Why I think 4K TVs will fail miserably

CES – the show which unleashes the latest technology and gadgets in an all you can eat buffet consumer show is still running wild as I write this blog post. This year we have seen a lot of cool new gadgets which make you ‘wow’ and then on the other hand we have the latest craze known as the 4K TV.

Now lets explain what 4K TV is all about for all you ‘n00bs’ out there! Lets start with the existing tech:

FULL 1080P High Definition
Consists of 1080 x 1920 pixels resolution
1080P refers to the amount of horizontal pixels

4K Ultra definition
Consists of 4096 x 2160 pixels resolution
As you may have guessed – 4k (4000) refers to the horizontal pixels

Ok with the basics out the way you can already probably tell that 4K televisions are much better than the existing tech we have now. So now you might ask how could it possibly fail?

Well here are my reasons:

1) 4K Televisions needs more support!

When High Definition was originally announced and set to go the global scale, we had various new tech come out that helped support High Definition go global. We had new storage such as Blu-ray and HD-DVD. We also had new consoles supporting these resolutions and storage mediums such as the Sony Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360. We also had the HDMI interface, Blu-ray players, HD-DVD Players, surround sounds with HDMI connections and more! All of which obviously gave the HD market a big push in the right direction.

So far we haven’t heard of any new storage mediums, new devices or interfaces that are willing to give the 4K Televisions more support. But with that said who knows we might be able to adapt our existing technology to adhere to 4K standards.

2) 4K Televisions are too early!

You may not know this but the High Definition channels you have now are not running at full 1080p and are compressed to save bandwidth. The reason for this is because our television providers don’t find it cost efficient to output TV at such a high bandwidth due to cost.

This means that we aren’t making full use of our Full 1080P Television sets so I have no clue how television providers aim to take advantage of 4K Televisions. Unless television providers aim to pay up the bill and provide a higher bandwidth service or find a new loss-less compression technique.

A side not for n00bs – compression allows reducing the bandwidth further. Think .zip or .rar files!

3) 4K vs 1080P on small screens, whats the difference!

You will only see a significant difference in picture quality when you are viewing 4K on a very large TV. So if your planning on getting a 4K 32 inch TV (if they ever decide to make those) then think again. You will unlikely notice a difference in picture quality unless your sitting extremely close to your TV.

4K resolutions are meant to be used on high end extremely large television sets. So now you might understand why CES was full of extremely large 4K televisions of 70+ inches! It is simply because showing 1080P side to side with 4K wouldn’t make much of a difference on a smaller screen.

4) 4K TVs aren’t cheap you know!

Well if your planning on getting a 4K television, my guess would be it would be an extremely large TV for the same reasons as mentioned above. Now firstly I’m guessing money isn’t a problem for you if your planning on getting a TV that huge so you might want to skip this reason. But for all my other readers, I would expect these televisions to start of at a high price; and stay at a highish price. That is if they are pushed out hard enough anyway!

5) CES 2012 – 3DTV

Now I’m not sure if you remember CES 2012 – if you don’t shame on you! But 3DTV was the latest craze then, where are 3DTVs now? There were hardly shown at CES 2013 and in my opinion have failed miserably similar to 4K probably will next year unless of course it is pushed out with the latest gen of consoles to be most likely announced at E3. I somehow doubt the next generation of consoles will be supporting 4K resolution TVs but rather aiming to fully support 1080P properly this time round!