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Sony Develops TVs That Zoom in for True Close-ups

Posted by samzenpus on from the examine-her-on-the-cellular-level dept.

prakslash writes "Sony has unveiled version 2 of its 'Digital Reality Creation' technology that allows viewers to pan around a TV image and then zoom in. Unlike the current TVs that simply scale the image, Sony's technology does 'true' zooming by digitally enhancing the signal to communicate gloss, depth and texture.

16 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Sometimes, you don't want to see the gloss. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    digitally enhancing the signal to communicate gloss, depth and texture

    Ya know, I was going to make the obvious joke, then I realized that what I'm thinking about, I actually *don't* want to zoom in on. Some things are best left to the imagination, lest you see the reality (and the bumps and blisters and pimples). Ewww.

    So, umh, this would be cool for zooming in on puppies and stuff. Yeah.

  2. Digital Zoom is a MYTH! by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Informative

    I refuse to accept "digital zoom" as being any better than just putting a magnifying glass next to the same old low res image.

    Come on, it's trying to create data that just plain isn't coming from the original source, therefore it's nothing but guess and check logic. Sure it my smooth out what it thinks is a rough edge... but that's still only guessing and making up detail that just wasn't there.

    1. Re:Digital Zoom is a MYTH! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Dude, don't you watch any of those crime dramas? Digital zoom is the greatest thing since sliced bread. With digital zoom and special software you can enhance a single pixel into the killers face!

    2. Re:Digital Zoom is a MYTH! by fajaboard · · Score: 5, Informative
      If you are familiar with any image processing algorithms then you might find digital zooming easier to swallow. There is a lot of mathematics and statistics involved.

      In fact, it may not only smooth out but actually create rough edges not in the original. Think of the case recently where the girl was kidnapped and the FBI enhanced the kidnapper's image from the crappy surveliance tape.

      The article doesn't specify if it zooms a frozen screen (like a paused image) or during a sequence. Either way it could use past information from previous image frames to enhance the result.

      Its one of those things that you need to actually see to believe the hype.

    3. Re:Digital Zoom is a MYTH! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Specifically, look at http://www.sigcom.net/PDF/SIGCOMTPS.pdf, http://www.ece.gatech.edu/research/labs/MCCL/pubs/ dwnlds/YucelITVT02.pdf, or any google search for subpixel video image enhancement.

      The basic idea is to use statistical methods over a series of slightly "jittered" video frames to create a high resolution or high quality still image. When an image in front of the camera is shifted by a non integer number of pixels, the images are lined up exactly with each other so that the edges of pixels overlap each other. Taking the average of these sup-pixel overlapped images at a higher resolution yields a higher quality image than the simple mosaic or blur you would get by scaling or interpolation. If the physical shape and response function of individual camera "pixels" is known, even more accuracy can be contained. The method can probably even be applied to rotating or enlarging/shrinking images of objects as well, but with more complex mathematical models for the motion and camera viewing transformation

      A generic system as described in the article probably uses the frequency information about the image to construct the textures, but it wouldn't be difficult (but processor intensive) to track translational sub-pixel movement of objects and apply the above process to increase the resolution. MPEG already takes advantage of the fact that more compression for fast changes in an image are unlikely to be noticed, so it wouldn't have to improve the moving parts, just the 8x8 blocks that have B frames, since they are relatively unchanging. I bet they will even get a patent on the process, despite the fact that it's been published and I can think up most of the rest within a few minutes...

  3. OK by pHatidic · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow and I thought FCC regulations were the only thing to come out of Janet Jackson's boobies. It goes to show that pornography still provides the incentive for innovation for all major developing technologies. It's actually a little known fact that the people offering the incentives for new space elevator technology are only doing so in hopes of losing their virginity in it one day.

  4. 'True Zoom' by RobPiano · · Score: 5, Insightful

    True zoom is a bit of a stretch.. The only way you could have a true zoom is if you have a higher resolution digital image to look at, or an analog image... This produce creates sophisticated, but generated results. There is nothing true about it.

    Regardless, this is one of those features that "sounds nice", but I think its the company telling the consumer what to want rather than vice versa. Never once have I wanted to zoom in on a modern or high def television image.

  5. digital zoom vs real zoom by randomized · · Score: 5, Informative

    real zoom requires additional information, ie higher resolution than tv is capable of displaying. all attempts at "simulation" of higher resolution will result in digital zoom artifacts, that we all are familiar with.

    unless tv has lower resolution than broadcast quality this is as fake as 200X DIGITAL ZOOM.

    --
    -- shortcut - the longest distance between two points.
  6. Re:PVR by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yet all DVRs on the market currently use MPEG compression to put more data on the HD at the expense of video quality... so, they're not even storing all the video in that came from the original TV station feed to begin with. I'm not quite sure what Sony's magic tech will do when asked to zoom in on an MPEG artifact...

  7. 4 year old dvd player by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    my 4 year old dvd player has 16x zoom. big deal. used it once.

  8. official press release by phreakv6 · · Score: 5, Informative

    for those of u wondering which one of Sony's model would come out with this technology.. its SONY WEGA series.. check out the official press release

    --
    fifteen jugglers, five believers
  9. Just another algorithm..... by HonkyLips · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's already at least 12 algorithms around for scaling up an image:

    http://www.digitalanarchy.com/toolbox/toolbox_re si zer.html

    I'm guessing that Sony have simply come up with another one. Regardless of what they claim, you can't "zoom in" on an image with a fixed resolution, you're always going to be using some type of interpolation and this will introduce digital artefacts.

    --
    Putting syrup in coffee is some form of blasphemy.
  10. Good existing zoom implementations by Clown+Jizz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Though it's easy enough to decry digital zoom as a gimmick, and in most cases it probably is, there are some (admittedly, highly specialized) implementations that produce really great results. Look at HQ4x ( http://www.hiend3d.com/hq4x.html )and its associated projects. It's primarily for images which don't breach 256 colors, of course, and it works best on simple shapes, but it's realtime, and it looks fantastic.

    1. Re:Good existing zoom implementations by grammar+fascist · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I figured I'd post my own results here.

      It's true that digital zoom can't replace information that was lost due to scaling and sampling. It's possible to get something reasonably close, though. There are a bunch of algorithms available for photographs, but their biggest problem seems to be execution time. It's not pretty.

      Here's mine. Please be kind to the server...

      I've gotten better-looking results since I put that together but I haven't had time to put them up yet. The slowest part of my algorithm requires solving a nonlinear system of nine equations for the least sum squared error per pixel. That's orders of magnitude slower than bicubic interpolation (which is standard).

      I don't know which interpolation algorithms are used for so-called digital zoom. Is there someone in the industry here that knows?

      --
      I got my Linux laptop at System76.
  11. I can see the ads now... by Fex303 · · Score: 5, Funny
    The new Sony's will feature magic Hand-Wavey Technology(TM) to suck information that wasn't in the orginal signal into your TV from outer space.

    It's not zoom, it's digital enhancement. Which is what zoom is. But this is different. Yeah, right.

    More marketing BS.

  12. I've always hated... by zarthrag · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...Sci-fi's that use arbitrary plot fixes on photos that lack the resolution they need by using a computer to "zoom in and enhance" the image. Sometimes it's so ridiculous that I wanna belch. The only way this could truely be accurate is if the TV signal carries more data (for example, zooming on a 1080i HD signal). But HD has yet to approach critical mass...ugh.

    --
    Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???