Getting a Buzz On

The electronics industry apparently believes 4K resolution will solve a problem that consumers may not actually have, or perhaps answer a question they're not even asking. Whether that is the case or not, 4K consumer-oriented devices may initially enter the marketplace at prices that are not affordable to typical income earners, while not fully delivering on the promise of genuine 4K; and strangely enough that story may turn out just fine, with many happy campers as the plot-line continues to evolve.

One issue that continuing development of the 4K standard will address is the demand for vastly improved resolution in professional devices such as broadcast and cinema quality cameras, projectors, and displays. The good news, as it always occurs, is that expensive technology development cycle will be amortized by corporate and professional purchases and a few financially well-heeled consumers, to the benefit of mainstream consumers.

Close Enough for Government Work

The phrase "close enough for government work", as used in colloquial conversation, has come to mean something that will probably get the job done, but is not precisely what it was meant to be, is not fully up to standard, or is not exactly as described. That colloquialism may assist in examining just what defines real 4K resolution, as compared to what most consumers are actually going to get on their TVs.

Let's Get Real

Keep in mind that absolutely final standards for consumer-oriented 4K resolution products have not been completed, but they are well underway. According to Pierre Garcia, described as an expert in consumer and professional video topics and quoted by Forbes, real 4K resolution as used for professional movie production studios, and rarely in cinemas, is defined as 4,096 x 2,160 pixels.

As Seen on TV

Name Calling

That format of at least 3,840 pixels horizontal resolution is called by the names QuadHD, UltraHD, or UHD and was voted on by the CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) to apparently define consumer-grade 4K TVs. According to Garcia, consumers will hear mixed and matched terms such as UltraHD-4K or 4K-UltraHD, but he considers those to be gimmicky marketing.

Garcia may not like it, but the terms 4K, UHD, UltraHD, and QuadHD, are already becoming interchangeable in reference to consumer-grade TVs.

Giga-Biga?

Throwing so many estimated numbers around that consumers would need a baseball mitt to catch all of them may not be too helpful, but a few comparisons could be useful. The number of pixels produced by 4K resolution is four times that of full-HD 1,080p, but the file sizes for typical length 4K movies are enormous, even when stored at half the native 48-FPS (frames-per-second) frame-rate. Forget about gigabytes (GB), it's time to think about terabyte (TB) sized files that are one-thousand times larger.

There are plenty of variables including the number of frames and the amount of data per frame, so these numbers are only rough estimates. At native resolution, uncompressed file sizes for 2-hour movies could be in the 8-TB range even at a lower quality of 24-FPS, or about 16-TB (terabytes) at 48-FPS original quality.

Contain Yourself Content-Wise

So far there is very little content available in the 4K format, but Sony, and a company called Red Digital Cinema are making big promises to produce or distribute it. As a result of the huge bandwidth that would be needed for transmission, Sony has implemented a semi-feasible physical media delivery solution for original, uncompressed quality that would include Sony's 84-inch, UHD-TV, bundled with their preloaded media-player with about ten movies on it, for tens of thousands of dollars. After watching those ten movies the owner would still need a way to receive and store additional content. That makes any significant adoption of Sony's arrangement unlikely at best, because the cost and complication is enough to make even wealthy early adopters "see red"; and Red may in fact be what early adopters will be seeing.

A  workable solution may come from Red Digital Cinema which is based in Irvine, California, and was founded by Jim Jannard who previously established the Oakley sunglasses company.

Losing It Downscale, Faking It Upscale, or RED ALERT

[caption id="attachment_8558" align="alignright" width="300"] 4K Ultra High-Definition Player[/caption]

One practical and well known technique that can be immediately utilized is to implement severe "lossy" compression to reduce file sizes, accompanied by a significant or perhaps substantial decrease in quality. That could leave viewers with only a small increase in perceived visual quality above the current full-HD 1,080p standard. Lossy means just what it sounds like: visual data is lost during compression.

A second well understood solution is to use standard full-HD 1,080p data to begin with, and use media-players with the capability to quadruple the pixels by upscaling. That's essentially a form of faking it.

A third possibility has gained attention this week at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in the form of next generation software and equipment from Red Digital Cinema, implementing their own proprietary compression algorithms, and their Redray media player, which needs only a one TB (terabyte) hard-drive, and delivers full 4K resolution at data rates lower than Blu-ray, while connecting with a single HDMI 1.4 cable. The company said the Redray player will ship within a matter of months at price of less than $1,500.

On their website Red puts it this way: "Advanced RED codec technology generates feature length 4K files small enough to fit on a USB flash drive." The company said that with a compressed data rate of less than 2.5MB per second, 4K content can be delivered worldwide with secure encryption available to prevent unauthorized duplication or viewing.

[caption id="attachment_8559" align="alignright" width="300"] Panasonic 20 Inch 4K Tablet[/caption]

Keeping Tabs On It

Sharp Corporation has announced a 32-inch 4K resolution IGZO LCD monitor. Toshiba is unveiling several 4K TVs. Panasonic and Sony are both releasing 56-inch 4K OLED TVs, and LG is expected to be a major player, while most other TV manufacturers are expected to join the party. It appears that some of those manufacturers may be using the marketing term 4K-UltraHD to which Pierre Garcia objected. Availability and prices are yet to be announced. Regarding probable prices, the term sky-high comes to mind.

Assessment

With the exception of only one prototype demonstration channel in Europe, there are apparently no broadcasters on planet earth currently broadcasting in genuine uncompressed native 4K, and less than 20,000 theaters world-wide have the right equipment today to display 4K content in full native 4K resolution. Raising the stakes even more, 8K resolution is already being developed in the labs. Sharp Corporation actually demonstrated an 8K display screen at the 2012 CES.

Consumers will soon start to benefit from 4K resolution via the trickle-down effect, for a price of course. When it comes to ultra high resolution 4K TVs and cinema, there's a new kid in town, and apparently many consumers will be seeing Red.