Not willing to make predictions about the future of HDTV with all the other analysts,
In-Stat has jumped ahead with its latest report, a peek at the future of Ultra High Definition (though the kids are calling it
Super Hi-Vision these days.) We'd heard the 8K / 4K broadcasts could flip on as early as
2015, but this report pegs 2017 - 2022 as a more likely time period, with the expectation that 28.2% of European households will be sporting the 22.2-channel audio spec by 2025. Of course, if you must be first on the block with it, there's always
JVC's $175k DLA-RS4000 available right now.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
David Susilo @ Nov 4th 2009 4:25PM
Give Super Hi-Vision. I don't care for 3D. 1080p is just not enough for home-theatre with projection system when viewing 2.35:1 ratio movies.
Information Central @ Nov 5th 2009 2:37AM
You actually believe this article? This must be a joke.
There is no provision in U.S. standards for such a thing. Think it through: We can't even deliver 1080p broadcasts, let alone anything higher. Not to mention these other giant blunders in our ATSC spec:
1. No requirement that all receivers have updatable firmware, to allow codec upgrades or anything else. We are stuck with outdated MPEG-2 at less than 19 megabits per second forever, essentially.
2. That bitrate bears repeating: 19 megabits per second. You can't even fit decent HD into that. How are you going to cram "UHD" into it? Ludicrous.
3. Interlacing is still allowed. INTERLACING, people. A relic of the '30s and a ridiculous scourge. Most people don't realize that interlaced video must be blurred vertically to prevent twitter (shimmering of fine horizontal lines in the image), so those 1080 rows' worth of resolution you think you're getting? You're not.
4. Idiotic frame rates. 29.97. STILL.
5. 18 different picture formats, and no requirements (other than VERTICAL resolution) for what you can call "HD".
loupdesagesse @ Nov 4th 2009 5:00PM
"...broadcasts could flip on as early as 2015, but this report pegs 2012 - 2022 as a more likely time period"
Am I the only one who realizes that 2015 falls into this "more likely" time period. One guess is just more specific than the other, but they both cover the same time.
Naman @ Nov 5th 2009 2:43AM
And if you believe all that Mayan end-of-the-world mumbo-jumbo, will worrying beyond 2012 really matter?
wack @ Nov 5th 2009 12:04PM
maybe there was something lost in translation and this is what the mayans actually predicted...
chumley @ Nov 4th 2009 5:35PM
These predictions are ludicrous. We can't even get current HDTV content delivered at reasonable bit rates today except via OTA and blu ray. There's no way anything that requires more bandwidth will get "flipped on" in the next 10 years. 22.2 audio spec? Give me a break, almost nobody is going to install that many speakers.
timta2 @ Nov 5th 2009 12:20AM
I think that was a joke.
HC @ Nov 5th 2009 12:54AM
Exactly... How about fixing the current HDTV broadcasts first. Almost all television is still broadcast at 720p/1080i and are heavily compressed on some channels. Another sad fact is that most "HD" channels still show SD content.
I mean first give me proper 1080p broadcast content. I don't even care for 3D yet which is a huge gimmick.
Lee Faulkner @ Nov 5th 2009 1:52PM
22.2?
me : I think I'm down 2dB at 500Hz in my R7 speaker. Is that a speaker thing, or a wiring thing, or a receiver thing, or a codec thing, or a distribution thing or a mixing thing...???
tech support : BAM! (gunshot)
me : oh hang on I've got a twinkie in my right ear....
Bill @ Nov 4th 2009 5:52PM
I might save my money for digital bionic eye implants first, so that I can actually see the benefits of 4k technology on a 50" or less screen at home.
FreeRange @ Nov 4th 2009 6:11PM
I'll be 45 when this is available to me. I wear glasses already. Lasik first, pipe dream about super HD later.
Daniel @ Nov 5th 2009 12:49AM
Uh...if you're 39 years old, I don't think you're in any position to say "already"...
FreeRange @ Nov 5th 2009 1:47PM
Sorry but I was going more off of that 2025 date.
Even if this were available by 2015, there's no way in hell I'd be able to afford it, I'm sure. 1080p wandered into my price range not too long ago so this being anything reasonable in the next decade strikes me as far-fetched. Lasik, on the other hand, still seems plausible.
matt @ Nov 9th 2009 5:09AM
Lasik won't help. Even a 4K display, in order to see all the pixels, would have to be more than eight feet *tall* at a viewing distance of 6-8 feet (nearly 20 feet diagonal). Even if you have cathedral ceilings to solve the first problem, you'd be too close to see the whole image comfortably. Anything short of a cinema is a room too short to sit far enough away to see the entire screen and still be able to track the whole thing (i.e. less than 60 degrees FOV), while benefiting from the full resolution.
This will never be a practical technology for the home, except on 40" or larger computer monitors, which push the limits of a 2 foot viewing distance. A 10-foot, 2K display could easily double for a computer monitor and a television in that case.
JeffDM @ Nov 4th 2009 6:25PM
I think using a chart like that to illustrate video resolution is a pretty disingenuous way to promote higher resolution technology. Most people don't keep the video small if it's low res, they scale it to fit the screen. I'm pretty happy with 1080p projected.
I've seen UHDTV, it is fantastic, though the camera lenses looked like the biggest holdup to better video, the lenses didn't seem quite up to the job.
matt @ Nov 9th 2009 5:14AM
WTF are you talking about?
The chart doesn't show scaling on a display, it shows relative number of pixels using a constant pixel size. What "most people" do with "video size" is irrelevant.
Do you have a better way to represent that information in a single graphic?
Punchdrunkbrian @ Nov 4th 2009 6:31PM
My couch is about 8 feet away from my screen right now. For me to even see the benefit of 2k (1440p) I need to have a 120" screen. I'm not saying I wouldn't love a screen that big, but would I really want to see Jimmy Fallon take up an entire wall in my house? He's already painful enough to watch.
Punchdrunkbrian @ Nov 4th 2009 6:35PM
My couch is about 8 feet away from my screen right now. For me to even see the benefit of 2k (1440p) I need to have a 120" screen. I'm not saying I wouldn't love a screen that big, but would I really want to see Jimmy Fallon take up an entire wall in my house? He's already painful enough to watch.
kballs @ Nov 4th 2009 9:06PM
Is this April fools? 0.0000001% of anybody is going to have the hardware capable of showing 8k in that timeframe, and even less of them will have 22 speakers and dual subwoofers! This won't get broadcast, ever. By the time any significant number of end viewers have the hardware, all "TV" will be on-demand over the internet... but even then, it's going to take gobs of bandwidth (even with advanced audio/video codecs) to stream 8k 60fps stereoscopic (60fps * 2) with 22.2 audio.
The reality of TV and movies is more like audio/music. They have SACDs and DVD-audio with 5.1 192khz 24-bit, but instead of everybody jumping off CDs to those, they jumped to MP3s and iPods. Same will happen to TV and movies. 1080p (especially with 3D) will be "good enough" for home/personal use and people (a.k.a the market) will want more functionality (viewing anywhere, any time, etc.) instead of more resolution.
Spanbauer @ Nov 4th 2009 9:12PM
Completely pointless unless everyone starts fitting their homes with 20-50 foot screens.
Gibson @ Nov 4th 2009 11:51PM
Oh! You've seen this in person, then!
It was really that bad?
Fucking idiot.
Terminator @ Nov 4th 2009 9:36PM
Well it looks like the TV electronics industry is looking far ahead for another hot button to push and bait consumers with. I agree. This is a joke. There is nowhere near the bandwidth now for the cable or satellite companies or the OTA channels for the video standard that we have now like 720p/1080i.
Another thing to think about is that Blu-ray is the only medium that can be used for the delivery of the lossless audio formats like True-HD and DTS-MA. The satellight and cable companies and OTA TV channels only use plain old Dolby Digital "at best". It's an insult considering how much some people have spent to up update their AV systems with new receivers and Blu-Ray players with new expensive hdmi cabling.
I wonder if the average house is going to be way bigger by that time to support the mammoth displays one will have to use to appreciate the increase in resolution for their average viewing distance? My viewing distance is 8ft as well.
Just food for thought. :)
dagamer43 @ Nov 4th 2009 11:17PM
Cable companies aren't even using H.264 yet. Imagine the quality increase that would happen if they stopped using tech from 1990!
Daniel @ Nov 5th 2009 12:46AM
That's what they're calling it "these days"? Really?
Super Hi-Vision was what it was called from the very beginning. It would make Engadget look like less of a joke blog if it didn't spread lies just for the sake of a bad joke that no one is even laughing at.
BarkingGhost @ Nov 5th 2009 5:52AM
It took five decades (~50 years) to move from NTSC to ATSC under the FCC adoption program. I'm not holding my breadth on this one.
And considering the human eye that can focus 20/20 is limited to 1 arc second, this equates to 1100 line-pairs (one line of information, and one blank line to insure two informational lines can be differentiated).
But, since consumers buy into marketing for pixel resolution that thei viewing behavior will never provide a benefit to, it makes sense to sell it. I think this is analogous to someone buying expensive speakers and never getting their hearing critically evaluated because they fear clapboards will be torn from their audiophile church.
besi @ Nov 6th 2009 1:17AM
but 90% of the people gonna die in 2012 december,no?????
Michael @ Nov 6th 2009 6:02PM
I don't sit 8ft from my TV. Maybe that's your problem. I'm probably 5ft away when using it as a TV, and 3ft when using it as a monitor. And I can easily see the difference between 1440x800 and 1920x1080 when looking at anything other than moving video; that's not as obvious due to motion blur.
My better-quality display is 24" at 1920x1200; to go to 48", I'd want 3840x2400. Except that it's not presently affordable (72" with 5760x3600 would be awesome, but exorbitant), and readily-available prerecorded media isn't better than 1080p anyway. My x1200 only allows me to have the controls onscreen if I want, without covering the picture. (Which I set to autohide, since they distract.) And most movies are much wider than 16x9 anyway; the video would be better encoded at 2640x1080 and played on a 22x9 monitor, but that's another matter altogether.