London 2012 prepares to go Super Hi-Vision
Published Jul 16 2012, 15:48 BST | By Andrew Laughlin
© Twitter / BBC Somerset
Throughout the Games period (July 23 to August 12), regular screenings will take place at three huge Super Hi-Vision displays at BBC Broadcasting House in London, at BBC Pacific Quay in Glasgow and at Bradford's National Media Museum.
Tickets for the screenings in London and Glasgow can be booked through the BBC ticketing website, while Bradford tickets are available through nationalmediamuseum.org.uk.
Teams at the three UK venues are now building special public viewing theatres, which can present the Super Hi-Vision on giant screens with special speaker rigs to recreate the 22.2 multichannel sound.
The BBC has previously tested Super Hi-Vision, but the London 2012 Olympics will mark the first time that this groundbreaking technology has been used to deliver such an extensive live and exceptional viewing experience.
Developed by Japan's public service broadcaster NHK, Super Hi-Vision offers an Ultra-HD television format that is 16 times sharper than a high definition picture as currently shown on the BBC HD channel.
In a blog post, the BBC's project executive for digital services Tim Plyming said that the effect of watching Super Hi-Vision is "of feeling like actually being at an event".
Plyming and his team have been filming a number of London landmarks, such as Tower Bridge, to create a special Super Hi-Vision film that will play ahead of the Games coverage.
"We have been using a brand new Super Hi-Vision camera and microphone and a specially adapted outside broadcast truck which have all been shipped from Japan to the UK," he said.
"At the same time in our R&D test studio (TC0) at BBC Television Centre in west London, a talented group of colleagues from the BBC's Research & Development have been working with NHK to build the first Olympic Super Hi-Vision production studio."
The Olympics has a history of being a testbed for new broadcast technologies, including the first TV broadcast at the Olympic Games in London in 1948, the first colour transmission at the 1968 Games, and the first HD broadcast in 1984.
The London 2012 Olympic Games will be the first to be captured in Super Hi-Vision - using the only Super Hi-Vision equipment available in the world.
Specialist cameras will be used to capture the action at the Olympic Stadium, Aquatic Centre, Velodrome and Basketball Arena.
Alongside highlight packages, the BBC will show live Super Hi-Vision coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies, the 100m final, and a whole day of action from the Aquatic Centre.
Alongside the UK big screens, viewing theatres for the London 2012 Super Hi-Vision coverage will also be placed in Tokyo and Fukushima in Japan, and Washington DC in the United States.
I'm looking forward to sampling Super Hi Vision in a couple of weeks time - and it allows those who couldn't get tickets to sample the Olympics in other ways.
July 17th 2012 at 10:23am
why have a screen in london? surely anyone interested enough would just go to the event lol, a total waste of money
July 16th 2012 at 10:28pm
Because not everyone could get tickets, or wanted to pay £££ to get tickets, but still want to see the action?
July 16th 2012 at 11:11pm
How about BBC Three/Four/Children's/News in bod standard HD first. How about 1080p? I am all for new tech but considering the BBc has faced cuts due to licence freeze I think minority interests, like 3D and super HD should be put further down the pecking order (but not scrapped totally).
July 16th 2012 at 7:47pm(+3 likes)
Could not agree more.
July 16th 2012 at 10:08pm
I read that the BBC R&D spend is something around £15m a year. Less than 1% of its income. So I doubt the saving would make much difference.
Does seem strange that it is selling its spare Freeview HD capacity rather than using it though.
July 18th 2012 at 1:28am
Shame there's nothing for Birmingham
July 16th 2012 at 7:41pm
The BBC seems to have conveniently forgotten one key point in it's rush to be super geeky. That point is the fact that the human eye is incapable of distinguishing anything above HD. So it's all a complete waste of money apart from sounding very swanky.
July 16th 2012 at 6:27pm(+1 like)
Wrong resolution is nothing to do with what the eye can distinguish its dpi (Dots per inch) After you get above 65 inch TV the DPI is poor that's when 4k becomes useful, In huge cinema screens 8k (Super Hi-Vision) will become useful. But yea in the home only 4k will be used 8k will never be sent over sat or cable it would take to much bandwidth but a new codec could fix that.
July 16th 2012 at 6:48pm
For most people in a normal house and viewing environment, Super HiVision is completely superfluous. In any case, it's the wrong kind of resolution improvement. They would have been better off improving TEMPORAL resolution - up to 72 frames per second - 50% more. Above that shows no improvement either. In both cases a higher data rate would be needed but most would benefit from a higher fps.
July 16th 2012 at 7:45pm
thats not accurate. i have a 2560x1440 monitor which is only about half again as good as HD and i can tell the difference. why would they sell them if you could not see a difference. also superHD allows images to be blown up multiple times with no quality loss
July 16th 2012 at 9:39pm
Graham you should have gone to specsavers!
July 17th 2012 at 3:02am
This is really for big public screens, and as the report says the technology was developed by NHK (the Japanese BBC)
July 18th 2012 at 1:34am