Posts Tagged ‘Home Theater’

The Year in (Technical) Retrospect

In: Technology

By: Steve Stanfill on Dec 29, 2010 at 8:09 am

2010 has been a banner year for growth of technology.  We have seen trends normalize into the mainstream, as well as other “mainstream” technologies wane somewhat as folks explore the several alternatives out there.  So this post will be a retrospective on the technical year.  Here goes:

Whereas 2009 was the year of the Blu-Ray player, certainly 2010 was the year that on-line media delivery has come of age.  There are dozens of pieces of hardware (other than computers) that now allow access to on-line content from Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, and other providers.  Internet capable televisions currently outsell 3-D capable sets by a huge margin.  Blu-ray players, Apple TV, Roku, TiVo and other devices all allow access to on line content–whether for sale, rent, or for free.  One of the Great Debates raging is whether on-line delivery will replace “hard” media (DVD’s, Blu-ray, etc) all together. Another debate that bears watching is whether internet video streaming (so-called, “over the top) will supplant conventional linear broadcasts.  My sense is that on-line media will continue to grow in popularity, but will likely not replace either “hard” media or linear broadcasts for the foreseeable future.  Content will continue to be delivered to consumers in various ways that suit their budget and lifestyle.

2010 will also go down as the “big push” for 3D.  Since I last wrote about this, 3D has gained some momentum.  Studios continue to release titles in 3D (whether there is a need for this as a matter of artistic perspective or not), and retail outlets are pushing 3D capable sets as though they were the Next Big Thing.  The actual numbers of sets sold though reflect a public that may be reluctant to fully embrace this technology.  Full adoption of 3-D at the consumer electronics level, if it happens at all, will be in the future, perhaps two to three years away.

Tablet and notebook computing took giant steps forward, driven primarily by the success of Apple’s iPad and new MacBook Air.  Other manufacturers also “upped the ante” with new features and generally robust operating systems.

Microsoft replaced the trouble prone Vista operating system with Windows 7– a much better, more stable OS than any version of Vista, and arguably better than any previous MS OS release with the possible exception of XP.  It has been said around the industry that the release of Vista did more for Mac sales than any other single factor! One hopes that Redmond finally has an OS out there in the consumer sector that won’t frustrate users to death.

Televisions have continued to improve with the release of high refresh rate, low latency LED panels.  Home theaters have never had it so good, and prices continue to moderate in this space such that really, really good viewing is available to all with one of these sets and WOW! digital cable service.  High end flat panel technologies, once the exclusive space of the well-off, have clearly gone mainstream.

Next week, maybe a few predictions for 2011.

Until next time…

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Family Media for the Holidays

In: Technology

By: Steve Stanfill on Dec 22, 2010 at 8:33 am

While I don’t generally write about media (Libby does such a capable job of that!), I thought that with this season, many families would gather and enjoy media on their home theater together around a roaring fire and a popcorn bowl.  It has been uncharacteristically (read, bitterly) cold in southern Indiana, and with the slick roads, some of our usual Holiday traditions have had to take a back seat to the realities of the wind howling outside.  So here are a couple of family friendly recommendations for cold winter nights from your resident tech guy:

Lark Rise to Candleford–For want of a better way to describe it, this is British “Little House on the Prairie”.  This television series is set around two villages in late 18th-early 19th century England–one prosperous, one not.  Set around Candleford’s center of social and business activity (the Post Office), this is a wonderful set of characters with equal measure of comedy and drama. Casting, direction, script, and production are all top notch–typical of the BBC.  Most of the family will enjoy this, with the possible exception of very young children.

Au Revoir Les Enfants–Certainly the darkest film on this list, this is the story of friendship in a French boarding school between two young boys, one a French Catholic and the other a Jew during the tumultuous time of the Nazi occupation of France.  Subtitled, but very engaging for all but young children.  This film is based on true events that occurred in the life of the director.

The Greatest Game Ever Played–Based on a true events, this is the story of golfer Francis Quimet’s upset victory over the defending champion in the 1913 US Open golf tournament.  Depicts a different era of sportsmanship and tolerance, with the positive and negative implications there.  A great story of friendship and coming-of-age.

Joyeux Noel–This is the (true) story of the Christmas Eve cease-fire of 1914 in World War I, set somewhere in Belgium.  Accompanied by an exquisite musical score by Phillipe Rombi, this film is a masterpiece on any level other than technical production.  The story is so good, you hardly notice.  Subtitled, again suitable for all that are old enough to understand the implications of sworn enemies reaching across a “no-man’s land” to celebrate Christmas.

I wish you peace, love, and joy for you and your loved ones this special season.

Until next time….

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Last Minute Gift Ideas for Geeks

In: Technology

By: Steve Stanfill on Dec 15, 2010 at 8:53 am

In the spirit of “Tech gifts, Pt. One and Pt. Two“, I thought I would offer a couple of last minute ideas for those geeks on your list who love technology.  By the way, I consider myself a “geek” and wear the term proudly.  The only difference between a “geek” and an “older geek” (me) is that I’ve finally gained the fashion sense not to wear a pocket protector.  Still have all the pens, but if they wear out the shirt, they wear out the shirt and I buy a new one ;)

Here goes:

Multi-tools–Any true geek loves the ability to fix something on-the-spot.  This “MacGuyver” like ability requires either hauling around a toolkit, or an effective “multitool” which can be carried in your pocket or small belt pouch.  Here are my favorites:

Leatherman tool–comes in all kinds of sizes, capabilities and price ranges.  Shop at Amazon or direct from Leatherman

Swiss Army–Been around forever–still build quality tools.  Generally lighter and less robust than Leatherman, they have the advantage of (generally) being small enough that you really can carry them in your pocket.  Comes in all sizes, styles and price ranges–One actually has well over 100 functions and costs around $1400!  Other than the $1400 model (which I would not recommend regardless of your budget), these are widely distributed from a number of retail outlets. My favorites are these:

Victorinox Swiss Army Champion–about $40

Victorinox Swiss Army Trekker–about $30

Pens–Geeks like pens and mechanical pencils to fill up all those pocket protectors.  Preferably Japanese or German, and the more industrial looking, the better.

Portable Hard Drives–Pocket drives that use the USB port on a laptop for the power source are terrific for moving data around from computer to computer.  Flash drives generally don’t have the capacity to satisfy any self respecting geek’s data needs.  Look for a size of at least 500 Gb or greater and stick with a well known brand–Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, and Maxtor.  Expect to pay between $60~$100.

Killer Remotes–managing all the remote controls in a typical geek’s life can be truly daunting.  Universal programmable remotes can consolidate all that remote clutter into a single device–one that will operate the TV, sound system, Blu-Ray, and WOW! DVR, as well as any other device in the home theatre.  The Logitech “Harmony” series gets great reviews generally.  Be sure to purchase one that will “learn” codes from existing remotes.  It will save lots of time in set up.

Until next time…

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High Dynamic Range Video: Part 2

In: Technology

By: Steve Stanfill on Sep 01, 2010 at 8:37 am

Last week we discussed briefly the production of still photographs in high dynamic range.  Just recently, there has been some activity in doing ultra high fidelity video, using all the pieces of hi-def, plus increasing dynamic range and color bit depth.  Whether these technologies will make it into our living rooms in the near future is anybody’s guess, but they probably will see some type of implementation in the long term.

The upside we’ve already covered a bit in last week’s post.  Moving video to a dynamic range that more closely resembles what the eye is capable of perceiving is a good thing.  In the case of TV, it would resemble more “looking out the window” rather than at a TV screen.

The short video sample I posted last week was produced literally as a series of still HDR photographs (processed as I described last week), resembling more time lapse photography (which it truly was) rather than actual video.  If the same technique were to be used to produce video, the camera would need to take at least 3 pictures 24 times a second, or 72 frames per second to equal the current cinema standard of 24 fps.  (See discussion on this frame rate in this previous post.)  Then, that data stream would have to be processed in real time combining the over and under exposures of the same frame into one and sending it down the wire 24 times a second.  That’s alot of processing horsepower, and because of the complexity of the process, I do not think that this technique will ever be used for serious video production.

There are, however, those out there who are experimenting with High Dynamic Range capable CMOS sensors and associated A/D codecs.  There are some prototype sensors out there that are flirting with the 12 f-stop dynamic range specification, which is very close to the dynamic range of the eye.  But even with this vastly simpler technology, because of the additional digital information required, changes will have to be made.

One such camera is in the hands of Professor Alan Chalmers of the University of Warrick, UK.  With a 1080p resolution, his camera produces 24 meg of digital information per frame.  By my calculations, that would mean that a minute of footage would require 36 gig of storage space, and the superfast network architecture to support that storage/transmission.  This is 27 gig more per minute than standard uncompressed 1080p HD video.  Transmission and storage over existing infrastructure would require compression algorithms of nearly 100:1.  (See discussion of video codecs here.) That kind of compression, while theoretically possible, is certain to come with its own artifacts and compromises.

Production would also have to change.  As we all know, some actors and actresses have not benefited from the increased resolution of HD video.  This problem would be exacerbated in HDR.  More care (read money) would also have to be exercised in production of HDR; the guy behind the Rockefeller Center studio window making hand signals will be seen.

I personally hope that some of these technologies do take hold.  Increasing picture resolution through HD technology over the last few years has made a vast difference in the viewing experience for most of us.  I suspect that these next iterations of ultra high fidelity video have the potential to be at least as significant as hi-def has been in the last decade.  Present examples of this technology actually compress the tone-maps to make them viewable within present media constraints.  When/if genuine HDR television comes of age, we will see that HD was just the beginning.

More examples to view

Until next time….

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High Dynamic Range Video: Part 1

In: Technology

By: Steve Stanfill on Aug 25, 2010 at 8:11 am

I spent some time this past weekend mounting a couple of prints from my trip to my ancestral Montana home last summer for my office at work.  As an avid amateur photographer, I’m always trying new techniques to produce the strongest photographs possible.  One of my favorite techniques that I use quite often is known as HDR (high dynamic range) photography in pro and serious amateur photography circles.  It is a relatively new technique, though not a new idea, made possible by the strong digital processing options available to digital photographers today.

Here’s the thing.  If we are to consider the action of the pupil in the eye adjusting to varying light, the eye has almost 24 f-stops of dynamic range–said another way, we can see a starlit sky in the dead of the arctic night all the way to sun blazing off of a placid lake on the equator at noon-an increase of one f-stop essentially doubling the brightness perceived.  But even at a static pupil aperture, the eye can still detect between 11 and 14 f-stops of dynamic range, and we use the dynamic range of that wonderful instrument daily to see detail that no past or present camera (including film) technology can capture.

The state of the art dynamic range available from the sensors on high end digital cameras or video cameras today is about 8.5 f-stops–material outside of that shows up as either straight black or straight white.  So while an eye can look at a scene and see 11-14 f-stops of dynamic range, a digital camera/video camera will only detect slightly more than 8 f-stops, and because this is a logarithmic scale, this is a significant difference in performance.

The technique I presently use in my digital photography is to bracket three quick exposures, one under exposed, one properly exposed, and the final over exposed.  Both my cameras can be set to do this automatically, and both support “rapid fire” exposures–up to 8 frames per second.  So this can be done quickly as one is shooting the picture(s), but (and here’s the rub) these three negatives must then be combined digitally using computer processing techniques to create a single high dynamic range image.  In other words, almost 64 megabits of data from multiple negatives must be processed to create a single 20 megapixel image in HDR.  The results are stunning–detail that looks realistic to the eye when properly done.  Like anything else, this technique can be taken to the extreme and not all HDR pictures are particularly life-like.

So what does this have to do with my TV?  Most current video displays have the raw ability (if not the actual circuitry) to display dynamic range that simply isn’t available in most video content.  It is possible that the “next big thing” in video will be getting the content, storage, transmission streams, etc. to move to true high fidelity video (not just high definition) by increasing the dynamic range to something closer to what the human eye can perceive.  My sense is that this element may be more important to video cognoscenti than 3D in terms of actually enhancing the video experience.

Next week, I’ll discuss the fine points of this future technology and the ramifications to the industry should it be adopted.  In the meantime, take a look at this sample of HDR video–understand it’s highly compressed and just a rough approximation of what is possible, but very intriguing nonetheless.

HDR video sample

Until next week….

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