The Difference Engine: Beyond HDTV

By N.V. | LOS ANGELES

A YEAR ago, your correspondent noted that, every generation or so, 3D entertainment becomes all the rage, only to fizzle as the technology's shortcomings make themselves felt (see “The best seat in the house”, May 7th 2010). The entertainment industry's enthusiasm for 3D hit fever pitch when James Cameron's blockbuster movie “Avatar” was released in late 2009 and went on to gross $2.8 billion worldwide in 2010.

Since then, the fad has faded even faster than your correspondent expected. While cinema owners welcomed 3D movies (they allowed them to increase ticket prices), movie-goers wearied of the clumsily used effects, the headaches and nausea that frequently ensued, and the sheer nuisance of having to wear special glasses.

Much the same goes for 3D television. A year ago, set-makers saw it as a nifty way of boosting flagging sales for a few dollars of additional electronics. Then there were the hundreds of dollars more they could charge for all the spectacles (at $150 a pair) needed to view the three-dimensional effects. But with 3D content limited and uninspired, and the spectacles remaining a pain in the neck, the novelty has quickly worn off.

The problem is that 3D television requires people to change their viewing habits. Normally, viewers watching even their favourite shows tend to be in reasonably lit rooms doing several things at once—scanning newspapers and magazines, using the phone, even browsing the web and answering e-mail. Taking 3D glasses off and on to do such things quickly becomes a chore. No surprise that even ardent early fans of 3D television have largely gone back to watching traditional fare.

It is not as though 3D television is about to go the way of the video-cassette player. It has simply become yet another feature built into television sets (like LED backlighting, 240-hertz refresh rate, local dimming and Wi-Fi connection to the internet) that consumers are happy to have, provided they are not expected to pay a premium, and the special glasses are thrown in free. Lately, Fry's Electronics, a big retail chain on the West Coast, has been offering 47-inch 3D television sets with glasses and all the usual bells and whistles for under $800. A few months ago, such sets sold for $1,700.

One of the few benefits to emerge from the latest 3D fad is the way it has spurred set-makers to produce televisions with higher resolution. The special glasses that switched the left and right lenses alternatively on and off in sync with the 3D television set's screen—as it displayed the stereoscopic image first for one eye, and then, from a slightly different perspective, for the other—meant that the glasses were effectively off for half the time. So, instead of seeing eye-popping pictures, people were left with, quite literally, a dim view of things. Also, by not seeing the whole picture all the time, the eyes perceived a far fuzzier image.

To compensate, set-makers are looking to increase the number of picture elements (“pixels”) on the screen. Today's high-definition television (HDTV) sets display 1,920 vertical scan lines and 1,080 horizontal lines using so-called “progressive” scanning (ie, cycled continuously from top to bottom). The result is a grid of 2,073,600 pixels (ie, 2.1 megapixels). Doubling the number of vertical and horizontal scan lines across and down the screen to 3,840 by 2,160 results in a display containing 8,294,400 pixels (ie, 8.3 megapixels). In other words, going from “1080p” to “2160p” display technology yields a fourfold increase in the amount of information that can be displayed on the screen.

So far, only prototypes of the new “Quad HD” format have been seen at trade shows. Samsung has grabbed the most attention with a 2160p prototype boasting an 82-inch screen. But it is not the first of the new generation by far. Westinghouse has been selling 2160p displays in screen sizes up to 56 inches since 2007, though it has never offered them to the public. With prices of $40,000 and up, such professional-grade displays are used as monitors for imaging machines in hospitals, laboratories and industry.

A decade ago, no monitor could display more than five megapixels of information. Then came IBM with a 22-inch display packing 9.2 megapixels. Being relatively small, the screen had a resolution of a then-unheard-of 200 pixels per inch (ppi). For comparison purposes, a 1080p HDTV set with a 60-inch screen has a resolution of a little over 36ppi. A 2160p Quad HD television of similar size has a resolution of 73ppi.

The resolution race does not end there. NHK, the Japanese public broadcasting service which pioneered HDTV with its Hi-Vision broadcasts in the early 1990s, has been steadily developing a Super Hi-Vision version capable of displaying 7,680 by 4,320 pixels (ie, 33 megapixels). Recently, Sharp unveiled the first fruit of its collaboration with NHK—a 4320p prototype with a humongous 85-inch screen and a resolution of 103ppi. If all 33m pixels that the Super Hi-Vision format (known as Ultra HD elsewhere) offers were crammed onto a 22-inch screen, the picture resolution would be an astonishing 400ppi.

Last September, NHK joined forces with the BBC in Britain to record a live performance by “The Charlatans” in Ultra HD format, which was then broadcast over the internet to Japan. NHK expects to launch its Super Hi-Vision service sometime between 2016 and 2020.

But when most people cannot distinguish the difference between photographs printed at 300 dots per inch (dpi) and 150dpi when held at normal viewing distances, you have to wonder whether 4320p Ultra HD television is overkill. It will certainly be the kiss of death for traditional over-the-air broadcasters, who struggle to find enough bandwidth to beam today's 1080p signals—and will have serious trouble transmitting the forthcoming 2160p format.

With Blu-ray discs having set the gold standard for picture quality, the cable and satellite TV companies have scrambled to embrace the streaming technologies pioneered by online video services like Vudu, Hulu, YouTube and Netflix. Vudu's new streaming technology is said to give even Blu-ray a run for its money. The migration from today's HDTV format to Quad HD in a year or so (and possibly to Ultra HD five or six years thereafter) will only accelerate the trend from broadcasting television over the airwaves to streaming it over the internet.

Meanwhile, the film studios have been pushing in the same direction. It is no coincidence that the new Quad HD format is almost identical to the “4K” digital cinema standard (3,996 by 2160 pixels) that the studios have started using to shoot digital movies. While conventional cinema screens have an aspect ratio of 1.85-to-one, the slightly wider 4K movie format can be shoe-horned into television's 1.77-to-one picture frame without too much difficulty.

With DVD dead and Blu-ray never having fully taken its place, the studios have been anxious to find a replacement for their lost revenue. Many believe their best hope is to stream feature films direct to Quad HD television sets in living rooms. Were that to happen, Quad HD would take off even faster than HDTV did a decade before.

Congress could yet spoil everything, however. Draft legislation that would increase penalties for public websites which allowed users to stream copyrighted video-games, television shows and music is being fast-tracked through the Senate. In particular, the Commercial Felony Streaming Act targets websites like YouTube that broadcasters believe are threatening their livelihoods. The bill would make unauthorised streaming of copyrighted material for profit a felony (instead of the misdemeanor it is today), with a penalty of up to five years in prison. It defines illegal streaming as streaming ten or more times within a 180-day period, and earning a total of more than $2,500 in the process.

If the legislation is enacted, it is impossible to say who the enforcement agencies would single out first—the online streaming services themselves, the individuals who post offending content, or the members of the public who use such services. Whoever it is, the bill (if passed) could have a chilling effect on the creation and distribution of online video. In turn, that could seriously hamper innovation, if developers, investors and users fled in fear of running afoul of the vagaries of America's copyright law.