Slashdot Mirror
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."
Eye upgrades are expected to become available in 2016.
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.
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.
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.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
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.
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?
which is totally what she said
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.
... 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.
If that's your attitude, why watch TV? Why not just read a book?
Sure...
(44.1 KHz @ 24 bits per sample * 24 channels) / 1024 / 1024 = 24 Mbps. Little room for protocol overhead there.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
"Here, let me show you my demo of this amazing, super-HD display system... on YouTube."
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.
If this were really happening, what would you think?