New 4K resolution televisions and its relation with the history of digital cinema – Part 4

In the absence of 4K content, players and displays will need to upscale 1080p or even standard-definition content. To this end, Sony announced a new Blu-ray player at CES 2012, the BDP 5790, which will upscale to 4K.

Looking to the future, Sony is reportedly keen to have the forthcoming “Spider-Man” reboot become one of the first 4K Blu-ray movies, and is apparently in talks with the Blu-ray Disc Association to finalize the specification.

Tim Alessi, director of home electronics development at LG, said he believed that such a development was not only inevitable but also potentially valuable.

“I do expect that at some point [4K] will be added [to the Blu-ray specification]. Having that content in the home is what the average consumer will want,” Alessi said.

Just when we thought we had it all covered, 4K may not even be the final word in resolution. Japanese broadcaster NHK was the first to demonstrate 8K in 2008, and at CES 2012 there were industry murmurings, and at least one prototype, devoted to higher-than-4K resolution.

Will the extra resolution offered by 4K make movies better? You could argue that it depends on the format of the original film. For example, “The Blair Witch Project” and “28 Days Later” were both shot with standard-definition camcorders, and there would arguably be little extra benefit to buying either movie in a 4K native format over a DVD–depending on the quality of the scaler in your brand-new 4K screen, of course.

Even with reference-quality native 4K material, however, a 4K-resolution TV or projector won’t provide nearly the visible improvement over a standard 1080p model that going from standard-def to high-def did. To appreciate it you’ll have to have sit quite close to a large screen–sort of like being in the front few rows of a movie theater.

But whether it’s 4K or 8K, you can bet that manufacturers haven’t run out of cards when it comes to trying out the next “must-have” feature in the coming crops of televisions.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Jan 26 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.