8k vs 4k: Is 8k worth it? Warner Bros test result shocked me

[mtn328]

Better picture quality, higher brightness and more brilliant colors may be the slogans that most TV manufacturers are accustomed to. Now they have used similar descriptions in the promotion of 8K TVs, but consumers are concerned about this There are still some doubts about the new technology.

The biggest question is, can our naked eyes perceive the details displayed by 8K Ultra HD TV? If it is compared with 4K TV, how big is the difference between the two?

Recently, Warner Bros., a well-known film production company, launched a study that combined Pixar, Amazon Prime Video, and LG and other companies and institutions to launch a "double-blind test" to analyze consumer perceptions of 4K and 8K TV content.

However, the results of the study found that most people actually find it difficult to distinguish the difference between the two.

The testing process used by Warner Bros. is more rigorous. They selected a total of 7 test videos from movies and TV programs such as "Dunkirk", "Brave" and "Nature", all of which were encoded in HDR10.

At the same time, Warner also showed the maximum content brightness (MaxCLL) and maximum average content brightness (MaxFALL) of each video clip , which can basically cover most of the current mainstream scenes.

A total of 193 people participated in this test, and 5 viewers were arranged to watch TV in the room each time for 30 minutes. Two of them would sit 1.5 meters away from the TV and watch, while the other three would stand 2.75 meters away.

The reason for fixing these two distances is mainly based on the average data of the International Telecommunication Union. The latter believes that 2.13 meters is the distance most people would choose to watch TV at home, but this has nothing to do with the size of the TV.

In actual viewing, the tester will see the 4K and 8K versions of the above 7 clips, which will be referred to by "A" and "B" respectively, and the user can give an evaluation of "which version is better".

Of course, the play order of the two versions is naturally disrupted. The tester only knows that they are seeing the two versions A and B, but will not know which one is 4K and which is 8K.

At the same time, Warner also introduced some random factors during testing. For example, let users only see the 4K version, but there will still be A/B alternate switching on the screen. Warner believes that such "deception" can better allow testers to make judgments based on their actual feelings.

Another feature of this study is that Warner also performed vision tests on all testers, using numbers like "20/x" to quantify their "visual acuity."

Among them, the person displayed as "20/20" is a person with normal visual acuity, meaning that within a distance of 20 feet, the tester can distinguish the same object details as other people with normal visual acuity.

If it is "20/10", it means that within 20 feet, he can distinguish what other people with normal visual acuity can only see within 10 feet, which means that his "visual acuity" will be better than ordinary people.

From the results, 34% of the testers have a "20/20" normal vision range, 39% will be low, and 27% will be higher than this number-facts have also proved that 27 % Of users’ perception of 8K video is indeed higher than that of other testers.

But returning to the results of the entire project, people who think that "4K and 8K video effects are basically the same" still account for the majority, which is slightly higher than the "8K better than 4K" range.

 

[mtn328]

What's interesting is that a considerable part of the evaluation falls within the "4K is not as good as 8K" range. In response to this situation, Warner believes that it may be "users can't see the difference at all, so they can only judge by guessing."

So, can we think that 8K TV has no purchase value? The conclusion still needs to be analyzed by situation.

In the view of the research group, the user's perception of 8K TV depends largely on the content.

Although in this test, most of the video clips were evaluated as "4K and 8K have basically the same effect", but only the seventh video got the evaluation of "8K better than 4K", which happened to be a super The high-definition natural scenery video contains more details to show, and it will indeed be more advantageous to play on 8K TV.

Therefore, if you simply stretch 4K content and put it on 8K TV for playback, the improvement is really limited; but replacing it with native 8K video may be able to take advantage of 8K TV to a greater extent.

Another reason for the poor perception of 4K and 8K is related to the distance between us and the TV.

If users stand closer, they can naturally perceive the difference between the two different resolutions, but if the viewing distance environment and TV size are fixed, simply upgrading to 8K will not bring significant visual improvement.

Therefore, current TV manufacturers also tend to introduce 70-inch or even 80-inch or more TVs, also to highlight the advantages of 8K resolution.

 

[Venus]

As a BT enthusiast, I could tell the difference between 30G files and 1.5G files- image quality.
This is the compression of picture quality.
Like the domestic streaming media, the 4K played is fake 4K, and the image quality is compressed, that is, two adjacent pixels are calculated as the same pixel, resulting in dead white highlights, dead black darks, and no sense of hierarchy on the face.

Suppose that the uncompressed 1080P has 100 effective pixels, and the fake 4K has only 30. Greatly reduce the bandwidth pressure.

It is difficult for people to distinguish the hair color of a single pixel, but it is easy to distinguish the hair color of a group of pixels. The sky is compressed into a white 8K or a layered 1080P sky. Which picture quality is better?
The original color 4K era hasn't really arrived, so I ran towards 8K.
The reason behind this is that hardware vendors want to sell higher-priced products, and 8K is the simplest and most understandable concept.
MEMC algorithm, checkerboard backlight, HDR, image quality restoration chip, white balance, anti-aliasing, noise suppression, what the hell are they?

The same is true: 5G network speed, 100 million pixel resolution, all these are not core selling points. The core of 5G is not network speed, and the core of 100 million pixels is not resolution. It is that consumers have too much difficulty understanding the current products. You can only pick one of the simplest parameters to understand, and then the business will advertise according to the simplest parameters. It is a tacit understanding of ignorance to also transfer one's own aesthetics to institutions like DXO.