WAEA TC

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WAEA TC

• DCMWG - High Definition
• 1/22/2008
• Larry Iboshi, Imagik International
• Jason Songer, Spafax

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HD Content, DCMWG

• In February 2009 analog television broadcasting
  in the US will give way to digital. For many
  viewers / passengers, High Definition in16x9
  aspect ratio content will become the preferred TV
  viewing with new HD TVs and HD service.
• When DTV happens, many of the viewers will switch
  to16x9 aspect ratio and some form of digital
  display resolution. (480P, 720P, 1080i, 1080P.
  Near HD, HD, Full HD.....).
• This is a little more than year from now and the
  IFE industry and technical community should be
  ready for and understand the implications.

• The IFE industry relies heavily on consumer
  technology and consumer content that is changing
  rapidly. The trend and technology advances will
  be toward HD and its improvements.

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HD Content, DCMWG

• IFE industry and technical community should have
  an HD digital content specification or guidelines
  in place when we switch to DTV.

• All the stake holders including airlines, content
  owners, content service providers and system
  developers should participate in this activity to
  revisit the existing specifications and make
  changes to include HD.

• There are many content and display
  resolutions.(240, 480i, 480P, 720P, 1080I,
  1080P... SD, ED, Near HD, HD, Full HD.....). A
  review of these resolutions and bit rates are in
  order.

• For IFE the choices will be few due to system
  limitations

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HD Trends

• The number of households around the world with
  high-definition television (HDTV) will treble
  over the next five years as viewers switch to its
  clearer, more vivid picture, according to a
  report by Informa Telecoms and Media.
• The transition to HDTV has been called a landmark
  move for the industry, similar to the shift from
  black-and-white television to color.
• The number of homes taking the product will jump
  to 151 million worldwide by 2011 from 48 million
  when an estimated 1.2 billion households had a
  television.
• The report said some 58 percent of HD homes were
  currently found in the United States and 20
  percent in Japan, with Britain,Canada, China and
  Germany also high on the list.

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LCD Market

• LCD panel market for 2008 is likely to grow by
  18 from 2007 to 447.7 million units.
• LCD TV panel prices are predicted to drop by 4
  to 11 from 2007 through 2008.
• In 2008, LCD panel manufacturers' operating
  profits are likely to improve compared to 2007.
• Dec.11 2007 Displaybank

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WAEA SPECIFICATION 0403 and 0395

• Reviewing the 0395 and 0403 specifications-
• Neither specification deals with HD
• Both specifications have provisions for 16 x 9
  aspect ratio
• The highest resolution is 720 x 480 for both 4 x
  3 and 16 x 9 aspect ratio
• 16 x 9 display panel resolutions available for
  IFE today are 400 x 234, 800 x 480 and 1366 x 768
  pixels
• Much of the IFE digital content resolution used
  today is at 352 x 240

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HD for IFE Systems

• New IFE systems are 16 x 9 format with SD
  displays in coach class and HD displays in upper
  class.
• The major system manufacturers have or will soon
  support MPEG-4. This will enable higher
  definition resolutions with the same file sizes
  and bit rates as MPEG-2.
• Hard drive advances have increased the number of
  movies and short subjects and could include HD
  content.

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DCMGW Goals for HD

• With the participation of all stake holders, the
  0403 specification should be updated to include
  HD.
• Resulting in a specification that does not
  increase the number of content formats.
• A specification that leverages on consumer
  technology and reuse of available content.
• In earlier working group discussions separate
  encodes are required for the different formats
  and content quality. Explore encode or transcode
  technology to achieve above goals.

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HD Discussion Points Define High Definition in
the context of IFE usage What is the
likelihood airlines will choose HD? Examine
the practicality of HD encoding and integration
from the perspective
of Labs (multiple codecs, transcoding
and conversions) Studios (content
availability, early window viability)
Hardware Companies (compatibility, overhead
vs. seatback, displays)
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Points to ponder about HD in IFE Can we
eventually agree on what it will be, avoiding the
Elephant Test? Is one solution to
simply not adopt HD at all?