4K has been the talk of CES and looks likely to go big in 2014, but is it needed?
A few years ago the BBC invited me to go and see a screening of the Olympic opening ceremony in 8K. At the time, very few 8K TVs existed in the world and the number of cameras capable of recording in the format were even fewer.
As such, there were only two different camera angles used for the entirety of the opening ceremony footage. However, this didn't matter as it would've been stunning if there was only one camera used.
Viewed on a cinema-sized screen, the amount of detail available in 8K is incredible. You could watch the cinema screen from just a metre away and not spot a single pixel. Given the amount of time it took HD to get into the home (the 1984 LA Olympic Games were shot in experimental HD), we thought 8K would be a long way off.
Sharp 8K TV
Not so. Tucked into nearly every TV manufacturer's stand at CES has been some sort of 8K television. Acting like a bit of a kick in the teeth for the audio visual obsessed, these 8K TVs are a reminder of all the saving you will need to do when you re-purchase everything in the new even higher resolution format.
Invest in 4K now and you can be sure that it'll only be a few years before a more expensive 8K set, with 8K movies, seems necessary. Such is the rate at which formats evolve now that HD TV is pretty much still a teenager by TV standards.
The first HD TVs went on sale in 1996, but it wasn't until ten years later that major broadcasters like Sky started to support the format. Now that might still seem like a fairly lengthy process, but when you think the first color TVs emerged in the 1950s, you start to realize just how new HD is.
4K then, despite all of Netflix's talk of embedding the format into Smart TVs, clearly still has a long way to go before it's ubiquitous enough for the BBC to pick it up.
The average consumer also clearly has a long wait before they can enjoy conventional television in 4K. The manufacturers, on the other hand, seem only a few years off being able to release affordable commercial 8K televisions, which is perhaps even more irritating.
Given the rapid rate of evolution, not only in broadband speeds but display technology itself, coupled with the rate at which the price of Ultra HD TVs is dropping, 8K seems like it will be genuinely affordable within the next decade.
Netflix
The problem is, will the broadcasters support it? It took years for the major UK services to get on board with HD, so expect 4K to be just the same. 8K, that seems like a bit more of an ask.
This is a problem, because the image quality and viewing experience is so drastically improved over HD, and even 4K, that we almost wish they would just ditch the format altogether and start chasing the highest resolution possible. It would save plenty of TV fans money at least.
Don't let us put you off 4K, as if you are yet to see it, the difference between it and HD is still definitely exciting. Expect it to be another three to four years before prices start to match today's HD TVs, however, and perhaps even longer for the format to be picked up by the likes of Freeview and Sky.
In the meantime, make sure you get saving, as for 4K to be properly impressive, you need a big TV.
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