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Hawaii will be only the second state to get a demonstration of new 8K TV technology with 16 times the pixel count of high-definition TV, and the public is invited to view it as part of the 37th annual Pacific Telecommunications Council conference, now underway.
The technology was developed by NHK-TV in Japan, and the free public demonstrations will be staged Monday at 2, 3 and 4 p.m., and Tuesday at 1, 2, 3 and 4 p.m. at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Mid-Pacific Conference Center in room South Pacific 1.
Two 85-inch TV screens were brought in from Japan for the public and private PTC screenings.
While the previews are free, there is an $8 flat-rate parking fee with validation stamp by the PTC Secretariat.
The PTC landed this rare opportunity by having built up considerable street cred in the global telecommunications industry over the decades. A large percentage of attendees from more than 65 countries comprises C-suite-level executives.
Event co-chairman Masaaki Sakamaki of NTT DoCoMo in Japan proposed through other contacts to bring the NHK system to Honolulu for PTC, said PTC board member and program adviser Mark Hukill. NTT DoCoMo is a Japanese-based mobile telecommunications provider.
The Honolulu demonstration of 8K, which NHK has branded "Super Hi-Vision," has been in the planning since the summer.
The only other U.S. venue in which the technology has been displayed was at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas in April.
"We’re really lucky to have them here to headline the conference," Hukill told TheBuzz.
While 8K TV "has more of a public, jazzy, consumer-type appeal to it," it is likely that more specialized industries will adopt the technology sooner than will channel surfers be able to enjoy it at home.
"The medical field, for visual resolution" in say, diagnostic imaging, "and there’s a lot of military interest, obviously, for all sorts of reasons, and in robotics, to have a microscopic level of visual acuity … there’s going to be a huge number of applications for this, probably well before it hits the broader consumer level," Hukill said.
Consumers may first be treated to the 8K experience at movie theaters, which will find the technology appealing "because of the immersive quality" of what is on the screen, he said.
"For broadcasters the economics of (8K) are interesting," Hukill chuckled.
North America, led by Hawaii, underwent the transition from analog to digital broadcasting only in 2009, and it was an expensive, sweeping change for the industry.
For all those other "networks," a term Hukill uses for industry groups and not just for broadcasters, discussions at PTC will center around how infrastructure for the high-capacity 8K transmissions, storage, retrieval and display will be built.
"We did some calculations with NHK on this," he said.
One 8K screen shot contains 33 million pixels, and when multiplied across various factors, "it comes out to 144 gigabits per second."
A 100-gigabit hard drive would not be large enough to hold "even one second of 8K video," he said.
In terms of audio, a conventional HD system is 5.1-channel, while 8K technology includes a 22.2-channel 3-D sound system.
"That just shows you how much further we have to go into the development cycle," he said.
Mind blown.
NHK plans to launch the service in Japan in 2018 in plenty of time for in-country consumer adoption of compatible TVs before the 2020 Olympic games.
The 8K technology is still in the prototype phase, and 4K, its predecessor, is in its early stages of adoption in the rest of the world. So for TV-watching, Internet-using consumers especially in the U.S., 8K is still a speck on the horizon — albeit an ultrahigh-definition speck.
"We’re probably in the realm of five to 10 years from seeing this on a much grander scale," said Hukill.
Mind-boggling as it is, the 8K technology is a tiny piece of the PTC event. Its overarching theme is "Networked Planet," and organizers see the Pacific Rim as the epicenter of that planet in its emerging players, dynamic economy and accelerating technological innovation, according to the PTC website.
There is no hard visitor industry data on the economic impact of the annual conference, but PTC officials believe it’s "in the multiple millions of dollars," Hukill said.
Some 1,800 registrants are high-spending senior executives, who in many cases bring their families. Another 3,500 or so attendees are the executives’ team members. Many of their companies stage board meetings, receptions for key shareholders, and host hospitality suites on-site or have private functions at other venues, "not just at the Hilton," Hukill said. There are also the many, many vendors and exhibitors who come to ply their wares to a likely audience, and they need lodging and food as well.
"There’s a huge overflow into the other hotels," restaurants and other venues, he said.
The PTC also stages a function at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, for instance.
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On the Net:
» www.ptc.org
» www.ptc.org/ptc15/8ktv.html
» www.nhk.or.jp/8k/index_e.html
» www.nhk.or.jp/digital/future/pdf/2012_shv_ 8p_eng.pdf
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COURTESY NHK JAPAN