Technology

I think the real problem is that anything less than 4k looks like shit on a 4k tv

This discussion drives me crazy because it’s the EXACT SAME FUCKING discussion that happened when 1080p screens became available in the 00s. So many people argued “oh it depends how far away you sit but you don’t really notice it” and “oh if the screen size is small your eyes can’t tell”

NO monthafucka if you have halfway decent eyesight there’s NO WAY you won’t notice a huge change in quality from 720p to 1080p even on a 6” screen. 1080 to 4k is noticeable on almost ANY size screen (we all just skip 1440p, don’t we?) and as the size of the screen goes up and up, it just gets more and more noticeable.

Edit: Forgot to mention, a big reason I heard people making this argument so much in the ‘00s is because I was in TV and computer sales.

I've been looking at screens for 50+ years, and I can confirm, my eyesight is worse now than 50 years ago.

I don't like large 4k displays because the resolution is so good it breaks the immersion when you watch a movie. You can see that they are on a set sometimes, or details of clothing in medieval movies that give away they were created with modern sewing equipment.

It's a bit of a stupid reason I guess, but that's why I don't want to go above 1080p for tv's.

The main advantage in 4K TVs "looking better" are...

1. HDR support. Especially Dolby Vision, gives noticeably better picture in bright scenes.

2. Support for higher framerates. This is only really useful for gaming, at least until they broadcast sports at higher framerates.

3. The higher resolution is mostly wasted on video content where for the most part the low shutter speed blurs any moving detail anyway. For gaming it does look better, even if you have to cheat with upscaling and DLSS.

4. The motion smoothing. This is a controversial one, because it makes movies look like swirly home movies. But the types of videos used in the shop demos (splashing slo-mo paints, slow shots of jungles with lots of leaves, dripping honey, etc) does look nice with the motion interpolation switched on. They certainly don't show clips of the latest blockbuster movies like that, because it will become rapidly apparent just how jarring that looks.

The higher resolution is just one part of it, and it's not the most important one. You could have the other features on a lower resolution screen, but there's no real commercial reason to do that, because large 4K panels are already cheaper than the 1080p ones ever were. The only real reason to go higher than 4K would be for things where the picture wraps around you, and you're only supposed to be looking at a part of it. e.g. 180 degree VR videos and special screens like the Las Vegas Sphere.

I just love how all the articles and everything about this study go "Do you need another TV or monitor?" instead of "here's a chart how to optimize your current setup, make it work without buying shit". 😅

The difference between 1080p and 2160p is night and day to me.

Please note at 18-24" with a 27" screen 4K does not max out what the eye can see according to this very study. EG all the assholes who told you that 4K monitors are a waste are confirmed blind assholes.

Isn't it just a limitation of human vision? No matter how much resolution we can create, the human eye will only ever see a certain level of resolution ... anything beyond that is imperceptible to us. I think I remember reading that 4K is the maximum we can realistically appreciate and anything beyond that is impractical because no one would ever notice the difference.

The only way higher resolutions work is if you start blowing up the size of the image itself. A 20" wide image at 720p looks good but the same image blow up to 60" becomes noticeably pixelated. A 20" wide image at 8K looks sharp and blown up to 60", it still looks sharp.

I think age makes a big difference, too. I'm over 50 and I've never been able to really tell between 720p and 1080i and 1080p, much less higher resolutions. And I'm nearsighted.

It does make a difference for reading text like subtitles or navigating game menus.

You know what would sell like hot cakes? A dumb TV with Dolby Vision support. I went down the rabbit hole of finding a large HDR monitor and adapters to trick end devices to output player-led Dolby Vision to a HDR monitors, because I don't need my TV to have a complete OS with streaming services and adverts integrated.

In the end I couldn't find anything that didn't have drawbacks. It's something that could easily exist but there are no manufacturers bold enough to implement it.

Streaming tech moves so fast, I want to add it to my TV through hardware like a fire stick, not to become dependent on the TV manufacturer putting out updates until it's 'Out-of-support'.

I went with a TV and disabled as much of the junk as I could with a service remote and just never connected it to the internet, but jumping through these hoops seems so silly.

Shhh – the ISPs need a reason to sell bigger data plans. Please think of the ISPs…

It's all about the baseline.

Cinematic, Blu Ray bitrate 1080p vs 4K is not too dramatic.

Compressed streams though? Or worse production quality? 4K raises the baseline dramatically. It's much harder to stream bad-looking 4K than it is 1080p, especially since '4K' usually implies certain codecs/standards.

HDR 1080p is what most people can live with.