What technology will influence the quality of TV?

The technology which can influence the contrast and color of TV screen. Also adding some function to help people to easier operate the TV.

"Whether you are at home or on the move, new technologies are bringing TV in good quality on the ‘small screen’. German researchers from the Institute for Integrated Circuits, in Erlangen, presented various systems at the International Broadcast Convention, in Amsterdam, in September this year.

Crystal-clear pictures and vivid colours High-definition TV (HDTV) brings television in the highest quality into the living room. HDTV pictures are composed of pixels arranged in up to 1 920 columns and 1 080 rows, achieving a resolution which is five times higher than that of conventional TV images. For comparison, the European PAL standard has a resolution of only 720 5 576 pixels. The first software-based encoder However, HDTV is only economically viable when the data to be transmitted and stored is highly compressed. This can, for example, be achieved with MPEG-4 AVC (advanced video coding), the basic principles of which were developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications. On the basis of this technology, engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits have developed the first software- based encoder which can compress HD material in real time and in good quality – a process that was previously only possible with special hardware. A video format converter is necessary to reproduce television from the US, which has been recorded using the American ATSC standard on HDTV devices in Europe. This is akin to a ‘translator’ which converts films from one standard into another with as little loss of quality as possible. To this end, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications have developed the HICon multifunctional video converter. With this device, video and graphics signals can be transformed into a multitude of multimedia formats, including all of the standard digital broadcasting formats, such as ATSC, in the US, DVB, in Europe, and ARIB, in Japan.

New quality sound Good-quality sound is also an indispensable part of a perfect home-cinema evening. Mpeg Surround, substantially developed by researchers at the Institute for Integrated Circuits, ensures that you get authentic cinema sound in the living room. Mpeg Surround, combined with MPEG-4 high-efficiency advanced audio coding enables a surround-sound experience at 48 kbit/s. In addition, Mpeg Surround is not only completely backwards-compatible with mono and stereo devices, but can also be combined with the most popular broadcasting formats.

TV is becoming mobile In times of increasing mobility, TV is becoming mobile as well. Digital video broadcasting for hand-held (DVB-H) is a new transmission method which offers multimedia reception on a mobile phone or PDA. It employs the transmission technology of digital terrestrial TV (digital video broadcasting terrestrial, DVB-T). Sharp images and good sound are ensured by the most efficient Mpeg-4 audio and video enco-ding processes: high-efficiency advanced audio coding and advanced video coding. The Institute for Integrated Circuits engineers have developed new software components for DVB-H which are available either as stand-alone versions or as a complete media player package. The software can be used on a variety of platforms, whether Linux, Windows or Mac. A system to ensure the secure transmission of media content – ISMACryp – has also been integrated to protect the content from misuse.

DVB-H is, however, not the only technical standard for TV on mobile phones – in Asia, for example, the most widespread standard is digi-tal media broadcasting. But multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS) also makes TV images mobile. In the DXB project, which is being coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecom-munications, researchers from the this institute, the Institute fuer Rundfunktechnik, Siemens, Sony, T-Systems and Vodafone have made a start at harmonising the different systems currently in use. Internet Protocol is at the heart of their efforts. The result is an extension of the trans- mission standards of DAB, or extended DAB, which has a lot in common with both DVB-H and MBMS. "

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=97590

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