[Stephen Neal]

This is NHK's system formerly described as Ultra HD isn't it? It has horizontal resolution 4x that of 1920x1080p and vertical resolution 4x that of 1920x1080p - i.e. 16 times the resolution of a 1080p image - at a 60 frames per second frame rate.

It has been demoed at a number of venues over the last year or two - initially with the cameras and displays close together but more recently they have used fibre circuits to send the pictures over greater distances.

ISTR that it needs around 22Gbps for uncompressed picture carriage (around 1000 times the data rate used for compressed BluRay) - and will probably need to use 60-70GHz satellite technology for broadcast?

Initial demos did, indeed, cause some viewers motion sickness issues - just as iMax does. ISTR that these may have used large area projectors, whereas they have now recently demoed smaller LCD panels (still huge!) with the same resolution - though I don't know if these caused the same motion issues.

Not really a surprise that NHK in Japan are kicking this off. After all they started their research into what became the current, widespread, 1080i standard in the late 60s - some 40 years ago - and were close to being able to shoot HD at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. They did shoot HD at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics - I saw the results at IBC in Brighton sometime around 1990 (when Sony had setup HD projection gear at a local cinema) NHK launched an HD broadcast service to the public - using the same production standard with an analogue transmission system - in the very early 90s ISTR.

The fact that they are looking as far ahead as the next 10-20 years may mean they are ahead of the game again.