4k by 2k or Quad HD...lots of rumors? thoughts? - Page 94

You're joking right?

You link an article on how after years of development, inPhase had a product in beta! An $18,000 product with 60cent/GB storage costs? In other words, costs that were an order of magnitude more than hard drives. But, hey, at least the media was far slower!

Per Wikipedia:

"InPhase Technologies is a technology company developing holographic storage devices and media, based in Longmont, Colorado. InPhase was spun out from Bell Labs in 2000."

"The company has failed several times to release the reader on-schedule after previously setting release dates of late 2006, and then February 2007"

"On 17 October 2011, InPhase Technologies filed for protection to reorganize under Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code. Much of the blame for InPhase's bankruptcy was placed on then CEO Nelson Diaz, who ignored the engineers warning that the product was not ready for market"

"All of the InPhase assets were sold at auction in March 2012. Akonia Holographics acquired the InPhase assets, including the critical equipment and knowhow, and all of the intellectual property. Akonia Holographics, LLC was officially launched on August 10, 2012 after closing on a $10.8 million investment round."

12 years, no shipping product, bankruptcy

Now you believe this is going to be commercialized? Incidentally, I am offering a slightly used bridge over the East River in New York City, designed by a fellow named Roebling. Bridge has proved durable. Send PM if interested.

The new company you are excited about is offering this:

"With any hVault storage system, ANY content on ANY disk is accessible in less than 10 seconds. Once the disk is loaded into a drive, the read or write throughput is 20MB/sec. "

Um, WOW! That's awesome for its slowness. But hey, it can do this:

"Each hVault disc is expected to hold from 300GB to 500GB of capacity. The company's lowest-end disc autoloader will hold 15 discs for a total price tag of about $50,000. "

So that's the capacity of roughly 6TB for $50,000. Let's see, I wonder what 6TB of hard disk will run me at Amazon....

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-Desktop-External-STBV3000100/dp/B00834SJU8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1360656175&sr=8-2&keywords=3tb

Awesome, about $260.

Like I said, holographic storage is basically fiction. It's the ultimate vaporware technology. It has essentially bled off millions in venture capital promising to ship products that have never had interesting performance characteristics, have no interesting price characteristics, and really don't ever exist.

So, yea, I really, really know what I'm talking about. Do you?

If you understood storage, you'd understand that (a) this technology offers nothing of interest to anyone (b) things that people have been working on for 15 years and fail to ever produce generally will never be produced, unless there is some compelling "grail" at the end of the journey. Slow, unimpressive capacity, proprietary storage is not a grail. Not in a world of super cheap, very reliable hard drives and increasingly cheap, very fast flash memory. If you want to take about post-flash solid-state storage, let's talk about that. MRAM, RRAM, PCM... These are interesting...
My wife let me have whatever TV I wanted. I picked the 65" Panasonic. I had free reign to pick the 80" Sharp if I wanted. I have 5.1 sound. We'll have 7.1 when we replace our lighting with recessed. At that point, I will wall and ceiling mount the 4 rear speakers and go to 7.1.
If you weren't such an ignorant troll, you'd be... Oh, never mind, you wouldn't be adorable.

What Sony wants and what people do have nothing to do with one another. Sorry. After several breathless years of the TV pundits trying to show that replacement cycles were dramatically shortening (they used to be 10-15 years), here was the "bombshell" from the best analysts out there:

"Santa Clara, California (PRWEB) May 29, 2012

Findings from the annual update to the NPD DisplaySearch Global TV Replacement Study indicate that, over the past year, the TV replacement cycle decreased on a global scale, from 8.4 to 6.9 years. The study found a variety of reasons for this trend, including declining prices, a wider variety of sizes, and desire for the latest technologies."

Note the date. That's down to seven years! Wow! Expect it to lengthen again once second and third-room sets are finally all upgraded to HD.

Actually 7.1 has one nice application: one can have Zone2 and Zone3 stereo in addition to the main. I use the zone 2,3 speakers for Internet radio in my gym and fire place room while TV can playing simultanously in the living room in either 5.1 or 3.1 depending which zone is used. This is very convenient though it has nothing to do with the original :)7.1 .

If the pixel price is not a factor people will automatically buy bigger number. Though it looks fantasy now, in 5ys time 8K displays might get to the price level of 2K. Then everybody buying a new TV will buy 8K.

Where did I talk about a chain? I said content was exceedingly sparse. It was. I said many thought HD wouldn't survive as a result of that and high initial prices. That too was a fact.

And all of that skepticism despite the quantum jump in visual quality that anyone could see going from SD to HD. No such jump going from 2K to 4K and most certainly from 4K to 8K.

So I'm not sure where this "B.S." is coming from Mr. Irkuck.

But I already know your response, "NHK is doing it and they'll have their chain in place". Whatever.

OH! Well now that certainly explains how 70" and up is the new standard. Not sure why I didn't see that before.

This is really becoming 'other worldly'. I feel like I'm ensnared in an episode of Fringe.

Actually, 80" and up are the new standard, because I read about someone who bought one.

Yup! That seems to be the kind of logic we get a bit too frequently here.

Oh, Rogo sites a wikipedia article....uggh I have to give you an F for that. Wikipedia is based on someone's opinion. Not a dedicated reference article. Anyway, InPhase had patents, which makes the technology from that company live on. Companies are also buying Kodak patents as well. Hitachi also has holographic storage patents as well.

Hard disk is not a ways to backup your media. Why? A hard disk is magnetic based and is susceptible to being wiped clean. The primary advantage of optical backup is that it is burnt on, but CD, DVD, BD will ultimately fail in time. 3d optical data storage has been in development for years, the history dates back to the 1950's. Most of the cool technologies that you are seeing now have been in development for several decades. OLED is another technology that has been in development for decades as well.

There is a recent world event that will have people's interest in Holographic storage. Actually, I got to see all my data go poof in a blink of the eye over an act of god. Thank God! I had optical backup, but all the drives were destroyed. You might enjoy the read/write speeds of SSD, but actually with Hitachi's new patent for recording on Holographic will be faster than any SSD. Hitachi has developed an improved way to write media, which results in faster access times.

Actually, I didn't go to 7.1 until last year. I just used an older pair of surround speakers on the back wall. Really worth the upgrade to do..
Sony is designing the TV's to fail within 4 years. I never own another Sony TV. Most likely Sharp, but I just wait till it fails. Majority of the people that bought mine have replaced, but I don't use mine like most people. I am still on the first bulb, but expect it to fail on the second bulb.

These studies are not accurate at all. The study doesn't mention the country of origin on where the TV was produced. One of my friends had to replace their TV within 2 years, it was a flat panel.

Great use of "surround sound" there irkuck.

As for pixel price and such, I agree. If the 8K TV carries no premium it will sell. But I doubt it will carry no premium. I suspect the 4K TV will eventually carry virtually no premium (for 50" and up or so) and then 8K TVs -- if they reach the market at all -- will be a premium over that. But I do agree that if the premium is erased, the TVs will sell just fine. Whether many people alive will care vs. 4K (or even 2K) is another matter.

AVS is definitely a parallel universe.

Hope you're not including a reference to me and my Sharp aversion. For one, as you previously correctly surmised, I have yet to see one in person because of their scarcity (which would require forking out $5k sight unseen just to sample it, or driving hours upon hours just to see one on a less than ideal for viewing showroom ffoor) and I have become most accustomed to the wide viewing angles of Plasma. I also do recall reading about blooming comments, albeit minimal, at the shootout. And yes, I've heard your justification for the color errors (how one wouldn't notice it without a nearby reference), but they still exist nonetheless.

OK, got that off my chest.

For what it's worth, I think ceiling mounted speakers sound terrible. Current surround sound is two dimensional - you need all the speakers at the same level. (ideally ear-height) I would rather have 5.1 than 7.1 where the extra speakers are ceiling-mounted.


As for 22.2 audio - I don't think anyone is realistically expecting home users to adopt it at all. Maybe theaters will adopt it.

But I have to suspect that the driving force behind 22.2 audio is not 22 speaker setups, but offering considerably more directional sound through existing surround setups via an amp upgrade. 22.2 is going to create a much more cohesive sound field, and with the right processing, should help fill in the "gaps" that current 5.1/7.1 signals suffer from. It should make a massive difference to positional audio via headphones, where true 3D binaural sound in gaming seems to have died off and been replaced with crappy 5.1/7.1 HRTF. (Dolby Headphone/THX TruStudio)

I'm glad you feel better Vinnie, that's what I'm here for.

I will keep that in mind. Thanks.

You must be right, because I bought an 82" DLP 2yrs ago LOL! Your sig is so true btw...

I have ceiling mounted Definitive technology speakers and they sound great. The tweeters are adjustable to your seating position. These ceiling speakers are installed in my home for 2 channel stereo, but the sound is very nice. On my main room, I have 7.1 at ear level with bi-polar surround speakers for rear and sides.
Similar to this diagram, in the link. http://www.thx.com/consumer/home-entertainment/home-theater/surround-sound-speaker-set-up/ I have also seen 7.1 setups with the rear sounds in the ceiling position, but there is plenty choices in ceiling speakers or in-wall speakers. Also, make sure you match the tweeter dome to same type. Oh, another thing is get a good subwoofer. I was able to upgrade to a better subwoofer, when I had the lightning strike on my electronics. I bought a Definitive Technology Super Cube Reference, which makes the movies come alive now.

Currently, Dolby hasn't made a standard for Atmos in the home yet, but for theater it will be more speakers than 22.2. Dolby Atmos is up to 64 speakers, but it depends on the size of theater. The technical guidelines has been published from Dolby on theater placement, but this applies only to commercial theater. I think that I read about a Dolby demonstration setup, that had 25.3 speakers last summer. Dolby's vision is more detailed, but very similar to NHK's 22.2 speaker setup.

http://www.nhk.or.jp/strl/publica/bt/en/fe0045-6.pdf

Really, it is good read on the future. Cost will be high to implement in the home, because basically your theater will need to to designed around that specification.

Mark,

I have a 7.0 system (don't need a sub). My side surrounds are at the recommended height level/positions (around 2 feet higher than the seated listener).
My back surround speakers are monitors that are placed behind the viewing sofa much higher up, just below ceiling height.

They sound terrific and the arrangement actually works exceedingly well for 7.1 surround. Much of the stuff that ends up in the back speakers is atmospheric and the high placement of the speakers works well for that. Also, to the degree the back surrounds are engaged for specific FX (either matrixed or discrete) these are very often things like fly-overs of helicopters, aircraft, spaceships etc, and the higher back surrounds really work for that "helicopter zooms toward me and flies over my head" sensation.

So, don't be put off ceiling mounted back surrounds if it proves necessary. Side surrounds I'd be more concerned with getting closer to the listener, a la THX recommendations. If they go too high you start to become aware of the sound being "lifted up" above you vs immersing you. But with side surrounds mounted at the right height, it keeps the sound-field anchored around you, and higher mounted back speakers for 7.1 can work very well to augment the sound in height, detail and immersion.

I've had a number of HT geeks and even home theater installers comment my surround sound was the most coherent and immersive they have experienced.

Thanks for that too. I looked at the room.. We will actually have to put the two in the ceiling and can easily put the two in the wall (the side surrounds) per THX recs. In fact, I'm somewhat tempted to find some in-walls and do that sooner rather than later because I could get them off the end tables if I did that. I just am not sure about whether the best plan is to wire "up" and plan to hide it later with a crown molding or just do it properly now. Such are life's small dilemmas.

Thanks again guys.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Mark, use headphones.

Good post, see that is the problem. Content will be far off into the future.

Bandwidth for 1080P isn't even widely possible.

Large screens is where 4k will look better and large LCDs

have yet to come down in price for 1080P sets..........


Good luck to anyone foolish enough to buy one of these 18- 25k sets...........

Hello all,

Quick question. Sitting in a normal size movie theater, in the last few rows in the back... Would one see a difference in 4k projection vs 2k projection?

Thx

Bit of a repeat observation here, but since it's fresh on my mind I can't help stating again....

I spent another while watching the Sony 4K panel a couple days ago (I like to drop into that store whenever I'm nearby). Of course the image looks very vibrant and clear, certainly lots of wow factor. But it just has a slight softness - the details it actually shows of course close up are amazing - but it doesn't have this fully resolved, locked-in clarity I'd have expected. This has been the case in each of the two locations I've viewed it. I'm speaking as an AVS-level nitpicker, not as a normal human being here.

I was reminded of this again when I got home from viewing the Sony 4K, fired up my JVC projector and put on the Blu-Ray of Samsara, which was shot in 70mm, scanned at 8K, and mastered at 4K. Anyone who has this disc knows how amazing it looks. Upsampled to the 4K resolution of my JVC projector the clarity can be astounding, some shots to me looking more clear and real than anything I've seen on the Sony 4K. It has closer to an "absolute" clarity - clear as life - in a lot of shots. I can't help but wonder where the Sony 4K panel is going just a bit wrong, perhaps which picture setting isn't optimized. Or whether what I'm seeing on that panel is as good as it gets. Like I think I said before, the slightly softer look of the Sony vs what I see at home is somewhat like the difference of a slightly over-scanned image (and it's slight imprecision) vs a sharper pixel mapped image.

But, again, the take away for me watching the Samsara Blu-Ray on the big screen at home wasn't "Well, who needs 4K, 1080p is almost as good," but rather "Wow, if optimized 1080p can look this impressive, I can't wait until I see an optimized 4K image in my home." The potential is very exciting.

Downsampling - particularly when it is not properly filtered to remove aliasing - increases the apparent sharpness of an image. So do large pixels. Subjectively if you show people two displays next to each other with one that has an obvious pixel structure, and another that doesn't have much of a visible pixel structure, the one with the visible pixel structure can appear to be sharper. This effect was particularly obvious when we went from CRTs with scanlines over the image to progressive flat panels where everyone suddenly realized how low resolution the content they were watching was.

Increasing the resolution of the display is not necessarily going to increase sharpness. It will increase detail and clarity, but not sharpness. If anything, moving to a higher resolution is going to highlight the imperfections in the optics of the cameras used to shoot the film.

DigInfo - Docomo demos H.265

Edited by Randomoneh - 2/21/13 at 1:13am

^^^ You mean H.265...

Answer

Sony Playstation 4 presentation in New York

Maybe I'm a pessimist, but I watched the entire event and color me unimpressed. The CPU, GPU and memory improvements were inevitable and are encouraging, but I feel kind of let down.

Let down? What were you expecting?

Strange, Sony did not mention anything about 3D or 4K.

I'm praying that has this feature as it will generate a tremendous need for TV HDMI chips, currently limited to 3D in 1080p 24Hz, to be updated for 3D 60Hz.

2160p gaming at 60 fps, 6MP Passive 3D, Splitview gaming, dynamic mapping, real time adaptable AI, 64 players single player gaming, non-peer dedicated servers, guaranteed zero lag compensator, voice and motion control and ton more crap I never knew I needed. That would be next gen gaming insted of the mid range PC that can easily port over PC games from 3 years ago. Color me unimpressed on the gaming side, so it at least better have the easily doable h.265 4K movie playback.

Will the PS4 be 4K capable?

In a chat with Kotaku, Sony has revealed that the PlayStation 4 will be able to playback 4K/Ultra HD video. However, it will not upscale to 4K or play games at 4K resolution.