Being a young adult born in the 90’s, I’m sure some people would still class me as a child, I’ve been around technology all my life. Growing up tech has slowly begun to take over our lives, and tech itself has evolved massively. I’ve started to take more of an interest in tech itself as I’ve got older and as such I tend to follow everything that happens at CES every year. For those of you who don’t know, CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is a globally known electronics and technology trade show with more than 3,600 exhibitors and has been running for more than 40 years. Oh, and it’s held in Las Vegas, so you can imagine everyone wants to be there. The best thing about CES is that most big technology companies use CES as the stage to announce their new, next generation innovations.
4K is one of the Hot Topics
Looking at all the news coming out from the press day and day 1 at CES, it’s looking like 4k is one of the hot topics. It’s only early doors but already we’ve seen a couple of pretty spectacular TV’s, most notably from Sharp with their ‘Beyond 4K’ range which gets you 66 million sub pixels instead of the usual 42 million. I doubt it’s going to be realistically affordable for your average home, however it would be some pretty crisp viewing. What’s blowing my mind is the fact that LG have gone a trumped everyone with an 8K TV, which is seriously just too much and for another day.
The main thing that I’m interested in though, is that 4K is coming to the consumer friendly video camera. Sony have revealed the Handycam FDR-AX433, which features not only 4K filming, but 4K photo capturing as well as Balanced Optical SteadyShot. The camera is going to retail at $1,100, which probably means they’ll retail at about £800 over in the UK, and comes out in March. Alongside Sony, Panasonic have also launched a consumer friendly 4K camera in the shape of the WX970, which features a second camera for picture-in-picture video, as well as HDR Movie which records two exposures at different speeds then merges the two together, which then optimises highlights and shadows. It’s going to retail at pretty much the same price as the Sony, so that could be a good battle to watch.
Away from CES and more generally, I think 4K is definitely more in the public eye. But is it going to take off in 2015? I’m not sure. There are so many factors that make the switch to 4K for the average person so difficult. Once broadcasters have decided to make the big decision to start filming in 4K, then I’m sure the rise will happen rapidly. Currently though, some cinemas don’t even showcase films in 4K. I do see it becoming bigger than 3D, which in my eyes still hasn’t really gone anywhere notable, and I’m certainly rooting for 4K to make it mainstream because watching videos filmed in 4k, on a 4k monitor, can be breathtaking. I think it’s still a case of let’s wait and see though.
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