High Definition Television has been around for a while in Japan. In the 1980s HDTV was already commonplace in Tokyo, but its establishment in the west was still a good 15-20 years off. Now, it's 2005 and the US and other western nations are finally getting up to speed, using public policy to encourage the growth of the HDTV format. Japan, however, never one to wait around, is once again upping the technology ante with "NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratory's" development of the Super-High-Definition-Television-Format or "SHDTV."
From reports that Usedcarsalesman has read, SHDTV (aka, "Ultra High Definition Television" or "UHDTV") is not, say, a mere 50% higher resolution-version of HDTV. Instead, SHDTV provides a resolution that is 400%(!) that of the highest, existing quality TV picture -- 1080i HDTV; more specifically, an SHDTV displays over 4000 lines of resolution for all you tech-heads out there.
What is the effect of all that resolution? An interesting quote from a recent SHDTV viewer describing the sensation of watching SHDTV: "...now I think the most appropriate term to describe this (SHDTV) sensation is a "feeling of immersion" that cannot be adequately described by calling it a feeling of "being there." .
NHK wanted to show the new SHDTV format to many Japanese consumers, so they set up a special monitor in a store window on a street and played a specially-created SHDTV video of 18 minutes long. This video was created merely by fixing a SHDTV camera to the hood of a Tokyo Taxi cab and driving the streets of the city for 18 minutes. Well, crazy thing was that people on the sidewalk who stopped to watch this SHDTV video began to experience vertigo -- literally a sense of moving, though they were actually standing still. The picture was so sharp that it literally confused one's senses and caused "motion sickness."
Now, here's one of the downsides to SHDTV: video-file storage-space. To show the aforementioned 18 minute video took up something like 3.5 Tera-bytes of data-space. If you are familiar with DVD file storage, then you know that 3.5 Tera-bytes is about 750 full DVDs worth of data, and that's just for an 18 minute SHDTV feature. Create a 2 hour feature-film in SHDTV and you are looking at storage equivalent to 4500 DVDs! So, you are going to need more than a 56k modem to download something like this! :)
We are probably looking at mass-market, consumer-use of this kind of SHDTV technology in maybe 30-40 years or so. But, in the nearer term, say 10-20 years, you may see such SHDTV technology incorporated in to Movie Theaters and other venues that can manage the storage and display needs of the format. Usedcarsalesman is guessing that SHDTV or UHDTV may be another technology beyond current Digital projectors, 3D- without-glasses and IMAX that struggling movie theater chains use to juice-up ticket sales down the road.
(modifications to this post were made on 8:30am, Sept 11, 2005, to correct certain previously misstated facts)
From reports that Usedcarsalesman has read, SHDTV (aka, "Ultra High Definition Television" or "UHDTV") is not, say, a mere 50% higher resolution-version of HDTV. Instead, SHDTV provides a resolution that is 400%(!) that of the highest, existing quality TV picture -- 1080i HDTV; more specifically, an SHDTV displays over 4000 lines of resolution for all you tech-heads out there.
What is the effect of all that resolution? An interesting quote from a recent SHDTV viewer describing the sensation of watching SHDTV: "...now I think the most appropriate term to describe this (SHDTV) sensation is a "feeling of immersion" that cannot be adequately described by calling it a feeling of "being there." .
NHK wanted to show the new SHDTV format to many Japanese consumers, so they set up a special monitor in a store window on a street and played a specially-created SHDTV video of 18 minutes long. This video was created merely by fixing a SHDTV camera to the hood of a Tokyo Taxi cab and driving the streets of the city for 18 minutes. Well, crazy thing was that people on the sidewalk who stopped to watch this SHDTV video began to experience vertigo -- literally a sense of moving, though they were actually standing still. The picture was so sharp that it literally confused one's senses and caused "motion sickness."
Now, here's one of the downsides to SHDTV: video-file storage-space. To show the aforementioned 18 minute video took up something like 3.5 Tera-bytes of data-space. If you are familiar with DVD file storage, then you know that 3.5 Tera-bytes is about 750 full DVDs worth of data, and that's just for an 18 minute SHDTV feature. Create a 2 hour feature-film in SHDTV and you are looking at storage equivalent to 4500 DVDs! So, you are going to need more than a 56k modem to download something like this! :)
We are probably looking at mass-market, consumer-use of this kind of SHDTV technology in maybe 30-40 years or so. But, in the nearer term, say 10-20 years, you may see such SHDTV technology incorporated in to Movie Theaters and other venues that can manage the storage and display needs of the format. Usedcarsalesman is guessing that SHDTV or UHDTV may be another technology beyond current Digital projectors, 3D- without-glasses and IMAX that struggling movie theater chains use to juice-up ticket sales down the road.
(modifications to this post were made on 8:30am, Sept 11, 2005, to correct certain previously misstated facts)
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