8K TVs are here, offering four times the number of pixels as 4K screens.
It's great in theory, but right now you'll have a hard time finding 8K content, and there isn't much point in getting a new TV if you don't have a way to really show it off.
The same was true when 4K emerged, and if 8K follows a similar trajectory, you'll likely be limited to demo footage and nature documentaries for a few years before you see any of your favorite movies or shows in the format.
But if you're reading this, chances are you're an early adopter who already has an 8K TV or is planning to buy one, and we're not about to let you settle for low-res content.
With that in mind, here's how you can watch 8K media right now.
Upconverted Content
Let's be real: For the next several years, the vast majority of "8K" video will be upscaled 4K and lower-resolution content.
1080p and 4K media will be converted by your 8K TV with image processing.
Fundamentally, upconverted (also called upscaled) content can't look as good as native resolution content.
Image processing can do some amazing things, but it can't synthesize all the details that are missing in a picture.
Fortunately, from most viewing positions, the jump from 4K to 8K isn't as radical as the jump from 1080p to 4K.
There's more wiggle room that can help keep upconverted video from looking like a blotchy mess (though if you're upconverting from 480p to 8K, you're trying to find details in a picture 110 times bigger than the original, and even the best image processing won't help much).
According to Joel Silver, founder and CEO of Imaging Science Foundation, this is one of the biggest appeals of 8K: "The potential for the [image] processing to smooth out legacy content is very real.
I do say 'potential,' because you've got to have superb processing with lots of memory."
All three major TV manufacturers with 8K TVs have been working on 8K upconversion with their own image processors.
LG has the Alpha 9 Gen 2 Intelligent Processor 8K; Samsung uses the Quantum Processor 8K; and Sony has the X1 Ultimate processor with 8K X-Reality Pro.
They vary in the fine details of how they process pictures, but they all use some form of learning algorithm and AI image processing that accesses databases of sample images to best determine where contours should be in lower-resolution video.
We've seen demos of all three 8K conversion processes, but so far, the only one we've been able to fully test has been LG's on its SM9970 and Z9P TVs.
When upconverting 4K content, these TVs do a very good job of making the picture look sharper on their 8K panels.
They don't work magic, but the video is nicely crisp, with few noticeable processing artifacts or blotches like we've seen on older upconversion from lower resolutions.
YouTube
Technically, YouTube supports 8K video.
Users can upload footage at resolutions up to 7,680 by 4,320, and YouTube will process it, store it, and play it back on any player that can support that resolution.
When that's the case, the HD settings in the YouTube window show "4,320p 8K" at the very top as a playback option.
You'll need to use a PC, though; no media streamers support 8K output yet.
Currently 8K video on YouTube is mostly landscape footage, such as vistas of Japan and Norway at 8K60 (8K video at 60 frames per second).
Not much else has been shot in 8K, and even less has been uploaded.
That said, don't expect to be able to watch any 8K60 footage on YouTube at 8K, or even at 60 frames per second.
Even when it's downscaled, the player has to process massive video files to get them to your screen.
An 8K YouTube video I tried to play on my laptop took almost half a minute to load, and when it started playing, it jerked along at maybe five frames per second.
Of course, my office laptop is fairly modest; your gaming PC might be able to handle 8K video much better.
PC Games and Consoles
You can run nearly anything on a powerful PC, and you can really crank the resolution when you know what settings to tweak.
So in theory, you can play some PC games at 8K, but that's easier said than done.
Even if your PC can play games at 8K (older titles such as Half-Life 2 or Counter-Strike: Source can probably play very well at 8K resolution on a modern gaming PC), you're going to have an issue hooking your PC up to any display that can handle 8K.
No graphics cards currently support HDMI 2.1, which is required for 8K, so you can't just use a single cable to connect your PC to an 8K TV.
Instead you need to use DisplayPort, and the DisplayPort 1.4 in current graphics cards is limited in the kind of 8K it can transmit (both in frame rate and bit depth).
Like HDMI 2.1 devices, DisplayPort 2.0 cards with 8K support should start to come out next year.
We're probably closest to seeing accessible 8K content in the form of console games by the end of this year, when the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are expected to ship.
The next generation of Sony and Microsoft consoles can supposedly output 8K graphics, but we'll believe it when we see it.
Keep Waiting
As we said, it's going to be at least a few years until your favorite movies and shows are available in 8K, whether they're shot in that resolution or remastered.
It's also going to be a while before you can play any games in 8K in a way that doesn't require a $6,000 PC and a strong-enough background in computers that you probably qualify for some form of IT certification.
So if you buy an 8K TV in 2020, get ready for a lot of upconverted video while you wait for anything else to watch or play on it.
