8K TVs: What the heck is going on?
8K TVs: What the heck is going on?
Editor's Note: November 11, 2021 – Just a month after writing this op-ed, TCL has announced the offset 8K streaming service , exclusive to TCL's 8K Roku TVs. It's an important pace forward for 8K, and one that we hope signals a change in the 8K landscape.
2021 has been the year that 8K TVs finally became available in sizes and prices that the average Tv shopper might consider, but 8K adoption is still stalled past one glaring omission: in that location'due south withal no 8K content. And if this TV reviewer can brand a Christmas wish a little early, it's for moving picture studios or streaming services (or anyone really) to release something in the 8K format.
Recent reviews, like the TCL Roku TV six-Serial 8K (R648) and the LG QNED MiniLED 99 Series 8K Tv set present u.s.a. with some of the nigh affordable 8K sets to e'er hit the market, but testing and reviewing these models is a little similar banging your head confronting the wall. For all their technical superiority, without whatsoever real 8K content to scout on these TVs, anybody with an 8K Television set is all the same stuck with 4K content, relying on upscaling to make information technology look meliorate on the higher resolution screen.
What footling 8K content is out there is, bluntly, ho-hum. It's mostly travelogues and nature videos, with the occasional demo video from 8K camera makers. In a contempo review, my colleague Matt Murray had mostly positive things to say most the 8K set up, but made a valid indicate equally he closed out the review. "The sticking point remains 8K itself. It'south still a phantom format, with no major movies or Television series taking reward of it in any real manner."
Just it wouldn't have much to fix that. Even a mediocre indie flick or web series that effectively used 8K could go existent traction with the small but growing audience of 8K TV owners.
A quick rundown of the state of 8K content highlights the famine of content using the higher resolution. (For a broader discussion of the topic, check out 8K TVs: What tin you actually watch in 8K?)
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The future of 8K: Cable, satellite and broadcast
Despite the growth of streaming, cablevision and satellite is withal a major distribution aqueduct for content, specially at higher resolutions. Simply there's non much to speak of – DirectTV has a few defended 4K channels, while Dish and Comcast mostly offer 4K but for On Demand movies.
Most 4K support winds up beingness streaming through common services similar Netflix. With relatively few channels offering 4K content, and some common set top boxes not even equipped to handle 4k resolution, these legacy players might not exist the place to wait for leadership in 8K support.
Oddly plenty, the best bet for traditional Tv providers might be over the air broadcasts. The ATSC iii.0 standard (as well chosen NextGenTV) includes the ability to send 4K indicate over the air, and theoretically can handle 8K resolution as well. Information technology's yet early days on that front end, with ATSC 3.0 rolling out i or two channels at a time in major cities beyond the country, but it's the one brilliant spot when information technology comes to 8K TVs getting proper UHD programming.
The future of 8K: Picture studios
The elephant in the room for any new format is Hollywood. Movie releases and episodic content won't exist available in 8K until filmmakers and studios outset shooting in 8K. While at that place is some forward progress on this forepart, likely more than is publicly known, it's still very hush hush.
Recent well-funded releases, such as hit Curiosity series like WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier are available to stream in 4K, providing something that looks not bad on today's 4K TVs.
And, similar The Falcon and the Wintertime Soldier, some are fifty-fifty shot at higher resolution than 4K. The production team used 8K Panavision Millennium DXL2 cameras and shot some activity scenes in 6K with Blackmagic Design Pocket Movie theatre Cameras.
Does this mean we'll be getting an 8K re-release of the latest Curiosity shows? Perchance, but probably not. The higher resolution is instead used to afford more than freedom in the editing room, letting filmmakers tighten shots and get shut-ups on actors without losing picture quality, since they can scale downwards to 4k every bit needed.
However, there'due south a glimmer of hope from just knowing that 8K footage is beingness captured, and that the ecosystem of equipment and the workflows of movie production are starting to piece of work with the higher resolution in some capacity.
In fact, the best hope might be from titles that get both a mainstream and IMAX release. Dune is getting both a standard and IMAX theatrical release (our streaming editor, Henry Casey says IMAX will be the best way to watch the picture), which again provides a tantalizing possibility of there being content out at that place that would actually make the nearly of the fourscore+ inch screens and more than 33 million pixels offered by many of the recently sold 8K TVs.
The future of 8K: Streaming
Which brings the states to streaming. In a few days, Dune will be released in theaters, but it will also be coming to living rooms through HBO Max on the aforementioned twenty-four hour period. If yous're paying for the ad-free version of the streaming service, yous can watch it in 4K HDR, getting the best version of the film right from Warner Bros.
Is it too much to hope that at that place might be an 8K version that lets home theater owners replicate the full IMAX experience? Well, in a give-and-take, no.
Not to spend too much time talking nigh cameras again (I swear, I'm not unremarkably one to get into the nitty-gritty of film production, only it's relevant to this topic), but the IMAX portions of Dune, though shot for a different aspect ratio and fabricated for a larger movie screen, weren't captured in 8K. The motion-picture show's Arri Alexa LF IMAX cameras tape in native four.5K, just slightly higher than what your 4K Goggle box can handle – and again, that extra resolution is there mostly to give moving picture makers some liberty in the editing bay.
If the biggest pic of 2021, with its massive scope and scale, isn't even being shot at higher than 4K, then information technology's unlikely nosotros'll ever see an 8K version of the film. And if we do, it will be washed with the same sort of upscaling that 8K TVs already use for 4K content.
Which brings us back to the crux of the thing – the lack of 8K content. No amount of support for new discs or college-bandwidth streaming will be able to make 8K content where there was none earlier. Upscaling tin only go and then far, and from what I've seen, it doesn't quite cutting information technology. It'southward okay for making your 8K Television set look like a really proficient 4K brandish, only even with the best processing and AI enhancement, it doesn't quite look right. That means you either need new 8K scans from moving picture, or new content shot in 8K.
Studio-backed streaming services such as Disney+, HBO Max and Paramount Plus tin can draw from a significant library of movies, and some streaming services accept go studios in their own right, such as Netflix, pumping out original shows and movies, and distributing others. If the key to 8K content is native 8K material, they take to start making it themselves.
The future of 8K: No Blu-ray on the way
If you lot're holding out for an 8K version of Blu-ray UHD discs, I wouldn't hold my breath. Not only are there no appear or even rumored 8K Blu-ray players, or an 8K Blu-ray disc format on the horizon, there'south even some speculation that 8K video may be also data-dense for current disc capacities. This issue could exist sidestepped by returning to multiple discs for a single movie, or heck, maybe they'll but make the discs larger, and we'll go the Blu-ray equivalent of laser disc in the coming years.
All joking aside, I oasis't seen anything that suggests 8K Blu-ray is on the way in the next yr or 2. There is a higher-density triple-layer BDXL format that'southward nether development, just looking at past trends for 1080p and 4K adoption, it could withal exist a few years yet before 8K physical media is available.
All of this is also ignoring the question of whether disc-based movie distribution will last much longer, anyway. A report from earlier 2020 in Multifariousness reported that Warner Brothers and Universal have combined their DVD and Blu-ray businesses afterward losing billions to declining physical media sales. Equally many studios transition to their ain streaming services, it'southward possible that disc-based media could get phased out entirely, instead of adopting a new niche format.
The final boom in the bury? Chris Chinnock, executive director of the 8K Association, wrote off 8K Blu-ray entirely back in 2019. In an interview with Within CI, he made information technology pretty articulate. "The Blu-ray Disc Association is not looking at 8k," said Chinnock. "Discussions could offset again, simply I see this as a low probability."
The bottom line is that physical media for 8K may never be a reality.
Who could make an early play for 8K? YouTube
But there's one major player in the streaming game that stands uniquely well positioned to make an 8K play early on, and that's YouTube.
YouTube is 1 of the few outlets for 8K content already, and YouTube Telly, a separate subscription-based cable replacement service, could leverage that streaming know-how with an 8K YouTube original.
We've already seen one YouTube Original become a breakout hit, though you might not have realized it. Cobra Kai, which has it'south fourth season debut afterward this year, may have found its audience on Netflix, merely it started on YouTube, as a YouTube Original, available only to paid subscribers. Granted, it'south no Dune, but you tin stream it in 4K just fine.
Is information technology that much of a stretch to hope that a similar series could requite us a bear witness in 8K? Even sticking to 8K-friendly content like nature scenes and beautiful detailed closeups, a series that gives 8K Telly owners something to picket at the total resolution their Television receiver provides could have a small, but loyal audience. With a little promotion, something like that could go a long way to quell some fears in Telly shoppers' minds about buying into 8K this early on.
A competently shot brusque form serial available in 8K, even with one or two shots per episode that take advantage of the visual spectacle that 8K affords, tin get a long way in this transitional period prior to major Hollywood interest. Enough of YouTube series could transition to 8K pretty easily, like cooking shows, beauty tutorials, fitness instruction, or music videos. (I'd suggest product reviews and unboxing videos, but I wouldn't want to brand extra work for my colleagues.)
If I were a content maker or a film educatee looking to get my pes in the door, I would invest in an 8K camera or try to partner with LG or Samsung or another 8K Idiot box maker. You lot don't even need to pay big money for something similar a Red Helium 8K camera, you lot could shoot with a telephone, like the Samsung Galaxy S21 or the Asus ROG Phone v, or 1 of the other 8K-capable smartphones out there. The betoken is that there'due south a chance to commencement carving out a niche in the 8K world now, while in that location's plenty of room for newcomers to make a mark. It might just be amateurs that give us the first real marketplace for 8K media.
The bottom line… for at present
At the end of the twenty-four hours, it's still hard for me to recommend 8K TVs to anyone, unless it happens to be a smoking deal. And until an 8K TV can show the average watcher something that they actually want to see in that higher resolution, and then 8K ultra HD sets will proceed to be a hard sell.
But hey, maybe Hollywood has a surprise upwardly their sleeve for the holiday season. Or maybe some enterprising manager looking for a break tin make headway with an 8K camera. It'due south a wide open opportunity right now, and it's not everyday that such an opportunity arises.
Hither's hoping someone takes advantage of it, and gives 8K Tv shoppers a reason to purchase.
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Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/8k-tvs-what-the-heck-is-going-on
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