At what point do we as humans stop telling the difference?

B0bbyEwing

Advance note - this is coming from a watching through Plex perspective....

These past few days I've been looking at 4k vs blu ray 1080p. Now I'm not disputing that 4k is better, it has to be. But at what point does it all become so what?

I know a lot of it will ride on whether things have been compressed or not. What device you're watching it on, can it even handle 4k and god knows what other factors. I watch all my Plex content on my TV in the living room which is apparently a 4K TV & is a 58" Panasonic.

I've tried comparing same footage 1080 & 4k and until it's slowed down & zoomed in, I personally can't tell the difference. However, I don't sit there watching films with people & go hang on let me pause this, zoom-zoom-zoom, look at that incredible detail. We just watch the movie.

440K will be much better than what we've got right now but will the human eye be able to really tell the difference?

All this started from me looking at whether to get certain content in 4k or stick with 1080p.

EssexExile

I've only got a small TV, by modern standards, and it's the other end of the lounge from me. I can't tell the difference between normal definition and high definition unless I get up and walk nearer the telly, which I tend not to do while watching programs. 

booneruk

It's going to largely depend on the size of your display, your distance from it and the quality of your eyesight. But yes, I can spot the difference between 4k and 1080p on a 55inch screen from a few feet away - on youtube, Amazon, Netflix etc where compression artifacts can often smear things up. 

I haven't got any bluray ultra sources (you get a higher bitrate on them) which might make spotting the difference more tricky.

B0bbyEwing

booneruk said:

It's going to largely depend on the size of your display, your distance from it and the quality of your eyesight. But yes, I can spot the difference between 4k and 1080p on a 55inch screen from a few feet away - on youtube, Amazon, Netflix etc where compression artifacts can often smear things up. 

I haven't got any bluray ultra sources (you get a higher bitrate on them) which might make spotting the difference more tricky.

I was trying it out on a video last night that would flick between 1080 and 4k and if I blinked on the switch then I couldn't tell you the difference. In fact it would only be by pausing, going back, going forwards, check-check-check that I could go oh hang on is that slightly better? I'm not sure. In other words, the difference wasn't enough for MY eyes to really tell or therefore care. 

Not like going from DVD quality to blu ray where the difference is noticeable.

4k obviously takes up more storage space, which I don't mind if there's a noticeable difference. I'd maybe do certain movies in 4k - big films like Avatar for example that are full of effects, but if I can't really tell a difference then there's pretty much zero point in me doing that just because 4k is factually better even if visually not (for me).

DullGreyGuy

B0bbyEwing said:

Advance note - this is coming from a watching through Plex perspective....

These past few days I've been looking at 4k vs blu ray 1080p. Now I'm not disputing that 4k is better, it has to be. But at what point does it all become so what?

I know a lot of it will ride on whether things have been compressed or not. What device you're watching it on, can it even handle 4k and god knows what other factors. I watch all my Plex content on my TV in the living room which is apparently a 4K TV & is a 58" Panasonic.

I've tried comparing same footage 1080 & 4k and until it's slowed down & zoomed in, I personally can't tell the difference. However, I don't sit there watching films with people & go hang on let me pause this, zoom-zoom-zoom, look at that incredible detail. We just watch the movie.

440K will be much better than what we've got right now but will the human eye be able to really tell the difference?

All this started from me looking at whether to get certain content in 4k or stick with 1080p.

Depends on the size of your screen and your viewing distance. 

We have a 130" projector screen and at circa 14ft from the screen you can certainly tell the difference between a HD and UHD bluray disc. Is it necessary to be able to see individual hairs and wrinkles on Gandalf's face? Some would say it's questionable but there is no doubt more detail is there. 

What is the source of your 4k content? As you say compression can remove at least half the extra detail you're getting. 

Did look at an 8K projector but at my screensize you'd need to sit something like 4' from the screen to appreciate the difference plus it was £15k for the project and would need to upgrade the AVR too

RumRat

Source and TV will make a huge difference to your ability to notice the difference. Add your eyesight to that and it's hard to comment on individual experiences.
If space is at a premium and your equipment can't really show the difference so that you could notice it, then it probably isn't worth trying.
If I were you I'd try and find somewhere that could actually show me the difference.....Maybe there is a Richer Sounds nearby or an independent specialist in home cinema that would do demo's.

400ixl

Switch off the upscaling option on your TV and it will be even more obvious.

B0bbyEwing

400ixl said:

Switch off the upscaling option on your TV and it will be even more obvious.

Funny you say that. 

As I was writing it I was going to add in somewhere to discount upscaling (because for example I know my blu ray player upscales DVDs)...

...completely forgetting that I watch everything via my Nvidia Shield [TV Pro 2019] ... with AI upscaling turned on. I should've had a look with it turned off.

DullGreyGuy

400ixl said:

Switch off the upscaling option on your TV and it will be even more obvious.

You can't, an LED/OLED TV can only display at its native resolution, feed it anything less and it has to upscale. Were that not the case and you gave a 4K TV a HD source only a 1/4 of the screen would have a picture 

B0bbyEwing said:
completely forgetting that I watch everything via my Nvidia Shield [TV Pro 2019] ... with AI upscaling turned on. I should've had a look with it turned off.

As time goes on it's becoming less true but for many years there wasnt that much actually being shot in 4K because post production took so much longer with the ProRes RAW behemoth of files than HD or 2K. If something was shot in HD its a simple question of if their upscaling software is better or not that the upscaling either in your TV (which cannot be turned off)/Nvidia. In principle you'd expect theirs to be but, particularly the one in your TV, yours is tuned to your hardware. 

Obv with 2K sources they have more data to play with so probably more likely to be theirs and a true 4K, which is becoming more common now, then no upscaling is required.

jshm2

It's actually more than just display, it's sound and scale as well. You will notice little difference between 1080 and 4k on a 35" HD ready screen, But try and watch that content on a 8k or 12k screen and it will be very evident. 

But the sound quality is also part of the package - as is the size of the screen. 

Newcad

You mainly notice the difference when paying for your shiny new 4K capable equipment.