Calling Epson...

[Bob Gruen]

I can see single pixels on my 1080p 52" screen from about 6'.

You're sitting 6' away from a 52" screen?

[Axel Mertes]

I think there are a few things being overlooked here, the first of which being the human eye...

Who is really going to buy such a projector in the near future? I think the market will be limited to post houses (if the quality is good enough), large conference rooms that want to have screens that are really effective, and major high-dollar home theater implementations (only if content is made available or up-scaling tech fills in).

[..] Bob

I mentioned it earlier:

After JVC introduced their 4K projector about 1.5 years ago, I met up with the JVC sales manager. He told me at that time about 10 units had been sold to home theaters, regardless if it is usefull for them, just as being the top-notch hardware (ie. "mine is better than yours..." attitude of the buyer). At the same time no single unit has been sold to professionals.

As I am not JVC I have no idea if that is still a correct "relationship" between the two sides, consumers vs. professionals, but a rich consumer pays easily for something like that, while a professional will always ask "what is it good for?", regardless of the price. Here in germany we have about two 4K enabled DCI conform theaters IIRC, so "what is it good for to grade in 4K for just two screens?" On the long term that will change, for sure.

Some long time ago I made a prediction to say that HD will grow in Europe from bottom to top, ie. first the consumers will have HD, and after that the broadcasters and professionals will follow. From todays perspective this is totally true. HD hasn't really been introduced (so few stations, many did some tests, many dropped it after a while), HD is basically a "pay tv" thingy over here at this point.

I am willing to make another prediction:

We will see major amounts home installations of 4K enabled hardware before a wide range of 4K screens may become available in germany. And I bet that rules for most parts of Europe, at last.

Expect 4K 30" displays in a few month...

Cheers,
Axel

[Axel Mertes]

I remember walking past the Astro monitor display at IBC a couple of years back, showing the NHK 8k content downsampled to 4k - it really demanded attention. It stopped you and made you look, even though in many ways the content is not compelling.

There is, of course, no reason why the angle of view in a home media room be any smaller than in a top cinema, and I'd say that viewing quality is even more critical in that home environment where it can be set to optimum for a mere handful of simultaneous viewers.

Graeme

Hi Graeme,

I do well remember that particular Astro screen presentation. Compelling image quality, even with rather unspectacular footage.

Best scene to me was that herd of japanese half-naked guys moving that giant dragon among that place. A fun for the anti-terror-teams: Everyone can be identified by face...

I just hope we can get this on our homes before our eyes get old and tired, and do resemble only SD anymore... :)

Cheers,
Axel

[Peter Majtan]

I think that going beyond 1080p will be a hard sell to the consumer. Especially if there is little to no content available in that format. Content comes from an industry, and they have to choose to support the format.

Hey Bob - I think HD itself is a good point-in-case against Your argument. For example in Mexico ALL public broadcast is still in SD and there are only very few selected satellite/cable channels that offer programming in HD - and that only if You pay extra (which again is not a very common thing in Mexico). Yet sales of HD plasma TV's are huge. Most HD TV's now include good scalers that upres the SD to HD with noticeable difference. You can expect the same with 4K and 4xHD displays...

Peter

[Michael Smith]

Last Christmas I bought myself a Sony Bravia VPL-HW10 front projector. It's 1080p and it looks amazing! My screen is about 12-13 feet across and I generally sit about 18 feet away from it. But you have to get less than 2 or 3 feet before you ever see 'pixels.' 4k would probably look even more amazing, but of course it would depend on the source material. Even at 1080p quality on my projector completely depends on the source.

Take Dark Knight, which is about the best I've seen anything look on it. It's great demo material. The IMAX shots look a LOT better than the rest of the film footage. How can that be? The whole film source is theoretically higher density (resolution) than my projector. But the IMAX shots are so much crisper than the rest of the film and make my projector shine (screenshots in the links below). Maybe they devoted more bitrate to those shots on the BD? Or maybe it has to do with the lens?

But I believe that higher resolution source material is going to look better on 1080P than just a 1080P source. This is why I'm NOT getting a 7D and am waiting to buy a scarlet. If I'm going to shoot an indie film, projected or not, I want to shoot it at higher than 1920 because it will make the final product look much better. Scarlet footage shot at 3k, edited at 3k, effects at 3k, mastered and THEN downscaled to 1080p will look much better on my projector than 7D footage shot at 1080 using a lossy codec, then transcoded to something you can edit in, etc...

For those interested - here are links to my opinions of the sony projector, with photos...

http://www.tomorrowland.com/2008/12/...avia-vpl-hw10/

http://www.tomorrowland.com/2008/12/...pl-hw10-part2/

[Jeremy W]

This will kill Blue ray for sure, if the price is right, but also will dramatically change pirate movie sharing, thus studios' nightmare.

You nailed it right there. The studios would never provide content for a format that wasn't teeming with DRM.

[Richard Weinberg]

Today (11/19/09 in Tokyo) at InterBEE (~ the NAB of Japan ), Epson showed a prototype of their 8k projector, which can also project 4k stereo, in a small theater in their booth on the show floor. The theater, about 75 feet from the RED booth, seats about 16 people in two rows. I sat in the front row, about four or five feet from the rear-projected screen, which measured about 10 feet by 5 feet, roughly. Yes, quite close. The 8k images were simply stunning, as was the 4k stereo. They showed an amazingly detailed stereo cityscape, most likely Tokyo, and an 8k short that I had seen before on NHK's ultra-high definition system, the short with the kids jumping off the bridge into the river. One other 8k scene, looked like a close shot of a Japanese float that one might see in a parade, with rich color, texture and depth. Even without it being a stereo shot, it had quite a 3d feel to it.

There was a 4k stereo clip of a Japanese character in traditional, colorful, garb, making the very slow movements characteristic of Japanese theater.

The Epson representative said the 4k stereo was shot on a stereoscopic RED One camera rig, so RED footage has made its way onto Epson's latest prototype projector already, and in 4k stereo! It looked beautiful.

The projector is a prototype; Epson would not say when it would be a shipping product. I hope it's soon! It was a very exciting experience.

You can see the demo tomorrow, Friday (11/20) at InterBEE at Makuhari Messe, Tokyo, Japan, at the Epson booth. If you're in Tokyo, don't miss it, or the RED booth, either!

And check out Element Technica's RED stereo rig while you're there.

Richard Weinberg
RED One #447

[Stuart English]

Thanks for that report Richard.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

8K, wha???

Great report, I'd love to see it. Hopefully we get a real product out of this prototype in the not too distant future.

[Petri Teittinen]

Thank you for that, Richard. My accountant got the heebie-jeebies while I was reading your post.