dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
view:
topics flat nest 
Comments on news posted 2013-01-14 10:33:05: European operator Eutelsat Communications says they're the first company in Europe to launch an Ultra HD (aka "4K") broadcast channel. ..

page: 1 · 2 · next

NO to ESPN
@sbcglobal.net

NO to ESPN

Anon

Ultra HD is Impressive

I saw the Sony 84 inch 4K TV and must say that it is a major step forward. By the time my old Sony 36 inch XBR tube type fails I hope the price is down enough for me to consider. Once there is a broadcast system in the US I expect every sports bar to have one.

I am impressed and that does not happen very often.

cast sucks
@dsl.net

cast sucks

Anon

so how many QAM channels and satellite transponders is that?

so how many QAM channels and satellite transponders is that?

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

Waste of bandwidth without content

A channel that sucks down 40Mb carrying content no one cares about for televisions no one has.

Winrar.

CrazyFingers
join:2003-10-01
Columbia, MO

CrazyFingers

Member

Which is exactly what everyone said in 1998 when we were installing $20,000 plasma screens in rich people's houses.
Give it time, it has to start somewhere.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

It should start with Bluray 4K.

Donut
join:2005-06-27
Romulus, MI

Donut to skeechan

Member

to skeechan
I agree. Hell we dont even have HD through our Cable Service Provider. It just another way for Cable Providers to make extra cash.

cableties
Premium Member
join:2005-01-27

cableties to skeechan

Premium Member

to skeechan
Not a waste. It's all relative.
In time, the average connection to the home will be 1Gbs. Even a 500Mb/s line will have the over head. Heck, even a 200-300Mb/s line would be fine with room for other services.

Netflix delivers average movie 3-4Mb/s. Since most have 10-20Mb/s modems, its is still a 1/5 of the bandwidth (not talking caps here).

I look forward to when BR is dead, and it all comes down to subscription-streaming and 4K press-on screens! (stick'em on the wall, plug'em in, sync and go!)

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

This is bandwidth no one has in the regular market. DBS and MSOs already compress video to the point it is nearly unwatchable.

If Best Buy wants to grab this channel on a 6' dish to demo TV's, cool, but this has ZERO practical application for anyone not trying to sell a TV.

Even then, stores looking to demo 4K would be better served with a Bluray 4K disc on a loop.

Cabal
Premium Member
join:2007-01-21

1 recommendation

Cabal to Donut

Premium Member

to Donut
I can't imagine going back to 480i, it's so grainy.

(Side note: Our HD content is free, OTA ATSC.)

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

Nothing so awesomely "grainy" as over-compressed HD. And in my market, OTA HD looks like dog crap. It is like they degrade or over compress it on purpose so that you buy through the MSO or DBS provider (where they get paid for re-transmission).

ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16

ITALIAN926 to skeechan

Member

to skeechan
Could a 2 hour 4K movie even fit on a blu-ray disc?

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

I have seen Sony's new 4K BR player for sale in the B&H Photo Catalog. Quad layer BRD (BDXL) holds 128GB. I would guess that Bluray 4K would use BDXL discs. 4K may not even be "Bluray" since it is just called 4K in the description (unlike "3D Bluray"). Without content though it is little more than an upscaler at this point.

»store.sony.com/p/BDP-S79 ··· /BDPS790

n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY

n2jtx to Cabal

Member

to Cabal
said by Cabal:

I can't imagine going back to 480i, it's so grainy.

Sadly that is mostly what I watch. This.TV, Antenna, MeTV and COZI all run classic programming and that is all 480i. The few times I switch back to newer programming, I am floored at the HD clarity.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

1-ADAM-12, see the man about an overpriced TV that has no content.

NO to ESPN
@sbcglobal.net

NO to ESPN to skeechan

Anon

to skeechan
I was told that most new digital movies are "4K". If this is the case then the product is there the only issue will be how it is distributed. The question I have is if sports or the porn industry will jump start the technology. I understand that 3D with the 4K system actually works so that is another potential area of interest. As far as those who oppose this technology my first guess is that Apple would be in the front (or back) as they have tried to kill BluRay in the past. Those who see the future as product via cable or DSL may be surprised. I want a quality picture, not some grainy, blocky, over compressed image full of artifacts. The price will come down and more people will buy it. This could make a major dent in the projector market as you can have a large high quality picture in a room with "normal" lighting.

stet
Volitar Prime
join:2002-03-08
Utica, MI

stet to skeechan

Member

to skeechan
There were a handful of Blu-ray players from a few different companies (Sony, Oppo, Panasonic, etc) on display at CES with the ability to upscale to 4K but none of them had the capability to play 4K content off of disc.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

There isn't any content to be put onto disc. But disc is where 4K content should start.
dlewis23
join:2005-04-18
Boca Raton, FL

dlewis23 to skeechan

Member

to skeechan
4K Can use any BR disk size but if you put it in the way a movie is intended to be put on a BR disk it will only be 1080p no matter what the disk size is.

The only way 4K will ever be on BR is as a data disk. Which you could do even on a DVD if you wanted to.

Playing it off a BR player will become a problem as bit rate goes up.

vpoko
Premium Member
join:2003-07-03
Boston, MA

vpoko to skeechan

Premium Member

to skeechan
The problem is that the 4K generation of TV's is also the generation where physical media goes into decline. Besides, it's a lot quicker to use some extra bandwidth on your existing system than wait for a new 4K Blu Ray standard, and then wait for others to manufacture the players and discs. It's more of a proof-of-concept at this point than a serious, commercial venture.

By the way, Blu Ray was a bit late to the HD party, too.

cypherstream
MVM
join:2004-12-02
Reading, PA

cypherstream to dlewis23

MVM

to dlewis23
HEVC (Hi Efficiency Video Codec) will solve the bitrate issue.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi ··· o_Coding
firedrakes
join:2009-01-29
Arcadia, FL

firedrakes

Member

storage size . needs to catch up and big thing with 4k is you need a tv larger then 42 inchs to really notice it
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd to cableties

Premium Member

to cableties
And that 4k stream will burn up a pitiful data cap in no time if doing it over the internet.

I expect tech to improve, Data caps however will likely get smaller and overage rates higher.(private jets are not cheap.)

C0deZer0
Oc'D To Rhythm And Police
Premium Member
join:2001-10-03
Tempe, AZ

C0deZer0 to vpoko

Premium Member

to vpoko
I fully expect there to be yet another BluRay standard. By count, there's already no less than five revisions of the standard for different things/reasons.

3.0 was basically made for effectively "BluRay audio" - music discs on BluRay. And of course, the only player out there that supports this standard is the PlayStation3. 3D BluRay is done in Profile 5.0 if I remember correctly.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan to firedrakes

Premium Member

to firedrakes
Would a 4K movie be fatter than 128GB? Just using a cheese download calculator if the stream is 51Mbps, 128GB would be 5.5 hours. At 100Mbps, 2 hours 50 minutes. Seems if the newest multilayer bluray discs were the media of choice that it could easily hold a 4K movie.
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

elray

Member

Prices remain ... ?

Ultra HD sets have been on sale for under three months, in very limited numbers.

Sensationalize much?

VegasMan
Living the Vegas life.
Premium Member
join:2002-11-17
Las Vegas, NV

VegasMan to skeechan

Premium Member

to skeechan

Re: Waste of bandwidth without content

OTA HD looks good as long as there isn't any sub channels, but almost every channel has at least one sub now, there are only a handful that don't.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

In LA CBS and Fox HD OTA look pretty bad.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA

Premium Member

Let's get 1080p first

Our current 720p and 1080i is horrible looking and overcompressed. Let's get that fixed, and move to 1080p before we even think about 4K. Adding more pixels won't help when the compression is so bad.
Terabit
join:2008-12-19

Terabit to NO to ESPN

Member

to NO to ESPN

Re: Ultra HD is Impressive

We don't even have 1080P streaming yet so 4K is out of the question for years and will require a FTTH service.
46436203 (banned)
join:2013-01-03

46436203 (banned)

Member

Netflix, VUDU, and YouTube have 1080p streaming (although it isn't very good.)

The ATSC specifications allows bitrates up to 19 Mbps. So OTA is plenty for 1080p broadcasting. Over-the-air affiliates could do 1080p H.264 video @ 19 Mbps (almost Blu-ray quality) if they wanted within the current ATSC specs. It's a matter of equipment upgrades, not bandwidth. Once HEVC is released later this year they could fit a 4K channel within current ATSC specs @ 19 Mbps.

Cheapness on the part of the providers when it comes to upgrading equipment has been the problem here and it will be a problem with it comes to 4K adoption. Bandwidth is NOT the problem. The bandwidth capacity is here across multiple formats: over-the-air, fiber, cable, satellite. The only place there isn't enough bandwidth to deliver proper 4K video once sufficient equipment upgrades are in place is AT&T's pathetic U-verse product.

Right now ALL DOCSIS 3.0 cable connections in the U.S. have the capacity to deliver 4K HEVC video via Internet streaming. The majority of Americans can get access to connections that are 50 Mbps or faster. That's plenty to handle the 30+ Mbps bitrates that 4k HEVC video will require.
page: 1 · 2 · next