Compression. While Compression tech HAS improved, its been maintaining our current quality while reducing bandwidth needs.
A 1080p Bluray disk will look far far better than Netflix in 4k every time because its not compressed. The reality is that any form of compression will cause loss in fidelity in some way, so the only way to really improve video is to increase the bandwidth of the video.
I talk to IT nerds frequently who are asking things like "why do you need 16x 400GB ports of non blocking bandwidth" to which I have to explain that a SINGLE stream of uncompressed UHD is 12GB/s and we are trying to put 200+ streams onto their network.
Yep. On a Blu-ray disk, you have 25-100GB of space to work with. The Blu-ray standard allows up to 40mbps for 1080p video (not counting audio). Way more for 4K.
Netflix recommends a 5mbps internet connection for 1080p, and 15mbps for 4K. Reportedly they cut down their 4K streams to 8mbps last year, though I haven't confirmed. That's a fraction of what Blu-ray uses for 1080p, never mind 4K.
I have some 4K/UHD Blu-rays, and for comparison they're about 80mbps for video.
They use similar codecs, too, so the bitrates are fairly comparable. UHD Blu-rays use H.265, which is still a good video codec. Some streaming sites use AV1 (at least on some supported devices) now, which is a bit more efficient, but nowhere near enough to close that kind of gap in bitrate.
A 1080p Bluray disk will look far far better than Netflix in 4k every time because its not compressed.
You’re not wrong about the quality difference but video on a Blu-ray is compressed. There is no way to get raw video unless you’re shooting it yourself.
any form of compression will cause loss in fidelity in some way
Lossless video compression also exists although I don’t think any consumer products have it.
You mean 12 Gbps right?
The standard is defined as 12000Mbits/s and spelled out as 12G-SDI or 12G SMPTE 2110.
So i do tend to mix things up since big G and little G mean different things in computer land.
Is that "real" uncompressed or using a lossless compression? Or are uncompressed video streams inherently losslessly compressed because they only show changes, not sending a full image every frame?
Ok, since were (as a group not you specifically) are getting pedantic, I should clarify that any recording of video is inherently compressed. There is no way to capture 100% of an image ever. There is optical compression created by the lenses, then their is encoding compression created by the Analog to Digital conversion, or if capturing in analog there is physical medium compression. Film has grain size and quality which limits it resolution, analog tape is limited by the speed, width, and magnetic medium density.
So for the sake of this larger discussion Uncompressed should probably refer to the point at which the content is being captured to a medium regardless of what that medium is.
Now in the context of broadcast and professional video production Uncompressed means specifically that the transport and capture of the content is dont done without the removal of any part of the data. Now even that is a little misleading because the sensors on most professional cameras can capture higher data rates than 12G, but the transport specification only allows for 12G we have to use chroma sub-sampling to go from 444 to 422 when we put the content onto the wire.
So all that said, when I talk about Uncompressed UHD video requiring 12G I mean that no codec is applied, and no frames are dropped. We are running at the maximum specified bandwidth of our link which is 12G UHD video at 59.94 frames per second. Every pixel is written every frame regardless of if its a camera pointed at a wall watching paint dry or not.
So, last thing on Lossless compression, as a professional I frequently take issue with codecs that claim lossless quality because frequently I can see the difference between the vast majority of compressed formats vs uncompressed formats. Sometimes instantly, sometimes it takes a few min before I see the compression. Lossless compression generally is one of theos 9 out of 10 doctors things were the majority of people say they cant see a difference therefor they can claim its "lossless." I can frequently see the difference between 444 and 422 chroma subsampling, and that is not even considered compression. I am one of the annoying people who walks into a bar and asks why all the HD tvs are set to "fill" on an SD channel.
Diminishing returns. It's already hard for many people to see the difference between 1080p and 4k. The difference between 4k and 8k is almost nonexistent at significantly higher storage costs.
Yep. There are already systems designed to watch and play back 8k video at home, but it is largely seen as not worth the expense of implementing the system.
fullHD already looks pretty good
actually transfering all the data is a problem, like my wifi struggles even with streaming fullHD sometimes, so 4K is just unusable (+ you need a more expensive screen to actually show the 4K which I don't have either)
I’m pretty sure that most devices have to compress the data going over HDMI and DisplayPort cables anyway.
While 4K resolutions provide a very detailed image for average viewers, 16K resolutions exceed the detail the human eye can perceive at typical viewing distances. Therefore, most people may not notice significant improvements with higher resolutions like 16K.
https://9meters.com/technology/highest-resolution-the-eye-can-see
These links explain it technically, but in summary, 4k or 5k video is really all we can perceive up close. Anything beyond this is really just wasted, unless you're talking really large screens.
We're almost at the limits of what we can see, so improvements beyond this like IMAX aren't needed for most applications unless you're recording 360⁰ video, or projecting onto a huge cinema screen.
1080p is enough for most people’s eyes. What do you want?
OEMs forgot to add hardware support for AV1 because H.265 jumped the gun in an attempt to stay relevant with clout from H.264 lol.
It’s cyclical, years ago, video quality improved dramatically, and then stagnated for almost 40 years as prices fell until it was economical for video quality to improve again. We likely won’t see a meaningful improvement for another 15-20 years, then prices will come down and then we’ll see another improvement.
As others mentioned it's diminishing returns, but there's still a lot of good innovation going on in the codec space. As an example - the reduction in the amount of space required for h265 compared to h264 is staggering. Codecs are a special form of black magic.
Honestly I’m not sure I completely agree, we’re pretty close to a perfect TV with new LED technology.
But maybe we’re talking about a next stage here, like true 3D or something else like smell? I’m not sure what the future will be, but TVs look pretty good to me and I’m not sure what perfections the current ‘variant’ needs.
Mean on TV or YouTube videos or what?
