Festival Of Technology: What's The Milk?
Have you noticed lately when you walk into your local supermarket that you almost always have to walk to the back corner to find the milk? And how annoying it is that when you only came in for a litre of semi-skimmed, you seem to walk out with a basketful? This is a trick that they use to get us away from the doors, to see more and to buy.
So when we sat down to plan the Festival of Technology [as mentioned earlier], a showcase for the work of ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Research & Innovation being staged for the first time in Television Centre, the question we asked was βWhatβs the milk?β.
Panoramic 4k display,
What would be the draw to pull in the nearly 1,000 visitors who would walk through the door of TC3 over the two days of the exhibition and to stop them crowding in the doorway but see all that was on display?
The choice was daunting, with 35 stands of fascinating and exciting developments on show, including one from Siemens.
What about production? On the real-time 3D stand [PDF], you could see a young technologist moving his hands in front of a screen, and the graphics on the screen moving and even changing size with the motion of his hands. There was low cost tapeless production [PDF], which uses commodity PCs and has been trialled with EastEnders.
Or the work we are doing to support our latest and forthcoming services on digital tv - which launches in the spring [PDF]; , standards for Freeview digital TV recorders [PDF]; interactive TV for the HD services, making the quality of the interactive content match the pictures [PDF] and support for all parts of digital switchover [PDF] including future options for Digital Terrestrial transmission to increase coverage and allow HD on Freeview and a simple page so you know whether your aerial is good enough.
In the home, we could hear the possibilities for eight channel surround sound [PDF]. But there was also surround video, where, as you watched the programme, the rest of the room burst into life as your peripheral vision was filled with pictures being extended to be shown on the walls and ceiling [PDF]. And there was even 3D TV [PDF], without glasses at last.
And there were so many more: if you joined us, then you can decide for yourself what the milk was. Or if you missed out, most of the demonstrations are written up here.
More images in this blog's
So what was the milk? In the end the size won out, and anyone who walked in the door would have seen the 24-foot-wide panoramic tv display [PDF] which dominated the far end of studio and realised that with the stunning pictures being shown, the future for public screens for the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ to use is very exciting.
And did it work? Well, for the visitor who was heard to say "I only came in for 30 minutes and have been here for three hours", it obviously did!
If you were an guest at the festival: what did you think?
Judy Parnall is Principal Technologist, Kingswood Warren. This is an edited version of a piece in the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ magazine Ariel.
Comments
Umm, remember that stuff about households reducing their carbon footprint anyone?