One of only 3 Ultra High Def camera in the world
The 8k light sensor
The screen you need to watch the footage on
Super Hi-Vision, also known as SHV, Ultra HDTV, 8K, and simply 4320p, is the future of high-def video. With16 times more pixels than 1080p, SHV is incredibly sharp, with lenses and TVs having to be freshly invented to do it justice. The tech is likely a decade away from wide adoption, but progress is being made swiftly: The BBC and Japan's NHK teamed up this week for the first SHV broadcast to be made over the Internet, a performance by The Charlatans.
SHV, proposed as the next standard by the BBC, NHK, and Italy's RAI, -when it was demonstrated in 2003, it used 16 separate HDTV cameras to capture the demo video. These days, there are three cameras, all developed by NHK, that can handle the video's 7680 x 4320 resolution, but for this broadcast, the NHK had to create a customized lens and a 103-inch plasma screen for viewers. Even that screen doesn't quite have the pixel density to display the video properly.
The bigger problem is moving that much data at a reasonable speed. To give an idea of how much data, a 20-minute video requires about four terabytes of space. Other SHV broadcasts have had to drastically compress video and audio to fit the constraints of the connection. SHV requires a lightning-fast 24Gbps link, which isn't widely available; a demonstration in 2006 compressed the 24Gbps down to 180-600Mbps (which, is still crazily fast compared to home Internet in the States. Verizon's FiOS gets about 50-60Mbps, and that's several times faster than most cable services).
NHK hopes the format will start rolling out in bits and pieces, possibly with the first bits coming as soon as the 2012 Olympics, both for BBC archives and possibly for giant public screens. So how long before you can get Super Hi-Vision in your living room? NHK aims to start broadcasting by 2020--although that might be only in Japan, or other countries with equivalent Internet speeds. North America has been quite slow in improving broadband speeds, partly due to infrastructure, partly to cost, and partly because the US is a massive country.
