With the arrival of the new year, so will also the first tvs certified as ‘8K Ultra HD’; a label that seeks to identify the screens capable of reproducing images with high quality 8K real. But, does that mean that the models that until now have been marketed as 8K they are not? Not exactly.

For the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the same association that organizes every year the CES in Las Vegas, for a tv to be able to play back images with this quality it is necessary that, in addition to resolution (7.680 x 4.320 pixels to achieve a total of 33 million), to comply with another set of characteristics. For example, should have video processors that are capable of moving all the information and be able to convert the videos with lower quality: it is still complicated to enjoy content 8K native, so that the tv will be mostly series, movies and shows with 4K resolution in the best of cases.

Also requires that you be able to play at 50 frames per second and 10 bits (a variable that measures the depth of the color), as well as that provides a modulation of contrast (CM) of more than 50%: this feature can be defined as the precision with which they are distinguishable pixels. The higher the number, the better.

“The definition 8K UHD is the product of the dedication and hard work of our video division. Thanks to this, manufacturers and consumers know that products with this logo offer quality and performance 8K UHD,” said Gary Shapiro, president and chief executive officer of the CTA, in the press release announcing the stamp.

Few models

But it is a set of services that, for the moment, they meet very few models and manufacturers. “Get those 33 million pixels is the easy part, but the video format 8K are not only still images but also in motion. That's why, if we keep the resolution, but instead of displaying 50 frames per second down to 25, and in addition we take fewer samples, and we use fewer bits in each of them, we work with the same amount of information that a 4K”, explains Luis Navarrete, product specialist consumer electronics LG Electronics Spain. The firm has posted to hype their tv sets —both OLED as NanoCell— will be the first to display this logo.

however, major manufacturers like Samsung, which sell models with resolution 8K for little over a year, do not show this identification of time as your televisions do not meet the characteristics established by the CTA in which modulation of contrast is concerned. “With the arrival of a new technology, there must be a homogenization of criteria. And the certification of the CTA has a measurement of modulation contrast which is not standardized, so the results are not conclusive”, reason, Nacho Monge, director of Marketing of Samsung AV Iberia.

In fact, since the Korean company sent to the 8K Association, a non-profit association driven by several manufacturers, among which is the own brand, but also Panasonic or Hisense. This body has created its own label, with technical requirements similar, even though it leaves of side the modulation and contrast, however, requests that exceed the 600 nits of luminance.

do we need 8K?

all this Said, what the user is going to notice the difference between a tv 8K, and a 4K? If it comes to still images, the experts agree to say yes. But in the case of videos, the answer is not so simple. “The human eye is not able to appreciate more clearly that which already offers 4K due to the limits of visual acuity. In addition, taking as a reference a tv of 65 inches, we would have to place us at least 1.2 meters of distance to be able to tell them apart,” explains Navarrete. Other variables such as the number of frames per second is noticeable and directly influences the fluidity of the images.