[TENYKS]

is it pointless to record video in 4K if I only play it on 1080p TV or monitors?

Thanks!

[20blks]

You kinda answered your own question

[TENYKS]

You kinda answered your own question

wait, so which is it? (pointless or not pointless?)

[Northern.dj]

Pointless I have a 2013 non 4k samsung TV and even and the recorded footage refused to play on that.
If you have a TV that is under 55" you will not see any difference 4k was only ever invented for larger TV'S. But TV manufactures are now using it as a way of selling more of them just like they did with 3D

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[mountainman]

I wouldn't say its pointless. If these are videos you want to keep a long time, record them in 4K. Down the road when the prices drop you'll thank me.

[Cobravision]

I'm sure you'll eventually have a 4k set like everyone else. It's up to you if you want to futureproof.

If I know it's going to be a short clip, 4k allows you to extract 8.3mp screen captures. Otherwise, 1080p is fine.

[Rukbat]

Unless you sit pretty close to a large screen (at least 60 degrees from the left edge to the right edge, as you move your line of vision - about like sitting in the firsst row at a movie theater), you can't see the difference, even on a 4k TV. And if you sit that close, you're not really watching the video, you're looking at the quality. So take 4k videos just to see how fine-grained they are? Why?

(Some things are sold for the sake of making money, and have very little practical use. The guy who puts 95% of the mileage on his Porsche during the rush hour in Los Angeles could have saved a fortune buying a slower car. 4k is a bit finer than we really need, unless we're looking for tiny detail in a video - like the gnat on the flower petal 20 feet from the camera. And if we're looking to approximate film, it's not even close - 35mm film is about 1GP.)

[Chargeit]

It isn't pointless.

Videos us a compression method that means blocks of 4 pixels share color information.

A 1080p video playing on a 1080p display means that each pixel isn't getting its own color information.

A 4k video (4x the res) displayed on a 1080p TV has the color information in the video to instead send each pixel its own color information.


Pretty simple run down of it. If you're interested in finding out more about it I'd suggest looking up, "chroma subsampling".

I'm not and expert on the subject. Just know that it's worth it to watch 4k videos on a 1080p screen.

[LeoRex]

Well... yes.. garbage in, garbage out. A 4K video properly subsampled to 1080 will lead to better quality, but not everyone is a videographer. It's no different than having RAW support in the still modes. Yes, it's a cool feature, but its also a cool feature that appeals to a very select crowd. For the general public, they probably wouldn't even know what a RAW file is, nevermind be able to do anything with it.

One last thing to keep in mind is that even though we live in an age of increased storage and large bandwidth, uncompressed video is still a bit of a rare find. And it'll be a bit resource-intensive to keep all those 4K videos around. A minute of 4K video will suck up... what.... 3G+, depending on the type that gets saved.

I'm not saying its pointless overall, far from it. Having the option there is awesome. But for a lot of people and how they will end us using their phones, it is pointless.