[opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2017 08:50:40 -0400
On Jul 5, 2017, at 9:13 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Another déjà vu all over again. You made the same arguments with HDTV. For
instance, you said the same things about why HD news would never happen. And
yet, ...
As usual you always characterize my positions in absolute terms. I never said
HD news would never happen. I said it would take many years due to the expected
high cost of HD production gear. I was right.
Most local stations did not upgrade to HD production until well AFTER they
started HD broadcasts a decade ago. Here is a Broadcasting and Cable article
from 2005:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/news-articles/hd%E2%80%99s-true-believers/107080
HD’s True Believers
There’s no denying that high-definition programming has come a long way in
eight years. HDTV-set owners can settle down in their living room and find
hundreds of hours of HD programming each week: prime time programming from
the major networks, sporting events from ESPN and regional sports networks,
nature documentaries from Discovery, and motion pictures from HBO, InHD,
HDNet and others.
But local news, the backbone of revenue for many TV stations, continues to
lag behind. Only six stations in the U.S. provide local newscasts in HD. And
only one network news program, ABC’s Good Morning America, intends to go HD
by this fall.
Stations waited to go HD until the cost became manageable. In most cases this
involve using NON-broadcast gear, although in larger markets both Sony and
Panasonic enjoyed some success with HDCam and DVCPro. Today, I see many
stations shooting with Canon DSLRs...
So let's get beyond vague words. The only thing that matters is whether the
improvement is usable, and I'll address the specifics below. I've never seen
coherent and convincing discussions of this topic (not saying they don't
exist, but I've not seen any). I've come to conclude that the factors that
matter most are (a) the horizontal field of view (FOV) that is acceptable but
not excessive, and (b) the perceptibility of individual pixels **implied by
that viewing distance**.
A bunch of stuff deleted.
I agree that the improvement must be usable. HD sports drove the second wave of
consumer HDTV purchases; the first wave was driven by widescreen movies
delivered on DVDs - i.e. upconverted SDTV.
Your entire discussion here restates principles we discussed in detail in the
1992 SMPTE/EBU Task Force Report on Digital Image Architecture...
As we have discussed recently a new reality has emerged. People watch video on
a wide range of screens both fixed and mobile. The notion of sitting down and
focusing 100% of our attention on a big screen certainly exists - people still
go to movie theaters, and those who can afford it build home theater rooms.
But the tradition of a family sitting down together to watch Happy Days is now
ancient history...
In 1992 "more pixels" meant "more money." A lot more money.
Panel displays were in their infancy - CRT displays did not have pixels per se,
some had stripes of phosphors to enhance detail.
MPEG-2 compression required multiple megabytes of memory for image buffers -
The price of RAM in 1994 was still above $30/MB.
Fortunately, Moore's Law would come to the rescue...
Of the CE TV vendors, and the mobile computing device industry.
But it has nearly KILLED the broadcast TV equipment industry.
Yet through all of this the only improvement in Broadcast HDTV has come from
external factors. It is now common for displays to support 1920 x 1080 at 60P
or even 120P, although broadcasters are still constrained by 1920 x 1080 at 60i
or 30P and 24P. If you want 4K source, you will need to stream it from the
Internet.
It is now common for computer displays to use MUCH HIGHER pixel densities than
are required to make pixels "invisible" at nominal viewing distances and
viewing angles.
Turns out that there are now applications that require more detail from a
display than VIDEO. Turns out that most entertainment does not require very
high levels of detail - producers go out of their way to avoid it.
With 4K, display oversampling is starting to become a reality on consumer TVs.
Yet even with 4K, the average screen size is not increasing significantly - the
most common display sizes are 40 - 72 inch, with 55" being the current sweet
spot. This is driven by physical realities - room size and viewing distances.
And cost.
The TV is in a corner, next to a fireplace.
Well, let's not belabor the obvious. If you have your TV crammed into a
corner, you won't have room. But I very much doubt you can make the case that
the average home has no walls that are at least 10 feet wide! Remember,
there's no significant bulk away from the wall, with the rolled up screens
I'm considering here.
The TV IS NOT crammed in a corner.
When I remodeled our kitchen and family rooms in the early '2000s I
specifically designed the TV into that corner. We had two large family rooms,
and a pass through from the kitchen to one of these rooms - lots of walled off
little boxes. Those rooms did have 10 foot walls with the necessary cable drops
for TVs.
With the remodel, we turned the kitchen, and both family rooms into one large
open concept space with an informal dining area. The TV is visible from the
kitchen, the formal seating area and the informal dining area. The ability to
support a large screen TV was integral to that design, as it is to most modern
construction with open floor plans.
Another important factor in my remodel and most modern family rooms is ambient
light. The dual family rooms had 13 foot windows; We increased the height of
the windows in the formal seating area, and replaced the other window with
French doors. The corner is isolated from the light coming through the windows
- by design.
Large windows are now a virtual requirement in modern homes; and ceiling height
are often much higher than 8 feet. Ambient light control is a significant issue.
It is becoming a critical issue as we begin to improve delivered image quality
with HDR and WCG. If you want to realize the full benefits of improved dynamic
range, you will need to a darkened room - i.e. a dedicated home theater. That
is not going to happen with the vast majority of U.S. homes.
Yup. Which is why viewing distance for home displays has not
changed appreciably.
No, as you can see, that's not it. What matters is FOV.
Nope. The field of view increased because larger screens became affordable. In
many cases the rooms have become much larger as the open floor plan that turns
kitchen and family room into a great room has become VERY popular.
What this has done is to cause multiple viewing positions to become common. The
family room sofa is typically positioned about 10 feet from the TV. Informal
dining and the kitchen may be 20 feet from the screen, which works just fine
since the TV is now large enough to be useful at these distances.
Sports Bars used to have a big projection TV. Now the walls are covered with
55" panels, filled with content from ESPN and regional sports networks.
So FOV is not the issue. We now watch TV from many viewing distances on many
screen sizes. As I pointed out the other day, if you look at "video" screen
time on all devices the AVERAGE size of the displays is actually shrinking.
And while absolute viewing DISTANCE might not have changed, FOV changed a
lot. The previous limit, with analog, had nothing to do with motion sickness.
Correct. It had to do with the limitations of the available technology. I would
note that there were MANY studies about the potential impact of a scanning beam
of light on the brain. Wide area flicker was the major reason scanning displays
did not work well at larger sizes.
It is certainly POSSIBLE to set up a TV viewing venue such that the display
subtends a wide FOV. The reality is that not many people are doing this.
Whether this has something to do with motion sickness, or simply just the loss
of infatuation with sitting down and focusing our attention on a TV is far from
clear.
I keep trying to convince Bert that the TV is NOT the center of our lives. It
is the background noise of our lives, which now has MANY distractions,
including the tablets and smartphones we use while the TV is on.
It had to do with ugly grain, ghost, and general fuzziness you would
perceive, closer up. In other words, resolution. With HD, you could make use
of a greater FOV, which is why the HD screens are so much larger than analog
screens. And FOV was still not the limiting factor for seasickness. You'd see
individual pixels before ever getting seasick. Even with 1080p.
DUH.
This was a horse and cart situation. The delivered resolution of NTSC, and the
available resolution from CRT displays was the limiting factor on size. For
those who could afford it, you could buy a $20,000 display processor from
Farudja and others that would allow a big projection screen to look "decent."
At the same time, acquisition of higher resolution images was a huge issue. IT
is the reason Hollywood shot everything on film.
NHK developed analog HDTV in the early '80s, but the cameras used the same
scanning pickup tube technology as earlier NTSC cameras. Later, CCD image
sensors helped to improve image quality, but they were still scanned in the
same manner as I/O tubes. Until high quality, high resolution CCDs were
developed in the '90s, 1125/60i was almost indistinguishable from 854 x 480P,
which competed with NHK HD in Japan.
The technology that realty made HD viable was digital compression. Moore's law
assured that processing bandwidth would keep improving, but Moore's law did
nothing to create BANDWIDTH, at least in terms of the analog world it replaced.
The original proposal for HDTV from the NAB called for 12 MHz of spectrum to
deliver on analog program.
With UHD, I'm proposing that FOV is the limiting factor. You can now achieve
FOV angular values that might create motion sickness, with general purpose.
TV or movie material. In my own case now, 42" screen at 9.5 feet viewing
distance, my FOV is merely 18.2 degrees. So, plenty of room for improvement,
without risking seasickness.
Yup. Bert is out there on the bleeding edge...
Will he be the first in his neighborhood to have an 8K TV that covers a 50
degree FOV?
;-)
Regards
Craig
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- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- John Shutt
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- cooleman
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- cooleman
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Mark Schubin
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- cooleman
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Mark Schubin
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- cooleman
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Mark Schubin
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- cooleman
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Mike Tsinberg
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- cooleman
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- cooleman
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense? - Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- cooleman
- » [opendtv] Re: TV Technology: 4K for Broadcast: Is it Worth the Expense?- Manfredi, Albert E