Display
Multi-screen displays and the future of TV
Simon Forrest
The future of television is being challenged. Consumers are already moving away from traditional TV to alternative methods of viewing. Will we really continue to have large screens in our homes dedicated to the audio- visual experience that today we call TV? Leading companies are re-evaluating the role of television in our home and examining how semiconductor technology may help develop and expand the user experience beyond the traditional screens we see today. Simon Forrest, director of consumer electronics, segment marketing, Imagination Technologies, describes a potential future direction for television and lists the IP needed to create a more exciting and compelling user experience
A
few years ago, the future of TV appeared uncertain. Market reports showed 3D displays were not
providing a compelling option for users; meanwhile, more consumers were switching from traditional broadcast programming to over-the-top content served via tablets, smartphones, and several alternative media playing devices. The advent of 4K however has pushed things in a more positive direction. At twice the resolution of HDTV, 4K promises to deliver another revolution in image quality to TVs everywhere.
The continual development in display technology has brought the costs of 4K down, whilst 8K resolution is actively being pursued by broadcasters. The BBC and NHK trialled 8K broadcasts at the London Olympics and NHK recently began testing live transmissions of 8K TV in Japan and also in Rio de Janeiro together with Brazilian broadcaster TV Globo. Nationwide 8K broadcasting is scheduled to begin in Japan in advance of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. To take advantage of the increased
resolution on offer, display sizes must also increase and we are already seeing 4K TVs with over 100-inch screens. The increase in display size allows the viewer to perceive improved image quality at average viewing distances, with TVs now replicating the
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high-resolution display trend first noted in smartphones and tablets.
8K TVs would likely push the envelope still further were it not for the sheer unwieldiness of such displays being the limiting factor. The physical size of the display required to make 8K a differentiator means that there is likely nothing beyond this in terms of display resolution development: it’s simply not beneficial to build TVs with resolutions beyond 8K. Therefore manufacturers need to start thinking outside the box – or, more precisely, outside the screen.
Extending the display surface One solution is to assemble several physical screens into a tiled array to create a large format display. The advantage to this multi- screen approach is that the resolution of each screen can effectively remain static – likely 4K maximum per screen – whilst the display size becomes potentially unlimited. The result is that individual screens themselves can be physically smaller but the effective pixel density of the display overall becomes much, much larger. Whilst this offers a prohibitively expensive solution today, technological improvements and mass-market adoption will continually erode the price of such display methods; for example, the promise of flexible screen technology should
Tiled array of multiple screens to create a large format display
eventually make it feasible to wallpaper a room with high resolution displays. We are already experiencing migration
towards extremely slim, frameless flat panels, flexible and even transparent screens; this helps seed the embryonic market for tiled displays. It is anticipated that manufacturers will be quick to harness the opportunity to differentiate their screens in order to make multiple sales of flat panel televisions. Likewise there exists an opportunity for semiconductor vendors to develop technology that can be embedded into every screen, allowing them to communicate and become part of a much larger display.
These chips can be built today by taking advantage of Imagination’s large portfolio of IP. This includes a combination of hardware and software working together to achieve tight synchronisation between displays:
• Building a high-performance
connected audio/video SoC with MIPS P- or I-class CPUs, a PowerVR Series8 GPU, PowerVR Series5 video encoders and decoders, and an Ensigma Explorer RPU • Using Imagination’s StreamSync technology for video synchronisation over Wi-Fi – StreamSync carries highly accurate timing information, ensuring that every screen in the array is fully synchronised with its neighbours • Always rendering video as a texture,
thereby reducing the engineering effort to support video across the same distributed interface. And if you’re thinking that wall-sized displays remain in the realms of science fiction, back in July 2014 LG demonstrated paper-thin flexible TV display panels to the industry. Their research panel has a resolution of 1200 x 800 pixels, however LG publicly stated they are confident of manufacturing 60-inch Ultra HD (4K) rollable TV displays by 2017.
Reusing existing mobile displays in the living room Another option for improving and extending the display surface of a TV is to reuse existing smartphones and tablets in the living room to create a unique experience called free viewpoint TV. This is achieved by the broadcaster creating an
image with a 180° field-of-view using six HD cameras and delivering it to the TV. The viewer then selects desired areas from the resultant 5Kx2K image to display on a particular screen, be it the TV or the tablet. From the broadcaster’s perspective,
there is one single video stream delivered to each home. But inside the living room, it gives the viewer an impression of panning the camera around the scene, and delivered new modes of interactivity. Furthermore, a single button press on the remote control returns the viewer to the broadcaster-selected feed, and the experience is just as for normal TV. This technique would also imply equipping the TV with more processing power than your average entry-level smartphone. At a minimum, the TV SoC would need a MIPS I-class CPU, a PowerVR Rogue GPU, a PowerVR Series5 decoder capable of transcoding 4K video and an Ensigma RPU to rebroadcast the video streams to connected tablets and smartphones. In the meantime, broadcasters are
already considering the wider benefits of synchronising IP-connected devices with TV programming. DVB-CSS is a new standard that allows devices such as tablets, smartphones and other similar companion screens to interact with the TV or set-top box directly and become integrated into the overall broadcast TV experience. Use of DVB-CSS is anticipated to commence with deployment of TVs and STBs using the HbbTV 2.0 standard. This will enable tablets and smartphones to present audio-visual content precisely in sync with the TV, thereby engaging viewers in new and interesting ways of interacting with broadcast TV programming and enable active participation in live events.
Conclusion
This article only scratches the surface of what’s possible. As we follow this market closely, we are very excited to see how semiconductor vendors use our IP to drive innovation for the next phase of television experience.
www.imgtec.com Components in Electronics September 2016 29
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