International broadcast standards HD 4k 8k and beyond

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Night457
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International broadcast standards HD 4k 8k and beyond

Post by Night457 »   1 likes

As per usual I derail a movie thread and send it flying off on a tangent. Before anyone complains about the mess I am making, I will start a new thread, even if this is the last post on the topic!

This is continued from HERE: https://www.first-loves.net/forums/view ... 354#p89354

And my new blah blah blah starts here:
deadman wrote:It's really media companies, not governments, who establish the standards. 4K blu-ray finally dropped the region coding system.
This is true, although I do not particularly expect different media companies to cooperate much more than governments do. After all, is there any monetary benefit for a Japanese or German TV station to have its broadcasts compatible with other countries? When ... err ... people are just going to take it for free and p2p it? :D

I am sure the media companies are kicking themselves for dropping the region coding, because they still only license the content for specific regions. Last year there was a popular 4k release in the UK (George Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead') that the label refused to sell to North American customers because their license prohibited it. (Somehow they managed to sell to a single small North American retailer, and multiple UK retailers would sell it worldwide.) Going the other direction, I have been reading a 4k UHD forum lately (John Woo's Van Damme-starring 'Hard Target') where some European people are in an absolute RAGE because they have purchased a United States 4k disc from a secondary retailer (not the label), it turns out to have a defect, and they are not eligible for the replacement program because the U.S. label says they are only licensed to distribute the discs in North America. Certainly the technology allows the discs to play around the world, but licensing still makes the rules.
As more and more movies and programming migrates onto streaming platforms for foreign audiences they're actually coming to see the benefit of global releases instead of artificially trying to enforce the pre-internet system of local material for local viewers only.
This certainly seems to me to be the direction it OUGHT to go, but I am not familiar enough with the streaming marketplace to see if that is the actuality. I do know that Amazon, Netflix and iTunes all seem to have content limited to certain markets, and people have to play around with VPNs and proxies to get what they want. Just having an Amazon, Netflix or iTunes account in one region is not good enough. Do you know of any streaming platform that already has much of its content available internationally from one source?
I believe 4K broadcasting does have a single standard.
I totally believe you. You seemed to suggest that 720p had the same standards in different countries, and I will believe that too. Whether 720p qualifies as "High Definition" is debatable and just a matter of definitions; 720p is 720p even if you call it "Higher Than Standard Definition". If German broadcasters WANTED to broadcast in 1080p, surely they COULD, right? No one is forbidding them from doing so? Surely they are technologically capable of doing it?
As for 8K - we don't even have 8K broadcasts in the US. I saw a beautiful 8K OLED TV at Best Buy last week, but there's literally nothing to watch on it higher than 4K. One of those toys for the buyer who has to have the best of the best, always, and money is no object.
I wish I had the money to be one of those buyers! :)

I wish everyone in the U.S. had cheap 8k streaming internet!

The U.S. has lagged behind Japan in audio-video technology for decades, and there is no reason for Japan to slow down while we play catch-up. They will do their own thing as they should. If we end up using the same technology, that only means that Japanese-branded TVs made in China will continue to work and be available in the U.S., not that Japanese television broadcasts will be widely available, much as movie-geek fans like myself might want it. I still have to rely on fansubs anyway, so I may as well rely on p2p for the video content too.
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Re: International broadcast standards HD 4k 8k and beyond

Post by deadman »   1 likes

Night457 wrote:I am sure the media companies are kicking themselves for dropping the region coding, because they still only license the content for specific regions. Last year there was a popular 4k release in the UK (George Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead') that the label refused to sell to North American customers because their license prohibited it.
Movie studios, let's face it, are mostly run by rich old men who are taking entirely too long to figure out how the internet changes things. They're coming around ... slowly. Both Netflix and Amazon are showing more and more programming produced outside the US because they realize there's a market for it. All it takes to expand into a whole new market is paying someone to do subtitles. Global releases simply make more sense. Risk averse seventy-something executives have been resisting change in the distribution system because they know how to make money the way things were, and change is scary. The industry is finally moving in the right direction though. One hesitant step at a time.

Night457 wrote:I do know that Amazon, Netflix and iTunes all seem to have content limited to certain markets, and people have to play around with VPNs and proxies to get what they want. Just having an Amazon, Netflix or iTunes account in one region is not good enough. Do you know of any streaming platform that already has much of its content available internationally from one source?
They all have foreign content categories that are getting larger, and fracturing into regional subcategories. Russia, Europe, Latin America, India, etc. The day when content from every country is available in every other country is coming ... but none of them are there yet, to my knowledge.


Night457 wrote:The U.S. has lagged behind Japan in audio-video technology for decades, and there is no reason for Japan to slow down while we play catch-up. They will do their own thing as they should. If we end up using the same technology, that only means that Japanese-branded TVs made in China will continue to work and be available in the U.S., not that Japanese television broadcasts will be widely available, much as movie-geek fans like myself might want it. I still have to rely on fansubs anyway, so I may as well rely on p2p for the video content too.
Yeah, Japan puts the cutting edge in consumer tech right out there while we take our sweet time. Apparently an international standard was adopted covering both 4K and 8K broadcasts so they won't be repeating what happened there 25 years ago with HD - competing formats, and TVs that turned out to be incompatible with the final standard.
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Re: International broadcast standards HD 4k 8k and beyond

Post by mimzy »   1 likes

I'm not much into this tech stuff, but I think at the time Germany chose 720p, the other alternative was 1080i, not 1080p.

When making the resolution higher, we should not forget raising frame rate also. I don't know what the frame rate of 4k or 8k is, but I'd probably prefer 1080p@100fps rather than 4k@25fps.
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Re: International broadcast standards HD 4k 8k and beyond

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mimzy wrote:I'm not much into this tech stuff, but I think at the time Germany chose 720p, the other alternative was 1080i, not 1080p.

When making the resolution higher, we should not forget raising frame rate also. I don't know what the frame rate of 4k or 8k is, but I'd probably prefer 1080p@100fps rather than 4k@25fps.
The standard format for 4K broadcasting is 2160p, i.e. 3840x2160 progressive scan (there is no 2160i). A variety of framerates are supported but 60 fps is considered optimal. If you want to be able to freeze a rapidly changing picture without motion blurring, that's the rate you want. 4K requires 4 times the bandwidth of a regular HD signal.

8K is 7680x4320, demanding 4 times the bandwidth of 4K and 16 times that of HD. While most broadband connections can handle 4K not all of them are equipped to deliver 8K. You really need fiberoptic for that, if there's copper wire where you live forget about it. You'd have to download the video first. Couldn't stream it or watch a live 8K broadcast.

So far there are no 8K blu-rays, or (as far as I know) any industry plan to develop them. You'd need new discs and a UV laser system to read (or burn) data. Streaming has caused sales of movies on disc to fall quite a bit from their peak. Contrary to expectations there has remained a market for physical media, but probably not enough to support continued development of optical disc technology. Virtual blurays are a possibility though, .iso images of the 8K discs they never bothered to develop which you can play on a computer or other device. In fact I'm surprised we haven't seen them yet with existing formats. The catalog of movies you can offer on bluray increase dramatically without the cost of pressing discs in factories, packaging them, and shipping the physical inventory out to stores and Amazon warehouses.
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Re: International broadcast standards HD 4k 8k and beyond

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deadman wrote:Both Netflix and Amazon are showing more and more programming produced outside the US because they realize there's a market for it. All it takes to expand into a whole new market is paying someone to do subtitles.
It aggravates me no end that some boutique labels continue to do releases without improved subtitles, or without any subtitles at all, when there are fansubbers online who routinely spend many hours creating them FOR FREE because they love the material. It is shocking how hundreds of hours of Korean soap operas quickly show up with English subtitles, VERY well done by fans. For free. From what I have seen the fansubs are generally better and more accurate than the ones made "professionally". Surely the media companies can pay minimum wage to people who can do all this work from their home computers!??!
The day when content from every country is available in every other country is coming ... but none of them are there yet, to my knowledge.
That gives me something to look forward to, but the pessimist in me figures I will be dead before that happens.
Apparently an international standard was adopted covering both 4K and 8K broadcasts so they won't be repeating what happened there 25 years ago with HD - competing formats, and TVs that turned out to be incompatible with the final standard.
Ugh, yes. I figured that "they" preferred things that way, so that consumers would be constantly "forced" to upgrade equipment that was still perfectly functional. It generally takes me 15 years or more before I do any upgrading, except in the rare cases where something quits working right. That's what I get for shopping around and purchasing a more expensive and higher quality product, which continues to work LONG after it has become old-fashioned.
mimzy wrote:I'm not much into this tech stuff
Ummm ... really? :shock: I thought your tech knowledge was pretty advanced. Or maybe you just mean specifically the audio / video tech, and not the computer tech?

In deadman's next post with the technical discussion I could mostly only sit quietly, read and learn. Thanks deadman!
deadman wrote:So far there are no 8K blu-rays, or (as far as I know) any industry plan to develop them. ... Virtual blurays are a possibility though, .iso images of the 8K discs they never bothered to develop which you can play on a computer or other device.
I do not have any links to share, but I have read articles where the industry insiders specifically agreed that they were NOT interested in manufacturing 8k discs. However, I have likewise thought that a DCP for home use sounds reasonable. If I understand correctly, a 4k UHD disc is either 66gb (two layer) or 100gb (three layer) and a theatrical DCP (digital cinema package) is 300gb or less of digital files stored on a hard drive. We should forget this damn compressed data on superfast spinning plastic discs and just go straight to uncompressed data on hard drives. Naturally, 8k would be the same concept but using more storage space, which gets cheaper all the time. Do you remember how expensive a flash drive less than 1gb used to be?

I am 100% with you in your thinking on this. I am totally in favor of it.
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Re: International broadcast standards HD 4k 8k and beyond

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Night457 wrote:Ugh, yes. I figured that "they" preferred things that way, so that consumers would be constantly "forced" to upgrade equipment that was still perfectly functional.
Can you say HD-DVD? I know people who bought those and they were pissed when the whole format was abandoned. Companies realize they're already pushing their luck with consumers, going to 4K so soon after HD, then in another few years beginning a transition to 8K. Format wars and other corporate BS will convince even more of the already frustrated to say screw it, and simply stick with what they have.

Night457 wrote:I am 100% with you in your thinking on this. I am totally in favor of it.
No reason they can't distribute "blu-rays" like vimeo handles their movie purchases. You get an .iso download to your computer or a DVR style set-top unit, which you can play like a disc. You get the menus and chapter select and special features and all that. It's the same experience - minus the "superfast spinning plastic disc".

You should read about recordable 4k blu-ray and how they managed to get four layers out of them. They had to develop new materials to make that happen, different ones for each layer, it was a real adventure in materials science. The result are insanely expensive discs which are nevertheless high quality. People have called them bomb proof, because they're stiff and strong and could probably survive a nuclear blast. Also they don't suffer the same degradation as previous generations of discs. Data would still be retrievable a century from now if they're stored in even remotely decent conditions.

Of course, when I say expensive I mean a spindle pack of 50 costing about $400 (ouch!). Companies that developed this blank media will be lucky to break even on their investment given the price consumers have to pay. Going through that process again isn't something they're going to want to do. I often burn copies of blu-rays on my computer but I doubt I'll ever own a 4K burner because I sure as hell don't want to spend hundreds of dollars every time I buy blank discs. I'll just get external hard drives and keep my movies on those. Use redundant storage instead of physical copies to prevent loss.
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Re: International broadcast standards HD 4k 8k and beyond

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deadman wrote:Can you say HD-DVD?
That was one time when I was actually smart enough to hold back and keep out of the fight. I am old enough to remember the Beta vs. VHS war and how my dad was kind of annoyed to have chosen Beta. He kept that damned thing for years, then got another one used because the tracking went bad and he wanted to still be able to play what he had beta-recorded or purchased. Me, I did not want to try and guess whether HD-DVD or Blu-ray would "win".

When I finally DID switch to Blu-ray, I was ready for 4k and had to wait.
No reason they can't distribute "blu-rays" like vimeo handles their movie purchases. You get an .iso download to your computer or a DVR style set-top unit, which you can play like a disc.
I have never made a streaming purchase so I did not know how any of them did it! As far as I knew, all "purchases" were tied to streaming from a login-account, with no standalone file that could be played offline. That is how out of it I am!
People have called them bomb proof, because they're stiff and strong and could probably survive a nuclear blast.
Yeah, that's what they used to say about CDs. I don't believe it. Then there were the "gold CDs", the next scam in line.
Data would still be retrievable a century from now if they're stored in even remotely decent conditions.
But the drives that read them only last at most 10 years, and manufacturers will stop making THOSE maybe sooner than that. So if your great-grandchildren want to read your shiny plastic discs, they need to see an antiques-repair dealer.

And the cost of the air-conditioning to keep huge collections free of heat and moisture is another factor.

Personally I am only concerned if my collection lasts MY lifetime. After that it is just going to end up in a dumpster anyway. (Well, at this point it would probably be a couple dumpsters ...)
Of course, when I say expensive I mean a spindle pack of 50 costing about $400 (ouch!).
Eh, not so bad. I remember BDr's used to cost that. After buying a few movies on BDr and being totally disappointed with the skipping and image freeze, I will never trust that format again. I would rather have a download that I can back up to another external drive. It was difficult enough finding reliable CDr's!
I'll just get external hard drives and keep my movies on those. Use redundant storage instead of physical copies to prevent loss.
Absolutely the way to go.
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Re: International broadcast standards HD 4k 8k and beyond

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Night457 wrote:I have never made a streaming purchase so I did not know how any of them did it! As far as I knew, all "purchases" were tied to streaming from a login-account, with no standalone file that could be played offline. That is how out of it I am!
That's how Amazon does it, which is why I used Vimeo as an example. They allow you to download non-DRM files when you make a purchase.

Night457 wrote:
deadman wrote:People have called them bomb proof, because they're stiff and strong and could probably survive a nuclear blast.
Yeah, that's what they used to say about CDs. I don't believe it. Then there were the "gold CDs", the next scam in line.
No, these discs are actually very durable. And they undertook to solve the layer issues that plagued previous generations of optical discs. But the materials used are why the price is unlikely to come down. They'll remain quite expensive.

Night457 wrote:
deadman wrote:Data would still be retrievable a century from now if they're stored in even remotely decent conditions.
But the drives that read them only last at most 10 years, and manufacturers will stop making THOSE maybe sooner than that. So if your great-grandchildren want to read your shiny plastic discs, they need to see an antiques-repair dealer.
If my great grandchildren wanted to read one of those discs, they'd probably pop it into a little module where the nanites would analyze the surface and extract the data, then dissolve the disc into its component elements for later use printing up ... whatever they wanted.

How did those people ever get by watching video on a flat 2D display? Movies without full sensory immersion! Downright neolithic. :mrgreen:
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Re: International broadcast standards HD 4k 8k and beyond

Post by Night457 »   0 likes

Elon Musk will give them all brain implants and Mark Zuckerberg will give them the Metaverse, so as long as the old data can be made compatible with the new technology then the old movies can live on in their "full sensory immersion" Matrix, right?
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Re: International broadcast standards HD 4k 8k and beyond

Post by mimzy »   0 likes

Night457 wrote:
mimzy wrote:I'm not much into this tech stuff
Ummm ... really? :shock: I thought your tech knowledge was pretty advanced. Or maybe you just mean specifically the audio / video tech, and not the computer tech?
Fantasizing about future is just not my thing. Once we start getting OT movies in 4k and 8k, I will be interested in those formats for sure.

Back in the DVD era I often used to buy the disc even after watching the movie, because DVD had sort of added value. I'm not using streaming services when you only can watch the movie once or twice and not own it, so they won't get my money. I'm only using free software and watching Bluray with it is illegal anyway, so downloading those movies ilegally makes no difference from legal point of view. Does anybody receive 4k broadcast channels with any interesting content that are actually not encrypted and can be saved on disk?
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