I don’t have eyes like a hawk but I can see the difference between HD and 4K sitting 6 metres away. It’s especially clear on Sports channels which have all the small text or F1 with all the driver names and tiny logos on the cars.

You can definitely see the difference between 1080p and 4k, but between 4k and 8k is going to be proper diminishing returns stuff.

[Orange Cola]

I don’t know how true the size vs distance thing is, I don’t have eyes like a hawk but I can see the difference between HD and 4K sitting 6 metres away. It’s especially clear on Sports channels which have all the small text or F1 with all the driver names and tiny logos on the cars.

What size of screen is that on?

Basically it’s about how much of your field of view the screen should take up, so whether you’re watching on a 20” set or a 60” set, assuming the same number of pixels, they *should* look about the same at the ‘correct’ distance so people aren’t penalised for having smaller or larger rooms to watch them in.

Assuming you can input an image at the same quality as the screen then upping the pixel density should give you more detail for a given distance, but a fair few council dwelling folk confuse this for physical screen size and think it works like an IMAX or something