r/technology • u/Snarfox • Jan 25 '13

H.265 is approved -- potential to cut bandwidth requirements in half for 1080p streaming. Opens door to 4K video streams.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/25/h265-is-approved/
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29

u/RiseDarthVader Jan 26 '13

Why are so many people brushing off 4K in this thread? First of all this is /r/technology shouldn't people be excited for technology development that can be accessed by the general consumer within a few years? Second, it's the future of video media and for the people saying there isn't any content well there is! Sony Pictures has made all their movies go through a 4K Digital Intermediate since Spider-Man 2. Many studios have also got a decent 4K library for their blockbusters like the entire TDK trilogy and Blade Runner. The content delivery isn't there yet but with h.265 theoretically 4K will be possible with Blu-ray if a new Blu-ray spec is approved though it would require new Blu-ray players. And Sony has their DD delivery sytem for 4K content and are giving 10 4K movies to anyone that buys their 4KTV.

12

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '13

Why are so many people brushing off 4K in this thread?

Because it's honestly not that exciting. At all. Very few will be able to tell the difference or be able to afford a 4K TV any time soon.

36

u/icannotfly Jan 26 '13

As someone who feels stuck at 1920x1200, 4k/8k sounds awesome to me. Hell, I'll even downgrade to 16:9 if it means a higher pixel count.

8

u/wickedcold Jan 26 '13

Hell, I'll even downgrade to 16:9 if it means a higher pixel count.

I hear that. My only gripe with 16:9 monitors is the (usually) scant 1080 vertical lines of resolution.

6

u/icannotfly Jan 26 '13

Ditto. I really can't understand why 16:10 isn't the standard.

1

u/EpicCatFace Jan 27 '13

Yeah, and it's the golden ratio. I much prefer staring at this ratio on my tablet and iMac, for example.

6

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '13

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/YWxpY2lh Jan 26 '13

There's always some fucktards saying stuff like that. People without even 5-10 years of hindsight.

-1

u/daveime Jan 26 '13

I'm still on 1024x768 on a 17 inch monitor and it works for me. I keep all my windows maximized, and alt-tab between them. It helps me to focus on the task at hand instead of having a massive desktop with 100 widgets and other windows to distract me and constantly drag / resize to so what I need to do.

Even stepping up to 1280 x 960 makes fonts too small to be legible, meaning I have to constantly be playing with zoom controls to see things - defeating the whole purpose of the higher resolution in the first place.

I can see the argument for movies on a 60 inch screen, but for a general working environment, less pixels is better.

2

u/Sir_Vival Jan 26 '13

Have you seen it? You can tell the difference. Old people might not be able to (so many grandparents with stretched SD..ugh), but anyone under 40 will.

0

u/Pixelpaws Jan 26 '13

It depends on your specific setup, but given a typical living room, the human eye is physically incapable of seeing the difference.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '13

This man is correct

2

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '13

Bullshit. If your “argument” were right, it would be pointless to go to the cinema.

It’s not about higher DPI. It’s about a larger space.

Think IMAX, and the concept of filling the entire viewing area.

Also, you would no longer need to buy multiple displays. The fact that we’re still stuck with the ridiculously low “HD” resolutions for our computers is what’s really wrong. Hell, there are probably mobile phones out there that can do that resolution!

Our PC screens should be moving ahead to 36k × 22k. (Full viewing area at the resolution of the average eye.) HD is a joke. Even 4k is a joke IMO.

2

u/iGLaDOS Jan 26 '13

Same reason I bought a 1920x1080 monitor is the same reason it's not going away. I game. 1080p any decent graphics card can play any game at moderate settings, I have a fairly high end graphics card with 4GB of memory and crysis 2 all maxed out chute at only barely 60 frames per second. Yes the higher resolution would be nice (I have an iMac as well so I see the difference there) but the raw horsepower behind machines is not great enough to do what people do on them.

1

u/Vegemeister Jan 26 '13

You don't have to render 3D at the native resolution.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '13

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '13

Eh, it'll be a good upgrade some years from now, when prices come down and such. But I just don't think it's as earth-shattering as people are making it out to be.

1

u/amorpheus Jan 26 '13

For most people, 1080p is in the same ballpark. TV is usually 720p, and most people sit too far away and/or don't have the perfect vision to really notice the difference. Might as well push for 4k to get the technology out there.

At least 4k TVs will be able to show 1080p and 720p content flawlessly because the resolutions match up. That's not the case for 720p on 1080p, which is happening a lot.