4K TVs Bring IMAX Quality Into Your Living Room
If a midnight IMAX premiere is standard fare for you – at least for your favorite movie franchises – how would you like to replicate that viewing quality at home? It’s not a trick question and it isn’t a concept on display at Tomorrowland. The latest in televisions is 4K (or ultra-high definition) technology, and it’s already in an electronics store near you.
It isn’t the next doomed tech like BetaMax or LaserDisc or 3-D television. Where BetaMax fell to VHS and LaserDisc became obsolete in the face of DVDs, 4K can succeed. 4K isn’t a proprietary platform, it’s just a better monitor. Would you rather work on an iMac Retina display or a CRT monitor? 3-D television was a gimmick. The experience was poor, the glasses were inconvenient and prohibitively expensive and programming was scarce. DirecTV offers limited HD 3-D programming with some of their packages, according to http://www.directtvdeal.com, but those channels were the exception rather than the norm. 3-D gaming was a joke.
4K televisions offer the best resolution on the market, and it won’t get much better. Though most movies are still shot in 2K, 4K cameras are the gold standard. As more films are shot in 4K, more materials will be released for at-home viewing at the higher resolution. Early adapters will have limited options at the onset, but their television will still be good for watching regular programming. Gaming, movies and television will all eventually be offering higher-quality resolution.
Do you want to miss out on the 4K resolution on Sony PS4 games? You will, even if you’re playing them on a 1080p HD television. Come fall, Netflix and Sony will offer 4K movie services. Right now you can purchase a 4K media player from Sony that comes to consumers with 10 movies already preloaded in it. Each of these movies has been reconfigured in 4K resolution. Sony announced that its 55 inch version of the television would cost $5,000 and a 65 inch version would cost $7,000. The media player will cost $699 with the movies already added. The cost of being an early adopter is high, but now that it’s out there, do you really want to watch General Grievous fight Obi-Wan (that’s a combined five light sabers in that fight) in standard definition?
If you’re looking to adopt at a more modest cost, there’s also a bargain set in the 4K market from Chinese manufacturer Seiki. A 50 inch 4K model of the Seiki has been offered for $1500. Some product testers from Gizmodo watched a sample of the Seiki and although obviously much smaller than one found at a movie theater, found the experience very similar to attending a movie because the quality of the screen was so great. Many people might be reluctant to take a chance on a Chinese television that they haven’t heard of, but Seiki offers returns for the first year for any reason. The Seiki 4K is also cheaper than Sony and other major brands preparing to break into the 4K market in large part because it doesn’t have a lot of the “extras” that other televisions have. There are only three HDMI inputs on the television which will limit the connectivity. Seiki, however, is willing to bet that three ports is enough connectivity for most people.
Will you be an early adopter? Or wait and see how the market reacts? Comment away!
