ULTRA TV display at NAB - Ultra Hi Def downrezzed to 4K
 

I'm uploading a short video clip of the Ultra TV booth at NAB, where they were showcasing a four 8M-pixel CMOS recorder. Chris will have to link the video to this thread, once it uploads, but meanwhile here is a JPG of the camera. They were showing the live footage on a 4K monitor that had a little sign on it: "Downrezzed to 4K" - everyone who walked by the booth had a chuckle at that sign.

Maybe someone with more knowledge of this project can shed some light on the details and possible applications. I heard a lot of folks chattering about this display, but it was mostly along the lines of, "Did you see that Japanese camera? That was cool/amazing/sick...."

video is now available here:

www.dvinfo.net/media/uhd/UltraHiDef.mov

I remember reading about this, would have been good to display the 4k down res PLUS another screen on the other side that was a crop of the 8mp output so you could see both.

i thought about it, but did not really have much faith in my HV20 to do justice to it...especially when compressing the images even further for a web video...

I saw this monster camera up close last year, and at that time the applications were with medical, as well as ultra high displays in museums. High definition in homes is very common in Japan, and now they're trying to figure out a way to compress an ultra high def signal into a manageable one for home use.

What intrigued me more was the 22.1 channel surround sound system they had this year by Bose. Does anyone know what that system was? It looked like a souped up L1 towers, but it wasn't an L1. I believe the bass modules were B4s?

I wasn't really that impressed by it.

The bezel between the 4 monitors was highly distracting and you really can't suspend your disbelief with it. To me, the bezel meant that I just couldn't get into it.
Perhaps in the future there will be good ultra HD displays, but right now we barely have good 4k displays and projectors.

The viewing angle on their LCDs and their raised black level were also un-immersive. IMO I think we are best off going with HD displays with real blacks first (especially 1920x1080 progressive HD). It doesn't involve changing our infrastructure much, it's viable to produce, and real blacks makes pictures look a lot sharper than higher resolution does. At very high viewing angles (e.g. if you're sitting really close, or if the display is really large) it's probably better to have higher resolution... but most people do not have that in their home.

Right now, I'm most impressed by the eCinema DPX (best blacks I've ever seen), the FED prototypes, ad realD 3D (haven't seen the other 3D systems).