4K or 8K TVs Offer No Distinguishable Benefit Over Similarly Sized 2K Screen in Average Living Room, Scientists Say

Many modern living rooms are now dominated by a huge television, but researchers say there might be little point in plumping for an ultra-high-definition model. From a report: Scientists at the University of Cambridge and Meta, the company that owns Facebook, have found that for an average-sized living room a 4K or 8K screen offers no noticeable benefit over a similarly sized 2K screen of the sort often used in computer monitors and laptops. In other words, there is no tangible difference when it comes to how sharp an image appears to our eyes.

'At a certain viewing distance, it doesn't matter how many pixels you add. It's just, I suppose, wasteful because your eye can't really detect it,' said Dr Maliha Ashraf, the first author of the study from the University of Cambridge. Ashraf and colleagues, writing in the journal Nature Communications, report how they set about determining the resolution limit of the human eye, noting that while 20/20 vision implies the eye can distinguish 60 pixels per degree (PPD), most people with normal or corrected vision can see better than that. 'If you design or judge display resolution based only on 20/20 vision, you'll underestimate what people can really see,' Ashraf said. 'That's why we directly measured how many pixels people can actually distinguish.'

The team used a 27in, 4K monitor mounted on a mobile cage that enabled it to be moved towards or away from the viewer. At each distance, 18 participants with normal vision, or vision corrected to be normal, were shown two types of image in a random order. One type of image had one-pixel-wide vertical lines in black and white, red and green or yellow and violet, while the other was just a plain grey block. Participants were then asked to indicate which of the two images contained the lines. 'When the lines become too fine or the screen resolution too high, the pattern looks no different from a plain grey image,' Ashraf said. 'We measured the point where people could just barely tell them apart. That's what we call the resolution limit.'

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