4K monitors and 1080p resolution?

[BrightCandle]

So far all the reports we have seen about 4k scaling suggest they are not taking 1 pixel and converting it to 4, but rather applying a generic scaling algorithm that is blurring the screen. Theoretically its perfectly possible to do 1 to 4 scaling and for 1080p content it would potentially look the best of the possible ways to display it but until we see someone do that we can neither verify that this will look decent and that its going to be done.

I asked the question months ago and I was somewhat worried that the theoretical 1 to 4 scaling wouldn't look the same. The reason I think is to do with the shape of the pixels themselves, 4 pixels are not necessarily the same same shape and size as that on a 1080p panel and I wasn't sure if 4 pixels making up 1 would be visibly different. Because the size of pixels is large enough we can literally see them, seeing 4 shining the same colour might not work out the same way as 1 pixel shining a colour at 1080p, even though theoretically those 4 pixels are presumably the same size as the single pixel on 1080p. I want to see it in action, but so far I haven't heard of a monitor that does it.

 

[Railgun]

All processors and methods are different. Good luck finding something as good as, say, the Marvell QDEO in a PC monitor.

 

[UaVaj]

it will only looks exactly the same - as long as it the scaling is native 1:4 without any processing.

as in 24" 1k compare to 24" 4k.

 

[KingFatty]

1/4 does NOT change that at all on any monitor I am aware of. even you wanted to argue this in the other thread but not one person has shown a monitor that has this magically perfect 1/4 scaling. I am not saying it cant happen, I am saying SHOW ME.

This subject might be triggering the Nirvana fallacy for many consumers. It's where a person thinks that if something is not perfect, then it's completely worthless.

We have 4K pixels available, but if we only use 1/4 of them, surely the image will be crap!

But if you look at it another way, we agree that content is king. If you only have 1080p content, like Blu-ray movies, do you say that is crap?

I say no! Blu-ray 1080p content is amazing at living room viewing distances, it's "retina" already!

So, if your 4K display is showing anything that has achieved the "retina" threshold, you can no longer call it crap.

Many people I think are in that camp. When you display 1080p on a 4K display, even though you aren't fully maxing out the native resolution, you have achieved the retina threshold so it looks good.

You could say that 1080p on a 4K display could look as good/retina as 1080p does currently on a 1080p display. Just depends on the upscaling algorithm.

And as some have already seen, it's possible that the 4K display uses a fancy enough upscaling technique so that when you look up close, 1080p might actually look better using a 4K display compared to using a 1080p display.

But remember, we are talking about *content* here, and in every situation it's 1080p content.

 

[KingFatty]

Yeah,

As soon as I get my 4K monitor in a few days. I will let you guys know how it scales.

Very cool, thanks for volunteering. Also let us know if there is some menu selection that allows you to specifically choose a type of algorithm like basic/simple 4:1 scaling, or maybe if they do it in a negative sense where you instead "choose" the basic technique by instead disabling any fancy image manipulation stuff they might offer.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

The difference between upscaling on lower pixel per inch monitors and a 4k monitor is that you can see the pixels at the native resolution on lower PPI monitors to begin with. At say 4k on something like a 24" monitor it should look very similar to 1080p on a 1080p native 24" monitor. The reason why it always seems so blurry when upscaling is that you usually test between different monitor sizes. How many 17" 1440p monitors have you guys tested out 720p upscaling on?

That's probably the size of monitor that upscaling would look half decent at PC monitor viewing distances. A 28" 4k monitor with a 1080p source is going to look bad because a 1080p 28" monitor is going to look bad up close. If you sit further back it will look better.

 

[HurleyBird]

A 28" 4k monitor with a 1080p source is going to look bad because a 1080p 28" monitor is going to look bad up close. If you sit further back it will look better.

A huge reason a 28" 1080p monitor looks bad up close is the screen door effect. The 4K monitor should solve that, and though still not ideal, I imagine it would look a lot better than 1080p native.

 

[Railgun]

it will only looks exactly the same - as long as it the scaling is native 1:4 without any processing.

as in 24" 1k compare to 24" 4k.

No it won't and no it doesn't. Some poor implementations aren't perfect as already shown.

I'm with Toyota on this.

 

[h9826790]

I think the benifit for a 4k screen is that we can use 1080 HiDPI resolution. For a normal 1080p output, the screen may look worst than a normal 1080 screen.

 

[Railgun]

That too isn't perfect. Look at the article Brett did on the main page.

 

[Kalessian]

Even if the scaling is done poorly on the first wave of displays, I think that the amount of 1080p content and the fact that the 4:1 mapping is so obviously low-hanging fruit that display creators will catch a lot of flak if they don't implement this in a hurry.

Unless 4:1 scaling is patented or something

 

[bystander36]

Even if the scaling is done poorly on the first wave of displays, I think that the amount of 1080p content and the fact that the 4:1 mapping is so obviously low-hanging fruit that display creators will catch a lot of flak if they don't implement this in a hurry.

Unless 4:1 scaling is patented or something

The only content that is limited to that (and yes, I know it is big) is for the TV crowd. PC users can use 4k at a native resolution.

I have a feeling that the 4:1 mapping will be at best, rare. I think this because TV users will want their 1080p content to look better on a 4k display in order to be worth buying. With organic content, this may be possible. With graphic art (like a desktop), this probably won't be possible without 4:1 mapping. But gaming may have the chance to look better with good upscaling.

 

[KingFatty]

But, with current fancy scaling technologies, it introduces lag.

So a display maker could really advertise a "gaming" mode or something that just efficiently displays things as lag-free as possible, where it's just dumb scaling one pixel to 4 with no additional lag added on because there is no interpolation or anti-aliasing or whatever.

I think as long as you can characterize this as a feature worth selling, and there is a market, they should offer it. So gaming mode and gamers should be enough to sustain it, lots of xboxes and playstations out there to benefit from speed over prettiness.

 

[KingFatty]

And as for the screen door effect, I think using 4 display pixels to show one content pixel would look fine and not be a screen door effect. I mean, using my current monitor, I see the blue rectangles on this very webpage.

They look like one solid rectangle of blue. I don't perceive any pixels, and it doesn't look like a bunch of small blue dots stuck together. It's just one big blue rectangle. So if you think of pixels that way, I think 4 pixels of a 4K display, all showing the same exact pixel value (color/brightness), will look just like one big pixel as though it's just like one big 1080p display. I don't think my eyes would be able to distinguish the 4 tiny individual pixels in that scenario, the same way I can't distinguish all the independent blue pixels on this Anandtech webpage separator graphic.

 

[bystander36]

But, with current fancy scaling technologies, it introduces lag.

So a display maker could really advertise a "gaming" mode or something that just efficiently displays things as lag-free as possible, where it's just dumb scaling one pixel to 4 with no additional lag added on because there is no interpolation or anti-aliasing or whatever.

I think as long as you can characterize this as a feature worth selling, and there is a market, they should offer it. So gaming mode and gamers should be enough to sustain it, lots of xboxes and playstations out there to benefit from speed over prettiness.

This isn't interpolation. This is scaling. I am not sure how much lag in introduced. It seems pretty much non existent when using down scaling on the PC, or up scaling with consoles. I would be curious if a test has been done somewhere.

 

[BrightCandle]

This isn't interpolation. This is scaling. I am not sure how much lag in introduced. It seems pretty much non existent when using down scaling on the PC, or up scaling with consoles. I would be curious if a test has been done somewhere.

Places like tftcentral.co.uk do very detailed latency tests, they look at the pixel switch time separate from the monitor processing time. They haven't yet done any 4k monitors but its not unusual for the normal processing to add 10-20ms of latency on current monitors. With many 4k monitors being 2 such processors fused together in MST it does seem likely that similar amounts of latency will likely be added in them as well. But that is with a native image, that might also be skipping the scalar so it represents a best case scenario.

 

[Elfear]

Just got my monitor setup and it actually looks pretty good at 1080p.

You can see that the text isn't super sharp but it seems like my old 28" 1080p monitor was the same. Wish I had one to test side by side to see if there are any differences.

 

[bystander36]

Just got my monitor setup and it actually looks pretty good at 1080p.

You can see that the text isn't super sharp but it seems like my old 28" 1080p monitor was the same. Wish I had one to test side by side to see if there are any differences.

What monitor is that. That is pretty solid there. Does it offer 120hz at 1080p? Some do.

 

[Elfear]

What monitor is that. That is pretty solid there. Does it offer 120hz at 1080p? Some do.

It's the Samsung UD590. Unfortunately it doesn't do 1080p@120Hz although I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Samsung releases a firmware to enable higher refresh rates.

 

[AkumaX]

Just got my monitor setup and it actually looks pretty good at 1080p.

You can see that the text isn't super sharp but it seems like my old 28" 1080p monitor was the same. Wish I had one to test side by side to see if there are any differences.

haha you got it

now post the same screenshot @ 4k

 

[KingFatty]

Hold on, aren't you showing a screenshot of what the *video card* is displaying?

I don't think that is the same as what the *display* is displaying.

In other words, it's impossible to see the screen door effect in a screen shot, because it's simply not made of display pixels.

In fact, I tried to zoom in and saw the following JPG artifacts I think?

 

[AkumaX]

Hold on, aren't you showing a screenshot of what the *video card* is displaying?

I don't think that is the same as what the *display* is displaying.

In other words, it's impossible to see the screen door effect in a screen shot, because it's simply not made of display pixels.

In fact, I tried to zoom in and saw the following JPG artifacts I think?

haha that's true, in both his screenshot AND your screenshot :lol:

both you and elfear should technically upload png's instead (and use *******, since they allow larger file sizes -- imgur will resize/quality lower large imgs)

 

[Elfear]

Whoops.

According to a few places, Imugr doesn't compress unless the image is >10MB.

Here are the same screenshots in a .png format.

1080p

1080p CCC Screen

4k CCC Screen

I tried getting a complete screenshot at 4k but it was 12MB uncompressed and Imugr changed it to a JPG.

 

[Techhog]

I've seen people try to tell Toyota what we mean, but he's incapable of getting it, so there's no point in arguing with him.

And as for the OP, yeah, it's just gonna vary by monitor.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Just got my monitor setup and it actually looks pretty good at 1080p.

You can see that the text isn't super sharp but it seems like my old 28" 1080p monitor was the same. Wish I had one to test side by side to see if there are any differences.

I'm sure it looks pretty much identical to what a 28" 1080p monitor would look like. Its going to come down to your viewing distance from that point on. I would imagine from 4-5 ft away you probably can't tell the difference between 1080p and 4k.

If you were bored you could actually test this for us. Decide at what distance you can't tell a difference on a 28" monitor.