I don't understand this "good enough" argument. We never really needed anything we use daily today. Life was "good enough" 100 years ago (if you could afford it), should we have stopped?
4K video reaches you only because it's compressed to crap. It's "good enough" until it's not. 360p TV was good enough at some point too.
> 4K video reaches you only because it's compressed to crap.
Yes, but I assume when they say the "consumer" they mean everyone not us. Most people i've had in my home couldnt tell you the difference between a 4K bluray at 2 odd meters on a 65" panel vs 1080p.
I can be looking at a screen full of compression artificts that seem like the most obvious thing i've ever seen and ill be surrounded by people going "what are you talking about?"
Even if I can get them to notice, the response is almost always the same.
"Oh...yeah ok I guess I can see. I just assumed it supposed to look like it shrug its just not noticable to me"
You can't ask someone today to see what they're not used to see.
I expect a future of screens that are natively subtly 3D and where you could see someone's nose hair without focusing. Only then they will notice "why do they look blurry and flat" when comparing it to an old TV.
Today if you get closer to a TV you will see blur. Tomorrow you will see the bird's individual strands of feathers.
> Only then they will notice "why do they look blurry and flat" when comparing it to an old TV.
They either won’t notice or won’t care and even if they do, it takes far longer than enthusiasts expect for the line to move.
Large numbers of people still say in 2025 that ‘4K is a gimmick,’ so I’m not holding my breath. ‘Good enough’ lasts much longer for the majority than most realise.
Look at displays today: I can’t even buy a modern one with motion quality that matches what I had 20 years ago. Why? Because for the average consumer, what we have is ‘good enough’ and has been for a long time.
> Today if you get closer to a TV you will see blur. Tomorrow you will see the birds individual strands of feathers
No, I’ll see blur. Unless you’re suggesting we’ve magically solved sample and hold induced motion blur in the consumer display space?
Of course, I know you meant in a still frame however if I wanted to stare at a high quality still image, I’d save myself the money and just go with some nice framed artwork instead.
> “Good enough” is temporary.
I’ll grant you this on a long enough timeframe. But it’s got a long tail and it’s gonna be a slow ride.
It reminds me back when HDTV was starting to roll out to things like cable television. Often cable companies kept the standard def versions of the channels on the normal channel numbers while the HD version of the channel would be that number +500 or +1000 or whatever.
I would constantly see friends and family just tune to the standard def 4:3 version of the channel often being terribly stretched despite having a new widescreen HDTV. I'd ask why they're watching the SD channel instead of the HD version, and it seemed like most people didn't even notice it. I'd often suggest/go ahead and change the channel to the HD version and talk about where these HD channels are, but the next time I'd visit it would be on standard def 4:3 again.
> 4K video reaches you only because it's compressed to crap.
Streaming video gets compressed to crap. People are being forced to believe that it is better to have 100% of crap provided in real time instead of waiting just a few extra moments to have the best possible experience.
Here is a trick for movie nights with the family: choose the movie you want to watch, start your torrent and tell everyone "let's go make popcorn!" The 5-10 minutes will get enough of the movie downloaded so you will be able to enjoy a high quality video.
I'm not sure if you realize it, but all forms of digital media playback are streaming. Yes, even that MP4 stored locally on your SSD. There is literally no difference between "playing" that MP4 and "streaming" a Youtube or Netflix video.
Yes, even playing an 8K Blu-Ray video is still streaming.
"Streaming" as most people think of it is "heavily compressed video optimized for low bandwidth being piped over a network", usually with no user choice of resolution, encoding, or playback settings
4K video reaches you only because it's compressed to crap. It's "good enough" until it's not. 360p TV was good enough at some point too.