More big titles are being released on Blu-ray at the same time as to DVD.
According to a recent report by Futuresource, a consulting company that did a survey on how many of us copy DVDs a while ago, the high-definition disc markets in both the U.S. and Europe continue to perform very well, thanks to the fact that the world shifted to one format--Blu-ray--at the beginning of the year.
Currently, taking only big titles into account, the share of total sales being taken by Blu-ray has already hit 5 percent to 6 percent. By the end of the year, this share is estimated to be more than 10 percent. With many hot title releases planned, it is expected that by the end of this year, consumers will purchased to up 45 million Blu-ray Discs in the U.S. alone (a 400 percent increase from last year).
In Europe, on the other hand, awareness and uptake are still lower overall, although in the key markets the retailers and the studios are reacting to an uplift in interest this year and are gearing up for a good end to 2008.
The latest analysis from Futuresource suggests that by 2012, between 40 percent and 50 percent of consumer spending on video discs will be allocated to Blu-ray thanks to the fact that Blu-ray players are getting more popular and more affordable.
The backers of Wireless Home Digital Interface plan to announce they are officially banding together Wednesday. But we're still months, or even a year from true, interoperable devices that can send high-definition video between themselves.
Wireless Home Digital Interface, or WHDI, sends uncompressed, high-definition video signals over the unlicensed 5-Gigahertz band. The backers of it say its immune to obstructions like walls and can deliver a signal that covers an entire home--that means setting up a set-top box in a basement and connecting it wirelessly to a 1080p TV in an upstairs bedroom.
But we've been hearing this stuff for years. Several different standards have been proposed, and consumer electronics vendors have even announced products, but they've been very slow to trickle out to the market.
One of the few wireless HD video devices that's made it to market.
(Credit: Belkin)There's been more movement in this industry of late (Sony, and Sharp have released wireless HD video products this year, and Belkin is promising something for October), but we're still waiting for the floodgates to open where all the top-tier manufacturers have TVs with a wireless HD connectivity option.
Amimon, the chipmaker behind the WHDI technology, says that time is next year. WHDI can count Hitachi, Motorola, Sony, Samsung, and Sharp among its charter members, and once the standard is completed later this year, consumers will have many more options for wireless HD video products, according to Amimon's chief executive, Yoav Nissan-Cohen.
"This year you buy products that solve the problem you have, like Belkin's FlyWire kit," said Nissan-Cohen. It doesn't yet meet the standard's goal of having any source using WHDI be able to connect to any screen, but he says that's fine for now.
"Next year you can get multi-vendor, interoperable devices," he said.
Though Nissan-Cohen says the WHDI standard is following along the same path and attempting to build a consortium the way the HDMI standard did--lining up the technology and key hardware players one by one--we've been hearing "next year" for a while now when it comes to this space. Plus, WHDI isn't the only game in town.
In fact, it's got several competitors. WirelessHD is one: it uses the 60-Gigahertz band to send high-def video between devices, though it is limited to one room and can't go through walls. But it does have some of the same vendors on board, like Sony and Samsung. There's also ultrawideband solutions, but they've had more trouble getting off the ground.
Still, Nissan-Cohen of Amimon says next year you'll see TVs that have wireless receivers built in for a premium of approximately $100 to $200 (right now an add-on WHDI dongle costs about $400 or $500). And in a three to five years, or when shipping volumes reach 10 million or higher, the wireless HD device should only cost $10 extra to have the technology inside. By then, he says it will be the "default option to every TV and every source device."
I certainly hope so, but for now, we'll take this one with the requisite grain of salt.
(Credit:
Crave UK)
It's no secret that the Japanese are into their high definition televisions--they've been able to watch HD for years now. They even had an analog transmission for HD in the late '80s, beating the rest of the world by some considerable margin. It's no surprise then that they quickly got bored of HD and came up with something called Super Hi-Vision, which is even better.
Super Hi-Vision pictures are made up of 33 million pixels, transmitted 60 times per second with a frame size of a staggering 7,680 x 4,320 pixels. Super Hi-Vision has been demonstrated before at the International Broadcasting Convention, but this year it will feature live broadcasts for the first time. The live material will come from a camera in central London, which at these resolutions will surely pick up all manner of naughtiness, like people drinking booze on buses, and an awful lot of nose picking.
The live footage from London will be mixed with video, transmitted via satellite from a storage server in Torino, Italy and will be mixed with pre-recorded footage from Japan and then projected by an 8k projector. A downscaled feed will be seen at some stands at a much more reasonable resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels--still twice as many lines as 1080p.
As every movie fan knows, sound is 50 percent of the experience, and super-mega-ultra-high-definition also features 22.2-channel surround sound for a truly immersive experience. 22.2 audio is composed of 9 speakers above ear level, 10 speakers at ear level, and 5 speakers lower than ear level, including stereo subwoofers. You might want to start the begging process with your other half now, because if they don't care for 5.1 sound, we're certain they won't take well to an additional 18 speakers knocking around the lounge.
The video will be compressed using MPEG-2 and transmitted over an ultra-broadband fiber. We can only hope they've gone for an unlimited broadband package, as stepping over their limit could be very costly indeed.
So what does this have to do with consumers? Well, we very much doubt we're anywhere near getting Super Hi-Vision TV shows, and even if we were, you'd need a screen the size of your wall to even come close to making it worthwhile. And who wants to watch EastEnders that size? Hollyoaks we can understand. But not EastEnders. UHD could have some uses though, such as immersive virtual reality--we're sure there's a pornographic use too. There usually is.
(Source: Crave UK)
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