Japan is the leading country when it comes to TV innovations, and for them, it seems HDTV is no longer enough. Why? Well, rumors emerged already about the next step, Hi-Vision broadcasting, also known as Ultra-HDTV. Anyway, don't worry about your brand new full HD TV becoming obsolete, because this thing is only going to become reality in mid 2020s...

If you forgot, let me remind you what is usually known as "full HD" resolution - 1920X1080 pixels video, also referred to as "1080p HD". The new standard, intended to be ready for the masses by 2025, will have a resolution exactly 16 times as higher than full HD, and the idea is to be used in conjunction with 60-inch screens and above.

Well, for a 60-inch screen and an insane (at least at this time) resolution of 7680X4320, your livingroom should also get larger. Much larger. Probably you'll need a special "TV hall", next to your house...and even specialist at the Japanese nationa broadcasting company, NHK, agree with this. According to a research engineer of the company, “Watching fast-moving images at close quarters could "make people feel sick"".

At this time the new broadcasting system is being tested on a 500-inch display with a 22.2 surround sound system, specially built in NHK's labs for this purpose. Ehem...well, once upon a time, Bill Gates was saying that "640kB ought to be enough for anybody", and we see where we got today. By 2030, probably the UHDTV will be something as common as today's 720p displays, but there's a loooong wait until then...