Apple's television could offer superior picture quality with advanced backlighting
Apple has explored building displays with dynamic backlight adaptation for better picture quality, particularly when watching letterboxed widescreen movies on a high-definition screen.
The concept was revealed this week in a new Apple patent application discovered by AppleInsider. The filing, entitled "Dynamic Backlight Adaptation for Black Bars with Subtitles," focuses on improving picture quality when watching letterboxed content, like Hollywood movies, on an LCD display.
The application was filed just months ago, in September of 2011, and comes as rumors of a full-fledged Apple television set continue to build. One report this week claimed that Apple design chief Jonathan Ive has a 50-inch prototype set located in his secure work studio at the company's corporate headquarters.
A common problem with LCD displays is the ability to show "true" black colors on the screen. This becomes amplified when black bars are included in a video, such as when watching a letterboxed film. The difficulty of adjusting the backlight properly when the black bars are present can result in poorer quality of the remainder of the video.
Even though modern television sets are built with widescreen 16-by-9 aspect ratios, Blu-ray and DVD films, as well as those sold on iTunes, often show movies in an even wider format, leaving black bars at the top and bottom. For example, many movies are shot in Panavision's 2.35:1 ratio.
"Many video images are encoded with black bars, e.g., non-picture portions of the video images," the filing reads. "These non-picture portions complicate the analysis of the brightness of the video images, and therefore can create problems when determining the trade-off between the brightness of the video signals and the intensity setting of the light source. Moreover, these non-picture portions can also produce visual artifacts, which can degrade the overall user experience."
Further complicating picture quality and brightness is the fact that users can often view subtitles in the black bars located at the top and bottom of a widescreen film. This makes it even more difficult for the system to dynamically adjust and ensure the highest level of quality.
Apple's solution is a complex processing system that could "spatially vary visual information" on a display. This would dynamically adjust the backlight source on a screen, like a high-definition television set, in a way that would improve the picture quality.
The display would have multiple brightness settings for its backlight based on the processing of the image. For example, the "picture portion" of the screen would be illuminated by LED backlighting to an appropriate level, whereas the "non-picture portion," which would include the black bars, would have a different backlight setting.
The application describes an "extraction circuit" included in the display, which would calculate a brightness metric associated with the video signal. Then an "analysis circuit" would analyze and identify specific subsets of a video, like black bars that are shown when watching a movie.
The display would also include an "intensity circuit" that would determine the ideal intensity of the light source that illuminates the LCD display. The system could also employ a mapping function to determine optimum quality by using features like a "distortion metric" to limit image distortion.
Apple's system could also process the video signal in advance and synchronize the intensity of the light source based on the image currently being displayed.
"The system determines the intensity setting of the light source on an image-by-image basis for the sequence of video images, where the intensity of the given video image is based on the brightness setting and/or brightness information contained in the video signals associated with the given image," the filing reads. "Then, the system synchronizes the intensity of the setting of the light source with the current video image to be displayed."
The filing, made public this week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, is credited to inventors Ulrich T. Barnhoefer, Wei H. Yao, Wei Chen, Barry J. Corlett, and Jean-didier Allegrucci.
Though rumors of a full-fledged Apple television set have persisted for years, they picked up once again late last year, when it was revealed that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs told his biographer that he had "cracked' the secret to building an integrated, easy-to-use television set.
"It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine," Jobs said, prompting speculation that an Apple-branded television would use Siri, Apple's voice control software featured on the iPhone 4S, as its primary input method.
Comments
Apple can deliver content across the Internet, they are not limited by broadcast standards like other TV providers. If they want the best TV out there, do a deal with the studios for higher definition content than everybody else. An iTV powered by iTunes, with 4k x 4k content, when the next best competitor has 1080p.
Dynamic Backlight Adaptation?
Apple can deliver content across the Internet, they are not limited by broadcast standards like other TV providers. If they want the best TV out there, do a deal with the studios for higher definition content than everybody else. An iTV powered by iTunes, with 4k x 4k content, when the next best competitor has 1080p.
How many users actually have the bandwidth to access 4k content? I don't think it's as simple as just offering higher HD content.
Dynamic Backlight Adaptation?
Apple can deliver content across the Internet, they are not limited by broadcast standards like other TV providers. If they want the best TV out there, do a deal with the studios for higher definition content than everybody else. An iTV powered by iTunes, with 4k x 4k content, when the next best competitor has 1080p.
Sounds great but do you really think Apple would do this? I mean their Apple TV isn;t even 1080. If anything they're usually behind in everyone else and charge more. ODN;t get me wrong I love Apple and would love for something like this. But I just don't see it, literally...sorry bad pun...
Apple has explored building displays with dynamic backlight adaptation for better picture quality, particularly when watching letterboxed widescreen movies on a high-definition screen. ....
if this method is going to be included in their upcoming (rumoured) TV set, I think it's bad news rather than good. If they use this technique, then it seems to me that they can't at the same time use the other technique they recently patented whereby a layer of OLED acts as a sort of dynamic backlight/mask which would seem on the surface to be a much more interesting and truly new approach.
But if the signal already sends out the aspect ratio, can't the TV simply illuminate only that part of the screen, leaving the 'non-picture portion' off?
Simply?
The SoC in your DTV already does all of the above in this article if it has 2D local dimming of the LED backlight. Most mid -> high end now have this as standard.
Aspect ratio info is ( depending on the codec ) coded into the elementary stream in the picture headers or via the embedded userdata. Additionally many systems have either SW or HW inbuilt BBD ( black bar detection ) when this info is available.
In short, nothing innovative here. The PQ ( picture quality ) processing in most TVs is where the innovation lies and is highly complex. Apple does not have this IP, something I know to be true as they tried to licence the IP for reasons known only to them.
I design DTV SoCs for a living, specifically video IP.
The SoC in your DTV already does all of the above in this article if it has 2D local dimming of the LED backlight. Most mid -> high end now have this as standard.
Aspect ratio info is ( depending on the codec ) coded into the elementary stream in the picture headers or via the embedded userdata. Additionally many systems have either SW or HW inbuilt BBD ( black bar detection ) when this info is available.
In short, nothing innovative here. The PQ ( picture quality ) processing in most TVs is where the innovation lies and is highly complex. Apple does not have this IP, something I know to be true as they tried to licence the IP for reasons known only to them.
That's what I love about this place. There's members with expertise in a lot of different areas. That's so much better than just guessing.
How many users actually have the bandwidth to access 4k content? I don't think it's as simple as just offering higher HD content.
A very fair observation. The ISPs would do their own innovation - as in innovative tiered data plans.
The display would have multiple brightness settings for its backlight based on the processing of the image. For example, the "picture portion" of the screen would be illuminated by LED backlighting to an appropriate level, whereas the "non-picture portion," which would include the black bars, would have a different backlight setting.
I've often wondered why no manufacturer has had a television where the letterboxed portion of the screen simply turns off. This sounds like Apple may be the first to actually do that. Still though, this would do nothing to improve picture quality (despite what the patent suggests); it would just give the illusion that the LCD has better black levels than it actually does. Another trick in a deep bag of tricks used to compensate for the technology's inherent shortcomings.
But if the signal already sends out the aspect ratio, can't the TV simply illuminate only that part of the screen, leaving the 'non-picture portion' off?
Simply?
Current TV's know when the aspect ratio is different than the TV itself and add the black bars, which are illuminated in, well, black. Can't the black borders be eliminated from illumination?
Yes, that simple. Each pixel can be turned on or off, no? Or isn't that the case?
Dynamic Backlight Adaptation?
Apple can deliver content across the Internet, they are not limited by broadcast standards like other TV providers. If they want the best TV out there, do a deal with the studios for higher definition content than everybody else. An iTV powered by iTunes, with 4k x 4k content, when the next best competitor has 1080p.
Before posting, I wish that people Googled existing HDTV manufacturers or visited the TV department in their nearest Best Buy to bone-up on the current state of product offerings.
Two things:
- Video with black bars at the top and bottom is called "letterbox." I have never seen video broadcast OTA in letterbox format. However, many movies on cable is shown in letterbox format. In the case of DVD and Blu-ray, however, letterbox is the rule rather than the exception. The takeaway message is that Apple breaks no new ground by distributing programming in letterbox format.
- We now go from the ridiculous to the sublime. In the most optimistic scenario this side of outright fantasy, Apple's new HDTV sets will compete with the likes of Pioneer Elite LED HDTVs and not home theaters. A 4k display is sufficient for digital commercial cinema but is massive overkill for the home living room or den.
The Pioneer Elite is worth examination because the family of HDTVs feature Intelligent Variable Contrast. This technique sounds at the very least like an early iteration of the patented Apple process. Also, the line appears to be based on panels supplied by Sharp, the rumored supplier of Apple's panels.Current TV's know when the aspect ratio is different than the TV itself and add the black bars, which are illuminated in, well, black. Can't the black borders be eliminated from illumination?
Yes, that simple. Each pixel can be turned on or off, no? Or isn't that the case?
No, that's not the case. Each pixel does not have its own light source. Each pixel attempts to block out as much light as it needs to from the main source. You haven't paid very much attention to TVs in the past 10 years have you?
Add to that, the technogoodie wizardry that'll be inside the TV ....
This will end up being the Galactic Supreme Overlord of quote/unquote " TV Sets".
Everyone will want one -- whether the already own/just bought an HDTV or not.