But more importantly, I didn’t get a ton out of the extra resolution. Granted, I was standing really close to the screen, but if we’re going to be talking about normal living room distances, it’s hard to imagine 8K being noticeable over 4K for most people in that kind of situation, even assuming a lack of broadcast compression. Some scenes in
2001 definitely look crisper than others, something I noticed while watching the IMAX version, and there were moments where the 8K resolution stood out. But there were others where it was barely noticeable. After watching the 8K broadcast, I compared it to the 4K iTunes version at home, and honestly I don’t think there’s all that much to separate them in practice.
At normal viewing distance on my 55-inch 4K TV, the Apple TV 4K version basically out-resolves my (good) eyesight; there are several scenes with text on computer monitors that I’d need to move closer to the TV to be able to read. I’m not convinced that the NHK version’s jump in detail, when it exists, would be enough to outweigh the effect of stretching the image onto such a large 8K TV. When you take bitrate into account, I wouldn’t be surprised if the 4K Blu-ray looked noticeably better overall. (Side note that probably goes without saying: I would
love to watch this 8K scan playing off local media.)