You have to ask yourself what is this article telling us?
It's like the health benefits of the vegetarian versus the near diet. These comparison studies loaded up good vegetarian diets against non vegetarian diets, which included all sorts of junk food bad diets, instead of good non vegetarian diets. This skews the statistics in favour side with less polluted data in a study. With this study, you do reality tests, on charts and ideal representations of REAL 4k and 8k specifically made to get the most of each resolution. You don't do things Iike throw in heaps of movement or any lossy compression at all, to skew the results. You also account for the number of viewers work sufficient eyesight to see the difference and place them at a distance that maximises enjoyment in human vision of normal people before getting too wide, forgetting those with cognitive issues who can simply sit further back in the theatre. It's about a.msjority of the audience approach, a clear majority of 80% pluss being accommodated. This means that youth films will more likely have more people who see 8k difference, and older people films with most people unable to see 8k difference, maybe even 4k. It means that of just 20% of an audience can see it, it's a bonus, a score. It's about a holistic, how dyes it make other people feel approach. It means the relatively static real world detailed nature scenes where people are seeing a difference, proves the point.
Let's step back and look at what the article reports. Firstly, most participants interests. Prime, compression schemes work on detail contrast reduction. Limited bandwidth reduces the apparent visibility of 8k detail.versys 4k detail, versus 2k detail at low bandwidths. So, 20mh/s+ is ideal consumer viewing for 2k, less so for 4k, less so for 8k. For 4k, 72mb/s+ is ideal, for 8k, 288mb/s+ is ideal. At 72mb/s, Yiu are really getting towards rediculos, which is why we need a proper disc format for the time.being, which now go into terabytes on it cal storage disc technologies. The figures I quoted are at h265, as we go to h267/h268, online online 8k should become more practical. They are also based off of the top end figures used for blue ray at fullhd, which is half an ideal viewing figure in cinema. The American Film Society. There are a lot of precessional people who are just still stick in 2k area and proving that, who don't want the hassle of progress, who have little interest in effort for another resolution jump. So, I don't know if they have any influence at all, but cinemas themselves have a major disadvantage in 8k, as it requires a large investment. Like in the case with online video, they also lack the datarate. If you calculate the jpeg 2k datarates used in cinema, they are ideal fur 2k delivery, less than ideal for 4k, and 8k should be even worse. Don't trust inadequate technology. But maybe they have upgraded their datarates, or will adopt redrsy codec Red wanted, for 8K. So, I don't see incentive to go.there. Pixar, really, their interest in 8k detail is what? LG, here we start to see somebody with reason to really want 8k. But, 8k has been held back by the industry fur s ve y long time. While it has clear usage in computer business, science and industry, in the TV industry it's had to wait it's turn after 3D, 4kp30, 4kp60, HDR, and proper rec2020 usage is still waiting it's turn. Now we are getting 8k without proper content delivery support. Makes a great large format monitor though, but we in the computer industry, and unbreak business use,were cast aside for over a decade. But, the broadcasting side was even worse. Severely bandwidth limited om the present structure, needing redray codec (equivalent to h268+). They finally seem to accept 4k exists, but what sort of bandwidth is 8k going to get? They aren't likely to remove 7/8th of their channels to include it, even though removing 7/8th of their channels is probably a good thing and would increase the audience revenue of the remaining channels. Again, like cinema, a costly upgrade with reduced quality for the time being. But LG, should be able to sell more TV's. But how taxed are their present manufacturing capacity, with heaps of third parties using their panels. 8k OLED also presents challenges, and I don't know if it is as cheap to manufacture yet. 8k on LCD is another matter, as they can just pump more light through and manufacture the LCD cheaper. The latest LCD resolution has often been a moderate inscrese in actual costs for a while. They can manufacture 8k phone or tablet sized screens, so modern TV with 8k, is not too much of a difference. You can get 8k probably doen on your thumb nail for VR now, and I knew one company who were doing 32k VR chip project, demoing 16k LCD chip a few years back. Warner Bros, zi dint know what their interests might be here,not their interval business and film making culture is to thus resolution. So, I would not have thought this bunch represented 8k?
Content:
Dunkirk. This is a 70mm frame rather than IMAX 10 perf? Can normal 70mm contain high quality 8k samples? Why was it included? How much motion and movement?
A bugs life. A wasn't knocked over by Dramatic scene like detail on that one. I wonder if people objected to harder 8k edging over 4k edging on this one? Why was I t included?
"most consumers can’t see a difference between 4K and 8K. In fact, reveals the test, more prefer 4K"
I would have expected most everybody to not prefer it if there wasn't a difference. But despite the choice of content above, a portion still did. That indicates their is a real effect.
"Professional test charts will also tell you that 8K is better than 4K, as it is, in fact, 4 times bigger. The problem is that most consumers can’t tell the difference,..."
Pretty much there, admits there is a real difference. It again is what your audience gets out of it, and if 30% or 80% of your audience gets an improves experienve, that is significant.
"The double-blind study aims was to see if people could discern a difference between 4K and 8K with a variety of content. The simple answer is: no!" Hold it, that 'definitely!' contradicted the last statement '!'.
"the fact that many scores rated the 4K version better than the 8K version is due to one reason: “I believe the reason you see a large number of people rating ‘4K better than 8K’ is that they really can’t see a difference and are simply guessing."
Or, that the content sample doesn't lend itself to 8k.and what sort of visual artifacting and edging was produced.
"Amazon live-action series The Tick—one in a cave and the other in a spaceship—were shot in 8K on a Red digital-cinema camera, as was a clip of nature footage shot by Stacey Spears."
A cave? I wouldn't expect to see much in a cave, let alone on a steaming service. Did the render everything optimal for detail lossless, if they didn't, we don't want to know. Was this shown off a 20mb/s file? Did it use a top lossless compression mode on the Red camera, or the lowest? Did they put the effort into producing 8k production to see the detail? I wound not expect to see much 8k detail on a spaceship either.
“increasing spatial resolution from 4K to 8K under typical viewing conditions does not result in a significant visual improvement."
Here's the rub I forgot to mention above. "Under typical viewing conditions" all are not optimal viewing conditions. Sitting two to four times too far from a 55 inch screen playing prime, is not optimal. Sitting up to two times too far in cinema, is not optimal. You must sit as close to a large scene as you can without having to physically look around the screen, filling your inner peripheral vision.
The other day I was looking at TV's and inadvertently looked at an 8k TV, and could see the grid between the pixels clearly. I then realised I was looking at an 8k TV, and thought that surely I couldn't see the grid between 8k pixels, as technically it was supposed to be impossible to see them at correct distance. Then I realised I was too close and took a step back to the correct distance, and the grid lines disappeared, as they should. The pixels on my.4k TV were getting annoying sometimes as my vision picked up too. They are dreaming. But, I personally think 4k is generally enough, though 8k can give a boost, and is good for special productions, especially for youth..
"Also, a perceptual difference is somewhat dependent on content; in particular, ratings for the clips from Stacey Spears’ nature footage leaned a bit more toward 8K than the others, possibly because it has lots of high-frequency detail.”"
As expected, the cllip with 8k detail scored more. But, was it optimaly shoot for 8k, well lit, contrasty, focused with minimal movement, in lossless. Was it shown lossless at an optimal distance filling the inner peripheral vision? Could the score be a lot higher under those conditions?
Typical distances and films do not matter, that is not what is being tested. What is being tested is the real difference between 4k and 8k, and that requires testing optimal for 8k only, then you can estrapolate to typical distances of viewing, and audience ratios who can see it in different audiences to work out financial benefit in doing 8k productionm. You watch from an optimal distance and viewing, when viewing 8k.