NHK demonstrates 8K display: 16x more detail than 1080p

Looks like NHK brought a prototype 33 megapixel, 8K Super Hi-Vision projection system to the auditoriums of CommunicASIA. Using a pair of LCoS projectors, NHK threw 7,680 x 4,320 pixels illuminated at 8,000 lumens onto a screen measuring 6.6 x 3.7 meters. The images were recorded from a prototype 8K studio camera -- as good as it gets until the first live SHV television broadcasts are demonstrated in September.

[loosely_coupled @ Jun 20th 2008 4:52AM]

awesome! Can't wait for ~65" Super Hi-Vision LCD displays!

[julz007 @ Jun 20th 2008 5:03AM]

why lcd when we will have oled? :o

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jun 20th 2008 5:42AM]

Forget LCD, I can't wait for super hi-vision Kuro Plasma.

[JoeB @ Jun 20th 2008 4:54AM]

That's insane. Makes you wonder where it'll stop. Way to make LCD's like computers, outdated as soon as you buy it.

Ah well... I wont complain once I get one of those in my living room in 10 years.

[Pochi @ Jun 20th 2008 9:03AM]

Well, it's not hard to cram a shitload of pixels onto a screen when the screen is enormous.

Hey NHK - shut up.

[omnicloud @ Jun 20th 2008 5:06AM]

Holy mackerel.

I must be hallucinating.. it's 2 AM west coast.

[sam @ Jun 20th 2008 5:21AM]

wow.. creepy...
the person on the right doesn't cast his shadow!

[raptor87 @ Jun 20th 2008 5:57AM]

Yup obviously photo shopped, shadows are all wrong.

I kid I kid

[zomg0t @ Jun 20th 2008 6:06AM]

Looks like he's right up against the screen, so that his body blocks his shadow from being seen. Maybe you can't quite appreciate the quality of 8K unless you shove your face into the TV.

[sam @ Jun 20th 2008 6:22AM]

No.. if you're really close, even if you lick the screen, there will be shadows...stronger even..
and I'm not sure they allow you to do that.. :P

[zomg0t @ Jun 20th 2008 6:30AM]

I'm not convinced that we would be able to see the shadow though with his body in the way, and now that I think about it, since they're using projectors, he wouldn't be able to see anything since his head is blocking the image from being displayed, but maybe NHK doesn't care about the screen itself, so he can feel free to lick away if he wishes.

[ben @ Jun 20th 2008 5:21AM]

And queue the next format to suck another $10-30 a pop for media you already own.

[Haikibutsu @ Jun 20th 2008 5:23AM]

I don't think thats a display, but a projector?

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jun 20th 2008 5:43AM]

Don't you read?


"Looks like NHK brought a prototype 33 megapixel, 8K Super Hi-Vision projection system to the auditoriums of CommunicASIA. Using a pair of LCoS projectors, "

[anabouboula @ Jun 20th 2008 5:45AM]

LCoS Projectors NOT LCD R-tards!

[Bernhard @ Jun 20th 2008 5:48AM]

Kind of a waste, as getting close to the screen to see more detail will only block the picture output.

[hendrix @ Jun 20th 2008 6:32AM]

You could always use binoculars.

[hugh @ Jun 20th 2008 5:51AM]

theres not much point in this, apart from flashyness. the human eye only has enough resolution to recognise somewhere around 2500x2500 spots (just over hd's width). any more and you either have to sit so close you're moving your eyes the whole time, or sit so far away you can't notice the detail

[ds @ Jun 20th 2008 7:47AM]

I can think of quite a few industrial/commercial applications that don't rely on one person needing to focus on every part of the screen at the same time.

Also, I'm not sure how more pixels could ever really be a bad thing. The better the person's vision, the more detail they would see just like the real world. We would be the bottleneck and not the display's resolution.

[computer.dude.28 @ Jun 20th 2008 8:36AM]

So, if you took 3000 "spots" by 3000 "spots" and stretched them over a 30 foot wall or something else nice and big.. you wouldn't be able to recognize them all? Shouldn't this measurement be in a DPI format? I bet if we had 1000 by 1000 "spots" squished onto an eraser we wouldn't be able to recognize all those either.

[Larsen @ Jun 20th 2008 5:56AM]

most people can't even use 1080p to it's full potential because of too small screen size or too high viewing distance, so please: why the hell would we need such ultra-high resolution displays at home. you could sit like 6 feet away from a 50" 1080p setup, using the resolution to its max... personally I know noone who does that...

[Scooby Doo @ Jun 20th 2008 7:36AM]

Actually, at 6' and a 50" screen the average person can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. Sure 1080p looks better at 3' when you're in best buy and the salesman is trying to tell how much better the 360 line of resolution the the extra $500 it costs will buy you, but put it in your living room and you won't be able to tell the difference. Most likely the difference you will see will be in the electronic of the tv and not its resolution. Just ask CNET. This rush to higher resolution is just a con to sell more TVs. For giant billboards it could have its uses though.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6810011-1.html?tag=bubbl_3

[John @ Jun 20th 2008 10:23AM]

A Sony bravia KDL-40S3000 is 1393 on amazon, while a Sony bravia KDL-40S4100 is 1099. But guess which one is the 720p set and which is 1080p...

[Hellios @ Jun 20th 2008 6:04AM]

So Comcasts videowall has been dethroned in just 2 days or what?

I so wanna see that in person, I'd especially like to see a single pixel line on that.

[neofolklore @ Jun 20th 2008 8:07AM]

EXACTLY what i thought

[Danakin @ Jun 20th 2008 8:55AM]

idk, about dethroned...perhaps 8 or 9 inches taken off the legs.

[protomech @ Jun 20th 2008 8:05AM]

For movies / broadcast tv, 1080p is fine. Digital theaters typically use 2K projectors (2048x1080).

If digital distribution is the future, an 8K (2h) movie would require on the order of 160-320GB to store and a 200-400 mbps connection to stream (assuming 16x resolution = 8-16x higher bitrates).

This is more useful for medical or videowall applications, where you will be viewing a small section of the image rather than the full frame. Imagine turning an entire wall into say a beach scene; on a 10 foot high wall, you would be unable to visually identify pixels until about (at worst) 7-8 feet away.

[Danakin @ Jun 20th 2008 8:56AM]

I don't know about dethroned...perhaps 8 or 9 inches taken off the legs though.

[Jamie @ Jun 20th 2008 10:13AM]

imagine how the porn industry will use this.......

[CosterMonger @ Jun 20th 2008 10:23AM]

so much for "Full HD"

[Stasguy @ Jun 20th 2008 10:32AM]

I think I see a dead pixel...

[Grant @ Jun 20th 2008 11:14AM]

Well, it only took a decade for HDTV to catch on for the general public.
See you in 2018 7680p!

[Tim @ Jun 20th 2008 12:13PM]

not to nag, but it'd be 4320p; i kinda doubt itd ever really catch on for consumers. I mean, with displays at only a few inches thick, for practical purposes they might as well be 2d (i.e. as flat as they're going to get) And resolution really is (at 1920 * 1080) as high as is useful for most venues/ audiences in a home setting; before higher resolution than 1080 catches on i would expect 3d, at least judging on the recent posts here at engadget.

[Jerod @ Jun 20th 2008 11:42AM]

I had the chance to check out some 8k televisions in the NHK booth at NAB. It whips HD's ass. Thats all I can say. (You could see the fibers in the jersey of several football players running around on screen.)

[Wwhat @ Jun 20th 2008 6:50PM]

Already there are tv shows I don't watch in 720p because the whole thing gets a bit too clear, fake scenery, (semi-)ugly skin issues, etcetera. this might not be good for many productions.
And another issue: the BBC for instance told that they didn't broadcast dr. who in HD because rendering the graphics would take 4 times as long.
Of course with new graphics cards that have full math and that can help speed up rendering massively that might be only a temporary issue.

[greatslack @ Jun 20th 2008 2:16PM]

Now we're measuring our displays in megapixels, too?

[John @ Jun 20th 2008 10:19PM]

well, technically, we already can... this would be ~33 megapixels, while 1080p is ~2 megapixels.

[Doug @ Jun 20th 2008 3:27PM]

I have seen one of these displays in person... It is absolutely amazing. At the time, it was also coupled with 22-channel surround sound, which was pretty cool too.

[Jake @ Jun 20th 2008 3:56PM]

Why is it called 8K? It doesn't have 8192 lines of vertical resolution. In fact, at 4320 vertical lines it's not that much more than 4K.

So wtf? Should be called 4.22K

-jp

[Wwhat @ Jun 20th 2008 6:53PM]

Good point, perhaps it's the "8,000 lumens onto a screen" bit? That would be weird though :)

[ds @ Jun 24th 2008 12:57PM]

I think you are confused on your 4K's. Typical 4k resolutions can vary quite a bit.. a few examples would be:

3626 x 2664
3996 x 2160
4096 x 1714
4096 x 2048
4096 x 2160
4520 x 2540

I'm not doing the math because I'm lazy, but all of these are in the ballpark of 8 - 12 MPs, and they all can be called 4k because they have around 4,000 lines of horizontal resolution.

The display the story is about 33 MPs.. quite a large leap. The "8K" refers to the same thing "4K" stands for -- the number of lines of horizontal resolution which for this display is "around" 8,000.

[hazard @ Jun 20th 2008 7:05PM]

I'm going to stick with LCD projectors until laser TV's come out.