33 MegaPixel TV in 2015

psyph3r writes "The Japanese communications ministry is investing in a new broadcast display technology with NHK to launch a 33 million pixel, 24-point surround-sound broadcast standard by 2015. The standard will use a video data rate of 24Gbps and an audio data rate of 28Mbps. This must be surreal in person."

Comments

Wow

[ShieldW0lf]

Wow, they invented movie theaters that run on internet streams.

This is supposed to be exciting?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

When the movie theater is sitting in your own living room, yes.

Re:Wow

[JackHoffman]

Digital cinema currently uses 2K projectors (2048 pixels wide), which is about the same resolution as you effectively get from analog projection (and only very slightly higher than HDTV 1080p). State of the art projectors are capable of showing pictures which are 4096 pixels wide (4K), which is significantly better than analog projection. At a 2:1 aspect ratio those formats are 2 and 8 megapixels.

Re:Wow

[ShieldW0lf]

What they've failed to account for is, all the old bastards who can afford this, well, their eyes aren't really that great anymore.

Or, to put it another way...

"Sorry Sonny, I can't see a difference... just let me get my bifocals out..."

Re:Wow

[gnick]

It's fun to extend the limits of our display technology - High res looks nice. But can somebody explain to me why in the hell would we ever need a 28 Mbps audio stream even with 24 channels?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, shouldn't that be the other way around?

Re:Wow

[sm62704]

This is supposed to be exciting?

It is to me. I just bought a new TV 3 or 4 years ago, when this one has been out for a few years I'll be ready for a new TV and might even be actually to afford it (or not, as I'll be retired). Assuming I'm still alive then, of course.

A retired friend complained that he was on a fixed income. "You're lucky", I told him, "My income's broke."

Re:Wow

[MetaPhyzx]

This might sound out of place, but isn't at some point TV (for entertainment) just...TV? While increasing resolution is something I'm sure the enthusiast can appreciate, isn't there a point where size and quality of image cease to matter?

Re:Wow

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It's not for home use. I think there are some in use. One system was demonstrated at NAB 2007 and IBC 2006. I think some museums are using it. It's actually quite nice. It's almost possible to recognize the t-shirt designs audience members are wearing from across a football stadium.

Re:Wow

[Grimbleton]

This isn't about need. :D

Re:Wow

[Surt]

Yes, but it's somewhere right around that level for the size of tv that most people have a large enough wall for. If you want to watch a ~60inch tv from the minimum field of view distance (something like 4ish feet), then you need about this number of pixels @120hz to pretty much max out human perception.

Re:Wow

[rasputin465]

But can somebody explain to me why in the hell would we ever need a 28 Mbps audio stream even with 24 channels?

Yeah, not sure what this is all about. Most internet radio streams are in the 100-200 kbps range for two channels, which comes out to the ~2.4 Mbps range at most for 24 ch. So they're saying they need roughly a factor of 10 more data per channel? Maybe they're not compressing the audio stream?

Re:Wow

[Panaflex]

Sure...

(44.1 KHz @ 24 bits per sample * 24 channels) / 1024 / 1024 = 24 Mbps. Little room for protocol overhead there.

Re:Wow

[garcia]

What they've failed to account for is, all the old bastards who can afford this, well, their eyes aren't really that great anymore.

My father just purchased a Sharp Aquios 52" HDTV before Christmas for their new house. I was there visiting and hated it. Why? Well, not just because I believe HDTV to be a pointless joke but b/c he didn't have an HD feed from his satellite provider. I asked, "why did you buy an HDTV when you don't have HD?" He said, "because it's bigger and my eyes aren't so good anymore."

For someone who used to be so in tune with technology and so on top of shit, I was surprised when he made this illogical reasoning. All that TV does now is over-distort an already distorted image and make it 52" wide. It's blurry as shit and obnoxious to watch unless you have a newer DVD in there. Older DVDs -- which he has more than a few -- look like ass on there because it won't upconvert them to anything near the 1080 it will do. Newer DVDs, like his copy of Ratatouille looked fine upconverted to 1080.

The only useful thing for HD is watching the NFL and I can do that for free at someone else's house or at the bar where I usually am on Sunday anyway since Minnesota still has fucking pointless Blue Laws and you can't buy anything except 3.2 in the stores.

Re:Wow

[CastrTroy]

Well, now instead of having to combine all sound effects into a single audio stream, we can give each sound effect it's own channel. So if two people were talking at the same time, you would be able to play one track, and then the other, and hear both voices clearly.

Re:Wow

[argiedot]

It should, but then you get someone else's popcorn on your carpet.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You should divide by 1000, not by 1024. Nobody uses fake kilos and megas to measure throughput.

Re:Wow

[Peter Nikolic]

well that may just blow the crap outta this freakin HDTV cobblers Hey i just noticed i got Karma up to Terrible now yow this is gettin quite freakin good for me message to oneself must try harder to wind the living daylights outta punks twats jerkoffs and other such bovine brained rodents .. have fun now wont you

Re:Wow

[Knara]

Or, just plan ahead and buy booze on Saturday instead of Sunday?

Re:Wow

[Aladrin]

When I was sitting about 8' from my 42" TV, my eyes were almost bugging out of my head. I can't imagine actually watching a 60" from 4'. That's insane.

No arguments on the math, though... That sounds right for human perception.

Re:Wow

[roju]

Most theatres are still choosing to roll out 2K, as 4K projectors make too many compromises and end up with worse picture quality than the 2Ks.

Re:Wow

[reebmmm]

First, unless your father lives in the middle of nowhere, he doesn't need to buy the HD package from his satellite provider to use the HD features. A really crappy pair of bunny ears will suffice to get most of the "important" channels anyway. But, paying the extra $20 gets you lots of nice "other" channels.

Second, while football is nice, H-D programming looks so nice that I can't stand to watch regular television anymore. I was even somewhat surprised to notice real differences with things like the Simpsons.

Third, I have plenty of older DVDs that upconvert very nicely. They're not HD quality, but they are definitely better than on my standard TVs.

Finally, even if you don't buy an HDTV for the HD, if you want a flat-panel or something that's not a huge ugly beast, there's really no option. It boggles my mind that anyone purchases standard tvs for any reason any more. They're just so... big and ugly.

Re:Wow

[r_jensen11]

Digital cinema currently uses 2K projectors (2048 pixels wide), which is about the same resolution as you effectively get from analog projection (and only very slightly higher than HDTV 1080p). State of the art projectors are capable of showing pictures which are 4096 pixels wide (4K), which is significantly better than analog projection. At a 2:1 aspect ratio those formats are 2 and 8 megapixels. I don't know.... I remember watching Batman Begins at an IMAX, and it looked phenominal. The preview for the upcoming Batman movie was shown in fullscreen instead of widescreen and looked a hundred times better because it filled up all 6 stories of the screen. Combine that with the 20,000 watts of sound that the cinema can pump out from its 50 speakers, and I'll gladly pay $14 to watch a good movie at the IMAX, where you HAVE to sit in the middle of a row, and at least half-way up the theatre in order to fully enjoy the movie. The only thing that could be better is if they had copies of Batman for viewing at an OMNIMAX theatre.

It's because of experiences like at the IMAX that the home will never be able to replicate the big-screen experience. Never.

Re:Wow

[WuphonsReach]

It's blurry as shit and obnoxious to watch unless you have a newer DVD in there. Older DVDs -- which he has more than a few -- look like ass on there because it won't upconvert them to anything near the 1080 it will do. Newer DVDs, like his copy of Ratatouille looked fine upconverted to 1080.

Which has nothing to do with the age of the DVD or inability to upconvert, but is more an issue that early DVDs were encoded at lower then desirable bitrates. (Okay, some of the early encoders weren't the best either.) But even back in 96/97/98 (?) there were DVDs released as "SuperBit" releases where they trimmed ads and extras off the disk and gave it a higher bitrate.

There also may have been a few DVDs that were encoded as half-frames (360x480 a.k.a. half-D1?) instead of full-frame (720x480).

Re:Wow

[cheater512]

Actually throughput is always 1024. It uses bits instead of bytes to cut corners.

Its storage which uses 1000 to boost their numbers.

Re:Wow

[Bob-taro]

This might sound out of place, but isn't at some point TV (for entertainment) just...TV? While increasing resolution is something I'm sure the enthusiast can appreciate, isn't there a point where size and quality of image cease to matter?

I agree. Look at the article and the pictures. HDTV was supposed to be "30 degree tv". It's supposed to look "perfect" (meaning you can't see pixels or scan lines) if it's taking up 30 degrees of your horizontal field of vision. Since you can only perceive detail in about the center 30 degrees of your view, this was intended to be "high enough" resolution for anyone. This Japanese monster is basically a 1080 line HDTV x 16 (4x width and 4x height). It looks perfect taking up 100 degrees of your view. I have to think this is only useful for niche venues. E.g., I could see it being used in a digital "IMAX" theater where you may actually be that close to the screen.

Same with the audio... can you really distinguish 24 audio channels with only 2 ears? Could you distinguish it from, say, 12 channels? Maybe some could, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't.

Re:Wow

[cheater512]

I wish but the movie studios arent that smart.
In all the making of stuff I cant see too many microphones which means that even 5.1 is only emulated.
Excluding the CGI stuff of course.

Re:Wow

[CastrTroy]

I think that for most movies, all the sound effects are added in afterwards. Only the voices are recorded when actually filming. And the only reason they go that far, is that people are very sensitive to lips being off sync from the voice. All most all the sounds are put in afterwards.

Re:Wow

[TeknoHog]

Actually throughput is always 1024. It uses bits instead of bytes to cut corners.

Its storage which uses 1000 to boost their numbers.

I'm afraid the grandparent AC is correct. Channel capacity (aka throughput) is a physical quantity, and used in lots of applications besides computing.

Incidentally, since the field of error-correction codes is based on communication channels, you could argue that the usage in hard drives is derived from that of communication.

Re:Wow

[vidarh]

You're only saying that because current display technology is still hard on the eyes. Do you look around the "real world" and have your eyes "almost bugging out of your head" because your entire field of view is full? No, you don't. I'm not saying improving the resolution and refresh rates will fully solve that, but it certainly won't make it worse. I can sit much closer to my 42" plasma than I could to my old 32" CRT without straining my eyes, for example.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

They do live in the middle of no-where (propane heat, well water, sand mound septic system). In addition, they might get 4 local channels in HD. They aren't exactly in a metro area (even here in the Minneapolis metro you'll get ~20 but 9 are HD PBS sub stations, big fucking deal).

Don't be a condescending douchebag.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitrates use decimal, not binary prefixes, so that's actually 25.4 Mbps.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The moderation around here is really going downhill. Communication has never used power-of-2 prefixes. 1kbps is always 1000 bits per second. The bandwidth of 100 Base-T ethernet is really 100,000,000 bits per second.

Re:Wow

[Bluesman]

Yes, and that point is when the TV can match or exceed a good movie theater.

I love HDTV, and don't watch TV at all. Movies are great, though.

Re:Wow

[snicho99]

Yeah. And run those figures again at 96kHz...

Re:Wow

[theheadlessrabbit]

but digital video is sampled at 48 KHz!

Re:Wow

[16Chapel]

Ha - in fact, a great deal of the voice work is put on afterwards. You can usually tell, as the sound is 'up close' as you would get in a vocal booth, not roomy sounding like you'd get on a sound stage.

It's called ADR in the US, or Post-Sync in the UK:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubbing_(filmmaking)

There's a good example of it in the Bonus Features of Men In Black 2 - the director calls Will Smith the 'king of ADR' as he's so good at matching up vocal booth performances with the sound stage version - although even he seems to be a bit annoyed by how much of it he has to do.

Re:Wow

[mollymoo]

I think the difference is what it's full of. In real life, the interesting stuff which is going on rarely fills your field of view; on TV most of the screen is usually pretty full of the interesting stuff.

That's a lot of pixels

[Anonymous Coward]

Eye upgrades are expected to become available in 2016.

Re:That's a lot of pixels

[Anonymous Coward]

Eye upgrades are nothing new. We have Lasik today (and RK yesterday).

Re:That's a lot of pixels

[angus_rg]

You'll need it, that or a stadium sized screen to see the detail. Just think, todays concern about seeing butt pimples in porn will turn into standardizing porn in science classroom since you'll be able to tell the difference Streptococcus and Staphylococcus.

Hmmmm, maybe I should have spelled that StreptoCockus and StaphyloCockus.

Re:That's a lot of pixels

[wild_berry]

My optic nerve is only rated at around 10 Mbps. Do I need to spend $250k on the gold-tipped Monster cable, or can I just use the $14k upgrade from Monoprice?

Re:That's a lot of pixels

[GWBasic]

Eye upgrades are expected to become available in 2016.

I have a feeling that the picture might be larger then a normal field of vision. This could lead to interesting ways of framing a picture.

What this could mean for SpanktraVision

[PenguinBoyDave]

Can you imagine what porn will look like with that kind of resolution!

Re:What this could mean for SpanktraVision

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather not when you can see all the pimples on the girls poon and the guys ball bag. I hope they include a filter to make things look fuzzy.

Re:What this could mean for SpanktraVision

[Deaddy]

I remember discussions something like a year ago that pornproducers worried about HD videos, because they could reveal some flaws on their stars; there were even suggestions to show some acteurs only from a specific perspective. They could become very upset.

However, I think it's a waste of bandwith.

Re:What this could mean for SpanktraVision

[Eccles]

Y'know, I figure the proper way to do porn in hi-def is simply to tile 16 different vids at a time, and you can check out the stream that interests you most.

Re:What this could mean for SpanktraVision

[rk]

Yes, yes, I can, and as a result, I think there's good money to made in making real-time convolution processor accessories.

"Oh, holy shit, I don't want to see that!" *click* *click* Video Options:Transform:Real Time Blurs:Add Soft Focus.

Re:What this could mean for SpanktraVision

[Brad Eleven]

The old EST/Forum Six Day training used to feature something like this. You and the others doing the course were led into a room and seated. Without warning, the lights went out and a dozen or so projectors started up, showing very hardcore porn on one or more walls of the room. I'm talking anal Nazi fisting and the like--everything you can imagine short of child porn or snuff.

The resulting conversation was designed to demonstrate that whichever film you couldn't stop watching was the one you "couldn't be with." Most everyone agreed that they tended to ignore the tamer (or familiar) scenes and found themselves staring at the strange.

I notice that my tastes in entertainment continue to change--and that we think we need bigger and sharper vidscreens. Compare and contrast to the technicians who create bigger/sharper/better vidscreens: I think they're in it more for the "we have the technology" angle.

Re:What this could mean for SpanktraVision

[IdleTime]

Just the idea of a naked Ron Jeremy on super hi def is enough for me to feel sick already.

Re:What this could mean for SpanktraVision

[jollyreaper]

The old EST/Forum Six Day training used to feature something like this. You and the others doing the course were led into a room and seated. Without warning, the lights went out and a dozen or so projectors started up, showing very hardcore porn on one or more walls of the room. I'm talking anal Nazi fisting and the like--everything you can imagine short of child porn or snuff.

The resulting conversation was designed to demonstrate that whichever film you couldn't stop watching was the one you "couldn't be with." Most everyone agreed that they tended to ignore the tamer (or familiar) scenes and found themselves staring at the strange. What's EST/Forum Six Day training? I have no idea what you're talking about but it sounds absolutely Clockwork Orange bizarre.

Re:What this could mean for SpanktraVision

[_KiTA_]

Can you imagine what porn will look like with that kind of resolution!


Yuck. There are some things not worth looking at in Ultra-HDTV.

Re:What this could mean for SpanktraVision

[Anonymous Coward]

Found on another website:

[quote]The Forum is offered by a company called Werner Erhard and Associates, led by Werner Erhard -- real name Jack Rosenberg -- a shady self-made human potential guru.... The scandal-plagued Hunger Project is another est/Forum spinoff. Other fronts include the Education Project, Transformational Technologies, and others.

Although it has been toned down over the years in response to bad press, the Forum is an extremely intense, sometimes abusive indoctrination session, comprising four days over two consecutive weekends, from nine in the morning to often past midnight, with one meal break all day. Afterwards, participants are pressured to enroll in weekly seminars and advanced courses, including the infamous "six-day" course that takes place at a secluded encampment in the woods of upstate New York. The Forum costs over six hundred dollars, the weekly seminars typically one hundred, and the six-day nearly two thousand. Even more "advanced" courses are available, costing thousands. Intense pressure is put on participants not only to continue to spend money on seminars, but to recruit friends and co-workers.

Besides being, substantively, little more than new-age pop-psychology mumbo jumbo, the Forum seminar itself is, from a mental health standpoint, reckless and destructive. Forum leaders employ confrontational and abusive tactics, group hypnosis, and regression exercises, all in a completely closed environment with participants that have not had enough food or sleep. The Forum leaders have no mental health training, except in the purposely destructive techniques taught to them by Erhard.

Moreover, for many of the participants, though certainly not all, 1) the Forum, 2) the advanced courses that come after it, and 3) the group of people associated with it constitute a cult environment. In my experience, the Forum was indeed a cult, closely following the model outlined by Dr. Martin. In fact, disregarding the particular nonsense that makes up its teachings, the dynamics of the people around the Forum are hard to distinguish from those of the rest of the long list of religious, political, commercial, or other cults.[/quote]

Humans have lost control of human development.

[Futurepower(R)]

Technology is advancing far faster than the understanding humans have of themselves. I watch my NTSC 320 x 240 maximum resolution TV and usually feel that the resolution is higher than it needs to be considering that the low thought content of the TV show.

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[Dancindan84]

So true. It feels like they're just making up numbers at this point.

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[Anonymous Monkey]

That reminds me of when DVDs were the big new thing. Some one I know got me to set up his new DVD player, and later was bragging about how crisp his new DVD picture was and how great digital was. Half way through the movie I told him the sad truth. His DVD player didn't work so we were watching a VHS copy of the movie. He got sullen and cranky after that.

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[Klaus_1250]

What made you think we were in control of human development in the first place?

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[Nephrite]

Oh, that's just another trick to make you pay. New TV sets, new DVD players, totally new broadcating infrastructure... yummy dollars... err, yens.

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Food Network in HD.

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[nitio]

That has to be one of the best "IN UR FACE" answers ever spoken on Earth.

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an odd resolution for a TV. Mine is ummm...infinity x 525.

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[Anonymous Monkey]

You know, I never thought of that before. This guy and I arn't exactly friends, and I could never figure out why. In retrospect I do that kind of thing to him a lot. He is a salesmen type personality, always bragging about how great something he has is and how he is on the cutting edge. I think I'm half Vulcan, so end up saying obvious and logical about the lameness of the bleeding edge. It's kind of a bad mix.

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[_KiTA_]

Technology is advancing far faster than the understanding humans have of themselves.


Some people have made a belief system(?) around that very notion.

Hint: If he's right (and so far it appears he is), it's going to get a whole lot better (worse?).

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[Anonymous Coward]

NTSC is ~420 x 486, not 320x240, and the only fixed-pixel displays with that resolution are small portable ones.

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[anthonys_junk]

Shhh, he'll hear you...

He visits Slashdot.org, Foresight.org and Singinst.org every day. From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil

He also predicted an exoskeleton, similar to another of today's stories.

Freaky....

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[jimdouglass]

You are obviously over age 50 and thoughtful.

Re:Humans have lost control of human development.

[Anonymous Coward]

This ain't just overkill,
This ain't bouncing the rubble or even playing basketball with the bones.

This is exposing the mantle!

Really?

[east coast]

This must be surreal in person

If you think that is surreal you gotta try the acid. It'll blow your mind!

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like the interlacing.

Re:Really?

[fbjon]

I don't like the interlacing. I thought interlacing was for coke lines, not acid.

In other news...

[British]

Comcast to be expected not to support it even by 2020. It's Comcastic!

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that craptastic?

Soon you will be able to SEE reality...

[triceice]

... without actually experiencing it.

Re:Soon you will be able to SEE reality...

[Anonymous Coward]

We've had this technology for years, they're called windows.

Re:Soon you will be able to SEE reality...

[consoneo]

Leela: Fry, maybe yo should get outside and see the real world sometime instead of watching TV all the time.

Fry: But this is HD TV, it's higher resolution than the real world!

Re:Soon you will be able to SEE reality...

[Wolvie MkM]

You should look outside sometimes, the graphics are awesome!

Re:Soon you will be able to SEE reality...

[glittalogik]

I knew I'd been playing too much Project Gotham Racing when I caught myself admiring the reflections on actual car windshields and thinking, "Damn, that's realistic!"

Re:Soon you will be able to SEE reality...

[Wolvie MkM]

lol. Glad I'm not the only one remarking that in games

Design my Commission

[gandhi_2]

How cool. A commission declares 24 gig bandwidth for tentacle rape cartoons! Luckily for them, they don't have to actually implement the thing!
Why they are at it, how about 92 megapixel, say 67 gig! The Utah commission has just spoken.

Re:Design my Commission

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I don't want to design your commission. New clothes on boring farts still nets a room of boring farts.

With that resolution, you can become a doctor.

[Futurepower(R)]

Sure, you will see only skin pores and little hairs because your room won't be large enough to be sufficiently far away to see an entire image.

Not surprised

[martinpisto]

I am not surprised at all! And may be more than 33mp http://www.spymac.com/details/?2331213

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not surprised at all! And may be more than 33mp http://www.spymac.com/details/?2331213

Wow, the Spymac community looks like shite now.

Mac users really need to get a sense of style. Already the bland white computers look bad, now this.

Re:Not surprised

[jank1887]

but remember, the bland white computers replaced the standard beige/offwhite desktop of the 90's. they'll get on top of this current issue. next stop: translucent. the invisiMac!

You insensitive clod, I own a movie theater

[zappepcs]

Yes, if you MUST have 300Gbps streaming data to your home, we'll be glad to rent to you and your family the following items:

3 obnoxious people who will not watch the movie, but will interrupt your view of it
1 usher who is totally clueless as to what he should be doing as well as what movie is playing
2 rude 16 year olds who will get your order for popcorn wrong twice, then over charge you 50 cents on the medium soft drink
1 ticket taker who should have been replaced by a bar code reader years ago, and who roughly knows the direction to the toilets should you need them.
1 manager to sit in your den, pretending he knows what is going on, but has to ask the 18yr old up in the projection booth to be sure.

Finally, thanks to my business services, you can finally have a realistic movie theater experience in your own home. Congratulations and welcome to the 21st century.

Re:You insensitive clod, I own a movie theater

[somersault]

Pah, your package sounds pretty standard.. is there a premium version complete with a big sweaty fat guy in the seat next to you? Do we get complimentary sticky floors? What kind of adverts do you provide prior to each movie?

Re:You insensitive clod, I own a movie theater

[Anonymous Coward]

you should come to ours

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2007/11/08/broadway_worlds_best_cinema_feature.shtml

Re:You insensitive clod, I own a movie theater

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

Depending on the genre, my rates go from 100 (Action) to 500 (Romantic Comedy) USD per sitting. Additionally, I expect all concessions to be at least half-off.

Re:You insensitive clod, I own a movie theater

[EXMSFT]

And what about the row of teens in front of you, texting their friends through the whole movie? I'm assuming an upgrade like that has to be pretty expensive...

Re:You insensitive clod, I own a movie theater

[Austerity Empowers]

If you were only overcharged $.50 cents on your purchase of popcorn and a medium soft drink, you should consider yourself lucky.

Re:You insensitive clod, I own a movie theater

[red_dragon]

5 obnoxious people,
4 clueless ushers,
3 rude teenagers,
2 ticket takers,
and a manager to sit in your den.

Your comment. I fixed it for you.

Re:You insensitive clod, I own a movie theater

[Oktober Sunset]

don't forget the idiot mother who thinks its a good idea to bring her 5 her old kid to Brain Splatterer 5.

Re:You insensitive clod, I own a movie theater

[Anonymous Coward]

Half off? I can get you 90% off!
$200 small drink(4oz), now only $20!!!

phwoar

[Anonymous Coward]

i guess that screen can show the whole library of congress at once?

Not "surreal", exactly...

[Bohnanza]

This must be surreal in person.

I think the purpose for it is to seem real.

Re:Not "surreal", exactly...

[psyph3r]

it can mean dreamlike. It would be dreamlike to have that TV in person

Re:Not "surreal", exactly...

[unchiujar]

Baudrillard would disagree... (and yes I know, it's hyperreal...)

Last year

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like this was on display last year at NAB. NHK had 8K displays set up next to 4K, 1080p and standard def units. As I walked past starting from SD and moving up, my reaction was:
SD: yuch
1080p: oh, that's nice
4k: wow, that's fantastic
8K: holy shit, that's like looking out the window

Had to be said....

[edwardpickman]

Duke Nuke Em is going to look amazing on it!

Re:Had to be said....

[Eccles]

Yeah, but this is 2015. I don't think the Duke will be ready in time.

Re:Had to be said....

[lorenzino]

Yeah, hopefully "forever" will be completed by then. Hopefully.

Re:Had to be said....

[Anonymous Coward]

But Duke Nukem only supports the 320x200 EGA 16 colour mode...

Using this TV, you'd be able to make a video wall showing over 500 copies of Duke Nukem running at the same time, each in their original resolution. I suppose that would look pretty amazing...

This is good

[Anonymous Coward]

But given a choice I would prefer stereo or 3D displays instead.

3.5 TB for 18 minutes of video?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Too bad you'll need a Beowulf cluster of hard drives just to store a single movie.

Re:3.5 TB for 18 minutes of video?

[Hybridmutant]

You should be shot in the head to minimize damaged to your ego, just look at what you said >_ "Too bad you'll need a _Beowulf cluster_ of hard drives just to store a single movie." what the fuck

Re:3.5 TB for 18 minutes of video?

[gravis777]

Pitty you got marked as flamebait. You should have said "It will take a Beowulf cluster to watch Beowulf".

Re:3.5 TB for 18 minutes of video?

[Hybridmutant]

Im a tit I rightfully got marked as a troll, I didnt know about the joke originally and thus genuinely got marked accordingly, I thought it was a genuine flame bait to start with which I fucken cannot help. # *bow*

Japan is superior

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile in Portugal, country of internet slow and expensive i would kill for a internet superior of the max 12Mbps that didn't cost more than a 32Mbps outside (12mbps=32mbps in price :s).

Packing my bags ... i'm going to earthquake country... getting shaken that often is a small price to pay for that speed :P

Re:Japan is superior

[n00854180t]

You can't even get a 12Mbps connection in the US for less than $1000/mo. Max for any reasonable price is around 6Mbps.

Re:Japan is superior

[stuporglue]

Ummm...
This is the connection *I* have. (The 15Mbps one with iProvo).

15Mbps for $40/month. In the US.

http://mstarmetro.net/offerings/fastestnet.php

Re:Japan is superior

[dl_zero]

My Comcast is $33 per month and speedtest.net benchmarks it around 13mbps

Re:Japan is superior

[Anonymous Coward]

Most likely the parent was talking about dedicated lines that are guaranteed to deliver that bandwidth 24/7. Think T-3 or somesuch. Those are quite expensive, but if you absolutely need them you'll end up coughing up the cash.

Re:Japan is superior

[nacturation]

You can't even get a 12Mbps connection in the US for less than $1000/mo. Max for any reasonable price is around 6Mbps. Why don't you just get 100Mbps for $1000/month instead? Not sure if that deal is still around, but still... your information is woefully outdated.

Re:Japan is superior

[Anonymous Coward]

*cough* FIOS.

Re:Japan is superior

[purplenoise]

ahem... yeah, but try to use all of that bandwidth continuously and see what happens.... You can probably use all your megabits continuously for the duration of that test. but not for a whole hour, heck not even a few minutes. Comcast has traffic shaping that will quickly put your streams in the back burner to allow more interactive packets to get thru in time.

Re:Japan is superior

[Eivind]

I know US broadband has major suckitude, but I find this hard to believe.

I live in Norway, a large country with only 5 million people or so, and lots of fjords and mountains. (i.e. expensive to network), my ISP Lyse has 10Mbps/symetrical (i.e. 10Mbps upload and the same download) as the -slowest- available speed, 100Mbps/symetrical is the fastest, but only because currently there is no demand for more. It's all fibre-to-the-basement anyway, and we all know the fibre can do a few orders of magnitude more than 100Mbps.

Cost ? $50/month - $100/month depending on capcaity. It's actually cheaper than that measured against wages (which is what counts for normal people: how long must I work to pay for X?), because salaries here are somewhat higher than in the US. Put differently, 10Mbps/symetrical costs what you would earn for 3 hours of burgerflipping or thereabouts.

It's hard to believe it costs $1000 in the US. How many hours of burgerflipping is that at US salaries, 100 ?

Re:Japan is superior

[Anonymous Coward]

$1000/mo? Have you checked out Verizon Fios? They offer 15Mbps up and down for $65 a month.

http://www22.verizon.com/content/ConsumerFiOS/packages+and+prices/packages+and+prices.htm%5C

Re:Japan is superior

[Anonymous Coward]

FIOS 20Mbps at $50 per month. (only 5Mbps upstream though.....)

Re:Japan is superior

[sexconker]

Hi.
I'm using Cox High Speed Internet in Santa Barbara, CA.
I have a 12 Mbps connection, and yes, I do get those speeds consistently.
I pay about $125 a month for that connection, digital cable, HD service, and the rental of the HD DVR.

http://www.cox.com/santabarbara/highspeedinternet/packages.asp?campcode=sab_coxCom_hsiRtTopBox

Re:Japan is superior

[nacturation]

It's hard to believe it costs $1000 in the US. How many hours of burgerflipping is that at US salaries, 100 ? At US burgerflipper wages I'm guessing that'd probably be well over 100 unless you're a master flipper. :) I'm another country to the North.

However, price isn't the only factor. One other thing is how much total bandwidth do you really get? I could run an ethernet cable to my neighbor and give them 100Mbps symmetrical from my router, but good luck if they try and shove that much through my cable modem. And it's great if you can get 100Mbps to everybody in Norway though that isn't so useful if a million users get throttled through a 1Gbps pipe on the other side. Also I'm guessing that service would come with a business-level SLA outlining uptime guarantees, etc. However, if you do get those kinds of speeds and you have dedicated bandwidth without it being throttled too much, then... wow! How's the housing prices over there? :)

Re:Japan is superior

[Eivind]

I've got the 10Mbps-thing, I generally get the full speed assuming the server on the other end handles that much pro connection. (which many servers don't)

There are no service-guarantees or similar, it's a normal residential internet-connection with normal residential rules, if there *where* guarantees, it'd probably cost a LOT more.

Housing prices are high. It's boom-times in Norway (though there are some signs that things are slowing down, it's still record-levels), so everyone who wants a job has a job. (essentially; there's 1.7% unemployment officially, but many of those are either in reality unfit for work, or they're just between jobs or something) And everyone earns well -- average salary-growth over the last 2 years was aproximately 11%. (no, there's not much inflation, 2% perhaps)

Here in Stavanger it's particularily expensive. Our main oil-town, which means lots of people make 6-digit salaries, which tend to push housing-prices upwards.

An average 100 square metre (1070 square feet) apartment costs roughly $350K, more if you're downtown, less if it's somewhat outside of town. I guess compared to Tokyo it's cheap, but compared to most places it's expensive. That has to be measured against average salaries being aproximately $75K. (so it'd be hard to afford something like that if you're single, rather easy if you're a couple)

Renting is uncommon for established couples, sure students and single-person-households and poor people will rent, but not many above 30 with normal jobs rent. If you -did- rent you'd probably rent something smaller, a couple might be happy with a 500 square feet modern apartment that they could rent for like $1500-$2000 depending on standard and location. Also expensive, but if they are average earners, they'll take home aproximately $7.500/month (after taxes) so they'll be able to afford it without any problem.

The -nice- thing about living in a place with high salaries and high prices is that it makes wonders for vacationing and for products that are "made in Korea" anyway. A single months salary will buy you hell of a vacation, since most places have much lower prices (and salaries) than Norway. What kinda vacation does a couple get if they plan to spend 2 weeks in Canada and spend $7500 ? Laptops are almost free, well, atleast you get a VERY good laptop for one weeks salary. Even the PS3 doesn't seem so outrageous here; $399 is less of a big deal when that in practice means: You have to work for -one- day to pay for this. (well, perhaps 1.5 days, but you get the point)

Hmmmm...

[onosson]

What's surreal is imagining that anyone could find anything worth watching at that resolution...

will i need a new graphics card?

[circletimessquare]

will i need a new graphics card for this display?

why are you laughing?

Re:will i need a new graphics card?

[Anonymous Coward]

When are you going to finish your fucking movie? I mean damn. Every minute spent on slashdot is time not working on the movie. Make with the filming.

We're halfway there

[The-Bus]

Well, we're halfway there already. I believe most studios that are now remastering for HD (especially HD DVD and Blu-Ray) are mastering the picture at 4K resolution: Blade Runner being one of those titles. The idea I guess is once "4K" becomes a standard, they'll have this content ready.

Sony already sells a 4K projector meant for digital cinemas. But, you can use it to show 4 HD signals at once, something which Sony has been trying to promote to sportsbooks, tradeshows, etc.

It all ultimately depends on visual acuity. Some people are already having trouble seeing the difference between an upscaled NTSC signal and an HD signal. I can only imagine this well get more troublesome as we keep ramping up the resolution.

Just remember, HD doesn't even get close to properly displaying all of the resolution of 35mm film. We've got ways to go, although I don't see more than one new generation replacing the current HDTV "standard" for consumer-level high-end technology.

Re:We're halfway there

[photomonkey]

I am one of those people who has some difficulty distinguishing between upsampled DVD and true HD channels. I've seen some HD broadcast shows that look fairly poor (by which I mean stuff originally shot in HD), and some upsampled movies look better than HD.

I myself am a pro photographer. I haven't shot a 35mm neg in years, but do still shoot medium and large format films. It all comes down to the source. A 35mm negative will enlarge acceptably well to ~24x36 reliably. I can do 24x36 inch gallery quality prints from my 12mp D2X bodies reliably, and while encountering the same types of problems you see enlarging a 35mm neg that much.

My point is, the stuff shot and processed very well in SD stock will look good either as-is or upsampled on an HDTV. The stuff shot, processed and edited on intern night is going to look like crap, even if it was shot in IMAX and downsampled for humble old 4:3 SDTV.

And the same with still pictures.

Re:We're halfway there

[elrous0]

HD doesn't even get close to properly displaying all of the resolution of 35mm film.

That's true. But it's also very rare in real-world conditions to encounter a truly pristine presentation of a 35mm film. Maybe I have an exceptional bad group of theaters in my town, but my 1080p HDTV and a blu-ray or hd-dvd disc blows away most of the presentations I see in the theaters. Crappy worn prints, out-of-focus presentations, minimum wage "projectionists" who also pop the popcorn and sell tickets, cheap managers who dim their projector bulbs to save money--all are common in most theaters today. Maybe digital theaters will change that, but right now 35mm just isn't all it's cracked up to be most of the time.

Re:We're halfway there

[Eivind]

It's actually -not- generally true. It may be true in some limited circumstances, depending on what you mean by "not even close".

Excellent quality analog film, shot with a good lens, under good light-conditions, on a tripod, can capture up to about 20Mp, which is indeed significantly more than HD.

But that's not the norm. In the average film there are less well-lit scenes, there are short exposures, there are higher-iso film, there are quick camera and subject-movements. Under such circumstances you're more likely to get 4Mp or thereabouts. Which is still more than HD, but not actually "not even close" to HD.

Re:We're halfway there

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting... according to my back-of-envelope calculations, 4kx4k is approximately the limit of human visual acuity (the point at which you cannot make out individual pixels and still have the entire image in your field of view). Anything more than that is only useful if you're only going to look at only part of the screen. In other words, anything more than 16Megapixel is a waste for movies. 33 Megapixels puts you well past the point of diminishing returns.

Re:We're halfway there

[DreadPiratePizz]

Your 1080p HDTV is probably not bigger than 60 inches, while in a theatre, the screen is 25 feet long. If you were to display a 1080p signal 25 feet across, it certainly will not look as good as a 35mm projection of the same size. Conversely, 35mm projected to 60 inches will absolutely look better than an HDTV signal.

Max Resolution?

[usul294]

I've always wondered what resolution would something need to be to be indistinguishable from reality. Clearly this is particular pixel density, I guess a simple experiment would be to play a dvd, and wait to see how far back you have to walk to make it indistinguishable from reality.

Re:Max Resolution?

[Orange Crush]

A 2d display at *any* resolution is still a 2d display. Color balance, the fact that the images produced by currently widespread display tech glows, etc all contribute. Just look at still cameras--a nice 5MP camera with top-notch optics, sesors, etc will capture much better images than a cheap 10MP camera. More pixels aren't always better.

Re:Max Resolution?

[nahdude812]

It depends on viewing distance. But resolution is not the most significant contributing factor in the unrealism arena for modern displays. Color accuracy, dynamic range, and two dimensions are the most significant contributors to this.

Modern displays have decent color, but as long as we are limiting ourselves to red / green / blue color sources, this will always be distinguishable from real (real cyan is not a 50/50 mixture of blue and green light, it is a single wavelength between the two).

Dynamic range is how bright the brightest areas are and how dark the darkest areas are. Real dynamic range would show the sun so bright on the screen that it hurt your eyes to look at, with dark areas so dark that your eyes would not be able to see the detail even if the screen had no bright areas (but that detail would still be present).

And of course no matter what, as long as it is projected onto a single flat surface, it is 2D, and it will always look like a movie.

As for pixel count, many people are already unable to distinguish between standard definition and high definition when viewing at a standard viewing distance (of course different screen sizes have a different standard viewing distance). Of course in the TV store you can't get 8-12 feet away from the screen so when you're shopping, the differences seem obvious.

Re:Max Resolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is HD TV, it has better resolution than the real world.

Re:Max Resolution?

[Overzeetop]

You only need to take one step sideways to tell 2d from 3d. ;-)

Re:Max Resolution?

[quintessentialk]

Modern displays have decent color, but as long as we are limiting ourselves to red / green / blue color sources, this will always be distinguishable from real (real cyan is not a 50/50 mixture of blue and green light, it is a single wavelength between the two).

Well, there's some refining to do to be sure, but the human eye is not a laboratory spectrometer. We have a finite number of types of color receptors that have their own sensitivity curves. You don't need to replicate every wavelength on the spectrum to replicate reality; you only need to stimulate the eye's color receptors to the same degree (and in the same ratios) that the reality does. That's why RGB displays work at all. Now, with current technology, and the current standards, RGB only covers a subset of the human-perceivable color space. But that's not to say it is impossible to do so with only a few color sources.

Re:Max Resolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

> wait to see how far back you have to walk to make it indistinguishable from reality.

For most movies you need to be so far back you can't hear the dialog.

Re:Max Resolution?

[ceoyoyo]

Guess how many colour sensors your eyes have? Three. Their peak sensitivities are in the red, blue and green. You can't distinguish between most single wavelengths and a continuous spectrum with an appropriate distribution. Plus your brain is playing fast and loose with the colour balance all the time anyway.

There are a few special cases, out beyond the blue or below the red that an RGB display might have trouble with, but it can be corrected by adjusting the particular red and blues that your display uses. They tend not to be very important though because our eyes aren't very sensitive to them, seeing as how they're on the very edges of the visual spectrum.

There are RGB systems that cover the visual colour space better than others, but the basic design of the system is quite adequate.

Dynamic range isn't the big deal most people think. You might think your eyes have fantastic dynamic range, and they do, but not instantaneous dynamic range. Again, they're continually adjusting. Try looking at the moon sometime and see if you can see dim stars beside it. Or look out the window and see if you can see any details in the dark fireplace through your peripheral vision. You can't. Short of doing silly things like actually exceeding your eyes' ability to compensate (the sun so bright it hurts) modern displays aren't that far away from just fine.

Re:Max Resolution?

[nahdude812]

I'll agree that modern displays are sufficient. But we were not discussing whether modern displays are fine, we were discussing discernibility from real scenes.

Our eyes have peak sensitivity on red, green, and blue, but those receptors each have sensitivity stretching across most of the range of visible light. We can tell the difference between true cyan and a 50/50 blue/green mix. True cyan is a pleasant color, while blue/green cyan is much less so. Compare a Pantone Cyan color chip against 255 blue 255 green (#00FFFF), or some darker shade thereof, and you will notice a difference. This isn't a matter of color correction on the monitor, it's a matter of our eyes' ability to distinguish these different colors. We can get pretty close by catering to the peak sensitivity of the eyes, but it's not indistinguishable from real.

Dynamic range is likewise sufficient for display purposes; in fact a realistic dynamic range would make a bad display as sunlight in the display would cast too much light into the room (let alone requiring a large amount of power). Displays can simulate the dynamic range adjustments our eyes do on their own via irises and mental alterations (download the HalfLife 2 "The Lost Cost" which is free on Steam for an example of this in action, try it with and without the HDR lighting option), but it again is still very distinguishable from real since only the display dims when looking at a very bright object and wanting to preserve detail in it, not the whole room.

Must be nice..

[SuperCharlie]

to have an infrastructure that isnt ruled by the almighty lobbyist and can provide actual support for technology and **smacks hand on forehead** plans for the future. Ill take twisted pair and cable for the loss Wink.. sigh..

Capture

[The Lone Man]

The video display industry is finally catching up (in terms of pixels) to the video capture industry.

...Heh.

The Japanese Communications Minister..

[PinkyDead]

is trying to compensate for something, methinks.

Re:The Japanese Communications Minister..

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

is trying to compensate for something, methinks.

Not being in charge of Gundam?

Re:The Japanese Communications Minister..

[Shteven]

The Japanese Communications Minister..is trying to compensate for something, methinks.

Tasteless. Now if you had said:

Oblig. Southpark reference

Think he's trying to compensate for something?

You'd have been just fine. Remember, original thought is bad.

-Department for the protection of yourself from you.

I seen this live

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw them demo this live a couple of years ago. It's very impressive, but despite the post title they're not thinking about using it for domestic use any time soon, it's aimed at digital cinema and outdoor events and won't be commercially available till about 2025. What they are proposing is the standard to be ratified by 2015.
This was the company that demo'd HD TV in the early 80s and people thought it was at least 10 years away from being commercially available, they misjudged by over 10 years.

Just in time

[192939495969798999]

Sounds like it will be just in time for when:
1) I finally upgrade to "regular" HDTV...doh!
2) George Lucas' re-re-release of Star Wars original trilogy in this crazy new format
3) playing some Duke Nukem Forever on my PS9

All this

[iminplaya]

so that the next version of windows (Vista 2K10) will work?

OT: sig reply

[Anonymous Coward]

Genesis 1:32 And God typed :wq!

Heresy! God uses emacs.

Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen size

[StandardCell]

One of the things that TV manufacturers contend with is what screen size versus resolution. The uptake of true 1080p on screen sizes of 32" or less has been slow because there's virtually no visual difference between 720p/WXGA screens at those screen sizes for the average viewing distance in a living room. I'm also not talking about computer output, though you wouldn't be able to read much unless you bumped the font size up by quite a bit at 1080p.

Now, 37" is marginal and 42" is where it really starts getting to be noticeable. This is also the sweet spot for a primary panel for the next few years. Beyond this resolution, you'll start noticing 1080p from the next highest resolution (i.e. quad-720p or 1440p) at the 56-63" screen size. But there's one problem with 63" and larger screens: they are close to the limit for what most homes can pass through their door!. In fact, a monolithic 71" 1080p plasma that a large Korean company allowed us to borrow for our lab work wouldn't go properly around normal corners and with standard door widths. So all your dreams of 102" LCDs in your living rooms may be short lived given you won't be able to get it around any corners. Most luxury homes these days, by the way, usually have this in mind when the house is architected so that there's enough room to get these sets into the house from outside. Also, bear in mind that the scaling technology, although advancing rapidly, can only do so much with standard definition material and it just looks worse as you get a larger screen size.

Now, even if it's possible to build a seamless, high-reliability large screen like a flexible screen that can fit in your room, you start hitting a visual limit again at around quad-1080p (3840x2160) for the height of an average room in most of the developed world without even considering how much eye/neck strain this will cause for the average viewer. In case you weren't counting already, we're at around ~8 Megapixels at that size. So, having an 8k x 4k resolution system like the one proposed will require a double size wall which - surprise! - is pretty much where most theaters are going for online distribution of movies. Heck, they already get away with 4k x 2k resolution in digital theaters anyway and most people don't even notice it. And when I saw their demo of 4k, my entire field of view needed to be taken up to see any differences.

As for the audio, never mind that 24 position audio is completely impractical from an installation perspective in the average home and can be easily emulated using far fewer speakers and using virtual surround positioning techniques. This is why it's funny when DTS versus DTS-HD gets brought up - unless you're an audiophile or are in a movie theater, you probably won't care about or notice the difference.

And this gets us back to one immutable point - that this technology is complete overkill for broadcast applications. If broadcast is the target market, and given the rise of personalized on-demand/online video, then this an essentially completely futile effort.

Now that's high-resolution

[Wiseman1024]

Now that's high-resolution. Hmm, 33 MPix hentai...

I think it's overkill. The vast majority of us don't have that kind of room, bandwidth, money, and vision to benefit from this.

too much theraflu

[djupedal]

"This must be surreal in person"

'...that must be unreal in reality...' ..?

As opposed to surreal not in person? How else can one do surreal anyhoo.

Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show...

[NFN_NLN]

Here's an idea, why not try changing the channel? What's that... you only paid for basic channels. Here's a list of educational and also fun to watch programs I'd like to see someone try to rip apart:
Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, The First 48, The Daily Show, etc...

Things have changed since the A-Team and Knight Rider...

Don't break the bank, guys

[uberhobo_one]

Wow, they're actually throwing 300 million yen ($3 million) at this project? They must really be serious about it. Is that just the bureaucratic overhead for the planning commission, or the whole R&D budget? I'm pretty sure we've spent more than that in the US warning people that their old analog TVs will stop working when we switch over to HDTV.

Diminishing Returns

[torkus]

Impressive, but diminishing returns will relegate this to...well i have no idea what scientific la la la will make use.

"low def" to 480p (huge improvement)
480p -> -> -> 1080i (noticable improvement with proper equipment)
1080i -> wtfpwnedx1000 will be a minor improvement useful only for those with the equipment, a huge screen, etc.

Looking at cost...it scales extremely quickly but i guess the ferrari isn't $995,000 faster than the Scion either.

Though...somewhere around this level of resolution you make a "virtual window" available to apartments with no exterior walls. But hey, if you can afford a 3 bagillion $ TV for a window you can probably get a nicer apartment :)

Re:Diminishing Returns

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Costs do go down too though. Last summer I bought a 1080p projector for 1/12th the cost of the cheapest model two or three years ago. I think they're a little cheaper still now, but really, once the display elements ramp up in production, the costs can go way down to something that's getting to be affordable.

And the picture quality jump is more than just noticeable. I think 480p to 720p is quite noticeable even on crap equipment.

But I see an odd dichotomy, a crowd like Slashdot's readers as a whole doesn't see the value in 2MP video image, but as a whole, they also seem to gripe about not having a 5MP still camera in a phone. If you can't see a 1/3MP to 2MP jump in video, then what's the jump to 5MP really going to get you, even if it's a still shot?

Re:Diminishing Returns

[torkus]

Yes, costs go down over time as well but you add significantly to the "available" time frame for something to become commonplace. I wouldn't mind an unlimited definition TV for the heck of it, but it's just the next level of 8-track -> tape -> CD -> HD CD/DAT. Eventually the incremental benefit isn't worth the cost of replacing equipment/infrastructure. At that point, innovation turns elsewhere to address some other aspect and the hardcore critics buy $8000 wires for their speakers :)

Oh, and as for digicams - half the time your increase in MP is to allow for post-shoot cropping and editing. It does amaze me though that people would rather a 12MP ultra-compact digicam than a 6MP one with far superior (and automagic) shutter/apeture/exposure controls and a better sensor to eliminate noise. Instead you get super hi-rez blurs when you take snapshots in anything other than ideal conditions. Ok, let's be honest. Most consumers buy the pretty one that's on sale and base the rest of their decision on what the "educated" sales person tells them.

Re:Diminishing Returns

[Anonymous Coward]

if you can afford a 3 bagillion $ TV for a window you can probably get a nicer apartment :) Never been to California have you?

I've seen this live and related industry talks

[Hairy Fop]

I saw them demo this live a couple of years ago. It's very impressive, but despite the post title they're not thinking about using it for domestic use any time soon, it's aimed at digital cinema and outdoor events and won't be commercially available till about 2025. What they are proposing is the standard to be ratified by 2015.
This was the same company that demo'd HD TV in the early 80s and people thought it was at least 10 years away from being commercially available, they misjudged by over 10 years. They know their technology but not their lead times. Like most companies in this sector.

not impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

*Yawn*
I still have better resolution with my good ol' eyes looking at the real world.

Next.

Re:not impressed

[Guppy06]

"I still have better resolution with my good ol' eyes looking at the real world."

But you're on Slashdot, which means your real world contains no naked women.

2015

[The Redster!]

We'll be able to enjoy at our local hovercar drive-in theatres!

Saw it last year at IBC in Amsterdam

[SilentTristero]

... and it was totally amazing. Like looking out a huge picture window. They had some stored content (playing off a fast RAID array I believe) and some streaming content from a camera array mounted on the roof. The projector alignment tech was awesome; there were no visible seams anywhere. This was in a room basically the same size as the one on the linked web site; maybe 50' x 30'; viewing distance around 10-20'. It was beautiful.

But, they could only run it about 10 minutes per hour. Not sure whether it was heat, storage, or whatever, but it was definitely not at all ready for prime time. Still, when it worked it was just stunningly gorgeous.

Re:Saw it last year at IBC in Amsterdam

[Anonymous Coward]

"RAID array" is redundant and says the same thing twice. I guess that makes it a RARAID which starts to sound like you're stuttering.

Re:Saw it last year at IBC in Amsterdam

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen it too. Last March at the Calit2 center at UCSD. We saw some 4k footage taken from a helicopter chasing dirt bikes around the desert, some DVD then HD, then 4k scanned from the original film, a string quartet from somewhere in Japan, and lots of scientific visualization stuff... and it was totally amazing.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[TomorrowPlusX]

Are those shows actually better on a $1000 high-def flatscreen TV? Those shows are good because of good writing, good thinking, and charismatic presentation. As such, they're just as enjoyable on a 20 year old SD television...

The only stuff that really benefits from an HD tv are sports and summer "blockbusters" like Transformers.

P.S. The A-Team ruled.

Re:When is Lucas Re-Releasing SW in 33mp???

[NFN_NLN]

Well, we're halfway there already. I believe most studios that are now remastering for HD (especially HD DVD and Blu-Ray) are mastering the picture at 4K resolution: Blade Runner being one of those titles. The idea I guess is once "4K" becomes a standard, they'll have this content ready.

I'm confused... George Lucas hasn't already re-released the original Star Wars Trilogy in 4K? He must be getting slow in his old age.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[Jeff DeMaagd]

If that's your attitude, why watch TV? Why not just read a book?

Seen it, Amazing

[Subgenius]

This system was shown at the National Association of Broadcaster's convention in Las Vegas last year. The camera looked like something out of a horror film, as did the microphone system. Still, it worked well and the picture.... lets just say it was hard to tell it from the surrounding wall, other than the slight reflection of the hall lights. I have a brief shot of this camera here -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW9YPwIrr1g at about 1:38 into the clip.

Re:Seen it, Amazing

[Jerf]

"Here, let me show you my demo of this amazing, super-HD display system... on YouTube."

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[slim]

Do you think any of those shows are really enhanced by the difference between SD and HD? Let alone 33 megapixels...

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[Anonymous Coward]

Mythbusters: Blowing shit up and building expensive rigs to (dis)prove pointless myths, even though anyone who didn't sleep through high school physics could easily calculate the result. You don't get hands-on experience from watching someone else doing it on TV.

At 100 ppi that's an 88.1-inch display

[HTH NE1]

This 7680x4320 is 1920*4x1080*4, or 16 times larger area than HD.

sqrt( 7680^2 + 4320^2 = 58982400 + 18662400 = 77644800 ) = 8,811.62868 pixels diagonal

At the typical 100 pixels per inch of computer LCDs today, that's an 88.1-inch display.

I doubt I'd be using that in portrait mode.

An an exercise, if "Frank's 2000-inch TV" is a 16x9 display at 100 ppi, what's the resolution? Given that most >HD resolutions are an integer multiple of 1920x1080, which is the nearest probable x*HD resolution?

Re:At 100 ppi that's an 88.1-inch display

[ceoyoyo]

But right now I'm about two to three feet away from my 100 dpi notebook screen. I'm not going to sit that close to my 60" TV.

Dots per inch doesn't matter. Dots per arc second does.

Cost of preservation

[YutakaFrog]

There was a recent article about the cost of maintaining digital film as well as the tailings of production, versus real film. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/26/1727237 One of the earlier comments suggested that digital cinema is currenty using 2K projectors (2048 pixels wide), which would effectively be 3.1 MP. If we're going to 33 MP video then, the quote from the other article of $208,569 being the annual cost of preserving a digital movie would be multiplied by a factor of 10.5 (33 MP / 3.1 MP) to equal a rough annual cost of $2,187,975.88 just to preserve each video that is produced for this format. WOW As much as I enjoy high-rez video, I think this may be a little too much. :(

Re:Cost of preservation

[Anonymous Coward]

By then the film should fit onto a thumb drive. So long term storage costs should be less than 500$ / film per year.

Re:Cost of preservation

[YutakaFrog]

Upon reading up on digital projection, I found that 2048 pixels wide is not going to be 2048x1536 like a 3.1 MP digital photo, because it's a widescreen projector. Consequently, 2048x1080 is only 2.2 MP, so we're going to multiply $208,569 by (33 MP / 2.2 MP = ) 14.9 = $3,111,787.92 for one year's worth of storage for one average length movie produced for a 33 MP screen.

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[djupedal]

"Now, 37" is marginal and 42" is where it really starts getting to be noticeable"

You, Sir, have obviously never watched terrestrial HD TV on a 24" Intel iMac... 1920x1080, 16.37 Mbps, 29.97 fps DD5.1, 48 kHz, 384 kbps.

And while you position yourself as an expert, your time in the supposed lab is perhaps restricting your view of technology overall, where video is one of the drivers. Increased video performance drives faster pipes, increased storage, more efficient processors and improved displays which in turn drive increased video performance which drives drives faster pipes, increased storage, more efficient processors and improved displays which in turn drive increased video performance which drives drives faster pipes, increased storage, more efficient processors and improved displays which in turn drive increased video performance which drives drives faster pipes, increased storage, more efficient processors and improved displays which in turn drive increased video performance which drives...

Seattle Music Museum 50-foot(?) TV screen

[peter303]

Paul Allen's music museum has an LED TV screen along one wall which must be at least 50-feet tall. It uses LED quads red-blue-green-white to light-up pixels. I recall it as about 1000 by 700 pixels - pretty much medium standard HD-TV. If the resolution increased an order of magnitude in each direction, it would be even more fantastic.

I was looking for a web page describing this screen, but couldnt find it.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[jedidiah]

If the show has any cinematography to speak of then it will infact look better on a high resolution 60" TV.

Video is a visual medium. It's silly to not expect it to have a visual quality that would be improved by size and clarity.

There are bound to be shots even in the A-Team that benefit from good viewing hardware.

A 20 year old SD Television doesn't even display SD content well.

Am I High Def

[Deep Orange]

Wow... All these High Def options and I'm still stuck with my Low Def Life

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[NFN_NLN]

Do you think any of those shows are really enhanced by the difference between SD and HD? Let alone 33 megapixels...

Short Answer: Yes
Long Answer: I previously had a 27" TV. Even standard TV looked fine on it. Fast forward to today where I did my research and bought a 42" LCD. At those sizes the standard TV signal looks like crap when its stretched that big (yes even in 4:3 mode). However, watching HDTV is great... even non-sports related shows like Dirty Jobs. I really like seeing various animal feces in HDTV, you can really see the individual hay in the hippo crap in HD :).
Rude Answer: Contrary to what your wife keeps telling you, size does matter!

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[LWATCDR]

Mythbusters is fun as is Dirty Jobs. Educational maybe a little.
The Daily Show? Fun if it matches your politics but frankly it is the Fox News for people that have a liberal bent. Of course I unusual in that I think any news source that contains a one liners is trash. If you want news listen to NPR, read a few news papers, and or watch the Sunday news shows like Meet the Press. If you just want to laugh and have your world view reinforced then the Daily Show is just fine.
For educational TV I am still a big fan of Nova on PBS.

Fighting piracy with bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

This might be a practical way to fight piracy by pushing up the bandwidth requirement to get the content to the level, where it's not economical or it takes way too long for the general public to share.

It's somewhat similar method what the music and movie industry used in the past to curb competition by pushing recording and film production costs to the sky and publicize the myth that one can't make decent music of movie without spending a fortune, discrediting any efforts by low-budget competitors.

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[NineNine]

Eh. It's still just TV.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[hal2814]

"There are bound to be shots even in the A-Team that benefit from good viewing hardware."

No! Very much no. I don't think high-def A-Team is such a good idea. You can already spot issues with the special effects as it is. No need to compound the problem by making it that much more obvious how all the explosions and car crashes were rigged.

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[Anonymous Coward]

You, Sir, have obviously never watched terrestrial HD TV on a 24" Intel iMac...

You, sir, obviously have some reading comprehension problems. From the parent post:

I'm also not talking about computer output

Increased video performance will only drive other technologies if the consumer sees some benefit to the increased video performance. The parent post was arguing (quite correctly IMHO) that the technology described in the OP was far beyond what was practical for consumers today.

Let me remind you: 13 channels of shit on the tele

[Anonymous Coward]

is still shit. 99 channels of shit is still shit. 999 channels of shit still shit? Still shit !! In double-quadraphonic? Still shit.

Besides, I'll have my personal gyroplane then and will have no more time then than I do now, what with my hover car and robot chicks.

Perfect, for those waiting out the HD wars...

[Ashbory]

Just wait a little longer and you can have this AND maybe even bypass Blew Ray. I've decided my "big" TV will be the one that does the best job displaying standard definition. Any suggestions?

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[t0M$34v0]

There's a bit of truth in what you say. Sports doesn't have a plot or theme per se; *seeing* it is the point of tuning in. In fact, my decision to buy my new 50" plasma was partly based on the presence of one of the two teams playing in the BCS championship game (I was not disappointed, in the picture quality nor in the outcome :) ).

Still, while a scripted show's quality won't be improved by the clarity of a TV's display, I derive more enjoyment from the overall experience when watching shows that are already quality productions in their own right (granted, hard to find many) in HD over the same show in standard def.

Naturally, YMMV per your taste.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[Don_dumb]

The only stuff that really benefits from an HD tv are sports and summer "blockbusters" like Transformers. I have said this before but the best application for HDTV is natural history, case in point The BBC stunner Planet Earth. I think it's ironic that the best use of better TV is real life.

You're right about most programming not needing HD, especially here in the UK where digital 480 widescreen is already the norm. You just don't need HD to get the full enjoyment of non-cinematic shows.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, it is 576i widescreen in the UK , not 480.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[Anonymous Coward]

While mostly liberal in content, Daily Show does bash their own "side" quite frequently. Unlike fox news, they are writing jokes, and don't try and pass off jokes as being real.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[necro81]

I would love to, but my cable company won't sell me just Discovery Channel and Comedy Central. I'd need to purchase the extended cable package which, without even being digital, costs another $40/mo. Digital or HD feeds of the same push it up another boatload.

Am I wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

From some quick top-of-the-head calculations, that seems 25% greater than reality's resolution.

Wow...

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[Dr. Spork]

I'm also not talking about computer output, though you wouldn't be able to read much unless you bumped the font size up by quite a bit at 1080p.

What? My monitor is a mere 20 diagonal visible inches (a Trinitron 500PS) and it runs at 1600X1200, which is about as many pixels as 1080p. At that pixel density, default font sizes look great and are very easy to read.

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[drinkypoo]

But there's one problem with 63" and larger screens: they are close to the limit for what most homes can pass through their door!.

That's only because the TV is so deep. you can get a king size box spring into most homes, so certainly if the televisions were not unnecessarily thick they would fit into the homes.

Both SED and the laser-based DLP televisions promise to greatly reduce the depth of the system, more or less eliminating this problem.

For my part, I prefer front projection, because of its versatility. I have a true XGA resolution projector with 1800 lumens coming, it's only $550 (but it's also LCD with 800:1 contrast, which is not amazing - good for LCD, horrible compared to DLP.) Hopefully it will not be a total lemon :)

Regardless, this is a fairly well-solved problem, and there are still more technologies on the horizon which promise to address issues like this, not the least of which is future generations of "e-paper".

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[steveo777]

Currently I have a Dell Inspiron 6000. It's display is a 15.4" Widescreen with a resolution of 1920x1200 (which for some reason they no longer offer). I have the desktop and all applications running at maximum resolution and I notice very easily the difference on a screen with just under a quarter of my 32" Widescreen Samsung TV. And that only runs on 720p. The difference isn't noticeable because there really isn't any media available for all the resolution on my laptop (perhaps I could get a Blu-ray player, but I doubt it would work, and gaming on this laptop at high resolution? Forget it). I play XBox and Wii on my TV and it looks amazing. I'm sure a 1080p 32" would be great as well. I don't consider my eyes above average, but I certainly can see the difference in resolutions if there was media enough to utilize it. Still, for me it's affordability and convenience. I just got my Samsung and I really like it.

Best line from TFA:

[Zak3056]

The image would be more palpable and vibrant than anything we can imagine.

It must be sad to have such a poor imagination--or, worse yet, to think that a picture of something, no matter the resolution, could somehow look "better" than the real thing.

Re:Best line from TFA:

[VoltageX]

Screw that, give me reality in HDR... seriously.

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think Americans can't bring a TV into thier house bigger than 65" because of door frames you must have been truly amazed at Christmas when people were brining 8'+ trees into their houses.

If you can bring a Queen or King sized mattress into your home your TV could obviously be that big.

24 speakers?

[somasynth]

At some point the industry may realize it would be better to use binaural technology instead. Hopefully this can happen before I'm required to position 5000 speakers.

Re:24 speakers?

[Anonymous Coward]

binaural recording is great if you are one guy sitting in front of your TV, but if you are in a theater with hundreds of seats then you might need something larger.

Re:24 speakers?

[somasynth]

I don't know where you got that from... I'm not suggesting everyone in a theater share one pair of headphones. Obviously everyone would have their own and each would have the same ideal sound regardless of their position.

Data-bloat: DRM of the future!

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't be able to make any copies when there exists no destination disk large enough.

Re:Wow - but pixels are only a part

[earlymon]

Not a criticism of what you're saying, just an add-on:

In addition to different possibilities in resolution ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinema#Digital_projection ), there's also the fact that for DLP-based system, individual, dedicated RGB projectors are used ( http://www.dlp.com/cinema/what.aspx ). This results in a superior viewing experience, not just because of the RGB breakout, but because the entire color system is superior. An abridged explanation is here - http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/digital-cinema5.htm - if you're interested in some of the projection mechanics.

All this, just to watch The Price is Right?

[WoodsDweller]

We don't need better video standards, we need better programming. And better films. I suppose the ads will look REALLY GREAT on a setup like this. How will you be able to resist buying a new car when it is displayed at 4000 scan lines? Will they be able to slap enough makeup on the newscasters to keep you from counting the pores on their foreheads?

Re:Wow^2

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Your dad explained to you that he doesn't see so well anymore. His old TV set was obviously becoming too small for his aging eyes. While it looked perfectly clear to you, he could not see the picture on his old TV. While the current TV looks perfectly clear to him, it looks mottled to you. Get it?

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Daily Show? Fun if it matches your politics but frankly it is the Fox News for people that have a liberal bent.

Clearly you didn't see the daily show before the GOP took office.

They're a bunch of Libertarians who attack whoever has the power. It's just that there's been no point to attacking democrats for a while now, because they haven't had the ability to do anything at all.

It's really sad that a lot of right-wing wonks like yourself are so fucking far gone on the 'i'm not a right-wing wonk, i'm just slightly conservative' that you can't tell the difference between a criticism of who holds the power and a partisan bent. I suggest you watch less Fox News, and shoot yourself in the face, you big-government loving, nation-building loving, nanny-state right-wing loser.

Hospitals and Science

[InShadows]

Although it would be great to have a home theater or a sport's stadium with all this technology, I see the most benefit going to hospitals and research buildings. It would lead to great detail of the area they are examining, scanning or performing surgery on.

Just don't imagine a doctor performing a colonoscopy and watching it on the this kind of screen.

Re:Hospitals and Science

[ceoyoyo]

I don't think you want the doctor doing your colonoscopy with a super-HD TV camera. Maybe I'm weird, but for such things I'd prefer a really, really little camera. And a really little camera means a really little lens, and that puts hard limits on the resolution.

Other medical imaging techniques are even worse. A typical MRI is 256x256, and the diagnostic portion you actually want to look at is usually not even half.

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[Anonymous Coward]

though you wouldn't be able to read much unless you bumped the font size up by quite a bit at 1080p.

Modern non-brain-dead OS's (read everything but MS products) query the monitor for Physical resolution and use physical dimensions for fonts.

screw TV

[Anonymous Coward]

these visionaries should be put in charge of Gundam

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[besalope]

And you sir are forgetting that you're maybe 2~3 feet away from your Mac where you can see the individual pixels. Try being that close to a screen with larger pixels and there is indeed a difference, but scale out a little little 5~10 feet like you would in a living room and the content will looking strikingly similar, if not the same to the normal person.

multiple viewing angles

[Anonymous Coward]

I just hope they include multiple viewing angles so you can have stereo (3D) vision. That would be far more interesting than super-duper-ultra-high-def.

Considering the insane data rates and that it will be brand new in 2015, that's not too much to ask for.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[LWATCDR]

As a comedy show it is funny but way to many people do think of it as their news source. I turned really sour on it when they had in interview with a person that wrote a book that was pro-life.
It wasn't funny and consisted of the host screaming at the author that he was pro-rape by being pro-life.
Frankly I find NPR far more balanced than the daily show and a much better source of news.
Frankly I find most news/comedy shows to be pretty disgusting. I think that many of the subjects that both sides use jokes with to frankly be too serious too be funny.
Of course my making an comment about why I don't like the daily show will bring out the mindless zelots. I am sure that at least one person will claim I am a Fox News watching right wing nut case. Of course that will skip over the fact that I recommended NPR as a source of news.

Just crunching numbers.

[jackpot777]

For a 16:9 format, 33 million pixels gives an (approximate) measurement of 2 million pixel height to 3.6 million pixel width.

If there were 300 dpi (the resolution of high-quality magazine printing), that's...

300 dots per inch = 118 dots per centimeter.

  = a screen 170 metres high and 312 metres long. Which is around the same area, if it were laid down, as an average village.

So what freaking resolution is this thing, because it's not THAT big... and is it actually necessary to display things at better resolution that we can notice?

What am I saying? This is Slashdot. Carry on...!

DRM

[Botia]

Can you imagine the amount of DRM they are going to need for this? Just the amount of processing power needed for the DRM is mind blowing!

Limits of human perception!

[jozmala]

Theoretical limits of human vision has been measured in 0.4 arc minute. Over 1 arc minute is considered below normal vision. The theoretical minimum visible object is normal computer monitor pixel (102ppi) from 14 feet away. Those with really perfect vision not just normal vision (which people speak as perfect vision).

(tan(pi/(360*60/0.4))*14feet) in inch = 0.00977384382 inch
1/0.00977384382 = 102.313892

Now the other way to consider the same limit is, 60/0.4=150 pixels per degrees of arch.
150*90= 10500 pixels horizontal gives you 90 degrees fov where you can concentrate your vision on any part of image and it is at limit of human perception.
60*120 = 7200 is a good target, 120 fov where each pixel is not smaller that worst of those who get 20/20 vision could see. 20/10 is still measurable vision and people get that also even people talk about 20/20 as "perfect" vision. But the market would be smaller and we are at the edge of what is possible.

Re:Just crunching numbers. Wrong.

[jackpot777]

Yeah, I see where I went wrong. What the ..? Two million times 3-point-something million is something times ten to the power of twelve.

My bad.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[LWATCDR]

"It's really sad that a lot of right-wing wonks like yourself are so fucking far gone on the 'i'm not a right-wing wonk, i'm just slightly conservative' that you can't tell the difference between a criticism of who holds the power and a partisan bent. I suggest you watch less Fox News, and shoot yourself in the face, you big-government loving, nation-building loving, nanny-state right-wing loser."
Yea that is why I suggested National Public Radio????
Just as I don't think that one liners are of any value when it comes to politics I really don't think calling names and foaming at the mouth ads anything.
Frankly I don't watch Fox News.
I don't like the way it uses one liners and over simplifies issues any more than I like the daily show. I really don't like any TV news because as far as I can tell they are all pretty counter productive to solving any of the real issues that people are facing.

texting!?

[game kid]

I must've gotten a different package. My upgrade came with the row of teens that yelled into their cellphones! They even had pop-music ringtones (gangsta rap if it was a rated-G movie) and that Nextel/Sprint Direct Connect sound every ten seconds!

Or perhaps GNU Hurd 1.0

[Anonymous Coward]

(The Hurd is so old and so obscure, few will understand this reference.)

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[ricky-road-flats]

Sigh. You wrote an intelligent, insightful, interesting piece directly relating to the article, and adding significant points for further discussion. You even spelled "seamless" correctly.

Just where in HELL do you think you are? This is Slashdot! Show some respect!

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[steve_ellis]

You make some very good points, but I have a few comments:

The uptake of true 1080p on screen sizes of 32" or less has been slow because there's virtually no visual difference between 720p/WXGA screens at those screen sizes for the average viewing distance in a living room. The uptake of true 1080p on screen sizes less than 32" is slow because there's virtually no sets with that resolution. I recently bought both a 40" 1080p LCD set (those are widely available) and a 32" 1080p LCD set (does anyone other than Sharp even make these??). Can I say for sure I could tell the difference between 720p and 1080p at >8 feet?--perhaps not, but I was willing to pay $200 more just in case. Below 32", as far as I can tell, that choice is not available to me.

But there's one problem with 63" and larger screens: they are close to the limit for what most homes can pass through their door!. In fact, a monolithic 71" 1080p plasma that a large Korean company allowed us to borrow for our lab work wouldn't go properly around normal corners and with standard door widths. Did you try turning the TV on its side? Just off the top of my head, a Sharp 65" LCD panel weighs ~110lbs, is ~61" long, ~36" high, and ~4" deep. Turned on its side, even a 75" panel with side mounted speakers should fit through a standard door, and would be less than 4 feet 'long'. True, above that size (and in tight spaces, even at that size or slightly smaller) you'd have trouble--even more so if you didn't take the set out of the box first.

I think all the other points you made were spot on (at least as far as I know, which isn't very far), but we should never underestimate some marketing guy's ability to convince the general public they need something 'better'--and bigger numbers make for the easiest sales pitch.

-se

Numbers

[ddoctor]

Yay! I can make up big numbers too!
I'm actually working on new AV standard: 67 terapixel screen with 54,130.1 channel sound at 962kHz!
Wow! It'll be awesome! I'll call it super-extra-real-actual-true-HD. Enhanced. MkIII. Pro. Special Champion Edition.

Now... for someone to implement it...

But seriously, I don't get this shit. Where's the prototypes? Where's the reference implementation? Is there any technical basis to this extrapolation, or do people just pluck big numbers out of the air for press?

Besides, what use is it planning a technology for 7 years in the future? What, are they going to do a 7 year project? Who does 7 year technology projects? Who knows what's going to change in the next 7 years? What if we start using direct neural interfacing, and we don't even use screens any more! What if we come up with some organic technology and everything's done in analogue again - what use is a digital standard? A lot can happen in 7 years.

Or... not happen - now, where are my 10GHz CPUs?

Small gains, people - steady improvements & occasional innovative breakthroughs, not lofty goals and long projects.

Storage

[Botia]

If my calculations are correct, it would require approximately 200GB for a 90 minute movie. Of course, all the extras would be recorded in standard def.

No, thanks.

[jtownatpunk.net]

I, for one, don't want my pornography that highly defined.

Re:Ridiculous given viewing distances and screen s

[keltickal]

Well stated! It might also be pointed out that getting decent content even at the current HDTV resolution may be a problem. Some standard DVDs look pretty poor in terms of poor focus and noise. Better processing can fix some of the problems but it is not clear that there will be much benefit for releasing many movies beyond the current HD technology.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[Anonymous Coward]

"I turned really sour on it when they had in interview with a person that wrote a book that was pro-life. It wasn't funny and consisted of the host screaming at the author that he was pro-rape by being pro-life."

You're pro-life and anti-TV? Let me guess you're Christian too and occasionally attend church but you still believe in evolution because the bible isn't to be taken literally. I'm still undecided on the Mac issue. You may not own one but you at least appreciate them. How close am I???


Pick your time in history and then pick your available medium for news. Nothing changes about the MSM and I wouldn't blame TV for that...

"If you don't read the newspapers you are uninformed. If you do read the newspapers you are misinformed." Mark Twain

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK digital OTA system (Freeview) is 720x576 interlaced (and less than 720 on some channels). And 4:3 programming is often presented in a widescreen window loosing further resolution.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[ResidntGeek]

No, but you get entertainment. Also, you get to annoy pissfilters like Anonymous Coward.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[Anonymous Coward]

True, the most watched HD channels in my house are DiscoveryHD and WTTW-HD (PBS). Most other "HD" channels seem to be letterboxed or resized NTSC (which the TV could do anyways with the regular channels). But those nature programs really seem to pop when they use the extra res, in some cases it's more like looking into a screen than watching one.

HD's still probably going to be a bit so-so at pushing it's worth until a lot more broadcasters really get serious about supporting it in the way it's meant to be used.

Dupe

[4D6963]

Isn't it a dupe of this 16-month old article?

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[BungaDunga]

I got Planet Earth on DVD for Christmas: First DVD that really made me want a hidef TV. Absolutely stunning cinematography.

Thoreau agrees

[CarpetShark]

"Men have become the tools of their tools." --- Henry David Thoreau US Transcendentalist author (1817 - 1862)

What is the actual, delivered resolution?

[Futurepower(R)]

Wikipedia says "Each frame consists of a total of 525 scanlines, of which 486 make up the visible raster."

So, you are right, the maximum resolution of the U.S. standard, NTSC is 486, apparently. However, I read somewhere that actual TV does not deliver a real resolution of 486, partly because the interlacing is not perfectly accurate.

NTSC delivers 243 lines of vertical resolution, then goes back and delivers another 243 lines interlaced (interspersed) with the first lines.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[Don_dumb]

Indeed, sorry the numbers are entirely my mistake.

The AC's 720x576 is closer to HD than my quote of 480, so my point that for most programming HD isn't far enough from UK digital to be worth it, is actually more valid than I originally stated.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[LWATCDR]

"You're pro-life and anti-TV? Let me guess you're Christian too and occasionally attend church but you still believe in evolution because the bible isn't to be taken literally. I'm still undecided on the Mac issue. You may not own one but you at least appreciate them. How close am I???"

Actually I am pro-choice I am a Christian and I go to church every Sunday. What Mac issue? They are good PCs and I actually own an old Mac plus because I like classic computers.
So you are about as wrong as you can possible be.

What I don't like is when people think they are unbiased and reasonable and the prove to be totally biased and unreasonable. You sir a great example of the typical open minded liberal. You think you know all the answers and anyone that doesn't agree with you must wrong.

Frank's 2000 inch TV resolution...

[VanessaE]

Serves me right for staying up this late but I got a little bored... (discrepancies in precision are due to rounding for brievity's sake, bc was set for scale=50).

Let's see.. 2000" probably means the diagonal. Assuming it was a 4:3 display:

Since a^2+b^2=c^2, b=~1.3333333333a, and c=2000, then...
a^2+(1.3333333333a)^2=4000000
a^2+1.7777777778a^2=4000000
2.7777777778a^2=4000000
a^2=1439999.999988
a=1199.999999995

So Frank's TV measures 1600x1200 inches (viewable) or a minimum of 160000x120000 pixels. Since Frank was probably American, let's use NTSC DVD resolution, 720x480. The next multiple of that that beats 100 DPI and is a power of 2 is 256x, or 184320x122880 pixels (115.2x102.4 DPI).

Just to be a smartass, a high-def 16:9 screen would set b=~1.7777777778a, so:

a^2+(1.7777777778a)^2=4000000
a^2+3.160493827a^2=4000000
4.160493827a^2=4000000
a^2=961424.3323442
a=980.5224792651

...so the TV would measure about 1743.15x980.52 inches viewable, or 174315x98052 pixels at 100DPI. Assuming the pixels are square, the next largest power of 2 multiple of 1900x1080 would 128x, or 243200x138240 pixels (139.517x140.986 DPI). Close enough to call it square (why'd my math diverge here?).

/me hits "Submit" and prays her math is otherwise right. Algebra's a little rusty.

Re:Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, First 48, Daily Show..

[TomorrowPlusX]

Late to respond here, but yeah, I DO read books, & I prefer to read books. You might want to look into it sometime. If you did read books, your reading comprehension might improve: you'd have grokked that I was *complementing* well written shows.

The fact that you got modded insightful for a know-nothing snarky response like that makes me fear for the world. As if reading books is a bad thing. For fuck's sake.