Technology

You know what would sell like hot cakes? A dumb TV with Dolby Vision support. I went down the rabbit hole of finding a large HDR monitor and adapters to trick end devices to output player-led Dolby Vision to a HDR monitors, because I don't need my TV to have a complete OS with streaming services and adverts integrated.

In the end I couldn't find anything that didn't have drawbacks. It's something that could easily exist but there are no manufacturers bold enough to implement it.

Streaming tech moves so fast, I want to add it to my TV through hardware like a fire stick, not to become dependent on the TV manufacturer putting out updates until it's 'Out-of-support'.

I went with a TV and disabled as much of the junk as I could with a service remote and just never connected it to the internet, but jumping through these hoops seems so silly.

simply incorrect. in some circumstances sure 1080p is sufficient, but if the tv is big, close, or both. then 4k is a definite and noticeable improvement.

4k looks sharper as long as the actual content is real 4k, even from afar.

I watch 576i DVDs on a 24" 1366x768 TV and I don't mind because I sit reasonably far.

The study used a 44 inch TV at 2.5m. The most commonly used calculator for minimum TV to distance says that at 2.5m the TV should be a least 60 inches.

My own informal tests at home with a 65 inch TV looking at 1080 versus 4K Remux of the same movie seems to go along with the distance calculator. At the appropriate distance or nearer I can see a difference if I am viewing critically (as opposed to casually). Beyond a certain distance the difference is not apparent.

I didn’t get why HD tv was relevant at all. I really did not understand that for a couple years.

Then I got glasses.

I suspect 4k matters for screens of a certain size or if you sit really close, but most of us don’t so it doesn’t matter.

This is pretty obvious due to how they had to add HDR at the same time to sell it. The HDR was a real progression, but they wouldn’t get to sell you higher res Blu-ray formats and streaming packages with just that.

Kind of a tangent, but properly encoded 1080p video with a decent bitrate actually looks pretty damn good.

A big problem is that we've gotten so used to streaming services delivering visual slop, like YouTube's 1080p option which is basically just upscaled 720p and can even look as bad as 480p.

Study Boldly Claims 4K And 8K TVs Aren't Much Better Than HD To Your Eyes, But Is It True?

The rare exception to Betteridge's Law.

But yeah, this matches my experience. I can tell the difference between 1080 and 4k from my couch if I work at it, but not enough to impact my enjoyment of what I'm watching, and definitely not as much as the difference HDR makes.

Even at computer monitor distance, running a 4k monitor at 1440 with high pixel density is probably going to be a better experience than wrenching every single pixel you can get out of it. Framerate is better than resolution for gaming, for the most part.

4k is way better than 1080p, it's not even a question. You can see that shit from a mile away. 8k is only better if your TV is comically large.

I can pretty confidently say that 4k is noticeable if you're sitting close to a big tv. I don't know that 8k would ever really be noticeable, unless the screen is strapped to your face, a la VR. For most cases, 1080p is fine, and there are other factors that start to matter way more than resolution after HD. Bit-rate, compression type, dynamic range, etc.

Honestly after using the steam deck (800p) I'm starting to wonder if res matters that much. Like I can definitely see the difference, but it's not that big a deal? All I feel like I got out of my 4k monitor is lower frame rates.

Highly depends on screen size and viewing distance, but nothing reasonable for a normal home probably ever needs more than 8k for a high end setup, and 4K for most cases.

Contrast ratio/HDR and per-pixel backlighting type technology is where the real magic is happening.

i suspect screen size would make the difference. you won't notice 4K or 8K on small screens.

Hard disagree. 4K is stunning, especially Samsung’s Neo-QLED. I cannot yet tell a difference between 4K and 8K, though.

Me getting 480p videos for my video projector : "Oh... no really?" ¯\(ツ)/¯

PS: FWIW I do have a Vision Pro (for work, I didn't pay for it personally) so I technically could enjoy high res content... but honestly I can't bother using this to watch videos. I'm fine with just my desktop screen or video projector. I just don't get the high res.

This is so much bullshit. 4K does make a difference, specially if playing console games on a large TV (65" and up).