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JPL
Premium Member
join:2007-04-04
Downingtown, PA

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JPL to 46436203

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Re: Ultra HD at CES

You're missing the basic point. Regardless of WHY Rainbow isn't upping their bandwidth, the stuff is coming compressed FROM Rainbow! Verizon could give everyone 1Gps fiber, switch to full up IPTV, and it wouldn't matter a hill of beans for improving the PQ of the stuff coming from Rainbow. The pipe going from Verizon to your house isn't the only one that needs to be expanded is my point. And the reason I made that point is because I kept reading postings on here that made the claim that if these service providers just upped their bandwidth, we could easily go 4k. No, we can't. Because the link from service provider to your house is only one link in the chain. And Rainbow isn't the only one doing that. They just seem to be the one that fosters the greatest number of complaints.

As for the 'explosion' of 3D... really?:

'Display Search analyst Paul Gagnon says that U.S. household penetration for 3D TVs is at about 3 percent. “To be fair, 3D TVs have only been available for sale in a significant way for about 18 months, so that’s why the penetration is so low,” Gagnon says. “That said, it’s still lower than what many in the industry had hoped for.”'

That's from this article:

»www.wired.com/gadgetlab/ ··· hnology/

Wow... 3%. I wonder how the TV manufacturers keep up with THAT demand... Gaming, while big, is still VERY small compared to the amount of TV viewing that's done. How many 3D channels are there? How many cable companies even offer 3D? Why would that be? Could it be because NO ONE HAS A 3D TV? Why, yes, I think that's it. And why is that? Is it because prices are too high for 3D? Not really. To entice customers into believing that you HAVE to have 3D, they've lowered the price on such sets, so much that they're right in line with equivalent 2D sets. So, despite artificially depressing the price, the manufacturers still couldn't create a market for the product. Why? Because consumers don't want it. You may have disdain for the 'lowest common demonimator', but unless that person actually buys into a technology, such technology will go nowhere.
fishacura
join:2008-01-25
Phoenixville, PA

fishacura

Member

JPL you are right on re: 3D. I do actually have one but it really is a novelty and I only got it because I wanted smart features and they're often bundled. But you are right, it's being pushed a lot more than it's being requested. This is pretty much fact at this point. The above article is one of a thousand to that end.
JPL
Premium Member
join:2007-04-04
Downingtown, PA

JPL

Premium Member

said by fishacura:

JPL you are right on re: 3D. I do actually have one but it really is a novelty and I only got it because I wanted smart features and they're often bundled. But you are right, it's being pushed a lot more than it's being requested. This is pretty much fact at this point. The above article is one of a thousand to that end.

You make a very good point with this - one captured in that article. Many of the people who buy 3D sets aren't buying them because they're 3D. They want high end sets, and 3D is generally just included in such sets. That's like claiming that people really want seat warmers in their cars because high end cars just happen to have them. Besides, pricing, like I said, for 3D TVs has come way down. A year ago I bought a new TV. I looked at a 3D set, and came close to buying it. But not because I wanted 3D. But because I really liked what I saw of that TV. I ended up picking a different TV because, doing side-by-side viewing of the two TVs, the one I ended up buying (a Panasonic plasma) edged out the other TV (LG LED-lit LCD) in picture quality... ever so slightly. If I had gone for the LG, I would have been counted among the 3%, even though I had (and still have) no desire for 3D.

I don't doubt that 3D will eventually work its way into the market - you won't be able to help it. As prices for 3D drop, you'll see it just included in sets more and more (sort of like the fact that you can't really buy EDTVs anymore - HD became cheap enough that there really was no market for ED anymore). But without consumer craving it, the uptake will be slow. I think the same thing is going to happen to UHD. I just don't think there's a craving for it out there like there was for HD. Very similar to the move from VHS to DVD vs. the move from DVD to HD DVD (Blu Ray). The former was very fast. The latter... not so much. Why? Because people really noticed the difference between VHS and DVD... but the difference between DVD and Blu Ray (I don't want to start a war here... I'm going by what I see as public perception) as being far more subtle. Yes, Blu Ray is better than DVD, but not enough in people's minds to cause the format to catch on as fast as DVD did. I think you're going to see the same thing here. The difference between SD and HD was VERY noticeable. The difference between HD and UHD I don't think will be. Yes, it'll be better, but I don't know if the difference is stark enough to drive people into a UHD buying frenzy. To see the difference, such that it's noticeable to most consumers, you're going to have to go to a large TV set (that full immersion thing I was talking about) - probably something in the 85 - 100" range. Which is bigger than most people want, and even if they did want it, most dwellings can't accomodate it. I could be wrong about this - I've been wrong before. I'm just stating my view of things.
fishacura
join:2008-01-25
Phoenixville, PA

fishacura

Member

The LG LED is the one I wound up with lol!
JPL
Premium Member
join:2007-04-04
Downingtown, PA

JPL

Premium Member

That's a damn nice TV - I came very close to buying it. Some of the reviews talked about how there was a halo effect during some scenes because of the LED lighting. I didn't see it. I must have stared at that screen for 15 minutes in the local Best Buy, and I never saw what some were complaining about. Like I said, the Panny plasma that I got edged it out in PQ (from my perspective) but only barely (the LG was a very close second choice, followed by an equivalently spec'd 2D Samsung LED/LCD). In the end, it came down to price and size more than anything (the PQ was close enough on both TVs that I would have been happy with either). Not only was the Panasonic slightly larger (50" vs. 47"), but I got a ridiculous deal on it (b2b deal through my employer), and I just couldn't pass up those kind of savings.
fishacura
join:2008-01-25
Phoenixville, PA

fishacura

Member

The only odd thing with it is that it supposedly has local dimming but it can only be enabled on the service menu. That and it's a 120hz tv but i cannot figure out how to get it to 120hz (so setting and it always shows as 60hz). My guess is that nothing is coming through cable at 120hz...could this be right?
UnnDunn
Premium Member
join:2005-12-21
Brooklyn, NY

UnnDunn to JPL

Premium Member

to JPL
said by JPL:

The pipe going from Verizon to your house isn't the only one that needs to be expanded is my point. And the reason I made that point is because I kept reading postings on here that made the claim that if these service providers just upped their bandwidth, we could easily go 4k. No, we can't. Because the link from service provider to your house is only one link in the chain. And Rainbow isn't the only one doing that. They just seem to be the one that fosters the greatest number of complaints.

The link from the program provider to the service provider is relatively easy to upgrade; they do that all the time to meet the needs of different program providers. Some providers use satellite backhaul, others use fiber links. In either case, the TV service provider can, upgrade its gear and set up the link relatively easily.
kes601
join:2007-04-14
Virginia Beach, VA

kes601

Member

The link from the program provider to the service provider is relatively easy to upgrade; they do that all the time to meet the needs of different program providers. Some providers use satellite backhaul, others use fiber links. In either case, the TV service provider can, upgrade its gear and set up the link relatively easily.

Yes, however program providers are compressing their signals so they can save money on the uplink transmissions -- see Comcast / NBC Universal merger -- Comcast now compresses their channels so they can save on the uplink and the quality has gone to crap.
UnnDunn
Premium Member
join:2005-12-21
Brooklyn, NY

UnnDunn

Premium Member

How would that affect a fiber link?
kes601
join:2007-04-14
Virginia Beach, VA

kes601

Member

said by UnnDunn:

How would that affect a fiber link?

It wouldn't, but not everything is sent to Vz via Fiber.
UnnDunn
Premium Member
join:2005-12-21
Brooklyn, NY

UnnDunn

Premium Member

Chances are, if they really wanted to offer a 4K channel, they'd use a fiber link to ingest it.
kes601
join:2007-04-14
Virginia Beach, VA

kes601

Member

said by UnnDunn:

Chances are, if they really wanted to offer a 4K channel, they'd use a fiber link to ingest it.

But I believe the point being made is that several channels on a few providers aren't even really being sent up to what we would consider HD quality, so which provider would step up and provide a 4k signal?

danclan
join:2005-11-01
Midlothian, VA

danclan

Member

Pretty much any of today's major players could provide you with a 4K feed tomorrow if they so wished.

You don't get uncompressed 1080i or 720p today, you wont tomorrow. Bandwidth is not an issue codecs are that allow for clean & clear picture transmission to the STB from provider to customer.

MPEG-2 wont cut it, MPEG-4 could carry 4K today if it so wanted to.

There is no installed base to compel them to deliver 4K broadcasts, regardless of content. The same was true for HD till it reached critical mass, 3D at the current adoption rate will hit critical mass in about 15 years....if ever.....currently the only way it will reach mass is if its built in to TV's by default.
46436203 (banned)
join:2013-01-03

46436203 (banned) to JPL

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to JPL
said by JPL:

You're missing the basic point. Regardless of WHY Rainbow isn't upping their bandwidth, the stuff is coming compressed FROM Rainbow! Verizon could give everyone 1Gps fiber, switch to full up IPTV, and it wouldn't matter a hill of beans for improving the PQ of the stuff coming from Rainbow. The pipe going from Verizon to your house isn't the only one that needs to be expanded is my point. And the reason I made that point is because I kept reading postings on here that made the claim that if these service providers just upped their bandwidth, we could easily go 4k. No, we can't. Because the link from service provider to your house is only one link in the chain. And Rainbow isn't the only one doing that. They just seem to be the one that fosters the greatest number of complaints.

Well, we don't care about Rainbow. Rainbow is the lowest common denominator.

The point is that if you build it, they will come. Saying 4K will never catch on because one shitty, cheap company won't be the first to upgrade their equipment and hop aboard is ludicrous. There are plenty of others who will be interested. Discovery Communications in particular likes to be among the first to explore these new technologies. Discovery HD Theater was one of the first high definition channels launched. They did it again with 3DTV with the launch of 3net.

I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a Discovery 4K Theater leading the forefront of 4K channels.

SONY will probably help with the launch of 4K channels.

You keep reading that the bandwidth is there because it's TRUE. I know far more about how television is distributed than you do. First of all, it's not a "pipe." All your cable television is distributed wirelessly via communications satellites. Verizon has a satellite farm in Florida and Illinois which pulls down these signals and sends them over fiber to you.

The transponder capacity on these satellites is there. That "link in the chain" is ready to be used. These communications satellites do not need additional capacity to deliver 4K video. They are already able to push out 70+ Mbps bitrate video on a single transponder with ease.

Take the way NBC is distributed for example. NBC has SIX 24/7 satellite transponders operating at 73 Mbps of bandwidth. They have EIGHTEEN variable bitrate 15-25 Mbps H.264 HD channels operating on these six DVB-S2 transponders simultaneously.

ABC has a similar operation. CBS is distributed as 36 Mbps MPEG-2 video to its affiliates. I have seen CBS backhauls with one 1080i channel going at a bitrate over 70 Mbps.

The point is, behind the scenes, there is tons of video being distributed at very high bitrates with whatever crazy codec scheme they want - the kinds of bitrates 4K video with HEVC would use. I've seen Dolby E. I've seen 70 Mbps 4:2:2 1080i MPEG-2 video. I've even seen 35 Mbps 4:2:2 1080i H.264 video. One of the nice things about not sending your signal directly to the customer and instead to a provider like Verizon who packages the signal and re-encodes it so it's all compatible with every end consumer's equipment is that you can use whatever bitrates and codecs you desire.

So behind the scenes, it's ready - it's all about the last mile providers like Verizon getting their shit together.

As for the 'explosion' of 3D... really?:

'Display Search analyst Paul Gagnon says that U.S. household penetration for 3D TVs is at about 3 percent. “To be fair, 3D TVs have only been available for sale in a significant way for about 18 months, so that’s why the penetration is so low,” Gagnon says. “That said, it’s still lower than what many in the industry had hoped for.”'

That's from this article:

»www.wired.com/gadgetlab/ ··· hnology/

Wow... 3%. I wonder how the TV manufacturers keep up with THAT demand... Gaming, while big, is still VERY small compared to the amount of TV viewing that's done. How many 3D channels are there? How many cable companies even offer 3D? Why would that be? Could it be because NO ONE HAS A 3D TV? Why, yes, I think that's it. And why is that? Is it because prices are too high for 3D? Not really. To entice customers into believing that you HAVE to have 3D, they've lowered the price on such sets, so much that they're right in line with equivalent 2D sets. So, despite artificially depressing the price, the manufacturers still couldn't create a market for the product. Why? Because consumers don't want it. You may have disdain for the 'lowest common demonimator', but unless that person actually buys into a technology, such technology will go nowhere.

That's very impressive. It's actually a lot higher than I thought. For a technology in its infancy after everyone just got done buying new HDTVs the fact 3D has already managed to capture several percentage points of the market shows that 3D is here to stay. When you say "3 percent" it sounds like a small number: but 3% of the American market is HUGE. The U.S. population is 320 million. What is that, 100 million households with an average of 3.2 people in them? So 3 million households, or nearly 10 million people, have access to a 3DTV within the first 18 months of the product's release.

What was HDTV's market penetration like in the 1990's after sets had been on the market for 18 months? Not any higher than 3% I'd bet. Did 10 million people have a HDTV in its first year?

It's January 2013 now, a year after that article was written. 3D has got to be at least 6% of American households now, or 20 million people. (You know, the same number of people who can subscribe to your precious FiOS service if they wanted to.) We're not all sitting here saying Verizon FiOS is a worthless technology because it's only available to 20 million people, are we?

As far as prices, good 3D sets still aren't in line with 2D sets. I just bought a new TV recently precisely because of its 3D capability even though it cost hundreds of dollars more than the equivalent 2D-only model. I don't regret it at all.

So your presumption that people aren't buying 3DTVs for the 3D is false as well because you still have to go and drop some extra scratch for the feature.
said by bull3964 :

You are completely missing the point that a LOT of stuff that was done since 2000 was done using 2k digital intermediates, especially for special effects. They can go back and do a 4k master, an 8k master, even a 16k master and the resolution of the final product is never going to get any better than 2k. NEVER. Take my Spiderman 2 example. Unless Sony decides to go back and re-render the majority of the special effects in the movie, Spiderman 2 will never be a full 4k title. It won't. They can go back and scan the 35mm print at any resolution they want to, the source elements they used to create that print were still resolution limited.

A selection of old movies which have 2K digital intermediates is your justification for why 4K will fail. Have you ever heard of NEW CONTENT? Anything new produced will be in 4K.
JPL
Premium Member
join:2007-04-04
Downingtown, PA

3 edits

1 recommendation

JPL

Premium Member

First, where did I say that 4k will NEVER catch on? I didn't say that! Go back and read my postings. I said it will catch on, but uptake will be very slow. Eventually it'll be like 1080p - accepted because it's the default.

You may not care about Rainbow channels, but my point there is that they're not the only ones doing it! So, unless you don't also care about, say, the Discovery suite of channels, or the Disney suite of channels, or... just pick. They're all doing that. Maybe not to the degree that Rainbow is, but they're all over-compressed. Not to mention the fact that Verizon apparently cares about Rainbow - quite a bit. How much? When FiOS TV first came out, they didn't carry the Rainbow channels because CV wouldn't give them over. They went to the FCC who mandated that they be handed over. Still Rainbow played games with the channels, only offering up the SD versions, after the HD feeds became available. Again they refused to hand over the HD feeds because they thought they were cute about it - they claimed that the regulation only required that they give over A feed. Not EVERY type of feed. Again, Verizon was so non-plussed by the whole thing... the filed another formal complaint with the FCC. And again the FCC forced the issue. So... I have to ask... if NO ONE cares about Rainbow... why the hell did Verizon jump through so many hoops to get the channels? Just to stick it to CV? Um... no. Because they knew that without those channels, they would have a harder time getting customers. They were right - initially when FiOS TV was offered in my neighborhood (we already had internet at the time), I decided against it because they were missing one channel that was kinda key for me - AMC. That one channel stopped me from making the switch. But right... no one cares about those channels.

Now, maybe the solution to that bottle neck is as easy as many on here make it sound. But the question remains - if it's that easy/cheap... and they're still not doing it (and we're suffering pixellation and less than optimal PQ as a result) why on God's green earth do you think they would be just giddy about making those changes for UHD? Foot dragging is foot dragging. WHY they foot drag is utterly and totally irrelevent. It's simply not enough to get Verizon to up its bandwidth to your house. Bandwidth has to be increased TO Verizon as well.

Finally, with regard to 3D... that's not an impressive number. That's a lack-luster 'will this technology still be around a year from now' type of number. 3D is not in its infancy. Yes, it's still new, but when you compare the number of TVs sold last year with the number sold that had 3D... the numbers for 3D are, well, pathetic. You also ignored my comment, also made in that article, that many who have 3D sets didn't get them because they're 3D. They got them because they wanted higher end sets and 3D just happens to be a feature already baked in. Heck, a good number didn't even know the TV they were buyinig was 3D! There's no burning desire for 3D. Eventually it'll get there, but uptake will be slow. And it'll be slow because there's no burning desire for it. IF the TV manufacturers continue to produce technology for 3D, then you'll see it just filter down into most TVs sold, at some point. But that's a big IF. Also, you may be impressed with the 3% number, but clearly the interested parties (the manufacturers, the analysts, investors) are not. The article makes it clear that uptake for 3D is WAY below what the TV manufacturers themselves were predicting.

Yes, UHD will get there (as I said repeatedly), but slowly. It won't catch fire like HD did. That's my take on it.

bull3964
@verizon.net

bull3964 to 46436203

Anon

to 46436203
said by 46436203:

A selection of old movies which have 2K digital intermediates is your justification for why 4K will fail. Have you ever heard of NEW CONTENT? Anything new produced will be in 4K.

No, it's just the reason why it's not something worth worrying about for a long while. And no, you are incorrect, things are not being produced with minimum 4k workflows from end to end by default even today. It is much more common, but still not the standard. It's not the standard because the industry experts who create these movies feel that the improvement is imperceptible in most cases. Until the cost/time penalty approaches zero for doing workflows at higher resolutions, it's not going to be embraced across the board.

Even something as new and high budget as The Hobbit, while shot in 4k, wasn't done with a 4k workflow from end to end.

That decision to shoot An Unexpected Journey in stereo and at 48fps presented two new challenges to Weta Digital at the same time. By fxguide’s own calculations, Weta Digital had to handle source footage with 25 times more pixels than on a usual production. “It was a lot more information for us,” explains Eric Saindon, “so rather than the normal 2K it was 4K images – so four times the information. Then you go to stereo which was two times that and 48fps so double it again. The amount of information we had on this film was staggering. On a film like Avatar we had about a petabyte of information – for Hobbit we’re about five or six times that information.” While shot in 4k or 5K – the post pipeline was primarily 2K, stereo, 48fps.

4k will eventually be the standard display because 4k is going to be a standard feature when you go and buy a TV (much the same way 1080p supplanted 720p and you can't buy a mid to upper end TV without 3D.)

However, 4k CONTENT is going to take a much much much longer time to have any significant library. This is why most of us just aren't that excited for it. I think we all recognize that we'll eventually own a 4k display because at some point that will be the only thing you can buy. However, as a headline item that's supposed to get us excited about future TV technology, it's a yawner. I want something that makes my currently library look better, not something that may give a marginal improvement on a hypothetical limited future library.

danclan
join:2005-11-01
Midlothian, VA

danclan

Member

pfft...facts...so boring.....I think we have beaten this horse pretty well...going to go watch my backlit local dimming 1080p tv thats still one of the best ever made....
JPL
Premium Member
join:2007-04-04
Downingtown, PA

JPL to 46436203

Premium Member

to 46436203
I know (and agree) that this has been beaten to death, but wanted to respond to one more thing you wrote. The notion that I don't know how TV is distributed because I used the word 'pipe'. Really? You actually think that I believe that there's a real pipe going from say Rainbow to Verizon? Is it PVC? Come on. That term is used, very commonly, to denote one thing - bandwidth. Whether you're talking about distribution through wireless signal, or fiber, or coax, or what have you - there is a bandwidth limitation that you're dealing with. I talk about the 'pipe' that DirecTV uses to get TV to your house too - do you really think I believe there's a massive pipe coming from their satellite to your house? Of course I understand that the medium is not an actual pipe. But that doesn't mean there isn't a limit to how much space they have to carry their signal. And like I said, that's a pretty standard term that's used to denote bandwidth.