THE FRONT LINE: APRIL 29, 2006
NAB 2006: HDTV or BUST!
At this year’s show, there was plenty to talk about and products to see when it came to HDTV. There was even a demo that went far beyond HD!
While HDTV has been the focus of NAB for some time, activity really ramped up this year with several new camcorders, VTRS, and displays introduced. More broadcasters announced they’d offer high-definition news and local programming. Demonstrations were made of HD DVD and Blu-ray content, and MPEG-4 (AVC H.264) coding was the focus of many a booth.
The format wars we’re seeing in the consumer space have their counterparts in the professional arena. Perhaps the most notable is the competition between Sony’s XDCAM HD blue-laser optical disc recording and playback system and Panasonic’s P2 flash-memory camcorders.
Figure 1. Panasonic’s HVX200 with FireStore FS-100 attached to the camera’s lighting shoe.
Both approaches have met with success. CBS owned-and-operated stations are investing in XDCAM HD for their local news (starting this fall in many markets), with WETA investing in the system to produce “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” in 1080i/30. Several PBS stations are putting XDCAM HD systems on-line as part of a Sony/PBS HD Pilot Program.
Other TV stations are scooping up Panasonic’s DVC PRO-format $6,000 HVX200 HDV camcorder, creating 30 to 60-day backlogs. (I hope to have a review of this camcorder soon!) Panasonic scored a coup when Cappy Productions, which produces together the “official” Olympics documentaries, logged extensive miles on an HVX200 for their latest production on the Torino Games. The Beijing Olympics in 2008 will also make extensive use of the P2 format.
JVC’s GY-HD100 720p/24/30 camcorder has also met with tremendous acceptance, so much that it has spawned two new versions – the GY-HD200, which now supports 720p/60 recording and playback, using an advanced codec, and the studio-ready GY-HD250, a fully-loaded HDV camcorder for ENG applications that also records and plays back 720p/60.
Figure 2. Teranex showed this 26-inch monitor with their
proprietary video processor as a product concept.
There were other HD products and announcements of interest. I’ve selected a few that caught my eye and were newsworthy as I strolled through the various halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The north hall was pretty quiet; the central hall busier the first two days of the show, but the south hall was absolute bedlam all three days – and no wonder, with Apple, Adobe, and Avid across from each other on the lower level, and Sony’s megabooth one floor above.
HOT BUTTON ISSUES
24p and 1080p are certainly hot topics right now, and that was true at the show. Unfortunately, there still aren’t any plans to transmit HD programming in the United States in a native 1080-line progressive format – only in the standard 1080i/29.97 Hz format. There are a few expensive cameras that can record 1080p/24 and a couple that can even handle 1080p/60, but the format is always converted to 1080i before transmission from broadcast stations, through cable and FiOS, or via satellite.
I was fortunate to attend a private demo of Panasonic’s new 65-inch TH-65PX600U 1080p plasma. The source was a Panasonic Blu-ray player, streaming content encoded in the AVC (MPEG-4) format with a bit rate of 16 Mb/s. Quality was top-notch, but I was surprised to learn the signal was being delivered to the plasma TV in the 1080i format from the player.
Figure 3. Kramer’s VP-727 is the latest in a series of value-priced,
fully featured seamless switchers.
Although movies on Blu-ray (and HD DVD) discs can and will be encoded as 1080p/24, the Blu-ray player currently interlaces it and performs a 2:3 “yank” to get to 1080i/30. Sony is using the same approach at present, except that its discs are being encoded as MPEG-2. Panasonic thinks it can manufacture a better MPEG-4 encoder, which is why they went with that codec.
There are many claims being tossed around about realizing a 50% reduction in bit rate with the same HD image quality simply by switching to MPEG-4. Unfortunately, those are just claims. The reality is more like a maximum 20% improvement in coding efficiency, according to MPEG experts who attended the Saturday/Sunday PBS-SBE Ennes technical conference. (In fact, one of these experts told me that 40% might be as good as MPEG-4 will ever achieve.)
HDMI was the focus of another presentation at this conference, and the word is that version 1.3 of the interface is the “sure thing” for supporting native 1080p50 or 1080p/60 connectivity. I’ve cautioned readers not to rush into a 1080p TV purchase for this very reason, particularly if video gaming is the application. While a few current-model HDTVs will accept the signal, things should get less uncertain this summer as the 2006 sets come to market.
Figure 4. Pioneer’s PRO-FHD1 made some beautiful images,
but it was difficult to tell the difference in resolution between it and a
768p 50-inch Panasonic plasma when viewed from eight feet away.
Another debate has come up over the ability to show native 24p on a variety of displays, including LCD and plasma. At present, all professional displays shown at NAB present 24p (and 25p) in a segmented-frame format. The actual frame rate is doubled to 48 Hz, just as is done with motion picture film. The reason? Too much flicker with native 24p using any display technology, whether it is LCD, plasma, LCOS, or DLP.
PRODUCTS OF INTEREST
Focus Enhancements has been building portable hard disk recorders for HDV camcorders for a few years now, and unveiled the FireStore FS-100, a 100 GB model with battery pack for the Panasonic HVX200. It has the capacity to record up to 90 minutes at DVC PRO data rates.
Doremi had a couple of handy HD “doo-dads” on hand. The HDVI-20 is a format converter that accepts SDI or HD-SDI serial video signals and converts them to DVI-D output in a variety of broadcast and PC-standard formats. The companion HDG-20 is a nice test pattern generator that outputs SDI and HD-SDI video and audio streams. It can run off 5 to 18 volts in the field.
Figure 5. Sanyo’s Mark Holt shows off the latest PJ Master projector control software.
JVC’s new SA-HD50U encoder/decoder takes uncompressed HD-SDI signals and encodes them into a compressed HDV720P 19Mbps or HDV1080i 25Mbps stream in real time, which can then be recorded directly onto an HDV720P (19.7Mbps) or HDV1080i (25Mbps) studio deck, or transferred directly to a disk-based recording or editing system.
Input/Output capabilities include HD-SDI 720/60P/50P and 1080/60i/50i. IEEE 1394 interface includes 720/60P/50P/30P/25P/24P and 1080/60i/50i.
Communications Specialties introduced a nifty digital video scan converter. The Scan Do HD accepts both DVI and RGB PC signals at resolutions to 1600x1200 and converts them to either HD-SDI (720p, 1080i) or SDI (480i, 476i) output. Has your local TV station ever shown a frame grab or real-time video of their Web site or weather graphics? They needed a scan converter someplace in the chain to do it! The Scan Do HD offers 10-bit processing and gunlock, and it also supports the HD tri-level sync signal.
Speaking of processing, Teranex (a division of Silicon Optix) previewed a Realta-driven 26-inch studio LCD monitor with 1920x1080 resolution and a 48-inch JVC D-ILA 1920x1080 rear-projection reference monitor. Neither product is ready to ship, but both looked quite good and attracted quite a bit of attention.
Figure 6. Is Sony’s LMD-322WS LCD monitor good enough
to succeed their line of BVM-quality reference CRT monitors?
Kramer Electronics showed the VP-727 In-CTRL, a seamless switcher with K-Storm scaling technology. Signals can be input to the VP-727 on any of 8 universal inputs with 5 BNC connectors per input. The unit has multiple output resolution settings including 480p, 576p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p resolutions and one user definable output resolution setting. Output signals are also selectable between the RGB and YUV color spaces and are simultaneously available on 3 different connector types for both the Preview and the Program output channels.
TV One took the wraps off the C2-7300, a dual-channel digital video processor. It format converts from analog to SDI and HD-SDI, cross-converts between digital formats, uses full 4:4:4 sampling, and comes with 11 multi-format signal inputs including DVI-I. 32 channels of digital audio processing are standard using AES3-id specifications, and an optional expansion board provides discrete XLR connectors (AES3).
Down the stairs, Analog Way unveiled the OctoVue FX, a seamless switcher with eight universal video/PC inputs, genlock, and stereo audio follow. It accepts a wide range of video and PC signals all the way up to 1920x1080p/50 and 60 Hz and can blend and scale to the same resolutions. Picture-in-picture, fades, and tiling are all standard configurations.
Figure 7. This tiny CMOS device is at the heart of the NHK 8K video camera.
On the display side of things, Canon had a new SXGA+ (1400x1050) LCOS projector up and running. The ReaLis SX6 has an expanded color gamut that supports Adobe RGB and cranks out 3500 ANSI lumens with 1000:1 sequential contrast. It weighs all of 10.4 pounds. There’s also the ReaLis SX600, similar in performance to the SX6 but with a rating of 2500 ANSI lumens.
Pioneer’s PRO-FHD1 50-inch plasma with 1920x1080 resolution was shown privately at the Las Vegas Hilton. It has a reduced pixel pitch of about .56mm and supports native 1080p content at 24 frames (tripled to 72 Hz), 30 frames, and 60 frames. A new Crystal Emissive Layer is supposed to increase the charge-discharge cycle by 3x for brighter images. Along with the demo, Pioneer showed their new BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player. (The content demos were in 1080i, incidentally.)
Sanyo had a couple of widescreen LCD projectors cranking away in their booth, both running off their new PJ Master IP-control software. The PLV-80 uses 1366x768-pixel imaging panels and is rated at 3000 lumens with a 1000:1 sequential contrast ratio, while the high-resolution PLV-HD2000N brings 2048x1080 resolution and 10,000 lumens to the table, along with 1000:1 sequential contrast and support for HD-SDIU signals.
JVC’s DLA-HRM1 reference 48-inch monitor uses a negative-gain screen for a wide viewing angle and provides full 1920x1080 resolution. The company claims a 3000:1 sequential contrast ratio and brightness in excess of 300 nits. Silicon Optix’ Realta HQV processor does the heavy lifting with signal processing. For front projection, there’s the DLA-HD10K, a 600-lumens home theater and screening room projector with beautiful color and 1080p resolution.
In addition to 65-inch, 103-inch and prototype 50-inch 1080p plasma displays, Panasonic introduced the BT-LH2600W, a 26” HD production-quality LCD monitor. It offers two auto switching SDI/HD-SDI inputs; a waveform monitor that graphically displays luminance levels from -5 to 108 IRE in any of the monitor’s four corners; and a split screen/freeze-frame function. The monitor offers a 700:1 contrast ratio and is compatible with multiple HD/SD formats including 1080/24PsF, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i.
Sony also showed a full-range of LUMA broadcast LCD monitors, the largest of which is the LMD-322WS. These will eventually replace the reference-quality CRT monitors currently being offered. The LMD-322WS is a 1280x768 design with ChromaTRU color processing and support for all commonly used SD and HD formats, including 720p/50/60 and 1080i/25/30. The monitor will also show 1080p/24 in the segmented-frame format (48 Hz refresh rate).
Last but not least, NHK had an interesting, standing-room-only demo of a super-high resolution camera and projection system in the rear of the central hall. Originally, it was referred to as an “8K system”, but by the time I saw the demo, it was being described as 4320-line “ultra HD.” A custom Bose ESP-88 control system provided 22 channels of audio playback.
The camera uses a special 3840x2160 CMOS sensor with an R,G,G,B pixel array made by Micron Technology, and it scans images at a 60 fps progressive rate. For me, the demo wasn’t all that impressive; a quality 2K transfer might have appeared with similar quality. There were plenty of motion artifacts in the video clips, in which objects and people appeared to have some “ringing” around their edges. But the 22-channel audio system was certainly worth the trip!
