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Sources Say ITU Has Approved Ultra-High Definition TV Standard

Qedward writes with this excerpt from Techworld: "A new television format that has 16 times the resolution of current High Definition TV has been approved by an international standards body, Japanese sources said earlier today. UHDTV, or Ultra High Definition Television, allows for programming and broadcasts at resolutions of up to 7680 by 4320, along with frame refresh rates of up to 120Hz, double that of most current HDTV broadcasts. The format also calls for a broader palette of colours that can be displayed on screen. The video format was approved earlier this month by member nations of the International Telecommunication Union, a standards and regulatory body agency of the United Nations, according to an official at NHK, Japan's public broadcasting station, and another at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Both spoke on condition of anonymity."

4 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Same old shit in high resolution! =D

  2. Anyone seeing the point of this? by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We have a couple of 720p (not 1080p, 720p) TVs in our house, a 32" LCD, and a 50" plasma (hey, 720p plasma's cheap.)

    How decent is 720p? Well, both TVs appear to be about the same quality as, or often a little higher than, watching a friggin' movie at the cinema, if the source is decent and relatively free of artifacts.

    I think, for the most part, we're talking diminishing returns at this point adding pixels. So I'm a little baffled by this announcement. Is it real? Is there a serious market for TV for people with super exceptional eyesight? Is video compression technology really going to improve so much over the next ten years that this'll be worth using - especially over the Internet, which, let's be honest, is where everything's going at the moment.

    I'm glad to see innovation, but I'm just finding it hard to believe that this improvement is significantly useful: arguably, like Blu-ray, it might actually hold back HD, rather than help it.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  3. Re:useless aspect ratio by Picass0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not useless for everyone, just you.

    Even so - there are monitors that pivot from portrait to landscape. 16x9 is great for office work if you rotate it 90 degrees.

  4. Re:useless aspect ratio by Skarecrow77 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the GP is referring to the fact that once we had a high resolution TV spec, pretty much all panel manufactuers decided that "what's good for TVs is good for computers" and no longer make any higher resolution than 1920x1080 unless you're willing to spend close to $1000 or more.

    I see no reason to expect they'll do otherwise in the future, so any future TV resolution spec has immediate implications on future computer monitor resolutions.