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afwriter
afwriter
9/8/2016 10:45:39 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Observations
1. I don't have much experience with 4K, but I know that my eyes personally can't tell the difference between 720 and 1080, so I am not sure how interested I am in dishing out cash for something that I really wouldn't get much out of.  I do understand that it is a big deal for some people, though. 

2. I LOVE that he admitted that they are not there to create content just to have stuff in 4K.  We are seeing it too much right now that technology is being shoved down our throats because we "should want it" not because we actually do.  All content will eventually get there, but we don't need our romantic comedies in 4K if it is going to cost twice as much to produce it. 

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Mike Robuck
Mike Robuck
9/8/2016 10:57:04 AM
User Rank
Author
Re: Observations
@afwriter I think you would notice the difference with 4K. To me there's a big difference between 4K and HD. We do have a 720 TV and a 1080 TV and I don't really notice the difference between them. I would be interested in hearing his, or Adi's, thoughts on HDR. 

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dcawrey
dcawrey
9/12/2016 5:13:28 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Observations
Movies, live events and special shows. That's where 4K is going to do well as a content platform in the home. Sounds to me like AT&T has already got this figured out - it's just making sure enough 4K is in the production pipeline. 

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Adi
Adi
9/13/2016 5:20:13 AM
User Rank
Author
Re: Observations
@dcawrey - yes, I think that's ususally the challenge with new services. The device and network may be able to handle them (though I'm not sure that's true in the case of 4K yet), but the lack of content becomes a bottleneck. So you have to start building libraries well n advance since so much TV content is second run. 

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JohnBarnes
JohnBarnes
9/9/2016 7:51:20 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Observations
afwriter,

I suspect that 4K will come in through a variety of niches first -- cinemaphiles, photography buffs, some sports, recorded performances of live theatre, maybe some craft shows (it's hard to see exactly how much someone sands with fine grit paper even in regular HD), but every niche user will then propagate the 4K resolution into other things watched in the household. Eventually, as with older CRT tv's, other things will look subtly cheap and wrong.

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clrmoney
clrmoney
9/8/2016 11:07:14 AM
User Rank
Platinum
AT&T 4K
Let's see what AT&T 4k has more toffer and they say in will be available in some of homes with the direct tv services and it will offer more so I'm curious to see how that plays out.

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mhhf1ve
mhhf1ve
9/8/2016 8:58:56 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Never felt more behind the curve...
> "Analysts have forecast that one in every eight homes in North America will have a 4K TV by the end of this year, growing to 50% of all homes by the end of 2020."

Wow. I'm not exactly an early adopter for gadgets, but I didn't think I'd be so far behind. I suppose if my TVs die before 2020, I might replace them with a 4K TV... but I wasn't planning on it. Perhaps I'll have no choice but to upgrade in a few years?

(I hope my VCR still works! I haven't converted some precious tapes yet....)

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elizabethv
elizabethv
9/9/2016 5:30:23 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Never felt more behind the curve...
I'm with you on that one - 50% by 2020 seems like a really lofty goal to me. But then maybe I just don't have a firm grasp on the market. We just barely got a "SmartTV" and even then it's only like 24 inches and for our bedroom, so used infrequently. The TV we use the most is probably at least 10 years old, it was my husband's when we moved in together and that was 7 years ago. I don't know how people can afford to keep up with all the updates. 

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JohnBarnes
JohnBarnes
9/9/2016 7:42:45 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Never felt more behind the curve...
Shout out to my fellow Luddites, Elizabeth V and mhhf1ve, on this, BUT ....

1. What begins as a "nice" feature quickly becomes obligatory; that's how color TV took over -- after a while they were barely making b&w sets. "Progress" by product mortality leads to rapid replacement; once a feature is "standard" it has already taken over, it's just going to take a few years for the news to reach us troglodytes,

2. There's a large volume of turnover generated by households splitting and combining (not just divorce and living together but also roommates and moving in and out of parental basements).  Again, once 4K is the standard, almost every turnover will bring a new 4K set into the population (or remove an old HD)

3. It looks to me like the statistic was compiled as "fraction of households with at least one 4K capable display." So it's actually counting many households that may not even be aware they have 4K -- i.e. it's something the new flatscreen in the living room could do but actually people are watching on computer screens and old bedroom/basement TVs. (Same statistical trick that says there are women in about 75% of US households and men in about 70% of US households -- you can't add them together to discover that 145% of all households are single-sex!)

 

 

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JohnBarnes
JohnBarnes
9/9/2016 7:53:13 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Never felt more behind the curve...
Oh, one other thought on how they are affording all of that:

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-card-data/average-credit-card-debt-household/

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elizabethv
elizabethv
9/25/2016 1:32:34 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Never felt more behind the curve...
Lol @ JohnBarnes - I suppose in most cases you're probably right. Credit Cards are the way they want us to pay for all of those throw-away electronics everyone "has to have." Meanwhile, my family has an old 15 inch TV/VCR hooked up in our playroom with a myriad of VHS tapes available for my kids to watch at their choosing. Ha ha, I'm getting the next generation to watch VHS. Lol. Fight the power! (I will in fact be very sad when that TV dies. My friend, who loves VHS, says the only makers of VHS players anymore are going to stop.) C'est la vie.

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mhhf1ve
mhhf1ve
9/10/2016 11:45:22 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Never felt more behind the curve...
The inevitable rise of 4K TVs isn't a problem for me at all.. but I'm slightly disappointed in the state of disposable electronics these days. I remember the days when people would try to fix things like CRT TVs because they were a huge furniture-like component in the living room. Now flat screen TVs just hang on a wall and if something on it breaks, no one can fix it, so you just have to buy a new one or get it replaced under warranty. 

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JohnBarnes
JohnBarnes
9/10/2016 2:09:25 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Never felt more behind the curve...
mhhf1ve,

I figure that's just part of the overall modern capitalist message that we are supposed to buy things, not exercise control or autonomy over them.All the tinkering hobbies -- hot rods, sound systems, home computers -- eventually become disposable it-works-or-it-doesn't because that fits a more predictable, consistent model of economic behavior and it makes sure people aren't getting satisfaction outside the market.  All part of getting us into the box for good.  No worries. 'Nighty-night!

 

"People are going to have to make themselves predictable, or the machines will get angry and kill them."  -- Gregory Bateson

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mhhf1ve
mhhf1ve
9/10/2016 8:27:06 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Never felt more behind the curve...
JohnBarnes: Fortunately, there are still some organizations like iFixit around to help people try to repair things in the modern age. Unfortunately, we also have the DMCA that hampers tinkerers from legally trying to do their hacking hobbies.

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freehe
freehe
9/25/2016 6:16:58 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Never felt more behind the curve...
@JohnBarnes, great insight. Thanks for your input.

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freehe
freehe
9/25/2016 6:19:45 PM
User Rank
Platinum
AT&T 4K TV
I don't think the estimates for 2020 are realistic. Adoption takes time. Consumers have not fully embraced HD TV yet.

Who is the target audience for 4k TV? What are the benefits of 4k TV other than watching seasonal or yearly sporting events? Why should consumers switch to 4K TV versus HD, UHD and all the other different types of tv configurations?

 

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JohnBarnes
JohnBarnes
9/25/2016 7:20:23 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: AT&T 4K TV
freehe,

Those are indeed the classic marketing questions. But in a world of rapid replacement where the cost of 4K relative to HD is plunging, replacement will be biased for 4K, and eventually it will become standard.

There was nothing wrong with Betamax, either; black and white TV still worked; and there were still plenty of people around who had the arm strength and skill to crank-start a car rather than use an automatic starter. But if nearly all of what is bought new has feature X', then as the older ones with X get thrown away, X' becomes standard -- and that's effectively mandatory.  No choice required (or cared about).

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JohnBarnes
JohnBarnes
9/25/2016 7:25:30 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: AT&T 4K TV
freehe,

As to the second point, a 4K set will play HD in HD (just as a color set would play black and white programs), and 4K in 4K. An HD set will play everything in HD. Thus the 4K user gains some marginal advantage.  The question is more whether the advantage is as big as the General Motors advantages over Ford (electric starters and automatic transmissions meant you could drive without having to learn how to work a clutch, and you didn't have to have forearms like Popeye -- but if you could drive a Model T you could drive a Chevy, and hte reverse wasn't necessarily true), or as small as the Quadrophonic Sound advantage over hi-fidelity stereo turned out to be (does anyone remember quad sound?)

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JohnBarnes
JohnBarnes
9/25/2016 7:33:31 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: AT&T 4K TV
Freehe, 

AHA!

I clicked on the link to the forecast in the main article, and discovered my initial suspicion was right -- in fact, even righter.  A household is counted as having 4K if it has even one 4K device.  Right now most 50" and bigger screen TVs have 4K as standard, and manufacturers are planning to put that into smaller sets soon, so that very quickly 40" sets are going to have 4K as standard.  And North American households buy TVs with big screens, and tend to buy a new TV every couple of years on the average due to breakage and household fission and fusion.  So 4K becoming standard on smaller sets, plus the ridiculously high replacement rate in North America, probably means there will be a 4K-capable set in a majority of homes within that 4 year span. 

Stupid and gullible as we may all be, that's where we're headed!

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mpouraryan
mpouraryan
9/25/2016 8:29:19 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: AT&T 4K TV
There is no question that those who somehow do not embrace and recognize change do so to their detriment.  But, this fascination with technology has to have its' limits--and it is up to us.   We have to be in control.

 

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elizabethv
elizabethv
9/26/2016 1:00:01 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: AT&T 4K TV
@mpouraryan - I've actually thought about that - the limits of technology. What are they? Where are they? I'm not entirely sold that they do exist. In fact I recently saw an article that a few scientists were successful at teleportation recently - both in China and then replicated in Canada - I believe. Don't quote me on that. Even what we may see has "enough" for me, DVD's and a 10 year old flat screen TV do the trick right now, with my WiiU as my device for cord cutting. But for my 4-year-old? Who knows where the limit will be for him. Which is likely the problem, is that while the limit may be determined by the individual, it will be the largest number of individual's with similar limits that will likely set it for the market.                                   

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mpouraryan
mpouraryan
9/26/2016 12:39:43 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: AT&T 4K TV
What I think our deliberations here at TT and above is illustrative of is how we're limited by the very power of our imagination and believe in the art of the possible--it is true as Ari noted on the consolidation--but I just hope that choice continues to be ever so present.  I wonder if that would happen if the giants get ever more powerful at the expense of the rest of us.

 

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JohnBarnes
JohnBarnes
9/26/2016 8:11:56 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: AT&T 4K TV
ElizabethV, MikeP,

Rousseau posed the problem all the way back in 1762, in The Social Contract. He pointed out that as soon as the bow and arrow was developed, men who still wanted a goose or duck dinner became much less proficient at throwing rocks; once the horse was domesticated, no one had to run quite as fast anymore; and so forth. As tech gets better, more and more, it cares for us, and though it may enable us to do many things we couldn't, it also reduces our capability through atrophy in a large number of areas.

Or you could also cite a great piece of early sci fi -- Ralph Milne Farley, who asked his readers "Could you make a radio?" -- not meaning, could you make one by getting the parts in the shop, but, here's some flint, here's some firewood, you have the resources of the planet, go make a radio. 

The eventual limit is a helpless (but happy) blob of protoplasm in a tank.

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elizabethv
elizabethv
9/27/2016 6:48:45 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: AT&T 4K TV
@JohnBarnes - I think what you are describing is the movie Surrogates. I'm not going to lie, I've contemplated the benefits of such a life. 

To me - the biggest atrophy I have noticed at the hand of technology seems to be a loss of creativity. Which is tragic and confusing, because in many ways, I would have thought technology would give life to creativity. 

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dlr5288
dlr5288
9/30/2016 1:12:41 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: AT&T 4K TV
I agree.

I'm natrually a very creative person and to see the lack of creativity today is so sad to me. I know that technology is bettering the world in many aspects, but that means that creativity is getting pushed off the side.

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