- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
A new study published in Nature by University of Cambridge researchers just dropped a pixelated bomb on the entire Ultra-HD market, but as anyone with myopia can tell you, if you take your glasses off, even SD still looks pretty good :)



This discussion drives me crazy because it’s the EXACT SAME FUCKING discussion that happened when 1080p screens became available in the 00s. So many people argued “oh it depends how far away you sit but you don’t really notice it” and “oh if the screen size is small your eyes can’t tell”
NO monthafucka if you have halfway decent eyesight there’s NO WAY you won’t notice a huge change in quality from 720p to 1080p even on a 6” screen. 1080 to 4k is noticeable on almost ANY size screen (we all just skip 1440p, don’t we?) and as the size of the screen goes up and up, it just gets more and more noticeable.
Edit: Forgot to mention, a big reason I heard people making this argument so much in the ‘00s is because I was in TV and computer sales.
And I’m sure most of those people were comparing VHS tapes or regular analog cable TV, or hooking up their DVD player with composite.
I don’t doubt that for a second. It’s like in the early 2010s when tons of people on Reddit were like “30FPS is all you need, you don’t need more especially in a strategy game or RPG” and I’m seething because my neurospicy ass cannot handle the choppiness of 30FPS and they’ve probably never even seen 120, 144, 165FPS…
I don’t remember that discussion at all… I remember people being super excited for 1080p, but annoyed that there was no content for it because DVDs were still 480p and TV content was similar. Blurays were 1080p, but weren’t really a thing until the late 00s.
We’ve had 4k for a decade, and there’s still not much content for it. When there is, the difference w/ 1080p isn’t so significant as to be worth the cost, as it’s usually just upscaled 1080 content. 4k makes a lot of sense for a monitor that’s 30" or larger, but for a TV where you’re 10-15 feet away it doesn’t make nearly as much sense.
I forgot to mention, I sold TVs when 1080p was popularized and HD-DVD and Blu Ray came out hahaha. That’s mostly where I heard the “you can’t tell the difference between 720p and 1080” BS. There was plenty of 1080p stuff by the end of the ‘00s and people were still making that argument.
Ah, ok. I’m mostly going based on personal experience from the time.
Diminishing returns.
480 to 720 was massive, and 720 to 1080 was big too. 1080 to 4K is definitely not always noticeable and 8K is well beyond worth the file size.
Agreed with 8k file size for now, but 1080p to 4k is still hugely noticeable to me.
I cannot tell 4K because my TV is 50’’ and I sit three meters away