If 2019 is the first year of 5g for the mobile phone industry, 2020 will be the first year of 8K for the TV industry. Especially on the premise that relevant shooting, production and communication technologies have been prepared in previous years, it can be expected that 8K TV products will also usher in a wave of high-speed growth upsurge, and even may usher in the initial popularity period.
The experience of history tells us that almost all new technologies will experience a general decline in quality in the period of popularization, as was the case in 4K and HDR in those days, and the 8K TV in today may not escape this strange circle.
As far as the so-called "8K TV certification standard" is concerned, although it does have some positive contents, it also has some traps that are easy to relax. Why do you say that? Let's see what the "8K TV standard" has stipulated.
In fact, the standard itself is very simple, basically can be summarized into four:
1. Display resolution: at least 7680 × 432033 million pixels, aspect ratio of 16:9
2. Digital input: one or more HDMI interfaces support 7680 × 4320, 10 bit color depth, 24 / 30 / 60fps frame rate content, HDR content transmission and ITU-R BT .2100 color gamut, HDCP 2.2 content protection
3. Content lifting: SD / HD / 4K content can be converted to 8k
4. Color depth: 10-bit 8K picture can be received
Do you see the problem? If you don't know where the trap is, let's explain it further. First of all, the "8K TV standard" clearly stipulates that the display resolution of TV should be at least 8K, which is quite natural at first glance. But in fact, this has buried the first pit, because it does not specify whether the so-called resolution is the physical resolution of the display panel or the color resolution of the actual color pixels. What does that mean?
Very simple, because there is such a cheating display panel called RGBW. Compared with the "real" RGB panel, it also adds white pixels without color between the red, green and blue pixels. This design is intended to improve the display brightness, but its problem is that the white pixels occupy the position of the original color pixels, and because it has no color, it will actually reduce the resolution. For example, for the 4K screen panel with 8 million pixels, the RGB panel has 8 million RGB subpixels. In the RGBW panel, W (white) accounts for about a quarter of the actual number of pixels, so only 6 million pixels are left in the real color pixels that the human eye can see, that is to say, the actual resolution is less than 4K. However, in addition to the definition of 4K TV in Japan that only counts the resolution of color pixels, the 4K TV certification in the United States and China, including the 8K TV certification, does not explain whether the so-called "resolution" is only the resolution of color pixels. Therefore, this virtually opens the door for similar "fake 8K" screen panels.
Secondly, in the second item of "8K TV standard", we see the detailed requirements for display resolution, color depth, frame rate, HDR specific gamut value, etc. At first glance, it seems very frightening (especially the bt2020 color gamut is extremely demanding, and few professional monitors can achieve 100% coverage at present). But please pay attention to the first few words - this one only requires that the digital input interface of TV can support these standards, not that the TV itself can be displayed. This is like buying a foreign trash computer, which is equipped with a 100000 megabyte (100gbps) cable network card. Theoretically, it can achieve a download speed of 12gb / s, but in fact, the hard disk of this computer is only 100MB / s, so can its users enjoy a download speed of 100000 megabytes? Of course not! As for TV, as long as the HDMI interface specification of TV is new enough and the input bandwidth is large enough, it is qualified. As for whether the screen has a refresh rate of 60fps, support does not support 8K HDR, and whether it can really display the color of complete 8K content, there is no requirement.
In the provisions of the third item, 8K TV is required to be able to realize real-time stretching of standard definition (480p or 576p), high definition (720p and 1080p) and 4K content, which is actually a meaningful new provision that has not been existed in the past. Because this means that the qualified 8K TV must be able to achieve automatic "8K" image quality processing no matter how low-definition video users actually watch, and only Samsung, LG and Sony seem to be able to achieve this in the whole TV industry. It is obvious that this has put forward clear requirements for the picture quality chip and conversion algorithm adopted by TV manufacturers, especially for the large environment where the legitimate blue light is not popular in some areas and the definition of teleplay is generally very low. And the last one, you can understand that the screen panel of 8K TV should not be too bad at least.
In the fourth item of 8K TV standards, there are clear and high requirements for TV interface and TV image quality processing technology. As for the hard quality of the panel, backlight system and audio specifications of the TV's most image perception, they are basically not mentioned in this American version of the certification specification. This means that it has deliberately left loopholes for TV manufacturers. This also means that for consumers, the 8K TV bought with the mark of "8K Ultra HD" may not achieve the quality performance you expect.
In fact, today's 8K TV is only a technology that can decode and play 8K video, and the screen can display 8K resolution, but 8K ecology has not been established, such as 8K film source, network transmission speed and so on.
The experience of history tells us that almost all new technologies will experience a general decline in quality in the period of popularization, as was the case in 4K and HDR in those days, and the 8K TV in today may not escape this strange circle.
As far as the so-called "8K TV certification standard" is concerned, although it does have some positive contents, it also has some traps that are easy to relax. Why do you say that? Let's see what the "8K TV standard" has stipulated.
In fact, the standard itself is very simple, basically can be summarized into four:
1. Display resolution: at least 7680 × 432033 million pixels, aspect ratio of 16:9
2. Digital input: one or more HDMI interfaces support 7680 × 4320, 10 bit color depth, 24 / 30 / 60fps frame rate content, HDR content transmission and ITU-R BT .2100 color gamut, HDCP 2.2 content protection
3. Content lifting: SD / HD / 4K content can be converted to 8k
4. Color depth: 10-bit 8K picture can be received
Do you see the problem? If you don't know where the trap is, let's explain it further. First of all, the "8K TV standard" clearly stipulates that the display resolution of TV should be at least 8K, which is quite natural at first glance. But in fact, this has buried the first pit, because it does not specify whether the so-called resolution is the physical resolution of the display panel or the color resolution of the actual color pixels. What does that mean?
Very simple, because there is such a cheating display panel called RGBW. Compared with the "real" RGB panel, it also adds white pixels without color between the red, green and blue pixels. This design is intended to improve the display brightness, but its problem is that the white pixels occupy the position of the original color pixels, and because it has no color, it will actually reduce the resolution. For example, for the 4K screen panel with 8 million pixels, the RGB panel has 8 million RGB subpixels. In the RGBW panel, W (white) accounts for about a quarter of the actual number of pixels, so only 6 million pixels are left in the real color pixels that the human eye can see, that is to say, the actual resolution is less than 4K. However, in addition to the definition of 4K TV in Japan that only counts the resolution of color pixels, the 4K TV certification in the United States and China, including the 8K TV certification, does not explain whether the so-called "resolution" is only the resolution of color pixels. Therefore, this virtually opens the door for similar "fake 8K" screen panels.
Secondly, in the second item of "8K TV standard", we see the detailed requirements for display resolution, color depth, frame rate, HDR specific gamut value, etc. At first glance, it seems very frightening (especially the bt2020 color gamut is extremely demanding, and few professional monitors can achieve 100% coverage at present). But please pay attention to the first few words - this one only requires that the digital input interface of TV can support these standards, not that the TV itself can be displayed. This is like buying a foreign trash computer, which is equipped with a 100000 megabyte (100gbps) cable network card. Theoretically, it can achieve a download speed of 12gb / s, but in fact, the hard disk of this computer is only 100MB / s, so can its users enjoy a download speed of 100000 megabytes? Of course not! As for TV, as long as the HDMI interface specification of TV is new enough and the input bandwidth is large enough, it is qualified. As for whether the screen has a refresh rate of 60fps, support does not support 8K HDR, and whether it can really display the color of complete 8K content, there is no requirement.
In the provisions of the third item, 8K TV is required to be able to realize real-time stretching of standard definition (480p or 576p), high definition (720p and 1080p) and 4K content, which is actually a meaningful new provision that has not been existed in the past. Because this means that the qualified 8K TV must be able to achieve automatic "8K" image quality processing no matter how low-definition video users actually watch, and only Samsung, LG and Sony seem to be able to achieve this in the whole TV industry. It is obvious that this has put forward clear requirements for the picture quality chip and conversion algorithm adopted by TV manufacturers, especially for the large environment where the legitimate blue light is not popular in some areas and the definition of teleplay is generally very low. And the last one, you can understand that the screen panel of 8K TV should not be too bad at least.
In the fourth item of 8K TV standards, there are clear and high requirements for TV interface and TV image quality processing technology. As for the hard quality of the panel, backlight system and audio specifications of the TV's most image perception, they are basically not mentioned in this American version of the certification specification. This means that it has deliberately left loopholes for TV manufacturers. This also means that for consumers, the 8K TV bought with the mark of "8K Ultra HD" may not achieve the quality performance you expect.
In fact, today's 8K TV is only a technology that can decode and play 8K video, and the screen can display 8K resolution, but 8K ecology has not been established, such as 8K film source, network transmission speed and so on.
