The TV industry concedes that the future may not be in 8K

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/lg-joins-the-rest-of-the-world-accepts-that-people-dont-want-8k-tvs/

by cxrlosfx • 6 months ago

39 78 6 months ago

Gee, who could have foreseen that?

I mean my local cable TV is sending crap that's way worse than 720p YouTube videos and most people don't care at all.

I guess the primary benefit of an 8k display is that stuck or dead pixels are much less annoying than on a 4k panel of the same size.

I'm fine with 4k for my living room. Give me more HDR, less chroma subsampling and less banding.

VerifiedReports2• 6 months ago

And, most of all, HIGHER BITRATE.

steinvakt2• 6 months ago

I thought it was the other way. That 8k is problematic because the chance of dead pixel is so much higher, driving up the cost because of the higher ratio of ruined batches?

magicalhippo2• 6 months ago

Hmm could very well be. With DRAM I know error rates are roughly constant, so actual per bit rate goes down as capacity increases. Perhaps its different for displays.

ChrisArchitect• 6 months ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46841265

WithinReason• 6 months ago

Not enough content for it

Aardwolf• 6 months ago

Gaming was supposed to be one of the best drivers for 8K adoption.

While the step from 1080p 1440p to 4K is a visible difference, I don't think going from 4K to 8K would be a visible since the pixels are already invisible at 4K.

However the framerate drop would be very noticeable...

OTOH, afaik for VR headsets you may want higher resolutions still due to the much larger field of vision

Doublon• 6 months ago

While the step from 1080p 1440p to 4K is a visible difference

I even doubt that. My experience is, on a 65" TV, 4K pixels become indistinguishable from 1080p beyond 3 meters. I even tested that with friends on the Mandalorian show, we couldn't tell 4K or 1080p apart. So I just don't bother with 4K anymore.

Of course YMMV if you have a bigger screen, or a smaller room.

yieldcrv• 6 months ago

there are so many tricks you can do as well, resolution was never really the issue, sharpness and fidelity isn't the same as charming and aesthetically pleasing

alex435785• 6 months ago

If your Mandalorian test was via streaming, that's also a huge factor. 4K streaming has very poor quality compared to 4K Blu-ray, for instance.

DharmaPolice• 6 months ago

The person was referring to gaming where most PC players are sitting closer than 3 metres from their screen.

charcircuit• 6 months ago

VR headsets won't use the same panels that a TV would use. Any growth in the XR headset space won't help the TV industry.

tokyobreakfast4• 6 months ago

While the step from 1080p 1440p to 4K is a visible difference

It really isn't.

What you are likely seeing is HDR which is on most (but not all!) 4K content. The HDR is a separate layer and unrelated to the resolution.

4K versions of films are usually newly restored with modern film scanning - as opposed to the aging masters created for the DVD era that were used to churn out 1st generation Blu-Rays.

The difference between a 4K UHD without HDR and a 1080p Blu-Ray that was recently remastered in 4K from the same source is basically imperceptible from any reasonable viewing distance.

The "visible difference" is mostly better source material, and HDR.

Of course people will convince themselves what they are seeing justifies the cost of the upgrade, just like the $200 audiophile outlet and $350 gold-plated videophile Ethernet cable makes the audio and video really "pop".

dtech• 6 months ago

For tv maybe, but you're replying to gaming, and it's definitely on a monitor, laptop or handheld

scratcheee• 6 months ago

I know the thread is about tvs, but since gaming has come up, worth noting that at computer viewing distances the differences between 1080p/1440p and 4k really are very visible (though in my case I have a 4k monitor for media and a 1440p monitor for gaming since there’s 0 chance I can run at 4k anyway)

FeepingCreature• 6 months ago

I can confirm that on a pc monitor, 1080p and 4k is very easy to tell apart.

bluescrn2• 6 months ago

We can’t render modern games at decent frame rates at 4k without going down the path of faking it with AI upscaling and frame generation.

There was no hope of actual 8k gaming any time soon even before the AI bubble wrecked the PC hardware market.

Attempting to render 33 million pixels per frame seems like utter madness, when 1080p is a mere 2 million, and Doom/Quake were great with just 64000. Lets have more frames instead?

(Such a huge pixel count for movies while stuck at a ‘cinematic’ 24fps, an extremely low temporal resolution, is even sillier)

alkonaut• 6 months ago

I don't see a future in which we play at 4K at top settings either without AI upscaling/interpolation. Even if it were theoretically possible to do so, the performance budget the developers have going forward will be assuming that frame generation and upscaling is used.

So anyone who wants only "real frames" (Non upscaled, non generated) will need to lower their settings or only play games a few years old. But I think this will be something that becomes so natural that no one even thinks about it. Disabling it will belike someone lowering AA settings or whatever. Something only done by very niche players, like the CS community does today where some are playing 4:3 screens, lowering AA settings for maximum visibility not fidelity and so on.

teamonkey2• 6 months ago

Yeah, not only the huge required jump in raw fill rate, but to get the most out of a 4K TV you need higher detail models and textures and that means you also need a huge jump in VRAM, which never materialised.

ksynwa• 6 months ago

AAA games have been having really bad performance issues for the last few years while not looking much better. If you wanna game in 8K you are gonna need something like a NASA supercomputer.

xxs4• 6 months ago

Even with a super computer it'd be difficulty to render the frames in time with low latency.

laughing_man• 6 months ago

AAA games are struggling for a lot of reason, and consoles are struggling as well. PC gamers tend to use a more traditional monitor setup and won't buy a gigantic television. At least, not for gaming.

tombert3• 6 months ago

I usually still play at 1080p on my Steam box because my TV is like nine feet away and I cannot tell a difference between 1080p and 4k for gaming, and I would rather have the frames.

I doubt I’m unique.

LeoPanthera• 6 months ago

I had just recently been thinking of buying an 8K television to mount on the wall of my office to use as a huge monitor. Has anyone done this? Any recommended models?

squibonpig• 6 months ago

Another guy in this thread probably knows https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46896964

jl6• 6 months ago

640K ought to be enough.

Underqualified• 6 months ago

We were talking about TVs recently in the office and pretty much everyone agreed that even 4K is overkill for most TVs at a reasonable viewing distance.

I got a 65inch TV recently, and up close HD looks pretty bad, but at about 3m away it's fine.

zihotki3• 6 months ago

One just need to get a big house so that the 8k 77 inch TV can be put like 6m+ away (/s). See the https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-r... for more accurate distance calculations.

For normal size apartments 55-65 inch is indeed the best size considering the distances. It's a pity that the manufactures don't make 8k 55 inch TVs..

account425• 6 months ago

These calculators never made much sense to me. The whole point of getting a bigger screen is to cover a larger portion of your field of view. Sitting close to a giant TV is like being in your own cinema.

Kon5ole4• 6 months ago

55 inch 8k tvs make for great monitors. Basically your whole field of view is a retina canvas for apps, equivalent to a 2x2 grid of 4k monitors.

The last ones I saw for sale were below 600 usd in physical stores from name brands (LG). Mine was just under 1000 when I got it.

Why we can’t buy the same panels as monitors is a mystery to me.

ttoinou2• 6 months ago

Do you think 65 inch would still be OK for a monitor usage ? I've been pondering about doing that for years but 65 inch is often easier to find for me in Europe

elliotec• 6 months ago

If you're sitting about a meter away, that's probably fine. Most desks aren't deep enough, and any closer would be a real problem for head movement.

But if you have it wall mounted at eye level or a deep desk you're likely okay.

xxs4• 6 months ago

Monitor - I prefer higher refresh rate. The other part is that you should have the entire picture in your eyesight w/o moving the neck.

Personally, I'd consider that large of a screen, a bad working area.

Kon5ole4• 6 months ago

I don't think it will work very well as a "normal" monitor (meaning placed at normal monitor distance on your desk).

My 55 is borderline too big already, and the main issue is actually the height. Tilting your head or rolling your eyes back to see the top gets noticeably uncomfortable pretty quickly.

I made a special mount so the lower edge basically rests on the desk surface which basically solved that issue, but I don't think I could have made it work if it was any bigger.

Also at 65 the pixel density is much lower, so you'd probably want it mounted further away. But if you do, the monitor will cover the same FOV as a smaller monitor anyway.

My dream is that someone starts making 8K 50" monitors with displayport inputs (HDMI is a mess) and sells them for the same price as these tv's used to cost!

tombert3• 6 months ago

I am jealous that you were even able to find a 55 inch 8k monitor. I couldn’t find one.

For my computer monitor, I ended up going with a cartoonishly large 85 inch 8k. It was somewhat of an adventure getting it into my house, but once it was set up I absolutely love it.

I don’t really see the point of 8k for anything but computer monitors but it’s absolutely great for that.

compsciphd• 6 months ago

I'd think 85" even at 8k wouldn't be that great for a productivity monitor.

it seems conventional wisdom (for good or bad) would say 32" at 1440p isn't that great for productivity and one wants a full 4k monitor at that size for productivity use, and 8k at 85" would be about the same pixel density of 1440p at 32"

wosined• 6 months ago

Pretty easy to achieve 8K when you make the TV twice the size. I wish they improved pixel density more instead.

kasabali• 6 months ago

yields dip when you have to have 4x size panel with no defects, though.

padjo• 6 months ago

Yep we probably reached "CD quality" at 1080p to be honest. i.e. a level beyond which the vast majority of people won't be able to perceive a quality difference. We definitely reached it at 4k at a size/distance of most TVs

VerifiedReports2• 6 months ago

Not to mention that we don't even get GOOD 1080p at streamers' current bitrates, let alone "4K." Any talk of 8K is an absurd joke.

realusername2• 6 months ago

And 8K to watch what content exactly? It's already hard for the movie industry to provide a consistent 4K...

klausa• 6 months ago

Discussions about this are very tedious, because people have hard time making distinction between "being able to see the difference between 1080/4k/8k content" and "being able to see the difference between 1080/4k/8k panels".

I'm sure there's plenty of content (especially streaming content in mediocre bitrate) where people would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.

But I think if people went back to 1080p _panels_; they'd actually rather quickly notice how much worse the text-rendering is, and that the UI looks off for them.

Moving up to 8k would definitely be a smaller step-change in clarity than 1080p->4K and many people wouldn't feel it's worth spending extra; but I don't think it would be literally indistinguishable.

ksec• 6 months ago

Just when 100"+ TV are coming out and gaining traction. To put this into perspective, an upcoming 130" LCD TV would 8K would have 68PPI, on 98" would have 90 PPI, and 80" would be 110".

Depending on whether you want a TV experience sitting further back or Cinema is coming Home as Sony's tag line. I believe there is room for something greater than 4K. Especially when TV industry trend suggest TV purchase size is increasing every year. 40" used to be big, then it became entry level, now all top of the line TV dont even offer anything before 50", and the median is moving closer to 65". 80"+ price will come down in the next 5 years as LCD takes over again from OLED. I dont understand why but also wont be surprised if median size move pass 70".

In 2015 I wrote on AVSforum how 8K makes zero sense from Codec, computation, network, transport and TV. However I would never imagine median TV size moved up so quickly, and also I cant see how we could afford 100"+ TV at the time. Turns out I am dead wrong. TCL / CSOT will produce its first 130" TV in 2 years time. For those ultra wealthy they could afford 160" to 220" MicroLED made out of many panels. There will be 10% of population who could afford ultra large screen size. And I am sure there is a market for premium 4K + content.

There is definitely a future with 4K+ content and panel. I just hope we dont give up too early.

kranke155• 6 months ago

The entire pipeline to provide for this is prohibitive. At what distance do you actually need to be from your TV for the resolution to max out for the retina? 4k was already a dubious proposition for most TVs people actually own.

OJFord• 6 months ago

You mention AVSforum, I'm sure you're watching BluRays (or, err, via a home backup/local streaming solution), of course it makes sense to you.

The median (and roughly 99th percentile for that matter) TV as well as being 65" is being used with Netflix et al. though, and that content already looks worse than you can buy on disc.

8k doesn't need to wait for TV sizes any more, right, but now it needs to wait for home internet speeds (and streaming provider infrastructure/egress costs) for it to make sense.

kleiba• 6 months ago

In addition to being too expensive for many households, there has been virtually zero native 8K content available to make investing in an 8K display worthwhile.

cherioo• 6 months ago

Yes larger format TV is getting more affordable, but I don’t think larger living room is catching up. Watching tv in general also feels like a dying trend. I would not be bullish on larger tv getting popular outside niche enthusiasts market (with money to buy a mansion)

Animats• 6 months ago

Cinema theater projectors are rarely more than 4K. Many are still 2K. IMAX is sometimes 8K. The industry just doesn't see the need for content with more resolution.

garyclarke27• 6 months ago

What baffles me is that TV manufacturers create amazing hi-definition home screens with glorious colour at incredibly cheap prices - then idiot Netflix directors completely waste 40% of the pixels for zero benefit with their stupid letterbox formats.

realusername2• 6 months ago

And then Netflix streams in 720p because they don't like your HDMI connector or their client is broken that day.

pezezin• 6 months ago

You think that is bad? Some of the major promoters of 8k TV are Japanese broadcasters like the NHK. If you have ever watched Japanese TV, you will notice how they love covering half the screen in bright text. So what do they need 8k for, so the kanji look sharper?

zihotki3• 6 months ago

It baffles me that the 8K is discussed without taking the screen size into consideration. 8K in 77 inch TV is not that much different from 4k in 50 inch TV if you focus on PPI. Such big TVs also require certain distance to be able to watch them. Good luck finding an apartment or house in EU where you can fit 77 inch tv to comfortably watch it.

account425• 6 months ago

A 77 inch tv is very comfortable to watch at ~2m distance. The main concern with space constraints is the size of the TV itself.

account425• 6 months ago

I have a big 4K screen and while I'm glad that I got it I have to admit that the increase in effective resolution compared to 1080p is already small for most film content - and when there is a difference is more from the encoder being allowed to use more bandwidth than the nominal number of pixels.

xnx2• 6 months ago

Lack of imagination. A 100" 8K screen makes an excellent virtual window.

Unfortunately, I haven't found any high visual quality 8K streams.

The TV industry concedes that the future may not be in 8K

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