Ultra HDTV on Display for the First Time

fdiskne1 writes "According to a story by the BBC, the successor to HDTV is already out there. The resolution? 7680 x 4320 pixels. Despite the 'wow' factor, the only screens capable of using Ultra High Definition Television are large movie screens, and no television channel has the bandwidth needed for this image. Some experts, in fact, say the technology is only a novelty. Until the rest of the necessary technology catches up, the only foreseen use for Ultra HDTV is in movie theatres and museum video archives." From the article: "Dr. Masaru Kanazawa, one of NHK's senior research engineers, helped develop the technology. He told the BBC News website: 'When we designed HDTV 40 years ago our target was to make people feel like they were watching the real object. Our target now is to make people feel that they are in the scene.' As well as the higher picture resolution, the Ultra HD standard incorporates an advanced version of surround sound that uses 24 loudspeakers. "

Comments

Goddamnit...

[Cyno01]

And i just bought an HDTV last week.

Anyone have a video link of the demonstration?

[phpWebber]

I want to see if it looks better than my computer monitor resolution.

The final resolution jump?

[w33t]

That's quite the resolution.

I wonder, can the human eye even see such high resolution; does it even matter at that point? I mean,

According to this page it would appear that each human eye is a 15 megapixel camera.

If my maths are correctish then 7680 x 4320 is 33 million pixels.

So then, the question is - does this mean that by adding both eyes together, at best humans have 30 megapixel resolution vision?

Could this be considered "full human" resolution?

Re:The final resolution jump?

[pz]

Could this be considered "full human" resolution?

IAAVN (I Am A Visual Neuroscientist). The answer to your question is, "no." The article pointed to claiming 15 million pixels specifically states the pixels are variable resolution. The photosensors in the central part of human (and primate) vision are packed at a much, much higher resolution than those at the periphery. The standard resolution in central vision for people with 20/20 vision is about 3 minutes of arc; at 3 degrees away from the fovea, this drops to 1/2 that figure; and at only 20 degrees eccentric (about two fist widths held at arm length), it's at 1/10. (If you've never heard that vision is variable resolution, try this trick: open a book or newspaper and stare at a single word in the middle of a paragraph; then, without moving your eyes, see how far to the left, right, up and down, you can read. You will find that the limits are astonishingly narrow. Evenly sampled high resolution vision is a powerful illusion based on the extreme resolution we have in the central part of vision, the ability to move our eyes, and some incredible circuitry in our brains.)

More importantly, saying you have N by M pixels alone doesn't give visual resolution, it gives object resolution: it is not possible to resolve individual pixels in an 8x10 photo printed at VGA resolution held 10 meters away, despite the relatively low resolution of the image. It is necessary to know not only the resolution of the image but the viewing distance as well to be able to say if the combination approaches the limits of human vision.

Re:Great...

[darkitecture]

Seriously people, if you want REAL, then go OUTSIDE. That is true reality, you smell, taste, and see it all, with a unlimited resolution.

No, see you're missing the point. I don't want REAL LIFE. I want LIFELIKE. Because let's face it, no matter what happens in real life, I doubt I'm ever gonna have the opportunity to bend Elisha Cuthbert over the closest piece of furniture and give her the worst 30 seconds of her life.

But if we can make screens mimic reality, then we're one step closer to every twisted geek's fantasy - the Holodeck. And I guarantee you, Holodeck-Elisha is more open to experimentation. One just has to hope that Real-Holographic-Simulated-Evil-Lincoln doesn't spring to life and goes on a rampage, wrecking the ambience.

Re:Backlash? There's a cycle for this stuff

[mcmonkey]

So fie on your 'fringe' technology PCs were 'fringe' when I was soldering together and wire-wrapping motherboards in the pre-IBM and pre-Kaypro days. What we did, goofy as it sounds, is the reason you can post on /. to begin with.

Can I get off your lawn now?

k thanx

Re:25 years sounds about right

[Catbeller]

"It's just that only around now has technology reached the point where HDTV is practical. (Wasn't the original HDTV rollout years something like 1997, 2000, 2003, and so on until technology became cheap and available?)"

I'm probably the only one here who is 1) old enough to remember, and 2) actually paying attention to the HDTV fiasco from 1985 onwards.

Analog HDTV was rolled out in Japan in the 1980's. A bit stung, the American television manufactures and the networks hammered together a proposal to broadcast 1080p in the following way: standard def over the usual VHF channels, while the HD component would be broadcast over unused channels. Thus, Channel 2 CBS would go out as normal, while an HDTV set would take that signal and add information broadcast over channel, say, 3. All analog. All broadcast. The rollout would have been around 1990 or so.

A funny thing happened. Digital video. The broadcasters saw what digital compression could do for them. Why just one channel, using all that bandwidth, when we can now use the same two channels and broadcast 4 programs simo? We promise that sometimes we'll broadcast in HD; just most of the time, we'd like to make more money with four low-def channels. And they demanded, and got, 1080 (i), to halve the signal and enable more channels on the side thereby.

And their wish was granted. These were the years of no-regulation, after all. The issue of public ownership of the airwaves was going bye-bye, and the government would like to auction off those frequencies anyway, which leads us to

Cable. Since so much programming was going over cable, the Gov decided that public regulation of public airwaves was silly and undermining competition. So long Fairness Doctrine, so long limits on corporate ownership and monopoly control. And so additionally, why force public airwaves to go digital when cable could deliver it so much better than they?

And network TV didn't really want to pay to upgrade, either, so that slowed it down a lot. Delay after delay...

THEN the kicker. The "content owners" saw that in the digital age they had a chance to lock down signals and force people to pay each time they accessed their "property". They wanted taping to go away as well -- they hated VCR's and almost killed the tech in 1984. They could win this one, and so was born the Broadcast Flag, a digital lock on transmissions that controlled the use of the program. Cue a big delay as HDMI, HTCP and all the other locks were developed and approved by the "content" industry.

Now... it's the 21st century. almost 20 years late, and we've crappy 1080i signals going over the air, infomercials clogging all those channels we can access for free, and we can't record the standard 1080i signal.

Remember, the public airwaves are supposed to belong to we the people, and the broadcasters and producers are supposed to dance to our tune. Somehow they are now the masters, and we those begging for mercy.