TEA London News & Views

James Hock, a valued design consultant for Tea London helped us create the first window display for 2012. It is our aim to change the display at least once a month – where we have had three other displays before this one. This one definitely being the best so far and worthy of publishing.

Enjoy the pictures

Beyond 1080p

For most of us HD (1080p) TV picture resolutions is something we have only just adopted in the last few years. Broadcasters only seriously started broadcasting in HD in the last two years and Blu-Ray as a replacement to DVD is not exactly in everyone’s front room.  It can be a little worrying to some that the next two generations of TV resolution (or definition) have already been developed, tested and is a proven technology.

This brief article is not so much a view of future technologies, but a view on technologies that already exists, but we won’t see in our high streets for at least another 8 years, as broadcasters and Hollywood are nowhere near ready to produce content for these new standards. When they finally do launch these products for the mass market, like with 3D, it is likely there will not be that much choice or content available for some time after.

Sharp showed off the world’s first 8K, or ultra high definition, or super hi-vision TV (yes already there are several names out there to describe this tech). They showed it to the public at this year’s CES. What is significant about this showing is they demonstrated that it is possible to manufacture an LCD TV in a relatively small form factor of 85 Inches, that is capable of displaying images at 16 times the resolution of current high-definition displays.

Japanese broadcaster NHK have been spearheading 8K technology for some time now, and have already made test broadcasts, working with other broadcaster like our very own BBC. Up until now it has only been possible to project these massive resolutions, with Sharp showing the first video display capable of achieving this amazing high resolution. No other content producer is currently make video at this resolution. NHK had to develop special cameras and crucially very special lenses capable of filming at these very high resolutions. Yes, it has got to a stage where the level of detail is so fine that standard broadcast quality lenses are simply not good enough to capture this staggeringly high resolution.

NHK are working on a development roadmap to start broadcasting this standard as early as 2020. NHK do the occasional Ultra High Definition special event broadcast, they intend broadcasting the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics – but this obviously won;t be over their airwaves, so only a select few will be able to experience a live 8K TV broadcast over the coming years.

So is 8K the next technological step for our front room TV’s? Actually no, the next step is 4K/2K. This is a video display standard that give 4 times the resolution of the current 1080p standard currently available to the typical consumer. Imagine 4 high definition TV sets in a 2 x 2 arrangment and you will get an idea of the resolution of 4k/2k. Now imagine an arrangement of 16 TV’s in a 4 x 4 arrangement and you will have an idea of how massively detailed the 8K video standard is.

4K/2K is currently used in mainstream (non-Imax) commercial cinemas – so odd are you have likely already seen and experienced 4K/2K clarity and quality. For your cinema going experience I am sure most of you must be impressed by how by the quality and detail of 4K/2K is from your cinema going experience.

Although 4K/2K is used extensively in commercial cinemas it is not a mainstream consumer standard yet. During the latter half of 2011 the first 4K/2K consumer devices started appearing on the market. The first we were aware of is Panasonic’s massive 153″ plasma monitor, the other is Sony’s recently launched 4K/2k consumer grade home cinema projectors. All of the main Japanese home cinema amplifier manufacturers have added 4K/2K compatibility, some have also added video scalers that will upsample 1080p video to 4K/2K.

Of course buying displays and projectors capable of 4K/2K is pointless… as yet there are no movie titles you can buy or rent that have been encoded to this resolution. So although you can get 4K/2K installed in your home today, it will be some time before you will have any content capable of using this fine quality to the maximum. Likewise when 8K does appear as a consumer product, it is unlikely it will be of much use for several years as you will have nothing to playback.

A final though on this is, clearly we are going to need more bandwidth or headroom over the internet and airwaves, further the storage capacities of the currently blu-ray standard  is probably woefully inadequate for 4K/2K, let alone 8K. So it is clear there are a lot of complimentary technologies that need to be developed first, and the likes of Hollywood need to start remastering a whole new set of 4K/2K titles before 4K/2K will be the ‘norm’ or the mainstream TV resolution standard.

So there is no need yet to panic and throw out your 1080p HD TV, not yet anyway.

TEA London Signage is up

The signage has been up for a week now, Tea’s own Elton and Adam went about making a durable, yet short-term use signage for our Crystal Palace base. Many, many man hours later – we present the updated fascia for Tea London.

Merry Christmas everyone

This might not be the last blog for the year, but it will be the last one before Christmas. So I wish all of you a very Happy Christmas. And for those of you who do not celebrate this, may you have a peaceful break/rest/festive period. In case this is the last blog, speak to you all in 2012.