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In Depth: After 1080p - everything you need to know about Ultra HD
Ultra HD Is being touted as the eventual successor to the high definition resolutions we have at home today most commonly 720p and 1080p.
The BBC and Japanese broadcaster NHK teamed up earlier this week to run an experimental broadcast showing Ultra HD’s potential. It could be the next big thing in TV.
What’s the big idea?
Ultra HD increases the resolution of broadcast TV and movie video by an order of magnitude way over what we can see today with 1080p flat panel displays.
There are various different implementations known as 2K, 4K and 8K, which have increased resolution accordingly. The result is a potentially massive increase in picture quality.
2K, 4K, 8K - what?
In a nutshell, 2K Ultra HD video doubles the resolution to 2048 x 1920 pixels; 4K increases that to 4096 x 2160 pixels, or 16 times the resolution of 1080p.
Content that’s 8K, which is what NHK and the BBC broadcast at IBC 2008, comes out at a staggering 7680 x 4320 pixels. It’s this standard that NHK is ultimately aiming for when it starts proper testing in 2016.
Who’s doing it?
Ultra HD has the biggest benefits right now for digital cinemas and other commercial applications where massive screen sizes are essential.
However, gadget makers like Samsung would ultimately like us to get our hands on it, which is arguably one of the reasons why Samsung showed off a 4K 82-inch TV during IFA 2008.
Toshiba also says it has the technologies in place to deliver 4K displays whenever the public demands them.
So, move over Sky HD?
Hold on. Although Ultra HD looks sexy, there simply isn’t the infrastructure around to deliver it into our homes.
NHK’s take on Ultra HD, dubbed Super Hi-Vision (SHV), originally required a bandwidth of 28Gbps to broadcast, but it’s now cut that down to 120Mbps by developing suitable algorithms in conjunction with the BBC. But…
Compare that to the 17-19Mbps bit-rate of existing Sky and BBC HD broadcasts and you’ll appreciate levitra that it’s going to be years 20 years, in fact before it makes its way down to your TV aerial.
The IBC 2008 broadcast used MPEG2 compression, according to a PDF press release on NHK’s website. It’s not yet clear whether the BBC and NHK are also toying with more efficient video codecs like H.264.
The other big problem is capturing and storing Ultra HD content in the first place. There are still very few broadcast quality cameras around that are even 4K capable. Can you imagine the amount of storage you’d need to keep uncompressed 8K footage?
NHK can currently store a maximum of 18 minutes of uncompressed Super Hi-Vision content at a time, according to SatMagazine. The proprietary disk it uses spins on a cushion of air, and would collapse under its own weight under normal circumstances. That’s some specialist media.
Yeah, but I’ll be able to watch it on my PS 3, 4 5 or whatever
Yes… and no. Pioneer is currently trumpeting the invention of a 500GB Blu-ray disc, which spreads video data across 20 25GB layers. It may well be suited to 4K content, but won’t arrive until 2010 at the earliest.
Hollywood will snap it up then, surely?
The big movie studios viagra bestellen could certainly stick 4K movies on 500GB Blu-ray discs. They’re unlikely to do so, because they’ll want to see how demand for HD content on existing Blu-ray discs will shake out first.
Hollywood is also very nervous of any format that could potentially make it a hostage to fortune. Movie studios certainly won’t be happy to give away proper cinema quality content without wrapping it in incredible amounts of DRM and charging large amounts of cash.
Ah yes, so how much is all this going to cost me?
To get the most from an Ultra HD signal you’ll probably need a TV that measures at least 100 inches from corner to corner, with a pixel pitch of 0.3mm.
The only TVs around right now that are that big cost in the region of £50,000 (step forward Panasonic’s flagship TH-103PF10), which only gives you 1080p resolution.
Obviously, there will be economies of scale, but we could well end up seeing a high-definition divide arise in the UK, just as there is a digital one.
Remember, big chunks of the UK haven’t even made the switch to standard definition digital TV broadcasts yet, let alone high definition.
It’s easy to imagine then that there’ll be three kinds of TV in the future standard def, …
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