Sony Develops TVs That Zoom in for True Close-ups

prakslash writes "Sony has unveiled version 2 of its 'Digital Reality Creation' technology that allows viewers to pan around a TV image and then zoom in. Unlike the current TVs that simply scale the image, Sony's technology does 'true' zooming by digitally enhancing the signal to communicate gloss, depth and texture.

PVR

[luugi]

Should be cool but a DVR is a must to take advantage of this feature.

Porn Jokes Aside

[Metallic Matty]

This is kind of a cool feature, for various reasons. I think some of the most obvious uses that come to mind (besides naughty zoom-ins,) include sports events (hey, that WAS on the line,) and anything where you might be trying to get a particular detail out of a scene. (Such as, in "The Fellowship of the Ring," there's a truck driving around in background during one scene.)

And before it gets said, I know that has been removed. Its just an example.

Re:Digital Zoom is a MYTH!

[catwh0re]

I think the idea is that on devices which can rec'v HD signal there is alot of image lost in the down scaling process. I'm guessing here, that the sony chip would allow you to "zoom" back to the source resolution. Anything more than that and you're playing the marketing game of something out of nothing.

Reminds me people that try to add quality to their 96kbps mp3 collection by upsampling them to 256, or recording radio then upsampling that.

Re:Just another algorithm.....

[PitaBred]

No, but with video, you have a hell of a lot more information. If they are doing any kind of statistical relationships using more than one frame of the video, they have a LOT more information to work with. A few comparative algorithms, and as things move through lower resolution areas, you can actually get a high resolution picture because of the data that is contained in aggregate.
That's a hell of a processor they have if it can do that, though.

Re:Good existing zoom implementations

[grammar fascist]

I figured I'd post my own results here.

It's true that digital zoom can't replace information that was lost due to scaling and sampling. It's possible to get something reasonably close, though. There are a bunch of algorithms available for photographs, but their biggest problem seems to be execution time. It's not pretty.

Here's mine [byu.edu]. Please be kind to the server...

I've gotten better-looking results since I put that together but I haven't had time to put them up yet. The slowest part of my algorithm requires solving a nonlinear system of nine equations for the least sum squared error per pixel. That's orders of magnitude slower than bicubic interpolation (which is standard).

I don't know which interpolation algorithms are used for so-called digital zoom. Is there someone in the industry here that knows?

Re:I can see the ads now...

[droleary]

The new Sony's will feature magic Hand-Wavey Technology(TM) to suck information that wasn't in the orginal signal into your TV from outer space.

Must be from the same R&D lab that brought us their new Walkman that somehow stores 13,000 songs on a 20GB drive when an iPod can only fit 5,000 on the same. Seriously, Sony is working their way into a real credibility problem when it comes to marketing their technology.

Fractal compression could do this

[GreatDrok]

I remember seeing a demonstration about 12 years ago where Prof Barnsley showed how his fractal compression method could take a low resolution image (in this case a parrot) and encode it as a fractal. He showed how simply zooming the original resulted in the usual blocky image but when you zoomed the encoded image it still appeared sharp(ish). He zoomed into the parrot's eye which in the original was made up of four pixels and the fractal image still showed a round pupil although it did look a bit out of focus.

Another demo I saw on the British show "Tomorrow's World" showed how you could zoom in on a photo that had a fence and the fractal image showed the fence details that were again not visible in the original.

There was of course talk of using this sort of tech to do video upsampling for projection. Given the performance I saw I see no reason why a standard DVD couldn't have been cranked up to twice the resolution and look substantially clearer. Of course, the downside of fractal compression was that it took huge (at the time) amounts of computing power to compress, and bugger all the uncompress. These days I expect it is trivial.

Poor article text

[Jugalator]

Sony Develops TVs That Zoom in for True Close-ups

No, they've developed a new version of a chip.

They don't even know when they'll start developing "TVs that zoom in for true close-ups".

Unlike the current TVs that simply scale the image, Sony's technology does 'true' zooming by digitally enhancing the signal to communicate gloss, depth and texture.

Using which definition of "true"?

You can't create information out of nothing.

[dpbsmith]

Assuming it works perfectly, what this system has to do is make an artificially-intelligent guess as to what the low-resolution picture is showing, synthesize a high-res version of its guess, and show you that. Your brain can do the same thing, but you're aware of some effort and stress in the process (and you're also aware of uncertainty).

What will happen when you know that a friend of yours is sitting in the stadium at a football game that you're watching at home and you zoom in on a couple of pinkish pixels that represent the place where you know he is sitting? Whose face will it display when you zoom in? A generic anime-like face? Your friend's face? What?

When it guesses wrong, the mistakes it makes will be dillies.

The article said it showed that a dark spot in the river was a hippopotamus. How did it know? Did it have a database that said "this film takes place in a locale where dark spots in the river are probably hippopotami?" Or when you zoom in on dark spots in other bodies of water, will it deduce and render a hippopotamus, too? Hippopotami in the Okeefenokee swamp? In the Hudson river? In Walden Pond?

As with colorized films, the effect will be exciting for about a week. Then your brain will catch on that it is being cheated, and the zoomed in images will look clear and sharp yet, subtlely, unsatisfying, because it is showing only what the brain already knows is there... or fake, stereotyped detail that will look phony once you catch on to its characteristic "look." Finally, the only fun in the system will be deliberately zooming in on things you know it will make mistakes on to see the comic effect.

Re:Sometimes, you don't want to see the gloss.

[blair1q]

I had the same problem with an audio upgrade.

I bought a $2k/pair set of infinity main speakers to go on my old JVC receiver, and compared with the rather high-end Polk bookshelf speakers I've been using for 10 years, they were an ear-opener.

The clarity and tone were outstanding, as well as the dynamic range.

But one thing bugged the hell out of me. Just because I'd changed the speakers, I could now hear all sorts of things in television programs that I could never hear before. Stuff I'm sure the sound engineers never intended. Feet shuffling in the audience. A paper crmpling in an actor's pocket when he put his hand in for no reason. Every rustle of fabric and creak of setpiece.

It was annoying as hell.

Fortunately, I had an out: the placement of the bass modules on these speakers pointed them at the base of my TV stand, which is an enclosed wooden box. Which became a resonator and created a huge boom at a low frequency I never bothered to measure. So there was no way I could justify keeping them.

I kinda felt bad when I saw the look on the face of the kid at the store who'd scored the sale to me, when I returned them. He must've made about $300 commission there, and I wasn't exchanging, I was returning outright. He didn't take much care un-boxing them to inspect them. I suspect he just wanted to jump up and down on them until they were splinters and sparks.

My little Polks (built back when Polk was making a reputation selling great quality, not selling crap to mine a reputation already made--same thing Sony did in the '80s) are kicking it fine, and I don't even go in the high-end section of the stereo store any more.