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.
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.
If you limit the data rate enough, 4k by 4k is no problem. It'll look like crap, but it will be a 4k image, and in the wonderful world of consumer electronics, big numbers are all that matter
"Their RGBW approach should enable some truly spectacular color variety, getting much closer to reality than the classic RGB or even the more advanced RGBY (yellow) pixels. Yet as TechoftheHub, and other online experts have pointed out, television and movie production standards are actually inferior to the level of viewing that RGBW enables. Why buy a TV that can show you a cornucopia of eye-popping colors when no media is produced to take advantage of that? Even Blu-Ray quality movies won’t showcase the 55” TV’s expected color range. The same goes for refresh speed (most films are still shot at 24 Hz, not 100,000 Hz!). In other words, this TV is undoubtedly going to be amazing, but there may be nothing to watch on it."
But I agree with you that OLED is the future and offers a superior picture. It is just a matter of getting costs down to an affordable level.
Interesting stuff about OLED, but rather silly of them to claim "there may not be anything to watch on it". That sounds like hyperbole from LCD manufacturers who don't have an OLED display in the works. Even if today's content will only use a fraction of the technologies' color range, today's content will still look vastly superior on OLED thanks to all of its other advantages.
Well, all this technology is all well and good, but would not it be easier to simply cover up the black letterbox parts of the screen? I'm thinking either little shutters which drop down from the top and rise up from the bottom of the screen to cover up the black bits. Or for that real old style cinema feeling, (and maybe this could be a feature on just the flagship model), nice velvet curtains which draw across the top and bottom of the screen. Simple solutions, and I doubt they'd need to be patented.
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.
If there is absolutely nothing innovative, then the patent will be denied.
How is this different from LED backlit screens with localized dimming? With localized dimming, there are multiple discrete LED's which allow different areas of the screen to be lit at different brightness levels at the same time.
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?
Two problems (both clearly explained in the article):
1. Sometimes the black bars are encoded into the video. I have a few DVDs like that because they were produced back when 4:3 aspect ratios were the only thing contemplated. The DVDs were actually sold as "widescreen", but really it was just a 4:3 video signal with black bars included in the video stream. So the DVD player sends a "this is 4:3" signal. The resulting image on an HDTV is a small video with black bars on all 4 sides.
2. Even if you have a properly encoded widescreen video, the TV may display closed captioning in the black bars, outside of the video image. So simply turning off these areas wouldn't work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kotatsu
Or they could just do the sensible thing and use plasma.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pondosinatra
Of course if you have a plasma this isn't an issue....
I was going to say the same thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory Bauer
That is unfortunately not the case with LCD or Plasma, but that is the capability that OLED will bring to televisions when it becomes more affordable in the near future.
Incorrect. Plasmas are lit on an individual pixel basis, so a single pixel can be turned off.
About the only picture quality advantage LCDs have is the screens aren't glossy like plasmas. But I'm sure Apple will take care of that.
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...
Well, your comment is part right but part wrong as well. The part that is right, is that on paper, yes, many times, competitors have better specs than on Apple devices. This can be seen with iPads, iPhones, etc.
However, the part wrong is that they charge more for less. Although the specs don't line up many times and seem to be on the weak side, the overall user experience is usually enhanced beyond that of the competitors. With Apple, efficiency, simplicity, superior design and infrastructure yields advantages beyond that of simple paper specs. This is what the other manufacturers don't get. Slap the best parts on the market in a box design, slap a logo on it, and out the door it goes. This is the philosophy of most computer companies.
The real tragedy is that companies like Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony, etc., who have been producing LCD's for many years, have not picked up on this new patented idea to LCD picture quality. Either that, or they don't market it. I'll pick the former. Its called complacency in the marketplace. You just keep churning the same garbage out year after year with a fresh marketing label and continue to collect until a company like Apple comes along and turns you upside down with new ideas and fresh technology.
The real tragedy is that companies like Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony, etc., who have been producing LCD's for many years, have not picked up on this new patented idea to LCD picture quality. Either that, or they don't market it. I'll pick the former. Its called complacency in the marketplace. You just keep churning the same garbage out year after year with a fresh marketing label and continue to collect until a company like Apple comes along and turns you upside down with new ideas and fresh technology.
This isn't really a new idea, it's Apple's new twist on an exsiting idea that the other manufacturers already include in their sets. Localized dimming of the backlight has been around for a few years. Since shortly after LED backlighting took off (because LED backlighting provides the level of control needed for localized dimming to be effective). Apple's technique may do it better than the others, but that remains to be seen.
And many, if not most, Apple patents (and patents in general) never see the light of a production line. This is typical. They come up with some new idea and then patent it just in case it turns out to be useful some day for a production product. Or simply to block someone else from using the idea even if Apple never does.
This isn't really a new idea, it's Apple's new twist on an exsiting idea that the other manufacturers already include in their sets. Localized dimming of the backlight has been around for a few years. Since shortly after LED backlighting took off (because LED backlighting provides the level of control needed for localized dimming to be effective). Apple's technique may do it better than the others, but that remains to be seen.
And this is the core of my point. Apple's specialty is taking existing technologies that have grown tired and complacent and make them better. So much better that they create a new revenue stream of growth, and competitors stand around scratching their heads asking why didn't they think of that.
Of course, the backlighting piece is just a part of the whole. I think that Apple will do for televisions, and the home media experience in general, in the same fashion that the iPhone did for handheld devices.
It's hard to figure out how consumers would react even if they were provided with a TV producing an overall superior picture. Fact is that when it comes to TV, there is a rather substantial lack of knowledge among most consumers. There are more than a few HDTVs out there being fed standard-def signals with owners of the view that they are watching HD. I've run into a few folks who bought an HDTV and then thought it ridiculous to be "wasting" money on an HD satellite receiver or cable box, let alone paying for additional HD content. Sadly decades of being subjected to the bad images produced by standard-def TVs have produced a rather substantial group of consumers who are not especially picky, certainly not overly observant, when it comes to TV picture quality.
This has been a problem for TV manufacturers who are now basically selling TVs at a low price point, even with reasonable quality, because consumers are not prepared to pay prices that not so long ago were commonplace for higher-grade Cathode-Ray NTSC sets.
The challenge is not making a TV that produces a better picture, the challenge is convincing consumers in large numbers that the picture is better. It doesn't help that if you check out the sets running in stores like your friendly neighbourhood Wal-Mart the signal being fed into the sets and the calibration of those sets is nothing short of atrocious. Everything in those settings looks horrible and yet this is being presented to consumers as the state of TV image quality. Feed garbage into even a great TV and odds are it's garbage that you'll get as a result.
Where Apple could have an advantage is that if Apple offers its TV only via Apple Stores, those sets can be properly set up in order to demonstrate what a quality product being fed quality source material can offer. It's that sort of attention to detail that sets Apple apart. I certainly find it doubtful that Apple would allow a retailer like Wal-Mart to sell the Apple TV and badly mangle marketing the device by wiping out whatever quality advantages the product might have thanks to garbage-in-garbage-out display methodology.
The truth is that even if Apple produced a TV delivering a picture of comparable quality to the competition, if set up correctly through their retail network, there was a perception of better quality, Apple could, with a little clever marketing charge a premium and still have a popular product. Competitors have given Apple that opportunity by allowing big-box retailers like Wal-Mart to quite simply do a horrendous job of educating the buying public about TVs and certainly demoing them.
Because that's what the studios and networks will allow them to use. So step one is to have some kind of leverage to get them to do what Apple wants. Rather like when the record labels wanted pricing control and Apple wouldn't give it until the labels agreed to drop DRM
As for this patent, nothing in it is 100% certain to be for a tv. I can see this same tech being for the iPad.
One thing they could potentially leverage is iTunes Extras. Most of the time, with movies, it's a big yawn.
Often that is because the studio doesn't want to risk hurting their precious DVD sales. So the disks have like 10 features on them and the Extras has one. and not even the best one.
the recent Avatar release is the only Extras that felt like it was the DVD version. In quality and quantity of extras
Comments
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.
Yes, but now they can sue people.
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.
If you limit the data rate enough, 4k by 4k is no problem. It'll look like crap, but it will be a 4k image, and in the wonderful world of consumer electronics, big numbers are all that matter
From the article I linked.
"Their RGBW approach should enable some truly spectacular color variety, getting much closer to reality than the classic RGB or even the more advanced RGBY (yellow) pixels. Yet as TechoftheHub, and other online experts have pointed out, television and movie production standards are actually inferior to the level of viewing that RGBW enables. Why buy a TV that can show you a cornucopia of eye-popping colors when no media is produced to take advantage of that? Even Blu-Ray quality movies won’t showcase the 55” TV’s expected color range. The same goes for refresh speed (most films are still shot at 24 Hz, not 100,000 Hz!). In other words, this TV is undoubtedly going to be amazing, but there may be nothing to watch on it."
But I agree with you that OLED is the future and offers a superior picture. It is just a matter of getting costs down to an affordable level.
Interesting stuff about OLED, but rather silly of them to claim "there may not be anything to watch on it". That sounds like hyperbole from LCD manufacturers who don't have an OLED display in the works. Even if today's content will only use a fraction of the technologies' color range, today's content will still look vastly superior on OLED thanks to all of its other advantages.
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.
If there is absolutely nothing innovative, then the patent will be denied.
If there is absolutely nothing innovative, then the patent will be denied.
It would be easier if it always worked that way. Fortunately there's allowances for re-examinations of patents when lawsuits arise.
If there is absolutely nothing innovative, then the patent will be denied.
Gemstar / TV Guide holds a patent for those rectangles in their guide. Whether that is innovative is debatable.
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?
Two problems (both clearly explained in the article):
1. Sometimes the black bars are encoded into the video. I have a few DVDs like that because they were produced back when 4:3 aspect ratios were the only thing contemplated. The DVDs were actually sold as "widescreen", but really it was just a 4:3 video signal with black bars included in the video stream. So the DVD player sends a "this is 4:3" signal. The resulting image on an HDTV is a small video with black bars on all 4 sides.
2. Even if you have a properly encoded widescreen video, the TV may display closed captioning in the black bars, outside of the video image. So simply turning off these areas wouldn't work.
Or they could just do the sensible thing and use plasma.
Of course if you have a plasma this isn't an issue....
I was going to say the same thing.
That is unfortunately not the case with LCD or Plasma, but that is the capability that OLED will bring to televisions when it becomes more affordable in the near future.
Incorrect. Plasmas are lit on an individual pixel basis, so a single pixel can be turned off.
About the only picture quality advantage LCDs have is the screens aren't glossy like plasmas. But I'm sure Apple will take care of that.
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...
Well, your comment is part right but part wrong as well. The part that is right, is that on paper, yes, many times, competitors have better specs than on Apple devices. This can be seen with iPads, iPhones, etc.
However, the part wrong is that they charge more for less. Although the specs don't line up many times and seem to be on the weak side, the overall user experience is usually enhanced beyond that of the competitors. With Apple, efficiency, simplicity, superior design and infrastructure yields advantages beyond that of simple paper specs. This is what the other manufacturers don't get. Slap the best parts on the market in a box design, slap a logo on it, and out the door it goes. This is the philosophy of most computer companies.
The real tragedy is that companies like Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony, etc., who have been producing LCD's for many years, have not picked up on this new patented idea to LCD picture quality. Either that, or they don't market it. I'll pick the former. Its called complacency in the marketplace. You just keep churning the same garbage out year after year with a fresh marketing label and continue to collect until a company like Apple comes along and turns you upside down with new ideas and fresh technology.
The real tragedy is that companies like Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony, etc., who have been producing LCD's for many years, have not picked up on this new patented idea to LCD picture quality. Either that, or they don't market it. I'll pick the former. Its called complacency in the marketplace. You just keep churning the same garbage out year after year with a fresh marketing label and continue to collect until a company like Apple comes along and turns you upside down with new ideas and fresh technology.
This isn't really a new idea, it's Apple's new twist on an exsiting idea that the other manufacturers already include in their sets. Localized dimming of the backlight has been around for a few years. Since shortly after LED backlighting took off (because LED backlighting provides the level of control needed for localized dimming to be effective). Apple's technique may do it better than the others, but that remains to be seen.
And many, if not most, Apple patents (and patents in general) never see the light of a production line. This is typical. They come up with some new idea and then patent it just in case it turns out to be useful some day for a production product. Or simply to block someone else from using the idea even if Apple never does.
This isn't really a new idea, it's Apple's new twist on an exsiting idea that the other manufacturers already include in their sets. Localized dimming of the backlight has been around for a few years. Since shortly after LED backlighting took off (because LED backlighting provides the level of control needed for localized dimming to be effective). Apple's technique may do it better than the others, but that remains to be seen.
And this is the core of my point. Apple's specialty is taking existing technologies that have grown tired and complacent and make them better. So much better that they create a new revenue stream of growth, and competitors stand around scratching their heads asking why didn't they think of that.
Of course, the backlighting piece is just a part of the whole. I think that Apple will do for televisions, and the home media experience in general, in the same fashion that the iPhone did for handheld devices.
This has been a problem for TV manufacturers who are now basically selling TVs at a low price point, even with reasonable quality, because consumers are not prepared to pay prices that not so long ago were commonplace for higher-grade Cathode-Ray NTSC sets.
The challenge is not making a TV that produces a better picture, the challenge is convincing consumers in large numbers that the picture is better. It doesn't help that if you check out the sets running in stores like your friendly neighbourhood Wal-Mart the signal being fed into the sets and the calibration of those sets is nothing short of atrocious. Everything in those settings looks horrible and yet this is being presented to consumers as the state of TV image quality. Feed garbage into even a great TV and odds are it's garbage that you'll get as a result.
Where Apple could have an advantage is that if Apple offers its TV only via Apple Stores, those sets can be properly set up in order to demonstrate what a quality product being fed quality source material can offer. It's that sort of attention to detail that sets Apple apart. I certainly find it doubtful that Apple would allow a retailer like Wal-Mart to sell the Apple TV and badly mangle marketing the device by wiping out whatever quality advantages the product might have thanks to garbage-in-garbage-out display methodology.
The truth is that even if Apple produced a TV delivering a picture of comparable quality to the competition, if set up correctly through their retail network, there was a perception of better quality, Apple could, with a little clever marketing charge a premium and still have a popular product. Competitors have given Apple that opportunity by allowing big-box retailers like Wal-Mart to quite simply do a horrendous job of educating the buying public about TVs and certainly demoing them.
I mean their Apple TV isn;t even 1080. .
Because that's what the studios and networks will allow them to use. So step one is to have some kind of leverage to get them to do what Apple wants. Rather like when the record labels wanted pricing control and Apple wouldn't give it until the labels agreed to drop DRM
As for this patent, nothing in it is 100% certain to be for a tv. I can see this same tech being for the iPad.
One thing they could potentially leverage is iTunes Extras. Most of the time, with movies, it's a big yawn.
Often that is because the studio doesn't want to risk hurting their precious DVD sales. So the disks have like 10 features on them and the Extras has one. and not even the best one.
the recent Avatar release is the only Extras that felt like it was the DVD version. In quality and quantity of extras