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Sony’s UltraHD Phone Isn’t Always UltraHD

When Sony introduced the Xperia Z5 Premium smartphone (Sony Enhances Mobile Display – Will it be Enough?), we wondered how the company would achieve the ‘up to two-day’ battery life claim with an UltraHD display. After being reviewed, it appears that the phone is not always displaying UltraHD graphics. Only photos and videos will b … Read more

UltraHD for $100 With Amazon

Amazon has been active in the TV STB/dongle space for more than a year now, and is stepping up its game to challenge the new Apple TV. The company’s newest Fire TV STB not only includes gaming features (like Apple TV), but supports UltraHD content, too. The Fire TV Stick has also received new features, … Read more

Introducing an Automultiscopic Display

A team of researchers at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (Playa Vista, CA) have developed a system that captures videos in a unique way and then presents full sized images of people on a so-called ‘automultiscopic’ display. The term automultiscopic is used to define a display that allows multiple users to view 3D content … Read more

Kopin Announces Smartglasses for the Cycling Athlette

Kopin has announced a new smartglass device under the Solo brand name. The device is aimed at the sports market and is designed especially for bicyclists. Solo is designed by Kopin to compete with the likes of the Jet by Recon Instruments. It seems that the Solo is aiming more at the competitive athlete rather … Read more

Dolby Explains HDR

Dolby gave a talk as one of the SES seminars at the event. Arnd Paulsen of Dolby started by talking about human vision and its capabilities. The aim is to deliver content that matches that capability. However, moving the content across the networks and delivery systems, the contrast and gamut becomes very limited – which … Read more

Hollywood Excited by HDR & WCG and “The sparkle in actors’ eyes”

Dolby vision keynote

Unfortunately the joys of torrential rain and Monday morning Amsterdam traffic meant that we missed the very beginning of the Pixar/ILM keynote. The discussion when we sneaked in was about the use of different levels of brightness available once you move to Dolby Vision as well as the wide colour gamut. Pixar decided early on … Read more

DVB Says HDR Will be in EU in 2017

Helmut Stein opened the annual DVB IBC press event. Phil Laven, the DVB Chairman, was the first speaker. Laven started by talking about HEVC – he said that without it, UltraHD would not be possible, but HD services will also appear using HEVC with DVB-T2 as DVB standards are compatible. HEVC is really important for … Read more

What will Apple Do Next?

Whenever I hear this question, my curmudgeonly inclination is to answer, “Who cares?” Perhaps a better question is “What revolutionary new product would allow Apple to continue earning profit margins far larger than the industry average?” In fact, it’s very hard to imagine Apple coming up with such a product. iWatch, iBust. The financial analyst … Read more

AirTies Teases us With “Same Old Stuff”

We met with Turkey-based Wi-fi specialist AirTies, in particular CEO Bülent Çelebi, who had a very nice bottle of chilled white wine on his table just as the exhibition was winding down on Sunday evening. He teased us by saying that he just had “the same old stuff” – clearly he knows the shorthand (SOS) … Read more

Ruwido Highlights “Organic Haptic” Experience

We caught up with Ferdinand Maier of Salzburg-based Ruwido, which makes high quality remote controls and software for the STB user interfaces to go with them. First we looked at one of the regular “design concepts” that the firm creates from time to time to illustrate how designs could develop. The concept device has a … Read more

New Gefen Matrix Provides 4K Ultra HD Switching and HDCP 2.2 Compatibility

Gefen has just announced its next generation matrix switcher: the 4K Ultra HD 8×8 Matrix for HDMI w/ HDCP 2.2 (EXT-UHD-88). This matrix offers cross-point routing of eight 4K Ultra HD sources to any combination of eight displays, along with support for the new HDCP 2.2 content protection protocol. Resolutions up to 4K Cinema-DCI (4096×2160 … Read more