4k on the rise

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Mark Rosenzweig

You can shoot HDR right now with the GH4 and the Atomos Inferno (which displays HDR video in HDR in the field!): So record VLOGL on the Inferno 10bit, seeing the HDR view (expanded DR, expanded color gamut, 10bit) as you shoot.

To clarify, you only need the Inferno if you have to expose by eye. If you want to shoot HDR without an Inferno, you simply have to expose via waveform and use the exposure guides for whichever flavor of log you shoot (Clog, Slog, Vlog). You can shoot HDR with the Ninja Blade/Star, the Pix, or the Odyssey just fine.

[Nigel Barker]

4K TVs really do have the 'Wow' factor even compared to HD. They can be viewed them from just a couple of feet away & it's like looking at a photo in a frame or through a window.

[Steve Burkett]

Originally Posted by Steven Shea

I've been hearing people claim that 4K is "right around the corner" for about about 8 years now. If anything, it's taking its sweet old time to roll in.

True, but then again wasn't HD TV first talked about in the late 80's; if so, I think 4K is developing a lot quicker in comparison.

[Andrew Smith]

I remember seeing a running demo of HDTV at World Expo 88 and thinking "it's just like film", it was so impressive compared to the standard definition TV we would all still live with domestically for the next 20 years.

Now you kids get off my lawn!

Andrew

[Dave Blackhurst]

Some of us have been shooting 4K and displaying on 4K monitors for a couple years <wink>. I'm not ready to go 8K yet....

The "jump" to 4K wasn't that expensive since I was doing other upgrades at the time. The productivity boost of a large 4K "desktop" on a TV was more than worth the cost.

I still have some "HD" (and of course am waiting for UHDBR or whatever for playback and burning discs), but wouldn't look back or buy any "new" HD gear....

[Duncan Craig]

The transition from SD 4:3 to SD 16:9 and onto HD took so long because so much needed to change.

Moving from analogue to digital acquisition was slow and a huge expense for everyone at the time, because the kit was very, very expensive.

Pixel aspect ratios were a horrible mess (weird stuff like DVCPRO HD for example) with anamorphic thrown in for good measure.

New tape formats came along thick and fast (I had a show that continued to film on Betacam SX even though fixing the dropouts on my Editbox were wasting the budget)

Non Linear editing was still very expensive.

CRT ruled the roost and TFT had a long way to go.

All of this change was happening at about the same time, and it dragged on forever (14:9 please die!)


Fast forward to now, the majority of professional video being shot is h264.
The majority of cameras (excluding phones) use SD cards and it's all 16:9/square pixel.

I'm not including high end 'Pro' formats and RAW etc etc as I have nothing to do with 'broadcast' anymore and that stuff accounts for a tiny amount of professional production. Let alone the dozens of hours of 'domestic' monetised video being uploaded to YouTube every minute.

Now that a 16:9 aspect with square pixels is the norm, moving from HD to UHD to 16k to whatever is really much simpler for everyone to understand and it's much cheaper to achieve. You just need h265/6/7...whatever, add in a faster computer (either in the camera, edit suite or TV) and a faster internet connection.