Since the beginning of the Olympics radio transmissions in 1924, the games have been used by broadcasters to showcase the latest in cutting edge technology.
Today, the London Olympics have shown just what is next after HD.
What is next we hear you ask?
It’s called Super hi vision and it means that images are 16 times as sharp as HD with multi channel surround sound. It looks like London likes to be pioneers in television technology with the Olympics; back in 1948, the London games were the very first to be broadcast into people’s homes.
Back in 1948, the BBC’s head of television outside broadcasts said,”Here at the Empire Pool are the cameras set up to watch the aquatic events and the boxing. The cameras are extremely complicated and use miniature valves developed for radar and other secret purposes during the war.”
Some 64 years later, the BBC is broadcasting more than a whopping 2,500 hours of high definition television during the Olympics.
Super hi vision, is developed by the Japanese broadcaster NHK, and as well as bringing us a sharper image, also provides a much better sound: HD surround-sound uses 5.1 channels which in itself is excellent however super hi vision uses 22.2.
Wow.
Head of the BBC’s Olympics trials of the system, Tim Plyming, says, “The scale of the Olympics is a great testing bed. Most of the big leaps in technology that we’ve known – from black and white to colour and from standard definition to high definition, and now to ultra high definition – have all had their home at the Olympic Games.”
Screenings in London and Glasgow for super hi vision at the Olympics can be booked through the BBC ticketing website, while screenings in Bradford can be booked through the National Media Museum.
HD television has definitely changed my viewing pleasure. Sports and movies in particular are stunningly amazing in HD and I can’t see how much better I would need it to be. Then again, I did think my 5 mega pixel camera back in 2003 was the best quality picture in the world….
Anyway, it doesn’t look like the advancement will be as rapid as mega pixels; HD has taken more than 20 years to progress and it is thought that super hi vision won’t be available domestically for some years to come. So if you want to get a piece of the next wave of television technology, we suggest you try booking a ticket to a screening and if you didn’t get tickets to the Olympics, it’s no doubt the next best thing to being there in the arenas.
It’s pretty safe to say though that the future of television is about to change rapidly; from being online to super HD quality and sound, with apps on our phones making remotes obsolete, who can believe that some 90 odd years ago, the first televisions were just becoming domestically available.
What do you think about the way TV is changing? It is the end of television as we know it right now?
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