"Better than HD" quality displays aren't that new, but Sony is boasting a new digital cinema projector that can display an image with over four times the resolution of a standard 1080p high definition TV or projector.
It won't be a surprise to learn that this projector, used to project the world premiere of "Spiderman 3" in Tokyo, and measuring in at over 1.5 metres high, 1.4 metres deep, and 74 centimetres wide, isn't aimed at the home market.
It features a 4.2kW bulb and can project an image 20 metres across. It uses Sony's Silicon Crystal Display (SXRD) technology and the image is projected through a lens as wide as a man's hand.
Sony claims is offers a picture quality better than currently available in cinemas, and this is the target market. With high definition home cinemas taking off in popularity, and movie releases finding their way onto disc very soon after the end of a run, cinemas need to find new ways to entice customers.
The projector's resolution of 4,096 x 2,160 pixels offers just that, and as an incentive to filmmakers to invest in higher quality cameras to make movies for the system, Sony has implemented a "media block" security system which encrypts the movie onto a hard drive, and can only be decrypted by the projector in situ.
Each projector costs around £6,400, which sounds pretty reasonable to me. Of course, content is still a key factor, and this relies on film studios to take the plunge. Will Sony's owned studios invest in this new technology?
So at is the current resolution of digital projection in cinemas then?
The current resolution of digital cinema projection is 2k, half that of this Sony 4k projector. At the very high end, some features have post production and colour grading done at 4k but most is still at 2k and 'standard' digital projection is still 2k. Traditional optical film is written to at 2k by a laser recorder but optical projection in your local cinema gives you an effective resolution of 1k due somewhat to degradation during the film duplication process but mostly the decrepit equipment and inept projection skills. That is why the cinema chains fear HD home cinema and why they need to move to digital cinema. Sony see 4k as the logical next step but Cameron/Rodriguez/Lucas are more focused on 3D. Also post-production at 4k is significantly more costly than at 2k and it's debatable whether the increase in quality is worth the additional investment...