Why There's No 4K Netflix Or Amazon On A PC

Brahmzy said:
You sir need to go see an eye doctor and put your math pencil down. 4K is not 3D. Two completely different techs. One was a foreseeable bad experiment with current technology, the other is a much-needed evolution in getting us one step closer to realism and immersion. Let me guess, you were one of the ones who said 1080p was undetectable by the human eye?
Wash, rinse and repeat. This happens every time. "720p and 1080p are virtually identical to the human eye!"
Click to expand...

Yup, haha. I have actually seen some rough math as well about what the eye can actually see in various parts including peripheral or frontal vision cones internally and just under the main area alone excluding your less detailed peripheral is supposedly able to physically directly resolve in excess of 10k resolution though it's unknown but assumed you will easily notice more. And that's still excluding the peripheral areas of your eyes (left and right sides of each eye) which would resolve to more as the two eyes cover an overlapping area in the middle as well.

Long story short tech is miles away from being indistinguishable to human eyes, probably decades still before the sort of tech that could pull it off is even available at the consumer level and it hasn't even been made yet.

It really does fascinate me how some people pretend to know a topic in depth that anyone who has even done cursory research about knows they are talking out of their hind regions. Why lie in the first place instead of just saying, "I don't know."?
 
GoldenTiger said:
Yup, haha. I have actually seen some rough math as well about what the eye can actually see in various parts including peripheral or frontal vision cones internally and just under the main area alone excluding your less detailed peripheral is supposedly able to physically directly resolve in excess of 10k resolution though it's unknown but assumed you will easily notice more. And that's still excluding the peripheral areas of your eyes (left and right sides of each eye) which would resolve to more as the two eyes cover an overlapping area in the middle as well.

Long story short tech is miles away from being indistinguishable to human eyes, probably decades still before the sort of tech that could pull it off is even available at the consumer level and it hasn't even been made yet.

It really does fascinate me how some people pretend to know a topic in depth that anyone who has even done cursory research about knows they are talking out of their hind regions. Why lie in the first place instead of just saying, "I don't know."?
Click to expand...


Oh, and also just to add, eyes are analog, not digital. It's assumed by scientists as I said that despite physically resolving a certain detail area per cone in your eyes, that we will still easily perceive further differences and obviously even more due to that overlapping area between the two eyes directly.
 
Ur_Mom said:
People said the same for 1080p vs 720p. But, having the market for 1080p made it grow faster and be adopted faster. Screens got bigger and better. Things were optimized for 1080p. I'm all for 4K. May not make a big difference now (it's noticeable, but not a huge difference with smaller screens), but in 5 years when the 100" 4K LCD screen is on your wall, it will. Or more people will adopt a projector and a 135"+ screen.
Click to expand...

It's diminishing returns. The jump from VHS to DVD was big. The jump from 480p to 720p was also big. The jump from 720p to 1080p was noticeable, but far, far smaller. And the jump to 4k will be even more of a diminishing return.

Screen sizes are bumping up against viewing distances now. The viewing distance required to notice a difference between 1080 and 4k is not a viewing distance that the vast majority of people are ever going to be comfortable with. Even if 100" sets become affordable, people are not going to sit close enough to notice the difference.

Personally, I'd rather a push towards better quality 1080 sets than 4K sets -- so much of the market is crappy edge-lit garbage.
 
Nytegard said:
Because as we all know, no one has an HDCP stripper and a capture card.

Well, I guess Netflix & Amazon are right in a way. This way you keep the number of sources stealing limited to people willing to add $1000 of extra hardware when most people have laptops incapable of such things, and a ton of other people have cheap desktops.
Click to expand...

I was going to respond along these lines.
Well done sir, for casually, instantly, and easily pointing out the flawed logic.
 
Brahmzy said:
Again, more nonsensical blanket statements.
Click to expand...

How about quoting the immediately prior sentence where I was referring to the "vast majority of people"? :rolleyes: I should have said "those people", but it's pretty obvious by context. I believe my statement to be accurate based on the current viewing distance-to-tv size I see in people's homes, and what they say they deem to be acceptable. I personally would love a 100" TV at ~7-8 feet, but I find myself to be in the minority in that respect. Most people seem to dislike giant screens and close viewing distances outside of dedicated viewing rooms.
 
rhouck said:
How about quoting the immediately prior sentence where I was referring to the "vast majority of people"? :rolleyes: I should have said "those people", but it's pretty obvious by context. I believe my statement to be accurate based on the current viewing distance-to-tv size I see in people's homes, and what they say they deem to be acceptable. I personally would love a 100" TV at ~7-8 feet, but I find myself to be in the minority in that respect. Most people seem to dislike giant screens and close viewing distances outside of dedicated viewing rooms.
Click to expand...

Actually, the statistics indicate that TV sales of screens 60" and up are booming and increasing at a fast rate ... I would argue that people's interest (or lack of interest) in screens at 100" or more is about price and not size ... if 100" TVs can drop to $1500 or less then people will buy them ... it is the market for TVs that cost $5000 and higher that is limited, not the market for large screen TVs :cool:
 
kbrickley said:
Actually, the statistics indicate that TV sales of screens 60" and up are booming and increasing at a fast rate ... I would argue that people's interest (or lack of interest) in screens at 100" or more is about price and not size ... if 100" TVs can drop to $1500 or less then people will buy them ... it is the market for TVs that cost $5000 and higher that is limited, not the market for large screen TVs :cool:
Click to expand...

I hope you are right :)

While I certainly see a lot more 60+" TVs, people are still usually sitting 12-15+ feet away. So we'll see if price is the limiting factor, or if there becomes a typical size-to-distance that people settle into. I will say that it tends to be the wives that I know who put the kibosh on giant TVs based on aesthetics rather than price :p
 
rhouck said:
I hope you are right :)

While I certainly see a lot more 60+" TVs, people are still usually sitting 12-15+ feet away. So we'll see if price is the limiting factor, or if there becomes a typical size-to-distance that people settle into. I will say that it tends to be the wives that I know who put the kibosh on giant TVs based on aesthetics rather than price :p
Click to expand...

Hopefully in my lifetime we will see the wall sized screens of Sci Fi movies ... we certainly have the technology for that but the costs remain high
 
rhouck said:
I hope you are right :)

While I certainly see a lot more 60+" TVs, people are still usually sitting 12-15+ feet away. So we'll see if price is the limiting factor, or if there becomes a typical size-to-distance that people settle into. I will say that it tends to be the wives that I know who put the kibosh on giant TVs based on aesthetics rather than price :p
Click to expand...

My wife enjoys the big TV a lot. I just had to paint it a light pink and drape some sheer panels off the sides. Actually, the wife is only taking issue with some massive black monolith RF-7 II towers I will be ordering shortly. She knew big A/V was 'part of the package' so to speak.
 
I want to know why the streaming services like xfinity and Netflix before Win8 don't offer even 5.1 sound.
also, to weigh in on the 4k tv quality debate, I watched a 4k tv at a store and I could definitely notice an improvement over 1080p, also just because it hasn't yet reached perfection doesn't mean we should discount moves towards it.
 
Is there any actual 4K content out there on store displays? Because I can't make an informed decision by watching mountains, butterflies, balloons, or whatever fucking nonsense they are looping.

Show me Aliens in 4K and I will tell you what I think.
 
rhouck said:
It's diminishing returns. The jump from VHS to DVD was big. The jump from 480p to 720p was also big. The jump from 720p to 1080p was noticeable, but far, far smaller. And the jump to 4k will be even more of a diminishing return.

Screen sizes are bumping up against viewing distances now. The viewing distance required to notice a difference between 1080 and 4k is not a viewing distance that the vast majority of people are ever going to be comfortable with. Even if 100" sets become affordable, people are not going to sit close enough to notice the difference.

Personally, I'd rather a push towards better quality 1080 sets than 4K sets -- so much of the market is crappy edge-lit garbage.
Click to expand...



And we are very far from the point of significant diminishing returns for the vast majority of the population. As far as other unrelated aspects of the product quality such as edge lighting, you do know one doesn't impede the other and companies work on more than one part of product at a time, right?
 
Honestly, I'm not all that big on 4K right now. ESPECIALLY for streaming.

Might have to do with that little problem of being stuck in a building where the BEST connection I get is a shitty 3MBit/384K AT&T DSL line with a 150GB/Month data cap.

Why the fuck would I go for 4K?
 
I have a 70" 4k TV and seating is at 10' Just shy of the statistical "Can tell" distance.

If I play a 4k clip from USB drive and the same clip from my htpc at 1080p. I think I can tell the difference (being myself and all, no blind test).

I am also upper 30's just recently noticed more straining to read fine/small print on things like UL labels etc.

I would agree the degree of improvement is small, its most a over all "cleaner" appearance rather then OMG I can see more skin poors.

Granted I have limited 4k content that will play directly and I would say my methods could certainly allow for a placebo like effect.

One thing I can tell you... going from a 720 58" plasma to a 70" in 4k... sure shows how shitty my Dish picture is. I am now pirating all my shows because the DVR quality blows ass.
 
4K doesn't mean crap to me on a TV, as I'm not likely going to be able to afford a large enough television to truly appreciate the difference at 11' distance.

However, I'm VERY eager to replace my 1080p projector with a 4K projector, as I'm sure blown up to 120" it will be a noticeable improvement!
 
Chas said:
Honestly, I'm not all that big on 4K right now. ESPECIALLY for streaming.
Click to expand...

Yes, but there are a lot of people perfectly fine with streaming 1080p or 4K. Get the content out there, and people will want to consume the content the way it's supposed to be. I see it as the content will help push the adoption of the technology. Get more of the technology out there in people's homes, and the streaming quality (and hopefully ISP's get their head out of their ass) should improve to please the customer a bit more and gain more customers.

I guess it's good in theory, but rarely do you see a business doing things for the customer.
 
4K right now is about where 1080p was back in 2007.
Give it some time; does no one remember the bullshit that was 1080i?
 
But what about 8K video? :p

I saw a story earlier today about a 55" 8K display (7680x4320). Feeling mathy, I calculated its dpi: 160. Kind of overkill for watching from a couch.
 
Kibagami said:
This right here is how so many people were sold on LED back light LCD screens rather than buying the much superior Plasma displays.
I love my Panasonic 1080p plasma and I don't even have the best of Panasonic's last gen displays before they shut down their production lines for them.

Kiba is sad plasmas are goin bye bye....truly. Here's hoping OLED HDR displays get as good and cheap as plasma did, and soon!
Click to expand...

I have a Panasonic1080P 3D plasma as well, and it rocks compared to any LED screens I have seen to date!

I agree, maybe OLED.
 
Armenius said:
Agreed. I can see the pixels on my 55" 1080p TV at 15 feet away when watching a movie on Blu-ray, no matter what type of encoding was used. How people can say that there is no discernible difference is baffling to me.
Click to expand...

compression artifacts? maybe/sure. pixels? Stop talking out of your asshole.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Yup, haha. I have actually seen some rough math as well about what the eye can actually see in various parts including peripheral or frontal vision cones internally and just under the main area alone excluding your less detailed peripheral is supposedly able to physically directly resolve in excess of 10k resolution though it's unknown but assumed you will easily notice more. And that's still excluding the peripheral areas of your eyes (left and right sides of each eye) which would resolve to more as the two eyes cover an overlapping area in the middle as well.

Long story short tech is miles away from being indistinguishable to human eyes, probably decades still before the sort of tech that could pull it off is even available at the consumer level and it hasn't even been made yet.

It really does fascinate me how some people pretend to know a topic in depth that anyone who has even done cursory research about knows they are talking out of their hind regions. Why lie in the first place instead of just saying, "I don't know."?
Click to expand...

tech is miles away from being indistinguishable to human eyes?

Try to see a single pixel on a 4k phone screen and get back to me when you have to grab a magnifying glass...
 
Red Falcon said:
4K right now is about where 1080p was back in 2007.
Give it some time; does no one remember the bullshit that was 1080i?
Click to expand...

LOL my first real bigscreen was a 1080i 55" Mitsubishi Diamond Series RPTV back in '99. Top of the line stuff back in the day..!
 
Watch the new HDCP 2.2 come out and break all sorts of hardware, old tv's player software, DVD and Bluray players, etc, etc.

Sure people, it won't work on your old shit, so go buy new shit, buncha takers buncha deadbeats.
 
HEVC on the Pc is absolute garbage. Its the old h264 days all over again. You got chipsets that consume about 3w for flawless 4k hevc whereas a midrange pc is running flat out and is still dropping frames. Not to worry I am sure AMD/Nivida will have proper hardware support in a few years. Thankfully we have android media boxes that are way ahead in that area.
 
GoldenTiger said:
As far as other unrelated aspects of the product quality such as edge lighting, you do know one doesn't impede the other and companies work on more than one part of product at a time, right?
Click to expand...

That is certainly true... in theory.

However, television manufacturers need to have a reason to make people buy new sets. They can do that by (1) adding a new "feature", (2) increasing the size, and/or (3) increasing the picture quality.

Unfortunately, I feel like the past 5-6 years have seen a big push on features, followed by size, with little improvements in actual quality (e.g., ask Kuro owners which TVs they are interested in upgrading to based solely on picture quality). Recently, instead of PQ advancements, we have got (1) 3D, then (2) "smart" TVs, and now (3) 4K sets.

Obviously resolution is one part of PQ, but it's certainly not all of it. I can tell a big difference between the black levels of a Kuro and a 2014 edgelit LCD -- I cannot tell a big difference between a 1080p set and a 4K set (at normal viewing distances -- I can tell the difference from 3' away at a store).

If 4K and 3D and "smart" apps did not exist, then manufacturers would be forced to make improvements based on size and PQ (and lower price). Instead, they don't need to make big investments in PQ improvements, because they know they can sell people on these other gimmicky features.

I would rather have an 80" TV with Kuro-quality black levels than an 80" 4k edgelit pile of crap. That's me, personally -- not everyone has to agree with that. Personally, I don't care about 3D at all, I don't care about apps on my TV at all -- I just want size and PQ. The FALD tvs of 2014 don't seem to have made marked improvements over those 6 years ago... and in many ways have backtracked as there are far more edgelit TVs which are terrible by comparison.

With 4K now out, I doubt there will be much of a push to make great PQ 1080p sets. Which means I have to pay a significant price premium to get a 4K set, when I am far more interested in other PQ improvements beyond a raw resolution increase (since, again, I can notice a difference in black levels far more than resolution).

Hopefully that makes sense... tl;dr there is more to PQ than resolution and manufacturers keep seeming to push gimmicks instead of improving PQ.

IMO, YMMV, etc etc. Obviously the manufacturers don't give a shit what I think so this is all meaningless banter in the end :)
 
Obviously we are at a crossroads with tech at the moment. Plasmas are dead. For many reasons they are dead. They couldn't scale in size or resolution. They were dinosaurs with great black levels. I will not list the many, many downsides to plasmas.
OLED is not ready for prime time cheap-to-manufacture mainstream and may not be for many years yet. OLEDs also have downsides. What does that leave us with? Prices will fall quickly on the 4K sets (already have) and the quality will improve as the high end tech waterfalls down to the mainstream.
Just SUCKS that every freaking component, short of speakers and amps, is tied into this HDCP copy protection crap. I need a new AVR now but don't want a $2K paperweight in a year.
 
Red Falcon said:
You know, it's because of things like this that pirating exists.
It's like they want you to comply, but you have to bend over and get f*cked first, then they get mad when you aren't thankful for them f*cking you and having the blessing of complying.

I hope Comcast and Netflix choke each other to deth. DETH! :D

Trancers5SuddenDeth-PosterArt.jpg
Click to expand...

Strange how a year or 2 ago these boards were filled with people who said 4k TV was irrelevant, because you couldn't see the difference without a huge screen and now everyone is upset because they can't watch it on a 27" monitor :rolleyes:
 
DigitalGriffin said:
to be honest, 4K using H265 really isn't an improvement over H264 1080p

This is because the error delta allowed on a macro block is bigger.



src: http://blogs.iis.net/alexzam/archive/2013/01/28/h-265-hevc-ratification-and-4k-video-streaming.aspx

To be honest most people don't realize your eyes can't make out pixels on 4K video unless your face is right in it. And then you can't enjoy the entire picture at once. 4K is marketing hype for the most part.
Click to expand...

Well from a streaming POV, that's probably true -- it's not like Netflix or Amazon has BD quality 1080 streams -- but the 4K BDs are supposed to have a wider gamut than current BDs. That may lead to better screens. SRGB is good enough, but that doesn't make it good. I've got images where the colors look brilliant in Adobe 98 or wider, but are dull in SRGB. You can adjust colors so it's a bit better, but it's never as good as the original.
 
Kibagami said:
This right here is how so many people were sold on LED back light LCD screens rather than buying the much superior Plasma displays.
I love my Panasonic 1080p plasma and I don't even have the best of Panasonic's last gen displays before they shut down their production lines for them.

Kiba is sad plasmas are goin bye bye....truly. Here's hoping OLED HDR displays get as good and cheap as plasma did, and soon!
Click to expand...

I haven't seen Plasma in a while, but I do recall finding it annoying that I could see pixels on them. I preferred Sony's LCOS...but it died when everyone decided they needed something really thin (which they'd stick on a table that was about as deep as Sony's last generation of LCOS displays).

That said, Plasma at 4k would've probably been nice.
 
Brahmzy said:
Obviously we are at a crossroads with tech at the moment. Plasmas are dead. For many reasons they are dead. They couldn't scale in size or resolution. They were dinosaurs with great black levels. I will not list the many, many downsides to plasmas.
OLED is not ready for prime time cheap-to-manufacture mainstream and may not be for many years yet. OLEDs also have downsides. What does that leave us with? Prices will fall quickly on the 4K sets (already have) and the quality will improve as the high end tech waterfalls down to the mainstream.
Just SUCKS that every freaking component, short of speakers and amps, is tied into this HDCP copy protection crap. I need a new AVR now but don't want a $2K paperweight in a year.
Click to expand...

Plasma lost the war not due to quality of tech or downsides, just like Beta Max.

Plasma were dieing when they were the ONLY affordable option for screens larger then 42". LCD at the time was cost effective at lower sizes where as plasma was more cost effective at larger sizes.

What are the other downsides? Image retention? My 8 year old plasma worse retention was maybe 5min in black images AFTER static image display for 7 hours.

Weight? Sure... but not horrible.

Power? Sure again not horrible but more.

Image dimming/reduction over time... Didn't notice that but didn't check either.

Plasmas were just a victim of being ahead of the curve in size, and LCD just picked up all the "normal" people.
 
I don't even bother arguing or trying to educate non-plasma people. Time and time again, they have proven to know jack shit.
 
dandirk said:
Plasma lost the war not due to quality of tech or downsides, just like Beta Max.
Click to expand...
Screen burn in, higher power consumption and higher prices were not downsides? Misleading specs (input resolution vs display resolution in lower priced plasma models) were also a problem.

Betamax had downsides too. It was true that Beta's highest quality mode (1 hour per standard tape) had somewhat better resolution than VHS, in Beta's 2 hour recording mode there was no advantage over VHS's standard recording quality (2 hours or 4 hours in lower quality per standard tape). Sony chose to go with the Beta format alone and not join the JVC/Panasonic/RCA alliance for a standard VHS format, which was also a downside. Sony's tight control of the format was less welcoming than the more open VHS standard, and the rest was history. :D
 
w00t69 said:
and by 4k i mean 2k. either way it stands.
Click to expand...

If you can't tell pixels on a 1080p 5" screen mere inches from your face, you should see an eye doctor immediately, because it is distinguishable easily even for people with poor eyesight. The average human can tell many times more than that as I explained before.
 
Its not true what it is Netflix gets paid off by companies like Sony to push the newest features on a play station first its just a big game they cast out a line and see who pays them what. Good for them though I would have always maintained a Netflix subscription but because of their ass hattery which doesn't ever have any advantage in my HTPC setup I only occasionally duck in for a free month here or there. I also only maintain amazon prime for the free shipping.
 
I remember when they said 1080p was indistinguishable from 720p. Not sure if its stupidity or a tactic of TV manufacturers trying to push out the old models.
 
The only reason Plasma got dumped by the last of the manufacturers within a year was due to the massive R&D involved in getting 4k panels. The big push to 4k essentially forced manufacturers to cut anything that wasn't feasible and concentrate on 4k.

Its funny to see such a huge push to 4k, especially seeing as the medium to transport that content is capping everyone so fucking low no one will ever want to watch it.
 
I don't care about netflix/amazon highly compressed 4K anyway. Just like any video format: 4K won't shine until we have a proper solution for relatively high bit rate content.
 
Trimlock said:
The only reason Plasma got dumped by the last of the manufacturers within a year was due to the massive R&D involved in getting 4k panels. The big push to 4k essentially forced manufacturers to cut anything that wasn't feasible and concentrate on 4k.

Its funny to see such a huge push to 4k, especially seeing as the medium to transport that content is capping everyone so fucking low no one will ever want to watch it.
Click to expand...

A year from now there will be 4K Blu Ray. You don't get quality HD video from Youtube Netflix or Amazon and you're not going to get high quality 4K either. I don't go to Netflix for quality, I go there, because it's convenient. When I want quality it's Blu Ray.

And honestly, given that you can't get 5.1 audio from netflix on 7, I hardly think 4K is the thing you should complain about.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top