posted 03-15-2009 11:38 AM                   

quote:

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Sony assembles the IMITO glass and silicon backplane prior to cutting the wafer into individual panels (singlation). In this way, Sony achieves three key features: a narrow cell gap, dust-free process and no LC gap spacers in the image area.

Sony produces the SXRD panel's silicon backplane at our Kokubu
Technology Center. The backplane uses a 0.35 micron process and an innovative drive circuit. A special planarization process yields an extremely flat silicon backplane—important for cell gap uniformity. The panels themselves are assembled at Sony's Kumamoto Technology Center. There, Sony affixes the
Index Matching Indium-Tin-Oxide (IMITO) glass to the backplane before we cut the wafer into individual panels. This process minimizes the Liquid Crystal cell gap, minimizes dust and keeps LC gap spacers clear of the image area—all important considerations in picture quality.

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...as the do the singlation on a per panel basis, they say.

Well, even if Sony 4K SRXD panels are made of 4 independent chips (I know JVC's 4K are a single one, although perhaps their 8K x 4K is a stacked design), it still holds. That should be a non-issue whatsoever unless you think that variations on different parts of the same chip are also a problem.

For pits sake. We are even advocating using entirely two separate projectors for 3D and match their images and here we are complaining about potential differences between 4 quadrant sections of the SAME IMAGING panel of 3 panel projectors!!!

On a REALLY good day they could get over 250 working chips from the wafer Who knows what their yields are nowadays, but it's reasonable to think they could get at least 20 working chips from the same wafer in a really-really bad day. Putting 4 of those together sounds to me like a reasonable way to reduce manufacturing costs, so I'm all for it.

TI's problem is not making 4K chips, which I'm sure Sony can (and JVC can for sure). Sony's chips would be about 1/4 the size of TI's at the same resolution, so it takes Sony's 4 times less "problem" to make it. As you know, manufacturing yield goes down with the square size of the chip. Lcos is FAR smaller than DMD, by about 4 times.

If you think that manufacturing variations along say 1.2" area are "significant" ...then LCos is far superior to DLP as they can do 2K in about 0.6" in a single chip.

If TI stacked 4 DMD chips to make a 4K chip it would result on an almost 2" DLP design. Go find a rod integrator, prism light engine and lens that can do that for cheap. Sony does it in 1.55". JVC in 1.27". There are other design issue that complicate DLP scalation with size (illumination angles).

About ribbon cables, it's actually "the other way around" from what some of you guys may be thinking.

2K SRXD or DLP chips abound. Say tomorrow they wanted to introduce a new 4K product (even say a true single chip, no stacked design). The best way to talk to so many pixels is divide the electronic driver into 4 2K sections and drive them at the same time. That way you could re-use the same standard cabling and some of the electronics etc as your established 2K design.

Same thing with RAM memory etc. If you wanted to double the bus size on some design for cheap, it's better just to use the current established standard conectors, number of pins and sockets and just use two of them at the same time rather than trying to design a whole new standard with tons of pins and new "circuits", cables and interconnects unless it was necessary.

[ 03-15-2009, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: Julio Roberto ]

posted 03-15-2009 10:03 PM                   

quote: James B Gardiner

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Plus no one really makes 4K in Post.. um.. we have a long way to go across the board.

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posted 03-16-2009 10:53 AM                   

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen

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Still in my experience 4K>2K looks better then a direct 2K. The image has a much more velvety look to it.

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Probably what's happening is that 2K is hardly ever "true 2K" and 4K is hardly ever "true 4K".

Obviously if a film was "true 2K" (i.e. absolutely all the pixels originated were "good pixels" containing information) it wouldn't look better if it's transported in 2K or 4K.

Let me explain that another way so that it can be more clear. Pretend we shoot a film "4K". It would look just as good to have it resized to 2K in a lab and sent to all theaters as 2K and be played back at 2K than to send it as a 4K package and have the equipment resize it and display it 2K.

In that sense, 4K-converted-to-2K does not look any better than 2K.

What's happening is that most 2K films are actually either HD originated (i.e. 1920x1080 16:9 4:2:2 10bits) or DI'ed (i.e. 2048 x 1556 4:3 4:4:4 12bits).

Now, due to aliasing and nyquist law, in order to extract true 2K detail from something w/o an aliasing frequency cutoff filter you must scan at least at 4K (i.e. supersample it).

That's were a lot of the "confusion" comes from when people think of film as containing 4K detail. 4K is the recommended fixed-grid pixel count to scan a Super35 full frame in film so that the "true" 2K full-color detail can be obtained, with good edge detail and with no aliasing. It doesn't necessarily mean that film, even a first generation negative, can resolve true 4K details.

I guess what I try to say is that most movies originated as "2K" probably contain more like 1.6K in detail while most movies originated as "4K" actually contain something like 2.7K-3K in detail.

Thus, when you digitally resize the 4K one (say true-2.7K equivalent) to 2K you actually get "true" 2K detail and very little/no aliasing.

But when you originate a movie in 2K you usually only got say 1.7K in detail plus a little aliasing and that's what you are displaying at best in 2K, of course.

Most of this is due to current limits on camera/scanners and physics Soon, in a few months, more of the better 4K cameras will hit the market (i.e. 6K-stripes or 9K-bayer cameras capable of almost-true 4K resolutions without aliasing, even RED will get an upgrade to 4.5K-bayer). People using those cameras are going to output a 4K transport that's close or actually "true-4K", edit it 4K, and would want it to be displayed in 4K if it was possible.

Meanwhile I don't see a whole lot of improvements in the 2K camp as it has been widely superseeded by >4K equipment, even in small-camera factors etc.

This is a transitional period where the 2K cameras are dying and the new (and improved) 4K cameras are coming in. If it weren't because of DLP manufacturing/price restriction, this would also be happening in the exhibition front. But no DLP 4K projectors are foreseable in the near future, so no hurry from producers to do 4K either in the short run. Alternative 4K projection methods are not all there for Dcinema applications just yet, in spite of Sony's brave offerings.