Think I'll skip the HDTV Revolution
And wait for Ultra High Definition
Japanese engineers have been testing out a prototype of ultra high definition video (UHDV) which has 16 times greater image resolution than today?s best standard HDTV. UHDV uses 4,000 horizontal scanning lines, which is 4 times that of HDTV and over 6 times that of regular TV PAL broadcasts.
As no existing equipment could handle such as resolution, they had to make a custom built camera, storage and projection system using arrays of existing components in order test a prototype. To even store just 18 minutes of UHDV footage, they had used 16 HDTV recorders (likely a 4 x 4 array) with a capacity of 3.5 terabytes 3 minutes of footage was recorded from the custom made camera mounted to a vehicle and then driven about the streets.
The footage was later projected on a 4 x 7 metre screen for public demonstration and the public were astonished. As the visual effect of the footage travelling down a road was so realistic, some viewers even experienced nausea as a side effect of seeing ultra realistic motion, but not physically feeling the motion. It's like the opposite of seasickness where you can feel movement, but cannot see it while in an enclosed section.
Now THAT would be cool. HD manufacturers just have to love this. They would sell by the multiple Terabytes. I could see something like this becoming big within 20 years. Once consumers have HDTV in their homes and running Projections systems the theaters are going to have to do something to draw the users back in. UHDV seems like just that sort of "jaw dropping" adventure that would fill seats.
Japanese engineers have been testing out a prototype of ultra high definition video (UHDV) which has 16 times greater image resolution than today?s best standard HDTV. UHDV uses 4,000 horizontal scanning lines, which is 4 times that of HDTV and over 6 times that of regular TV PAL broadcasts.
As no existing equipment could handle such as resolution, they had to make a custom built camera, storage and projection system using arrays of existing components in order test a prototype. To even store just 18 minutes of UHDV footage, they had used 16 HDTV recorders (likely a 4 x 4 array) with a capacity of 3.5 terabytes 3 minutes of footage was recorded from the custom made camera mounted to a vehicle and then driven about the streets.
The footage was later projected on a 4 x 7 metre screen for public demonstration and the public were astonished. As the visual effect of the footage travelling down a road was so realistic, some viewers even experienced nausea as a side effect of seeing ultra realistic motion, but not physically feeling the motion. It's like the opposite of seasickness where you can feel movement, but cannot see it while in an enclosed section.
Now THAT would be cool. HD manufacturers just have to love this. They would sell by the multiple Terabytes. I could see something like this becoming big within 20 years. Once consumers have HDTV in their homes and running Projections systems the theaters are going to have to do something to draw the users back in. UHDV seems like just that sort of "jaw dropping" adventure that would fill seats.
Comments
Thing is, we're close to the point where higher resolutions aren't all that attractive. While I wouldn't turn down more pixels, it isn't enough of an incentive to upgrade.
Who knows, we may see stereo-scopic flicker 3D popularized before UHDV.
Currently:
I would pay more for better brightness, contrast, and perhaps color saturation. I wouldn't pay more for a higher resolution display. This is probably a typical sentiment for HD-equiped home theater buffs.
You figure that even if the technology becomes costeffective soon, you stilll have the political hurdles of getting this standard passed, pushing station to the new standard, etc. Technology comes fast but politics, regulation, etc. still move at the same rate.
As crazy as it sounds in 10 years even the home consumer has a lot to look forward to.
Nvidia's prediction of the 2014 computer
If in 10 years we truly have this kind of speed and power then I'm at a loss for words. My brain is far too feebleminded to comprehend that my son will be 12 years old and have access to hardware like this. I'd better get this kid ready for a the multimedia future.
Geegawd 32GB frame buffer! Games running entiredly in the GPU.
Graphics Bandwidth of 3 Terabytes a second. We're talking rendering Finding Nemo in realtime without breaking a sweat.
If this kind of power is in 10 years...try and wrap your mind around what comes in 20. Theaters may double in size to accomdate more people are larger screens running Ultra HiDef.
Movies will be %90 Green Screen and compositing. Why rent a helicopter and take arial shots when you can just render them? CGI actors will rival live actors for films. Animators will still be paid beans.
Originally posted by hmurchison
And wait for Ultra High Definition
[I]Japanese engineers have been testing out a prototype of ultra high definition video (UHDV) which has 16 times greater image resolution than today?s best standard HDTV. UHDV uses 4,000 horizontal scanning lines, which is 4 times that of HDTV and over 6 times that of regular TV PAL broadcasts.
There's got to be something wrong the math here:
UHDV = 4 * HDTV
UHDV = 6 * PAL
4 * HDTV = 6 * PAL
HDTV = (6 * PAL) / 4 = 1.5 PAL
HDTV is a lot better than a mere 50% resolution improvement over PAL. What I think they meant to say is UHDV is four times the resolution of HDTV, and HDTV is 6 times the resolution of PAL, making UHDV 24 times the the resolution of PAL.
At any rate... I can't see that UHDV has much applicability to home theater. HDTV's 1920 x 1080 is more than most people will ever be able to take advantage of.
I recently purchased a 70" (178 cm) HDTV -- an LCD rear projection. At first when I started shopping around, I was annoyed that I could find any fixed-pixel displays, even for a lot more money than I ended up paying, which implemented the full 1920x1080 resolution of HDTV. Most plasma, LCD, and DLP systems were either 1280x720 or 1366x768. A lot of these displays looked really good, but I had to wonder how much better full HDTV resolution would look if I could only find such a display for comparison.
Then I decided to do a little calculation. The human visual system has resolution limits, and that limit is not being able to perceive details smaller than about one arcsecond (1/60 degree). I decided to calculate what the visual angle of each pixel on my prospective new TV would be, viewed from a distance of about 12' (3.7 meters). For a 70", 1366x768 display like I ended up buying, each pixel occupies just slightly over one arcsecond -- in other words, the resolution is right at the very limits of my ability to perceive fine detail.
Full 1920x1080 resolution might have been better, but not by very much. I think the main advantage of 1920x1080 might be avoiding scaling artifacts by having a simple 1-to-1 correspondence between signal pixels and display pixels. Since I was pleased with the images I was seeing on existing displays, however, I decided there was no good reason to hold out for 1920x1080.
Even at display sizes of 80" or more, 1920x1080 will exceed human visual resolution at most reasonable viewing distances. UHDV would be total overkill. Simply implementing 1080p rather than 1080i -- so that interlacing artifacts above the visual detail threshold don't become apparent -- would be more than enough of an improvement. I expect we'll see 1080p capable systems when HD-DVD arrives, and if not, soon afterwards.
better specifics. Oh well, at least we're saying the same
thing.
I too am always astounded by such numbers.
But keep in mind that humans aren't increasing in
processing power. There is a finite resolution that human
eyes and brain are capable of perceiving.
There is some really interesting research into max
perceivable resolution. The numbers they tote don't rely on
pixels unless viewing distance is also specified. Instead,
they focus on the smallest arc of a field of vision over
which detail can be recognized. Interestingly, this arc
changes size with respect to location in the field of
vision as well as color and contrast.
Still, max perceivable resolution isn't that far off.
(Sorry I lost the links to the appropriate research.)
I think I'll be happy at 1080p. I want a progressive picture with a 1:1 pixel map. No interlacing for me. I do think as we get larger screens(10ft and beyond) that users will be able to see the difference between 1080p lines and 720p.
Above that and I think you're looking to Theaters only for the next decade.
What's important in video is color sampling and contrast. If someone can nail a true black and maintain white purity that would be an eyepopping picture. Todays resolution is fine now we just need improvements in luminence.
But it is fun to dream...
and 35mm will disapear in a few years.
http://www.studio-systems.com/broadf...ra/Ultra39.htm
But as follows, not as above...
http://www.filmimaging.com/2003/07_j...lsa_origin.htm
http://www.theskillszone.co.uk/HDTV/...s/010503_1.asp
This Ultra HDTV standard will dominate because it gets film makers "just enough" resolution to look awesome at movie theatre screen sizes and viewing distances. Basically, about 4X the resolution of HDTV is needed for that.
4000X2000 not 7680x4320 is what's needed.
More is always better, yes, but not always.
Slightly larger than a 35mm frame, there are a few 4K x 2k sensors in development systems. These are good for a number of reasons. The cameras remain of a manageable size, and the photosites themselves remain large enough to offer good S/N and DR characteristics. And, because the pixel quality is good at the recorded level, the possibility of getting a good picture out of a single chip mosaic system is also quite high.
That 7.5K x 4.3K system certainly is intriguing, but everything about it will remain rather specialized for a few years to come. Looks more like an IMAX replacement.
The question becomes, do people really want to be that immersed when watching a film? Good for spectacle, yes, but something about film wants to be more voyeuristic, not neccessarily more visceral.
The question becomes, do people really want to be that immersed when watching a film? Good for spectacle, yes, but something about film wants to be more voyeuristic, not neccessarily more visceral.
Yes. My eyes yearn to see thing more clearly. Film "effects" actually bug me because of the blur in pans and fast moving scenes but some people love it.
Ultra High Def video is akin to listenging to high end audio on something like dynaudio. It is breathtaking to see/hear such clarity that the immersion is far more palpable and thus dreamy.
Going digital sucks for one obvious reason. Film stock prices will be going up.
It all depends on the specification of the format and theatre specification.
IMAX, which would be the closest thing to this Ultra-ultra high def format, has a particular specification designed to seat the audience close enough to the screen to actually see the detail. IMAX is not just a big screen, it calls for a big screen "up close" because the specification must fill so many degrees of visual arc. (I forget the exact numbers, but it's immersive)
That's how you get people to feel sick, or like they're about to fall out of their chairs.
This is reflected in the IMAX theatre dimensions -- stadium seating -- everyone sits pretty close relative to the ginormous screen. Two things happen -- the aforementioned immersion, and subsequently, enough proximity to discern a lot of detail (degrees of visual arc).
But a theatre format like 35mm is not designed around this concept of immersion. Big is good, more detail is good, but you don't typically sit close enough (or cover enough field of view) to make out an extreme of detail -- at least not mroe than 8MP worth, according to hollywood research.
And that's why I have to ask the question again, perhaps slightly re-phrased.
Visceral immersion or intellectual immersion?
Do you want to see a virtual world or a stage?
I think the theatre paradigm prefers the stage, though it is a magical stage of variagated dimensions. It can show a world, a landscape, or an intimate portait, track motion across many planes, and suggest a plethora of movements, but it survives because it can preserve a human (and preformative) dimension, it can be sea, or just a room.
To make film work at the IMAX level, you would be on the way to a 2d virtuality. If you stick to the 35mm paradigm, any close up would be impossibly close, it's not interesting anymore, it's oppressive -- the giant head from 1984 overwhelming your visual pathway, leaving you no place to look. So what? You can re-adjust the visual conventions, not zoom in as far, have a broader stage around the action -- less of a stage in fact; more of a virtual (2d) world. But virtual worlds forego the advantage of framing. No one will be able to track the entire frame at any given time, what they watch will depend on different criteria, and that will change the experience, not neccessarily improve it.
but this is all slightly askew...
To simplify:
You can sit closer, or make a bigger screen, once you work out the dimensions of the screen and the theatre, there is actually such a thing as "enough" resolution.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Ultra High Def video is akin to listenging to high end audio on something like dynaudio. It is breathtaking to see/hear such clarity that the immersion is far more palpable and thus dreamy.
Just like high-end audio, I also expect high-end video to be full of outrageous claims from self-proclaimed "golden eyes" who will be utterly convinced, that, oh, some $3,000 digital video cable makes the picture "come alive" in some magical way that a mere $40 cable can't do, when all reason, logic, and "blind" testing say otherwise.
(Yes, "blind" testing is an ironic word for video, but you should know what I mean anyway!
I think the real value of very high resolution imaging will be in original shooting and pre-production. The extra resolution could be used to eliminate screen door/moire/strobing effects that sometimes crop up in video, and having more detail in the original images will allow those images to be manipulated more (especially zooming/magnifying) without revealing resolution flaws in a final product.
Screed
When 8MP becomes practical, big studios shooting 35mm will be making the switch, and no one in the audience will be the wiser, the digital shoot will probably be seen as superior (less noise, no grain).
Originally posted by sCreeD
Saw this at Apple's site a while ago. Lowry is scanning films at 4000 lines.
I've followed a few links about this 4000 line scanning, and Googles a bit, but I can't find anything that says whether this is horizontal or vertical resolution. Is this 4000xVVVV or HHHHx4000?
The articles I've seen mention the 480 and 1080 lines of SDTV and HDTV in relation to the 4000 line process, but I also get the impression that everything I'm reading is being parroted from the same badly written press release, or from other articles written from that press release.
If the 4000 lines really is vertical resolution, as the comparison to 480 and 1080 lines implies, a 16:9 image would be 7111x4000, or 28 megapixels per frame.
If the 4000 lines is horizontal resolution, however, a 16:9 image would be 4000x2250, still a very high resolution, but a much more reasonable 9 megapixels per frame.
9 and 28 megapixels are very different. I wonder which it is.
Hollywood wasn't willing to try HD until they had 24p cameras
"don't spend more than $2K for an HDTV" is the advice from Karl Meisenbach.
Larry Thorpe is saying in 5 years, 50% of the nation will have hidef
In digital cinema, Larry says, digital theaters - 4Kx2K, next week at InfoComm a 4K projector will be unveiled.
$50K projectors are coming to theaters, theater owners will begin to listen.
SRX-R110
http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/4864
It can project a 27ft 16:9 image where a pixel is the size of the "e" in "Liberty". That's amazing. I want this.
The point? In my experience, consumer electronics are crap, SVGA or XVGA is more than fine for projected DVDs and HDTV doesn't do much for films yet (and I don't see the point in buying any more HDTV gear to watch Leno).
That's why I like apple computers. Very practical feature set without, for example, going overboard with insanely high powerbook screen resolutions.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Sony announced a 4K Projector last week. I'm amazed I missed it
SRX-R110
http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/4864
It can project a 27ft 16:9 image where a pixel is the size of the "e" in "Liberty". That's amazing. I want this.
That's e on a quarter! and it speaks to my comments on how much resolution is enough.
There is a comfortable viewing distance that is determined not by the ability to discern detail. That's cheating, you can move out untill things look sharp, but the "stage" will be pretty small. Rather, the right viewing distance for cinema is determined by the ratio of distance to screen size needed to fill enough of your field of view.
You can overfill, like IMAX does, but that gets you into virtuality. It's good for visceral reaction, but it isn't easy to watch the whole frame or for extended viewing. You can make the stage too small (or sit too far) and then it's like looking through a small window, and you lose presence and detail.
Part of the beauty of 16:9 is that it mimics the same ratio as the human visual field -- 160 degrees horizontal and 90-100 degrees vertical -- and that makes it comfortable because when the distance provides for a comfortable horizontal fit, the vertical will be just about right, or vice versa. On 4:3 or 2:1 or any other size, there is more of an impression of boarders since only one axis will ever be an ideal fit.
That's OK for something like IMAX (which is tall) or some of the ultra wide screen formats, because their goal is to get you to look around, or side to side. Incedentally, people generally prefer a side to side pan over an up-down pan... But i digress...
So back to the 4K x 2K units. At 27 feet, the viewing distance should be about 27-54 feet (in a common theatre)
Can you distinguish any of the markings on a quarter at that distance? I'm going to guess, no. You probably can't see the difference bewteen one such "e" and two such "e"'s side-by-side either.
Which is why 4K by 2K is actually "enough" for cinema purposes.
This holds even if you scale up the screen size, which means you have to sit further back to keep a comfortable viewing distance.
If you have a 4K x 2K image projected at 54' and you sit 54-108' back, the net effect will be the same. You still can't distinguish two points accurately.
Same thing if you halve the size and distance -- a 13' screen from which you sit only 13-26' away.
You might say, "But Matsu, I'd like to sit 13' away from the 54' screen." That's your preference, but most people avoid the first 3 rows of the theatre like a plague, and not because they can discern artifacts, or see the resolution break down at that distance, but because it gets down right hard to view the whole frame without feeling permanently wall-eyed.
This is cool, because it means that even 1080P capture is probably enough! Provided you capture it RAW from a 3 CCD machine, and deliver it through a line doubler with a minimum of compression on the final "print"
Theaters are going to have a tough time bringing people in once even the average person has 50+ inches and HDTV at home. Film looks great...but consumers love keeping that $20 in their pocket.
I'll await reports from infocomm. This sucker is supposed to be shipping next year Q1 2005 at 60k and 80K depending on the lumens.
Starting this thread I though 4k projectors would be 20 years off. Looks like I was a full decade off. This tech will be available for less than 10k within a decade. Mark my words.
What good is fantastic resolution if all there is on T.V (other than HBO) is garbage!!