Is 8K the future?
This question seems to come up every few years with the development of new pieces of technology like when TV started broadcasting in HD you could see all that new detail on your screen at home. With Japan actually broadcasting at 8K resolution since as far back as 2016, the idea comes up that everyone is going to be moving towards that.
We’re seeing that with 4K already and how ultra-high-definition or UHD content is becoming more and more available and people are utilizing the technology as it become cheaper. Even phones now record video in 4K at at least 30 frames per second.
Some people in the industry think that 8K is the standard already.
In an interview with Cinema5D, Michael Cioni, the Senior Vice President of Innovation at Panavision, said, “we didn’t want this technology, it’s just a part of an unstoppable revolution.”
He equates it to the concept of Moore’s Law in the interview and sees it as always improving and never stopping. Whether this technology will be available to consumers at a decent price is a whole other question in itself.
Dell launched their first 8K monitor in September of last year, which started out at $5,000, but was eventually lowered to $3,700 and continues to sit around this price. While it may not be available to the average consumer, it definitely is a thing in the professional realm, especially with cinema cameras that shoot in 8K like the RED Weapon Camera systems.
I doubt these types of technologies will be available to your standard everyday consumers for another few years, just based on how pricey most of it is, but as we saw with 4K, 1080p and regular old HD in the past, I’m sure we’ll see it soon enough.
