Four eyes needed: one for each HDTV program
by Kevin C. Tofel 
posted Oct 20th 2005 at 10:36AM
I'm SO glad I've been wearing glasses for the past 25 years. All of those "four-eyes" jokes are about to become worth it. Chi Mei Optoelectronics finally delivered their prototype "quad-HDTV" display at a Yokohama exhibit. The 56-inch LCD set can handle a resolution of 3840 x 2160, or four-times the pixels of a 1920 x 1080 set. CMO figures that some TV-addicts will want to watch four unique programs at the same time in high-definition. That might be better than a single program at the super-high resolution: a full-scale picture in "2160i" for lack of a better term requires a transmission rate of 1.4 GB per second. Current MPEG-2 compression for high-def "only" requires 19.2 MB per second.
CMO is a little optimistic on a price and release for the set, claiming a cost of around $10,000 and production by third quarter of next year. I'd be shocked if we see either of those come true, but if CMO proves me wrong, I'd be happy to write a review for the set; heck, I'll write four reviews!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cecil @ Oct 20th 2005 10:47AM
I wonder what that throughput would have to be in MPEG-4, since high-def requires 9Mbs in that. I guess roughly half then (duh). But if its 4 times the res, that would only make a Mpeg-4 stream of this ultra-def content 36Mbs.
Really the only application at this res would be huge displays, at a certain point I think the eye couldn't tell on smaller displays, and by smaller, I'm thinkin 50". I always thought that thing at the beginning of total recall was cool, sitting at the breakfast table and having it look like you had an awesome view of somewhere else.
James Varghese @ Oct 20th 2005 10:57AM
Okay, that picture completely freaks me out. It reminds me of those magic eye things that were popular back in the mid-90s!
Kevin C. Tofel @ Oct 20th 2005 11:01AM
Wow James, good thing we didn't go with the animated .gif that I was originally planning!
Leon @ Oct 21st 2005 4:53PM
If the prcing really is $10,000 dollars, it would definitely make a great computer display, especially for video editing as you could view a full-res hdvpreview, or two quite high res hd previews.
TheMatt @ Oct 20th 2005 1:03PM
Pshaw. 2160i? I'm a real videophile, wake me up when they release 2160p like they should have in the first place. $@#%!ing QHDTV Group.
Permanent4 @ Oct 20th 2005 3:35PM
Ummmm... 1.4GBps is a lot more than four times 19.2Mbps. By those calculations, MPEG-4 video at 2160i would be about 600Mbps, though I suspect good quality compression would get it a little lower. If they could somehow convert 2160i signal into 4 different 1080i signals on the fly and get them synched, then you might be able to do it under 50Mbps.
Just for reference -- Sony's 4K digital cinema projectors can display 4096 x 2160 in movie theaters. I wrote last week about the possibility of showing live TV events at that resolution in theaters, actually...
http://www.permanent4.com/2005/10/desperation-at-dodecaplex-v-who-needs.html
RockySpieler @ Oct 29th 2005 9:09PM
One benefit of 2160p screens is that they can easily scale both 720p (x3) and 1080i/p (x2) material.
So you do not need to worry about 2160p source material. Plus they would be amazing for a PC games.
Anyone want to lend me $10,000???? I setle for 7,000 :-)!!!