The FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil begins this week. I shall be watching some but not all of the games. I enjoy watching a good game of football. Equally, watching a poor game is often a wasted 90 minutes. Why didn’t I do something more useful? Cut the grass, clean the car, go for a walk etc. I digress.
In early June 2010 prior to the last World Cup in South Africa I was suckered by a ‘cashback’ offer and bought a 32-inch Sony Full HD TV. And mighty fine it was and still is too. It was bought under the guise of being a ‘secondary’ TV to watch some World Cup games on as the rest of the family probably didn’t want to watch wall to wall football for a whole month. The primary TV was a 42″ Full HD Panasonic Plasma. It’s still going strong too.
Whilst I’m not an audiophile, the closest equivalent for someone who has a healthy obsession with display technology and the reproduction of display and video images is probably a videophile. I fear that the World Cup 2014 has come too early to justify the investment in a new, shiny 4K Ultra HD TV.
Full HD has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels whereas Ultra HD has a minimum specified resolution of 3840 × 2160 pixels. Ultra HD has four times as many pixels as Full HD: that’s eight million pixels versus two million pixels. In terms of potential image clarity what this means is more fine detail, greater texture and an almost photographic level of image reproduction. I’m sold.
Currently though there isn’t a great deal of genuine 4K content available. Live mainstream broadcasts? No, not yet. It’s coming but at present it’s really early adopter stuff. And the tech is costly.
Come 2018 and the next FIFA World Cup, wherever it maybe – currently scheduled for Russia, the 42″ Panasonic plasma may have been consigned to another room as the secondary TV and a new smart, shiny UHD TV might be hanging resplendent on the living room wall. I imagine Sky will have unveiled its new Sky+ UHD box with a mere handful of UHD channels, available at some exorbitant subscription fee and up-front cost. Broadcasters, content providers, technology suppliers will surely be busy working away this in mind. Watch this space – in 4 years time!
A lot of what you might want to know about 4K UHD TV can be found here.