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| JazzB1987 said: There is simply nothing to watch in 4k. Old movies also have no information to fill a 4k movie file/disk because noone thought that we would ever need something like that. |
You're very wrong about that.
Most movies and tv shows in the pre digital era were shot on 35mm, some on 65mm. A lot of tv shows are still shot on 35mm.
- 35mm film can resolve detail upto 3.2K, and since it's used anamorphically (full frame is used to store a widescreen movie) it's close to 3200x2400 for any aspect ratio. That even exceeds the vertical information for 2160p.
- 35mm film has full color info. Every consumer level video you see now is 4:2:0 chroma subsampled, which means that only a quarter of the color info stored. The grey level is stored in 1920x1080, color only at 960x540. 4K video will probably use the same chroma subsampling scheme, but at least you get 1920x1080 color information.
- 35mm film has bettter color definition then 8 bit rec.720, 4K video will hopefully support rec.2020 and 10 or even 12 bit deep color.
You're right about 2000's movies. They were a step back from 35mm film. Movies from 2000-2010 ish were all mastered in 2K. They won't have any resolution benefit, however they will have benefits in better color definition.
So yes Back to the futures and Star Wars episode 1,4,5,6 will benefit, Star Wars episode 2,3 and Lotr not so much.
A lot of current movies are shot in 5K and mastered in 4K. However the CGI is often still rendered at 2K, so still kind of a mixed bag. Ofcourse better compression and higher bandwidth will still help with picture stability, less artifacts, less smoothing out of moving objects and over all better definition in scenes with lots of action and particle effects.
You can get most of those benefits on a 1080p display as well. A 1080p OLED display with a 4K video source will look astounding. Downsampling can yield great results, just look at Samsara, scanned from 65mm negatives in 8K, mastered in 4K, downsampled to 1080p on blu-ray. It makes regular movies look soft and dull in comparison. That's one of the first movies I want to see in 4K.
Ironically it's the damn 4K players that were absent at CES 2014. The BDA has promised to finalize the specs before the end of the year, but I had really hoped to see them this CES. Sony already has plenty 4K masters ready, but for now you can only get them via streaming 40GB files, sure it's 4K but it still uses h.264 for now and the bandwidth is not much better then blu-ray. It looks great in slow scenes, action scenes still suffer.
Anyway that doesn't mean a 4K tv is useless atm. As long as you get one with HDMI 2.0 and preferably h.265 (HEVC) streaming ready. You will be able to enjoy 4K netflix soon. (if you have the bandwidth) Plus 720p to 4K upscaling looks much better then 720p to 1080p. Upscaling blu-ray yields good results too as the chroma subsmapled signal can be interpolated more precisely. And 4K tvs ara lot cheaper then other alternatives for improved picture quality.
Your choices for better picture quality:
$11K LG 55" 55EA9800 1080p OLED, THX certified, best picture quality for sure.
$5k Panasonic Viera 65" TCP65ZT60 600hz 1080p Plasma, THX cerified, 2nd best in picture quality.
Now OLED is not going anywhere atm due to production difficulties, Plasma is being discontinued, while 4K is dropping to $999 for 50".
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/01/08/ces-vizio-4k-tvs-will-start-at-999-for-the-50-inch-model
At $2600 for the 70" version, it's a very good alternative to spending $5k or more on 1080p.
Or you can keep your eye on this
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-35303_1-57617001/panasonics-prototype-4k-led-boasts-plasma-like-picture/
That should be able to replace the ZT60 with the benefit of 4K. (No price announced yet though)
