The future is... 4K2K and 8K4K

[elapsed]

1080p. 2 megapixel. And already obsolete.

Next year we're going to start hearing more and more about next generation sets and projectors. 4K2K. That's 4096x2400 pixels. 10 megapixel. Already we are seeing 4K2K projectors in some digital cinemas. And with advanced H264 encoding, a video transfer can fit in 50mbit/s, which could be delivered over fiberoptic Internet connections, or possibly even fit onto a Blu-Ray disc which has a 48mbit/s banwdith limit. At that bitrate, a 2 hour 4K2K movie could fit onto a dual-layer 50GB Blu-Ray disc. I predict that 4K2K sets will be within reach in 2 years time.

Meanwhile, JVC is currently showing off 8K4K D-ILA chips, also known as "Super Hi-Vision" or "Ultra HDTV". 7680 x 4320 pixels. 33 megapixel. Japan has announced plans to make this a broadcast standard by 2015, and BBC has plans to broadcast the 2012 Olympic games in 8K4K. The challenges right now are building a camera that can record it, and equipment to transfer a 24Gbps uncompressed stream

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4320p

On a related topic, the Super Hi-Vision standard calls for 22.2 audio channels. 9 speakers above ear level, 10 speakers at ear level, 3.2 speakers below ear level. There's literally a speaker directly above you in this design. Imagine 5 years from now taking your family out to a multimillion dollar digital cinema with this surround experience!

cheers,
elapsed