At the limit of display resolution?

[lpetrich]

I Almost Bought a 4K Monitor – Alex Rowe – Medium

4K is the literal point of diminishing returns as far as resolution goes. That’s both my personal opinion, and my opinion as a one time official film/video person.

At one time, folks believed that 4K resolutions had enough pixels to adequately scan all the detail out of a film print, but now we’ve got 8K and 10K masters. Still, in home environments and at typical display viewing distances, it’s really hard to see a dramatic difference between 4K and 1080p. 4K is even enough pixels to project on a large screen.

It has a little bit of improvement, but not much. The 4K is the horizontal number of pixels, while the 1080p is the vertical number. A common resolution for 4K is 3840*2160 pixels, and a common one for 1080p is 1920*1080 pixels. Both have 16:9 aspect ratio, 16 horizontal pixels for each 9 vertical pixels. By comparison, the old VGA standard is 640*480 pixels, with an aspect ratio of 4:3.

 Graphics display resolution and  List of common resolutions have a big list of computer-display sizes, ranging from the teeny tiny to these sizes and larger.
Best 4K Monitors 2019: the best Ultra HD screens for your PC | TechRadar
The Best 4K Monitors for 2019: Reviews by Wirecutter | A New York Times Company

I will now calculate how worthwhile this high resolution is. Normal 20/20 or 6/6 visual acuity is about 60 pixels per degree of arc ( Visual acuity), or 1 pixel per minute of arc. 4000 pixels translates into about 60 degrees across in one's field of view. That corresponds to a view distance that is close to the width of the display. So 4K width is not much improvement over 2K width, and 8K width will likely have no improvement.

Will this mean that monitors will stop at 4K?

 

[lpetrich]

The other feature that my links mentioned is HDR,  High dynamic range. That works by extending the range of brightness values over what one typically gets with 8-bit color channels. That's  High-dynamic-range imaging,  High-dynamic-range rendering,  High-dynamic-range video

It uses at least 10-bit color depth, and it can make light-dark contrasts noticeably greater than for 8-bit color depth.

Here also, it may be close to perceptual limits.

 

[steve_bank]

The limit is the ability to shrink the size of the leds. Color is limited by the number of bits.
Most people see a limited number of shades. Artists tend to see more shades of color.

As resolution increases it becomes more difficult to objectively quantify increases visual quality. When I worked on digityasl video we'd sit around in a group watching videos and try to agree on the best settings of the system, like color balance.

The real differences can be seen in high sped motion which is affected by bit rate and frame rate..

For me it is always cost benefit. I don't play games and I am not picky on video quality beyond a certain point.

The only way to judge for your self is with a side by side comparison with different video sources. And that can be difficult.

 

[steve_bank]

Something else came to mind. You should be able to find a downloadable standard video test pattern that cantains series of lines you can use to access resolution.

Used to have a copy of this book on the shelf at work. Everything you want to know about video. Cheap older editions.

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/video...YAyABEgKd7vD_BwE#isbn=0750678224&idiq=4818876

Something else as well. One of the ways we accessed video quality was looking at crowd scenes, like long shots of a crowd at a football game. How much detail you could see.