Originally posted by Rondec How long has it been that HD video was the standard to shoot for? Surely 8K will come along and it will up the floor with 4K and folks will want to shift again.
I don't honestly know how many folks really have a 4K compatible screen at this point. It feels like the shift will actually be gradual and slower than you think.
Like you said, 4K is being adopted only gradually. But I believe that it is here to stay. How long is a valid question, but it's pretty irrelevant. If/when 8K does come and replace 4K, then 1080P videos will look like postage stamps at that point, while 4K will hold up much better.
Go back and look at some of your old videos shot on early digital cameras at 640x480. They look pretty pathetic now blown up on today's much larger, much higher resolution screens. It will be a similar experience watching your old 1080p "HIGH DEFINITION!!!" videos 10 years from now on your 70" 4K TV, or 30 years from now on your 100+" 8K TV.
But as to your first question, HD has been around for a while now. I bought my first HDTV about 12 years ago (a 51" Sony Bravio rear-projection CRT monster). And HDTV had already been around for a good while at that point. My first HDTV device was actually a Hauppauge PC video card that I bought for my computer a few years earlier.
So HDTV has actually had some staying power, and as you pointed out, it's still going strong. We're still waiting for 4K Blu-ray, and real 4K broadcasts are probably still a long ways off. So when 4K does finally arrive in force, I don't expect it to pass by so quickly.