Any CES Buzz on New Projectors Accepting Ultra Hi-Def or 4K?

any word of panasonic displaying there led/laser projector at ces?

If there were any news about any new projector being introduced at CES, someone would post it..

Tomorriw is press conference day but remember vegas is Pacific coast time. May of the press conferences can be watched live. The Sony conference would be at 8PM east coast time for example. There is absolutely no reason for not having leaks at this point to generate ANY excitement and the silence ib FP land likely means we will see little if anything new.

Concerning Sony, there is some leakage http://www.avsforum.com/t/1449084/sony-laser-projection-update

Today CES had newa conferences from Sony, Panasonic, LG, Samsung, Sharp and few others of interest here. The only new projector announced was the LG Hecto short throw 1080p laser projector with 100":screen. Several other projector manufacturers have booths that open tomorrow that did not have press conferences today. This includes Optoma and BenQ. Also it just might be possible that Sony has something to show at their booth projector-wise that they didn't mention at today's press conference. The exhibit floor opens tomorrow so we should know soon. It does seem likely that we are looking to CEDIA for any new 4K projectors. Also on a side note, there was no mention of a 4K upgrade to Blu-ray. Sony announced a 4K distribution service starting in the USA this summer using the internet to distribute native 4K movies (I assume to a new 4K player and perhaps to the PS4).

Some Sony people said it would be distribution by hard disc, the guy on stage said internet. But he also said to Sony 4K panel buyers. No mention to PS owners or to FP owners. There were really no details.

Ron. Was it your opinion that they were saying aything different than their previous 4K loaner server announcement other than new content would be made available (as they said before( without having to return the machine?

Perhaps they will now sell the server to anyone who wants it?

So little was said during the Sony Press Conf. that we are all reading between the lines. Since they had been discussing the 4K flat panels it seems that they introduced plans for the 4K distribution service within that context, but I wouldn't read too much into that. They seemed to me to be talking about something other than the loaner 4K player when introducing the 4K distribution service. I don't think we will know if the 4K service will be available to Sony 4K PJ owners (my guess is probably yes), or perhaps even owners of other brands of 4K displays (perhaps at a later time), until someone gets answers directly from a knowledgable Sony rep (assuming you can find one at the CES booth) or Sony puts out a more detailed info/press release (maybe not at CES, but perhaps at Sony's own show, ususally in late Feb. as I recall).

I suspect the production 4K player (client) box for use with the 4K distribution service will be different from the loaner box, which appears to me to be an interim solution until the production boxes are available. Perhaps the PS3 will also be allowed as a 4K player for the distribution service.


ALSO CNET is reporting that LG has a partnership with Disney to bring 4K content to consumers. I haven't seen a press release yet about this nor did LG mention it at their press conference (or I missed it).
Edited by Ron Jones - 1/8/13 at 12:07pm

Ron. Thanks. Are you at CES? I am not. Still recoverring from the flu. I am not even sure if Sony knows yet itself. I think they said summer at the press conference, I watched the whole bloody thing. That means to me a lauch atCcedia which is late September this year. Would you agree it was not really a press conferencre but a stage show for the financial market?

I think 4K bluray is a way off. So sony goes the server route just like the commercial theater market does and as Red is doing. So let's now call the server the bluray player with 4HD content being supplied on memory cards, hard drives, or on line. do you think the Sony studeo side will agree to having its content only sold to the home market through Sony's own 4K server network?

If Sony hardware side fails as an entity, which baring a drastic quick reversal of its present state seems likely to happen, this would end up screwing the studeo side..

Do you think Sony presented enough breakthrough new product and a horizontal integration plan that will enable them to return to profitability quickly enough/ will cameras, phones, the the endorsement of headphones by simon cowl do it.

Were you wowed by anything Sony presented or said?

I, like you, watched the Sony press conf. online. It seems to me that unless there is an industry group setting the standards for 4K distribution, like the BDA did for Blu-ray, then having each manufacture do their own thing (e.g., Sony, Red and perhaps LG, with their reported partnership with Disney) then I have questions of how many and how fast the studios will sign up to allow their movies to be offered in 4K on each of the distribution services. Perhaps this is really not much different than today's situation of having Netflix, Amazon, Blockbuster, etc, each offering movies via HD streaming with each using their own unqiue techiques. I for one would like to see a Blu-ray 4K standard that could serve as the approach to get broad support from the studios to get 4K into consumers homes. I fear with multple download/distribution services being offered by the various 4K TV manufactures we will end up with a situation where movies from Disney will only be able on service A, movies from Sony Studios only available on service B and movies from Universal Studios only available on service C, etc.

I may ping Art, who is at the show, to see if he can get more info from Sony.
Edited by Ron Jones - 1/8/13 at 1:46pm

Samsung is working with Netflix for 4K streaming...

 

 

http://gizmodo.com/5974327/netflix-4k-streaming-video-doesnt-look-very-good-yet

Judging their "HD" streaming I don't think we're going to get anything close to spectacular results.

Sony's HD player will use the net to deliver stuff to a hard drive when it ships later this year.

And, yes, 4K BluRay is coming... but who knows when?

Clearly not in time for PS4, but if PS4 can read a quad-layer BluRay, that might get fixed by software later.

Don't think quad layer disks will be required for 4K, dual may be sufficient, RED is doing it @ 20Mbits/sec with .RED and the other new consumer codecs are around that rate too, if the PS4 can decode those codecs all may be well.

You can starve the bitrate all you want and fit 4K movies onto 50GB discs.

If they do that, the already limited perceptibility of 4K will be further limited.

Would'nt the quality depend on the efficiency codec used. If they stick to the exisiting codecs used for BluRay then for 4K they will need to reduce the end quality/bitrate to fit on a 50GB disk, but the new upcoming codecs are said to be much more efficient.......time will tell I guess.

The new codec is ~2x as efficient. Since you need nominally almost 4x the bits, you cannot maintain bitrate equivalent on a dual-layer BluRay for 4K. It's not possible. You can bit starve and have 4K and do it, but that will diminish the result. For realistic 4K discs, there needs to be H.265 and more layers. You can make bad 4K files in 8GB, the same way you can get a 4GB 1080p movie from iTunes today. But what they hell is the point of 4K then? Or even BluRay? If that's the future, we ought to just push for 4GB H.265 1080p files and upscale them to reduce aliasing. Screw ultimate quality, yes to low bandwidth.

4K doesn't need 4x the bits compared to 2K, rogo. Video compression efficiency gets better the higher the resolution is. I've not heard a final word yet about how more efficient h265 really is compared to h264, though. The exact efficiency increase will probably depend on various things. It will definitely depend on the quality of the encoder. Different encoder software/hardware can make a huge difference. So I think it's too early to say for sure whether current Blu-Ray capacity/bitrates are high enough for h265 compressed 4K. Maybe yes, maybe no. FWIW, RED claims their codec does high bitdepth (bigger colorspace) 4K with just 20mbps. That's about half of the max Blu-Ray bitrate, IIRC. And RED claims they have less compression artifacts compared to h264 Blu-Ray. Well, let's wait and see...

Its not coming. You guys aren't hip, the young head of sony hardware is hip, just ask him. He knows hip is downloadable over the net. Click and buy. itunes etc. Sony doesn't see hard in the future. how are CDs selling now a days?. i think a quandy exists. They need to see displays. They have to see it as being better. more colors, more detail. Yet except for us, its great already. I just saw an ad for the reissue of Finding Nemo. Plugging the sharpness of Blueray. Yep. Its sharper than the film, its loaded with edge enhancement. Its all marketing. But they need to make 4K content deliverable instantly

The simpliest technological thing would be servers and expensive hard copy delivered by Fed Ex and UPS. USB drive or card. Not sexy. not cool. Can you see the Sony guy uop on stage saying we are delivering a super high quality 4K with overnight delivery. Only $449 a copy. How cool is that? i wonder where he will be working 3 years from now.r.

Given everything else equal I would estimate that approx. twice the data rate would be required to compress (e.g., with a codec similar to H.264) 4K video vs. 1080p. If that's the case and if h.265 is actually on average 2 times as efficient at compression then it should be able to compress 4K video to about the same same size files and same data rates of regular 1080p blu-rays. However, currently the blu-ray standard is limited to an 8-bit color depth and a 24 Hz frame rate for the encoded 1080p video. Ideally we would like to see support for up to 60Hz frame rate and support for deep color (at least 10-bit and better still 12-bit color depth). Supporting these wouild add to the data storage and data rate requirements that will probably push the 4K requirements beyond the 2-layer blue-ray disc storage limit when h.265 is being used (especially for a long movie like the Hobbit if provided at its native 48 Hz frame rate). From all that RED has claimed about their codec (i.e., 20 Mbps data rate compressed 4K video at 24 HZ and with 12-bit color depth) it really sounds like their codec is substantially more efficient than h.265. They also claim to be able to support up to 60Hz for 4K video and also full resolution 4K 3D video (but I assume at higher data rates).

As a side note I did see one chip manufacturer had a recent press release indicating they will soon be sampiing chips that support h.265 wilth production volume next year and also Samsung was saying at CES that their new Smart TVs will support H.265 for steaming video applications (but I would assume their implementation is limited to 1080p max. resolution).
Edited by Ron Jones - 1/11/13 at 8:18am

It doesn't look like .there will be an optical disc format for 4K.. Could it be done, of course. but there are simply not enough displays to justify a mass market optical disc. Simply do wjhat Sony is doing, come out with improved bluray discs withh wider color space and longer bit lengths assuming the bluray players will pass them. Optica discs are no longer cool. Sony is now all about cool. delivery must be over the internet. if the internet can't presently handle it, the very limited true 4K can be handled by hard drive distribution just like the commercial market. Nobody buys CDs any more the the future is not 4K video CDs. Not going to happen,

My impression (which may be wrong) is that 10/12bit encoding doesn't actually consume more space than 8bit, as surprising at that may sound. The reason for that is that 8bit content has dithering noise in it (if it was converted properly), which makes compression more difficult. Higher framerates do need more bitrate, I think. But the needed increase in bitrate is definitely not linear to the framerate increase. The reason for that is that with higher framerates the differences between consecutive frames is smaller than when using lower framerates, which means that interframe compression works more efficiently with higher framerates. I don't know how much more bitrate e.g. 48p needs over 24p.

I'm not sure yet whether h265 can do 4K 10/12bit encoding with current Blu-Ray bitrates & capacity. In 2D with 24Hz maybe. But I would guess that 4K 10/12bit 48p 3D content with h265 will probably need more bitrate than Blu-Ray currently allows. I do wonder whether Sony will support 4K 10/12bit 48p 3D content at all, in their 4K delivery solution. I have my doubts about that because historically the CE companies have always been very conservative with the specs of new formats (which I totally hate). Maybe RED will come to the rescue. Their codec and delivery system can do 4K 10/12bit 48p 3D just fine. Of course not even HDMI 2.0 will be able to transport that through a single cable. Because of that the RED projectors will have a RedRay player built in with a custom connection, so that the full movie information can actually be displayed without being limited by HDMI.

Is it possible to use an optical disc + streaming solution.
The optical disc provides the base for 2k.
The download/stream up the resolution to 4k.

Right Now the way Sony's service will work. If you purchase a 4k television and the 4k streaming service you will be able to upgrade your blu-ray to 4k for no additional cost. If you have a DVD there will be a upgrade cost to 4k. If you just purchase the streaming service you will have to pay to upgrade from DVD,Blu-ray to 4k.

Also there is tie-in to UIltraviolet.

The 4k service will be introduced with the 4k televisions that are coming out in the summer. Things may Change from now to then.

Blu-ray 4k is in the pipe. They are waiting for the HEVC SPEC to be finalized, Then they Blu-ray Association can go to work and try and get a 4k Disc.

I buy CD's - better sound quality. And I buy Blu Rays too. :cool

And all our friends come to our house to watch movies !!

I would have serious concerns about download quality being same as media based.

Just look at current services - Netflix, Ultra Violet - they ALL degrade quality through higher compression than original Blu-Ray and elimination of HD soundtracks.

Hope I am wrong, but I will not hold my breath waiting for "true" high quality downloads

Something like a 4k-Blu-ray (who knows what it will be called?) would be great. But, the way things are going it wouldn't surprise me that 4k over the internet would be the source of choice. Look for it to be Sears-like with Good-Better-Best video qualities & more $$ too.

Let's try to think this through. How many 4K displays will there be in consumers hands by this years end (the entire world is OK). how many by the end of 2014? 2015? Consumers are not clamoring foir this and industry cogniti who really shouldn't be cogniti are preaching 4K is a siily purchase unless you have a really really big screen. Sony inits heart knows this and realizes that 4K needs to be more than just 4K pixels if it is to succeeed. It has to be a better quality source. So we need to increase color space width and bit lengths not to mention more fps.

To make 4K optical dics, there will be a high expense per disc and players will have yto be commodity priced. Of course, the first could be high priced but there is no engine to drive the making of the disc. There ids zip potential for making a profit. Thems the facts of life.

For a limited display market, servers are the answer. Servers exist now, are not super expensive, and clearly something high priced panel and projector buyers would be willing to purchase to get content.


Content could be providing by a distributor through mailed hard ciopy. Remember market numbers are small.

Or they could be supplied over the internet. No need to stream. Just compress the content through some sort of codec and send it to the server. Prestty simple. Now content is out there and the sale of more displays starts to happen. The Chines crank out cheap servers. Just like set top boxes. Somehing the masss market can afford and the distribution network supplies them Eventually, the present cable company, whatever, couyld provide the content.

Initially, well have Odemax and the Sony network.

But NEVER will we have a 4K Bluray. Productions costs too high, not enough demand. Its really simple.

That's just your personal guess, nothing more.

Mark ,

4k Using Hevc can fit on a 50gig blu-ray, But they already have 100 gig discs out now. The 100 gig will be used for 3d 4k.


Things will move to 4k and will be a slower adoption, but that is where it is heading.

The head os Soby said he didn't think optical disc were in 4K's future. madshi. woiuld you like to buy some stock in a CD company. The world whether rightly or wrongly has moved beyong optical disc. bluray will pretty much be it with it being milked to death with wide color space and increase bit length and it waill be marketed till extinction. there is absolutely no indication anywhere that a 4K bluish standard isd coming and the industry will adopt it and start pressing disc for a tiny tiny audience.By the time 2% of the US sets are in 4K, what would you guess, 8 or 9 years, hard disc anything will be kaput. Sure its technically possible but why? The kids won't buy into it. archaic.