By Lx Rudis, SVP of Product Development Team at www.nanotechent.com“>NanoTech Entertainment
If you ask any member of the “The Greatest Generation” if they remember their first television set, the answer is most likely, “Yes.” In the same way, members of “Generation Y” still joke about the horrible sound of dial-up modems connecting to the Internet and how happy they are never to hear it again. So what technological advancement does the next generation have to look forward to changing our lives? Ultra Hi-Definition Television. More commonly called, 4K, Ultra Hi-Definition television will allow consumers a viewing experience so in tune with the human senses that you can actually feel like you are living the experience. While working at www.nanotechent.com“>NanoTech Entertainment, I get to see the initial impact this change in technology is having every day and what the future of entertainment will look like.
So what does 4K actually mean? It’s a question I get asked a lot and one that is hard to answer without taking a step back and looking at “traditional Hi-Definition (HD).” Your basic standard definition TV gives you two megapixels of color. With Hi-Definition, you receive more than fives times that with ten megapixels. With 4K, you receive another four times the clarity of HD, giving the viewer Ultra Hi-Definition viewing.” In other words, our eyes can see color variations and sharper images that we never even knew existed. The majority of people I have spoken with say they first noticed the difference while watching sport games, and now they say they can’t survive football season without their HD channels. Little do they know 4K is about to bring their games to a whole new level of intensity.
The most revolutionary change with 4K technology is that viewers will have a more emotional engagement with the images they see. With traditional HD technology, the human eye is being provided about one third of the total color spectrum – primary colors and obvious gradients are seen, but much of the subtlety of the color spectrum is lost. With 4K technology, that amount is raised dramatically. 4K sets deliver close to 80% of the colors that can be detected by the human eye. Suddenly, there is more detail available in the shadows, more edge detail on subjects. Actors and foreground objects feel as if they are separate from the background, in between the viewer and the screen. With 4K televisions, consumers will now be able to watch their shows in a way that was promised for 3D, but was never delivered before now.
Now, I’m sure your next question is, “If 4K is so great, why isn’t everyone rushing to buy a 4K television?” The answer is simple: there is very little content available at this time that can be used to its full potential on a 4K television. While most movies are filmed in 4K, they cannot be seen in the home. This dilemma is not without a solution. NanoTech Entertainment is one of the first companies to begin the process of film scanning thousands of movies that can be viewed in 4K. We even discovered our own processes could be run on Blu-Ray players, enhancing this viewing experience even more. As we are refining and advancing 4K, we are already discovering that NanoTech’s transfer and clean-up processes are superior to several other systems in common use, and that our systems can improve the image quality of a transfer which was previously ‘upscaled’ with a different system. In addition, NanoTech Entertainment just announced the opening of its 4K Studios in San Francisco, which will oversee the creation of 4K content for thousands, if not millions, of new users on multiple platforms. Plus, this 4K studio will handle the conversion of movies and other content into 4K-ready media.
The visual experience 4K technology will bring into the family living room will be unlike anything we have ever seen. We will now be able to experience digitally what it means to have a 250 pound linebacker come running at us while we watch a quarterback scramble to get rid of the pigskin. Viewers will now be able to able to see some of the classics digitally re-mastered and viewed as if they were there while the movie was being filmed.
This new technological milestone is just the beginning wave of advancement that will set the tone for the years to come from photography to screen adaptations to surgical tools and computers. What I know is that Sony is attempting an initial ‘high end’ consumer push this Christmas with a system of screen and player, which will probably be close to $10,000. NanoTech is aiming for a much lower $1,200 price point for a 50” Seiki screen with Nuvola 4K player. As far as content goes, the industry is assuming that it will take about two years for large-scale adoption of the format, with understanding that a large percentage of older HD devices will not be ‘retired’. This will be a complex transition, I’d not be surprised if it takes four or five years for universal adoption of the format. Regardless of timing, we are truly experiencing The Future of Entertainment.
