Large-screen TVs have become popular with 4K resolution, so why can’t Chinese people use it?

As early as 2013, major TV manufacturers have successfully defined the concept of "4K" as the future development trend of the consumer electronics industry. Facts have proved that in recent years, the concept of 4K has indeed been widely popularized. Whether in terms of equipment or resources, 4K has become a benchmark and deeply rooted in the hearts of consumers.

4K devices are developing very rapidly in China. Compared with other markets, Chinese consumers are quite enthusiastic about 4K devices. Especially in the field of TV, the price of 4K products is getting more and more favorable. When the price difference with 1080P products is not big, many people move this most avant-garde product from the store to the living room. However, after several years of development, 1080P devices are still the main force in the market. Although new 4K products are constantly released and prices are constantly falling, the market feedback has not improved.

What is the reason for this market phenomenon? Although we can buy 4K ultra-high-definition TVs everywhere, what do we plan to watch when we bring the TV home and turn it on? After all, the current mainstream domestic HDTV signals and online streaming content are mainly 720P or 1080p. In this case, the extra pixels of 4K have no gain. So today let's talk about why 4K is difficult to popularize?

Signal transmission reform is the key issue

There has always been a big problem with the transmission of 4K signals. Due to the huge amount of data in 4K images, traditional TV signal transmission methods cannot support the transmission of 4K images. At this stage, especially in China, the popularization of high resolution has always been a problem. Many families are still watching analog signals, most of which are 720P, and even 1080P images cannot be achieved.

Some friends may ask, wouldn't it be better to just transform the existing transmission cables? This idea is still difficult to achieve in China. First of all, the transformation area is too large. After decades of development, the city's TV lines have long been in chaos. Re-laying the cables requires coordination with many departments, especially for some old communities. The difficulties encountered in the transformation are even more difficult to solve.

Moreover, the cost of such a large-scale transformation is unaffordable for many suppliers. At the same time, many current users may not be willing to access such a high-resolution system. Therefore, the traditional transmission method cannot solve the current 4K transmission problem, which is also one of the problems that make 4K difficult to popularize.

The problem of insufficient 4K video sources needs to be solved

In addition to transmission issues, resource issues are also a major obstacle to the popularization of 4K. 4K movies are highly sought after in today's society, but there are very few 4K movies that we can actually enjoy in theaters. Although the resolution of our display devices is constantly improving, there are currently very few 4K sources. This makes our display devices useless.

In addition, there are only more than 2,000 4K screens worldwide, and even fewer in China. Major cinemas mainly play 2K movies, and if it is not emphasized visually, ordinary audiences cannot accurately distinguish which is 4K and which is 2K. Therefore, there are very few 4K sources at present.

The storage is too large and the update download time is long

The problem of storage is also obvious. Because 4K has a huge amount of data, the storage space requirement is very demanding. Users need to prepare a device with a large space to store 4K resources. Every time the content is updated, it takes a long time to search and download, which makes many users very upset.

In fact, the storage pressure of 4K images comes more from the production end. For TV programs, due to various objective conditions, the original footage is generally chaotic, and the shooting order may not conform to the prescribed procedures. Many contents are interspersed, and some may be re-shot later. In order to make a complete set of documentary films, the principle of eliminating the coarse and retaining the fine, eliminating the false and retaining the true, must be followed. The first draft tape recorded on site must be edited and sorted. In this way, the size of the entire video increases a lot.

In fact, for ordinary users, there are many ways to store 4K sources. For example, you can purchase Blu-ray discs to store movies and TV series. Although the current capacity of Blu-ray discs is still a bit insufficient for 4K movies, the capacity in the future can be increased by improving the wavelength of the laser light source and the numerical aperture of the objective lens, and the capacity of multi-layer Blu-ray discs can also be greatly increased.

Broadband is too slow to achieve 4K live broadcast

In recent years, live broadcasting can be said to be one of the most popular words. Live broadcasts of various evening parties and large-scale events can be seen everywhere. Previously, there was news that Japan would try to use 8K signals to broadcast the 2020 Tokyo Olympics live, which attracted a lot of attention. However, judging from the current domestic situation, the 8K experience will be far away from us, because we can hardly even achieve 4K live broadcasting now.

The main reason why 4K live broadcasting is difficult to achieve in China is broadband. As early as the 2014 Brazil World Cup, the BBC's 4K live broadcast of 60 frames per second required a bandwidth of 36Mbps, which is what we often call 36M broadband. Recalling that the average Internet speed in China at that time was only about 10M.

According to a report in 2015, the download speed of my country's fixed broadband network reached 8.34Mbit/s, which was the first time that my country's broadband download speed exceeded 8Mbit/s. Although the country has been advocating the policy of "speeding up and reducing fees" in recent years, it has basically reached 20M optical fiber. However, it is still a long way from watching 4K live broadcasts.

Summary of the full text:

The popularization of 4K resolution is of course an inevitable trend in the future of the entire display industry. People have always wanted to watch 4K. However, it is still unknown when 4K resolution will be popularized in China. From the initial outbreak to the current high opening and low closing, it can be said that the popularization of 4K resolution has encountered many problems. Now the domestic 4K technology can be said to be mature, and how the relevant departments reform and promote it will be the key to solving these problems.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.