It seems like TVs are going the same way that razors went back in the 90s. Once upon a time, razors all came with one blade. Then, some marketing genius got the idea to sell double-bladed razors that promised a shave twice as close. They were a hit. The next logical evolution was the triple-bladed razor. Thankfully, they seem to have left it at three blades.
Marketers seem to be in charge of TV definition too. HD TV was all the rage about ten years ago. Then, 4K TV came along and increased the pixel count to 4 times that of a full HD TV, which was mind-boggling the first you saw it. 8K doubles the pixel count of 4K, and that’s where we run into a problem.
Shortage of Content
To fully appreciate the quality of an 8K TV image, you have to have content that’s broadcast in 8K. There’s very little to no content available that’s shot with 8K cameras and transmitted in an 8K format.
8K TVs have to ‘upscale’ 4K content to fit their screen, which improves the picture quality somewhat but isn’t really 8K.
Buying an 8K TV at this point means you’re betting that the broadcast industry will adopt the 8K broadcast standard at some point in the future, hopefully before your TV gets too old and has to be replaced.
Some people say that 8K TVs are a perfectly logical investment if you’re talking about TVs that are above a 75-inch diagonal screen. But not everyone can afford this size TV, and not everyone has a room big enough to comfortably hold a screen that large.
Until broadcast standards catch up with TV quality, our recommendation is to only invest in 8K if you have the facilities to handle a very large TV. For any other application, 4K is good enough.
