Let's talk about 4K
Lets Talk aboutL 4K Ultra High Def
The 2016 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas came and went in early January, and there were quite a few things shown off. For this blog, the most interesaitng bit, was the reveal of several new 4K devices including: 4K Tvs. 4K blu ray players, and 4K streaming services.
But really, to the average consumer looking to buy a TV to watch movies and shows on, what does this actually mean? Should you care? But more importantly should you dish out the cash for these devices, and services, or stay with yur current setup?
To answer these questions, we need to discuss several things first. now if you are a Hi-Def audio-video buff, you probably already know this. But I'd like to explain it to those who don't.
What is 4K?
Videos have always been classified accoridng to their physical dimensions. How big they actually are in relation to a screen. The best example of this is Youtube currently. Where many videos are limited to certain resoltutions because that's there physical size. 360p, 480p, 720p etc... all refer to the video's physical size in pixels. More precisely its actual height. 360p is used for a video that is 640pixels wide and 360 pixels tall. 480 is used for videos that are 480 pixels high. Youtube uses a 4:3 aspect ratio video that is 640 x 480 pixels as its SD version of videos that can support it. Resolution continued this trend with 720p HD and 1080p Full HD markers by using the vertical height of a video or screen as the basis. 4K however now changes that.
4K, technicaly short for 4000, is the nomenclature given to video sources, and playback devices that deliver content in a resolution of 3840 pixels × 2160 pixels because 3840 is conveniently close to 4000 lines of horizontal resolution. This is a change from previous resolution markers like I explained above where 1080p and 720p actually used the vertical resolution instead. i.e 720p was in reference to the 720 pixels found vertically in videos that had a dimension of 1280 x 720 pixels. Or the 1080 in 1920 x 1080 in HD videos.
So in reality 4K, is the next step in the "P" resolutions coming in at 2160p. But ince that is not as marketable as 4K, marketing departments decided to go with the much cooler sounding 4K.
But 4K, is not just a marketing strategy. It is also a reference to the fact that 4K video actually has 4 times as much video area as 1080p. So 4 times as many pixels, or video information making 4K video technically 4 times as detailed as 1080p. Why you may ask? Well this is all in the math. 720p video has 1280 x 720 or 921,600 pixels worth of video area, while 1080p video has 1920 x 1080 or 2,073,600 pixels worth of video area. In contrast, 4K has 3840 x 2160 or 8,294,400 pixels of video area which is exactly 4 times the video area of 1080p.
So at the end of the day 4K is a larger more detailed video format. But of course to view this more detailed format screens need to be able to display all these pixels. This is where 4K devices come in.
4K TVs
4K TVs have been around for a while now, but 4K sources have been rather limited, so basically you were left with a great Tv but no real content to utilize its capabilities. Yes regular 1080p blu rays looked awesome, and watching a football game in glorious HD on a 4K tv is impressive, but your were still watching 720p or 1080p on a 4k Tv. The Samsung 55" Curved UHD 4K Tv is a pleasure to watch. The SuperBowl looked fantastic on it. But at the end of the day it was still a 1080p image up-scaled to 4K by the TV and not actual 4K content. Still there are tons of 4K Tvs on the market to suit any budget and space constraints, but sources are not quite as abundant yet.
4K video sources
As mentioned above true 4K sources where hard to come by before, but that is beginning to change. Several streaming services including Netflix, Amazon Prime, and even Youtube are starting to offer 4K video sources to enjoy in your 4K TV.
However, this is not without downsides. Not only do you need the Premium version of those services in the case of Netflix and Amazon Prime, but you will absolutely need a robust internet connection to view this correctly.
How Robust of an internet connection do you need? Well, a 1080p HD movie requires a good steady 8 to 10MPB connection. That's not hard to come by, but for 4K you need close to 4 times that to get a generally decent stream and maintain the 4K-ness of the video. That means your download bandwidth needs to be over 30MPBs and closer to 40MBPs if at all possible.
Even in the U.S.A this is not easy to come by in many places. The connection needs to be very stable, as it needs to sustain the over 30MBPs speeds to get the full 4K picture quality. If your connection teeters down, Netflix will auto adjust down to 1080p instead if settings allow it, or will simply buffer continuously since it cannot keep up with playback. Either would make the extra cost you are paying for the 4K service pointless.
4K Hardware
So you have a robust internet connection, what options are there for 4K streaming now? As mentioned Netflix streams in 4K in its Premium package as does Amazon, but you need devices for this.
Unfortunately the Apple TV is out of the question, as even the new 4th Gen Tv cannot do 4K. However, there are other options, the Roku 4 for instance now offers full 4K support for services like Netflix. Amazon also has their new Amazon Fire Tv 4, with 4K support for their Amazon Prime 4K service, as well as Netflix
But what if you are like me, and like your movies in physical discs. Well, several companies revealed 4K players at CES this year, while some 4K movies have started to trickle out now in Blu-Ray format in anticipation of these players. Players shown at CES include the Samsung, Phillips, and Panasonic
How they'll perform in reality will have to wait until they are released. We can, however, anticipate, the battle for the best performance and display will be a healthy one.
Here are a few links to up-coming options for these new 4K players:
These players need to offer lots of features, but also competitive loading times. Blu-Ray movies made this painfully obvious in certain players which could take several minutes to load up the movie. My first Blu-Ray player, was a Sony BPD-s360 which took an excruciatingly long time to load a movie from disc. As the tech progressed, the loading times got shorter in newer players. My Samsung BD-F6500 loads movies lightning fast. For 4K movies, with 4 times more data to load for a movie and undoubtedly more special features available and higher resolution menus for the 4K market, loading times will be a key item to take note of.
Conclusions
It is a good time to start thinking of updating to 4K options if you are planning on buying a new TV. They aren't that much more expensive than regular HD screens, but will offer the next step in video quality.
Also, with movies now starting to come out in 4K Blu-Rays a 4K player will be a necessity if you subscribe to the physical media side of movie watching and HD content.
On the other hand, if you are o.k, with your 1080p Tv, and Blu-Ray player, and watch movies off of things like the Apple Tv then a 4K setup may not make much sense.
4K Ultra High Definition Video is here, and its time to start looking at the landscape.
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