Upping The Ante For Videoconferencing

Researchers are set to test a videoconferencing system that will significantly raise the bar for such technology. A demonstration of the new system will link speakers between the University of California, San Diego, and Keio University in Tokyo–a distance of roughly 9,000 miles–with video images at 4K resolution, or about 4,000 pixels wide.

Attendees at the iGrid 2005 conference will be able to witness the demonstration on special displays made by Sony. Movie studios see 4K technology as the next step toward digital projection. They are about to introduce 2K digital video in some theaters in the United States and Japan. Many observers, however, argue that the higher-resolution standard will be necessary to replace the existing 35-millimeter film format and to legitimately compete with HDTV. Scientific research also stands to benefit from the new standard. Many fields now depend on complex imaging, and an optical infrastructure that can support extremely high-resolution images promises to expand the bounds of scientific research.

New York Times, 26 September 2005 (registration req’d)