CES 2015: What Is A 4K TV And Why Should I Care About Them?

The TV market has been in search of the next big thing for years. In the past 20 years, we've gone from big and boxy to thin and wide.

But since the introduction of high-definition content, getting people to go out and drop $2,000 on a new TV hasn't been an easy sale. There's been a push recently to keep the TV from becoming that dumb monitor people buy every five to 10 years and don't upgrade, unlike the devices they're plugging into it. Smart TVs were once seen as a possible savior, but didn't catch consumers' imaginations as much as the industry would have hoped.

Instead, at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show, TV manufacturers have dusted off their strategy from a decade ago and doubled down on a push for more pixels with 4K TV.

Forgive me, there will be numbers.

The idea of 4K TVs has been floating around for a few years, and you've probably them on display at Best Buy or other electronics stores. The industry standard for 4K is a picture at 4096 pixels by 2160 pixels, but a lot of manufacturers will use the phrase "Ultra-High Definition" interchangeably, despite only being 3840 pixels by 2160 pixels.

For comparison's sake, the HD TV you're paying the cable company an extra $10 a month to watch is coming in at 1920 by 1080 pixels. This means 4K will give you roughly four times that resolution, and will make the 480 lines of resolution from a standard definition set look like a warm turd.

Now if you're salivating at the idea of all those pixels, you're looking at dropping a nice chunk of change on a large TV. The big problem thus far though is one that cropped up in the early HD days—where is the content? Companies are lining up to set standards for the next-generation of video, but chances are, if you bring a 4K TV home today, there isn't going to be a lot of content outside of a few Netflix offerings (and boy your Internet provider is going to love you for that one) and a few other options, mostly along the lines of sweeping cityscapes and nature documentaries.

But CES as a trade show isn't meant to get you to run to the nearest electronics store and buy one of everything today. It's meant to set the tone for the year to come. Of course, it's up to consumers to vote with their wallets this holiday season—yes the one that is still nine to 11 months away, depending on which holidays you choose to skip over—what will be the next big thing.