Not sure if you can tell the difference between 4K and 8K? No worries, there’s now a badge to help you work it out.
Even though the first 8K TVs arrived last year, the next generation of Ultra HD won’t get properly interesting until this year, as 8K becomes a little more than a niche supported by some super expensive TVs.
Oh sure, 8K will still end up being the premium, because it’s the essentially the newest technology, but now that 8K has been out in the market for a good half year or so, it has the chance to make its way into more living rooms and home theatres, helped by the fact that 4K Ultra HD has become the new standard.
While you can still find standard HD and Full HD on some TVs, 4K is where you should typically be looking at a minimum, with some folks choosing 8K over it. Even though there is a total lack of 8K content in the world (at the time this was published), that won’t stop people from choosing the new high-end standard, especially if they want to be ready for very best in definition they can.
But outside of model numbers and confusing sales jargon, how will you know the difference between 4K and 8K?
If Samsung and the 8K Association (8KA) have their way, it seems a badge will give you all you need to know.
Ahead of CES 2020 next week, the two have announced a program that will deliver certification to identify and distinguish 8K TVs, and it’s not just a requirement of whether they can show a specific resolution.
While the 8K Ultra HD resolution of 7680×4320 needs to be displayed, the certification program for 8K also sets rules about support for HDMI 2.1, the High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC), and whether peak brightness is greater than 600nits, among other things.
8K TVs that pass this certification program will be able to show the 8K certified stamps (above), helping people to understand whether a TV is 8K certified, or whether it supports 8K without said certification.
“Our goal is to provide consumers with the ability to easily identify premium 8K displays from other devices when making purchasing decisions,” said Hyogun Lee, Executive Vice President of the Visual Display Business for Samsung.
“Home entertainment and TVs are important investments for many of our consumers, and we hope that the 8KA Certification Logo will help guide them.”
At the moment, Samsung appears to be the first with support for the 8K certification, thanks to its 8K QLED TVs, though we expect other companies will support the stamp soon enough.
