8K TVs at everyday prices signal that theres far less reasons not to buy 8K – RedShark News

The price of 8K televisions has been falling all the time, and now we've reached a point where, if you need a new TV, there isn't really any reason not to buy one.

There are several definitions of the technological singularity. The more apocalyptic versions are along the lines of we will have reached the singularity when machines become more intelligent than us. At that point the robots will just make better and better machines without human intervention and in the time it takes to say twenty picofarad capacitor we will have lost our status as the dominant species on the planet to our silicon overlords.

But my favourite definition is more prosaic. It is that we will have reached the singularity when the curve of technological process against time is vertical from our perspective. In other words, things change so fast, that we have lost the ability to predict when they will happen.

I dont think were quite there yet, but I am beginning to think that were in the foothills. One symptom of this is that we are starting to see developments which take us by surprise. And by us I mean people like you and me who are familiar and current with technology. If something seems unexpected to us, then we have indeed been deceived by the steepness of the curve.

Both of my eyebrows skidded to the back of my head when I heard that the new Apple Silicon powered iPad Pro was 1,500 times faster than the first iPad 10 years ago. Like a lot of statistics used for marketing purposes, this is likely to be a bit selective - its hard to figure out the exact basis of the comparison, but, even so, theres more than a little truth in it. And even if its out by a factor of five, its still pretty remarkable and even though I knew the performance curve was steep, I didnt know that it was this steep.

I had a similar surprise when I was looking for a new TV to buy. Its quite enjoyable for me because I actually know what Im talking about in this area.

I found a TV I liked the look of - a 55 QLED Samsung 4K model. QLED is a good technology. Its obviously named to look a bit like OLED, but uses Quantum Dots instead to give extra brightness to the pixels. I know from previous models Ive reviewed that its a good technology. Priced at 1,199, (US$1,670) the set was 700 (US$975) cheaper than when it was on sale only in January this year.

It was only when I was trawling through the specifications that I noticed it is actually an 8K TV. That took me completely by surprise. It was an 8K TV for the price of a 4K set.

At that point, why would you buy anything else?

Actually there are plenty of reasons. You might not want an 8K TV, and Id understand if you didnt. 55 is a bit small for an 8K screen. You wont get the full benefit, and, certainly, if youre price conscious, you can buy 55 4K Samsung TVs for 479 (US$668) - although the QLED ones that same size cost 999 (US$1,392), which makes the 8K version look like even more of a bargain, if not a pricing mistake.

I have to say, though, that you certainly can tell the difference between good 8K and good 4K on a 55 screen, and while there isnt much 8K around to view at the moment, the Samsung even includes AI-based upscaling from HD and 4K to 8K. Ive seen this in action and it really does work, even though it does sound a bit like marketing woo.

Honestly, Im very tempted by this. If you can buy an upper mid-range 8K TV for the price of an upper mid-range 4K set, why wouldnt you? At the very least youll be ready for 8K when its finally available to watch without having to search YouTube for 8K demo footage.

So, does this mean that the technological singularity is here? I think its a sign that its approaching.

Just nine years ago I was at the IBC show in Amsterdam when 8K was a science experiment. 4K was just starting to roll out to expensive consumer outlets: you had to be wealthy to afford the typical 25,000 (US$34,836) list price. Only around three years after that, you could only buy 4K sets in the shops. I think were on the way to that situation now with 8K. I predict that in 3 years the majority of TVs on sale will be 8K and in 5 years, you won't be able to buy 4K sets any more. Soon, it simply wont make sense to buy 4K TVs at all.

There will be plenty of people who will disagree with me, and thats fine, but I would also say that if youve been around as much 8K as I have, there are some distinct advantages to adopting the higher resolution. These are not obvious like the way that HDR looks great even to non technical people, and theyre not as apparent as the stunning improvement that Full HD is over SD. Instead theyre all about subtlety.

High resolution video is not merely a matter of how sharply you can define the edges of an object. Its all about smoothness. Its the lack of aliasing (stepping) on a gentle curve. Its about seeing the microshadows that signal the texture of a face. Its about the ability to show digitally reproduced video as though it were not digital at all. Its about making the digital world look analogue again.

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8K TVs at everyday prices signal that theres far less reasons not to buy 8K - RedShark News