[opendtv] Re: Redefining anamorphic
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 07:49:33 -0500
At 3:50 AM -0800 3/5/08, Ron Economos wrote:
There is an 18 MHz version of ITU-R BT.601, although it's very
rare. At 960 luma samples wide, it would still require non-square
or "anamorphic" samples for 16:9 content.
The first 16:9 D1 (720x480) tape master I used for MPEG-2 encoder
testing was back in the spring of 1995. The trailer for "Batman Forever"
with Val Kilmer.
Thanks Ron
I was going to mention this, however, in practice the 18 MHz addition
to the standard has never seen significant adoption. I think it was
added in the early '90s when it became obvious that widescreen was
going to happen. The SMPTE also developed 294m a bit serial
interface for 480P, but it still used 720 sample per line. And I
think the SMPTE also created a 960 x 480P format specification, but I
can't recall the number.
The Japanese NTV network offered an OTA service in Japan using the
960 x 480@60p standard. They came to NAB for several years to
demonstrate 480P, but they were put under significant pressure by NHK
to NOT make this too public. The first demo was in a hotel suite. The
following two years it was inside an enclosed booth in the far corner
of the North Hall - unless you knew what they were doing you would
walk right past without seeing a thing.
NHK was right to suppress this demo. The 480 pictures on the
progressive CRTs of the day had much better contrast than the 1125/60
system which had poor MTF. That is, they offered what viewers
perceived as sharper images than real HD on similar displays.
Regards
Craig
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
Other related posts:
