Good post, Mike and thanks for catching my blooper of horizontal versus vertical.

I think the greater problem with 4K is delivery affected by bandwidth. We’re somewhat pushing the limits of 1080i/p across satellite and cable and even that is delivered in compressed form. Add to that the advanced sound codecs and the bandwidth per channel is considerable. Right now the only way to have an uncompressed 1080p signal is through Blu-ray disc.

More movies are being shot in digital 4K and super-35mm with the final cut delivered to theaters on hard drives since there’s no real way to transmit directly to the theater. The following release of the movie to the public is scaled down to 1080 because that is the extent of the media.

I think you’re right as the distribution system moves toward on-line access yet the maximum that stream can be recorded is 1080 (using the hard drive in a DVR). So, for 4K (and beyond) recording for home use has to be 4K. Or, more probably, a system that upscales (as some projection TVs do now)..

Or, and this is not left field, a new loss-less video compression forced into being because of limits on bandwidth. Problem I see with this is the need for a unit needed to do this (let’s call it an ‘expander’) added into the chain from satellite/cable to screen.

Good post, Mike.

MichaelR