Why 4K Television?

[Chicken Patty]

This is going to sound like a rant and that's right... it is a rant. Good God, all I hear about is 4K this and 4K that. Will we please fix HDTV first and then talk about 4K?

Why do we even have 4K television to begin with? We can't even get 1080 done right in the United States.

Warning, before you do this I have to warn you that you will never be able to watch your cable TV quite the same after you do this experiment. You have been warned!

Seriously, when was the last time you looked at your television that's being fed a signal from your local cable company? I mean really looked at it! Take the time to really look at the picture. Notice something? I'll give you a hint... it's not HD. Well, it is "HD" in the sense that it's better than 480 but not by much when you start seeing the compression artifacts such as crushed blacks, macroblocks, etc. Yep, start looking for them. This is the part where you will never be able to look at cable TV quite the same anymore, you're going to find yourself picking the picture quality apart after this. Trust me, I do and it's annoying as hell.

You see, I know what HDTV is supposed to look like. I have seen it! Where? Blu-Ray of course! Go find yourself a copy of Avatar on Blu-Ray and be prepared to have your mind blown. That's because the Avatar Blu-Ray is the considered by HDTV enthusiasts as the gold standard by which all other Blu-Ray discs are measured up against and fail. Why? Because the encoding was just that damn good! HDTV is supposed to take your breath away with vivid colors and sharp and pristine picture quality, none of which is what you get when you subscribe to most pay-TV providers.

Why is this? There must be a reason! Well, the reason is that we just don't have enough bandwidth going to our homes in the United States to be able to support a properly encoded HDTV broadcast video stream. Most video encoding experts agree that to provide a well encoded HDTV broadcast video you need at the very least 12 Mbps for acceptable video quality, 16 Mbps to provide superb video quality. Guess what? None of the providers in the United States provide HDTV video streams that come even close to this. Most compress down to 8 Mbps, some even worse than this (*cough* uVerse *cough*). Even the lauded DirecTV, the once gold standard when it comes to HDTV broadcast, still can't provide anywhere close to the required bandwidth for a properly encoded HDTV video.

So here it comes to the question... Why are we even talking about 4K television when we can't even do 1080 correctly? Why are we talking about 4K which requires nearly four times the bandwidth that a 1080 video stream needs and we don't even have that?

Yes, I know... NetFlix and Amazon are providing 4K, this I understand. But the difference is that it's pre-encoded so the encoder has had a lot more time to be able to really crunch that video stream down to an acceptable stream size while still maintaining superb picture quality. This is all thanks to something called multi-pass encoding along with variable bitrate encoding. Obviously multi-pass encoding cannot be done with broadcast video because the encoding has to be done in real time. Variable bitrate can be done but most cable companies don't do this, the only provider than does this is DirecTV and still they can't even get 1080 done right. So to compensate for the fact that we can't do multi-pass encoding to real time broadcast video we need to have a higher bandwidth profile to be able to provide for a superb picture quality.

So why 4K? Well... I think that it's much like 3D. We need to get people to buy new TVs since most people already have a 1080p set.

In the future we may all have enough bandwidth but that will require the providers to lay down fiber to all homes across the United States but lets face facts here, that's at the very least 10 or 15 years down the road. Crap.

You know, I just hopped onto the 4K bandwagon. I must say I like very few things about it. But you're right about everything you have said. For the most part we are able to take very little advantage of 1080P capabilities, let alone 4K. Now that I've read your post I will never look at the TV the same again haha. Well, at least I should be good TV wise for a while, for what it's worth.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

I dunno...
If you have Comcast or Spectrum for cable or Internet you also have access to your local QAM channel feed.
These signals are untouched by the cable companies and are uncompressed full 720p and 1080p...
Any QAM tuner can tell you what kind of format...1080i or 1080p etc..

 

[trparky]

Uncompressed? Yeah right. Spectrum barely has enough bandwidth on their cable lines to provide 60 Mbps in my area let alone uncompressed video.

Any area that was previously Time Warner Cable is in such horrible shape that it's beyond stupid and pathetic. Time Warner Cable let their system rot.

You should see how many people have satellite dishes in my area. Proof positive that Time Warner Cable sucked, big time.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

Uncompressed? Yeah right. Spectrum barely has enough bandwidth on their cable lines to provide 60 Mbps in my area let alone uncompressed video.

Lol poor wording..
Full ATSC standard 2.0 broadcast...
It's better than what you get from the cable box...
Try for yourself...
Run the cable directly to your TV and tune QAM...
I bet most people would be surprised how much better it really is.

 

[Jism]

They cant slam in 1080p feeds / streams on cable with over 60 to 150 channels. Only 10 up to 15 channels at most are at 1080p and the rest is in 720/480p. The 1080p streams are having some sort of 'light' compression as well to save on the bandwidth it requires (at least here in holland). The channels that do native 1080p such as live broadcasts look pretty good. But there's a few technical limitations and buying 4K is completely useless at this very moment now.

Most people dont need it, most people still tune in at 720/1080p and there is no carrier that supports active 4K (at least in europe, again). And the channels that do are proberly upscaled. Just gimme me Blueray title i'd like to see most and leave me alone at my 1995 1080p please.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

I have yet to watch a Blu-ray Ultra.
Just a random thought...

 

[dirtyferret]

You sure that wasn't 1080i? Pretty sure all TV broadcasts are compressed too. If they aren't there are huge problems.

The internal signal before it's sent up to the sat and sent back to the cable providers for compression.

If there was a service that let me pick and choose everything I wanted, I would be happy. But you have to pick plans with 100+ channels to get the 15 channels you want to watch.

I still like the big 3 broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) with local news and weather - and Fox too. But I also like TNT, BBC America (so I can watch Doctor Who and Sherlock) , and HLN (which I watch every morning to learn what is going on in the world around me), NatGeo, History and Smithsonian. I also like Gordon Ramsay's cooking shows, but I like Iron Chef too so the Food Network is essential. And occasionally the SciFi channel has something I like. And once in a while Palladia has something I want to see/listen too from Live from Daryl's House or Later with Jools Holland.

But to get those, I have to subscribe to a plan and for more money, extra options that include the extra channels I want, but that gives me (shoves down my throat) dozens of channels I never, as in NEVER EVER watch. And if I want to watch House of Cards or Grace and Frankie, or Jessica Jones in HD, I have to pay another $12/month for Netflix.

IMO, it is all a rip off - not ready to call it a conspiracy but certainly a rip off. Especially since I still have to put up with commercials even when I am paying good money for the privilege (cough! cough!) for this service.

I worked for a newscorp (fox) cable channel. Every channel knew from industry studies the average person only watches seven networks in total. That was before all the streaming services like Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, etc.,

 

[trparky]

OK so if the cable companies know this why don't they use Switched Digital Video and keep the channels that nobody is watching back at the cable node and only put the channels that people are watching on the COAX cable while keeping the rest back at the node.

Or I don't know... how about dumping all of the useless garbage channels that nobody watches and trim our cable bills back $30 to $40 a month. Oh, I forgot... we can't do that. That's crazytalk.

 

[dirtyferret]

OK so if the cable companies know this why don't they use Switched Digital Video and keep the channels that nobody is watching back at the cable node and only put the channels that people are watching on the COAX cable while keeping the rest back at the node.

Or I don't know... how about dumping all of the useless garbage channels that nobody watches and trim our cable bills back $30 to $40 a month. Oh, I forgot... we can't do that. That's crazytalk.

It's not how the industry works. Every channel charges a monthly subscription fee (passed on to you from your cable provider). The fee can range from 10 cents to five dollars or more (live sports channels cost the most). That may not sound like much but there are 85 million cable households so do the math every month.

Using this business model 2/3 of cable network revenue comes from "affiliates" (aka subscribers through the providers) while only 1/3 comes from ad revenue (ad sales) as opposed to broadcast TV where the vast majority of ad revenue comes from ad sales.

As you a consumer you would say screw that I want a la carte channels that i pick. I don't need the skate board channel (as an example), it sucks and I never watch it. Yet the skate board channel is owned by one of the major conglomerates (comcast, newscorp, disney, viacom) and they go to meet with your cable provider and say here are our ten cable networks and if you want ESPN and ESPN 2 then you need to take the skateboard channel also and pay us ten cents per household for it. Your subscriber says basically the same thing you do, it sucks and no watches it. Disney then says fine, we will raise your rates on ESPN and ESPN2 so either way we make the same amount of money (or more). You may as well take the channel then plus think of all the local ad sales you can sell to dumb skate board shops.

That is how you get 150 networks from your cable provider even though they know you only watch seven. I did these deals for years, "melting down" networks from sports/digital tiers to basic tiers and striving for "full penetration" (aka on every households cable provider).

 

[trparky]

I did these deals for years

Oh, so I can blame people like you for this shit.

 

[dirtyferret]

Oh, so I can blame people like you for this shit.

and many others including your cable providers for creating monopolies and just passing on the buck to the consumer. I work in a different field now but the whole industry makes money hand over fist. Even low income people see cable TV as a necessity and will pay their cable bill over rent or heat sometimes (as told to me by a Time Warner General Manager in a low income Indiana town).

 

[Frag_Maniac]

As you a consumer you would say screw that I want a la carte channels that i pick.

No, you assume that. All many of us want is just practical tiers, like streaming TV services offer. You can have 3 or 4 packages based on most popular channels. Popular TV channels, TV + sports channels, TV + movie channels, or TV + sports+ movie. Vue also has a higher end one that includes all 3 but adds HBO and Showtime, yet it costs the same as 150 channel "basic" cable, and without a ridiculous amount of taxes added. It's not rocket science, it's just a matter of not being greedy, but we know all cable/sat providers are. I bet if cable/sat providers stacked such packages up against the 150 channel "basic" package, they'd quickly see that 150 channel package die out.

You imply the major conglomerates are in complete control, but if they were, you wouldn't see scaled down packages without all the bloat like we see on streaming services. Clearly it's the cable/sat providers catering to them instead, thinking a more expensive one size fits all package is best. Cable/sat providers are nothing but conglomerate boot lickers as far as I'm concerned.

A lot of people thought a la carte would be better, but all it's become is a more expensive alternative to the bloat. Both cable and sat providers, and even streaming providers charge $5-$15 for 1 to 2 to 3 channels being added, so piecing together a la carte quickly becomes too expensive.

That said, streaming is not exactly a flaw free alternative. The image quality is noticeably worse. It would take a very high speed ISP and great upscaling TV to even come close to the IQ of HD cable and sat, and even then you'd still probably have some hitching here and there. The fact is, when you start with a more compressed signal, you're never going to make it look as good. Maybe if cable stops becoming shared bandwidth, or FO DSL takes over, it won't be an issue anymore, but I have a feeling streams are more compressed mostly due to cable speed at peak hours dropping to half the advertised speed.

 

[trparky]

Create a channel package without the sports and maybe it wouldn't cost so damn much. A couple of weeks ago ESPN announced massive layoffs, I couldn't help but to smile and laugh as I read that article. Why? Because ESPN is the major reason why cable bills are so damn expensive. The fact that ABC/Disney/ESPN requires a provider to carry ESPN if they are to carry the other channels is a perfect example of collusion at its worst. It's either all or nothing including that expensive ESPN.

Not all of us are sports freaks that just have to watch sports all day long. Besides, all they ever show on ESPN are washed up has-beens that talk a subject to death. The world could be ending outside and they would still be talking about the latest NBA trade.

 

[dirtyferret]

No, you assume that. All many of us want is just practical tiers, like streaming TV services offer. You can have 3 or 4 packages based on most popular channels. Popular TV channels, TV + sports channels, TV + movie channels, or TV + sports+ movie. Vue also has a higher end one that includes all 3 but adds HBO and Showtime. It's not rocket science, it's just a matter of not being greedy, but we know all cable/sat providers are. I bet if cable/sat providers stacked such packages up against the 150 channel "basic" package, they'd quickly see that 150 channel package die out.

You imply the major conglomerates are in complete control, but if they were, you wouldn't see scaled down packages without all the bloat like we see on streaming services. Clearly it's the cable/sat providers catering to them instead, thinking a more expensive one size fits all package is best. Cable/sat providers are nothing but conglomerate boot lickers as far as I'm concerned.

A lot of people thought a la carte would be better, but all it's become is a more expensive alternative to the bloat. Both cable and sat providers, and even streaming providers charge $5-$15 for 1 to 2 to 3 channels being added, so piecing together a la carte quickly becomes too expensive.

That said, streaming is not exactly a flaw free alternative. The image quality is noticeably worse. It would take a very high speed ISP and great upscaling TV to even come close to the IQ of HD cable and sat, and even then you'd still probably have some hitching here and there. The fact is, when you start with a more compressed signal, you're never going to make it look as good. Maybe if cable stops becoming shared bandwidth, or FO DSL takes over, it won't be an issue anymore, but I have a feeling streams are more compressed mostly due to cable speed at peak hours dropping to half the advertised speed.

"you" as in the general public not "you" as towards you specifically

I already explained why 3-4 packages won't work so I won't reiterate myself, you can go on believing these companies will have an epiphany and change business practices if you like. HBO and Showtime are content aggregators more in line with netflix, hulu, etc., surviving on subscription models then channels like TNT, ESPN, USA network that use ad revenue as part of their business model. Down the road I see all networks going towards such a business platform (think CBS all access) but that currently goes against their partner in crime, the cable providers. Cable networks can't piss them off until there is little use for them as nothing more then an ISP.

Networks are not in complete control, they work hand in hand with cable providers. Sometimes they are one and the same (optimum, time warner, comcast, newscorp used to own DirectTV). For a long time the cable providers had a monopoly path to your home (most still do) while networks had a monopoly on on getting content (starting to change with netflix, amazon, hulu, etc.,). Verizon, AT&T, and google have all scaled back their FIOS programs the last few years. In fact in my area AT&T dropped DSL all together (it sucked anyway as it was DSL to your mailbox rather then to your door).

Upscaling TV is a marketing gimmick. If I send you a 480p image, it's still a 480p image on your 1080p TV. If i compress the crap out of the image your TV might might make it slightly brighter but it's not adding any more scan lines.

My Playstation vue feed uses 1-2 mbps, it's hardly taking up a ton of bandwidth. The compression has more to do with their servers or lack of.

 

[dirtyferret]

Create a channel package without the sports and maybe it wouldn't cost so damn much. A couple of weeks ago ESPN announced massive layoffs, I couldn't help but to smile and laugh as I read that article. Why? Because ESPN is the major reason why cable bills are so damn expensive. The fact that ABC/Disney/ESPN requires a provider to carry ESPN if they are to carry the other channels is a perfect example of collusion at its worst. It's either all or nothing including that expensive ESPN.

Not all of us are sports freaks that just have to watch sports all day long. Besides, all they ever show on ESPN are washed up has-beens that talk a subject to death. The world could be ending outside and they would still be talking about the latest NBA trade.

So no Comcast, Disney or Time Warner channels as they all have sports. So no Disney channels, cartoon network, TBS, CNN, Bravo, CNBS, MSNBC, USA, weather channel and many more if you don't take ESPN, NBC sports and TNT (NBA deals cost a ton).

FYI, those shows are called "shoulder programming" and they are the crack (as in drugs) of sports networks. Easy to make, cheap to make, have great lead-ins or outs so the ratings are very good.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

Only on Android TV (except Vue.. That was FireTV)
Sling TV, Hulu and VUE(no longer have vue could be different) is usually at 4.8 Mb/s at my house...
Netflix will surge to 43 Mb/s... Other than that Netflix is very content dependent on data rates... Maybe as low as 1.8 Mb/s

 

[Frag_Maniac]

"you" as in the general public not "you" as towards you specifically

I already explained why 3-4 packages won't work...

It doesn't matter if you mean me or the random public. Anyone with half a brain has seen there are better alternatives to forced 150 channel packages, which is why streaming is growing rapidly. They also know what a la carte means, addon channels and packages that end up being more expensive in the long run. Trust me, cord cutters are smarter than you give them credit for. if they can't get a better alternative via streaming, they'll do it via torrents, and both are cutting into cable/sat profits.

Plus you don't need to have worked in the industry to see what's going on, and you've only worked in the cable part. You insist alternatives to 150 channel $65 (before tax) basic cable are not possible, yet streaming services have been doing it for some time and growing in popularity.

Once the US catches up with Europe and is fully FO, cable and sat will start dying out. Many tech analysts have said the same, you seem to be in denial. It's not like working for some greedy cable company makes you more in tune to the future of the TV industry. If anything they seem to have brainwashed you while you were there.

Create a channel package without the sports and maybe it wouldn't cost so damn much.

You're right, I think the reality is that even the average consumer that IS interested in some sports viewing only cares mostly about their home teams, or teams in their area. I also think this is the main reason you have to jump through hoops just to get local channels in HD, especially Fox. They're trying to force you to buy expensive sports packages just to get access.

With cable services they make you buy basic ($65 + tax) cha ching, then an additional $10 for local. With streaming services (and this isn't their fault due to networks limiting availability to them), you have to live in one of a handful of cities like NY, Chicago, SF, etc, just to be able to get Fox and other local networks channels.

It's slowly changing though. My and many other cities had zero local network access except for CBS, but now we at least have On Demand. Yeah, I know, On Demand sucks too because you have to wait a few days to a few weeks if not a month or more just to be able to see it, but at least they're progressing. I think cable and sat are starting to realize cord cutting could spread like an epidemic, with many people torrenting. Especially since SOPA hasn't really been as effective as hoped.

 

[Bill_Bright]

$65 (before tax) basic cable

Not just tax. There other "fees" and "surcharges" which somehow are not taxes. Mine include $4 "broadcast surcharge", $2.60 "Regional Sports Surcharge" (which I could care less about), $8.32 "Franchise fee", and $.08 FCC fee.

If you want DVR, that's $12.99 and does not include the DVR box which I have to rent from them for another $8.50.

And of course, because there are 2 or 3 channels I want to watch that are not included in the "basic cable" plan, I have to get the extra "Pak" that includes a bunch of channels I will never watch too.

And they act like they are doing me a favor when they add even more channels I will never watch to my lineup.

And to add insult to injury, I have lived in this house for almost 30 years now. It had cable when I moved in. I have had to have the cable company out just once in all those years to replace the cable drop that was taken out by a falling tree limb during a storm. And my cable bill has almost quadrupled in that time.

 

[dorsetknob]

My heart but not my Wallet Bleeds for you Poor Americans
Happy with what i get from Freeview for FREE
It might not be Cutting Edge New Content but there is enough Decent content to Amuse and interest me

https://www.freeview.co.uk/tv-guide

 

[theFOoL]

From my Experience 720P is good enough for TVs the are less then 40"inches. Yes i see the difference but not by much really. 1080p and 720p is here to stay fr me at least

 

[Bill_Bright]

When it comes to what is "good enough", I think we must not forget and overlook the talent. If the movie or TV show is well written, well directed and of course, there's great acting, our imaginations can easily fill in the rest so that we are totally enthralled and entertained. They can even be in black and white.

That's why those other things are so entertaining. What are they called? You know they have bunches of sheets of paper with words printed all over them, bound together and you open them up and "read" them - and if good, tune out everything going on around you.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

and if good, tune out everything going on around you.

did you know

a guy called St Ambrose invented silent reading in the 4th century........before him, everything was read out loud.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Didn't know that. Thanks.