News from the ABU Region
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Tech Company plant, located in Gifu Prefecture, is scheduled to shut down TV production by October 2012, and is to shift focus to the component industry. The decision will not affect Hitachi TVs sold in other countries, all of which are currently manufactured outside of Japan.
As one of the major early adopters of flat panel display televisions (FPD TV), Japan thrived during the last decade in terms of TV shipments and growth. However, Japan’s recent growth was fuelled by a government energy subsidy and is expected to begin a downward descent as shipments have fallen from 24.5m units in 2010 to around 21.0m units in 2011. With over half of Hitachi’s TV business unit relying on the Japanese TV market, these changes are expected to have a negative effect on Hitachi’s domestic sales.
As FPD TV consumption has spread to new regions, so too has its manufacturing. In 2004 when the FPD TV market was at 10.8m units, Japanese vendors took over 50 per cent market share, while Korean vendors held less than 15 per cent. In 2010 the market grew to 213.4m units with Japanese vendor market share falling to 31 per cent. Korean vendors took 32 per cent, and Chinese vendors comprised much of the remaining market. With the increase in competition, retail TV prices have been driven to lower- than-production-cost levels. Moreover, exporting television sets has been made difficult for many Japanese brands with a strengthened yen hindering price-competition.
Hitachi’s two major markets after Japan, North America and Western Europe, have also reached a state of maturity. Hitachi may work to support its brand presence in other markets such as China and emerging APAC; two growing regions that are expected to collectively purchase 34 per cent of all TVs sold during 2012, but currently only make up less than 3 per cent of Hitachi’s total TV shipments.
(Screen Digest) Advanced Research in NHK STRL
The number of images per second in a video sequence is called the frame rate (unit: frames per second). A higher frame rate, that is, a higher time resolution for moving images, makes it possible to attain clearer and smoother video reproduction, even for a fast moving subject. The frame rate for the current Hi-Vision (HDTV) system is 30 frames / second (interlaced scanning: 60 fields/ second). The next generation of ultrahigh-definition broadcasting (e.g., full-spec SHV system) may have up to 120 frames per
A magnetic nanowire consists of numerous small sequentially aligned magnets whose width is only a few thousandths the width of a human hair, set in a line. The difference from the current hard disk drive is that the data recorded by each magnet in the nanowire moves to the next magnet when a current is applied along the length direction of the magnetic nanowire without any mechanical operations (Figure 1). The potential exists for ultrahigh-speed continuous recording because the speed of the data shift by the current occurs more than ten times faster than the relative rotation speed between the recording head and the disk in a conventional hard disk drive.
Figure: High frame rate imaging technology overview
Not having any moving parts also helps the device to be durable. We constructed a prototype magnetic nanowire device in which cobalt and palladium are alternately layered in several atom thicknesses to form atomic scale artificial crystallite lattices. This prototype nanowire was used to verify that multiple pieces of data in a wire could be collectively shifted when a current was applied to the nanowire (Figure 2). Our future work will involve the development of recording/ reproduction functions suited to magnetic nanowires with the goal of constructing a small SHV recording device in the near future. (NHK Broadcast Technology)
second (progressive scanning) for better video image quality. The NHK Science and Technology Research Laboratories (STRL) has been engaged in developing a new image sensor to make this system a reality.
Work is also advancing to enable new forms of video expression, through the construction of an ultrahigh-speed image sensor that can capture split-second phenomena that are not perceivable to the human eye and a camera system that will incorporate such an image sensor. An -ultrahigh- speed single-chip colour CCD with a driving speed of 1 million frames/ second has been developed, and a prototype camera based on this device constructed. Replaying video clips taken with this camera using a standard television frame rate can produce clear, super-slow motion video of a fleeting event and has become a useful tool in sports and science programme production. We are improving the sensor’s performance by constructing an ultrahigh-speed CCD with a new structure capable of being driven at 2 million frames per second.
(NHK Broadcast Technology)
Ultrahigh-speed Recording Device using Magnetic Nanowires
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