AfterDawn: News

Super Hi-Vision: To replace HDTV?

Right now, having a TV that is capable of 1080p is what many people are after due to its sharp and clear quality while playing back Full HD content. While most people generally don't have a HDTV, Japan's public broadcaster Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) is already developing what it hopes will serve as successor to HDTV. Super-Hi-Vision (SHV) is what the company has come up with.

Many of you have already seen details on its development (remember UHDV?). An SHV image has an astonishing resolution of 4,320 horizontal lines and 7,680 vertical lines (7680x4320). If you have an excellent working brain and have not already seen these figures, you might have noticed they are exactly 4 times that of whats considered Full HD, 1920x1080. Speaking in terms of pixels, it has 16 times the number of pixels compared to Full HD.



NHK demonstrated some important developments in its research on Friday, including a new image sensor for use in TV cameras that can shoot an entire SHV screen. NHK demonstrated capturing an entire SHV screen with a single sensor. A scene was setup about 3 meters away which included a newspaper. On a monitor displaying the image, the newspaper stories could be read easily, a task that would be very difficult with today's high definition systems.

There are a lot of technical problems to work out with a system such as this. An uncompressed SHV signal has a bit-rate of 24Gbps, meaning broadcast systems fall short. Even with the compression option, real-time encoding and decoding of such a high-bandwidth signal is a challenge. NHK and Fujitsu Ltd. linked 16 encoders in parallel, compressing an SHV signal to around 1/200th of its size using MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 compression.

This resulted in an SHV image of 128Mbps, which is still about 6 times the bandwidth of today's high-definition broadcasting in Japan. NHK once demonstrated UHDV with 18 minutes of footage, about 3.5TB in size, projected on a 4x7 meter screen. The extremely high resolution and refresh rate of 60fps (along with 22.2ch audio) captured reality so well, it made viewers feel physically sick, due to the motion on-screen.

Source:
Yahoo

Written by: James Delahunty @ 29 May 2007 19:21

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• 23 comments

• vashwolf

  Motion Sickness anyone?

  29.5.2007 23:01 #1

• ChiknLitl

  Quote:An SHV image has an astonishing resolution of 4,320 horizontal lines and 7,680 vertical lines (7280x4320). If you have an excellent working brain and have not already seen these figures, you might have noticed they are exactly 4 times that of whats considered Full HD, 1980x1080. Not to be nit-pickey but which is it...7,680 or 7280? 4 x 1920= 7680 if my mediocre working brain has not failed me. BTW, HD resolution of 1080p is 1920x1080 not 1980x1080. A simple mistake, true. But this is AD and someone was bound to call you on it.

  30.5.2007 04:36 #2

• Dela

  fixed both, cheers. never noticed. prob worth mentioning i wrote that item at about 6am my time

  30.5.2007 06:05 #3

• ChromeMud

  It's always nice for consumers to know that after spending MegaBucks on a 1080p Boobtube that it's already obsolete.
  Thankyou MegaCorps,you help us all to sleep at night :-D
  Forever the wheel of capitalism turns...

  30.5.2007 06:24 #4

• anubis66

  Quote: Quote:An SHV image has an astonishing resolution of 4,320 horizontal lines and 7,680 vertical lines (7280x4320). If you have an excellent working brain and have not already seen these figures, you might have noticed they are exactly 4 times that of whats considered Full HD, 1980x1080.
  
  Not to be nit-pickey but which is it...7,680 or 7280? 4 x 1920= 7680 if my mediocre working brain has not failed me. BTW, HD resolution of 1080p is 1920x1080 not 1980x1080. A simple mistake, true. But this is AD and someone was bound to call you on it.i thin your math is wrong. you arn't factoring both horizontal and vertical. its 4x the total screen space, not one side.

  30.5.2007 07:41 #5

• BludRayne

  Horizontal and vertical resolution may have increased 4x, but total amount of pixels has increased 16X ! That's pretty significant.

  30.5.2007 07:58 #6

• akaangus

  No American studio support = obscurity

  30.5.2007 08:31 #7

• Dela

  yep i know that there are 16 times the number of pixels compared to 1920x1080, but im talking about the number of lines of resolution.... now I understand that it makes more sense talking in those terms when speaking about broadcast systems, but the reason I choose 4 is because NHK is broadcaster.Quote:"If you have an excellent working brain and have not already seen these figures, you might have noticed they are exactly 4 times that of whats considered Full HD, 1920x1080."I never said it had 4 times the pixels of full hd, i know it has 16 times that figure, but when you read people talking about Full HD, they instead refer to 1080p, or 1920x1080, they don't say, "ye id like a 2073600 pixel-capable screen". Read my words, my math is right in how i said it, 1920 x 4 == 7680 and 1080 x 4 == 4320 - i wasnt refering to the number of pixels or just how much bigger it was in true resolution.
  
  But to be fair and I guess more thorough, ill ad din that its exactly 16 time the number of pixels

  30.5.2007 10:07 #8

• hughjars

  With take-up of HD TV so low as it already is right now this stands little chance of going anywhere.
  
  It's also worth pointing out that no major TV outlets are producing so-called 'full HD' (1080p) TV shows.
  They don't have the equipment to do so and as we saw with the UK & Europe's brand new Sky HD TV service (which was launched last summer 2006) not even the most recent services are being set-up with 1080p hardware.
  
  IMO this would be, if it ever appears at all, for public address at say sports events or shows etc only; the rest is pure day-dreaming and vaporware for those interested in techy kit but this is not heading to the mainstream any time soon or in any foreseeable timescale.
  
  It's also true that we can already achieve 'transperency' with master copies @ 2k.
  In fact the whole issue of dpi with movie film stock is probably one of the most relevant but often ignored sides of this......but then when did the fanboy element ever let the technical truth stand in the path of cheer-leading their fav brand and it's supposed acomplishments?
  
  2k Telecine is common (the other 'standard is 4k, usually for FX too) apparantly grains tend to break up much above 2k.
  see this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine
  
  2k is used for 1080p = transparent as many movies are processed at 2k.
  
  I nabbed this from elsewhere -
  
  http://www.users.qwest.net/~rnclark/scandetail.htm
  This is an interesting page that compares the scan quality of various resolutions.
  It's actually for comparing digital cameras to film frame detail, but it's very interesting, and seems to suggest 4000dpi is commonly used, while 8000dpi is approaching the diffraction limit (ie where no more detail is possible to capture - only noise).
  That said, he states he is using Velvia film, which is a film with one of the lowest amounts of grain possible, so the figures he gives are definately upper limits.
  In other words, 2000dpi would probably be more than sufficient for normal film and scanning at lower resolutions, such as 720p or 1080p.
  
  Even if another even larger HD format arrives, there wouldn't really be any point transferring 35mm movies to anything larger than 1080p.
  
  They would have to start filming on 70mm (imax) to go any higher.
  Even at 1080p you'll see lots of grain and resolution breaking up with 35mm.

  30.5.2007 10:18 #9

• cartucho

  does it really matter... todays video games systems only go to 1080p and im sure they will be around for the next 4 to 5 years.. no point on getting one on those tvs anywyas.. maybe in 10 years.. lol

  30.5.2007 12:53 #10

• cartucho

  almost forgot.. if you want full reality.. just got for a walk outside.. it will be 5000 cheaper to do that.

  30.5.2007 13:12 #11

• domie

  2 questions come to mind
  
  1) just what storage capacity will an optical disc need to reproduce a resolution like that ?
  
  2) at what point is the human eye not able to distinguish between the different resoutions ?

  30.5.2007 14:38 #12

• akkuma

  maybe im wrong but i think i read somewhere that 1080p is the best the human eye can see or close to it?

  30.5.2007 18:18 #13

• anubis66

  holo disks wre whats needed here
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc
  
  talk about avoiding piracy, use videos larger that any home computer or even pretty large servers could store.

  30.5.2007 19:49 #14

• akaangus

  Quote:
  1) just what storage capacity will an optical disc need to reproduce a resolution like that ?
  Well, if their 18 minute video was 3.5TB in size, then a whole movie plus commentaries and features would need at LEAST 20 TB. That is 20,000 GB! Blu-ray is MAYBE going to have 100 GB discs out "soon".
  
  This standard is just totally useless for at least 10 years, but I guess at least they're trying!

  30.5.2007 22:40 #15

• ChromeMud

  Considering Blu-ray and HD-DVD contain movies at 1080p
  stored at roughly 25 Gig and the extra resolution is
  16X the current HD resolution:-
  
  25 X 16 = 400 Gig needed with current H263/VC-1 codec.
  
  I presume a better (Fractal!?!) codec in ten years that may halve that requirement to 200 Gig needed per disk.
  Holographic disk will be suitable and cheap by then.
  
  Holographic Disk will need to sustain 400 Mbit to play the movie,
  something that the current disks have no chance in doing.
  Also a decoder has to decompress this monster in realtime.
  8 Advanced CELL chips with a Gig of UltraFast buffer Ram should suffice ;-)

  31.5.2007 03:21 #16

• hughjars

  Originally posted by domie: at what point is the human eye not able to distinguish between the different resoutions ? - Well without even going to this 4 times 1080p resolution it's an interesting enough a question when looking at the claimed advantages or superiority of 1080p v's 1080i v's 720p.
  
  I would warn that the links below are really only intended for anyone genuinely interested in looking beyond condescending 'spec sheet-jockey' talk & the utterly manipulative, ignorant & superficial advertising BS.
  
  These show the true physical limitations of the human eye (assuming 20/20 vision) and what this means in relation to resolution(s), screen sizes and viewing distances
  
  http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/
  
  Interesting chart here -
  
  http://www.carltonbale.com/wp-content/up...ution_chart.png

  31.5.2007 06:18 #17

• nchantim

  Originally posted by domie:2 questions come to mind
  
  2) at what point is the human eye not able to distinguish between the different resoutions ?Think about this:
  a 480-line picture projected 10 feet away may look clearer than a 1080 line image 1 foot away.
  
  a 1080 line image 10 feet away may or may not look clearer than a 4000 line image 1 foot away.
  
  When dealing with the preception of the human eye - it's not just the resolution, but the size of the physical pixels, and their distance from the eye.

  31.5.2007 10:41 #18

• dorkydork

  i'm impressed with the HDTV but it isnt as apparent until i saw it next to a regular tv. when you compare them side by side you can see the difference. for example, viewing a HD-DVD on a HDTV looks great but when you hook up a pc to it it looks like crap. it doesnt compare with a dedicated lcd. with this high of resolution we can have 50" "monitors" that maintain a crisp resolution.
  
  ps a while back i was at rockwell where there had a lcd type of display used in cockpits. it was *amazing*. the color was brilliant. i told them i wanted one and i was told it cost $50,000. this was about 12 years ago. while it doesnt seem like it, i bet when we see it, we'll want it.
  
  btw where are the holodiscs we were promised???
  
  dorkie dork
  "i dont think there is overkill on speed, storage, resolution or polygons in the computer world"

  31.5.2007 14:43 #19

• MistaE

  I saw a demo of this at NAB this year in Vegas. There was a shot of Shamu jumping up and landing in the water. The image was so crisp my body expected water to fall on me due to the almost 3D quality of the water droplets. 2K HD is amazing digital image, 4K HD is truly like being there.

  31.5.2007 15:37 #20

• ikara

  Quote:This standard is just totally useless for at least 10 years, but I guess at least they're trying!
  That may be the main point, if no one did the work to design the higher resoluton, then it will never exist. When other technology gets to the stage that this can be used in a practical way it will happen. One step at a time and collect the necessary together, whenever they become available. If we give up on doing this kind of work because it seems impossible or impractical it will never happen.

  31.5.2007 17:02 #21

• akaangus

  Quote:i'm impressed with the HDTV but it isnt as apparent until i saw it next to a regular tv. when you compare them side by side you can see the difference. for example, viewing a HD-DVD on a HDTV looks great but when you hook up a pc to it it looks like crap. it doesnt compare with a dedicated lcd. with this high of resolution we can have 50" "monitors" that maintain a crisp resolution.I was at a bar once after a Jays game and for some reason they had one TV on TSN and the other on TSN HD. I never really appreciated HD until I saw them side-by-side, but also I don't really miss not having it at home (I can handle 720p or 1080i).
  
  It's all subjective, and when you are used to good ol' 480i through composite it's going to take a lot to change. To get the exact same cable service I have now (of course not all of it in HD) it will cost at LEAST an extra $15 a month, and that's not gaining anything but extra resolution.
  
  Considering I don't buy movies to begin with, HD or Blu-ray is a moot argument ATM for me :)
  
  I'm happy with 480p on Wii and DVD and 480i for everything else for now, when HD becomes the standard and is no longer an extra fee I will for sure have it but until then no way.

  2.6.2007 23:56 #22

• Unfocused

  Why do they release this news so fast on the heels of the current "next gen" technology? Although this is years away from being mainstream, this still has the potential to scare away Joe Schmoe consumer who isn't that well informed to begin with.

  27.6.2007 22:15 #23