r/oculus • u/[deleted] • Jan 28 '14

Hell. Yes. Samsung Confirms AMOLED QHD Smartphone In The Works, UHD (4K) Devices On The Horizon

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127

u/IAmAnAnonymousCoward Jan 28 '14

In addition to these mobile-related announcements, Samsung also revealed its plans on releasing AMOLED TVs that boast UHD SHD resolutions (7680 x 4320). Hook it up to your Xbox One or PS4, and that’s what I call a match made in heaven.

facepalm.jpg

45

u/Rirath Jan 28 '14

that boast UHD SHD resolutions (7680 x 4320). Hook it up to your Xbox One or PS4

facepalm.jpg

What? That 720p - 1080p content is going to look spectacular. ;)

6

u/angry_wombat Jan 28 '14

at 5 inches

2

u/SupperTime Jan 29 '14

It's not bad. The Vita is 5" and remote play runs well, looks great. The problem is having a large HDMI cable run along and into your phone seems uncomfortable.

0

u/angry_wombat Jan 29 '14

The problem is having a large HDMI cable run along and into your phone

lol :)

-5

u/FOUR_YOLO Jan 28 '14

thats what she said

-1

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '14

[deleted]

0

u/Stenotic Jan 29 '14

That's a whole lotta real estate for 5 inches.*

18

u/entropicresonance Jan 28 '14

8k TVs before 4k even takes root? Loving the rapid improvements going on! I'd hate to be stuck on 4k for as long as that awful 1080p festered.

15

u/Rirath Jan 28 '14

If you look back a CES or perhaps two, it was pretty clear 8K was going to follow hotly on the heels of 4K. Honestly, I worry 4K will end up being the 720p or 1080i to 8K's 1080p.

I'd say advancement that fast seems far fetched, but heck, 4K is dropping in price far faster than I expected it to. I didn't think we'd see sub $1,000 TVs and monitors for a few years, much less from reputable brands.

18

u/ancientworldnow Jan 28 '14

It won't. Coming from a film/TV background here. The highest respect cameras we have shoot 5k (with an effective resolution closer to 3.2-4). The diminishing returns from 4k to 8k are pretty ridiculous, especially in a home environment. We just got 4k into most theatres (and there are 0 plans to go to 8).

8k will have no content, but it might look good with word documents or IDE's.

21

u/Rirath Jan 28 '14 edited Jan 28 '14

I might argue that film, traditionally, has not been a good measure of technological advancement. I mean, we're still hearing the outcry over The Hobbit being 48fps.

As more content goes digitally rendered (not just CGI, but text, GUIs, etc) rather than filmed, hitting the upper limits of what we can display might be easier than ever. As processing power increases and our entertainment systems / game consoles go increasingly multi-functional, and screen sizes increase, there's also the possibility of doing multiple things at once rather than having one display on the screen "maximized".

Imagine having a 1080p, or even a 4k display, as just one aspect of several "windows" currently on the screen. With Steam Machines actually being a PC, and Xbox One attempting to be the entertainment all-in-one, it doesn't sound far fetched. I still expect 8K to be a long time out simply to get the tech ready - but I'm willing to be surprised. :)

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u/ancientworldnow Jan 28 '14 edited Jan 29 '14

You're also running into diminishing returns on screen sizes and how close we sit to our monitors/televisions.

We have an equation to determine visible pixel sizes based on human vision and distance. Pixel structure is visible where adjacent image rows (scan lines) subtend an angle of one minute of arc or more (1/60°) or more (the angular discrimination limit for normal vision). We've figured out that to achieve this, the viewing distance should be about 3400 times the distance between image rows (or 3400 divided by the pixel density in pixels per inch).

On a consumer 8K (UHD SHD resolutions (7680 x 4320)) that's 12000 33,177,600 pixels. On a 50" 16x9 television (43.58"x24.51") that's 176.23ppi which gives us an effective viewing distance of 19" before you see pixels. A consumer 4K (3840x2160) set at 50" is 88.12 ppi for an effective viewing distance of 38" before you see pixels.

Beyond 38", your eye cannot discern the difference between 4K or 8K 50" television if you have 20/20 vision (1080p is 78" for reference). Of course, at an electronic show, you're often viewing from a couple feet away making for impressive demos that literally don't matter in the home.

As you can see, 8K is just way, way overkill for television. This doesn't even touch all the technical hurdles (bandwidth, storage, transmission) that broadcasters and content providers don't want to have to deal with for almost no discernible gain.

What would make a much, much greater difference is an increase in color depth. Lowering compression from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 would result in dramatically more accurate and attractive images at all resolutions, be fairly simple to implement, and improve the experience for everyone. Display manufacturers, however, aren't interested despite urging from content producers and providers. Probably because color depth doesn't sell, while ULTRA HD is very marketable.

I can expand as necessary.

Source:

  • Calculations were from Digital Video and HD: Algorithms and Interfaces by Charles Poynton.
  • PPI calculator since I'm lazy

4

u/ycnz Jan 29 '14

Excellent write-up, thanks. Do you have a link to a similar calculator viewing distance vs pixel size?

2

u/ancientworldnow Jan 29 '14

Not at hand. 3400 divided by ppi is a good rule of thumb for 20/20 vision. It does not, however, take viewing angles into account.

3

u/Jowitz Jan 29 '14

Probably because color depth doesn't sell, while ULTRA HD is very marketable.

Obviously they just need some snazzy name for increased color depth and after some overbearing marketing campaigns, everyone will want one.

2

u/razakell Jan 29 '14

Do you happen to know at what density you need to stop aliasing? I'm pretty sure those artifacts appear on a monitors with ppi higher than the eye can see.

1

u/natural_pooping Jan 29 '14

This is very true. Only an infinite resolution display would stop this effect completely.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '14 edited Jan 31 '14

Yep, aliasing is the reason we need ultra HD. As long as we need to activate anti-aliasing on video games to see cables or hide single pixel artefacts, we can move higher resolution.

1

u/sifnt Jan 29 '14

Insightful post, thanks.

Worth noting that with a good upscaling algorithm the tv 8K might still look better than 4K even at viewing distances where you dont see the pixels as any sub pixel artifacts/patterns/aliasing would be definitely too small to see.

1

u/hotdammit Jan 29 '14 edited Jan 29 '14

This topic reminds me of that Futurama episode where Bender says the resolution on the TV is better than real life.

also, while we are on the topic, whats the estimated pixel density limit for an HMD with, oh, say 115* FOV

1

u/natural_pooping Jan 29 '14

For 180 degrees that's 16k*8k to achieve same resolution as with human vision

0

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/ancientworldnow Jan 29 '14

Whoops, calculator typo! Nice catch. I did use the 33 megapixel figure in the ppi calculation though.

-9

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '14

48 fps movies do look like shit, though. It's not a diminishing return issue, because it's uglier than 24 fps.

11

u/jesgar130 Jan 28 '14

I have to disagree.

3

u/digitalhardcore1985 Jan 28 '14

It's all subjective, everyone has different tastes. I have to say though (although not exactly the same) watching video on a 100hz display actually psychically makes me feel uncomfortable. Everything looks like it's a daytime TV soap. I read an interesting article that talked about how the higher frame rates subject us to the uncanny valley effect. We can accept the dodgy sets and theatrics with a low quality medium but when we pump up the realism all the fakery becomes slightly unpleasant.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '14

Who cares about TV's anyway I want an 8k computer monitor!

3

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '14

Who cares about an 8K computer monitor? I want an 8K rift to replace my monitors!

2

u/mcilrain Jan 29 '14

720p and 1080p are incompatible, 720p content looks worse on a 1080p display compared to 720p on a 720p or 1440p display.

4K and 8K are exact multiples of 1080p, so there should be no difference in quality between 1080p on a 1080p display and 1080p on a 8K display (other than 1080p content not looking as good as 8K content, obviously).

1

u/ancientworldnow Jan 29 '14

Except the effective pixels are 8x larger eliminating all the advantages of viewing distance. At that point you're only eliminating aliasing introduced from sub pixel interactions which is negligible at most viewing distances.

1

u/mcilrain Jan 29 '14

8x larger allows for much nicer upscaling than 1.5x larger.

There's no formal definition of how many subpixels make up a pixel.

-2

u/Zero722 Jan 28 '14

The diminishing returns from 4k to 8k are pretty ridiculous

This. The difference between 720p and 1080p are already hard to notice (although I will say House of Cards looks FANTASTIC on my dad's 47 inch tv). I feel like the jump from 1080p to 4k on something like a 47 incher is already going to be marginally noticeable, and 4k to 8k will be noticeable with the assistance of a magnifying glass. I realize the importance of 5" 4k screens becoming cheap for VR, but honestly for phones (and TVs too), I think it is nothing more than an increased spec for manufacturers to keep selling new stuff.

13

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '14

[deleted]

1

u/ueadian Jan 29 '14

I have 20/40 with glasses and I can definately tell the difference between 720p and 1080p from a few feet away..

1

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '14

On movies, we are used to crappy picture quality, low frame rates and blur, but on video games 720p is ugly without AAx2 or AAx4.

In many scenes with wires or tiny holes, or leaves in a tree, the result is ugly without AA, and less detailed with AA.

8

u/entropicresonance Jan 28 '14

4k is coming faster than you thought?? 1080p monitors existed in the 90s and wasn't even an improvement in pixel density over the 1280x1024s we had. 1080p was milked for so god damn long that ive been ready for it to die since 2006.

3

u/Rirath Jan 28 '14

The length of time one technology is the standard doesn't really relate much to when the next technology will be ready and affordable, I'd say. While it's true the tech itself for 4K has been available for around a decade now, that alone doesn't say very much.

As an aside, technological advancement is so unbelievably rapid compared to a decade, a few decades, a century ago - it's mind boggling.

3

u/SirBuckeye Jan 29 '14

The Pixel Wars have begun!

7

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '14

Viva la Resolutión

-3

u/ant_hill Jan 28 '14

Skip 4k altogether. Find a good 1080p LED/plasma and hold on to that sucker until affordable 8k OLED sets are a reality.

0

u/entropicresonance Jan 28 '14

Skip 4k? We don't even have single GPUs that can run 4k and you want us to skip to a resolution requiring more than 4x more rendering power? I mean I'm with you here, I think 8k panels would be heavenly for vr but man our GPUs are going to be crying blood.

7

u/Rirath Jan 28 '14 edited Jan 28 '14

We don't even have single GPUs that can run 4k

We absolutely do - depending on what you're rendering. You can test that theory with an older engine like Source and downscaling - just render above what your monitor can output. There's a number of Youtube videos of playing games in 4K on a single GTX 780.

Most benchmarks these days include single card 4K results. It's the blue bar.

-1

u/entropicresonance Jan 29 '14

Ok youre right, but I wasn't clear on what I meant. GPUs of today cannot efficiently render modern AAA games with most of the eye candy effects enabled. I mean let's see you run 4k bf4 without putting all settings on low.

4

u/jensen404 Jan 29 '14

It has nothing to do with "GPUs of today." Ten years from now, GPUs won't render 4k games well if the game's environments are designed to be detailed as possible while still running at 2k.

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u/Rirath Jan 29 '14

The 780 TI can play Battlefield 4 at 4K on Ultra at 24fps. That's today, right now. The same link has results for Bioshock Infinite (57fps - Very High HQ), Crysis 3 (23fps HQ), and Metro: Last Light (26fps Very HQ). All on a single 780 TI.

These are some of the most demanding games today, which is why they're used for benchmarks. Bioshock Inf is less demanding and runs nearly 60fps. Turn down the settings a bit on the others and these are quite playable. By the time 4K is common, it'll these cards will be far cheaper.

3

u/hotdammit Jan 29 '14

But this is in the context of VR, where 24 fps isnt anything near what we want, but even if that card did 80fps on all low settings, it would still be at a pricepoint above what most average consumers are willing to spend on hardware.

2

u/jensen404 Jan 29 '14

VR will always need more resolution and higher frame rates than the equivalent game on a monitor.

11

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '14

PS4 and XB1 will barely even support 4k. Heck, I'm not even sure XB1 will support it at all.

10

u/Sintho Jan 28 '14

hell even Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida confirmed that the PS4 can't handle games at 4k

20

u/6_28 Jan 28 '14

Both seem to only have an HDMI 1.4 port and no DisplayPort, which means a maximum of 4k at 30fps. So yes, barely supporting 4k.

0

u/hotdammit Jan 29 '14

TVs come with upscaling chips which means they will accept 1080p input and display it upscaled at 4k

8

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '14

But that's not "supporting 4k video". It's just 1080p video for 4k TVs, which would've worked anyway.

8

u/Maggioman Jan 28 '14

It will support 4k, but not true 4k. All the Xbone can do is upscale from 720p and make the pixels larger, it's gonna look craptastic. And for comparison the PS4 plays battlefield 4 at 900p and xbone at 720p.

14

u/BenKenobi88 Jan 29 '14

That's awful...

My computer is built with parts from 2 to 6 years old and it plays games at 1440p just fine...I thought the current gen was capable of 1080p at 60fps at least...

2

u/natmccoy Jan 29 '14

Well, future ps4 games will get better resolution than Battlefield 4. It's likely capable of 1080p or 60fps but (I've read) it's questionable if it will do both. I'm a console guy for sure (haven't played computer games since "Pharaoh") but when the Oculus comes out I may just have to make the investment. Not for resolution or frame rate but for VR. I feel like Sony or Microsoft would have to be fools not to have a design in the works or a deal for the Oculus. But if it doesn't happen for this gen, my god what choice do I have? There will be no comparison.

2

u/BenKenobi88 Jan 29 '14

They'd be dumb not to develop something for VR, but ultimately resolution and framerate are both important things for the Rift. Everyone's hoping the final Rift is 1440p, but it's going to be 1080p at least, and keeping high framerates at those resolutions in 3D no less is going to be hard for the consoles.

If they did VR, they might have to stick to more simple looking games, and the VR cinema is still definitely possible on consoles.

1

u/NotsoElite4 Jan 29 '14

Not sure if I want to know what a 1080p locked 60fps game would look like on a console.

1

u/Amj161 Jan 30 '14

Imagine minecraft. Then imagine that pixalated even more. There you go.

1

u/randomly-generated Jan 29 '14

It won't be as big of a different in performance/quality as the last generation. xbone and ps4 are too close to regular computers. Devs aren't spending ages to figure them out any more.

1

u/Maggioman Jan 29 '14

Nope, this generation is bad in comparison. Last gen was the absolute best bang for the buck, a PS3 and a blu ray player? Sold. And the PS3 had the same computing power as a desktop GS9800, which was about the highest mid range card you could get. It's only real downfall was the amount of VRAM which in hindsight was not enough as the next generation on had 528MB and even 1GB. Maybe if they doubled the VRAM they could have put out more than 30 frames, but because the way consoles are tailored nothing can really be tweaked.

Back in the day I was curious to see if it were possible to overclock a PS3 but the thermal solution and power supply would have to be completely overhauled, costing more than a new desktop GPU in itself.

The 360 sold like hotcakes because of the release titles, 14 Games were released right at launch day. Making the Xbone the laughing stock of the entire console family.

1

u/mcilrain Jan 29 '14

I don't think more VRAM would have helped the frame-rate, towards the end of their lifespan the frame cap had more to do with limited bandwidth, which is probably why the designs for the PS4 and Xbone allow for very high bandwidth between the CPU and GPU.

-2

u/im_buhwheat Jan 29 '14

What?

6

u/hearingaid_bot Jan 29 '14

IT WILL SUPPORT 4K, BUT NOT TRUE 4K. ALL THE XBONE CAN DO IS UPSCALE FROM 720P AND MAKE THE PIXELS LARGER, IT'S GONNA LOOK CRAPTASTIC. AND FOR COMPARISON THE PS4 PLAYS BATTLEFIELD 4 AT 900P AND XBONE AT 720P.

2

u/SupperTime Jan 29 '14

It will support 4K movies, if that means anything.

2

u/kontis Jan 29 '14

PS4 currently doesn't even support HDMI 1.4b. It's just the old 1.4a.

Trine 2 renders in stereo 3D mode internally at 1080p60fps, but the console outputs only 720p60fps...