Elsewhere on my wall, I was musing about the future direction of electronics. Now, I need to qualify myself. I studied sound engineering at USC film school, I started building my own high-end (Im talking golden ear) stereo system in the 70s, moved on to computers before the end of that decade, and later on cameras and video. Ive written columns for multiple computer magazines -- and this has given me the advantage of access to high-end previews of all kinds. I attend CES regularly as well. This is the reason why I suggested that were at a kind of plateau, waiting for the next big leap to happen. The market has been assimilating smart phones, ultra-light laptops, tablets, and HDTV for the better part of a decade. If we could compare the stuff were using today with the stuff we were using ten years ago, if we could remember that far back, wed be astonished at how far weve come -- and wed be asking ourselves how did we ever do without. But I think that a lot of new tech is finally working its way out of the labs. This year its proof-of-concept, next year its high-end stuff for early adopters, and the year after that its Samsung flooding the market with volume pricing. The big one that I see is 4K. I mentioned this because theres a site on the interwebs that demonstrates that the Galaxy Note III shoots 4K video and much of it is superior to the 4K video of the Canon 5DIII. (If I remember that number correctly.) 4K sets are also available from Sony and Samsung at prices that are starting to put them in range of home theater enthusiasts. (I consider $5000 the price point for a large high-end screen.) Were also seeing 4K monitors showing up for desktop computers as low as $700. Granted, this doesnt make any of this an impulse-buy, but equal-sized HDTV sets are down to $1700, so we can see the trend is toward affordability. Now, elsewhere in that previous discussion, one person pooh-poohed 4K as a dead-end, saying that the human eye cant resolve the difference. And while at first glance he made some good points, his argument doesnt hold up to closer examination. Let me backtrack. Back in the 70s, I spent a short time working with Doug Trumbull while he was developing Showscan. At that time it was 70mm film projected at 72 frames per second and the difference between that high frame rate and 24fps was astonishing. It was super-realistic. Unfortunately, Natalie Woods death triggered a decision by MGM not to release Brainstorm with Showscan. But what Showscan revealed -- and this was what I was trying to write up for Trumbull -- is that human beings are info-tropic. We crave data. The more, the better. The higher the data-rate, the more we perceive the stimuli as realistic. Trumbull was combining 6-channel digital sound, fine-grain 70mm film, and 72fps, to create a data-flow significantly superior to all previous methods of theatrical presentation. Todays televisions are capable of 120hz refresh rate, 60fps, and 1080 lines of information, with 5.1 channels of sound. Tomorrows televisions will have four times as much visual information at 240hz, and receivers will be able to extract as many as 11.2 channels of sounds. But those specs do not present the whole picture. The correspondent I reference earlier pointed out that at a certain distance, you cannot tell the difference between 4K and HDTV -- well, almost right -- but where he stumbled over his own argument was to forget about pixel density and screen size. At the 2013 CES, Sharp demonstrated a 104 inch, 8K screen. You could walk right up to it, almost stick your nose against the set and not see any pixels. At closest range you could barely make out the tiny points of light that made up the entire image. Elsewhere, Sharp and other manufacturers were demonstrating 84-inch 4K sets. Again, the pixel density was stunning. Sharp makes a very nice 84-inch 1080/HDTV set. But it looks blurry side by side with the same size 4K set -- at any distance -- because at that size, the pixels are large enough to be perceptible. In the computer market, you can find 4K monitors starting at 28 inches. On a monitor, this works very well for graphics processing, but it also lets you put more windows on a screen and maintain crisp readability. So, the issue here isnt size and it isnt distance as much as it is the amount of information available to the viewer. The more pixels available, the more data-density. This is what Apple realized when they went to the retina display. It gives them crisper, more realistic photos and videos, but it also lets them put more information on screen. Samsung recognized the same thing as well. And Amazons Kindle tablets are evidence too. I upgraded from the 9-inch Kindle Fire HD to the 9-inch Kindle Fire HDX. At first glance, the screens appear to be the same. But the HDX has significantly more resolution and a much higher pixel density. Without a magnifying glass, you cant make out the individual pixels. The result is a crisper reading experience, better video and photos -- AND you can tell the difference. Theres a phenomenon known in audio circles called listener fatigue. Every sound system has its own peculiar characteristics of distortion and room acoustics and its own added noise. The history of hi-fi is a history of eliminating whatevers the most noticeable. But after a set amount of time, listener fatigue sets in. Your ears become exhausted listening through whatever veil of distortion or noise exists. This is why a great sound system can be stunning. Youre hearing the music without hte veil of noise. And you can listen longer. The same phenomenon occurs with video. Theres a kind of viewer fatigue. We have to process what were seeing through the artifacts of the transmission system. HDTV removed a lot of the noise (ghosts, ringing, blurriness) of NTSC. 4K increases the data density -- and contrary to what the aforementioned correspondence asserted, the difference is noticeable. You will notice it most on a huge screen or a projection system, but you will also notice it on smaller screens, the same way you notice the better appearance of a retina display on an iPad screen. The higher pixel density makes it easier to push more data at you. Over a decade ago, when HDTV was first hitting the consumer market, I predicted that while its obvious benefits would be with large screen TVs, we were likely to see a corresponding benefit on smaller screens as well -- and today, most laptops and tablets have at least 720 lines of information which is the lowest level of HDTV. Most desktop monitors have 1080 or 1200 lines, but there are also larger monitors with 3800 lines of information. And as prices continue to fall, that will be the standard within a decade. The difference is not as startling as the leap from NTSC to HDTV, but it is there and thats the eventual future of television. It took color TV ten years to become a standard, it took HDTV ten years as well. It will take 4K at least a decade to get that market penetration, but I expect it to happen because were so info-tropic. Will we move on to 8K after that? Certainly for wall-size presentations, theres a noticeable advantage. But I suspect that the law of diminishing returns kicks in at that level -- that theres no need to go beyond it. On the other hand, in the audio world, 20-20K was once deemed sufficient for audio realism. Now, were seeing arguments that superior audio needs those unhearable harmonics above 20K. (Ive also heard counter-arguments.) My personal feeling is that Arthur C. Clarke was right. Those who argue for cant are usually proven wrong. In five years or so, well have more opportunities to experience high-end audio and video, higher frame rates and higher pixel density. At the point at which pixel density is greater than the eye can perceive, any further increase may become irrelevant -- but before I say cant I have to wonder if perhaps there are artifacts we are not yet aware of and that we will not be aware of until we push beyond existing limits.
Posted on: Sat, 10 May 2014 02:43:43 +0000
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