Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
See the new BRAVIA Motionflow 200Hz advert first
It’s here. If you’ve been following the BRAVIA-drome story you’ll be keen to find out how the final ad turned out. Ahead of its official launch in April, you can watch it here, now.
Monday, February 23rd, 2009
Putting motion in focus
Sight is so immediate and familiar that it’s easy to overlook just what a staggering process it is. While we all associate the sense with our eyes, that’s just the beginning of a breathtaking cascade of computation going on inside our heads.
Research suggests that our brains have separate systems for perceiving colour, objects, faces and motion, which is what we’ll look at here.
Fired up by motion
Scientists have used a number of different techniques to explore motion perception. One approach has involved electrophysiology, which measures the electrical activity of a neuron, or brain cell, while the brain is doing something. In this way scientists have found that a large number of neurons fire up at the back of an animal brain only when the eye records motion. More specifically, certain neurons seem to be associated with movement in particular directions.
You can see this for yourself. Just like muscles, neurons tire if you use them too much. So if you stare for 30 seconds at an image moving in one direction, then look at a static object, like your hand, it will appear to be moving in the opposite direction. This happens because the neurons which have not been tired out upset the overall balance leading to the illusion of motion. Try it out here.
What happens when it goes wrong
Another way of delving into motion perception is to analyse what happens when it goes wrong. In 1983 a report described the experiences of a woman with damage to the area of the brain already identified by electrophysiology. Instead of seeing moving images, her vision of the world was as a series of static snapshots, like living with a stroboscope in your head.
Distinguishing between types of motion
Another decade would pass before neuroimaging (fMRI) arrived, allowing scientists to peer deeper into the fizz of neural activity that accompanies motion perception. Intriguingly, this technique revealed that our brains seem to separate the movement of humans and objects. So the sight of Kaká speeding across the pitch is processed in a different area to the vision of a ball flying through the air.
How Motionflow 200Hz helps
How does Motionflow 200Hz fit in to all this science? By quadrupling the frame rate, our brains no longer have to guess what’s happening between frames because all the information for perceiving crisp, smooth motion is provided by the TV.
Friday, February 13th, 2009
Let’s get technical
Get the inside scoop on building the BRAVIA-drome from supervisor/designer Simon Tayler at Artem, the SFX company behind its construction.
What was your brief?
We’ve had extensive experience of large mechanical projects at Artem, but in our 20-year history there’s been nothing quite like the BRAVIA-drome. Our brief was to build an enormous, beautiful, sculptural piece that would look more like a work of art than a traditional Victorian zoetrope. It also had to display a large, bright, clear, smooth image to emphasise the qualities of Sony’s new Motionflow 200Hz technology. (more…)
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
The experts behind Sony Motionflow 200Hz
What’s it like, inventing a new technology? Get the inside story on Motionflow 200Hz from its developers, Sony engineers Kyoichiro Oda and Wataru Mamiya.
Identifying the task in hand
Oda: “I began wondering what the key features would be for next generation LCD TVs and felt the focus had to be on the quality of fast-moving images. We did a careful evaluation of existing image-improvement technologies and found that each involved a tradeoff between the components of LCD display performance. For example, the picture might be improved but luminance is reduced.” (more…)
Thursday, February 5th, 2009
How Sony Motionflow 200Hz works
BRAVIA Z4500 hit the shops last year, complete with Motionflow 200Hz. The technology has been hailed as a world first, but what does it actually do?
Picture this. It’s match day. You turn on your TV and there’s your team pelting down the pitch, in razor-sharp detail. That’s what Motionflow 200Hz delivers. Our revolutionary motion enhancement technology captures every kick, every swerve, every flick at 200 frames a second. So you get action that’s as smooth and clear as real life.
Standard TVs have a 50Hz frame refresh rate, which means that high-speed action can appear to flicker and blur. By quadrupling that frame rate Motionflow 200Hz produces a picture that’s crisp and judder-free.
The technology works by adding three frames to a fast-moving sequence. It predicts movement in all directions and creates new images to match these movements, so any gaps in the action are filled. The result is an intense and immersive viewing experience. From sports to games, action movies to cartoons, Motionflow 200Hz means you won’t miss a thing.
