As great as these links are, they also show its meaningless: most require the delvers over the Internet, needing 15-20Mib/s is far exceeds the average of 3.8Mib/s:
Then there's the content, or lack of. Shooting in 4K isn't exactly the golden standard, it's picking up. So what do they do? They scan original film negatives, which is a good thing. But renting it for $7.99 or buying for $29.99...I just don't see many people doing this.
Average Internet speed is as meaningless as average smartphone cost. The demographics with money will have access to 20 Mbps+ Internet just like the demographics with money can afford an iPhone instead of a $20 android smartphone.
The assertion that 4K video will have no content when people are already watching 4K content over existing infrastructure and existing content providers at this very moment is simply wrong. That's far more content than HD had at this early stage of its lifecycle.
Shooting 4K is becoming the norm for many digital pros. The black magic 4K is only a $3000 body. Well within the budget of most wedding videographers who ready have Canon glass. The Sony PXW-Z100 is $6K. The Sony FDR-AX100 is only $2,000. The panny GH-4 is a $1600 body. And, of course, the gopro 4.
Almost every indie can afford to shoot 4K video. You can edit with a $3000 MBP (offline) or even less expensive windows box. FCPX is only $300.
Post still sucks a bit but it's better than it was even a year ago.
[...] Well within the budget of most wedding videographers
What media are wedding shooters using to deliver 4K? Are there playback devices the happy couple can use to watch it (even though they never will, no one ever does)?
Average Internet speed is as meaningless as average smartphone cost. The demographics with money will have access to 20 Mbps+ Internet just like the demographics with money can afford an iPhone instead of a $20 android smartphone.
The assertion that 4K video will have no content when people are already watching 4K content over existing infrastructure and existing content providers at this very moment is simply wrong. That's far more content than HD had at this early stage of its lifecycle.
Shooting 4K is becoming the norm for many digital pros. The black magic 4K is only a $3000 body. Well within the budget of most wedding videographers who ready have Canon glass. The Sony PXW-Z100 is $6K. The Sony FDR-AX100 is only $2,000. The panny GH-4 is a $1600 body. And, of course, the gopro 4.
Almost every indie can afford to shoot 4K video. You can edit with a $3000 MBP (offline) or even less expensive windows box. FCPX is only $300.
Post still sucks a bit but it's better than it was even a year ago.
Where are people watching 4K on existing infrastructure?
Here in Europe, most people get their TV via satellite with some terrestrial broadcasting still going on. There is not enough bandwidth in either medium for 4K. Only a very small number of the satellite channels are even HD. Fiber/cable are the only really likely options and there is still a long way to go before a majority have access to either of those.
The main thing limiting access to high speed internet is geography, not wealth.
Then there is the size the screen has to be in order to perceive 4K detail, which is just nuts - 80-100" in my case.
What media are wedding shooters using to deliver 4K? Are there playback devices the happy couple can use to watch it (even though they never will, no one ever does)?
There are two reasons to shoot 4K for wedding pros:
1) you can charge $4K for what looks to me like a pretty standard package because they have 2 blackmagic 4K cameras. It's a huge upsell.
You can do this with the GH4 too but not quite with the same quality as the 1DC (no surprise...that's a $10K body) since weddings are often low-light affairs.
What do you deliver on? Blu-ray 1080p downrez and a USB drive with the 4K footage (for the $1000+ up charge to do 4K you can afford to give them a cheap 1TB USB drive). Plus a wedding album with stills pulled from the video.
Here in Europe, most people get their TV via satellite with some terrestrial broadcasting still going on. There is not enough bandwidth in either medium for 4K. Only a very small number of the satellite channels are even HD. Fiber/cable are the only really likely options and there is still a long way to go before a majority have access to either of those.
So what? The assertion that content or infrastructure doesn't exist for another 2 generations is clearly a false statement even if Europeans are even further behind than the US. The "majority" of people don't have HDTV or 1080p material either.
Quote:
The main thing limiting access to high speed internet is geography, not wealth.
I guarantee you that a rich person almost anywhere can get 25 mbps downlink internet.
Quote:
Then there is the size the screen has to be in order to perceive 4K detail, which is just nuts - 80-100" in my case.
It depends on how close you sit. In any case a motorized 106" screen can be had for under $400. The cheapest 4K projector is currently $9000 (actually £5,500) but that price will drop just like it did for 1080 projectors (under $1K now).
For a 50" UHDTV you can see differences at 5.5 ft with 20/20 vision. Here's the deal though: most people have better than 20/20 vision until their 60s.
For 20/15 vision at viewing distance of 9' and a screen of 50" the visual improvement is around 17% (in terms of resolvable pixel density)
For 20/15 vision at viewing distance of 8' and a screen of 50" the visual improvement is around 48%
"Earlier this month, we set out to investigate if the extra resolution offered by 4K over 1080p is visible at normal viewing distance, as part of an Ultra HD and OLED television showcase event organised by British retailer Richer Sounds. A 55-inch 4K UHD (ultra high-definition) TV was lined up alongside a 1080p HDTV of the same size, each displaying content that’s 1:1 pixel-matched to its native screen resolution. Both TVs had their identities masked by custom-built cabinets which were spray-painted black. Standing 9 feet away (enforced using crowd control posts), attendees were then asked to pick out the 4K television after sampling the displayed material.
The results are now in, and an overwhelming majority of participants correctly identified the 4K TV, indicating that there exists a perceptible difference even from as far as 9 feet away on a 55in screen. Out of 49 attendees who submitted their pick to enter a prize draw, only one thought that the 1080p set was the 4K display."
In terms of consumer interest, 4K will probably do better than 3D. 4K has a few things going for it that 3D didn't: it's cheap and easy to implement, and it doesn't require special glasses.
On the content side, 3D was hard to produce. 4K isn't. Manufacturers will flood the market with inexpensive 4K devices and software to drive sales of a whole new generation of "upgrades." Indy shooters will gobble it up, which will generate a certain amount of consumer awareness.
I'd *like* to be excited about it, but seeing what cable companies did with the conversion to digital and HD, you just know this isn't going to be an improvement.
Remember when you could press a button on the remote control and the channel changed right away, not two seconds later? I guess with 4K we can look forward to it taking EIGHT seconds!
So what? The assertion that content or infrastructure doesn't exist for another 2 generations is clearly a false statement even if Europeans are even further behind than the US. The "majority" of people don't have HDTV or 1080p material either.
I guarantee you that a rich person almost anywhere can get 25 mbps downlink internet.
It depends on how close you sit. In any case a motorized 106" screen can be had for under $400. The cheapest 4K projector is currently $9000 (actually £5,500) but that price will drop just like it did for 1080 projectors (under $1K now).
For a 50" UHDTV you can see differences at 5.5 ft with 20/20 vision. Here's the deal though: most people have better than 20/20 vision until their 60s.
For 20/15 vision at viewing distance of 9' and a screen of 50" the visual improvement is around 17% (in terms of resolvable pixel density)
For 20/15 vision at viewing distance of 8' and a screen of 50" the visual improvement is around 48%
"Earlier this month, we set out to investigate if the extra resolution offered by 4K over 1080p is visible at normal viewing distance, as part of an Ultra HD and OLED television showcase event organised by British retailer Richer Sounds. A 55-inch 4K UHD (ultra high-definition) TV was lined up alongside a 1080p HDTV of the same size, each displaying content that’s 1:1 pixel-matched to its native screen resolution. Both TVs had their identities masked by custom-built cabinets which were spray-painted black. Standing 9 feet away (enforced using crowd control posts), attendees were then asked to pick out the 4K television after sampling the displayed material.
The results are now in, and an overwhelming majority of participants correctly identified the 4K TV, indicating that there exists a perceptible difference even from as far as 9 feet away on a 55in screen. Out of 49 attendees who submitted their pick to enter a prize draw, only one thought that the 1080p set was the 4K display."
You can see a difference at 9' on a 55" TV. Not 80-100"
Your infrastructure example is fiber internet. Only a minority of people have access to that. Outside of that I have seen scant evidence of 4K capable infrastructure. In the UK and Ireland the largest commercial broadcaster is SKY. They don't appear to be about to provide the infrastructure:
Quote:
June 22nd 2013
At a BSKYB Press release at the Berkley Hotel in London SKY TV Boss of Engineering who is reponsible for the Broadcasting side of the business was reported to have said "We have no plans to launch UHD 4K TV at this time"
and
Quote:
820 4K & 8K Satellite TV Channels Projected by 2025
By Mike Wheatley 20 August 2014, 4:50 pm BST
...
Of course, all of this is years away from actually happening. For the rest of this decade 4K Ultra HD will likely remain a niche product. NSR isn’t the first to say this – earlier this week The Diffusion Group made a similar claim, saying 4K won’t become mainstream until 2019 at the earliest, citing the lack of 4K content as the main reason for the slow rate of adoption.
Ok, how do I get 20 mbps? I am 1.5 km from my nearest fiber cabinet and can only get 7.2 mbps due to a line noise margin of about 6db. Satellite would be the only other option it would seem and having looked at the local forum it would appear no one is getting anything close to 20 mbps.
The Richersounds test was not well controlled. The people who constructed the test put forward several caveats as to why their test might be flawed. They used two different TV's so there is no way of telling if the viewers were picking up on the 4k panel just being different/superior. A real world test organised and run by a retailer of 4k TVs is not something I personally would value too highly.
Being able to notice a slight difference at 3m is a long way from saying people will bother to purchase 4k infrastructure.
Quote:
So there you have it: the superior resolution of 4K over 1080p is visible on a 55? screen from 9 feet away, provided the content is up to par. The difference is not big unless you move closer
Your enthusiasm and optimism reminds me of the kinds of posts I remember reading on internet forums a few years ago predicting 3D was going to change TV viewing forever. The same cost, content and infrastructure/bandwidth problems applied to that medium also. To say it has all flopped would be an understatement.
I came across this from a producer of 4K content:
Quote:
4K or not 4K?
"With rising competition, the people who push the buttons are very reluctant to do 4K."
So will Alive's critical and commercial success hasten a new broadcast era of 2160p telly? Don't bank on it.
Geffen is disappointingly skeptical. Despite his enthusiasm, he says the wider TV industry remains ice-age cool on 4K, an attitude that could potentially scupper the nascent technology.
"It's a bit like 3D. We've got to be careful that 4K doesn't get a bad reputation because there isn't any content. The broadcast industry has bunkered down if you want my honest opinion.
"With rising competition, the people who push the buttons are very reluctant to do 4K. Things are starting to get out of kilter. Companies like Sony are throwing a huge amount of money behind 4K for consumers, but they may have a bit of trouble if they're not careful. Why should people chuck out their lovely HD sets in order to get another which costs double the amount, when there isn't much 4K content available?"
Geffen reveals that he's currently working on an as yet unannounced series for the BBC which is also being shot 4K, however he confirms that the funding to shoot in Ultra HD hasn't come from the Beeb.
"I'm also making a series for the BBC in 4K, but only because I've found the extra funding myself to do that…the BBC won't show it in 4K… this is the world we're in right now. The BBC isn't yet into the mode where they have the money for very much 4K."
If the BBC - the world's largest broadcaster, with an annual income of £5.1 B ($8.28 , doesn't have the money or stomach for 4K, I don't think many others will be too keen either.
But if you can get Netflix at 25 mbps or higher, then 4k might be a goer, but I think that audience is not enough to achieve critical mass or ubiquity.
The results are now in, and an overwhelming majority of participants correctly identified the 4K TV, indicating that there exists a perceptible difference even from as far as 9 feet away on a 55in screen. Out of 49 attendees who submitted their pick to enter a prize draw, only one thought that the 1080p set was the 4K display."
I say this not to bash 4K, because, as I said, I'm not opposed to the idea in principle, just not looking forward to the downsides that will result from its implementation, but that is the silliest and most meaningless test I've heard of in a long time.
All that says is that people can correctly identify which is which at a reasonable distance with a big TV. Big whoop. With four times the pixel density, they bloody well BETTER be able to! Did the guy who got it wrong have a white cane?
There's a whole gaping CHASM of difference between "I can detect a difference" and "I perceive an improvement that has value to me." Respondents were asked only which was which, NOT which was better or which they would likely buy.
Obviously, all else being equal, more pixels is better, but all is NOT equal. Do the same comparison but with both signals being delivered by a local cable company and see how buyers respond once they get a look at what brutal compression does to that pretty hi-res picture, or how fast it fills up the PVR, or how long it takes the cable box to respond to pressing buttons on the remote.
Even if you leave rebroadcasting out of the equation, fire up a 4K disc and have the viewers shuffle their feet for the minute or two it takes the machine to play it (even my old Blu-Ray player zicks and chugs for a good sixty seconds or more before anything appears on the TV). Deliver the movie through the iTunes Store and see if buyers are prepared for how long it takes to buffer enough to start playback.
The test only confirms what's already obvious -- that there's a difference -- without speaking to degree of improvement or the trade-offs involved.
Your infrastructure example is fiber internet. Only a minority of people have access to that. Outside of that I have seen scant evidence of 4K capable infrastructure. In the UK and Ireland the largest commercial broadcaster is SKY. They don't appear to be about to provide the infrastructure:
Quote:
June 22nd 2013
At a BSKYB Press release at the Berkley Hotel in London SKY TV Boss of Engineering who is reponsible for the Broadcasting side of the business was reported to have said "We have no plans to launch UHD 4K TV at this time"
and
Quote:
820 4K & 8K Satellite TV Channels Projected by 2025
By Mike Wheatley 20 August 2014, 4:50 pm BST
...
Of course, all of this is years away from actually happening. For the rest of this decade 4K Ultra HD will likely remain a niche product. NSR isn’t the first to say this – earlier this week The Diffusion Group made a similar claim, saying 4K won’t become mainstream until 2019 at the earliest, citing the lack of 4K content as the main reason for the slow rate of adoption.
Ok, how do I get 20 mbps? I am 1.5 km from my nearest fiber cabinet and can only get 7.2 mbps due to a line noise margin of about 6db. Satellite would be the only other option it would seem and having looked at the local forum it would appear no one is getting anything close to 20 mbps.
The Richersounds test was not well controlled. The people who constructed the test put forward several caveats as to why their test might be flawed. They used two different TV's so there is no way of telling if the viewers were picking up on the 4k panel just being different/superior. A real world test organised and run by a retailer of 4k TVs is not something I personally would value too highly.
Being able to notice a slight difference at 3m is a long way from saying people will bother to purchase 4k infrastructure.
Quote:
So there you have it: the superior resolution of 4K over 1080p is visible on a 55? screen from 9 feet away, provided the content is up to par. The difference is not big unless you move closer
Your enthusiasm and optimism reminds me of the kinds of posts I remember reading on internet forums a few years ago predicting 3D was going to change TV viewing forever. The same cost, content and infrastructure/bandwidth problems applied to that medium also. To say it has all flopped would be an understatement.
I came across this from a producer of 4K content:
Quote:
4K or not 4K?
"With rising competition, the people who push the buttons are very reluctant to do 4K."
So will Alive's critical and commercial success hasten a new broadcast era of 2160p telly? Don't bank on it.
Geffen is disappointingly skeptical. Despite his enthusiasm, he says the wider TV industry remains ice-age cool on 4K, an attitude that could potentially scupper the nascent technology.
"It's a bit like 3D. We've got to be careful that 4K doesn't get a bad reputation because there isn't any content. The broadcast industry has bunkered down if you want my honest opinion.
"With rising competition, the people who push the buttons are very reluctant to do 4K. Things are starting to get out of kilter. Companies like Sony are throwing a huge amount of money behind 4K for consumers, but they may have a bit of trouble if they're not careful. Why should people chuck out their lovely HD sets in order to get another which costs double the amount, when there isn't much 4K content available?"
Geffen reveals that he's currently working on an as yet unannounced series for the BBC which is also being shot 4K, however he confirms that the funding to shoot in Ultra HD hasn't come from the Beeb.
"I'm also making a series for the BBC in 4K, but only because I've found the extra funding myself to do that…the BBC won't show it in 4K… this is the world we're in right now. The BBC isn't yet into the mode where they have the money for very much 4K."
If the BBC - the world's largest broadcaster, with an annual income of £5.1 B ($8.28 , doesn't have the money or stomach for 4K, I don't think many others will be too keen either.
But if you can get Netflix at 25 mbps or higher, then 4k might be a goer, but I think that audience is not enough to achieve critical mass or ubiquity.
I agree with your post.
Picture quality is a funny thing, a bit like sound quality. There's a lot to be gained by improving it to a certain point, and then the returns quickly diminish.
When I watch a good tv programme or film, the picture quality is irrelevant, as long as it reaches a certain minimum quality. Good writing will immerse you in what you're watching. The best picture in the world won't make up for poor writing and acting. I feel that the same applies for music, though perhaps to a lesser extent.
We tend to assume that more detail and crispness is always a good thing, and yet, so much of the time, we are watching a fantasy in which these are actually undesirable elements.
Your infrastructure example is fiber internet. Only a minority of people have access to that. Outside of that I have seen scant evidence of 4K capable infrastructure. In the UK and Ireland the largest commercial broadcaster is SKY. They don't appear to be about to provide the infrastructure:
The lack of high speed internet in the UK doesn't mean that 4K won't happen elsewhere before 2 generations go by. That the UK is a small country with a large portion of the population in urban areas that you don't have 25+ mbps internet is a "shame on you" kind of thing rather than a technology problem. If comcast can manage it anyone can.
Quote:
Ok, how do I get 20 mbps? I am 1.5 km from my nearest fiber cabinet and can only get 7.2 mbps due to a line noise margin of about 6db. Satellite would be the only other option it would seem and having looked at the local forum it would appear no one is getting anything close to 20 mbps.
From $100-135/month you can get 12-15 Mbps from ViaSat or Hughes. Sorry, US only since they use geo sats and spot beams.
If you are rich and can afford a $2000/month+ internet bill the options are there for global access. Megayachts get this.
So if you were rich you could be sipping tea on your megayacht in the Thames while watching 4K netflix as we speak.
Quote:
The Richersounds test was not well controlled. The people who constructed the test put forward several caveats as to why their test might be flawed. They used two different TV's so there is no way of telling if the viewers were picking up on the 4k panel just being different/superior. A real world test organised and run by a retailer of 4k TVs is not something I personally would value too highly.
I can (and did) provide the science that shows that 20/20 vision is too conservative an estimate of the norm and therefore the 60 pixel per degree is a simple rule of thumb for the MINIMAL requirements for HD and not the absolute. Then I provided a real world example that shows that this is in fact the case and the rule of thumb wrong.
I can also show that human visual acuity is far better than that 60 pixel degree number for several cases (single pixel high contrast, horizontal lines, etc). This provides more realism than 60 PPD can provide. An example is the ability to see power lines in the distance even when the width of the line is far smaller than 1 arc minute. The other is stars in the sky (also smaller than 1 arc minute).
Further, if you look at the HDTV specification it is the MINIMUM specification to replicate the theater experience in the home. You get the 60 PPD resolution only at a seating distance where horizontal field of view that is much further than most folks prefer to sit in a movie theater...it is equivalent to sitting in the very last row in a theater.
For a 55" set you should be sitting at 7 feet to replicate the last row of the theater. This gives you 60 PPD using 1080p. 9 feet is too far away to be watching a movie and hoping to get the theater feel at home. Okay for the news, or TV shows or sports but not for "home theater". The immersion simply isn't there.
If you want to sit in the middle of the theater you need to sit at around 5 feet from a 55" set. This is far too close for 1080p but with 4K it's fine. There's sufficient resolution to still be "retina".
Where do you prefer to sit when watching a movie?
Quote:
Being able to notice a slight difference at 3m is a long way from saying people will bother to purchase 4k infrastructure.
Your enthusiasm and optimism reminds me of the kinds of posts I remember reading on internet forums a few years ago predicting 3D was going to change TV viewing forever. The same cost, content and infrastructure/bandwidth problems applied to that medium also. To say it has all flopped would be an understatement.
It's different from 3D because 4K represents an improvement from sitting in the rear of a movie theater to the middle of the movie theater which is were folks normally prefer to sit when watching movies. Folks don't always like 3D movies. They DO like not sitting in the back row.
Folks will buy into the 4K infrastructure for the same reasons that they bought into HDTVs...it looks better. Even at 9 feet. And when you sit closer to the screen in a home theater it makes a huge difference. Movie-like as opposed to TV-like. That is a function of Horizontal FOV coupled with resolution.
So the FACTS are:
Netflix is streaming 4K video today.
Comcast and Verizon both have 25Mbps or faster service in many metropolitan areas.
The US is behind Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Sweden, Norway, blah blah in terms of internet speed. Even so 17% of US households have 15 Mbps or better internet service.
People can see the difference between 4K and 1080p at average viewing distances (9 feet).
4K allows you to sit at a viewing distance that replicates sitting in the middle rows of a movie theater rather than the back row of a theater which is what HDTVs are today.
The future is (subject to change but not limited to the musings of beeb fuddy duddies):
4K and 8K satellite broadcast in 2016 for the Rio Olympics
4K cable broadcast in Japan is now slated for 2015 instead of 2016
DOCSIS 3.1 is running ahead of schedule and likely to see physical deployment in 2015 which can handle 1Gbps in the US.
Sky Perfect JSAT is going to launch two 4K sat channels in March 2015 with sports, movies and music concerts.
India's Tata Sky is slated for 4K Set Top Box mass deployment in 2015 using Broadcom's HEVC chipsets
Hardly something 2 generations away or something you'll have to wait until 2025 to get.
Picture quality is a funny thing, a bit like sound quality. There's a lot to be gained by improving it to a certain point, and then the returns quickly diminish.
When I watch a good tv programme or film, the picture quality is irrelevant, as long as it reaches a certain minimum quality. Good writing will immerse you in what you're watching. The best picture in the world won't make up for poor writing and acting. I feel that the same applies for music, though perhaps to a lesser extent.
We tend to assume that more detail and crispness is always a good thing, and yet, so much of the time, we are watching a fantasy in which these are actually undesirable elements.
How crisp and detailed are our memories?
Immersion is a function of resolution and horizontal field of view. There needs to be sufficient resolution to not see digital artifacts and there needs to be sufficiently large field of view to provide immersion (aka the feeling of being there).
THX recommendation is 40 degree horizontal viewing angle for that middle row of seats. HDTV can offer only 30 degrees HVA.
Picture quality is a funny thing, a bit like sound quality. There's a lot to be gained by improving it to a certain point, and then the returns quickly diminish.
When I watch a good tv programme or film, the picture quality is irrelevant, as long as it reaches a certain minimum quality. Good writing will immerse you in what you're watching. The best picture in the world won't make up for poor writing and acting. I feel that the same applies for music, though perhaps to a lesser extent.
We tend to assume that more detail and crispness is always a good thing, and yet, so much of the time, we are watching a fantasy in which these are actually undesirable elements.
How crisp and detailed are our memories?
Immersion is a function of resolution and horizontal field of view. There needs to be sufficient resolution to not see digital artifacts and there needs to be sufficiently large field of view to provide immersion (aka the feeling of being there).
THX recommendation is 40 degree horizontal viewing angle for that middle row of seats. HDTV can offer only 30 degrees HVA.
I disagree that you need a huge screen to be immersed in a good tv show or film. You just need good quality writing and acting. Your so-called specs for immersion mean nothing.
I disagree that you need a huge screen to be immersed in a good tv show or film. You just need good quality writing and acting. Your so-called specs for immersion mean nothing.
The effects of viewing angle on immersion are shown by studies performed by NHK, SMPTE and THX.
The specs are industry standard as specified by SMPTE (EG-18-1994) and THX for theater design.
You can call them meaningless but it only makes you ignorant.
Edit: good writing and acting can lead you to be engrossed in a show or film but because the image size is small you will not feel immersed into that moment as if you were there because it doesn't fill you field of view as reality does. You may be really focused on watching but you know you are outside looking in.
30 degrees doesn't guarantee immersion...it the angle where any smaller the perception of being in the scene is lost for most subjects of the studies. That's why the spec for the LAST row is set to 30 degrees.
I disagree that you need a huge screen to be immersed in a good tv show or film. You just need good quality writing and acting. Your so-called specs for immersion mean nothing.
The effects of viewing angle on immersion are shown by studies performed by NHK, SMPTE and THX.
The specs are industry standard as specified by SMPTE (EG-18-1994) and THX for theater design.
You can call them meaningless but it only makes you ignorant.
They're as meaningful as an Android fanboy boasting about his superior specs.
When you go to a movie theater do you sit in the middle or all the way in the back row?
That's the improvement between 1080p HDTV and 4k UHDTV.
I spoke only to the value of the particular test being discussed, not what you or I perceive as the potential benefits of 4K in general. With due respect, what you wrote here is YOUR interpretation. The test in question did not make that conclusion. It couldn't. It didn't ask viewers anything at all about whether they even thought it was BETTER, much less how much better or in which way(s). It was simply "Can you detect which one is 4K?" and even then 2% got it wrong!
That's not an argument against 4K or disputing your position. I'm simply saying I wouldn't cite that particular test as an endorsement of 4K because it was a silly test that didn't prove anything useful.
I spoke only to the value of the particular test being discussed, not what you or I perceive as the potential benefits of 4K in general. With due respect, what you wrote here is YOUR interpretation. The test in question did not make that conclusion. It couldn't. It didn't ask viewers anything at all about whether they even thought it was BETTER, much less how much better or in which way(s). It was simply "Can you detect which one is 4K?" and even then 2% got it wrong!
The purpose of including the test is to show that the "you can't see any difference beyond X feet because the eye cannot resolve any differences" is untrue from both a scientific perspective (as shown in the charts) and a real world example where normal people COULD detect a difference at normal seating distances.
That is my only "interpretation" of the test. And 2% failure is fine to refute the assertion that the human eye cannot discern differences at reasonable distances and screen sizes. They probably had worse than 20/20 corrected vision. It reaffirms that most people under 60 have better than 20/20 vision and average 20/12.5 vision.
Here is the original statement being refuted:
"Then there is the size the screen has to be in order to perceive 4K detail, which is just nuts - 80-100" in my case."
It's a bullshit statement based on a misunderstood rule of thumb and charts that are incorrect because it's based on that rule of thumb on human acuity.
People CAN perceive 4K detail at 9 feet from a 55" screen.
The advantage of 4K over 1080p resolution is that you can sit closer to the screen to replicate sitting in the middle row of a theater rather than the last row in a theater without seeing artifacts even for the average adult population of 20/10-20/15 vision.
I posted that latter because this is the most easy way to explain the value of 4K to non-videophiles. It is not an "interpretation" of the merits of 4K. It is a fact based on human acuity and industry specifications for movie theater design. It's just math at that point and no "interpretation" required.
Comments
Average Internet speed is as meaningless as average smartphone cost. The demographics with money will have access to 20 Mbps+ Internet just like the demographics with money can afford an iPhone instead of a $20 android smartphone.
The assertion that 4K video will have no content when people are already watching 4K content over existing infrastructure and existing content providers at this very moment is simply wrong. That's far more content than HD had at this early stage of its lifecycle.
Shooting 4K is becoming the norm for many digital pros. The black magic 4K is only a $3000 body. Well within the budget of most wedding videographers who ready have Canon glass. The Sony PXW-Z100 is $6K. The Sony FDR-AX100 is only $2,000. The panny GH-4 is a $1600 body. And, of course, the gopro 4.
Almost every indie can afford to shoot 4K video. You can edit with a $3000 MBP (offline) or even less expensive windows box. FCPX is only $300.
Post still sucks a bit but it's better than it was even a year ago.
[...] Well within the budget of most wedding videographers
What media are wedding shooters using to deliver 4K? Are there playback devices the happy couple can use to watch it (even though they never will, no one ever does)?
Average Internet speed is as meaningless as average smartphone cost. The demographics with money will have access to 20 Mbps+ Internet just like the demographics with money can afford an iPhone instead of a $20 android smartphone.
The assertion that 4K video will have no content when people are already watching 4K content over existing infrastructure and existing content providers at this very moment is simply wrong. That's far more content than HD had at this early stage of its lifecycle.
Shooting 4K is becoming the norm for many digital pros. The black magic 4K is only a $3000 body. Well within the budget of most wedding videographers who ready have Canon glass. The Sony PXW-Z100 is $6K. The Sony FDR-AX100 is only $2,000. The panny GH-4 is a $1600 body. And, of course, the gopro 4.
Almost every indie can afford to shoot 4K video. You can edit with a $3000 MBP (offline) or even less expensive windows box. FCPX is only $300.
Post still sucks a bit but it's better than it was even a year ago.
Where are people watching 4K on existing infrastructure?
Here in Europe, most people get their TV via satellite with some terrestrial broadcasting still going on. There is not enough bandwidth in either medium for 4K. Only a very small number of the satellite channels are even HD. Fiber/cable are the only really likely options and there is still a long way to go before a majority have access to either of those.
The main thing limiting access to high speed internet is geography, not wealth.
Then there is the size the screen has to be in order to perceive 4K detail, which is just nuts - 80-100" in my case.
4K is the new 3D.
Then there is the size the screen has to be in order to perceive 4K detail, which is just nuts - 80-100" in my case.
Your case, maybe. But anything over 40” would benefit at normal viewing distances.
What media are wedding shooters using to deliver 4K? Are there playback devices the happy couple can use to watch it (even though they never will, no one ever does)?
There are two reasons to shoot 4K for wedding pros:
1) you can charge $4K for what looks to me like a pretty standard package because they have 2 blackmagic 4K cameras. It's a huge upsell.
http://www.towervideophoto.com/4k-wedding-video-package/
2) if you shoot 4K you can pull usable 8 MP stills from the video. Canon made a whole ad pitch about it for the 1DC
http://player.vimeo.com/video/56241602
You can do this with the GH4 too but not quite with the same quality as the 1DC (no surprise...that's a $10K body) since weddings are often low-light affairs.
What do you deliver on? Blu-ray 1080p downrez and a USB drive with the 4K footage (for the $1000+ up charge to do 4K you can afford to give them a cheap 1TB USB drive). Plus a wedding album with stills pulled from the video.
Where are people watching 4K on existing infrastructure?
US, Japan, etc.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444
So what? The assertion that content or infrastructure doesn't exist for another 2 generations is clearly a false statement even if Europeans are even further behind than the US. The "majority" of people don't have HDTV or 1080p material either.
I guarantee you that a rich person almost anywhere can get 25 mbps downlink internet.
It depends on how close you sit. In any case a motorized 106" screen can be had for under $400. The cheapest 4K projector is currently $9000 (actually £5,500) but that price will drop just like it did for 1080 projectors (under $1K now).
For a 50" UHDTV you can see differences at 5.5 ft with 20/20 vision. Here's the deal though: most people have better than 20/20 vision until their 60s.
For 20/15 vision at viewing distance of 9' and a screen of 50" the visual improvement is around 17% (in terms of resolvable pixel density)
For 20/15 vision at viewing distance of 8' and a screen of 50" the visual improvement is around 48%
http://referencehometheater.com/2013/commentary/4k-calculator/
Real world tests bear this out:
"Earlier this month, we set out to investigate if the extra resolution offered by 4K over 1080p is visible at normal viewing distance, as part of an Ultra HD and OLED television showcase event organised by British retailer Richer Sounds. A 55-inch 4K UHD (ultra high-definition) TV was lined up alongside a 1080p HDTV of the same size, each displaying content that’s 1:1 pixel-matched to its native screen resolution. Both TVs had their identities masked by custom-built cabinets which were spray-painted black. Standing 9 feet away (enforced using crowd control posts), attendees were then asked to pick out the 4K television after sampling the displayed material.
The results are now in, and an overwhelming majority of participants correctly identified the 4K TV, indicating that there exists a perceptible difference even from as far as 9 feet away on a 55in screen. Out of 49 attendees who submitted their pick to enter a prize draw, only one thought that the 1080p set was the 4K display."
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/4k-resolution-201312153517.htm
You can see a difference at 9' on a 55" TV. Not 80-100"
Your case, maybe. But anything over 40” would benefit at normal viewing distances.
My viewing distance is only 3.5m. Is that a lot?
I have a 50" but I really need to close the distance a bit for a 1080p channel to appear much different to a SD one.
The seating distance for a 40" and 4K is just under 1.8m or 6'.
4K is the new 3D.
In terms of consumer interest, 4K will probably do better than 3D. 4K has a few things going for it that 3D didn't: it's cheap and easy to implement, and it doesn't require special glasses.
On the content side, 3D was hard to produce. 4K isn't. Manufacturers will flood the market with inexpensive 4K devices and software to drive sales of a whole new generation of "upgrades." Indy shooters will gobble it up, which will generate a certain amount of consumer awareness.
I'd *like* to be excited about it, but seeing what cable companies did with the conversion to digital and HD, you just know this isn't going to be an improvement.
Remember when you could press a button on the remote control and the channel changed right away, not two seconds later? I guess with 4K we can look forward to it taking EIGHT seconds!
US, Japan, etc.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444
So what? The assertion that content or infrastructure doesn't exist for another 2 generations is clearly a false statement even if Europeans are even further behind than the US. The "majority" of people don't have HDTV or 1080p material either.
I guarantee you that a rich person almost anywhere can get 25 mbps downlink internet.
It depends on how close you sit. In any case a motorized 106" screen can be had for under $400. The cheapest 4K projector is currently $9000 (actually £5,500) but that price will drop just like it did for 1080 projectors (under $1K now).
For a 50" UHDTV you can see differences at 5.5 ft with 20/20 vision. Here's the deal though: most people have better than 20/20 vision until their 60s.
For 20/15 vision at viewing distance of 9' and a screen of 50" the visual improvement is around 17% (in terms of resolvable pixel density)
For 20/15 vision at viewing distance of 8' and a screen of 50" the visual improvement is around 48%
http://referencehometheater.com/2013/commentary/4k-calculator/
Real world tests bear this out:
"Earlier this month, we set out to investigate if the extra resolution offered by 4K over 1080p is visible at normal viewing distance, as part of an Ultra HD and OLED television showcase event organised by British retailer Richer Sounds. A 55-inch 4K UHD (ultra high-definition) TV was lined up alongside a 1080p HDTV of the same size, each displaying content that’s 1:1 pixel-matched to its native screen resolution. Both TVs had their identities masked by custom-built cabinets which were spray-painted black. Standing 9 feet away (enforced using crowd control posts), attendees were then asked to pick out the 4K television after sampling the displayed material.
The results are now in, and an overwhelming majority of participants correctly identified the 4K TV, indicating that there exists a perceptible difference even from as far as 9 feet away on a 55in screen. Out of 49 attendees who submitted their pick to enter a prize draw, only one thought that the 1080p set was the 4K display."
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/4k-resolution-201312153517.htm
You can see a difference at 9' on a 55" TV. Not 80-100"
Your infrastructure example is fiber internet. Only a minority of people have access to that. Outside of that I have seen scant evidence of 4K capable infrastructure. In the UK and Ireland the largest commercial broadcaster is SKY. They don't appear to be about to provide the infrastructure:
At a BSKYB Press release at the Berkley Hotel in London SKY TV Boss of Engineering who is reponsible for the Broadcasting side of the business was reported to have said "We have no plans to launch UHD 4K TV at this time"
and
820 4K & 8K Satellite TV Channels Projected by 2025
By Mike Wheatley 20 August 2014, 4:50 pm BST
...
Of course, all of this is years away from actually happening. For the rest of this decade 4K Ultra HD will likely remain a niche product. NSR isn’t the first to say this – earlier this week The Diffusion Group made a similar claim, saying 4K won’t become mainstream until 2019 at the earliest, citing the lack of 4K content as the main reason for the slow rate of adoption.
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/4k-satellite-201408203887.htm
Ok, how do I get 20 mbps? I am 1.5 km from my nearest fiber cabinet and can only get 7.2 mbps due to a line noise margin of about 6db. Satellite would be the only other option it would seem and having looked at the local forum it would appear no one is getting anything close to 20 mbps.
The Richersounds test was not well controlled. The people who constructed the test put forward several caveats as to why their test might be flawed. They used two different TV's so there is no way of telling if the viewers were picking up on the 4k panel just being different/superior. A real world test organised and run by a retailer of 4k TVs is not something I personally would value too highly.
Being able to notice a slight difference at 3m is a long way from saying people will bother to purchase 4k infrastructure.
Your enthusiasm and optimism reminds me of the kinds of posts I remember reading on internet forums a few years ago predicting 3D was going to change TV viewing forever. The same cost, content and infrastructure/bandwidth problems applied to that medium also. To say it has all flopped would be an understatement.
I came across this from a producer of 4K content:
4K or not 4K?
So will Alive's critical and commercial success hasten a new broadcast era of 2160p telly? Don't bank on it.
Geffen is disappointingly skeptical. Despite his enthusiasm, he says the wider TV industry remains ice-age cool on 4K, an attitude that could potentially scupper the nascent technology.
"It's a bit like 3D. We've got to be careful that 4K doesn't get a bad reputation because there isn't any content. The broadcast industry has bunkered down if you want my honest opinion.
"With rising competition, the people who push the buttons are very reluctant to do 4K. Things are starting to get out of kilter. Companies like Sony are throwing a huge amount of money behind 4K for consumers, but they may have a bit of trouble if they're not careful. Why should people chuck out their lovely HD sets in order to get another which costs double the amount, when there isn't much 4K content available?"
Geffen reveals that he's currently working on an as yet unannounced series for the BBC which is also being shot 4K, however he confirms that the funding to shoot in Ultra HD hasn't come from the Beeb.
"I'm also making a series for the BBC in 4K, but only because I've found the extra funding myself to do that…the BBC won't show it in 4K… this is the world we're in right now. The BBC isn't yet into the mode where they have the money for very much 4K."
http://www.techradar.com/news/television/sky-bbc-and-4k-is-british-tv-turning-its-back-on-the-ultra-hd-revolution--1249857
If the BBC - the world's largest broadcaster, with an annual income of £5.1 B ($8.28
, doesn't have the money or stomach for 4K, I don't think many others will be too keen either.
But if you can get Netflix at 25 mbps or higher, then 4k might be a goer, but I think that audience is not enough to achieve critical mass or ubiquity.
I say this not to bash 4K, because, as I said, I'm not opposed to the idea in principle, just not looking forward to the downsides that will result from its implementation, but that is the silliest and most meaningless test I've heard of in a long time.
All that says is that people can correctly identify which is which at a reasonable distance with a big TV. Big whoop. With four times the pixel density, they bloody well BETTER be able to! Did the guy who got it wrong have a white cane?
There's a whole gaping CHASM of difference between "I can detect a difference" and "I perceive an improvement that has value to me." Respondents were asked only which was which, NOT which was better or which they would likely buy.
Obviously, all else being equal, more pixels is better, but all is NOT equal. Do the same comparison but with both signals being delivered by a local cable company and see how buyers respond once they get a look at what brutal compression does to that pretty hi-res picture, or how fast it fills up the PVR, or how long it takes the cable box to respond to pressing buttons on the remote.
Even if you leave rebroadcasting out of the equation, fire up a 4K disc and have the viewers shuffle their feet for the minute or two it takes the machine to play it (even my old Blu-Ray player zicks and chugs for a good sixty seconds or more before anything appears on the TV). Deliver the movie through the iTunes Store and see if buyers are prepared for how long it takes to buffer enough to start playback.
The test only confirms what's already obvious -- that there's a difference -- without speaking to degree of improvement or the trade-offs involved.
Your infrastructure example is fiber internet. Only a minority of people have access to that. Outside of that I have seen scant evidence of 4K capable infrastructure. In the UK and Ireland the largest commercial broadcaster is SKY. They don't appear to be about to provide the infrastructure:
At a BSKYB Press release at the Berkley Hotel in London SKY TV Boss of Engineering who is reponsible for the Broadcasting side of the business was reported to have said "We have no plans to launch UHD 4K TV at this time"
and
820 4K & 8K Satellite TV Channels Projected by 2025
By Mike Wheatley 20 August 2014, 4:50 pm BST
...
Of course, all of this is years away from actually happening. For the rest of this decade 4K Ultra HD will likely remain a niche product. NSR isn’t the first to say this – earlier this week The Diffusion Group made a similar claim, saying 4K won’t become mainstream until 2019 at the earliest, citing the lack of 4K content as the main reason for the slow rate of adoption.
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/4k-satellite-201408203887.htm
Ok, how do I get 20 mbps? I am 1.5 km from my nearest fiber cabinet and can only get 7.2 mbps due to a line noise margin of about 6db. Satellite would be the only other option it would seem and having looked at the local forum it would appear no one is getting anything close to 20 mbps.
The Richersounds test was not well controlled. The people who constructed the test put forward several caveats as to why their test might be flawed. They used two different TV's so there is no way of telling if the viewers were picking up on the 4k panel just being different/superior. A real world test organised and run by a retailer of 4k TVs is not something I personally would value too highly.
Being able to notice a slight difference at 3m is a long way from saying people will bother to purchase 4k infrastructure.
Your enthusiasm and optimism reminds me of the kinds of posts I remember reading on internet forums a few years ago predicting 3D was going to change TV viewing forever. The same cost, content and infrastructure/bandwidth problems applied to that medium also. To say it has all flopped would be an understatement.
I came across this from a producer of 4K content:
4K or not 4K?
So will Alive's critical and commercial success hasten a new broadcast era of 2160p telly? Don't bank on it.
Geffen is disappointingly skeptical. Despite his enthusiasm, he says the wider TV industry remains ice-age cool on 4K, an attitude that could potentially scupper the nascent technology.
"It's a bit like 3D. We've got to be careful that 4K doesn't get a bad reputation because there isn't any content. The broadcast industry has bunkered down if you want my honest opinion.
"With rising competition, the people who push the buttons are very reluctant to do 4K. Things are starting to get out of kilter. Companies like Sony are throwing a huge amount of money behind 4K for consumers, but they may have a bit of trouble if they're not careful. Why should people chuck out their lovely HD sets in order to get another which costs double the amount, when there isn't much 4K content available?"
Geffen reveals that he's currently working on an as yet unannounced series for the BBC which is also being shot 4K, however he confirms that the funding to shoot in Ultra HD hasn't come from the Beeb.
"I'm also making a series for the BBC in 4K, but only because I've found the extra funding myself to do that…the BBC won't show it in 4K… this is the world we're in right now. The BBC isn't yet into the mode where they have the money for very much 4K."
http://www.techradar.com/news/television/sky-bbc-and-4k-is-british-tv-turning-its-back-on-the-ultra-hd-revolution--1249857
If the BBC - the world's largest broadcaster, with an annual income of £5.1 B ($8.28
, doesn't have the money or stomach for 4K, I don't think many others will be too keen either.
But if you can get Netflix at 25 mbps or higher, then 4k might be a goer, but I think that audience is not enough to achieve critical mass or ubiquity.
I agree with your post.
Picture quality is a funny thing, a bit like sound quality. There's a lot to be gained by improving it to a certain point, and then the returns quickly diminish.
When I watch a good tv programme or film, the picture quality is irrelevant, as long as it reaches a certain minimum quality. Good writing will immerse you in what you're watching. The best picture in the world won't make up for poor writing and acting. I feel that the same applies for music, though perhaps to a lesser extent.
We tend to assume that more detail and crispness is always a good thing, and yet, so much of the time, we are watching a fantasy in which these are actually undesirable elements.
How crisp and detailed are our memories?
Your infrastructure example is fiber internet. Only a minority of people have access to that. Outside of that I have seen scant evidence of 4K capable infrastructure. In the UK and Ireland the largest commercial broadcaster is SKY. They don't appear to be about to provide the infrastructure:
The lack of high speed internet in the UK doesn't mean that 4K won't happen elsewhere before 2 generations go by. That the UK is a small country with a large portion of the population in urban areas that you don't have 25+ mbps internet is a "shame on you" kind of thing rather than a technology problem. If comcast can manage it anyone can.
From $100-135/month you can get 12-15 Mbps from ViaSat or Hughes. Sorry, US only since they use geo sats and spot beams.
If you are rich and can afford a $2000/month+ internet bill the options are there for global access. Megayachts get this.
So if you were rich you could be sipping tea on your megayacht in the Thames while watching 4K netflix as we speak.
I can (and did) provide the science that shows that 20/20 vision is too conservative an estimate of the norm and therefore the 60 pixel per degree is a simple rule of thumb for the MINIMAL requirements for HD and not the absolute. Then I provided a real world example that shows that this is in fact the case and the rule of thumb wrong.
I can also show that human visual acuity is far better than that 60 pixel degree number for several cases (single pixel high contrast, horizontal lines, etc). This provides more realism than 60 PPD can provide. An example is the ability to see power lines in the distance even when the width of the line is far smaller than 1 arc minute. The other is stars in the sky (also smaller than 1 arc minute).
Further, if you look at the HDTV specification it is the MINIMUM specification to replicate the theater experience in the home. You get the 60 PPD resolution only at a seating distance where horizontal field of view that is much further than most folks prefer to sit in a movie theater...it is equivalent to sitting in the very last row in a theater.
For a 55" set you should be sitting at 7 feet to replicate the last row of the theater. This gives you 60 PPD using 1080p. 9 feet is too far away to be watching a movie and hoping to get the theater feel at home. Okay for the news, or TV shows or sports but not for "home theater". The immersion simply isn't there.
If you want to sit in the middle of the theater you need to sit at around 5 feet from a 55" set. This is far too close for 1080p but with 4K it's fine. There's sufficient resolution to still be "retina".
Where do you prefer to sit when watching a movie?
Quote:
Your enthusiasm and optimism reminds me of the kinds of posts I remember reading on internet forums a few years ago predicting 3D was going to change TV viewing forever. The same cost, content and infrastructure/bandwidth problems applied to that medium also. To say it has all flopped would be an understatement.
It's different from 3D because 4K represents an improvement from sitting in the rear of a movie theater to the middle of the movie theater which is were folks normally prefer to sit when watching movies. Folks don't always like 3D movies. They DO like not sitting in the back row.
Folks will buy into the 4K infrastructure for the same reasons that they bought into HDTVs...it looks better. Even at 9 feet. And when you sit closer to the screen in a home theater it makes a huge difference. Movie-like as opposed to TV-like. That is a function of Horizontal FOV coupled with resolution.
So the FACTS are:
The future is (subject to change but not limited to the musings of beeb fuddy duddies):
Hardly something 2 generations away or something you'll have to wait until 2025 to get.
There's a whole gaping CHASM of difference between "I can detect a difference" and "I perceive an improvement that has value to me."
...
The test only confirms what's already obvious -- that there's a difference -- without speaking to degree of improvement or the trade-offs involved.
When you go to a movie theater do you sit in the middle or all the way in the back row?
That's the improvement between 1080p HDTV and 4k UHDTV.
Picture quality is a funny thing, a bit like sound quality. There's a lot to be gained by improving it to a certain point, and then the returns quickly diminish.
When I watch a good tv programme or film, the picture quality is irrelevant, as long as it reaches a certain minimum quality. Good writing will immerse you in what you're watching. The best picture in the world won't make up for poor writing and acting. I feel that the same applies for music, though perhaps to a lesser extent.
We tend to assume that more detail and crispness is always a good thing, and yet, so much of the time, we are watching a fantasy in which these are actually undesirable elements.
How crisp and detailed are our memories?
Immersion is a function of resolution and horizontal field of view. There needs to be sufficient resolution to not see digital artifacts and there needs to be sufficiently large field of view to provide immersion (aka the feeling of being there).
THX recommendation is 40 degree horizontal viewing angle for that middle row of seats. HDTV can offer only 30 degrees HVA.
I disagree that you need a huge screen to be immersed in a good tv show or film. You just need good quality writing and acting. Your so-called specs for immersion mean nothing.
The effects of viewing angle on immersion are shown by studies performed by NHK, SMPTE and THX.
The specs are industry standard as specified by SMPTE (EG-18-1994) and THX for theater design.
You can call them meaningless but it only makes you ignorant.
Edit: good writing and acting can lead you to be engrossed in a show or film but because the image size is small you will not feel immersed into that moment as if you were there because it doesn't fill you field of view as reality does. You may be really focused on watching but you know you are outside looking in.
30 degrees doesn't guarantee immersion...it the angle where any smaller the perception of being in the scene is lost for most subjects of the studies. That's why the spec for the LAST row is set to 30 degrees.
They're as meaningful as an Android fanboy boasting about his superior specs.
Lol. Go argue with THX and SMPTE that they don't know what they are talking about.
When you go to a movie theater do you sit in the middle or all the way in the back row?
That's the improvement between 1080p HDTV and 4k UHDTV.
I spoke only to the value of the particular test being discussed, not what you or I perceive as the potential benefits of 4K in general. With due respect, what you wrote here is YOUR interpretation. The test in question did not make that conclusion. It couldn't. It didn't ask viewers anything at all about whether they even thought it was BETTER, much less how much better or in which way(s). It was simply "Can you detect which one is 4K?" and even then 2% got it wrong!
That's not an argument against 4K or disputing your position. I'm simply saying I wouldn't cite that particular test as an endorsement of 4K because it was a silly test that didn't prove anything useful.
I spoke only to the value of the particular test being discussed, not what you or I perceive as the potential benefits of 4K in general. With due respect, what you wrote here is YOUR interpretation. The test in question did not make that conclusion. It couldn't. It didn't ask viewers anything at all about whether they even thought it was BETTER, much less how much better or in which way(s). It was simply "Can you detect which one is 4K?" and even then 2% got it wrong!
The purpose of including the test is to show that the "you can't see any difference beyond X feet because the eye cannot resolve any differences" is untrue from both a scientific perspective (as shown in the charts) and a real world example where normal people COULD detect a difference at normal seating distances.
That is my only "interpretation" of the test. And 2% failure is fine to refute the assertion that the human eye cannot discern differences at reasonable distances and screen sizes. They probably had worse than 20/20 corrected vision. It reaffirms that most people under 60 have better than 20/20 vision and average 20/12.5 vision.
Here is the original statement being refuted:
"Then there is the size the screen has to be in order to perceive 4K detail, which is just nuts - 80-100" in my case."
It's a bullshit statement based on a misunderstood rule of thumb and charts that are incorrect because it's based on that rule of thumb on human acuity.
People CAN perceive 4K detail at 9 feet from a 55" screen.
The advantage of 4K over 1080p resolution is that you can sit closer to the screen to replicate sitting in the middle row of a theater rather than the last row in a theater without seeing artifacts even for the average adult population of 20/10-20/15 vision.
I posted that latter because this is the most easy way to explain the value of 4K to non-videophiles. It is not an "interpretation" of the merits of 4K. It is a fact based on human acuity and industry specifications for movie theater design. It's just math at that point and no "interpretation" required.