This IS the Avid L2: Re: [Avid-L2] Re: Up-Rez HD to 4K

Saturday, May 9, 2015

Re: [Avid-L2] Re: Up-Rez HD to 4K

As a kid in Hawaii - where Sony Japan executives would often golf - I had the privilege of holding the clubs for Akio Morita, founder of Sony. In 1982, he had engineers from Atsugi's R&D show me "Hi-Vision" - 1035 lines in 1125 which Japan would put on an analog satellite. That satellite would normally hold 24 analog SD channels, but could only carry 2 "uncompressed" HD in all its glory. It would take over 25 years for HD to take hold in the 1080/1125 format, with 720p added in via ATSC in the 90s.

The day at NAB 1992 when they could take an HD signal and in real time compress it into an SD's 6MHz "channel," that meant that digital broadcasting and compression could make it happen in the consumer's home. We in the biz who get to see uncompressed in the edit suite all cringe at the macro-blocking and picture compromises HD undergoes in the quest to fit 200-500 channels in a space when it's delivered.

More important than resolution is the High Dynamic Range, and Japan is going to bypass 4K to the home and jump to 8K. NHK showed a 12K camera in secret 4 years ago - it looked like an old RCA TK-47 studio camera in bulk.

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The NY Times published my comments on why 4K is slow to sell, and I feel now, years later, it still holds true:

While 4K -thru- 12K are all great from a production acquisition, editing and archival point of workflow view, recent shoppers at Sony retail stores watching a 4K screen from 10 feet away said "Meeeh, it's nice but not that much better than the Sony HD we have at home."

History holds the lesson: When we went from LPs/vinyl to CDs, the quality difference to the average consumer was a giant leap forward, and the recording and retail industry forced it by slowly vanishing LPs in stores.

Newer technologies after the CD? DAT (Digital Audio Tape), Digital Compact Cassette (DCC), Sony MiniDisc (MD) and SuperCD (SACD) all failed at the consumer level.

Audiophiles and perfect-pitched musicians aside - the average consumer could not hear a difference between the 4 newer formats and their freshly-renewed CD collection, and were certainly not about to start over again as they just did with their vinyl collection. Further, there was no "force" at the record companies and record stores to replace CDs with the newer tech. (iPods and the Internet don't count because the record companies certainly didn't want to force these two innovations).

In 1992 at NAB, High Def could be compressed into a Standard Def 6MHz 't.v. channel' for the first time.

But HD's implementation also needed a force: it took the federal government's mandate that all broadcasters transmit digitally (SD or HD) to usher HD into the home en masse, ala 2009. Chicken or egg.

Sports and the Porn industry often are the early adopters of new technology for the masses, but ESPN and FOX have already stated they are not going to initiate any plans for 4K broadcasts. Sure, they use it in the trucks for super-zooms and great Super Slo-Mos on the EVS, but the show is still sent out in HD.

Japan has also moved directly to 8K broadcasting, skipping UHD 4K. And they have a 12K goal for their Olympics and finishing R&D on 16K cameras, which will lead the consumer to be more weary on upgrading.

The 2K or 4K signal to the home (highly quality-compressed) is only slightly better than HD, not significantly better. With no FCC mandate this time around to force broadcasters into unilaterally sending 3D, 2K, 4K to the home - and with Fox Sports and ESPN both announcing a pass on 4K transmission - the marketing hype may fall on deaf consumer ears.

-Keoni Tyler
Hollywood, CA.

---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <cutandcover@...> wrote :

ONLY talking about home delivery of television over air means you're using such a small portion of the potential uses of high resolution content to argue against it. That's my point in this thread - unless we're all in this business to concern ourselves with only a small fraction of it (TV OTA), then there are plenty of arguments for the further development of higher bit depth and higher resolution technologies.

On Sun, May 10, 2015 at 12:00 AM, prberg2@... [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

I think this is the critical point when we discuss the push for higher resolutions (4K, UHD, 8K, and beyond!!!) and it's very true.

Many of us are for higher quality.. but the reality is that 4K and higher resolutions look worse than HD for the vast majority of the viewers. I'm sure in the future when there are methods for delivering more bandwidth to homes, but for now and the immediate future, HD just looks better. Maybe not as sharp (although at the end the line, the extra sharpness with 4K+ could be gone after being squeezed down existing pipes).

Using the new codecs, increased bit depth, larger color spaces, and higher dynamic range on HD video, would improve the image DRASTICALLY. Applying these same technologies to 4K/8K would yield a lower quality image at the end since the compression would have to be higher to fit down our existing delivery pipes. If we had unlimited bandwidth.. this would be a different conversation. I do think it is a good question to ask.. if the viewer will actually see the increased resolution. Many people I know.. can't see the difference between 720p and 1080p.

Saying something is better (which maybe it is on paper) does not make it better. You have to look at the reality and what will actually get to the end viewer.. using the systems that we have (and will have for the near future). You may want everything.. but budgets and delivery methods have limits. Many of us would rather have a better looking image.. than just more pixels.

-Peter