"Full HD" has been a fraud - the REAL TV revolution is coming now, says Gadget Show guru

“I was so disappointed when I saw Full HD for the first time. It was in 1989, and I met the inventor, and we knew this was where television was going for decades - but to me it just-looked grainy and foggy,” says Jason Bradbury.

"Its replacement  - Ultra HD - is the big buzz tech of 2014. For me, it's got the DNA of the big inventions in TV, like colour."

Full HD's days seem to be numbered - even though the sets have conquered British living rooms. 

The new, sharper resolution will allow TVs to show for the first time films as they were shot at the cinema, without digital manipulation ruining scenes. Ultra HD - also known as 4K - is around four times more detailed than Full HD, and  will be shown off at the World Cup - but televisions armed with what Bradbury describes as the biggest revolution in TV since colour are here already.

“Hi-def discs such as Blu-Ray are good for kids’ cartoons - Pixar stuff looks great on them, because it’s not real - but they’re no use for films,” says Jason Bradbury - speaking of the ‘Full HD’ televisions found in most British households.

For Bradbury, who admits he's a “serious” film buff, hi-def has been decades of disappointment - and the huge 84-inch “Ultra HD” set on display at The Gadget Show Live was among his first chances to see a film as it was actually shot. Even on Blu-Ray, films are digitally 'squeezed' to fit the format - and for real film buffs, it's not good enough.

Crucially, the Ultra HD sets on sale have dropped drastically in price - and for the first time, internet-TV services will ensure consumers dont have to ‘pick a side’ as they did between Blu-Ray and Betamax.
The World Cup won't be broadcast in 4K - British channels don't have the technology yet  - but Sony will shoot matches including the final in 4K, and show it off via televisions in Sony stores.

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Instead, ‘4K’ films will arrive via the internet, downloaded or streamed as with services such as Netflix today. US customers can already stream 4K films now via Netflix. As new resolutions appear (there are already Japanese sets with 8K), the streaming services will simply upgrade.

“You will notice the difference,” says Bradbury. “Turn on something like The Hobbit, and it’s a totally different experience. Every single live-action film in HD is ruined by technicians - you can see errors and blobs in action sequences - and this is the first time you can bring that cinema experience home.”

The new televisions - “Utra HD” - have roughly twice the vertical and horizontal detail as previous films, and are close in resolution to the cameras used to shoot films such as James Bond’s Skyfall. Although both DVD and HD sets were described as “cinematic” they fell far short of the resolutions used in digital film making.

The newest cinema films are already being shot on cameras whose resolution is close to 4K - the hairs on the feet of the stars of The Hobbit will bristle on the big screen courtesy of Peter Jackson’s 4K cameras - but until now, home systems simply couldn’t handle this level of detail, even on the poshest Blu-Ray players and priciest screens.

If TV companies plans come to fruition, it’ll be the first time that home television screens match up exactly to the footage shot by cinema directors.

It will also mean a dawn of a VERY big televisions. LG and Toshiba’s sets are so vast it feels like you’re looking at a monolith from Stonehenge.

Unlike most of the technologies TV companies try to foist on us - take, for example, Texas Instruments’ double-sided TV where families could watch two different shows at once, or indeed the daft glasses and endless, boring lycra-clad superheroes of 3D - there is a point to 4K. It’s gorgeous. You can stand six inches from the screen, and it looks like a glossy magazine page. Try as you might, you can’t see a single pixel.

“This is the big new thing for 2014,” says Bradbury. “I was there when Samsung showed off hi-def for the first time in 1989. I knew it wasn't enough. Of course TV companies are always trying to sell us new technology - look at 3D - but this feels like the birth of something new. It has the same DNA as the really big inventions in television.”

Spring of 2014 is likely to see this revolution hit British shops hard - with sets dropping in price dramatically, and films coming in 4K ‘Director’s Cuts’.

The one thing you will need is a pretty big living room - although 4K is spectacular close up, you need a big set to enjoy it at its best.

“The first sets will really start hitting British living rooms in the spring,” says Bradbury, “But you will need a big living room. In America, most people do. Here, you’ll need to be sure yours is up to scratch - to get the most out of 4K, you’ll need at least a 55-inch set, maybe more.”

"Ultra HD will be the buzzword - there are several resolutions above Full HD, but 4K will be the first - but of course, all the films I'm going to mention will be really dated by the time you buy your set. Iron Man 3 will blow you away. So will The Hobbit, Director's Cut  - although god knows how long that will be."

"As soon as you see it, you know. Scenes lack clarity. I have not seen a single live-action Hollywood film where I couldn't see 'compression artifacts' [digital glitches] on screen. It's been a disgrace for real film fans."