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Ultra High Definition

20/10/2006

Peter Blasina writes:

One thing you can be sure of with technology is that the moment the Next Big Thing hits the shelf, its successor is already on the drawing board.

The beginnings of Blu-ray and HD-DVD were already well progressed when DVD debuted almost ten years ago, for example, and now the scenario appears like being repeated with high definition. For while the new standard in high resolution video has barely got traction around the world, its potential usurper has already been previewed at a broadcaster?s convention in Amsterdam.

Developed by the Japanese national broadcaster (NHK), Ultra High Definition TV has a resolution of 7680 x 4320 pixels. That?s 1300 136 166 pixels in total. Today?s high definition provides 1020 x 1080, or 2 073 600 total pixels. Do the math and Ultra HD offers 16 times more picture detail.

Now, I?m pretty impressed by current high definition, particularly the 1080p programming I?ve seen on 1080 progressive plasma and LCD panels. For me, today?s HD creates a heightened sense of reality of the scene I?m watching. I find myself studying the ?blush? strokes on Naomi Robson?s cheeks and the fine, fluffy stamens of tulips in the HD loops broadcast by the major networks. Yes, HD can make even the most mundane television riveting... which is, as one columnist pointed out, what hallucinogenic drugs are good at too.

So it?s hard to imagine what a picture with 16 times the resolution of standard HD might look like. When I do, however, I imagine that, more than just a window on reality, Ultra HD appears like actual reality.  I imagine, too, that it probably makes ordinary HD look pretty damn scrappy.

So why, then, blow thousands of dollars on 1920 x 1080 high definition flat panels and video source equipment when they?re already earmarked for obsolescence?

The obvious reason is that that Ultra HD is about 25 years away from being available to people in their lounge rooms, according to NHK? and that you?d be a pretty dull fish if you had nothing to watch in the interim.

Impediments to the speedier introduction of Ultra HD include the absence ? anywhere in the world ? of a cable, tower or satellite broadcast network capable of transmitting the enormous amount of data that makes up an Ultra HD picture, and the tool-up costs for TV networks. These include cameras capable of shooting Ultra HD, studios equipped for recording Ultra HD, and editing software and hardware powerful enough to produce Ultra HD programming.

Consumers, too, would have to dig deep and shell out for new super-high resolution displays. Ultra HD debuted on a cinema-sized screen using special commercial grade projection equipment, so there?s a lot of development work to be done before the same resolution is possible in a display with dimensions more suitable for domestic viewing.

So it all seems a bit hard. A bit impossible, in fact. And what would we use it for anyway? High def is more than good enough, right?

If all this sounds familiar, it should. The same arguments were  ranged against high definition and, yet, high definition is an inevitability. Now I?m not brave enough to predict the same for Ultra HD, but poo-pooing a technology on the basis of complexity, cost or lack of immediate application wouldn?t have put movies onto shiny little optical discs? or humankind into space, for that matter.

This last is a dramatic analogy, but one that demonstrates how we can?t say with any certainty what will be possible in the future, based on the capabilities of current technology. So if there?s a lesson here it?s that history does repeat. And if Ultra HD follows HD?s trajectory, Japan?s national broadcaster will have twice played a pivotal role. Forty years ago, you see, it was NHK that first conceived of high definition TV.