20 AFV Winter 2013.pub - Federation of Australian Movie Makers

In-Home 4KNow and in the FutureThe 4K TVs will be big and expensive for the next couple of years. Just when we thought we had it all covered, 4Kmay not even be the final word in resolution. Japanese broadcaster NHK was the first to demonstrate 8K in 2008, andat CES 2012 there were industry murmurings, and at least one prototype, devoted to higher-than-4K resolution.ConclusionWill the extra resolution offered by 4K make movies better? You could argue that it depends on the format of theoriginal film. For example, "The Blair Witch Project" and "28 Days Later" were both shot with standard definitioncamcorders, and there would arguably be little extra benefit to buying either movie in a 4K native format over aDVD-- depending on the quality of the scaler in your brand-new 4Kscreen, of course.Even with reference quality native 4K material, however, a 4K resolution TV or projector won't provide nearly thevisible improvement over a standard 1080p model that going from standard def to high def did.To appreciate it you'll have to sit quite close to a large screen--sort of like being in the front few rows of a movietheatre. But whether it's 4K or 8K, you can bet that manufacturers haven't run out of cards when it comes totrying out the next "must-have" feature in the coming crops of televisions.By the way, in case you never noticed, most paying customers in modern 2K and 4K movie theatres sit in the "sweetspot" of between 1.5 and 2 screen heights away from the screen (pretty well where most people sit away from theirPC screens).In fact, in a modern movie theatre, the furthest you can get from the screen in the last row is 3 screen heights away!Some authorities recommend 3 to 3.5 picture heights for 1080 HD.So why is it we still sit a lot further away from our HDTVs than they were designed for? Why don't we want to fullyappreciate the resolution of HD?4K Resolution From Wikipedia4K is an emerging standard for resolution in digital film and computer graphics. The name is derived from the horizontalresolution, which is approximately 4,000 pixels. This designation is different to those used in the digital televisionindustry, which are represented by the vertical pixel count; for example 480p, 576p, 720p, and 1080p. 4Krepresents the horizontal resolution because there are numerous aspect ratios used in film — so while the horizontalresolution stays constant, the vertical resolution depends on the video source (aka letterboxing).An Update from Issue No 147 (Spring 2013)First 2K, then 4K and now 8KJapanese national broadcaster, NHK, has said it is developing a sensor capable of shooting 8K video at 120fps.It will be able to support the company's Super Hi-Vision standard of 7680x4320 pixels (generically known asUHDTV) which, at 33MP, is 16x higher resolution than current 1080 HD technology.During the London Olympics large screens around the city showed the high quality of the new UHDTV images.It is expected that UHDTV will arrive in our homes in 2020? NHK has a history of developing high-resolutionbroadcast technologies - having started producing HD content as far back as 1982. Previous 60fps 8K cameras developedby NHK were based around multiple 4K chips.Source: Stoke Cine & Video Society Newsletter #145 & #147 Autumn 2012Make Movies - Make FriendsPage 40 AUSTRALIAN FILM & VIDEO—VOL 20 WINTER 2013