this is tcl's new x925 tv and it is
easily the biggest tv i've ever owned
both in terms of size and resolution
it's 8k i've reviewed this in a separate
video and you should definitely go check
that out but while i was using it it
definitely got me thinking about 8k
resolution and ak tvs and what they're
actually good for and the answer is
right now at least not much
let's start with resolution sizes so we
have full hd
4k and now 8k that's 16 times the number
of pixels of a full hd display so if
you're buying a new tv more resolution
equals better right you're getting more
content and the quality is going to be
better well not exactly the camera i'm
filming on can shoot up to 6k another
camera blackmagic makes shoots up to 12k
but all of those pixels aren't
necessarily made for the final product
they're for us the filmmakers we can
create these massive files with all of
these extra pixels and then use them to
reframe shots without losing quality so
keeping that in mind what do you think
happens when you do the opposite on an
8k tv
those extra pixels have to come from
somewhere
so what makes them up so this is me shot
in 6k displayed on an 8k screen the
extra pixels are the result of something
the tv does called upscaling it's way
more complicated than this but basically
each empty pixel will look at the
surrounding pixels and then use that
information to decide what color and
brightness it should be from there the
tv does some computational stuff on top
to smooth it out and make it all a
little bit more easy on the eye because
it's computational the quality of that
upscaling can differ greatly between tvs
and manufacturers and that's bound to
get more varied as some brands introduce
ai machine learning to that mix here i
think the 6k image looks great there is
not a whole lot of upscaling required as
we drop the resolution down to 4k the tv
is now having to upscale this image four
times and i think it still looks pretty
great it's once we drop down to 1080p
that i'm starting to see
a few pixels in this room that weren't
here before
here only 1 in every 16 pixels is from
the original video file the rest is the
tv making an educated guess
unfortunately sometimes that guess is
wrong and you end up with a pretty ugly
picture so the argument here is well
just watch 4k content where the
upscaling is actually good enough
and yeah that's fine but now you've got
another issue
if you're streaming it you're going to
have to deal with something called
compression a streaming service is not
going to be giving you a big file they
want your videos to load as quickly as
possible with zero buffering people hate
buffering and that's achieved by using
compression
it depends a little bit on which file
format you use but a general rule of
thumb is you can tell the quality of a
video by its bitrate high bit rates mean
higher quality and bigger files lower
bit rates mean lower quality and smaller
files both sides of this image are the
exact same resolution it's just that
this side is a higher bit rate than this
side so pretty much every streaming
service uses low bit rates to get their
files to you as fast as possible which
means even at 4k you're just not getting
an image that makes the most out of your
8k display it's doing a lot of guessing
based on a file that isn't 100 there
already so if you're subscribed to
particularly terrible streaming services
you end up with a tv viewing experience
like this
so where can you get your content well
the best place that i've found is uhd
discs there you can play back your
movies at 4k with a really high bit rate
and you don't have to rely on internet
speeds they are very expensive though
that's 37 for one title
i i mean
why would you do that the other option
is to download a uhd file they take up
about 80 gigabytes on your hard drive
and as far as i know no one actually
sells these so you need to know where to
look
yo well toby you ask what about 8k video
that's why most people would want one of
these right well besides in those cinema
cameras i was talking about 8k video is
virtually non-existent
similar to 4k which launched in 2012 the
tech to capture store and broadcast 8k
footage will eventually become more
ubiquitous over time but right now it is
just way too expensive there are no
discs that can play ak movies streaming
platforms don't do it and it also
requires so much data that the current
internet can barely handle it
i couldn't even get this 8k tv to
playback 8k files basically streaming 8k
video is completely off the table for
now and watching lower resolution
streams on an 8k device also isn't ideal
right now a 4k tv is more than enough
it's really well built for our current
distribution platforms and most of them
are broadcasting in 1080p still anyway
okay so why are we being sold at ktvs
first well to sell more stuff as these
tv manufacturers are getting better at
producing this sort of stuff they want
to sell it to us and hey it exists
already it's just the underlying tech to
actually get that content to audiences
that isn't quite accessible yet you can
upload ak videos to youtube so there is
infrastructure and japan
does actually have an ak tv channel now
but you do need special expensive
equipment to actually receive the
broadcast considering we barely do 4k tv
here in australia something like that is
a long way off if ever the second is
video games we already have the tech to
display 8k video games so long as you
have the best computer around when i was
testing this tv out on my pc with
i think pretty decent specs for gaming
it was really struggling to put out an
8k image on high graphics but it did do
it and the image was glorious if you do
have the money for an 8k tv and an 8k
gaming pc you are going to have a good
time no doubt about it it works and it
looks awesome both the ps5 and the xbox
series x are said to get 8k sometime in
the future and when that happens i think
ak tvs are going to become way more
popular third and finally ak tvs carry
more pixels per inch if you've ever sat
fairly close to a large 1080p screen you
may notice you begin to see the pixels
of the screen really well as tvs get
larger their pixels are stretched over a
larger canvas they've still got the same
pixels per inch if they have the same
resolution so ak tvs have a lot of
pixels and can get super big so pixels
per inch don't matter so much on smaller
screens where they're all packed really
tightly together but as tvs get bigger
having a resolution like this is really
helpful even if you don't have the
content for it aktvs are here and they
are very likely here to stay right now i
don't think they're worth investing in
but i do hope that technology advances
quick enough that this video is soon
obsolete maybe upscaling ai will be so
good that it's imperceptible from the
real thing we're already seeing great
work being done in that space from the
big names in tv manufacturing maybe data
transfer and internet speeds will have a
breakthrough or hey maybe we'll discover
a revolutionary new compression format
that makes ak video way easier to
capture store and stream
okay so i might not be too bullish on 8k
tvs but this tv is an absolute beast and
it has so much more behind the tech than
just 8k it's got hdr uh quantum dot
technology mini led the best speaker
i've ever heard out of a tv
i do really enjoy using this thing and
if you want to know a bit more about
this tv i would really recommend you go
and watch my review on that that i did
last week
yeah i hope to see you there until next
time i would highly recommend that you
go and watch a 1080p stream on an actual
1080p screen while you still can
because
technology is just it's coming for us
all
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