What do you think about 4K?

[Lairlair]

Hi folks,

 

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how 4K isn't that great.

For a 55" 4K TV you'd need to be 1 meter (aka 3.2 feet) away from it to start seeing the difference between each pixels, and around 5 meters away (16.4 feet) you wouldn't physically be able to notice the difference between full HD and 4K. I know a more realistic scenario is rather to sit somewhere in between, so that the TV takes about 30° of your viewing angle (as seen in this LTT video), and that would be about 2m/6.5feet away. But still, at that distance, if you swap from a full HD to a 4K resolution on a film/video game... How many would notice the difference? I'm aware that I'm talking to a tech savvy crowd, but I'm sure most people around me wouldn't notice. Even I have worked in a cinema for a few years, and they only used 2K projectors. Once I went to another cinema that used 4K and I couldn't for the life of me see any benefits in the image quality.

 

So this is my tepid take, I'll admit that 4K does have some little benefits for the average Joe, can be useful for enthusiasts or people working in video / image creation. BUT the flip side is that it's a lot more expensive and I'm not just talking about moneys. It uses more energy (for the TVs but also for the servers to stream 4x more pixels and the graphics cards to process all that) and requires to upgrade a whole line of production for this to even start making sense (so we're talking mineral extraction, refining and assembly for all the new cameras, monitors, computers and other pieces of equipment). And for what? That you can tell Chris Hemsworth's beard hairs apart? Is it really worth it?

 

What do you think? Do you use 4K and like it? Would you recommend it and why? Are you also caught between being excited for new tech and hating how dirty its production is?

[Needfuldoer]

For consuming media in general, I think 1080 to 4K is less of a step up than SD to 1080 was.

 

My main PC monitor is a 43" 4K TV though, and for that use case it's amazing. Regular PC monitors feel like working though a periscope in comparison. There's SO. MANY. PIXELS.

[Takumidesh]

I tend to agree, depending on your setup. 4k can start to have a really big impact on larger screens.
I have a projector setup with a 120" inch screen and switching between 1080p and 4k content is extremely noticeable.
However watching the same content on my living room tv, the difference is marginal at best.

 

For things like gaming and even regular PC use, I would rather the power go to refresh rate.

 

[Obioban]

There is an optimal range of TV sizes for a given viewing distance:

https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship

 

It may change when I'm older, but at this stage in my life I can still easily tell the difference between 4k and 1080p if I'm in optimal size/distance TV range.

[Alex Atkin UK]

50 minutes ago, Lairlair said:

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how 4K isn't that great.

For a 55" 4K TV you'd need to be 1 meter (aka 3.2 feet) away from it to start seeing the difference between each pixels, and around 5 meters away (16.4 feet) you wouldn't physically be able to notice the difference between full HD and 4K.

The whole point of going higher resolution is to reach a point where the picture becomes seamless.  If your focus is on being able to clearly see the difference between adjacent pixels, you're completely missing the point, the goal is the opposite - for them to seamlessly blend into each other.

 

For example if I play The Crew 2 at 1440p it looks like crap, because the engine is rather dated now.  But if I run it at 4K it looks a lot more seamless and realistic.  A lot of older games I don't have to worry about anti-aliasing due to the pixels bleeding together, creating natural anti-aliasing.  I mean it doesn't fix shimmering, but on a lot of games nothing does.

 

Why anyone would want to sit 5m away from a 55" screen is beyond me.  Do you always sit right at the back when going to the cinema?  I know I don't, I want the image to almost fill my field of view and be in a sweet spot for surround sound.  Far too many people sit way too far from the TV and at an awkward angle (looking at you people who put the TV right up to the ceiling) which is not only awkward to watch, its bad for your neck.

[porina]

I sit about 2m away from a 55" 4k TV for most of my PC gaming. The difference between 1080p and 4k is obvious., with a bit of "it depends on the game". Basically the more photorealistic the game is, the less it matters. Anything with fine detail is really noticeable.

 

I find Genshin Impact blurry looking running at native 1080p on my laptop compared to 4k on the TV. However Yakuza: Like a Dragon looked hardly any different at 1080p and 4k, apart from aliasing of detail such as distant buildings.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, Lairlair said:

And for what? That you can tell Chris Hemsworth's beard hairs apart? Is it really worth it?

Totally worth it, I want to see every follicle.

 

Jokes aside for my TV I'm pretty content with 1080p, when I get a new one I'll go for 4k because why not? But I'd be ok with 1080. It does make a difference but sure, it's not as marked as going from SD to 1080p (although some people can't even notice that).

 

On monitors it makes a huge difference though.

[Giganthrax]

The advantage of 4k is that you can have a bigger screen without making the image look ugly when you're close to it. This is great for gaming and high res videos since it can look really sharp and pretty.

 

But yeah there are definitely diminishing returns at this point.

[Lairlair]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Do you always sit right at the back when going to the cinema?

I sit somewhere in the middle. I just saw 1m and 5m as the two extremes where it's not best to sit anyway.

 

18 minutes ago, Giganthrax said:

But yeah there are definitely diminishing returns at this point.

Yeah that's what I find problematic mostly, diminishing returns at increasing costs (consumer price tag and environmental burden)

[igormp]

2 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

For consuming media in general, I think 1080 to 4K is less of a step up than SD to 1080 was.

 

My main PC monitor is a 43" 4K TV though, and for that use case it's amazing. Regular PC monitors feel like working though a periscope in comparison. There's SO. MANY. PIXELS.

Same here. I don't really mind the extra res for media consumption, but using a 4k 43" TV as a monitor gives me so much real estate and allows me to have so much stuff open at the same time, it's awesome.

[Alex Atkin UK]

On 8/1/2022 at 3:41 PM, igormp said:

Same here. I don't really mind the extra res for media consumption, but using a 4k 43" TV as a monitor gives me so much real estate and allows me to have so much stuff open at the same time, it's awesome.

Or photos.  Seriously, look at good DSLR photos at 1080p then look at them at 2160p, its an even bigger difference because of the quality.  Smartphone photos, even the best ones, look like junk on a good monitor or TV as you can see the noise reduction and lack of dynamic range.

 

I feel a lot of people are missing the difference too because of streaming which kills a lot of the finer detail.   I mostly watch streaming myself and watching a proper 4K mastered Bluray (even a 2K upscale) is night/day different to most streaming content, sometimes even a normal 1080p Bluray will look better than the 4K streaming edition.  The only thing that seems consistently good is Stranger Things, where I suspect Netflix make extra sure it looks terrific - though I have season 2 on UHD Bluray and it does look better than the streaming version still.

 

Gaming it entirely depends on the game.  A game with extensive post processing can look great at 1080p, but a game with less will look rough at 1080p and look a whole lot better at 2160p, as I already mentioned.  This is even more so if the game has a long rendering distance.  Its actually a little distracting in The Crew 2 for example as it renders fake traffic in the distance that you can visually see disappear when you get closer as it pulls in the real traffic.

But things like the Forza Horizon games look so much more realistic at 4K.  It was actually a big reason I got a 3080 as Forza Horizon 4 looked night/day different compared to 1440p, but feels more realistic at 80+ fps.

 

I've even AI upscaled a few movies from 1080p to 4K and the image appears a lot clearer with more depth.

[Lurking]

Just for watching TV at a normal living room distance it may not matter. But all newer TV are 4K. So the whole question is moot. Almost like wondering if you should buy a color TV. 

 

Even if you had to pay a bit more to get a 4K TV, it would be stupid not to do it. It keeps it open for future use. Like you could recruit a living room TV to become a monitor. Or you end up sitting closer to the TV than you thought. 

 

Some years ago my workplace bought 55" wall-hung HD TVs for conference rooms since they were a few $ cheaper than 4K. Maybe they saved $50 on a $1,200 purchase. Those are useless now since if you look at a PDF of plans or other things you will get fuzzy eyes from the large pixels. So to actually use them they would have to buy new 4K TVs/monitors and throw these away since no one today will buy a HD TV. 

 

If someone still manufacturers 55" HD TVs these days, they can ship them directly to the recycling center to avoid shipping them directly to the landfill. 

[da na]

It's just another resolution in the gradual progression of resolutions. Eventually it'll be as common as 1080p is now and people will ask, "Oh your display is only 4k?"

[Alex Atkin UK]

Another thing is the quality of the screen.  My 4K monitor looks great for photos, but watching a 4K HDR movie looks like utter garbage as its only a HDR 400 monitor.

 

Now watch the same movie on an OLED TV, or Macbook Pro M1 XDR - night/day difference.  There is much more to 4K than just the resolution, its why some movies which weren't mastered in 4K I own on 4K because the HDR grading makes a HUGE difference to perceived detail and depth.

 

I was actually a doubter when it comes to HDR, I didn't believe it could be remotely as good as people were claiming.  But once I got an LG OLED TV, I was proven very wrong.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

25 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

It's just another resolution in the gradual progression of resolutions. Eventually it'll be as common as 1080p is now and people will ask, "Oh your display is only 4k?"

Meanwhile it took practically a decade for 768P to die.

[Imbadatnames]

It’s kinda pointless but all TVs are 4K now. The only 1080p ones are ultra budget models with terrible panels. But noone will buy a 500+ TV that isn’t 4K so it HAS to be 4K now. Similar to laptops and phones now where they’ll push higher resolutions when it’s just not needed. 

[xg32]

for monitors i'd put color gamut before pixel density+4k/hdr (i probably won't buy a 4k monitor without true hdr support)

 

That being said, the image quality jump from a 24G2 to a 4k hdr monitor doesn't justify the cost increase of the monitor itself and the gpu needed to drive 4k/120hz.

 

Maybe 4k will become more important once GPUs can drive it.

[jones177]

6 hours ago, Lairlair said:

Hi folks,

 

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how 4K isn't that great.

For a 55" 4K TV you'd need to be 1 meter (aka 3.2 feet) away from it to start seeing the difference between each pixels, and around 5 meters away (16.4 feet) you wouldn't physically be able to notice the difference between full HD and 4K. I know a more realistic scenario is rather to sit somewhere in between, so that the TV takes about 30° of your viewing angle (as seen in this LTT video), and that would be about 2m/6.5feet away. But still, at that distance, if you swap from a full HD to a 4K resolution on a film/video game... How many would notice the difference? I'm aware that I'm talking to a tech savvy crowd, but I'm sure most people around me wouldn't notice. Even I have worked in a cinema for a few years, and they only used 2K projectors. Once I went to another cinema that used 4K and I couldn't for the life of me see any benefits in the image quality.

 

So this is my tepid take, I'll admit that 4K does have some little benefits for the average Joe, can be useful for enthusiasts or people working in video / image creation. BUT the flip side is that it's a lot more expensive and I'm not just talking about moneys. It uses more energy (for the TVs but also for the servers to stream 4x more pixels and the graphics cards to process all that) and requires to upgrade a whole line of production for this to even start making sense (so we're talking mineral extraction, refining and assembly for all the new cameras, monitors, computers and other pieces of equipment). And for what? That you can tell Chris Hemsworth's beard hairs apart? Is it really worth it?

 

What do you think? Do you use 4K and like it? Would you recommend it and why? Are you also caught between being excited for new tech and hating how dirty its production is?

I am a meter away from my OLED and I don't see pixels. 

Here is my setup.

Spoiler

It is worth it to me.

I started in 2015 and it was mainly for my modded games that used 2 and 4k textures. 

It was also great for space and plane sims since distant objects have more detail.

Since I can easily do 1000s of hours in these types of games, 4k is worth it.

 

Most games don't have the detail in the textures to benefit from it or they have poor quality LODs that make distant objects look even worse.

 

Before I started doing 4k I usually bought XX70 cards like GTX 470, 570, 670 and 970 but after 4k it was a 980, 2x 980 tis in SLI and even 2x 1080 ti in SLI.

Now it is 3090s and 3090 tis. 

 

Now it is only expensive if you want to be close to 120hz as well.

[Montana One-Six]

Using a 28" 4K display and compared to 1440p or 1080p it is just amazing. At the distance I sit away from the monitor I cannot see individual pixels but with 1440p and 1080p at the same distance I can. Which means I get a way sharper and realistic looking image while also only using the lowest AA options. As someone who isn't into fast paced twitch shooters I don't care about FPS that much and to me the prettier image is far more enjoyable and important than FPS. I honestly don't want to go back to anything lower than 4K at this point.

[tikker]

9 hours ago, Lairlair said:

For a 55" 4K TV you'd need to be 1 meter (aka 3.2 feet) away from it to start seeing the difference between each pixels

There are two sides to this coin. One is simply reducing pixel size so that you can, for example, sit closer without seeing individual pixels. There is another aspect to images however, and that is sampling of detail. A single pixel can't convey much information besides a colour. You can only start to see structures of things that are 2-3 pixels or more in size, because then you start resolving the actual structure, and won't look smooth until you go a bit further than that. Higher resolutions are thus also needed to show proper detail of things larger than the individual pixels. It's also nice for geometric constructions where you have lines and whatnot to have the 'natural AA' of smaller pixels. How much detail you can resolve does of course depend on how far away you sit from the screen, so there is a limit.

 

9 hours ago, Lairlair said:

What do you think? Do you use 4K and like it? Would you recommend it and why? Are you also caught between being excited for new tech and hating how dirty its production is?

I do use 4k. Productivity wise it's great to have that much screen real estate. For the TV, well there isn't really much choice. It's still great,but I do think HDR may have an overall bigger impact on perceived image quality improvement than 4k.

[YellowJersey]

I've never thought 4k was anything special. Too hard to drive for too little of a difference, imho. 1080 works fine for me. I do have a 1440 monitor and it was a nice little bump up from 1080, but for me, I have no desire to have 4k content/games. (I don't expect anyone else to agree with me, though)

[wasab]

You do see a difference, especially on larger tvs. I own a 65inch 4k, picture is much better in 4k. 1080p on a 65inch is like 480p on a sub 40 inch vs 1080. Pixel per inch is not up to par because screen size is much larger.

 

If your screen is much smaller, you can get away with less hd and still looks like the same quality. You can see this in the smaller iPhones, the switch, and the steam deck. They aren’t rocking 1080p hd but still good quality pictures and pixel density due to the smaller screen size

[Donut417]

14 hours ago, Lairlair said:

s it really worth it?

Based on our data usage and how close we get to our cap for internet, its not worth it for me. I still use a 720p TV. Ive recently thought about upgrading to one just for extra screen real estate for when I use my MacBook Pro in bed. 

[Chiyawa]

Depends if your eyes has Gigapixel sensors built into one, or you sit about 10cm away from your 55 inch TV. 4k is just a scam to me. I couldn't tell the difference between 1080p and 4k image side by side, unless I walk very close to the TV.

[Lairlair]

4 hours ago, Chiyawa said:

4k is just a scam to me

Oh but wait until you see an 8K TV