- More than anything else,
CES is always a show about new TVs.
From 4K HDR TVs that roll up when
you're not watching anymore, all the way
to transparent prototypes.
The week that we spend here is a showcase
for the present and the far-off future.
But 8K, the hottest trend at CES 2019
is still little more than a fantasy.
Don't get me wrong, 8K TVs are very real.
You can walk into a store today with $5,000
and buy one for yourself.
And here at CES, we're seeing a whole new wave
from Samsung, Sony, LG, and more companies.
But listen, the idea that anyone should buy
an 8K TV today is sheer stupidity.
There's just no content.
Your favorite Hollywood films
and your favorite Netflix shows,
they don't exist in 8K, and there's no sign
that's gonna change this year or next.
Let me start off by acknowledging that 8K TVs
are an incredible technical achievement.
They have 33 million pixels,
which means you can get your face
right up in there, real close,
and you can't make out individual pixels.
It's more true-to-life than ever before
and genuinely feels like you're staring through a window,
not some giant TV screen.
But see, that right there is your first problem.
You're gonna need a really big TV
to tell any difference between 4K and 8K.
55-inch TVs won't do the jobs, 65-inch won't work.
We're talking 75 inches and above.
And here at CES, companies are going
bigger and bigger and bigger.
Sony just announced a 98-inch LCD TV,
and LG has an 88-inch OLED.
I don't even want to think about
how much those will cost.
That's just one example.
Samsung's 82-inch QLED 8K TV runs $10,000.
But the most pressing problem facing 8K is content,
because there's just none of it.
Honestly, right now your best hope
is maybe some MKV-HD videos in 8K
or random YouTube scissor reels.
There's just not a lot happening.
From Netflix to Amazon to Hulu,
no one's announced any firm plans
to stream anything in 8K, and most films,
even when they're shot in 4K, get mastered down in 2K.
And as for cable TV or satellite, well,
how much do you watch in 4K on those things right now?
Exactly.
There's virtually nothing.
Now, Samsung and Sony and all of these companies
are gonna tell you that AI can help upscale
4K content so it looks just like 8K.
But I'm not convinced.
The quality's not quite the same,
but if spending $10,000 to watch drone footage
or nature YouTube content is your kind of thing,
by all means, buy an 8K TV.
Maybe the time Avatar Two comes out someday,
this will all be better, but right now it's not.
I don't trust it, and neither should you.
Now, having said all of that,
there's definitely some TV tech here at CES
that is worth getting very excited over.
I mean, did you see LG's rollable TV?
I think it's unreal.
And Apple's Airplay Two is coming
to all the latest TVs, from brands like
Samsung, Vizio, LG, and Sony.
That's a big deal, and the payoff is coming
this year as opposed to sometime down the line.
And finally, we're seeing many TVs
make the long-waited upgrade to HDMI 2.1,
and that lets much more data pass through
the HDMI cable so you can watch
4K at 120 frames per second,
or 8K at 60 frames per second.
Now yes, that means we're all gonna have to
buy new HDMI cables at some point in the future,
but right now you're fine.
All this leads to the future.
There are new technologies on the way,
and the most exciting one to me, far and away,
is called Micro LED.
Micro LED has the potential
to be even better than OLED,
which is the best picture quality on the market right now.
It has millions of tiny, self-emissive LEDs
that put out a superior picture
with none of OLED's drawbacks,
like burn-in or natural degradation over time.
Micro LED displays are modular,
so you can make them in any size,
any aspect ratio, or any resolution that you want.
Last year we saw Samsung's giant The Wall,
and for 2019 they're showing off a 4K Micro LED TV
that can actually fit inside your living room.
Now, it's gonna be a while before you or I
can buy a Micro LED TV.
These displays require a painstaking,
precise manufacturing process,
and few companies can do that at scale right now.
But it's still damn exciting, because we, I,
have been waiting for a true OLED-killer for years now,
and it's almost here.
It is fun to get excited about the future.
That's what CES is all about.
But if you plan to buy a new TV
either this year or next, you should go 4K
without even considering anything else.
I am a self-professed home theater nerd all the way.
I want 8K to do very well.
But now is not the time to buy
or even consider an 8K TV.
The cart has gotten so far ahead of the horse
that it's silly.
There's just no content to watch
on these amazing-looking TVs.
All of these companies keep making
more and more 8K TVs because they can.
They look great, but they're coming out
before anybody else is ready for it.
Hey, thank you so much for watching
all of our CES coverage this week.
We're starting to wind things down,
but for all of our great tech videos,
as always, subscribe at youtube.com/theverge.