Is 8k dead? Dying?

This from the Michigan Production Alliance:
8K TV is officially dying, and the production industry should be relieved
LG Display just stopped making 8K panels. Sony killed their 8K TVs in April. TCL bailed in 2021. The 8K Association went from 33 members to 16, and doesn't include a single major panel supplier anymore.
The consumer electronics industry spent a decade pushing 8K as inevitable. They were wrong, and anyone working in production knows exactly why.
Yes, 8K capture gives you incredible flexibility in post. Extra resolution means better stabilization, reframing, and punch-ins without quality loss. For production workflows, it's genuinely useful.
But here's what the TV manufacturers never wanted to admit: we can't afford to deliver 8K to consumers right now, and most wouldn't benefit if we could.
The math is brutal:

RAM, vRAM, and SSD prices are at decade highs
Most AI tools barely function at 4K, let alone 8K
Moving that much data requires infrastructure that doesn't exist at scale
The average home internet connection can't reliably stream 8K.
Most content is CGI or will be AI-generated - do we really need to render synthetic imagery at 33 million pixels?

Even if you sit close enough to theoretically see the difference (which research shows is under 3 feet for a 50" display), there's virtually zero native 8K content to watch. We still don't have enough 4K content, and plenty of people are watching 1080p.

The industry tried the same playbook with 3D TVs. Pushed hard, predicted inevitability, then quietly discontinued everything when consumers didn't bite.
When fiber connections are standard in homes and processing costs drop by 70%, we can revisit consumer 8K. Until then, it's a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist outside production suites.
The TV industry just admitted what production professionals already knew.
8K for consumers was always about selling premium TVs, not solving real needs.

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